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


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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).
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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).