A Cross on the Mountain

Joel Kontinen

How could a cross on the mountains defy those in whose opinion is that Jesus did not save us.

Here, it is not the ”free thinkers” that feel depressed at the sight of a cross and lose their peace of mind that they then try to regain through lawsuits.

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.”

It’s an entirely different story for us:

“But to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18, NIV).

Scientist Place Origin of Life on a Thing that Never Happens

Image courtesy of NASA/U. S. Geological Survey/Norman Kuring/Kathryn Hansen.



Joel Kontinen

To make sense of how life originated, “A new study provides evidence for the RNA idea, which is known as the ‘RNA world hypothesis.’ But at least one ingredient in early RNA may differ from what's found in the modern form, a group of scientists reported on Dec. 3 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Modern RNA, alongside its sugar and phosphate backbone, is made of four main building blocks: nucleobases called adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and uracil (U).”

However “it turns out that early RNA may have had one nucleobase that isn't part of the modern form.

But then, the researchers added another chemical, called inosine, into the mix, instead of the guanine-based molecule. After that, the researchers were surprised to find that RNA could form and replicate slightly more accurately than it does in a mix with guanine.”

However, “because inosine can be easily derived from another base pair, adenine, it makes the process of originating life "easier" than if you had to make guanine from scratch, said John Sutherland”, who did not contribute to the study.

The rna-world is thought a failure.

The origin of life business never was much about science.

De nihilo nihil, the Roman 1st century poet Persius is quoted as saying, “Nothing comes from nothing.”

Source:

Saplakoglu, Yasemin. 2018.This May Be Life's 'Missing Ingredient. Live Science (28 December).

Saturn Is Losing Its Rings at 'Worst-Case-Scenario' Rate

Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute, public domain.




Joel Kontinen

New NASA research confirms that Saturn is losing its iconic rings at the maximum rate estimated from Voyager 1 & 2 observations made decades ago. The rings are being pulled into Saturn by gravity as a dusty rain of ice particles under the influence of Saturn's magnetic field.

“From this alone, the entire ring system will be gone in 300 million years, but add to this the Cassini-spacecraft measured ring-material detected falling into Saturn's equator, and the rings have less than 100 million years to live. This is relatively short, compared to Saturn's age of over 4 billion years." says James O'Donoghue of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He is the lead author of a study on Saturn's ring rain appearing in Icarus December 17.

This is not the first time researchers think that Saturn’s rings are young or that Saturn looks young.

Now, who says the rings have existed for only “100 million years.” Even exoplanets such as HL Tau are young, and they might say that the whole universe is young.

On our good earth, radiocarbon refute the dogma of millions of years.

Source:

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. 2018. Saturn is losing its rings at 'worst-case-scenario' rate. Science Daily. (17 December).

God has given mankind a stage on which to perform, Apollo 8 astronaut Jim Lovell says

James A. Lovell Jr., William A. Anders, and Frank Borman, image courtesy of NASA, Public Domain.




Joel Kontinen

The Apollo 8 astronauts have been alive on tv in Britain.

One of them, William (Bill ) Anders, has said that sending astronauts to Mars would be stupid.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's PM, their crewmate Jim Lovell also reflected on the Earthrise moment: "When I looked at the Earth itself... I started to wonder why I was here, what's my purpose here… it sort of dawned me," he said.

"And my perspective is that God has given mankind a stage on which to perform. How the play turns out, is up to us."

They were the crew who send the tenth first verses from Genesis 1 to the world, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called the Seas: and God saw that it was good.”
The idea was Frank Borman’s.

Source:

Green, Tom. 2018. Sending astronauts to Mars would be stupid, astronaut says. BBC NEWS, (24 December).

Scientist Haven’t Got A Whiff of Dark Matter

Image courtesy of NASA, ESA, M.J. Jee and H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University), public domain.






Joel Kontinen

"Scientists have very good reason to dark matter exists— that there's some unseen stuff tugging on everything with its gravity but that's invisible to our telescopes.

But they don’t know what that dark matter is actually made of. Physicists have some guesses."

"One popular theory of dark matter states that the stuff is made up of particles called ‘weakly interacting massive particles,’ or ‘WIMPS.’ These WIMPs would be heavy particles not described in the Standard Model of physics, though they would likely be supersymmetric partners of Standard Model particles. "

They’ve just missed one. "A single detector in Italy sparkled more in the winter than the summer, hinting that a particular model of dark matter was correct."

However, the Italian detector was probably wrong. And dark energy is dead too.

The big bang has other problems as well, for instance missing antimatter, cosmic inflation, quantum fluctuation

In addition, the earliest galaxies formed too quickly.

“He [God] made the stars also,” Genesis tells us. That is by far the best explanation for the existence of the universe.


Source:

Letzter, Rafi, 2018. Physicists Keep Trying — and Failing — to Find Dark Matter in Dark Places. Live Science (11 December)

Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy?

James Jacques Joseph Tissot: Adam and Eve Driven from Paradise, public domain.





Joel Kontinen

Todd May, a professor of philosophy at Clemson University, writes about human extinction. Would it be necessary for furthering life on the planet?

“It is humanity that is committing a wrong, a wrong whose elimination would likely require the elimination of the species, but with whom we might be sympathetic nonetheless.”

“Human beings are destroying large parts of the inhabitable earth and causing unimaginable suffering to many of the animals that inhabit it,”

“First, human contribution to climate change is devastating ecosystems, Second, increasing human population is encroaching on ecosystems that would otherwise be intact. Third, factory farming fosters the creation of millions upon millions of animals for whom it offers nothing but suffering and misery before slaughtering them in often barbaric ways.

How many human lives would it be worth sacrificing to preserve the existence of Shakespeare’s works?”

