Why Scientific Papers Are Being Retracted

Image courtesy of Frederick Burr Opper, Public Domain




Joel Kontinen

Another year, another 1,433 (and counting) retractions. The tenth year of Retraction Watch’s existence included—as is often the case—a new record, some impressive numbers, and some bizarre stories.

It seems that fake news is on the rise now . And researchers did not take into account a dog sitting on the of editorial board of seven medical journals.

This is what has happened in 2019:

A pair of researchers in India was caught having stolen a paper during the review process and publishing it under their own names in a journal run by the UK’s Royal Society of Chemistry. The 2017 article, which appeared in CrystalEngComm, was ostensibly written by Priyadarshi Roy Chowdhury and Krishna G. Bhattacharyya, of Gauhati University in Jalukbari. But according to the journal, the work had “striking similarities” to a manuscript by two other scientists submitted to the journal Dalton Transactions that one of the authors had reviewed. CrystalEngComm retracted the offending article.



Source:

-The Scientist (16 December).

The 10 Coolest Shark Stories of 2019

Image courtesy of NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, Windows to The Deep, 2019.



Joel Kontinen

This summer, an underwater remotely operated vehicle from the Okeanos Explorer, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) research vessel, filmed an incredible scene of nearly a dozen dogfish sharks feasting on an enormous swordfish carcass that had fallen to the sea floor.

As if that wasn't impressive enough, a few minutes into filming, a goliath grouper (a really big fish) slipped into the picture and gulped one of the sharks down, swallowing it whole. The rest of the sharks remained laser-focused on getting as much of the carcass into their bellies as fast as they could, undisturbed by the larger predator in their midst.

This speaks of the world as it is now, with a predator that will not even spare other predators in the fallen world.



Source:

Hickok, Kimberly. 2019. The 10 Coolest Shark Stories of 2019. Live Science (29 December).

How Antarctica Revealed Its Awesomeness In 2019

Here’s how Novas form. Image courtesy of NASA/CXC/M.Weiss, public domain.




Joel Kontinen

Antarctica is fertile ground for meteorite hunters, because the space rocks that land there accumulate in glaciers and tend to become concentrated. One of these meteorites turned up something incredible, scientists reported in April.

In spite of its pollen and frozen forests,, exotic animals, Antarctica has also some species that go far beyond time, at least in the Darwinian way.

One of its grains, just 0,10 centimetres or 1/25,000 of an inch long, is a speck of dust from a star explosion called a Nova. The dust speck is older than the sun and according to evolution holds clues to the composition of the early solar system.

Soure,

Pappas, Stephanie, 2019. 16 Times Antarctica Revealed Its Awesomeness in 2019 Live Science (26 December).

A Fire In The 7th Century Could Not Wipe Away a Mosaic Depicting One Of Jesus' Miracles

Image courtesy of the University of Haifa, Fair use doctrine.




Joel Kontinen

The Bible is true -all the time. Even the ancient writers could not deny Jesus Even if“a fire in the seventh century may have destroyed an elaborate church in the ancient city of Hippos, but it couldn't wipe away a mosaic depicting one of Jesus' miracles.”

Archaeologists found the mosaic underneath a layer of ashes in the ancient church that overlooked the Sea of Galilee and was built in the fifth or sixth century. The mosaic depicts five loaves of bread and two fish in one section, then baskets overflowing with loaves and fish others — a reference to the New Testament account of Jesus multiplying a few servings of food into a feast for 5,000 men (and children and women).

Source,

Pappas, Stephanie. 2019, From Jesus' Time: The 10 Most Interesting Biblical Discoveries of 2019. Live Science (23 December).

Turkey Lets Hamas Use Its Soil to Attack Israel

Image courtesy of Arild Vågen, CC BY-SA 3.0.





Joel Kontinen

The EU and US Consider Hamas a terrorist organisation. Yet, Turkey, under its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, plays host to its leaders, Hamas operatives are using Istanbul as a stage for launching operations on Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Last year they attempted to murder the mayor of Jerusalem. Israel has often told Turkey that Hamas is using its territory to plan attacks, but last weekend Mr Erdogan met Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas, saying that they will keep to supporting our brothers in Palestine, and even the deputy leader, who “has a $5 million US government bounty on his head, travels freely to the country without fear of arrest.”

