Molybdenum Is Stored in Cells by a Powered Piercing Machine

anhydride hydrolysis, armor, armor-piercing bullets, ATP, ATP-binding groove, bacteria, Biochemistry (journal), biomineralization, carbon, chemical energy, Chile, China, diet, DNA replication, Earth’s crust, Energy, energy metabolism, entropy, Evolution, genetic information, gun, human body, industry, Intelligent Design, kinetic energy, Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, melting point, metal, molecular machines, molybdate, molybdenum, MoSto system, motility, nitrogen, PNAS, protein, steel, Steffen Brünle, sulfur, United States
Molybdenum comprises the second smallest percentage of mass in a normal human body, but that trace amount serves a vital function in several key enzymes. Chemical element molybdenum, affectionately called “moly” by manufacturers, is classified as a refractory metal (i.e., able to retain its shape when heated), bearing similarities to lead. It was only declared a chemical element in 1790 with the abbreviation Mo. Because of its very high melting point, it is prized in industry for its ability to toughen steel and armor. Molybdenum’s abundance in Earth’s crust is estimated at 1.2 ppm, mined mostly in China, the United States, and Chile (molybdenum.com). An Essential Element Why would soft, squishy biology need such a hard substance? The answer is that without it, life would not be possible. A 2009…
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Michael Flannery on the Unraveling Darwinian Paradigm

Ann Reid, biologists, Darwin Centennial, Darwin lobby, Darwinian theory, Evolution, Evolution News, ID The Future, Los Angeles Times, matter, Michael Flannery, Michael Keas, molecules, National Center for Science Education
On a new episode of ID the Future, host Mike Keas speaks with science historian Michael Flannery about his recent article for Evolution News, “Darwinism: Past, Present, and Future,” in which Professor Flannery wonders about an Los Angeles Times op-ed by Ann Reid, director of a pro-Darwinism lobbying group, the National Center for Science Education. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Evolution is so well established, she says, that questioning it is like doubting that matter is made of atoms. Really? Flannery says she seems not to have noticed that even mainstream biologists have begun to question the long-term viability of Darwinism. Scientists may have felt triumphant in their certainty at the 1959 Darwin Centennial, but today questions and doubts are rising faster than the Darwin lobby can stamp them out.…
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David Berlinski on Europe, Entropy, Agnosticism

agnosticism, biological origins, Darwinism, David Berlinski, demographic winter, entropy, Europe, Evolution, Faith & Science, Human Nature (book), ID The Future, Jews, Muslim, nation state, nationalism, patriotism, Peter Robinson, Physics, Earth & Space, Podcast, s atheism, science, Second Law of Thermodynamics, theism, Uncommon Knowledge
A new episode of ID the Future features the third and final part of a conversation between Uncommon Knowledge host Peter Robinson and Darwin skeptic David Berlinski, author of the newly released book Human Nature. They discuss the fate of Europe, then turn again to science, and the challenge the second law of thermodynamics poses for Darwinism and, by implication, to any theory of biological origins restricted to purely mindless processes. Berlinski suggests that this poses a considerable challenge, tempting Robinson to ask Berlinski whether he still consider himself an agnostic. Download the podcast or listen to it here. The post David Berlinski on Europe, Entropy, Agnosticism appeared first on Evolution News.
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Berlinski: Evolution Toward Virtue and Progress?

Blueprint (book), children's table, cooperation, Culture & Ethics, David Berlinski, death camps, Evolution, ID The Future, Nazi Party, Nazis, Nicholas Christakis, Peter Robinson, Podcast, Pope Benedict XVI, progress, Regensburg address, religious thinking, theology
A new episode of ID the Future features the second part of a conversation between Uncommon Knowledge host Peter Robinson and polymath David Berlinski, author of the newly released book Human Nature. Robinson asks Berlinski about a book by Nicholas Christakis, Blueprint, which argues that evolution has endowed us with a genetic makeup that drives human culture toward virtue and progress. Berlinski demurs, pointing to the horrors of the 20th century and noting that the virtues Christakis underscores, such as cooperativeness, can also be put to nefarious purposes. The Nazi Party, for instance, “was a marvelous engine of cooperation. All those Nazis cooperated with one another running death camps.” Download the podcast or listen to it here. Robinson also asks Berlinski about Pope Benedict XVI’s 2006 Regensburg address and the West’s relegating religious thinking,…
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How Butterflies “Evolve” by Design

beauty, butterflies, caterpillar, cortex (gene), Douglas Blackiston, Drosophila, Elena Casey, Evolution, foresight, Georgetown University, Heliconius, helicopter, hotspot gene, Illustra Media, Intelligent Design, larvae, Lepidopterans, light waves, Martha Weiss, Metamorphosis, Model T, Monarch butterflies, moths, New Scientist, odors, Paul Nelson, photonic crystals, pigmentation, PLOS ONE, Royal Society Biology Letters, South America, tobacco hornworm moths, University of Liverpool, wing patterns
Butterflies, those universally loved flying works of art, offer many reasons to celebrate design in nature.  They showcase aesthetic beauty beyond the requirements of survival (see “Beauty, Darwin and Design,” featuring Paul Nelson).  Their migrations show foresight over multiple generations.  The one-gram Monarch butterflies astonish biologists with their exceptional endurance to survive hardships while flying thousands of miles on paper-thin wings (see “2-Minute Wonder: A Monarch’s Journey“). Their navigation systems exhibit stunning accuracy to arrive at locations they have never seen. Their keen senses can find the right host plants from miles away; they can smell very faint pheromones for mating; and they can distinguish precise angles of sunlight for orientation and timing of migration.  Their wing scales, organized into “photonic crystals,” give precision control of light waves to create…
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No Harm, No Foul — What If Darwinism Were Excised from Biology?