This tragedy is caused by the Fall, Adam's sin, that has enticed us.


Source:

May, Todd, 2018 Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy? The New York Times (17 December).

China’s Pre-Christmas Church Crackdown Raises Alarm

China takes down crosses.




Joel Kontinen


.
While China has liberated itself from communist ideology, the state’s ideology is seen in how it reacts to non-communism. Three years ago, it took down 1200 crosses and it has kept Christian lawyers and human rights activist behind bars.

Now, “A recent surge of police action against churches in China has raised concerns the government is getting even tougher on unsanctioned Christian activity.

Among those arrested are a prominent pastor (Wang Yi) and his wife, of the Early Rain Covenant Church in Sichuan. Both have been charged with state subversion.”

However, “the Christian population has grown steadily in recent years. There are now an estimated 100 million Christians in China, many of them worshipping in so-called underground churches.

Wang Yi is the leader of one such church, the Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, the capital of south-western Sichuan province.”

Police have raided the church and its school. The society’s tactics will probably cause it to go deeper underground.

Source:

China's pre-Christmas church crackdown raises alarm. BBC NEWS (18 December).

Missing Antimatter: A Huge Problem for the Big Bang

The Big Bang should have produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter. Image courtesy of NASA.



Joel Kontinen

There isn’t any antimatter, although there should be, if the Big Bang were true.

This is no laughing matter. ABS Science says:

“The Standard Model of particle physics — which accurately describes all the particles and interactions that make up our universe — says our universe shouldn't exist.

Or at least, the matter that makes up all the stuff in existence shouldn't be here. It should have been wiped out by the matching antimatter that was created with it in the first second after the Big Bang.”

CERN physicists conclude that a super-precise measurement shows proton and antiproton have identical magnetic properties.

Antimatter is like matter, but it has the opposite electrical charge and it destroys normal matter when they interact. It thus means the universe shouldn’t exist, CERN physicists conclude. or they will have to do away with the Big Bang Model.

Source:

Cupps, Vernon B. 2018. Baron Conservation and the Antimatter Mystery Acts and Facts 42.11, 16.

Made in the Image of God

Dan Lietha:Let there be truth: I evolved from stupid.




Joel Kontinen

The theory of evolution has disturbed the view of many people. They no longer view themselves as God’s children.

“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” (Gen. 1:26, King James 2000 Bible).

Yes, we were created to be separate from animals, to have dominion over them. We reflect the character of God and are rational, personnel and moral.

We were made male or female, made to rule, made very good and we have a broken image that can be restored by Christ, our Redeemer.

Source:

Turpin; Simon.2018. Made in the Image of God. Answers in Genesis British/European Newsletter, August.

Australia to Open Embassy in Jerusalem

Image courtesy of Ian Fieggen, Public Domain.



Joel Kontinen

“In December 12, 2018 in December 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. In May, the U.S. embassy to Israel relocated to the city, and two days later, Guatemala followed suit.

Brazil’s incoming president Jair Bolsonaro expressed his desire in November that he would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital after taking office in January.

In October, newly appointed Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that he was open to officially recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the Australian embassy there from its current location in Tel Aviv. ”

Nevertheless, Australia will not move its embassy to Jerusalem, a move that would cost 200 Australian dollars ($144 million or 176 euros), but will pay for the move later.

However, Muslims are not happy with the move. They said that it would hurt Australia’s standing with the Arab and Muslim world.

Israel is God’s message to humanity.

Source:

JNS.2018. Australian Gov’t to Officially Recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital? breakingisraenews 12 December).

Parrots Are Clever, They Resemble Us

Turquoise-fronted amazon (Amazona aestiva). Image courtesy of Charles J Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0.




Joel Kontinen

According to evolution, chimpanzees would be the animal that closely resembles us. However, according to a new stud y in Current Biology, it is the parrot than has similarity with us.

“It’s a surprise in the sense that these animals are so different from humans, but it’s also satisfying in that you might predict that since they evolved similar traits, they have some similar mechanisms,” says Claudio Mello at the Oregon Health & Science University.

“Humans ended up with bigger brains and more brain cells and more cognitive traits – including language – than primates. Parrots have bigger brains than other birds and more communication skills, and they have similar conserved elements that set them apart,” he says.

Source:

Whyte, Chelsea. 2018. Parrots are clever because their brains evolved the same way as ours. New Scientist (6 December).

Understanding the Criminal Mind

Vincent van Gogh (1890): The Good Samaritan. Image courtesy of DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH, from The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002.




Joel Kontinen

A Cornell University study “shows a difference between how risk is cognitively processed by self-reported law-abiding citizens and self-reported lawbreakers, allowing researchers to better view and understand the criminal mind.”

Science has moved from a Scripture-based understanding to a criminal -based understanding of mankind, believing that an additional 40 dollars would make them happy. They were “offered $20 guaranteed, or to flip a coin for double or nothing.”

The risk takers would choose the $40, even if they could lose it. This had nothing to do with conscience.

Source:

Cornell University. 2018. Does neuroscience hold the key to understanding the criminal mind? Science Daily. (5 September).
.

Soft Tissue From a 180 Million Year Old Ichthyosaur

Image courtesy of Dmitry Bogdanov, CC BY 3.0.


Joel Kontinen

Nature has an interesting article on a 180 million year old ichthyosaur, authored by Mary Schweitzer and 22 other researchers.,

Schweitzer’s university has this to say about the findings:

“Molecular and microstructural analysis of a Stenopterygius ichthyosaur from the Jurassic (180 million years ago) reveals that these animals were most likely warm-blooded, had insulating blubber and used their coloration as camouflage from predators.”

