A Whiff from Eden: Cat Adopts Ducklings on Irish Farm

Cats don’t usually adopt ducklings that will quickly outgrow them. (This bird was not brought up by a feline.)



Joel Kontinen

Usually, a cat will eat tiny birds. But this did not happen on an Irish farm.

A little over a year ago, the baby ducklings that had hatched on Ronan and Emma Lally’s farm disappeared. The part-time farmers suspected that their cat had eaten them, but then they saw it carrying a duckling in its mouth.

The cat, which had just given birth to kittens, was not about to have the little birds for dinner. Instead, it adopted them.

The ducklings quickly outgrew their foster mother, but they continued following her across the farmyard.

According to the Darwinian story, nature should be red in tooth and claw. However, at times it isn’t.

This reminds us of Eden, when bad things had not yet happened. Thorns did not grow, and death did not reign in the animal kingdom. Small creatures did not fear big ones or even humans.

Source:

Langan, Sheila. 2015. Cat on an Irish farm treats lucky baby ducklings like they’re her own (VIDEO). Irish Central (18 September).

Earth Had a Magnetic Field from the Beginning, Research Suggests

Earth’s magnetic field. Image courtesy of NASA.




Joel Kontinen

The belief in billions of years is fraught with enormous problems, such as the faint young sun paradox that supposedly caused the phenomenon known as snowball Earth, which has never been explained in a plausible manner.

It would probably have made an end of all life.

There are other fatal problems as well. According to Nature,

“Studies suggest that Earth's magnetic field arose more than 4 billion years ago. Geophysicists call it the 'new core paradox': they can't quite explain how ancient Earth could have sustained a magnetic field billions of years ago, as it was cooling from its fiery birth.”

They desperately need a dynamo that will work for four billion years, and that isn’t easy.

Now, researchers think that they have solved this problem. Kei Hirose, a geophysicist at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, suggests that the presence of silicon dioxide did the trick, while David Stevenson, a geophysicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, relies on magnesium oxide.

The major problem with both approaches is a belief in billions of years, with Earth initially looking more like Venus than the blue planet we’re used to seeing.

However, some studies suggest that Earth had water from the very beginning, which would imply that it never was that hot.

The most fruitful way to approach the dilemma is to rely on what Genesis says about Earth’s beginnings.


Source:

Witze, Alexandra. 2015. Magnetic mystery of Earth's early core explained. Nature news (17 December).

Dwarf Planet Ceres Looks Young And Is Geologically Active

Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA.



Joel Kontinen

It seems that there is something very much wrong about the models astronomers have designed, as each new discovery brings a big surprise.

Planets that were assumed to be geologically inactive turn out to be alive. The newest surprise comes from data sent by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft that has been mapping Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt (i.e. the area between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter).

With a diameter of 950 kilometres, Ceres should probably be inactive, at least in a 4.5 billion year old solar system.

But new data suggest that it isn’t. A news item in Nature quotes Andreas Nathues, a planetary scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, as saying:

“Some kind of geological process seems to continually feed ice to the surface, replenishing what is lost.”

So, once again, we have a dwarf planet that looks younger that it should. However, we shouldn’t be surprised, since Genesis speaks of a relatively young universe.


Source:

Witze, Alexandra. 2015. Mysterious bright spots on Ceres are probably salt. Nature news (9 December).

Christmas and the Precision of Bible Prophecy

Christ's birth fulfilled Old Testament prophecies.




Joel Kontinen

The Old Testament speaks a lot about the Messiah who would come to redeem His people. The details of prophecy rule out chance. OT writers predicted His birthplace, His roots and His mother, for instance:

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Though you are little among the thousands of Judah,
Yet out of you shall come forth to Me
The One to be Ruler in Israel,
Whose goings forth are from of old,
From everlasting.” (Micah 5:2)

“Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).

Christmas reminds us that the Bible can be trusted. It is God’s Word:

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16).

Scripture passages from the New King James Version (NKJV).

New Trends in Creation: Answers in Genesis Opens Full-Size Noah’s Ark; Institute for Creation Research Builds New Museum

AiG and ICR have great projects in store for 2016 and beyond, featuring Noah’s Ark, for instance.




