Items by Brandon Keim
Wired: Top Stories
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Computer Program Self-Discovers Laws of Physics
Posted: April 2nd, 2009, 5:00pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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A new computer program can glean laws of physics from raw data about the swing of a pendulum, a feat once considered only achievable by humans. Though the computer can't replace the scientist yet, it could be a welcome ally as researchers attempt to handle ever larger datasets. -
How to Defend Earth Against an Asteroid Strike
Posted: March 27th, 2009, 2:20pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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Scientists have plenty ideas for stopping asteroids headed for Earth, but first we have to find all the dangerous space rocks and then we have to find money to deploy defenses. -
Lone Star Scientists Posse Up to Defend Evolution in Schools
Posted: March 25th, 2009, 5:00pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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The Texas Board of Education votes Thursday and Friday on proposed amendments to the science curriculum that undermine evolution and could end up affecting classrooms throughout the southern United States. -
DIY Bird Trackers Cost $30, Help Science
Posted: March 20th, 2009, 2:36pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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Scientists enlist citizens to spend $30 on DIY audio bird-tracking kits to help them monitor night-time bird migration. The rudimentary trackers are made of a resistors, capacitors, a battery, a microphone, a dinner plate, some Saran wrap and a flower pot. -
DIY Bird Trackers Cost $30, Help Science
Posted: March 20th, 2009, 2:36pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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Scientists enlist citizens to spend $30 on DIY audio bird-tracking kits to help them monitor night-time bird migration. The rudimentary trackers are made of a resistors, capacitors, a battery, a microphone, a dinner plate, some Saran wrap and a flower pot. -
Carbon Nanotube Muscles Tough as Steel, Flexible as Rubber
Posted: March 19th, 2009, 1:25pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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Artificial muscle made from carbon nanotubes are 30 times stronger than natural muscle and could be used for everything from artificial limbs, to robots, to solar cells. -
Carbon Nanotube Muscles Tough as Steel, Flexible as Rubber
Posted: March 19th, 2009, 1:25pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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Artificial muscle made from carbon nanotubes are 30 times stronger than natural muscle and could be used for everything from artificial limbs, to robots, to solar cells. -
A Sketchy Brain Booster: Doodling
Posted: February 26th, 2009, 8:46pm EST by Brandon Keim
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Doodlers may appear distracted, but in reality they are probably paying better attention than those whose pencils are still. By occupying the brain just enough to keep it from wandering off into a daydream, doodling can improve memory of what the ears are hearing. -
Antidepressants May Thwart Quest for True Love
Posted: February 25th, 2009, 2:23pm EST by Brandon Keim
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The antidepressants taken by millions of people may, in addition to sexual side effects, interfere with the ability to fall in love. A new theory suggests the impact goes beyond loss of libido and impacts the neurobiology involved in true love. -
Brain-Manipulation Machines Raise Ethical Questions
Posted: February 25th, 2009, 2:22pm EST by Brandon Keim
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In the future, brain-machine interfaces may move from therapeutic purposes and enter the realm of performance and pleasure enhancement. This could be ethically tricky. -
These Toes Were Made for Running
Posted: February 20th, 2009, 4:00pm EST by Brandon Keim
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Human toes may have evolved to be short and stubby to allow hominids to run long distances. By studying the biomechanics of the human foot, scientists concluded that short toes are good for chasing prey. -
Penis Jousting and 7 Other Great Animal Mating Rituals
Posted: February 13th, 2009, 11:40am EST by Brandon Keim
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Humans may have Valentine's Day, but other animals have courtship rituals that make ours pale by comparison. -
New Wrinkly Dog Breed Makes Westminster Debut
Posted: February 10th, 2009, 5:30pm EST by Brandon Keim
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The scrunchy-faced dogue de Bordeaux has entered the ranks of the official breeds allowed to compete at the prestigious Westminster Dog Show. Fiercely loyal, tough as nails and endearingly wrinkly, the new breed also has its share of genetic issues introduced by inbreeding in a small gene pool after the breed was nearly lost in World War II. -
Oldest Animal Fossil Ever Discovered
Posted: February 4th, 2009, 1:00pm EST by Brandon Keim
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Trace fossils of sponges more than 635 million years old have turned up in an oil field in Oman. They push back the earliest evidence of higher life by at least 50 million years and the discovery has implications for determining the earliest common ancestor of all animals. -
Make Your Own Scientific Super Bowl Snacks
Posted: January 30th, 2009, 2:15pm EST by Brandon Keim
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This Sunday, skip the nachos and buffalo wings and try some beer ice cream or blue cheese whiz. Wired brings you the favorite finger foods of some of the top molecular gastronomists. -
Video: the Magic of Mushroom Spores
Posted: January 9th, 2009, 3:36pm EST by Brandon Keim
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High-speed video reveals that the fantastic variety of shapes of mushroom spores serves to help them catapult themselves into the air.
