... three [continents]." Ortelius' idea surfaced again in the 19th century. However, it was not until 1912 that the idea of moving continents was seriously considered as a full-blown scientific theory -- called Continental Drift -- introduced in two articles published by a 32-year-old German meteorologist named Alfred Lothar Wegener. He contended that, around 200 million years ago, the super ... , a wealth of new evidence emerged to revive the debate about Wegener's provocative ideas and their implications. In particular, four major scientific developments spurred the formulation of the plat...

• Word Count: 2775
• Approx Pages: 11
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... can copy themselves and can actually edit other RNAs by adding and deleting nucleotides. These experiments support another hypothesis that RNA, rather than DNA, functioned as life's first information storage system. According to this hypothesis, life based on RNA have started when RNA fragments began to copy and edit themselves and assemble proteins. As time passed, these RNAs could have ... reactions. Later, storing genetic information could have similarly been passed on to DNA. In this way, over thousands of years, RNA, DNA, and proteins could have evolved into the complex system that...

• Word Count: 2685
• Approx Pages: 11
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... through phases similar to those of the moon. This is significant because it proved that Venus goes around the sun, supporting the heliocentric cosmogony theory. 2) Galileo discovered four moons near Jupiter, which orbit Jupiter because they move back and forth from one side of the planet to the ... superiors, who believed his views brought ridicule and denial of the scriptures. People were also upset because Galileo was convinced that the heliocentric theory was true even without conclusive evidence. The case that ensued prohibited Copernicu's work until heliocentrism was taught as a hy...

• Word Count: 3183
• Approx Pages: 13
• Grade Level: High School

... Theories are abound, ranging from the drastically unlikely and ridiculous, to the logical and seemingly very possible. However, as of yet every theory is still a theory, meaning no one really knows what happened to the dinosaurs. Among the many causes given for the extinction of dinosaurs, a few ... and William Boyntons" discovery of Chicxulub is that in reality they did not discover it. Nine years earlier, only a year after Alvarez published his theory, Glen Penfield and Antonio Camargo, petroleum geologists, discovered what would later be know as Chicxulub. They even published their wo...

• Word Count: 2956
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• Has Bibliography

... affected by the organisms on earth, especially humans, and greatly hurting our earth. We will begin with the question, "What is the Gaia Theory?- The Gaia Theory, again, was proposed by James Lovelock in the 1960's while he was working as a consultant on the "Life on Mars- Viking spacecraft ... Earth, is maintaing its homeostatis with the atmosphere. This picture illustates the cycle taking place. Ocean salinity is another reason for Lovelock's Gaian Theory keeping the Earth balanced. The salinity of the ocean has been maintained at a constant rate of 3.4% for billions of years. It is ma...

• Word Count: 2564
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• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... there would be no first cause of change and, consequently, no other causes of change." This is why I don't believe theories like the big bang theory can be true; something would have needed to precede the "big bang" causing it to occur. Instead, this is why I believe there had/has ... just the Earth, but the entire universe is awesomely ordered. Kreeft states, "Any such cause must be an intelligent cause, one that brings the system into being according to a unifying idea. For the unity of the whole-and of each one of the overarching, cosmic-wide, physical laws uniting elements ... spread ...

• Word Count: 2697
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• Grade Level: High School

... energy, and vice versa, but the total amount of all matter and energy in the Universe must remain unchanged forever. It is difficult to accept a theory that violates such a firmly established scientific fact." The Steady State Theory eventually was relegated to the relic heaps of history. Yet problems for those who advocated an eternal Universe continued to multiply because such a concept violated ... at 1,000 miles per hour at the equator, and moving around the Sun at 70,000 miles per hour (approximately 19 miles per second), while the Sun and its solar system are moving through space ...

• Word Count: 2632
• Approx Pages: 11
• Grade Level: High School

... magnetic field. This magnetic field is larger than Earth's but smaller than that of Jupiter's, and it is five times as weak predicted by theory. The axis of this magnetic field is aligned parallel to the planet's rotation axis, contrary to the circumstances in both Jupiter and Earth. ... have a temperature close to 15,000 C. The dramatic appearance of Saturn stems mainly from the spectacular rings. Galileo first discovery of the ring system in 1610 was described incorrectly because he couldn't understand why the rings and the planet were separated. Early observations of Saturn were compl...

• Word Count: 3775
• Approx Pages: 15
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School