Source:

Sanchez, Raf, 2019. Exclusive: Hamas plots attacks on Israel from Turkey as Erdogan turns blind eye. Telegraph (17 December).

Christian Pro-Israel Group’s Leader Slams the Palestinian Claim Jesus Was Palestinian

Christ the Saviour (Pantokrator), a 6th-century encaustic icon from Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai, public domain.




Joel Kontinen

Certain Palestinians have taken the Jesus -mytm that Jesus was Palestinian as what the Bible says. However, God’s word does not say this about Him.

The president of pro-Israel Christian group Proclaiming Justice to The Nations (PJTN) Laurie Cardoza-Moore says that “This is not just a matter of opinion, the narrative that Jesus was Palestinian is deeply rooted in a global anti-Semitic movement to rob Christians of their true Hebraic heritage and align the Church with radical terrorist groups that seek the annihilation of the Jewish State,” she said.

Laurie Cardoza-Moore Suggested that ”If Jesus were alive today he would not be allowed to enter the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) City off Bethelem Because of his Jewish roots.”

For instance, IN 2014, the PA President Mahmoud Abbas said, “We celebrate the birth of Jesus, a Palestinian messenger of love, justice and peace.”

He brought peace to the Palestinians who have to rely on His words.

Source:

Pro-Israel Christian leader slams ‘Palestinian Jesus’ myth: He was a ‘Judean Jew’ World Israel News (19 December).

A Chinese Dwarf May Solve the Hobbit Syndrome

A skeleton found in China belonged to an individual with a rare form of dwarfism. Image courtesy of Sian Halcrow et al. 2019.



Joel Kontinen

a Chinese dwarf may solve the hobbit syndrome. Hobbits or Flores Menn has been quite lively discussed in the past few years. (You can read more here, here and here.). According to fresh research, the Hobbit was not a distinct human species but a true H. sapiens suffering from iodine deficiency.

This is what the Chinese dwarf symbolises. Although not as old as the hobbits, it was a good 5,000 years old, posted on December 13 in the International Journal of Paleopathology, it may be a case for hobbit. However, this limbs of this dwarf that were shorter-than-her average stature.

It may well solve the hobbit syndrome.

Source;

Lanese, Nicoletta. 2019. 5,000-Year-Old Human Found with 'Extremely Rare' Form of Dwarfism Live Science (16 December).

Tardigrades are on the Moon

Image courtesy of Scuttleshock, fair use doctrine.




Joel Kontinen

The Israeli moon mission Beresheet that crashed into the Moon last spring, had a load of water bears on board.

The supercreatures are really super, even though they are from the Cambrian or 530 million years ago.

The millions of years is a misnomer.

Evolutionists have also found a new creature, almost as small as a tardigrade.

“But as long as the tardigrades remain on the moon, their chances of spontaneously awakening are low. Without liquid water, the tiny creatures will remain in a tun state, and while there's evidence of ice on the moon, liquid water is nowhere to be found. “

Source,

Weisberger, Mindy. 2019, There Are Thousands of Tardigrades on the Moon. Now What? Live Science (15 August).

Will We Get Alien Life In 2020?

Image courtesy of SETh Shostak/SETI Institute.




Joel Kontinen
.
Writing on Space.com, Leonard David says; “Probably not, but there are reasons to be optimistic about our near-future prospects.”

He goes to say that scientist have "found more than 4,000 exoplanets in three decades, as the numbers keep rolling in, observation says that every star in the universe can host more than one star."

He also asked a top SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) experts for their advice in gaining site for intellectual life.

Seth Shostak said that apart ,from the typical ways to getting infornation, there’s also luck: "And, of course, there's always the unexpected," Shostak said. "In 1996, the biggest science story of the year was the claim that fossilized Martian microbes had been found in a meteorite. No one really saw that coming. So one can always hope to be taken by surprise."

