A cave in Israel revealed 8 new species of crustaceans. Here is an article. A claim made in the article is that evolution caused the scorpians to not have eyes since you couldn’t see anything in the cave. This claim would be valid if the organisms evolved perallel to other scorpians but did not share any ancestors that had eyes. But then you have to ask the question how is it possible that two parallel evolutionary paths occuring in very different environments would produce such a similar creature in every way except eyes.

If you make the claim that they evolved from other scorpians that had eyes, the article says “they lost their sight”, then you have to ask what was it about eyes that made the scorpians more seseptable to death or less likely to reproduce. I am interested in knowing what it is about eyes that would cause their owners to be the victim of natural selection in such an environment.

Other explanations besides the evolutionary one would be that God created some scorpians with eyes and some without. During the flood some without eyes got into this cave where they had no predators, and they have survived there every since. Meanwhile after the flood the scorpians without eyes didn’t do so well outside of the cave and they all got eaten and died out. Hence we are left with only scorpians that have eyes outside the cave, and only scorpians that don’t have eyes inside the cave.

Another explanation could be that God created those scorpians inside the cave and didn’t bother giving them eyes that he knew they wouldn’t need in there, just like he didn’t give fish wings when he created them underwater and he didn’t give people gills when he created them on dry land. Every creature is created for the environment in which God placed them, and when taken out of that environment they do not survive well or at all.

Another interesting thing would be if scientists discovered another similar cave that was completely sealed like this one, and it contained some of the same creatures. The intentional design explanation would stand, but a new evolutionary theory would have to be developed, since the odds of two creatures evolving seperately into the exact same creature are just way too far out. Then again evolution is already pretty far out, so maybe that wouldn’t bother them. Food for thought.

NC State defeated Florida State on Saturday to go to the ACC championship game, but unfortunately lost to Clemson (ranked 2nd in the nation) to finish second in a very strong ACC. I am very proud of those guys and how well they played. To get to the championship game they had to defeat 3rd ranked UNC, 6th ranked Virginia, and 20th ranked Florida State. Three upsets in a row.

They now go on to the NCAA tournament, and they are the number 2 seed in the Austin Texas Regional. To advance to a super regional they must play Texas, Standford, and Texas-Arlington, and emerge with the best record of the four teams.

Their first game in the regional is against Stanford on June 2nd at noon. All the games will be on ESPNU or you can listen on 88.1 or watch them on the gametracker here.

Scientists think they have a way to create a cloaking device. Basically each little particle of the cloak bends light around it so that the particle is invisble and instead the viewer sees whatever is behind it. Herein lies the problem as I see it. If all it is doing is bending light around it, then it is very true that no one would be able to see the cloak. However anyone standing behind the cloak would be perfectly visible. Hence the article’s conclusion that you would end up like a harry potter invisibility blanket seems incorrect. Am I misunderstanding the concept? If so maybe someone can explain it better then the article did.

By the way there is a picture of the cloaking device here, but of course it is invisible. Instead you see the inside of your monitor:

Here is a video of two rattle snakes wrestling. Or maybe they are making love. Kinda hard to say sometimes. Anyway check it out, its very cool.

Honda has the greatest series of comercials out for the Honda Element and the best is with a little crab that pinches. Here is a link to where you can see it. Also here is a link to some of the other commercials in the series. Doesn’t the voice of the Honda sound like Owen Wilson? Makes me want to watch Shanghai Noon. Maybe little pinch?

Wolfpack did it again and upset Virginia to advance. Virginia is ranked 5th in the nation but lost 4-3 to some awesome pitching and clutch hitting. Eryk McConnell and Sam Walls get kudos for holding the ACCs second most powerful offense to just three runs. NC State now gets friday off and on saturday will play the winner of the FSU and Virginia game on friday. They get two chances Saturday to win, and they will be rested, so the odds are in their favor of the Wolfpack going to the championship game probably against Clemson on Sunday. Lets keep our fingers crossed and hope for the Cinderella 7th seed (out of eight) to keep rolling!

In other news Josh Beckett shut down the Rays to win tonight. It was very nice watching it on ESPN2 at the Nystroms. Go Red Sox!