The press release quotes Johan Lindgren:“Both the body outline and remnants of internal organs are clearly visible,” says Lindgren. “Remarkably, the fossil is so well-preserved that it is possible to observe individual cellular layers within its skin.”

“Schweitzer and NC State research assistant Wenxia Zheng extracted soft tissues from the samples and performed multiple, high-resolution immunohistochemical analyses. ‘We developed a panel of antibodies that we applied to all of the samples, and saw differential binding, meaning the antibodies for a particular protein – like keratin or hemoglobin – only bound to particular areas,’ Schweitzer says. ‘This demonstrates the specificity of these antibodies and is strong evidence that different proteins persist in different tissues. You wouldn’t expect to find keratin in the liver, for example, but you would expect hemoglobin. And that’s what we saw in the responses of these samples to different antibodies and other chemical tools.’ ”

Their “results were repeatable and consistent across labs.” The soft tissue here was much older than in Schweitzer’s other discoveries for instance, in A t-rex and a Hadrosaur. It concludes that millions of years can’t be true.

Source:

Peake, Tracey. 2018. Soft Tissue Shows Jurassic Ichthyosaur Was Warm-Blooded, Had Band Camouflage, Nc State University.

A Burly Unicorn Rouged the Steppes in Siberia

Image courtesy of W. Kobelt: Elasmotherium, Public Domain.


Joel Kontinen

Unicorns might not be too difficult for humans to grasp. Now, scientists have come up with new dating for the Elasmotherium sibiricum.

“Previous interpretations of E. sibiricum bones suggested that they died out 200,000 years ago, but recent analysis hints that E. sibricum fossils are much younger than that, dating to at least 39,000 years ago and possibly as recently as 35,000 years ago, according to a new study.”

They were dated by the Carbon-14 method, giving an age of approximately 39,000 before the present. This is the same date that Dinosaurs have been dated, which points to faults in the research mechanism.

Source:

Weisberger, Mindy. 2018. Ice Age 'Unicorn' May Have Lived Alongside Modern Humans Live Science (1December).

World's scientific books of the year:Heretic

Matti Leisola & Jonathan Witt have written a book about Leisola.



Joel Kontinen

Heretic. One Scientist's Journey from Darwin to Design is the story of Matti Leisola; who started reading a book defending evolutionary theory. His will and that time was to defend evolution, but the more he read on, he became sceptical of Darwinism.

He has spent his career on studying enzymes, and has more than 140 published the peer-reviewed papers. He is the emeritus Professor of Bioscience Engineering at Aalto University in Helsinki.

Leisola shows that “the overwhelming problem facing the materialistic theories of life and punctures the claim that almost all support Darwinism: Many fear being called Darwin deniers and labeled science heretics, but Leisola’s last chapter title shows why honesty is best:”

The Heretic continues the story originally published in Leisola’s Evoluutiouskon ihmemaassa, written in Finnish.

Source:

Science Books of the Year: Short List World (20 November).

Deep Sea Worms Get Their Names from the Game of Thrones and from Yedi

NOAA Galapagos Rift Expedition, public domain.



Joel Kontinen

Deep sea worms are not the kind that one looks with gusto. There are called Polynoidae, and the some of the new-found creature are called Macellicephaloides moustachu, are reference to their “moustage”. The others are from the Game of Thrones and from Yedi.

The beauty of the deep-sea creatures is enormous. Regardless of what God has done, the worms regain their type. In accordance with the after its kind principle, that was shouwn by Genesis.

Source:

Weisberger, Mindy. 2018. Hodor! Deep-Sea Worms Get 'Game of Thrones' Names Live Science November).

Grand Canyon’s Surprise Animals.

Image courtesy of Chensiyuan, CC BY-SA 4.0.


Joel Kontinen

“About 315 million years ago — long before dinosaurs roamed the Earth — an early reptile scuttled along in a strangely sideways jaunt, leaving its tiny footprints embedded in the landscape, new research finds.” This is how Science Daily introduces the animal that lived before the dinosaurs and who left their marks in the Grand Canyon.

The trackway preserved on a slab of sandstone measuring about 1 meter and 45 cm (3.2 feet long and 18 inches wide) —"contains 28 prints from the mystery animal's front and back feet.“

Actually, the Grand Canyon has also been used by creationists.

How do know reptile used the Grand Canyon so long ago? The basic of this is radiometric dating, that has frequently turned wrong.

The Grand Canyon can be used in two ways: Little, water, long ages or a lot of water, little age.

Source:

Geggel , Laura. 2018. Oldest Known Footprints in Grand Canyon Were Left by Mysterious, Sideways-Walking Reptile. Live Science 15 November.

Tiny People Have “Evolved” in the Forest

Image courtesy of Malekhanif, Free Software Foundation.




Joel Kontinen

Tiny People Have “Evolved” in the Forest. In an evolution only view, tiny people have evolved in rainforests, as tiny steps are better there.

A Proceedings of the Royal Society B study takes a look on populations who dwell in rainforests. Many people, such as Pygmies and other hunter-gathered tribes, such as the Batek people of Peninsular Malaysia and the Tsimane people of Bolivian Amazon, tend to be small.

According to the study, small people tend to live in forest, as their steps are small. “They have evolved to be short in order to navigate the dense jungle environment more efficiently.”

“The distribution of people around the world reflects the very specific environmental pressures as well," says Dr. Vivek Venkataraman, head author of the study.

The Darwinists have succeeded in taking stock of the Pigmies: In the early 1900, Ota Benga was put in a in Bronx Zoo, to show his affinity to monkeys.

That is what disbelief in God brings about.

Source:

Tiny people have evolved in rainforests because it's where tiny steps are better. CBC Radio (16 November).

Scientists Say the Biblical Account of Sodom is Accurate

John Martin’s painting “The Destruction of Sodom And Gomorrah,” Public Domain.



