Science and Culture Today Discovering Design in Nature
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bacteria

Cassini mission to Saturn
Image: Cassini Saturn orbiter via JPL/NASA.

Microbe Performs Rocket Science, Vital for Life on Earth

This little machine, which also knows how to recycle and reuse all its parts in a sustainable “green” way, keeps the nitrogen in balance for the whole planet. Read More ›
flagellum
irreducible complexity
Image: Bacterial flagellar motor, from Unlocking the Mystery of Life, Illustra Media.

Harvard Biophysicist Howard Berg, Flagellum’s Discoverer, Lives On

More than any other scientist, he brought to light the intricate biophysics occurring at the molecular scale in living organisms. Read More ›
ATP Synthase
Image: A scene from "Molecular Machines — ATP Synthase: The Power Plant of the Cell," via Discovery Institute.

ATP Synthase Gets Smarter

Two new papers reveal fine-tuning in the assembly of ATP synthase rotary motors and in its operation under ATP hydrolysis. Read More ›
jcvi-syn3a-minimal-cell
Image credit: David S. Goodsell, RCSB Protein Data Bank. doi: 10.2210/rcsb_pdb/goodsell-gallery-042.

The New Yorker Takes “A Journey to the Center of Our Cells”

There’s a problem that biologists have long pondered — how do proteins find other proteins within the cell that they are supposed to interact with? Read More ›
hempnettle
Photo: Hempnettle , by Ivar Leidus, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

Top Scientific Problems with Evolution: Speciation

Swedish scientist Arne Müntzing used two plant species to make a hybrid that underwent chromosome doubling to produce hempnettle, a member of the mint family. Read More ›
Pliohippus Pernix
Image: Pliohippus Pernix, by Claire H. from New York City, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

Khan Academy “Evidence for Evolution” Video Pushes the Fake Fossil Horses Series

The video draws arrows from one species of fossil horses to the next and says “there is a constant change and we can see it directly through the fossil record.” Read More ›
iron
Photo: Iron, via Wikimedia Commons.

No Iron, No Life: Intelligent Design in Iron Availability

As an exercise, count the number of lucky breaks that had to occur for the evolutionary story to work. Read More ›
Matthew Scholz
Photo source: Discovery Institute.

Manipulating Molecules: Combining Info + Nano for Better Medicine

“Oscar Wilde said nature imitates art,” Meyer said. And today we’re going to see that “technology is able to imitate and even in some ways, improve on nature.” Read More ›
Halobacterium salinarum
Photo credit: Helga Stan-Lotter and Sergiu Fendrihan. Photograph taken by Chris Frethem, University of Minnesota., CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

University of Chicago Biochemist: All Living Cells Are Cognitive

James Shapiro’s recent paper points out, with examples, that bacteria meet the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of “cognitive.” Read More ›
ATP Synthase
Image: A scene from "Molecular Machines — ATP Synthase: The Power Plant of the Cell," via Discovery Institute.

Can New Proteins Evolve?

What enables a long chain of linked amino acids to perform highly specific molecular functions with machine-like precision? Read More ›

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