UNC lost to FSU and is now eliminated from the tournament. Why do I care? UNC is ranked 4th in the nation and facing them twice or three time would have been a mjor pain in the neck. Now if we can only beat Virginia this evening man that would be awesome. The payoff to winning the ACC tournament is that you have a very good chance of hosting a regional of the NCAA tournament. If NCSU can host an NCAA regional then that means I can go see them play a couple more games. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

First of all, in case you hadn’t heard, a double amputee named mark Inglis successfully climbed Mount Everest. Everyone cheared and haralded it as an accomplishment (except for GoBlog) but that wasn’t the end of the story.

Inglis was climbing with a group of 40 people. On the way up to the summit they noticed a body, but they ignored it and pushed on to the top. After reaching the summit they passed the same body and this time they checked it out and found that it was a man that was still alive, but half frozen and almost dead. They left the man on the mountain while he was still alive and headed back down the mountain.

From the basic account it sounds like a horrible thing that they did. However there are many different points of view and many think they did the right thing. First of all you have to consider the conditions that all the climbers were in and the toll that the mountain had taken on them. They were over 26,000 feet and there were questions concerning whether helping this one man would put the rest of the men’s lives in jepardy. The climbers tell their side of the story and they add a detail that on the way up they thought that the body was that of a dead polish man whose body has been there for years. The incident is a black eye for Inglis and he is left with a lot of explaining to do. Sir Edmond Hilary (first guy to ever climb Mount Everest) is very upset. Here is an interview with both Inglis and HIllary on what happened.

The issue is now being turned over the the ethicists. My opinion is that first of all there is no excuse for them not investigating what was wrong with the man on the way up. First of all apparently the man ran out of oxygen and so thats why he stopped. On the way down they found that his body was half frozen and he could only move his eyelids, but perhaps if they had stopped to help him on the way up, they could have given him oxygen and he would have been ok.

If they had stopped initially and found that he was incapacitated they should have been willing to turn their expedition around and save the mans life. I thought Hillary made an excellant point that when you consider the gear that you are bringing you need to make sure you have enough to help out others in need. Obviously this doesn’t mean carrying two of everything, but there were 40 in the party that left this man to die. Amoung them there must have been what was necessary to save him.

Finally even if they could not turn back or could not save the man, someone in that party could have volunteered to stay with him in his last monents, either on the way up or on the way down. I think this demonstrates the power of excusing yourself based on the fact that everyone else is doing it. Throughout all of history evil has taken place because no one is willing to stand up and say this is wrong, or else sacrifice for what is right.

Given all that I have to say that these were extrodinary circumstances and we don’t know everything that was going on up there. probably hundreds of thousands of dollars had been put into Inglis accomplishing his quest, and they were so close to the top, I can understand if they were driven to push on. Also just because lots of people climb Everest these days doesn’t mean its easy and it could very well be that given the conditions at the time an attempt to save this man or even stay with him would have meant the certain death of some in the party.

The thing is if I were Inglis I would much rather be known as the man who sacrificed his dream to attempt to save a man’s life then the man who accomplished his dream at the cost of another man’s life.

Its the offseason which means its time to reflect on who we lost, and who we are getting. First of all congrats to Mario Williams, first overall pick in the NFL draft, and also Manny Lawson and John McCargo who were picked in the first round as well. Stephen Tulloch was picked in the 4th round, and Marcus Hudson and TJ Williams were picked in the 6th round. This is a record for number of NC State players being drafted. That speaks huge measures for the schools ability to develop players and for the schools visibility to the NFL, both points for State when talking to potential recruits. Four more players have also been signed in the NFL as free agents. Hopefully we will be able to fill in holes defensively, and develop our offense into something more effective then last year.

Here is NC State’s schedule for next year, and it opens with a game against App State, reigning AA champion from last year and ends with an at home game against ECU. I am looking forward to our second ACC game, which is against FSU in Raleigh. They will be drooling to beat us after we upset them last year. If we can win that game then our season will be given a big boost. I’m looking forward to seeing how things play out.

Finally NC State beat UNC.  They won their first game of the double elimination ACC baseball tournament 9-3 over Andrew Miller and UNC.  This means they play Virginia tomorrow evening and UNC plays FSU in an elimination game tomorrow morning.  The thing is, potentially NC State may have to play UNC 2 more times and win 1 of those times to go to the ACC championship game.  Here is a layout of the tournament.  The way it works, it doesn’t matter if NC State wins or loses to Virginia tomorrow, they will have to play UNC again unless UNC gets beat by either FSU or Virginia.  Something tells me some exciting games are on the horizon.  I’ll be listening on 88.1 at 5:00 tomorrow and pulling for the pack to top the Caviliers.  Go Wolfpack!