Joel Kontinen

After months of digging, Phillip Silvian (Trinity Southwest University , Albuquerque) told what had happened at the annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research, in the Dead Sea area.

He led excavations on “five large sites on the Jordanian side of the Jordan River. According to Silvia, the 15 square-mile circular Middle Ghor was a fertile plain, populated continuously for at least 2,500 hundred years. Some form of catastrophe 3,700 years ago brought this to a sudden end, wiping out all of the estimated 40,000 to 65,000 people who inhabited the area at the time.”

The excavation shows that “the 120 small settlements in the region showed signs of extreme, collapse-inducing heat and wind.”

They said that it resembled the Tungusta affairs in 1908, in which a meteorite struck the earth.

“The destruction of Tall el-Hammam (Sodom), but also its neighbors (Gomorrah and the other cities of the plain) was most likely caused by a meteoritic airburst event,” they said.

Here’s what the Bible says:

“Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah--from the LORD out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities--and also the vegetation in the land.” (Genesis 19: 24-25, NIV).

When the Bible describes historical matters, it always gets the facts, including the tiny details, right. Secular ancient writers were unable to deny the historicity of Jesus.

The Bible tells us about real people and real events, such as the earthquake mentioned by the prophet Amos and the one that occurred during Jesus’ crucifixion.

The Bible is the book of truth,.

Yes, it seems that the Dead Sea explosion corroborates what the Bible is saying.

Source:

Berkowitz, Adam Eliyahu. 2018. Scientists Admit Biblical Account of Sodom is Accurate. (Breaking Israeli News 23 November).

Trappist-1 System Could Likely Host an Earth-Like Ocean World – Or Not

Image courtesy of ESO, CC BY 4.0.



Joel Kontinen

The Trappist-1, consisting of seven planets that circle a M dwarf star, family of stars that has dominated the astronomy circles. These alien worlds might be bombarded with intense solar radiation and they are probably tidally locked like Mercury in our solar system, with the same side always facing its sun.

Recently, the astronomers who "updated climate models for the exoplanets” have come with an explanation.

At first, since the planets were hailed as uninhabited, Then, water was obviously found in some of them. However, this cannot create life.

Now, we are getting more news of Trappist e: the planet that can hold water on a large scale. However, water and a source of heat can’t create life.

In contrast, our world is special. God created Earth and filled it with life, just like Genesis tells us.


Source:

TRAPPIST-1 system likely hosts Earth-like ocean world. Financial Express (22.11.).

Using the Bible on Science, to Perfect Translation Algorithms:

Luther’s Bible (1534). Image courtesy of Torsten Schleese.



Joel Kontinen

Royal Society Open Science has an article on the Bible. It’s not the way science portals often present the Good Book. It’s an introduction for perfect translation algorithms.

The scientist understood that the Bible has been translated into many languages. “The result is an algorithm trained on various versions of the sacred texts that can convert written works into different styles for different audiences.”

They did not begin white Shakespeare or Wikipedia, any other text. Their choice was the Bible:

“Beyond providing infinite inspiration, each version of the Bible contains more than 31,000 verses that the researchers used to produce over 1.5 million unique pairings of source and target verses for machine-learning training sets.”

They wanted to learn, what difference a text portion would make, if translated to another language.

Source:

Dartmouth College. 2018. The good book: Bible helps researchers perfect translation algorithms: Study results in AI style transfer data set of unmatched quality. Science Daily (24 October).

How Do Squirrels Remember Where They Buried their Nuts?

Squirrels love nuts.



Joel Kontinen

Squirrels mostly gather nuts this time of year.

“Most squirrel species are scatter-hoarders — hence the characteristic dashing they do between different piles of buried food. ‘This style of food storing probably evolved because it reduces the risk of suffering a major loss,’ said Mikel Maria Delgado, a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis, who has studied squirrel behavior for several years.”

“Depending on the squirrel species and the type of nut, squirrels are generally able to retrieve up to 95 percent of their buried food, research shows. So there's clearly more than chance behind this process.”

The seeds of Pinus cembra contain plenty of amino acids, Plenty of A vitamin, thiamine, riboflavin and niacin plus omega-6- and omega-3-fats.

Source:

Bryce, Emma, 2018. How Do Squirrels Remember Where They Buried Their Nuts? Live Science (17 November).

Rare Bird Found in America,Throws Light on Dino-Era Birds.

An earlier example of an enantiornithine. Image courtesy of Durbed, CC BY-SA 3.0.


Joel Kontinen

A 75-million-year-old fossil, from a bird about the size of a turkey vulture, is the most complete skeleton. Discovered in North America of what are called enantiornithines, it lived with dinoes.

“It is quite likely that, if you saw one in real life and just glanced at it, you wouldn’t be able to distinguish it from a modern bird,” Study participant Jessie Atterholt said.

She went on to say: “That by the late Cretaceous, enantiornithines had evolved advanced adaptations for flying independent of today’s birds. In fact, they looked quite similar to modern birds: they were fully feathered and flew by flapping their wings like modern birds. The fossilized bird probably had teeth in the front of its beak and claws on its wings as well as feet. Some enantiornithines had prominent tail feathers that may have differed between male and female and been used for sexual display.”

“These rough patches are quill knobs, and in modern birds they anchor the wing feathers to the skeleton to help strengthen them for active flight. This is the first discovery of quill knobs in any enantiornithine bird, which tells us that it was a very strong flier.”

How could these birds become extinct, DINO-Era birds showed just the opposite? They’ve drove with the dinoes, but then they vanished away.

