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

Erosion and Floods Can Made Hugh Differences

Image courtesy of Виктория Шерина, CC BY-SA 4.0.)




Joel Kontinen

“If falling rocks are big enough and hit the ground hard enough they can create a blast so intense that the rocks are pulverised into powder. Such extreme rockfalls are followed by a shockwave that can snap trees hundreds of metres away-

'They’re extremely weird phenomena, which have been somehow overlooked,' says Fabio De Blasio of the University of Milano-Bicocca in Italy.”

There’s more to it:

“Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) are exactly what they sound like. The sudden emptying of a glacial lake in high-topography regions like the Himalaya can quickly destroy everything in its path.”


Just think of what the Genesis Flood could have done. It probably was surrounding by fierce earthquakes, only some thousands of years ago.

Source:

Cook, l. Kristen et al. 2018. Glacial lake outburst floods as drivers of fluvial erosion in the Himalaya. Science 362, 6410, 53-57.

Marshall, Michael. 2018. Falling rocks can explode so hard that only nuclear weapons beat them. New Scientist (9 October).

“Octopuses given the mood drug 'ecstasy' reveal genetic link to evolution of social behaviors in humans"

Image courtesy of Albert Kok, CC BY-SA 3.0,





Joel kontinen

Evolution is full of just- so. stories. Recently, we heard that octopuses are aliens: they were not made on earth.

Now, there’s another picture in sight. The separating us and them can be breached by a drug:

“By studying the genome of a kind of octopus not known for its friendliness toward its peers, then testing its behavioral reaction to a popular mood-altering drug called MDMA or 'ecstasy,' scientists say they have found preliminary evidence of an evolutionary link between the social behaviors of the sea creature and humans, species separated by 500 million years on the evolutionary tree.”

The study, conducted by Gül Dölen M.D, Ph.D., assistant professor of neuroscience and Eric Edsinger.

They say that octopuses are “clever creatures, who can trick prey to come into their clutches. They are further notorious for escaping from their tank, eating other animals' food, eluding caretakers and sneaking around-”

Gül Dölen says that “certain brain chemicals, or neurotransmitters, that send signals between neurons required for these social behaviors are evolutionarily conserved."


Source:

Johns Hopkins Medicine. 2018. Octopuses given mood drug 'ecstasy' reveal genetic link to evolution of social behaviors in humans. Science Daily. (20 September)

Strange, Blue Jellyfish-Like Creatures in New Jersey

Image courtesy of Bruce Moravchik (NOAA), public domain.



Joel Kontinen

Beaches in New Jersey have seen jellyfish-like critters are commonly known as blue buttons (Porpita porpioat), but they aren’t natives to the state.

Although they look like jellyfish, they are a different set of creatures, known as a “ type of creature (or rather, set of creatures) altogether. They fall into the scientific class Hydrozoa, whose members are each made up of colonies of hydroids — tiny predators that are related to jellyfish. The most famous hydrozoan is probably the Portuguese man o' War (Physalia physalis), which can deliver a venomous sting so powerful that it can kill fish and even injure humans, according to National Geographic.”

These Portuguese man o' Wars can cause considerable trouble to swimmers. As the fall in Geneses 3 promised, they can be hazardous.

However, the blue buttons (Porpita porpita) can not so dangerous, but caution is the safest bet.



Source:
Geggel, Laura. 2018. Rare, Blue Jellyfish-Like Creatures Wash Ashore in NJ, Puzzling Beachgoers. Live Science (4 October).

A 520. Million- Year- Old “Naked” Creature

Courtesy of Qiang Ou.


Joel Kontinen


A 3 centimetre (1.1 inche) long Lenisambulatrix humboldti did not have any armour or claws.

This wormlike creature lived in the oceans some “520 million years ago”.

It’s founders compared it with the ferocious creature of the Cambrian.

But even today we have the naked mole rat, that gets animal lovers to get amazed at the creature.


Source:

Geggel, Laura, 2018, Without Claws or Armor, 520-Million-Year-Old 'Naked' Critter Was Likely a Loner. Live Science (20 September).

Frank Foley – British Spy Risked His Life to Save Over 10,000 Jews From Nazi Camps

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UK government, public domain.




Joel Kontinen

Frank Foley, (1884–1958) British spy, who was positioned in Berlin in the 1930s, got to know about the concentration camps that were being built. He was an spy, a bit pauchny, wearing horm--rimmed glasses. Not at all like James Bond.

He fought to get Jewish liberated and sent to Israel. After breaking some rules, he got 10,090 Jews to leave Germany.

Here’s what the British press tells about him:

“i>When the rules insisted on £1,000 for a Palestine visa – a huge sum, especially for Jews with bank accounts frozen by the Nazis – Foley would accept payments of £10 on the grounds that £990 would somehow magically appear once the refugee disembarked in the port of Haifa.

When people said they had no money at all, he would gently hint that maybe someone could write them a letter promising them £1,000 …

In late August, days before war broke out, Foley left the Berlin passport office for the last time, but not before he had summoned someone to collect visas for 80 young Jews.

Even after Foley left Germany, Jews were still escaping on papers signed by him. The last group, 300 men, got out on August 28 1939, four days before Hitler’s invasion of Poland started the Second World War.”

Source:


Lusher, Adam, 2018.Frank Foley: The mild-mannered nered British spy who defied Hitler and saved 10,000 Jews from the Nazis Independent (18 September)

Neanderthals Could Hold a Pen

c

Image courtesy of EraserGirl, CC BY 2.0.




Joel Kontinen

"Neanderthals could hold objects between finger and thumb, just like we would hold a pen, because their hands were neandertal hastag more nimble than anyone thought."

This brings them to whole-heated humanity. Apes cannot write or read.

To find out how Neanderthals used their hands, "Katerina Harvati of the University of Tübingen in Germany and her colleagues studied 'entheses': the points on the bones where muscles were attached. Each enthesis is a raised area of bone."

Her team examined the hand entheses of six Neanderthals and six early modern humans.

Iin the creation mode, Neanderthals were ice age men, leaving in Europe after the flood. It was not surprising that they made the first gluey, they lost their cavemen traits and, we have seen more cavemen inventions.

Recently, more of the skills of the Neanderthals have also been discovered. Why not to treat them as they were, as descendants of Adam and Eve.

Marshall, Michael. 2018. Neanderthals had dexterous hands that could have held tools like a pen. New Scientist (26 September).

Atheists Are Not as Rational as Some Like to Think

Some astronaults were religious.



Joel Kontinen

In the Conversation, Lois Lee says that atheists are not as rational as some like to think:

“Many atheists think that their atheism is the product of rational thinking. They use arguments such as ‘I don’t believe in God, I believe in science’to explain that evidence and logic, rather than supernatural belief and dogma, underpin their thinking. But just because you believe in evidence-based, scientific research – which is subject to strict checks and procedures – doesn’t mean that your mind works in the same way.”

“The problem that any rational thinker needs to tackle, though, is that the science increasingly shows that atheists are no more rational than theists. Indeed, atheists are just as susceptible as the next person to ‘group-think’ and other non-rational forms of cognition.”

The science only stuff might sound odd. Actually, Christian scientists brought the science to the people.

And then individual atheists are less rational than others.

Source:

Lee, Lois. 2018. Why atheists are not as rational as some like to think. . The Conversation (27 September).