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Rising Heat a Serious Threat to World Food Supplies
Posted: January 8th, 2009, 4:25pm EST by Brandon Keim
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The temperature increase predicted by global climate models will lead to severe food shortages by 2100, according to scientists.
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Pharmaceutical Love Potion: Not Yet ...
Posted: January 7th, 2009, 3:28pm EST by Brandon Keim
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The quest for a love potion that could treat losing that loving feeling like any other unwanted mental state, such as depression, has some major hurdles, but scientists are looking into it.
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Jobs' Health Message Makes Little Sense, Experts Say
Posted: January 6th, 2009, 12:00am EST by Brandon Keim
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Scientists weigh in on Steve Jobs' recent statement that he has a hormonal imbalance that has caused him to lose weight. What little detail is in the statement is contradictory, they say, and could indicate anything from hyperthyroidism to multiple myeloma.
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12 Elegant Examples of Evolution
Posted: December 31st, 2008, 2:00pm EST by Brandon Keim
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Here are a dozen examples of evolution's handiwork, which the journal Nature says might be useful for those late-night conversations with religious zealots. But we think they're just kind of beautiful.
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A Willy Wonka Who Wants to Feed the World
Posted: December 31st, 2008, 12:00am EST by Brandon Keim
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Ask America's foremost molecular gastronomist about the Willy Wonka comparisons, and Homaro Cantu will insist that he's just an average guy who likes cheeseburgers. But it's not cheeseburgers that have earned the Chicago chef fame: it's dishes prepared with industrial lasers, inkjet printers and liquid nitrogen.
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Top 10 New Organisms of 2008
Posted: December 24th, 2008, 12:00am EST by Brandon Keim
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: Photo: Carlton Ward/Smithsonian Institution
The world's smallest snake, a prehistoric ant and microbes that may be 120,000 years old: These are just a few of the species revealed to the world in the last 12 months.
With animals going extinct at rates unseen since the dinosaurs disappeared, it's nice to be reminded that some species haven't even been discovered.
As Smithsonian Institute ornithologist Brian Schmidt said after finding the olive-backed forest robin: "It is definitely a reminder that the world still holds surprises for us."
Left: Stiphrornis pyrrholaeumus, also known as the olive-backed forest robin, was found during a biodiversity expedition in Gabon. Scientists know little more about S. pyrrholaeumus other than it exists.
: Photo: Blair Hedges/Pennsylvania State UniversityLeptotyphlops carlae was found in a patch of forest on the eastern side of Barbados. Thin as a spaghetti noodle and small enough to curl up on a quarter, it's believed to embody the evolutionary limits of snake smallness.
: Photo: Christian RabelingOnly three specimens of Martialis heureka have been found, all outside the Amazon jungle city of Manaus — but that's all scientists needed to trace a direct evolutionary lineage to the last known ancestor of all living ants, a subterranean creature that lived 120 million years ago.
: The first new elephant shrew in 126 years, the 18-ounce Rhynchocyon udzungwensis — also called the grey-faced sengi — is a giant in its family (which, technically, are not shrews, though they are distantly related to elephants).
Video: Trevor Jones/Anglia Ruskin University
: Photo: Steve Yanoviak/University of ArkansasUndiscovered parasites are relatively common, but Myrmeconema neotropicum does something no other parasite can: mimic fruit. The abdomens of infected ants swell and turn bright red, making them easy targets for berry-hungry birds who then spread M. neotropicum's eggs in their droppings.
: Photo: Larry Heaney/The Fie Carpomys melanurus, or the greater dwarf cloud rat, was first observed 112 years ago, and never seen again. Until it was found again in the rain-forest treetops of the Philippines, scientists thought it was extinct.
: Photo: Carin Jantzen/GeoBioCenter MunichTridacna costata is the first giant clam species found in two decades, and not a moment too soon: Fossil evidence suggests it once made up 80 percent of Red Sea giant clams, and now accounts for just 1 percent.
: When Philadelphia's Academy of Natural Sciences collection manager Mark Sabaj Pérez needed to name a new catfish, he thought immediately of Frank Gallagher, who managed the Academy's mail room for 37 years.