Source:

Sanders, Robert 2018. Rare Fossil Bird Deepens Mystery of Avian Extinctions. Berkeley.edu (13 November)

Holocaust I: German Armies Performed the First Holocaust in Africa

Austrian anthropologist Felix von Luschan made a call for people to send skulls to Germany.



Joel Kontinen

Charles Darwin has cast a shadow on African heritage and its people. Just remember, what he did to the Herero and other people in Namibia. In effect, Darwin instigated the first holocaust in Africa.

They did this also in what is presently called Tanzania.

The Austrian anthropologist Felix von Luschan made a call for people to send skulls to Germany. The von Luschan collection, originally contained 6,300 skulls.

Mangi Meli, a chief from the north of what is now Tanzania, was executed in 1900 for his role in a rebellion against German colonial rule. A relative has searched for his skull, but hasn’t found him.

After he died, Mangi Meli body was decapitated and his head was taken to Germany.

The Sunday Express told says that many skulls were sent to Germany “to prove the similarity between the Nama and anthropoid apes”. This was not a distortion but an application of Charles Darwin’s writings in The Descent of Man.

Source:

The search in Germany for the lost skull of Tanzania's Mangi Meli BBC News (14 November).

Dino Soft Tissue Is Toast, Scientist Proclaim

Image courtesy of AAAS.



Joel Kontinen

Did you know that burnt toast and dinosaurs bones have a common trait?

"We took on the challenge of understanding protein fossilization," said Yale paleontologist Jasmina Wiemann, the study's lead author. "We tested 35 samples of fossil bones, eggshells, and teeth to learn whether they preserve proteinaceous soft tissues, find out their chemical composition, and determine under what conditions they were able to survive for millions of years."

Now, dinosaur bone could not last that long. They are believed to have degraded in 4 million years:

“Fossil soft tissue in dinosaur bones has been a controversial topic among researchers for quite some time. Hard tissues, such as bones, eggs, teeth, and enamel scales, are able to survive fossilization extremely well. Soft tissues, such as blood vessels, cells, and nerves -- which are stored inside the hard tissue -- are more delicate and thought to decay rapidly after death. These soft tissues are composed mainly of proteins, which are believed to completely degrade within about four million years.

Yet dinosaur bones are much older, roughly 100 million years old, and they occasionally preserve organic structures similar to cells and blood vessels. Various attempts to resolve this paradox have failed to provide a conclusive answer.”

Now they can – with the toast comparison.

In 1997 Dr. Mary Schweitzer, a paleontologist at North Carolina State University, found remnants of red blood cells in a in a T. rex bone. She did not believe in the beginning that the soft tissue was as old as the dinos were: “It’s 65 years old… can’t be that old.”

After that, she found collagen, haemoglobin, elastin and laminin in dinosaur fossils.

At the time, evolutionists were reluctant to believe that the discovery was genuine but later Schweitzer and her research team found remnants of haemoglobin and collagen in a Tyrannosaur estimated to be 68 million years old.

In early 2009, Dr. Schweitzer and her colleagues found collagen, haemoglobin, elastin and laminin in a hadrosaur assumed to be 80 million years old.

The Hadrosaur bone throws a cloud on the belief in millions of years.

Now, they are to have found it in the Cambrian animals, as well. The trick to solve the problem with toast is just to saveguard the belief in millions of years.

Source:

Yale University. 2018. A toast to the proteins in dinosaur bones. Science Daily (9 November).

Why Did Our Forefathers Start Painting Similar Structures at The Same Time?

The drawing looks a bit like this. Lhfage, CC0.




Joel Kontinen

Nature has published a study on ancient drawings in Indonesia. This discovery, a 40,000- years old rendering of arts and hands, "indicates that figurative cave art … didn't begin in Europe as many scientists thought, but rather in Southeast Asia during the last ice age, the researchers said.”

This is an enigma for evolutionary scientists. How could drawings resemble so much those found in Europe and elsewhere?

This happens on three occasions:

Evolution happens in places in which it was not supposed to happen. In this instance, man gained the art to describe animals some “52,000 and 40,000 years ago, includes hand stencils and reddish-orange ochre-drawn animals.”

Then, 20,00 years go past and the artists “favored a dark mulberry-purple color and painted hand stencils, abstract signs and human-like figures wearing elaborate headdresses and engaging in various activities, such as hunting or ritualistic dancing, the researchers said.”

Next, “humanlike figures, boats and geometric designs that were mostly drawn with black pigments, the researchers said” were made 4,000 years ago.

However, the artists were still living in caves 20,000 years ago. Actually, scientist have overestimated the time man was thought to have developed.

We might contrast this to what the Bible has to say about humans, At the beginning, they built cities and in the sixth generation a man rose, who “was the father of all who play stringed instruments,” and his brother “forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron.” ( Genesis i4:21–22, New International Version).

Source:

Geggel, Laura. 2018. World's Oldest Animal Drawing, Discovered in Borneo Cave, Is a Weird. Cow Beast. Live Science (7 November)

Bacteria Still Uses Same Password for Making Spores

Bacilli still used the same password for making spores. Image courtesy of Y tambe, CC BY-SA 3.0.



Joel Kontinen

Evolution is still not happening.

“When it comes to changing their passwords, bacteria are just as bad as you and me — maybe even worse. A Carnegie Mellon University research team has found that despite 2.7 billion years of evolution, bacteria are still using the same “password” to initiate the process for making spores. Their findings were published in the September issue of PLOS Genetics.”

Astrobiology Magazine had this to say on the issue:

“The Carnegie Mellon researchers, led by the Department of Biological Sciences’ Dannie Durand, used computational and experimental techniques to study how the signaling network that causes Bacilli and Clostridia to form spores has evolved since the two bacteria diverged from a common ancestor 2.7 billion years ago.”

Bacteria are very lazy to not to have evolved over more than 2 billion years. Here a list on what animals have desisted Darwin for so long.

