From time to time, my Seed magazine hosts throw out a question for bloggers to answer. Today’s question is concerns a column by James S. Robbins on global warming in the National Review Online. Robbins claims that global warming will be a great thing if it happens, which he doubts. The question is, does he have a point?

The question of what the full range of effects from global warming will be–both good and bad–is an important one, but Robbins shows little ability to offer an answer. His column overlooks important things, gets various facts wrong, and belies a general ignorance of and indifference towards science. For me, you can sum up everything that’s wrong with the article in one word: micobiotic.

Continue reading “Not Even Wrong” →

I’ll admit, I was a bit surprised when Popular Mechanics got in touch with me a while back about writing a story about aliens. I had always associated the magazine with people who knew how to take their car apart down to the last bolt and put it back together again. (Me, I gush with pride if I can change a wiper blade.) But they’ve actually been making a big push into science reporting, and they wanted me to look into what scientists are learning about life on other planets. I ended up focusing specifically on how life on Earth (and in labs) can guide the search for aliens.

Continue reading “Your Guide to Alien Life” →

The language of DNA is written in a four-letter alphabet. The four different chemical units of DNA (called nucleotides) create an incomprehensibly vast range of possibility codes. Consider a short sequence of 41 nucleotides. There are over 4.8 trillion trillion possible sequences it could take. In this vast universe of possibilities, how can natural selection hit on new DNA sequences that help life survive?

Continue reading “A Switch is Born” →

Cut-and-paste creationism?

Yesterday I pointed readers to a column attacking evolution by Jack Kemp on the web site Town Hall. Today a sharp-eyed commenter pointed out that it is almost entirely identical to a column from Phyllis Schlafly from August 16 on the Eagle Forum. I don’t know if these pages are going to be pulled down or otherwise altered if word gets out, so here’s a screengrab of Kemp and of Schlafly. It looks pretty much word for word identical to me. You be the judge…

Continue reading “Jack Kemp and Phyllis Schlafly–One Mind, or One Ghost Writer?” →

Scoop up some dirt, and you’ll probably wind up with some slime mold. Many species go by the common name of slime mold, but the ones scientists know best belong to the genus Dictyostelium. They are amoebae, and for the most part they live the life of a rugged individualist. Each slime mold prowls through the soil, searching for bacteria which it engulfs and digests. After gorging itself sufficiently, it divides in two, and the new pair go their separate, bacteria-devouring ways.

Continue reading “Us and Them Among the Slime Molds” →