Historic 'Primordial Soup' Study Yields New Data, But Not New Answers

When Stanley Miller passed away in 2007, his vials from the famous Miller-Urey origin of life experiments went to marine chemist Jeffrey Bada. Newer, more sensitive techniques were used on the old residue to detect additional amino acids, a discovery that one commentator suggested "might change our view about the chemical evolution of life."1


Fruit Fly DNA Not as Well Known as Scientists Thought

The world of biology was stunned when ENCODE, a massive consortium of researchers, announced in 2007 that it had found virtually no inactive "junk DNA" in the one percent of the human genome that it intensively studied.


Shark Jaw Opens Questions about Coal Formation

While bolting the roof of a coal mine in western Kentucky, miner Jay Wright found an 18-inch-long fragment of a fossil shark jawbone with teeth still attached. The local National Public Radio affiliate WKMS reported that "Wright has seen smaller fossils and sea shells in the mine, but nothing like an ancient shark bone."1


Duplicated Plant Genes Don't Solve Darwin's 'Abominable Mystery'

According to evolutionary history, all the great varieties of flowering plant kinds descended from the first flowering plant, which itself was a descendant of a non-flowering plant. So somehow, genes containing the "blueprints" needed to construct flowers had to be introduced into the plant kingdom. But how could this have possibly happened utilizing only the laws of nature?


Chameleon Tongue Inspires Robotic Design

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