The Martian microbes were bogus, and so it seems that the rest of SETAs tactics are also. One can only get life from an intelligent source.

Source:

David, Leonard. 2019. Will 2020 Be the Year We Find Intelligent Alien Life? Space.com (26 November).

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Noah’s Flood May Account For A River 1,600 Kilometres (1,000 Miles) Long Spotted Under The Ice In Greenland

Image courtesy of Christopher Chambers et al, Fair Use Doctrine.






Joel Kontinen

Many geological discoveries suggest that our planet was once much warmer than it is now. We have read of Arctic dinosaur fossils, camel fossils in Canada, pollen from tropical trees in Antarctica and a fossilised tropical forest in Norway, to name just a few examples.

A new study shows frozen rivers beneath Greenland’s ice sheets.

Now, a study showing that a frozen river 1,600 kilometres or 1,000 miles long to be flowing under Greenland’s ice sheet has just been pronounced at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). "Christopher Chambers, a researcher at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan. Chambers and his colleagues created simulations to explore the valley at different depths and model how water might melt from the surface of a glacier to the depths below — perhaps creating a flowing river, Chambers said. He presented their findings on Dec. 9 here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).


Suorce:

Weisberger Mindy. 2919. A Dark River Nearly 1,000 Miles Long May Be Flowing Beneath Greenland's Ice. Live Science (12 December).

Plants Scream In The Face Of Stress

Image courtesy of Dennis Brown, CC BY-SA 3.0.



Joel Kontinen

We knew trees and other plants display signs of intelligence, but we obviously never expected them to sleep .

Clever trees defy Darwinian expectations by doing so .

While plants aren’t animals, they share all kinds of tricks. and eucalyptus sweats to keep cool .

They depend on animals to eat their fruit.

Now, a study , which was posted December 2 on the bioRxiv database says that “plants can scream. near stressed tomato and tobacco plants, the instruments picked up the crops' ultrasonic squeals from about 4 inches (10 cm) away… The noises fell within a range of 20 to 100 kilohertz, a volume that could feasibly ‘be detected by some organisms from up to several meters away’, the authors noted.“

Well, that is what some plants can obviously do.

Source.

Lanese, Nicoletta, 2019. Plants 'Scream' in the Face of Stress. Live Science (8.12).

A 95-Million-Year-Old Fossil With No Evolution

Image courtesy of Daderot, public domain.




Joel Kontinen

Some pterosaurs were almost too heavy for evolution to have them fixed.

However, a new study published in Scientific Reports looks at some smaller ones, They were found in a private limestone quarry in Lebanon more than 15 years ago. They were assumed to have lived roughly 95 million years ago.

They probably fed on crustaceans, flying on long, narrow wings and catching its prey at the surface of shallow waters, as do modern seabirds like the albatross and frigatebird.

The pterosaurs had no ancestors.


Source:

Willis, Katie. 2019, 95-million-year-old fossil reveals new group of pterosaurs.Phys.org (2 December).

The World’s Oldest Comma Shrimp Looks Like Today’s Shrimp

Image courtesy of Javier Luque. Fair Use Doctrine





Joel Kontinen

"We are amazed by how similar Eobodotria muisca is to today's species," said Yale paleontologist Javier Luque, lead author of the study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

This means that no evolution has occurred in 90 million years- The oldest modern looking shrimp have 160 million Darwin years behind them and even a 300.million tear old shrimp is a living fossil.

Source.

Shelton, Jim. 2019. World's oldest comma shrimp was way ahead of the curve. Phys.org (27 November).

The Spanish Habsburg Had A Nose Formed by Inbreeding

Image courtesy of Don Juan Carreño de Miranda, Public Domain.



Joel Kontinen

A trait of the Habsburg dynasty in Spain was the Habsburg jaw, that was most likely the result of centuries of inbreeding.

The line from the 16th to the 18th centuries that came to an end, when Charles 2 died in 1700, failing to produce an heir.

Now, scientists have said that centuries of inbreeding had brought this deformity on their faces.