Joel Kontinen

2016 looks like a good year for friends of creation. Answers in Genesis is opening its Noah’s Ark Encounter in July. The Institute for Creation Research is beginning the construction of the Dallas Museum of Science and Earth History.

Both projects are huge, and they will do much to balance evolutionary propaganda that our world is too full of.

Source:

ICR

Signs of Design

Seeing a man carving sand is a clear sign of intentional activity.



Joel Kontinen

Natural sand formations can be rather spectacular. However, if one sees something that looks a bit like a dragon with scales, one might suspect that erosion is not the designer – especially if one happens to see a man adding the finishing touches to the sculpture.

It is not all all difficult to see what is deliberately designed and what isn't.

In like manner, design in nature is obvious. Our cells are full of nano machines that know exactly what to do and when to do it.

And there is a Book that tells us exactly who designed all the marvels we see around us in nature, with or without the aid of a microscope.

The Real Message of Christmas

Christmas is not just about baby Jesus.



Joel Kontinen

Christmas is nothing less than a miracle. It marks the beginning of Jesus' earthly life. He became a human being in order to atone for the sins of mankind.

The incarnation of Christ was necessary because of the bad news that we read about in Genesis. Whereas the First Adam failed, the Last Adam (i.e. Christ) succeeded.

The First Adam sinned by eating forbidden fruit from a tree; the Last Adam died on a cross (made of a tree), and because of His unique sacrifice the door is open for us to enter His kingdom by faith in Him.

No Christmas Wars in Canary Islands Buses

This bus wishes us a merry Christmas.




Joel Kontinen

Christmas wars seem to be an American phenomenon that hardly exists in Europe. For instance, some buses in the Canary Islands promote Chrismas.

While the word for Christmas in Spanish does not include the word Christ, navidad explicitly refers to birth, and in this case not just to any birth, but that of Jesus in Bethlehem.

And Christmas Eve is nochebuana or '(the) Good Evening'. Feliz navidad!

Theistic Evolution: Thorns Before Sin

Thorny plants are a dilemma for theistic evolution.




Joel Kontinen


There's no shortage of problems for believers in theistic evolution. In addition to death before sin, thorny plants also present a huge dilemma.

According to Genesis, they are the consequences of the Fall. But in the evolutionary scenario, they appeared roughly 400 million years before Adam's time.

Beauty in a Fallen World

Joel Kontinen


While thorns are a consequence of the Fall, i.e. the disobedience and sin of the first humans, thorny plants such as the cacti can have incredible beautiful flowers.

Such beauty reminds us of the Author of all things beutiful.

We can also see amazing beauty in the animal world.

Superbly Preserved Stingray – Evidence for Noah’s Flood?

Image courtesy of Liné1, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).





Joel Kontinen

Some old fossils are so well preserved that museums seem to be at a loss in describing them.

For instance, stingrays from the Green River Formation of Wyoming are so well preserved that they are said to finely preserved, as the Natural History Museum in London puts it, or “The preservation is superb,” as the Fossil Mall Site says.

The fossils are assumed to be “50 million years” old but they definitely don’t show their age. Perhaps they were formed during Noah’s Flood, some 4,500 years ago.

Blind Cave Salamander: Loss of Eyesight Is No Evidence for Evolution

Proteus anguinus. Image courtesy of Arne Hodalič, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) .




Joel Kontinen

New Scientist compares it to Gollum, Tolkien’s Hobbit that in better days used to be known as Sméagol. The tiny blind salamander found in Slovenia can survive for a hundred years on almost nothing.

The olm Proteus anguinus can grow to roughly 25 centimetres or 10 inches. It has very feeble feet.

Evolutionists often use blind animals, such as cave crabs or blind archids, as evidence for Darwinian evolution, but the change is in the wrong direction.

It’s the same kind of story with flightless birds like emus.

Losses seldom if ever amount to gains in real life. Mutations or spelling mistakes don’t run the show.

Source:

Lawton, Graham. 2015. Meet the weird amphibian that rules the underworld. New Scientist (2 December).

Cuttlefish Uses Clever Strategy to Evade Sharks

A cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis). Image courtesy of Hans Hillewaert, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).



Joel Kontinen

Cuttlefish stop breathing when a shark approaches them. This basically makes them invisible.

A paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B shows that predators were very unlikely to detect cuttlefish that held their breath. An article in Science states:

“When the frightened creatures froze in place and covered the cavity leading to the gills with their tentacles, the voltage in the water nearby dropped by about 80%.”

This made it very difficult for sharks to find them.

Animal intelligence should remind us that the One who made them was not a blind watchmaker but the Almighty Creator who planned every small detail.

Other examples of animal intelligence or amazing skills include the following:

- Darwin’s finches make their own insect repellent.

- Bowerbirds can mimic practically anything.

- The octopus is an “eight-legged marvel."


Source:

Perkins. Sid. 2015. When cuttlefish hold their breath, they become nearly invisible to sharks. Science (1 December).

Every Other Super-Jupiter Might Not Exist

Many alien worlds might not be planets. Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech.




Joel Kontinen

Almost 55 per cent of hot Jupiters might not exist, researchers reported in the Extreme Solar Systems III conference in Hawaii earlier this week.

The announcement is not guesswork, but is based on a 5-year study of alien worlds discovered by The Kepler mission. A brief article in Science says:

“Kepler identifies exoplanets by staring at a large number of stars for extended periods and waiting for their brightness to dip periodically when a planet passes in front of them. But these dips can be caused by a number of effects so need to be confirmed by other methods.”

The article goes on to explain the method used in the current study:

“A team using the SOPHIE spectrograph on a 1.93-meter telescope at the Haute-Provence Observatory in France spent 5 years studying 129 of Kepler’s bigger candidates using a different method: looking for the slight movement of a star as a planet’s gravity tugs it around.”

While exoplanets do not respect planet-formation theories, the result was probably at least somewhat unexpected: 55 per cent of the “planets” might actually be stars orbiting another star.

In any case, this discovery shows that our solar system seems to be very special, fine-tuned for life. In contrast, exoplanets tend to be weird.

Source:

Clery, Daniel. 2015. More than half of purported giant alien worlds may not exist. ScienceShot (2 December).

”Stone Age Picasso” Challenges Views of Ancient Man

Ancient Australians were clever artists. Image courtesy of TimJN1, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0). It seems that early Europeans also knew how to make sophisticated art.



Joel Kontinen

Most people used to think that ancient man was not sophisticated enough to produce great works of art. However, many great cave paintings challenge this view that has roots in Darwinian evolution.

Now, a new paper published in the journal PLoS One brings down yet another false belief.

Marcos García-Diez and Manuel Vaquero discovered an engraving at Molí del Salt near Barcelona. They think that it describes six beehive-shaped huts. It seems that “hunter-gatherers” were able to produce art that not only depicts animals but also buildings.

And an older study has shown that their menu was more varied than we would assume.

Previous research has brought about the demise of the view that hunter-gatherers were unable to build cities. The ruins of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey show that they were skilled architects.

According to Genesis, humans were inventive from the dawn of mankind, so we would expect to find evidence of creativity in old rocks.

That is exactly what we find.

Source:

Coghlan, Andy. 2015. Stone Age Picasso made oldest known drawing of human settlement. New Scientist (2 December).

Weird Exoplanet Might Kill Planet Formation Theory

HATS-14b Image courtesy of NASA, ESA and A. Schaller.




Joel Kontinen

An exoplanet known as HATS-14b is causing astronomers to discard their theories on how planets form.

An article in New Scientist gives some background facts for the dilemma:

“In our solar system, the planets all orbit the sun in the same plane, perpendicular to the axis around which the sun spins. But for half a decade, we’ve known that big planets close to other stars can have orbits that are tilted at all sorts of weird angles.”

Astronomers thought they knew a few plausible reasons for this.

But then came HATS-14b with its orbit “tilted a whopping 76 degrees from the plane in which its star spins.”

The planet is a hot Jupiter that circles a rather small star, so it “should have aligned with the spin of the host star,” as George Zhou at the Australian National University in Canberra and the lead author of a new paper puts it.

It seems that HATS-14b doesn’t have much respect for planet-formation theories.

It’s not the only one, as exoplanets tend to be weird, defying naturalistic views.

But there’s one planet that’s just right for life, the one we call home.


Source:

Sokol, Joshua. 2015. Weirdly tilted planet knocks formation theory out of line. New Scientist (24 November).