"I wanted to honor Frank for his many years of dedicated service to the global community of taxonomists and systematists in handling the shipping and receiving of countless loans of biological specimens," said Pérez. "I was impressed by Frank's dedication, his love for fellow employees, and his keen interest in the science we do. I simply thought, here is a guy who should be honored with his own catfish." The result was Rhinodoras gallagheri.
Photo: Mark Sabaj Pérez/Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences
: Photo courtesy University of AdelaideWhen biologists in New Zealand compared modern yellow-eyed penguins to centuries-old museum specimens, they realized that the birds were not the same species. Megadyptes waitaha is a brand-new species that's already extinct.
: With only 8,000 of an estimated 3 million bacterial species identified, new bugs aren't hard to find. But unlike Chryseobacterium greenlandensis, they don't usually date from the late Pleistocene.
Unthawed from ice recovered two miles below the surface of a 120,000-year-old Greenland glacier, C. greenlandensis appears unchanged by its time in deep-freeze. Its discoverers aren't sure whether it shut down or just slowed down its metabolism.
"There may be some metabolism occurring in the ice. If they have been dividing, it may be on a very low rate, on a scale we're not accustomed to — so slow, they could be dividing every 100 or 1,000 years," said Penn State biochemist Jennifer Loveland-Curtze.
Asked whether her samples may not have divided at all, and have survived in suspended animation for 120,000 years, Loveland-Curtze replied, "We don't know yet."
And there's more: 120,000 years could be the low end of C. greenlandensis' age.
"The bottom of the ice core had sediment where the glacier had rubbed against the earth," said Jean Brenchley, a Penn State microbiologist. "We don't know if the microorganisms were from snow that was deposited and became trapped, or were scooped up from the permafrost and there for millions of years."
Photo: Jean Brenchley/Penn State
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Cousin Marriage OK by Science
Posted: December 23rd, 2008, 12:30pm EST by Brandon Keim
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Procreation by cousins is no riskier than a woman in her 40s giving birth, and scientists think it should not be banned. It's a social, rather than a scientific, taboo. Thirty-one states ban marriage between first cousins, making the United States the only developed country to ban the practice.
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Science Behind Mysterious 'Fifth Taste' Revealed
Posted: December 22nd, 2008, 6:00pm EST by Brandon Keim
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Scientists have revealed how the fifth taste — termed umami — works, raising the possibility that food engineers could create a better alternative to MSG.
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Video: Molecules Moving in Living Cells
Posted: December 18th, 2008, 5:03pm EST by Brandon Keim
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A new video technique uses laser beams to hit molecules, causing them to vibrate. Tracking the vibrations produces a sequence of point-by-point molecular maps.
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Obama Rumored to Pick Climate Change Wonk as Science Adviser
Posted: December 18th, 2008, 4:15pm EST by Brandon Keim
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President-elect Barack Obama is rumored to have picked a former physicist who is an environmental policy expert at Harvard University as the new administration's science adviser.
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I, Nanny: Robot Babysitters Pose Dilemma
Posted: December 18th, 2008, 4:02pm EST by Brandon Keim
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The future full of robots to do everything for us, including watching our kids, is here. Roboticist Noel Sharkey talks about the potential pitfalls and harm that could come from leaving child rearing to robots.
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Free-Range Research Could Save Chimps — and Our Conscience
Posted: December 18th, 2008, 12:00am EST by Brandon Keim
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Chimp populations are dwindling and research labs shutting down due to ethical issues and expense. A primatologist proposes to save the species and learn something along the way by creating sanctuaries for the primates where they could roam free and voluntarily give blood for research.
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Free-Range Research Could Save Chimps — and Our Conscience
Posted: December 18th, 2008, 12:00am EST by Brandon Keim
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Chimp populations are dwindling and research labs shutting down due to ethical issues and expense. A primatologist proposes to save the species and learn something along the way by creating sanctuaries for the primates where they could roam free and voluntarily give blood for research.
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Endangered Lemurs Survived Ancient AIDS Epidemic
Posted: December 16th, 2008, 8:30pm EST by Brandon Keim
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An endangered species of lemurs in Madagascar have the DNA of an ancient strain of HIV in their genome, indicating that they might have survived an epidemic millions of years ago. By figuring out how the species survived, scientists hope to learn something about combating the disease in humans.
