From: bivalve (bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com)
Date: Wed Aug 27 2003 - 16:53:06 EDT
A couple of recent items in Nature may be of interest, though of doubtful merit as far as the aspects of theological interest.
BOILING SEAS LINKED TO MASS EXTINCTION
Methane belches may have catastrophic consequences.
22 August 2003
http://info.nature.com/cgi-bin24/DM/y/eLm70BfFYu0C30DYy0AR
Actually, the seas in question were not boiling but merely full of methane bubbles. The focus is on the suggestion of a major methane release from gas hydrates or other seafloor reservoirs at the Permo-Triassic boundary. However, in an attempt to make the idea as sensational as possible, it is also suggested that such a degassing in the Black Sea could account for Noah's Flood. In addition to geographic problems, it was not clear to me how a methane belch was supposed to correspond to the description of a flood.
Another article looked at the degree of differentiation between head lice and body lice; the latter habitually live on clothing. Using a molecular clock, which is not a method that I especially trust, and the doubtful assumption that body lice diverged from head lice as soon as clothing came into use, they suggest that clothing came into use about 72,000 years ago. However, depending on the merits of the molecular clock calculation, this might represent a reasonable minimum date for clothing. The presence of hominids in cold climates long before this, for example, suggests some use of clothes.
Dr. David Campbell
Old Seashells
University of Alabama
Biodiversity & Systematics
Dept. Biological Sciences
Box 870345
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0345 USA
bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com
That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at Droitgate Spa
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