This causes us to wonder at the goodness of God and to say that this deformity was caused by selection.- not the natural kind - of centuries of inbreeding caused by genetic homozygosity, when all descendants share the same genes to produce a human being.

Thus, inbreeding can spoil the great walks of God, who wants us to be elegant.

Source:

Saplakoglu, Yasemin. 2019, Inbreeding Caused the Distinctive 'Habsburg Jaw' of 17th Century Royals That Ruled Europe. Live Science (2 December).

Remarkable’ fossil features an insect trapped in amber, stuck to a dinosaur jaw

Image courtesy of Emma Jones/University of Alberta, fair use doctrine. The picture shows fossil features an insect trapped in amber, stuck to a dinosaur jaw.



Joel Kontinen

A dinosaur or 75-million year- old hadrosaur, found in the Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta, Canada, had a 7 centimetre wide blob of amber, containing traces of trees and sap-sucking aphids.

Scientist think that after the Prosaurolophus hadrosaur died, "it washed into a river, There the Prosaurolophus, The blob, containing an unlucky aphid, washed up against the bone and was pressed against it by the flow of water, the scientists argue. It was then covered in sediment for tens of millions of years, during which time the resin hardened into amber".

The episode can also be treated like the waters of The flood of Noah’s day can account for the sap and its content, that is the aphids.

Source.

Pickrell, John, 2019, ‘Remarkable’ fossil features an insect trapped in amber, stuck to a dinosaur jaw, Science (29 November).

What If the Earth Was Flat?

Image courtesy of shutterstock, Fair Use Doctrine.


Joel Kontinen


If the earth was flat, there would be no Moon. That would be a hazard for people living here – and the moon is responsible for giving us tides.

Most scholars who wrote on the shape of the earth said that our planet was round.

One of the earliest writers to do so was the English monk known as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede (673–735). In his book De temporum ratione (On the Reckoning of Time), he explicitly stated that the earth was round.

Iohannes de Sacrobosco (ca. 1195–1256) was a monk and an astronomer who wrote an entire book on the shape of the earth. Entitled De sphaera mundI (On the Sphere of the World), it was published in 1230. His argumentation sounds very modern:

“THE EARTH A SPHERE. -- That the earth, too, is round is shown thus. The signs and stars do not rise and set the same for all men everywhere but rise and set sooner for those in the east than for those in the west; and of this there is no other cause than the bulge of the earth. Moreover, celestial phenomena evidence that they rise sooner for Orientals than for westerners. For one and the same eclipse of the moon which appears to us in the first hour of the night appears to Orientals about the third hour of the night, which proves that they had night and sunset before we did, of which setting the bulge of the earth is the cause.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) was probably the greatest theologian of the Middle Ages. In his Summa Theologica, he described the earth as being round like a ball. He pointed out that it was not shaped like a shield.

In addition to books, we can also see evidence for a spherical earth in the symbols that the rulers of the Byzantine Empire and the Holy Roman Empire used. A coin minted during the reign of Emperor Theodeseus II (who ruled from AD 408 to AD 450) already shows the Globus Cruciger, which is Latin for “cross-bearing orb”. The cross symbolises the victory of Christ on the cross and the orb beneath it depicts the shape of the Earth.

The Globus Cruciger became a symbol of imperial power. For instance, a 7th century coin depicts Emperor Leontius holding this object.

A medieval painting shows Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor (1017–1056), being presented with this symbolic sphere. And a 13th century painting shows Emperor Fredrick I Barbarossa holding the Globus Cruciger in his hand.

It looks very round.There are some people who think the Earth is flat, for instance
here.

Source:


Pappas, Stephanie, 2019. What If the Earth Was Flat? Live Science (22 November).

Atheist Do Not Think That Death Is Not The End

Hugo Simberg The Garden of the Dead.




Joel Kontinen

Many people, even atheists think can life does not end when we leave this life. This can out during a test that that News Scientist refers to.

Some of the people asked were atheists, they do not believe in the after-life. However, They believed that the I never changes, that it keep on going unchanged, afterwards as over here.