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Zero-Gravity Bacterial Behavior Hints at Disease-Busting Hacks
Posted: December 15th, 2008, 6:34pm EST by Brandon Keim
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By sending salmonella into space on the shuttle with varying diets, scientists may have discovered a way to combat the virulent microbes on Earth.
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Legalize Brain-Enhancing Drugs, Scientists Say
Posted: December 10th, 2008, 4:09pm EST by Brandon Keim
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Rather than trying to quash the growing off-label use of brain-enhancing drugs such as Ritalin and Adderall, scientists say we should legalize it. Mentally competent adults should be able to decide whether or not to use the drugs, particularly when side-effects are minimal, they argue.
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Fire-Ant Invasions Are Ecological Karma
Posted: December 8th, 2008, 11:04pm EST by Brandon Keim
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Humans have largely brought the scourge of invasive fire ants on themselves by clearing the way with landscaping. Scientists found that the ants were not able to establish themselves in natural areas, but they flourished on lawns.
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Long-Term HIV Survivors Provide Key to Possible AIDS Vaccine
Posted: December 4th, 2008, 4:30pm EST by Brandon Keim
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By studying the immune systems of people with natural resistance to HIV, scientists have discovered how their cells disarm the virus. The research could lead the way to an AIDS vaccine for the rest of the population.
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Feds Set to Eliminate Water Regulations for Neurotoxin
Posted: December 3rd, 2008, 6:07pm EST by Brandon Keim
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Among several last-minute rule changes the Bush Administration plans is a move to eliminate the drinking-water standards for perchlorate, a neurotoxin known to impact the brain development of infants. The EPA, which estimates 16 million Americans may be exposed to the toxin, is ignoring a study by the CDC that showed troubling effects on both women and babies.
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Drugs Reveal Another Possible Cause of Aging
Posted: November 26th, 2008, 2:34pm EST by Brandon Keim
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A drug that targets one aspect of aging appears to also help repair DNA and regulate genes that go haywire as they age. This suggests a new mechanism for aging that could help scientists develop new treatments for diseases of aging such as cancer and Alzheimer's Disease.
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Drug Companies Cook Books, Misleading Doctors
Posted: November 25th, 2008, 1:00pm EST by Brandon Keim
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Drug companies are putting a positive spin on papers published in the medical literature relative to what they submitted to the FDA for drug approval. The result is that doctors are using potentially misleading information when making prescriptions.
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Man-Made Virus Could Explain Why SARS Is Deadly
Posted: November 24th, 2008, 5:56pm EST by Brandon Keim
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By studying the genome of a SARS-infected bat, scientists have created an artificial virus they believe may mimic the SARS virus before it became infectious in humans. The synthetic virus may help them understand how SARS made the jump from animals to humans.
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New Longevity Drugs Poised to Tackle Diseases of Aging
Posted: November 24th, 2008, 12:00am EST by Brandon Keim
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A new class of drugs catching on with research labs across the country promises to tackle diseases of aging at a common root. The result could be a true silver-bullet cure for diseases including cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer's.
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Eye Flicker Explains Optical Illusion
Posted: November 21st, 2008, 5:20pm EST by Brandon Keim
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The flicker of your eye explains why some static images appear to move, and scientists think this quirk may help us perceive things in our peripheral vision.
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Artist Wants Nuke Waste Dump to Make New Universes
Posted: November 20th, 2008, 6:03pm EST by Brandon Keim
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Yucca Mountain can hold millions of pounds of nuclear waste, but if an artist gets his way, it would also be home to what he calls a quantum "universe generator."
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McCain's Mortality Questioned in Medical Journal
Posted: October 23rd, 2008, 5:02pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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A cancer researcher says Sen. John McCain has a 22 percent chance of dying in the next four years. The results of the calculations were published today in The Lancet. Other researchers disagree.
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PopTech: American Dream a Biological Impossibility, Neuroscientist Says
Posted: October 21st, 2008, 12:03am EDT by Brandon Keim
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Neuroscientist Peter Whybrow says our idea of the American dream doesn't fit with our biological evolution and consequently won't make us happy.
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Forgotten Experiment May Explain Origins of Life
Posted: October 16th, 2008, 6:49pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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Scientists believe a 55-year-old research document sheds light on the origins of life.
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Direct Brain-to-Muscle Electrical Circuit Helps Paralyzed Monkeys Move
Posted: October 15th, 2008, 1:40pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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By connecting a single neuron to an external machine, scientists help a temporarily paralyzed monkey regain partial use of its hand. The machine bypasses the area that was blocking brain signals and connects the brain directly to the arm muscles.
