Category: Unsettled Science

The Sound Of Settled Science

Genetics Unsettled Science 11 Comments

Via Owen Gregorian;

A comparative genome study of earthworms and their marine relatives could challenge Darwin’s theory of evolution by showing that worms colonized land in evolutionary jumps. […]

The team has shown that marine annelids (worms) reorganised their genome from top to bottom, leaving it unrecognisable, when they left the oceans. Their observations are consistent with a punctuated equilibrium model, and could indicate that not only gradual but sudden changes in the genome could have occurred as these animals adapted to terrestrial settings. The genetic mechanism identified could transform our concept of animal evolution and revolutionise the established laws of genome evolution.

The paper is here.

The Sound Of Settled Science

Science Unsettled Science 54 Comments

I thought nothing could “escape” from a black hole;

A supermassive black hole lurking at the heart of a relatively close galaxy is firing off a rapid-fire slew of ultrafast gas “bullets” into the surrounding galaxy.

This is the conclusion of an international team of astronomers with the U.S./Japanese X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM), whose spacecraft was designed to observe the hot plasma winds that blow through galaxies.

The subject of the study was PDS 456, an active galactic nucleus located some 2.18 giga light-years from the Earth in the constellation of Serpens.

The team say that the energy being carried by the “bullets” of wind is far greater than was expected—and could shake up our understanding of how galaxies and their central black holes evolve in tandem.

But it’s Newsweek, so they probably got it wrong.

The Sound Of Settled Science

Unsettled Science 12 Comments

Gout is often associated with drinking too much or not eating healthily enough, but research suggests genetics play more of a factor in developing the arthritic condition than previously thought.[…]

“Gout is a chronic disease with a genetic basis and is not the fault of the sufferer – the myth that gout is caused by lifestyle or diet needs to be busted,” said epidemiologist Tony Merriman from the University of Otago in New Zealand, when the study was published last year.

Mann Down

Climate Cult Freespeechers Unsettled Science 26 Comments

National Review- Pay Up, Mr. Mann

For more than eight years, the climate scientist Michael Mann harassed National Review through litigation over a blog post — until, eventually, the First Amendment brought an end to his attack. This week, a court in our nation’s capital ordered Mann to pay us $530,820.21 worth of attorney’s fees and costs, and to do so within 30 days. It is time for him to get out his checkbook, and sign on the dotted line.

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