Brain Bath: A Clever Design Solution

What makes sleep so mentally refreshing? University of Rochester neuroscientist Jeff Iliff addressed the crowd gathered at a September 2014 TEDMED event and explained his amazing new discoveries.1 The words he used perfectly match what one would expect while describing the works of an ingenious designer.2


Were Intestines Designed for Bacteria?

Scientists purposefully made mice sick to test how the creatures’ intestines—and the microbes they harbor—would react. They discovered details behind a remarkable relationship that, when working well, keeps both parties healthy.


Echolocation


While bats live in air and dolphins live in water, both use a biological form of sonar technology called echolocation to see with sound! The specifications in dolphin and bat biosonar systems are so many, so well-integrated, and so precise, could they really have developed at random in two completely different environments?


Could Space Dust Help Spark Life?

Physicists in California and Hawaii found evidence that solar wind performs curious chemistry on space dust to produce water, and they suggested that this discovery will help support a naturalistic origin of life on Earth or other planets. But how much help will it really bring?


Which Came First--the Spear or its Thrower?

Scientists age-dated a cache of stone-tipped throwing spears unearthed from Ethiopia's Gademotta Formation at 280,000 years old. This find appears to pierce the conventional story of human evolution—a narrative about modern man evolving from some pre-human type only 200,000 years ago. How will this date discrepancy be resolved?

Pages

Subscribe to Complexity of the Cell