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Sex-Crazed Apes Feast on Killing, Too
Posted: October 14th, 2008, 1:33pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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Bonobos, considered by scientists to be a relatively peaceful species, are observed killing and eating monkeys in the wild. The chimp-like primates have a female-led society, but apparently aren't free of all aggressive behavior.
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Cell Illuminators Win Chemistry Nobel
Posted: October 8th, 2008, 10:44am EDT by Brandon Keim
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"Hey, this is a really great idea," snarked a commenter in our vote-off between the official and Wired Science winners of the Nobel Prize in physics. "Nobel laureates should be chosen by the casual readers of popular and esoteric technology magazines." But what do you know: University of California, San Diego biochemist Roger Tsien, a pioneer in real-time cellular observation the overwhelming favorite in our Nobel chemistry vote, has won.
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Vote for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Posted: October 7th, 2008, 11:37am EDT by Brandon Keim
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Who should win the Nobel Prize in chemistry? Cast your vote on the Wired.com Science blog.
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Is the Cheapest Genome Sequence Ever for Real?
Posted: October 6th, 2008, 1:34pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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A biotech company is planning to offer complete personal genome sequences for $5,000, but is it too good to be true?
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Who Should Win the Nobel for Physics?
Posted: October 6th, 2008, 10:37am EDT by Brandon Keim
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Nobel Prize week kicked off this morning with awards in Medicine given to discoverers of the viruses that cause HIV and cervical cancer. Up next: Physics. And if you'd like to test your significance-assessing chops against those snobs at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, now's your chance.
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Fossett Identification Rests on Sliver of Bone
Posted: October 3rd, 2008, 2:59pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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A two-inch sliver of bone found in the wreckage of Steve Fossett's plane could solve the year-long mystery of Fossett's disappearance and put to bed rumors that he faked his own death. But forensic scientists say an identification is not guaranteed.
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Genetic Tweak Could Let Toxic Soil Feed Millions
Posted: October 3rd, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Brandon Keim
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Researchers have discovered a gene that makes plants resistant to aluminum. It could let crops grow on the large portion of the Earth's surface that holds toxic levels of the metal.
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High-Tech Analysis May Obscure VP Debate
Posted: October 2nd, 2008, 2:06pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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CNN's perception meter, displayed at the bottom of the screen during the presidential debate, was at best a poorly executed gimmick and at worst may have impacted people's perception of the debate as they watched. The same tool will be used during the vice presidential and future presidential debates.
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A Temple For the Worship of Science
Posted: September 28th, 2008, 5:00pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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An artist built a temple for the worship of science in Berkeley, California hoping to evoke discussion of the question, "Can science replace religion?"
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Gene Therapy Restores Sight
Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 6:06pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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Gene therapy restores some sensitivity to light in patients with a rare form of genetic blindness. Scientists hope the approach will work on other forms of blindness.
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To Smell, Perchance to Dream
Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 11:13am EDT by Brandon Keim
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Pleasant scents give rise to pleasant dreams, and foul smells turn fantasy to phantasmagoria: so concludes a small, unreplicated and wholly plausible study on odor and dreaming.
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McCain's Stem Cell Position Contains Scientific Error
Posted: September 19th, 2008, 4:10pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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McCain's stated position on federal funding for stem cell research equates an embryo with a fetus, a scientifically incorrect statement. Bioethicists say his reference to "fetal farming" is misleading.
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A Synthetic Tree Grows at Cornell
Posted: September 12th, 2008, 11:16am EDT by Brandon Keim
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Scientists have made the world's first synthetic tree: a palm-sized duplication of the elegant process by which trees drink. Known as transpiration, the mechanism appears to require no biological energy. Scientists theorize that as evaporation occurs on the surface of a tree's leaves, the resulting drop in water pressure propels water from the earth and through their bodies.
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Taking Nature's Pulse With Microphones
Posted: September 11th, 2008, 9:00pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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Scientists are using the sounds of nature to help check the health of ecosystems. By analyzing the sounds emanating from natural habitats, they can monitor biodiversity, animal behavior, human environmental impacts and the effects of climate change on nature.
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McCain's VP Wants Creationism Taught in School
Posted: August 29th, 2008, 12:57am EDT by Brandon Keim
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John McCain's vice-presidential pick, Sarah Palin, has gone on record in support of teaching creationism in schools.
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Going From One Cell Type to Another Without Using Stem Cells
Posted: August 27th, 2008, 12:57am EDT by Brandon Keim
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Traditionally, cell transformation has been achieved by generating stem cells. Now, scientists have caused one type of cell to become another, with no intermediate stem cell step.
