1. Sprinting down the evolutionary highway

Comment #122246 by ykboots on February 5, 2008 at 2:03 am

This really makes a lot of sense to me. With a larger population and high breeding rates one would expect that mutations would happen more frequently even thought rates might be the same. More people - same rate - more mutations. Obviously there are more factors to consider (rate of expression of mutations in general population, etc.) but just from that point of view it is conceivable.

2. This deadly religious resistance to vaccinations

Comment #96812 by ykboots on December 11, 2007 at 12:39 am

As a nurse I come across this kind of bull all too frequently. No matter how clearly you explain that vaccines are safe and effective they always come up with some sort of "friend" or "story a relative told them" that says that vaccines cause autism and other afflictions such as arthritis. It ridiculous and its scary. If vaccination rates fall below herd immunity levels you will see a rise in all of the diseases that should now be a memory. The worst part is that some of the people propagating this myth are ill informed nurses and other health care providers.
I agree that information is the way to combat this but how can we hope to convince the general public when there are morons in the field who can't read and understand basic science.
Religion breeds ignorance, and ignorance kills.

3. Convention ends with Satan and immigrants

Comment #36223 by ykboots on April 30, 2007 at 2:25 pm

I think some German fellow tried some of this scapegoating in the '30s and '40's.
Parallels can be frightening.

4. T. rex tissue shows they are related to chickens

Comment #31472 by ykboots on April 12, 2007 at 8:58 pm

. Comment #31448 by OsakaGuy on April 12, 2007 at 5:46 pm
"I really don't get how soft tissue could survive for millions of years in a fossilized bone. Could someone with more expertise in this area explain how that could happen?"

Preservation is a complex process, primarily involving a rapid burial to prevent decomposition, and remineralization, or the replacement of original material with rock. (See Taphonomy) This precess typically happens from the outside of the specimen to the inside. It is conceivable that the remineralization process was not completed, leaving some original material in place. If I remember correctly, this is not the first time original material has been found, and as I understand this particular case, the material (collagen)was not of sufficient quality to make a definitive declaration of relationship, but rather a tentative relationship based on shared characteristics.

Probably a bit more than you needed but I hope it helps.