Is Life Forming on Titan?
A team of investigators led by University of Arizona graduate student Sarah Horst has approximated, in a French lab, atmospheric conditions on Saturn's moon Titan. Through a series of experiments, they bombarded the gases with radiation, producing a number of compounds, including amino acids.
Could these molecules be the basis for the development of life on Titan?
Giant Penguin Feather Poses Problem for Long Ages
Paleontologists at the University of Texas at Austin and other institutions have investigated the fossil of a giant penguin found in Peru. At five feet tall, it would have dwarfed today's largest living penguins. A UT press release stated, "The fossil shows [that] the flipper and feather shapes that make penguins such powerful swimmers evolved early."1
Another Setback for 'Junk' DNA
Scientists believed and taught for ages that only gene-coding DNA (which is a small fraction of DNA in human and other genomes) was functional. All other DNA was "junk" leftovers from a long evolutionary past. But recent studies have shown that non-coding DNA actually carries useful and vital coded instructions.1
Study Suggests Atheists Know More Religious Facts than Religious People Do
Recent survey results released by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life suggest that atheists and agnostics know more about religion than evangelicals and Catholics.
Newfound Planet Is '100 Percent' Sure to Have Life?
A number of factors are required for life to exist--the presence of water, sustainable atmosphere, and appropriate temperature ranges, just to name a few. How many of these requirements should be observed in a distant planet in order for a serious scientist to claim that life there is a sure thing?
Just one, according to a University of California Santa Cruz astronomer.
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