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Graphic Evidence Against Steroid Abuse
Posted: August 26th, 2008, 1:30pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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Photos of an amateur German bodybuilder's withdrawal from anabolic-androgenic steroids should be enough for anyone not to use the muscle enhancing substance.
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World's First Computer Displayed Olympic Calendar
Posted: July 30th, 2008, 2:53pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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The ancient world's most complicated machine, the Antikythera Mechanism, plotted the movements of the stars -- and Greek athletes.
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Magic Tricks Reveal Inner Workings of the Brain
Posted: July 23rd, 2008, 11:35am EDT by Brandon Keim
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Magicians don't play with the laws of nature -- just your mind.
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The Environmentalism of Wall-E
Posted: July 12th, 2008, 3:30pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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The decade's most powerful environmental film doesn't star Al Gore or Greenpeace activists, but a trash-compacting, Hello Dolly-loving robot with a cockroach for a best friend.
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Christian Theologians Prepare for Extraterrestrial Life
Posted: June 13th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Brandon Keim
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Little green men might shock the secular public. But the Catholic Church would welcome them as brothers.
That's what Vatican chief astronomer and papal science adviser Gabriel Funes explained in a recent article in L'Osservatore Romano, the newsletter of the Vatican Observatory (translated here). His conclusion might surprise nonbelievers. After all, isn't this the same church that imprisoned Galileo for saying that the Earth revolves around the sun? Doesn't the Bible say that God created man -- not little green men -- in his image?
Indeed, many observers assert that aliens would be bad for believers. Jill Tarter, director of the Center for SETI Research, once wrote that finding intelligent other-worldly life "will be inconsistent with the existence of God or at least organized religions." But such predictions tend to come from outside Christianity. From within, theologians have debated the implications of alien contact for centuries. And if one already believes in angels, no great leap of faith is required to accept the possibility of other extraterrestrial intelligences.
Since God created the universe, theologians say, he would have created aliens, too. And far from being weakened by contact, Christianity would adapt. Its doctrines would be interpreted anew, the aliens greeted with open -- and not necessarily Bible-bearing -- arms.
"The main question is, 'Would religion survive this contact?'" said NASA chief historian Steven J. Dick, author of The Biological Universe. "Religion hasn't gone away after Copernican theory, after Darwin. They've found ways to adapt, and they'll find a way if this happens, too," Dick says.
The central conundrum posed to Christianity by alien contact would involve the Incarnation -- the arrival of Jesus Christ as God's representative on Earth, his crucifixion and the absolution of humanity's sins through his forgiveness.
"It would still be true -- but if there are other races and intelligences, then what is the meaning of this visit to our race at that time?" asked Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno, who in 2005 penned the booklet Intelligent Life in the Universe?
Some propose that the Earthly incarnation of Jesus some 2,000 years ago redeemed all intelligent creatures, in all places and -- since a space-faring race is likely older than us -- in all times. Others have suggested that Jesus could take multiple forms.
"Just as Jesus is human like you and I, you would find an alien-specific Jesus," said Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary professor Ted Peters.
But Peters and others also say that aliens may not have fallen into sin, instead existing in a state of grace, neither having nor needing Jesus. In that case, missionaries would have no call to convert them.
"Would sin be the same on another planet as we conceive of it here? Would there even be sin, or would God be present to that species in a completely different way?" says Richard Randolph, a Kansas City University ethicist.
All this, however, assumes that humanity not only encounters new forms of life but also understands them. Other intelligences may be incomprehensible to us, thus intensifying another doctrinal question: What does it mean to be made, as the Bible proclaims, in God's image?
Many astrotheologians argue that God's image refers to our spiritual nature, with our physical forms being irrelevant. Not everyone, however, agrees.
"If there are aliens, the Bible specifically does not say that they were created in his image," said Mark Conn, pastor of the Noble Hill Baptist Church in Springfield, Missouri. "God created many other intelligent beings on this planet, and they were not created in His image."
Conn's church recently met to discuss the issues posed by extraterrestrial contact, ultimately deciding that "if they're there, they're there. It doesn't change a whole lot."
Unlike Peters, Conn suggested that missionary work may be required, something the aliens may not welcome -- especially if, as many postulate, they are technologically superior to humanity and do not have religions of their own.
"Maybe they'll say that they used to need religion but have outgrown it. Some people say that would be a great blow to religion, because if an advanced civilization doesn't need it, why do we?" said Douglas Vakoch, director of interstellar message composition at SETI.