Adam C. Soloff, Amir Marcovitz, appendectomy, bacteria, bats, behavior, cephalectomy, Daphne Major island, Darwin Devolves, Darwin's Finches, Darwinism, Darwinspeak, dolphins, echolocation, Evolution, Galápagos Islands, Hippocratic Oath, homeostasis, Illustra Media, Immune System, introgressive hybridization, Jerry Coyne, Marcos Eberlin, Michael Behe, Michael T. Lotze, Peter and Rosemary Grant, pharynx, Philip Skell, phylogeny, PNAS, primum non nocere, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Richard Dawkins, sound generation, tonsillectomy, turtles, whales
Some biologists might shudder at the thought of eliminating Darwinism from their scientific work. A “Darwin-ectomy” sounds more painful than a tonsillectomy or appendectomy. To hard-core evolutionists, it might sound like a cephalectomy (removal of the head)! If Darwinism is as essential to biology as Richard Dawkins or Jerry Coyne argues, then removing evolutionary words and concepts should make research incomprehensible.  If, on the other hand, Darwinism is more of a “narrative gloss” applied to the conclusions after the scientific work is done, as the late Philip Skell observed, then biology would survive the operation just fine. It might even be healthier, slimmed down after disposing of unnecessary philosophical baggage. Here are some recent scientific papers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) to use as test…
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Berlinski, Robinson on the “Almost Unfathomable Complexity” of Living Systems, and More

conservatives, Darwinism, David Berlinski, deferred success, Evolution, evolutionary theory, female, Human Nature (book), ID The Future, male, natural selection, Peter Robinson, Podcast, Razib Khan, The Deniable Darwin, Uncommon Knowledge
A new episode of ID the Future features the first part of an interview between Uncommon Knowledge host Peter Robinson and Discovery Institute Senior Fellow David Berlinski, author of The Deniable Darwin and the newly released Human Nature. Berlinski begins by noting that living systems possess “a degree of complexity that is almost unfathomable” and explains how this poses an acute problem for Darwinism. Download the episode or listen to it here. The two discuss discontinuities in the fossil record as well as Berlinski’s insistence that “any theory of natural selection must plainly meet what I have called a rule against deferred success.” Berlinski also rebuts Razib Khan’s claim that in rejecting modern evolutionary theory, conservatives sacrifice “the most powerful rejoinder” to the claim “that male and female are merely…
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Michael Egnor on Scientific Consensus and Apocalypse Now

civilizational ruin, consensus, Emily Kurlinski, Evolution, ID The Future, materialism, Michael Egnor, overpopulation, scientific experts, starvation, Thomas Malthus
On a new episode of ID the Future, host Emily Kurlinski talks with Michael Egnor, professor of neurosurgery at Stony Brook University, about the dire warnings, stretching back at least to Thomas Malthus near the turn of the 19th century, that overpopulation would lead to starvation and civilizational ruin. Download the podcast of listen to it here. Egnor discusses this and other scientific claims once widely embraced by scientific experts and later shown to be off base. The lesson, he says, is that when someone tells you to believe something simply because it’s “the scientific consensus,” reserve judgment. Consensus, says Egnor, is “a political concept, not a scientific one.” And when much of the scientific community is held captive by a dogmatic adherence to materialism, any claimed consensus is all the…
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Q&A with Michael Behe: What’s Wrong with Theistic Evolution?

DiscoveryU, Evangelical Christians, Evolution, faith, Faith & Science, Francis Collins, Intelligent Design, Michael Behe, science, The Language of God, theistic evolution
We now reluctantly conclude the past week’s series of Q&A sessions with biochemist Michael Behe, highlighting his 41-part video course for DiscoveryU, “Michael Behe Investigates Evolution and Intelligent Design.” Here’s another challenge he often gets: Why doesn’t Professor Behe go along with famed Evangelical Christian scientist Francis Collins, and others, in opting for theistic evolution? Dr. Behe observes that in reading Dr. Collins’s book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, he found it notable that Collins “does not even try to address the problems for evolution that I and other intelligent design proponents have brought up.” So that is one reason. Behe, like Collins, is a scientist not a theologian. The science of ID, and the scientific problems with Darwinian evolution, are the focus of his video…
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Fact and Fiction: Ohio Bill Stirs Needless Alarm

Christians, Columbus Dispatch, Discovery Institute, Education, Evolution, First Amendment, free speech, homework, House Bill 164, Jews, legislation, Ohio, Ohio House of Representatives, pedagogy, religious expression, Science Education Policy, strengths and weaknesses, Timothy Ginter, U.S. Constitution, Washington Post, WKRC
Lately, media sources have sported provocative headlines about a bill in Ohio. The Washington Post asks: “Does the bill just passed by the Ohio House allow students to be wrong in science class without penalty if they cite religious reasons?” Meanwhile the Columbus Dispatch worries: “Science Deniers Get Boost from Proposed Ohio House Bill.” The actual legislation, I’m afraid, is much less dramatic.  This proposed law largely echoes the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment on free speech (including on religious matters). Here’s the part that has received the most media attention: Sec. 3320.03. No school district board of education, governing authority of a community school established under Chapter 3314. of the Revised Code, governing body of a STEM school established under Chapter 3326. of the Revised Code, or board of trustees…
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