Soure:

Lawton, Graham, 2019, Why almost everyone believes in an afterlife – even atheists New Scientist (20 November).

Life On Mars – Their Has Been And There is, A Gentleman Says

Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech. public domain.



Joel Kontinen

As a scientist said that photographic proof of Mars says that its habitable other scientist say that it’s not.

This could actually hurt the search for intelligent life.

“William Romoser, a professor emeritus who specializes in arbovirology (the study of viruses transmitted by arthropods) and entomology at Ohio University, has compiled photographs from NASA Mars rovers that he says are evidence of life on Mars. There has been and still is life on Mars," Romoser said. ”

However, “Romoser's evidence for this alleged Martian life comes only from his interpretation of these photographs. As he asserts in the findings he presented on Nov. 19 at the national meeting of the Entomological Society of America, the images show the shapes of life-forms that look similar to reptiles and bee-like insects. According to the statement, these observations are of both fossilized and living creatures on the surface of Mars.”

This could just be seeing what one wants to see. That is; live on Mars – of the evolutionary view. but life cannot grow when their no Designer. God has given mankind a stage on which to perform, says Aapollo 8 astronault on which to perform

Source:

Gohd, Chelsea. 2019. Still Not Aliens: 'Mars Bug' Claim Could Damage the Search for Life Space.com (22 November)

Why The Triassic Dragons Had Such Great Heads

Image courtesy of Dmitry Bogdanov, CC BY 3.0.


Joel Kontinen

These reptiles had enormous heeds. It seemed that they were made of the head and something else. – that is, if the fossils correctly spells out what the specimens looked like.

They looked like the Komodo dragon with their oversized head. they are known as erythrosuchids, and evolutionists believe that they got their head by becoming erythrosuchids, that is, by becoming eaters, a way a new study suggests.

Evolutionist believe that “Burly, big-headed erythrosuchids lived between 250 million and 238 million years ago, during the early part of the Triassic period (251 million to 199 million years ago)."

This probably refers to the time that they become carnivorous, after the Fall in Genesis 3.


Source:

Weisberger, Mindy. 2019,.Weird Triassic 'Dragons' Had Massive Heads. Here's Why.Live Science (22 November).

Dinosaurs In Old Chinese Vessels

Camarasaurus. Image courtesy of Dmitry Bogdanov, CC BY 3.0.




Joel Kontinen

Evolutionists do not believe that dinosaurs and man met. They believe that the dinos died out some 66 million of years ago in a catastrophe.

However, dinos are pictured in all artists pictured them. For instance, they appear in cups made and bought in China, appearing in “wine vessel excavated in 1975 from a tomb in Sanmenxia, Henan Province, China, demonstrates this beautifully. Cast in bronze with much of its gold inlay still preserved, the stunning artistry is clear.”

While the Chinese will call them as dragons, They look much like the modern pictures of dinosaurs. This means that the artist had seen them alive.

Dragon is the old Chinese word for dinosaurs.

Source:

Robinson, Phil. 2019. A Chinese Camarasaurus? Creation 41(4):38–39, (October).

Surprise For Darwinists: Fish Can Judge Distances Just Like Land Animals

Image courtesy of Viridiflavus CC BY-SA 3.0.



Joel Kontinen

Darwinists thought that land animals are more sophisticated than fish. Now, however, tigerfish know how far they have swum. And this spell doom for the old Darwinian view of land animals being smarter than fish.

New Scientist says that, contrary of evolution’s views could also mean that “ray-finned fish, known as teleosts and which comprise 96 per cent of all freshwater and marine fish species on the planet, have a region of the brain that works like our hippocampus does.”

It could also mean “the way we navigate, and – if analogous in fish – could mean that spatial memory first evolved 400 million years ago when these fish, mammals and birds shared a common ancestor.”

So it means that the fish were human ancestors, like Richard Dawkins has said.

But that is just a Darwinian just- so story, without any evidence.

Source:

Scully, Ruby Prosser. 2019. Scully Fish can judge distances accurately just like land animals can. New Scientist (14 November).

