Courtesy of Yuval Levin.

Questioning God is, of course, perfectly acceptable in today’s culture.

But questioning Darwin? Well, we’ll have none of that.

I wonder whether my good friend, Ed Brayton, will go and see the film. I suspect he will. He’s cool like that.

Today is World AIDS Day.  One of the articles I have seen indicates that Eastern Europe stands at the threshold of an AIDS epidemic of catastrophic proportions.  Read about it here. 

Remember when you were a kid? Ever have a book that told you how the zebra got his stripes, the elephant got his trunk, or how the giraffe got such a long neck? They were funny little fairy tales and I can’t help but think of them when I read the following spurred on by the finding of a dolphin with a set of rear fins (not legs as earlier reported):

It is thought the dolphin’s land-loving ancestors first crawled into the sea to escape predators or seek food between 50million and 35million years ago.

Their hind legs became smaller and smaller before eventually disappearing altogether. The new aerodynamic shape reduced drag in the water, speeding their swimming.

Mark Simmonds, of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, said: “They became more and more streamlined, lost their hair and developed a layer of fat for insulation.”

I’m not an evolution-hata. I’m really not. Don’t care if it’s dead on correct. I wouldn’t lose a moment’s sleep. But doesn’t any of this stuff sound a little incredible?

This is too funny.

But I’ll warn you in advance, it is vulgar (although less so than most SP clips). 

A mysterious debris field around the space shuttle is vexing the NASA folks. Magnified image of the space bag revealed……

(more…)

Global Cooling.

“They’re dots! Dots, I tell you!”

The AJC has this report.

So, what will be the energy source that helps weans us away from our dependence on foreign oil? Nuclear power, solar power, fuel cells?  I betcha a good many people didn’t think of this one: (more…)

The European Space Agency and the Australian National University have succesfully tested a new ion engine that could be used on spacecraft.  The engine exhaust travelled at the speed of 210,000 meters per second, that’s approx. 470,000 miles per hour in American terms.  To put that in perspective: the average distance between Earth and the Moon is approx. 238,700 miles.

That’s pretty cool.

(via Dean’s World)