Source:

Bacteria’s password for sporulation hasn’t changed in 2.7 billion years hasn’t changed to way they make spores. 27 September 2018. Astrobiology Magazine.

Charles Darwin “Was Not a Scientist”

Image courtesy of Leonard Darwin - Woodall 1884, public domain.




Charles Darwin



Charles Darwin has been championed as a trail blazer, freeing the world of God’s Word. At times, some people have crossed swords with him.

The latest is Josh Greenberger’s attempt to disrobe him. He shows that Darwin was not a scientist. He shows that Darwin was neither anything that would make him an authority of live.

Darwin only succeeded in Theology: “At the age of 22, Charles Darwin received a degree in theology, of all things.”

- “Basically, his theory was based on pure imagination.”

- The fossil record, though, shows life forms appearing fully formed – a “serious” difficulty in Darwin’s eyes.

Then he brings up Gregory Mendel, who studies peas, “based his theories on extensive research and experimentation, which began in 1856.” Mendel showed that “nearly 30,000 pea plants followed over eight generations.” They did not grow into different species.

He then brings up evolutionary biologist Richard Lenski, who “cultivated 12 populations of bacteria that originated from one single Escherichia coli (E. Coli) bacterium. After more than 44,000 generations, Lenski noticed a similar pattern in all 12 populations; This experiment speaks volumes of speciation’s non-randomness.”

We might add an idea that is currently making its rounds in the scientific literature: bacteria’s password for sporulation (i.e. the idea of making spores) hasn’t changed in 2.7 billion years. It hasn’t changed hasn’t changed to way they make spores.

Greenberger proposes that Darwin made news by favouring a worldview that knows nothing of God.



Source:

Josh Greenberger. 2018. Charles Darwin Was Not a Scientist. Jewish Press (1 November).

A Blue Dragon Fish Doesn’t Look Like a Fish

Image courtesy of Sylke Rohrlach, CC BY-SA 2.0.



Joel Kontinen

The deep sea is full of wonders. (See examples here and here.)

It looks like an eel,(which is a living fossil), but it isn’t. The blue dragon fish is small, weighing circa 2–50 cm (0.8 –20 inches).

They don’t like the surf; they usually are found at a dept of 1,500 metres in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans. they visualise their prey with the help of glowing barbels.

A Barbel ”is a slender, whiskerlike sensory organ near the mouth.” It known to migrate vertically whilst capturing its prey.

Everything the Lord made beautiful.

Source:

Dragon Fish Facts no date Dragon Fish Diet & Habitat.

'Oumuamua could be an Extraterrestrial Solar Sail

Kuva: ESO/M Kornmesser, nagualdesign, CC BY-SA 4.0.



Joel Kontinen


'Oumuamua could be an interstellar spacecrafts, some scientists are saying. Now, another team of them of is saying that it could be an extraterrestrial solar sail.

The study, done by Shmuel Bialy and Prof. Abraham Loeb, throws caution to the winds:

"Loeb told Universe Today, 'Oumuamua could be an active piece of alien technology that came to explore our solar system, the same way we hope to explore Alpha Centauri using Starshot and similar technologies’ ".

All indications of space life have been failures. This one could always be phantasy, not fact.

Source:

Williams, Matt. 2018. Could 'Oumuamua be an extraterrestrial solar sail? phys.org. (1 November)

Former Atheist Hopkins Has Said Goodbye to Atheism

Image courtesy of gdcgraphics, CC BY-SA 2.0.




Joel Kontinen

"Being an atheist must be like living in a closed cell with no windows." This is what Sir Anthony Hopkins says today.

He used to be well-known atheist and alcoholic for a long time. However, "in 1975 he went to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting where a lady asked him: “Why don’t you just trust in God?”


That question intrigued him so much that he started a personal soul search and he began a soul-search. “He was saying that from the point, his insatiable desire for alcohol vanished. He has been on a spiritual quest since while acting and winning Academy Awards throughout his career.” In 2011, he said that he couldn’t be an atheist any longer.

“But I couldn’t live with that certainty, and I wonder about some of them: why are they protesting so much? How are they so sure of what is out there? ”

Source:

Laskey, Jared, 2018. Sir Anthony Hopkins Reveals his Journey from Atheist to Believer in God. GOD TV (7 August).

Is There Still Panic in The Air?

New York Sunday News, colour portrait photograph by Warneke and Elkins, Public Domain.



Joel Kontinen

The War of the Worlds is a science fiction novel about a Martian invasion of Earth. Originally written by George Herbert Wells in 1898, it was later adapted by Orson Welles and broadcast as a radio drama.

The program was aired on October 30, 1938. It had been an eventful year, with the Anschluss of Austria still fresh on people’s mind. The drama consisted of news bulletins, starting with a strange flash on Mars and progressing to a Martian landing and a devastating war.

Many listeners were carried away by what they heard. The October 31 New York Times reported panic on the streets. While the media probably exaggerated the outcome of the drama, it differed considerably from the average Sunday picnic.

H. G. Wells (1866- 946) was an ardent evolutionist who believed that the Darwinian great story was fact and that end of human evolution was still nowhere in sight. The Time Machine (1895) discloses his views about ongoing human evolution. Like many contemporary Darwinists, he thought eugenics was the way to stop the degeneration of the human race.

It seems that some of today’s Darwinists have also found a formula for stopping another form of degeneration – that of science itself.

Once again, there seems to be a panic of sorts in the air. Evolutionists have resorted to law suits and intimidation to silence dissidents because they believe that doubting Darwin will mean the end of all scientific progress.

Science Daily doesn’t think that a extraterrerstial invasion could cause a panic today. People know – as scientists did into the 1030s – that Mars had an atmosphere that was too thin to harbour life.