Darwinists Try to Get Life in Its Cradle

Image courtesy of Graham Carter, Fair use doctrine.


Joel Kontinen

On earth, life seems to be everywhere.

This is why some scientist have gone under the ground to seek for it.

And some things, like the And some things, the Tardigrades, can also live where we couldn’t.

“’ IT’S the smell of science!’ says Heidi Aronson, her face dimly lit by the beam of her head torch. In that case, science smells like an egg sandwich that’s been left out past its use-by date and then rolled in mud.”

They are below the earth’s surface. They are in a surface that reeks of hydrogen sulphide and the walls are slimy with slow-growing microbial deposits. The air reeks of hydrogen sulphide and the walls are slimy with slow-growing microbial deposits.

Aronson is hunting aliens. This could be a general breakthrough for Darwinists, Hunting for aliens in a Darwinian way.

Even though life requires a starter that we generally think we think was God.

Source:

Lu, Donna. 2019. Why the hunt for alien life is under way far beneath Earth's surface. New Scientist (13 November).

Dino-Era Bird In 3d

Image courtesy of Masanori Yoshida, Fair use doctrine.



Joel Kontinen

The bird fossil is l20 million years old, that’s what the experts say.

It is the size of a pigeon. it is named Fukuipteryx prima, and ”displays something found in modern birds that is absent in other early Cretaceous bird fossils: a bony plate near the tail.”

It was found in Japan. Like the Archaeopteryx that is the oldest known bird, Fukuipteryx had an unfused pelvis and a U-shaped wishbone: hallmarks of primitive birds. However, it is more primitive than the bird found in China, Jeholornis. or Eoconfuciusornis zhengi or the soft tissue fund in a 120 million years old bird.

That is what the experts say.

The findings were published online on The findings were published online on 14 November in the journal Communications Biology.

Source:

Weisberger, Mindy. 2019.Dinosaur-Era Bird Preserved in 3D Could Rewrite History of Flight. Live Science (14.11.).

Puppy With a Tail Isn’t A Tail

Image courtesy of Macsmission.org, fair use dialogue.



Joel Kontinen




Source:

Lu, Donna. 2019. Why the hunt for alien life is under way far beneath Earth's surface. Microbes that breathe sulphur could redefine what it means to be alive and provide clues about what organisms may lurk in the cosmos New Scientist (13 November.


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Scientist Have Found a Living Relative of Bigffoot

Image courtesy of Ghedoghedo, CC BY-SA 3.0).




Joel Kontinen

Bigfoot was a legend, but in spite of what National Geographic tells us, some people still like to see it.

People seem to look to it as the yeti, the snowman in the Himalayas.

This is what live science tells about a cousin of the bigfoot:

”Gigantopithecus blacki dwarfed the great apes that live today; it stood around 10 feet (3 meters) tall and weighed up to 270 kilograms (595 lbs). But as massive as Gigantopithecus was in life, fossils of the hefty primate have been few and hard to find — thousands of teeth and four partial jaws — leaving many questions about the extinct ape's evolutionary lineage and appearance.”

However, the post says that they have found the closest living relative of bigfoot, which is nonsense, as it was almost 2 million years old.

Now, scientist have recovered a Gigantopithecus molar dating to 1.9 million years ago. The bigfoot isn’t a human ancestor, but like chimpanzees and bonobos it is a chimp ancestor.

Weisberger, Mindy. 2019. Closest Living Relative of Extinct 'Bigfoot' Found. Live Science (13 November).

Scientist See a Living Fossil in Vietnam

A silver-backed chevrotain. Image courtesy of live science, fair use doctrine.




Joel Kontinen

It looks like a part-deer, and scientist hadn’t seen it for almost 30 years.

"With the distinguishing silver line down its back that starts just behind its shoulders, the silver-backed chevrotain (Tragulus versicolor) looks a bit like a deer, but it's the size of a large house cat. The species is thought to be endemic to Vietnam and was first described in the early 20th century and again in 1990. Since then, the silver-backed chevrotain had been "missing."

Now it was found.

