Platypus Puzzlements Abound in Media...

PZ Myers sets the record straight in his May 10th Panda's Thumb post: "I have to vent some frustration with the popular press coverage of an important scientific event this week, the publication of a draft of the platypus genome. Over and over again, the newspaper lead is that the platypus is 'weird' or 'odd' or worse, they imply that the animal is a chimera — 'the egg-laying critter is a genetic potpourri — part bird, part reptile and part lactating mammal.' No, no, no, a thousand times no; this is the wrong message. The platypus is not part bird, as birds are an independent and (directly) unrelated lineage; you can say it is part reptile, but that is because it is a member of a great reptilian clade that includes prototherians, marsupials, birds, lizards and snakes, dinosaurs, and us eutherian mammals. We can say with equal justification that we are part reptile, too. What's interesting about the platypus is that it belongs to a lineage that separated from ours approximately 166 million years ago, deep in the Mesozoic, and it has independently lost different elements of our last common ancestor, and by comparing bits, we can get a clearer picture of what the Jurassic mammals were like, and what we contemporary mammals have gained and lost genetically over the course of evolution. ..."

Source: http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/05/the-platypus-ge.html

Alabama Creationism Bills Dies, Natural Causes...

The Associated Press reported on May 7th that "Hundreds of bills have died in the Alabama Legislature because time ran out. ... Some of them would have ... Protected teachers from being fired for giving personal opinion while teaching controversial subjects like evolution. ..."

Source: http://www.cbs42.com/news/local/18742844.html

"Harun Yahya" sentenced to prison...

Reuters reports on May 9th that "Controversial Turkish Islamic author Adnan Oktar was sentenced to three years in prison on Friday for creating an illegal organization for personal gain, state-run Anatolian news agency said. ... Oktar, born in 1956, is the driving force behind a richly funded movement based in Turkey that champions creationism, the belief that God literally created the world in six days as told in the Bible and the Koran. Istanbul-based Oktar, who writes under the pen name Harun Yahya, has created waves in the past few years by sending out thousands of unsolicited texts advocating Islamic creationism to schools in several European countries. ..."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/artsNews/idUSL0992091620080509?sp=true

The Snow on Mecury is Made of Iron...

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign announced on May 7th that "New scientific evidence suggests that deep inside the planet Mercury, iron 'snow' forms and falls toward the center of the planet, much like snowflakes form in Earth’s atmosphere and fall to the ground. The movement of this iron snow could be responsible for Mercury’s mysterious magnetic field, say researchers from the University of Illinois and Case Western Reserve University. In a paper published in the April issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the scientists describe laboratory measurements and models that mimic conditions believed to exist within Mercury’s core. ..."

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-05/uoia-ih050708.php