Earliest Whale Ancestor a Deer?

Relativity, theory of evolution top the list

(NEWSER) - Every year, the website Edge poses a big, open-ended question to leading scientists. This year's query— "What is your favorite deep, elegant or beautiful explanation?" —received 191 answers covering a wide range of ideas, with Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity and Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution receiving the most replies, reports Reuters . Some interesting responses:

• "Darwin's natural selection wins hands down," writes Richard Dawkins, unsurprisingly. "Never in the field of human comprehension were so many facts explained by assuming so few."

Paleontologists ponder: Why are the fossils found together?

(NEWSER) - A newly discovered graveyard of ancient whales in Peru has scientists wondering how on Earth the bus-sized mammals all ended up dying in the same place. "That's the top question," says the director of a nearby museum. Their current location—the middle of a highway under construction on a desert hill—was once a lagoon, scientists say. So maybe an earthquake sealed off dozens of whales there. Or maybe the lagoon dried up. Or perhaps the whales were flung onto shore by a giant wave. More»

Scientists thrilled with trove found in Canada from 70M years ago

(NEWSER) - Dinosaurs just got a little more colorful. A batch of prehistoric feathers found in western Canada from about 70 million years ago suggests that feathers on dinosaurs and early birds were more diverse and complex than thought, reports the Los Angeles Times . "Instead of scaly animals portrayed as usually drab creatures, we have solid evidence for a fluffy colored past," Mark Norell of the American Museum of Natural History in New York tells the AP . More»

...well, who knows, but they serve a purpose: study

(NEWSER) - Turns out there is a unique reason for the female orgasm... but nobody knows what it is yet. The latest foray into female ecstasy involved asking about 10,000 pairs of opposite-sex siblings and twins about their sexual habits. The upshot: Most of the girls had no similarity with their boy counterparts in terms of susceptibility to orgasm. Scientists in Australia and Finland say this means that the female orgasm serves a unique evolutionary purpose, New Scientist reports. More»

Governor's trust in his instincts reminiscent of George W. Bush: Richard Cohen

(NEWSER) - Rick Perry officially burst onto the presidential scene just days ago, but he already "clings to an ice floe of diminishing credibility," writes Richard Cohen in the Washington Post : Perry has quickly established himself as "intellectually unqualified to be president," most pointedly when he sided with the 2% of climate experts who question global warming. Trouble is, such beliefs aren’t just "silliness"—they reveal a deeper flaw with Perry as a candidate. His views on climate change don’t come from his examination of the science; they stem from ideology. More»