"I don't buy it, though. I think religion meets very human needs, and unless extraterrestrials can provide a replacement for it, I don't think religion is going to go away," he continued. "And if there are incredibly advanced civilizations with a belief in God, I don't think Richard Dawkins will start believing."
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Brazilian Beetles Hold Key to Faster Computers
Posted: May 22nd, 2008, 9:00pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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For decades, scientists have dreamed of computer chips that manipulate light rather than electricity. Unlike electrons, photons can cross paths without interfering with each other, so optical chips could compute in three dimensions rather than two, crunching data in seconds that now takes weeks to process.
For now, though, optical computing remains a dream. The chips require crystals that channel photons as nimbly as silicon channels electrons -- and though engineers have been able to imagine the ideal photonic crystal, they've been unable to build it.
Enter a beetle known as Lamprocyphus augustus. In a study published this week in Physical Review E, researchers at the University of Utah describe how the inch-long Brazilian beetle's iridescent green scales are composed of chitin arranged by evolution in precisely the molecular configuration that has confounded the would-be fabricators of optical computers.
By using the scales as a semiconductor mold, researchers hope to finally build the perfect photonic crystal.
"We haven't been able to manufacture materials at the nanometer resolution. We knew the ideal structure, but we couldn't make it," said study co-author Michael Bartl, a University of Utah chemist.
Bartl's team stumbled across L. augustus by sheer luck. Study co-author Lauren Richey, now a Brigham Young University undergraduate, studied beetle iridescence for a high school science fair project. She asked BYU biologist John Gardner, also a co-author of the study, to examine L. augustus with his lab's electron microscope.
When the researchers scoped the scales, they noticed something strange: No matter the angle of viewing, the scales always appeared in the same shade of green.
That's unusual for iridescent surfaces, which derive their color from light refracted through semi-transparent layers. Further study revealed that the quality came from the scales' molecular arrangement, which had the same pattern as the atoms of carbon in a diamond.
Diamonds themselves are too dense to serve as photonic crystals, but researchers long ago identified their configuration as perfectly suited for manipulating light in a three-dimensional space.
"You can take the light, criss-cross it and it doesn't interfere. It allows you to build more complex and compact architectures," said Paul Braun, a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign photonic crystal specialist. The crystals' transmission purity would also eliminate waste heat generated by traditional electron-based circuits. That heat is a limiting factor on traditional microchip capacities.
Laboratory attempts at mimicking diamonds have been largely unsuccessful. Braun said that researchers at Sandia National Laboratories came close, but each crystal took a painstaking month to build.
"They're almost impossible to fabricate," said Zhong Lin Wang, a Georgia Institute of Technology material scientist. Wang developed photonic crystals based on the scales of butterfly wings, but they didn't possess the elusive diamond form. "If this beetle has an arrangement like diamonds, that's truly unique."
Bartl said that optical computer chips won't actually run on beetle scales. Instead he plans to use the scales as a mold, replacing chitin with semiconductor material.
"This could motivate another round of serious science," said Braun. "If there's an easy way to create the diamond structure, that's going to expedite progress in the field."
"Optical computers could do in a second what now takes days or weeks," said Bartl. "And we're providing the materials."
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British Birds Adapt to Changing Climate
Posted: May 8th, 2008, 2:00pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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Climate change threatens many animals -- but with any luck, some will handle weather shifts with as much aplomb as Parus major, a colorful songbird also known as the great tit.
In a study published today in Science, ornithologists from the University of Oxford tracked the egg-laying times of great tits in Wytham, England. Since the mid-1970s, temperatures in Wytham have risen steadily, hastening the start of spring by two weeks. The birds have followed suit, timing their breeding to coincide with earlier hatches of their favorite food source, a species of moth caterpillar.
The birds' adaptation appears to be based in what's known as phenotypic plasticity -- the ability of a creature to respond to changes in its environment -- rather than natural selection favoring birds with earlier breeding times.
Such plasticity allows the birds to respond quickly to climate change. Although there's no guarantee that they could handle more-radical warming, the findings strike a rare optimistic note in a chorus of warnings about climate-change-induced animal doom.
"These changes were driven not by evolution, but by the inbuilt ability of individuals to respond to their environment," said study co-author Ben Sheldon. "If driven by natural selection, this adaptation wouldn't have happened so rapidly. In terms of matching environmental change, this is more effective."