But now they might be scares of aliens, whatever they come from.

When we think about what Darwinians have done in the world, they have kept the people’s eyes off intelligent design and creation from the papers – once again.

So, the question is: might there still be some panic in the air?

Source:

Weisberger, Mindy. 2018.'Alien Invasion' Radio Broadcast Terrified Listeners 80 Years Ago. Would E.T. Contact Cause Panic Today? Science Daily (30 October).

New Darwinian Story: Waves Could Have Spurned the Evolution of Backbones

Image courtesy of Nobumichi Tamura.




Joel Kontinen

A new Scientist Story says that new Darwinian analysis suggests vertebrate animals evolved in shallow waters.

What does this rely on?

Nothing. It relies on the assumption that backbones “are thought to have begun to diversify around 480 million years ago, splitting into groups that would become jawless fish (like lampreys), cartilaginous fish (including sharks), and a lineage that includes bony fish (such as salmon),” which lead to man.

Now, Lauren Sallan and colleague brought together have 3, 000 early fish fossils.

“We found that all vertebrates, from the first jawless forms to sharks and bony fishes, originated in very restricted shallow waters hugging the coast line,” says Sallan.

He thinks man was evolved in this way.

This is just one of the infamous Darwinian just so-stories.

Source:

Joel, Lucas. 2018. Crashing waves may have spurred the evolution of backbones. New Scientist (25 October).

Biomimicry: Mantis Schrimps Punch with The Force of a Bullet

Image courtesy of Silke Baron, CC BY 2.0.



Joel Kontinen

Intelligent design in nature is so evident that it is becoming increasingly difficult to deny it. In recent years, researchers have copied many amazing designs they have seen in the animal kingdom.

A case for intelligent design is the mantis shrimp, that has many users.

The mantis shrimp smashes its victims’ shells with the force of a .22 caliber bullet. “But that’s not because it has particularly powerful muscles – instead of big biceps, it has arms that are naturally spring-loaded, allowing it to swing its fistlike clubs to speeds up to 23 metres per second.”

“The key part of a mantis shrimp’s punch is a saddle-shaped structure on the arm just above the shrimp’s club. This shape works a bit like a bow and arrow, says Ali Miserez at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore: the muscles pull on the saddle to bend it like an archer’s bow, and when it is released that energy transfers into the club.”

“The shrimp’s saddle holds all that energy without snapping. They found that it works because of a two-layer structure. The top layer is made of a ceramic material similar to bone, and the bottom is made of mostly plastic-like biopolymers.

When the saddle is bent, the top layer gets compressed and the bottom layer is stretched. The ceramic can hold a lot of energy when it is compressed, but is brittle when bent and stretched. The biopolymers are stronger and stretchier, so they hold the whole thing together.”

This isn’t something that Darwin’s blind watchmaker, natural selection, works, in that the shrimp’s punch may be useful in microrobots.

Biomimicry is a science that bring out that what God has designed. And what he did, He did very well.

Source:

Crane, Leah. 2018. Mantis shrimps punch with the force of a bullet – and now we know how. New Scientist (18 October).

Archaeopteryx Is a bird; Refused to Be Turned into a Darwinian Icon

Looks like a bird, doesn't it?




Joel Kontinen

“Archaeopteryx was first recognised as a species in the 1860s. It was immediately seized on as evidence for Darwin’s theory of evolution, because it appeared to be a bird with dinosaur-like traits.”

Now, Martin Kundrát at the University of Pavol Jozef Šafárik in Slovakia and his colleagues have studied a hitherto-unexamined Archaeopteryx fossil:

“Some of the bones are hollow, which makes them lighter. Modern birds have similar bones to help them fly, implying the species could fly.”

In 2011 researchers family conducted a family tree and concluded that Archaeopteryx was a dinosaur, not a bird. The present research confronts this.

After all, Archaeopteryx confronts Darwin’s supporters by
being an enigma that will not turn into a feathered dinosaur.

Source:

Marshall, Michael. 2018. Dinosaur fossil may be a whole new species of the first birds. New Scientist (25 October).

Sugihara Chiune: How a Japanese man saved 6 000 souls from the Holocaust

Sugihara Chiune, known as "Japanese Oskar Schindler. Image courtesy of public domain.




Joel Kontinen

Sugihara Chiune’s father wanted his son to study medicine. Instead, he wanted to study languages and joined the diplomatic corps.

In 1939 he was sent to Lithuania, where he ran the consulate. There he was soon confronted Jews who fled from German-occupied Poland.

Three times he called his embassy, asking for permission to issue visas to the refugees. the answer was no. Chiune desired to defy the government:

“Day and night he wrote visas. He issued as many visas in a day as would normally be issued in a month. His wife, Yukiko, massaged his hands at night, aching from the constant effort. When Japan finally closed down the embassy in September 1940, he took the stationery with him and continued to write visas that had no legal standing but worked because of the seal of the government and his name. At least 6,000 visas were issued for people to travel through Japan to other destinations, and in many cases entire families traveled on a single visa. “

He was not the only one to save Jews:


Irena Sendler, a Polish social worker, teamed with 20 others and smuggled 2,500 children out of the Warsaw Ghetto, some in ambulances and trams between October 1940 and April 1943 and placed them in Catholic homes. And in the UK, they had Frank Foley and sir Nicholas Winton.

Source:

Wolpe, David, 2018, the Japanese Man Who Saved 6,000 Jews With His Handwriting The New York Times (15 October).

"The Probability of life Originating from Accident is Comparable to the probability of the Unabridged Dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing factory.”

Edwin Grant Conklin, Public Domain.




