Biology

6 articles
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    How to Weed Creationism Out of Schools

    A 2008 nationally representative survey of U.S. high school biology teachers found that nearly half of the responders agreed or strongly agreed that creationism or intelligent design was “a valid, scientific alternative” to evolution.Image by José-Manuel Benitos / Wikicommons One of the latest victims of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s authoritarian regime in Turkey isn’t a journalist, […]
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    If Half of All Species Go Extinct, Will One of Them Be Us?

    Biodiversity JengaMartin Sharman How many animal species do you think go extinct every year? Last week I conducted a highly unscientific polling of around 20 of my Facebook and Google Chat contacts, asking that same question. I’m not trying to brag, but I have some really smart friends, many of them with degrees in biology. […]
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    Fruits and Vegetables Are Trying to Kill You

    Antioxidant vitamins don’t stress us like plants do—and don’t have their beneficial effect.
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    Austria’s Ahead-of-Its-Time Institute That Was Lost to Nazis

    In 1911, Popular Science Monthly published an enthusiastic description of a young, private experimental-biology institute in Vienna, lauding its “remarkable scientific productivity resulting from only eight years of research.”The author, zoologist Charles Lincoln Edwards, attributed the success of the Biologische Versuchsanstalt (Insitute of Experimental Biology) to its many advanced experimental devices. The institute, popularly known as […]
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    How Unicorns Evolved Into Rhinos, Goblin Sharks & Olinguitos

    Earlier this month there was a rare announcement, promoted widely by the press: a new mammal species had been discovered, the first carnivorous mammal identified in the Americas for 35 years. But the olinguito, as the raccoon-like carnivore is now known, was not spotted for its surprising looks or remarkable behaviors that set it apart […]