Great tits walk a fine line. If they lay their eggs just a few days late, the winter moth caterpillars on which they rely for springtime sustenance will have already hatched and departed when their chicks are hungriest.
But some environmental cue -- most probably temperature-related, though the researchers aren't sure -- triggers timely egg-laying in Wytham's great tits. Whether spring comes early or late, they've laid their eggs on time ever since scientists started tracking them in the early 1960s.
This versatility, said Sheldon, is produced by individual adaptive mechanisms, rather than long-term calibration by natural selection that favors earlier-laying birds.
"The temperature is changing in one direction, but each year it fluctuates a little bit. Natural selection would have trouble keeping up with those fluctuations," said Sheldon.
Such plasticity is good news for the birds.
"You can have rapid evolutionary responses to climate change -- but plasticity, if it does the right thing, can occur more quickly," said Andrew Hendry, a McGill University biologist who has studied the effects of climate change on animals.
"If plasticity is common in these traits that are influenced by climate change, it will aid population persistence," added Hendry, who was not involved in the study.
The findings in Wytham run contrary to those in another great-tit population in the Netherlands. Though they experienced similar weather patterns, the Dutch birds failed to lay their eggs on time.
Some populations may prove better able than others to handle climate change, said Sheldon, but he warned against expecting plasticity to handle the worst of our greenhouse excesses.
"We've seen these birds adapt to a 1.5-degree rise over the last three decades, but there's no guarantee they could cope with another five degrees," he said.
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A New Tactic Against HIV: T-Cell Tweaks
Posted: April 29th, 2008, 11:29am EDT by Brandon Keim
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Brain Scanners Can See Your Decisions Before You Make Them
Posted: April 13th, 2008, 1:00pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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Scientists using brain scanners prove a long-standing theory that your brain makes decisions long before you are aware of them -- as much as seven seconds before.
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Biologists Take Evolution Beyond Darwin -- Way Beyond
Posted: April 3rd, 2008, 9:00pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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For some biologists, Darwinian evolution doesn't go nearly far enough: They want to apply evolutionary principles to populations, ecosystems and even the entire universe.
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Lawless Gene-Testing Industry Needs a Sheriff
Posted: April 3rd, 2008, 5:30pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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A growing number of companies say their genetic tests can help you decide which drugs to take -- but in many cases, there's no evidence to support those claims.
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'Population Bomb' Author Paul Ehrlich Tackles Cultural Evolution
Posted: March 12th, 2008, 3:30pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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Paul Ehrlich, the author of the 1968 book The Population Bomb, argues that cultural evolution needs to be studied as rigorously as genetic evolution.
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Were Fossil 'Hobbits' Just Little Humans?
Posted: March 11th, 2008, 7:40pm EDT by Brandon Keim
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New fossil findings suggest the "hobbits" found in the South Pacific in 2003 may have been diminutive humans and not a separate species after all.
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Brain Scanner Can Tell What You're Looking At
Posted: March 5th, 2008, 6:40pm EST by Brandon Keim
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A new brain-imaging technique can predict, with great accuracy, what pictures subjects are looking at.
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Airborne Bacteria Make It Rain, Researchers Find
Posted: February 29th, 2008, 4:45pm EST by Brandon Keim
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Next time it rains, blame bacteria. According to a study published this week, airborne bacteria are the most common particles that let ice crystals -- the precursors of raindrops -- form in clouds.
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NASA's Lunar Lowrider
Posted: February 28th, 2008, 7:00pm EST by Brandon Keim
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The Chariot is NASA's radically new design for a lunar rover. No doors, no windows and no seats -- and each of its six wheels has independent steering.
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Genetic 'Junk' Could Answer Riddle of Vertebrate Evolution
Posted: February 21st, 2008, 6:30pm EST by Brandon Keim
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The sudden appearance of vertebrates 600 million years ago has been a bit of a mystery to evolutionary biologists. New research suggests the development of backbones may be tied to microRNA, which is produced by so-called "junk" DNA.
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On Darwin's Birthday, Dover Still Isn't Over
Posted: February 11th, 2008, 9:00pm EST by Brandon Keim
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It's Darwin's 199th birthday Tuesday, but the debate about evolution still isn't over. Next week, Florida will vote on how to teach evolution in science classes.
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Embryonic Stem Cells Created Without Harming Embryo, for Real This Time
Posted: January 10th, 2008, 12:00am EST by Brandon Keim
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Scientists have bettered an experiment they performed last year claiming to have derived "ethical" embryonic stem cells. This time they say they've satisfied critics.