WayneSmallman/biology

Sadly for the Catholics as well as most other religions, any confirmation of alien life will have dire, irreconcilable theological consequences. The existence of alien life (intelligent or otherwise) is for me without question. No, this isn't a "belief" but a simple understanding of statistical probability, the cousin of random chance which is the very engine of the universe and of life itself, an anathema to all religion. Once the existence of life elsewhere has been confirmed, maybe then, as a species, we'll collectively get a grip and grow up.

From the page: "An explosion of knowledge has been made in the last few years about the basic biology of corals, researchers say in a new report, helping to explain why coral reefs around the world are collapsing and what it will take for them to survive a gauntlet of climate change and ocean acidification."

From the page: "Redwood trees are known as the tallest trees on Earth. If they can avoid being cut down, they can live for up to 2,500 years. If you aren't sure if you've seen one of these trees, then you probably haven't. They are mammoth in size and you would definitely remember it."

From the page: "So what about the Panda? Well, it's likely that the Panda is an evolutionary dead end. Doomed to extinction by its eating habits, or even its habitat, or perhaps both. As I said, extinction happens and is an inexorable force of nature."

From the page: ""Life finds a way." Thanks to a research time involving Princeton, Indiana University, and others, that isn't just a sappy Disney quote - it's an incredible fact. They found extremophile bacteria buried over two miles into solid rock, where the life-giving energy of the sun never reaches - the energy every other species on Earth depends on. Instead they found their own power source - radiation! "

From the page: "It has become part of the accepted wisdom to say that the twentieth century was the century of physics and the twenty-first century will be the century of biology.

Freeman Dyson predicts that the domestication of biotechnology will dominate our lives during the next fifty years at least as much as the domestication of computers has dominated our lives during the previous fifty years."

Dr. Rogers, Dr. David Iltis and Dr. Stephen Wooding have got lost inside their own scientific findings; they've provided an explanation of skin colour variance after the initial process of hair loss in humans. While I don't doubt their research, this is after the fact and provides no explanation as to why we lost our hair in the first place. After all, why would evolution confer a restrictive non-mutating lock on genes responsible for darker skins tones if we still had hair? The former cannot be influenced by the latter. It seems far more likely to me that human hair loss was an adaptation to prevent continued infestation from skin parasites. Also, why can't all theories be true? It seems entirely feasible to me that all of those things could have happened. Mother Nature can (like most women are alleged to) multi-task, can she not?