Joel Kontinen

“Edwin Grant Conklin (1863–1952) was a U.S. biologist and zoologist and educated at Ohio Wesleyan and Johns Hopkins universities. He was professor of biology at Ohio Wesleyan (1891-94) and professor of zoelogy at Northwestern (1894-96), the University of Pennsylvania (1896-1908), and Princeton (after 1908). He became coeditor of the Journal of Morphology, the Biological Bulletin, and the Journal of Experimental Zoelogy. He was president of the American Society of Naturalists in 1912 and president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1936."

“Investigated the physical mechanism of cell division and became an authority on human evolution. As a widely respected scientist, he publicly pointed out the problems created by the impact of scientific discoveries on society and cautioned against maintaining archaic social attitudes in the face of a highly sophisticated technology.”

His quote on the accidental arrival of life: “The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the Unabridged Dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing factory.”

Which means, it can’t be done.

Sources:

Encyclopædia Britannica.

Famous Quotes & Sayings

Butterflies Boost Their Hearing with an Unusual Strategy

Image courtesy of D. Gordon E. Robertson, CC BY-SA 3.0.


Joel Kontinen

The world abounds with intelligent matter that cannot have come about by natural design. For instance, some butterflies aid their hearing so that it “enlarges its wing veins to pick up sounds it wouldn’t otherwise hear—a strategy that may be critical to its survival.”

Rcently, “researchers collected 30 common wood nymphs (Cercyonis pegala)—which have unusually swollen forewing veins—and played them low-frequency sounds” to them. “When the forewing vein was damaged, the wood nymphs’ ears were less sensitive overall, particularly to low frequencies between 750 and 5000 hertz, the team reports today in Biology Letters.”

They researchers suggests that “the audio boost may help wood nymphs pick up a broader range of frequencies in their forest environment, which could be critical for detecting potential predators.”

Not like the work of the blind watchmaker. This strategy needs intellectual wisdom, which only God can give.

Source:

Schembri, Frankie, 2018.These butterflies boost their hearing with an unusual strategy. Science (16 October).

New Evolution Story: Plants Cannot Talk, They Depend on Animas to Eat Their Fruit

Image courtesy of C.J Trew, Public Domain.



Joel Kontinen

Plants evolved scents and colours to say eat me to lemurs and primates. They cannot talk, so they depend on non-verbal signals to reach these animals.

Recent research has shown that certain plants have evolved ways to talk to animals. Researchers have found that “ripe figs emit potent scents”, Other fruits have evolved vibrant red and orange fruits that are easier for primates and birds to watch, the same team reported in Biology Letters.

That is something that plants cannot do. Natural selection can’t cause this.

Sometimes, Darwinism can be futile: We have four legs, as we have have a belly.

Source:

Schembri, Frankie. 2018. Plants evolved scents, colors to say ‘eat me’ to lemurs, primates. Science (10 October).
,

”75-Million-Year Old “Ocean Microbes Live Forever

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Image courtesy of Eric Erb, Public domain.



Joel Kontinen


“Deep below the surface of the South Pacific Ocean, buried beneath 70 metres of seafloor sediment, there are microbes that may be about 75 million years old. These organisms are among the oldest known life forms on the planet, yet exactly how they manage to maintain their near-immortality has remained a mystery,” New Scientist tells us.

Now, New Scientist has found a formula to keep the microbes alive: “James Bradley, a geobiologist at the University of Southern California, and his colleagues think they have solved the puzzle: to stay alive, the microbes stay mostly dead.”

However, the formula proposed by New Scientist is off by a few million years.

Source:

Joel, Lucas. 2018. 75-million-year old ocean microbes live forever on almost zero energy. New Scientist (11 October).

Bible Prophecy Holds True: Alexander Changed the World, beating the Persians at Arbela

Image courtesy of the Guardian, public domain.



Joel Kontinen

With only 47,000 men, Alexander III of Macedon (Greek: Αλέξανδρος Γ΄ ὁ Μακεδών; 356 BC –323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great (Ancient Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μέγα), he brought his army against the Persians.

The Macedonian ruler had conquered everything, retaking Alexandria after a 7-month siege. Then he sought to subdue the Persians.

His victory had ben seen by the biblical prophet Daniel:

“While I (Daniel) was observing, behold, a male goat was coming from the west over the surface of the whole earth without touching the ground; and the goat had a conspicuous horn between his eyes. He came up to the ram that had the two horns, which I had seen standing in front of the canal, and rushed at him in his mighty wrath.” saw him come beside the ram, and he was enraged at him; and he struck the ram and shattered his two horns, and the ram had no strength to withstand him. So he hurled him to the ground and trampled on him, and there was none to rescue the ram from his power.” (Daniel 8: 5–7, NASB).

The angel Gabriel told Daniel that the ram represented the Medes and Persians and the goat Greece.

“The Persian numbers were so great that they came close to overwhelming the left and center of Alexander's line. But when the Persian cavalry massed against Alexander's right, leaving their own infantry uncovered in the center, Alexander led a charge that broke through. His men got behind the Persians and attacked them front and back. The Persians panicked and fled. At the loss of less than 500 of his own men, Alexander slaughtered over 40,000 Persians.”

“The victorious Greeks imposed their culture on the Middle East. Koine Greek became widely spoken and it was in this language that the gospel was preached and the New Testament written.”

When the Bible describes historical matters, it always gets the facts, including the tiny details, right. Secular ancient writers were unable to deny the historicity of Jesus.

The Bible tells us about real people and real events, such as the earthquake mentioned by the prophet Amos and the one that occurred during Jesus’ crucifixion.

We should not be surprised, as Jesus Himself says in John 17:17 that God’s Word (the Bible) is truth.

Source:

Graves, Dan. 2007. alexander changed the world a Arbela. Christian History