And the search party got 1,881 pictures of the species.

The chevrotain is a living fossil, it hasn’t changed for 34 “million years”.

The enormous number of living fossils should be an embarrassment to a theory (Darwinian evolution) that is often defined as change over time.


Source:

Saplakoglu, Yasemin. 2019. A Tiny Species That Looks Part-Deer, Part-Mouse Was Missing for Nearly 30 Years. Scientists Just Found It. Live Science (11.11.).

30 Years Since the Berlin Wall Came Down

Image courtesy of Lyricmac, CC BY-SA 3.0. Memorial to the Victims of the Wall, Berlin in 1986.



Joel Kontinen

The East German leaders called it the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall).

When Germany was divided up by the aliens after World War II, and in 1961 the soviets found it necessary to keep East Berliners away from the west.

The wall was 140 kilometres (87 miles) long. In June 1962, a second, parallel fence was built some 100 metres (110 yards) farther into East German territory. The houses contained between the fences were razed and the inhabitants relocated, thus establishing what later became known as the death strip.

At least 140 people met their death, when escaping.

U.S. President Ronald Reagan said in 1987: “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this Wall!”

Just two years after the saying, the Berlin Wall came down. Thus the gate to keep the Berliners in East Berlin had failed, showing that the Orwellian history is over.

Source:

Reagan's 'tear down this wall' speech turns 20. 2007. USA Today.

Ancient Ape with 'Human Legs' and 'Orangutan Arms'

Image courtesy of Christoph Jäckle, fair use doctrine.


Joel Kontinen


“More than 11 million years ago, an oddball ape equipped with human-like legs and robust ape-like arms clambered across tree limbs, possibly escaping feline predators. That's the picture that scientists have gleaned about a new species of fossil ape discovered in Bavaria.”

The species is called Danuvius guggenmosi, named after Danuvius, the Celtic – Roman river god and after the man who found the place where they were found, Sigulf Guggenmos.

“Danuvius is like an ape and a hominin in one," study lead author Madelaine Böhme, a palaeontologist at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen in Germany.”

Evolutionists claim that while the fossil could hang from trees, just like the modern big apes, it did not walk its fingers were not as robust like one would have expected of big apes, that is, knuckle-walkers.
But the evidence is in the fossils, and we cannot know they were from the same species. It has often happened that the fossils of one species have begun to mix with another one.

The scientist concluded that the study was outlined in the November issue of the journal Nature.

Source:

Choi, Charles Q, 2019. Ancient Ape with 'Human Legs' and 'Orangutan Arms' Moved Like No Other Creature on Earth. Live Science (5 November).

Why the Multiverse is Religion, not Science

Image courtesy of HossenfelderS, CC BY-SA 4.0.




Joel Kontinen

Theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder is an author and theoretical physicist who researches quantum gravity. She is a Research Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies.

She did her PhD degree in Black Holes in Large Extra Dimensions and she, has written for Nature, New Scientist, Scientific American.

Now, she says that the multiverse idea is religion. I would say that while we cannot have an encounter with God, we know that he lives and He’s given us His word the Bible that we know is the truth.

Rituals for The Ones Believing in Science

Sasha Sagan's new book "For Small Creatures Such as We" (G.P Putnam's Sons, 2019). Image courtesy of Brian C. Seitz, fair use doctrine.



Joel Kontinen

"People are born and people die. We've all got to get through it one way or another," this is what the daughter of Carl Sagan said after her book was published.

Sasha Sagan is a religious Jew but sees her task as giving rituals for those who trust in science, such as an image of a black hole. “The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be", as her father used to say.

Evidence speak to her as science, as natural phenomena. She says that science is her evidence, even though it changes. When her father was young, we had a very different idea of what Earth looked like – or Pluto.

And we certainly knew that there were other things apart of cosmos.

Source:

Gohd, Chelsea. 2019. Sasha Sagan Dives into Science, Space and Spirituality in New Book. Space.com (30 October).

Horn of the Jewish Stone Altar Discovered at Shiloh

Image courtesy of בית השלום, public domain.


Joel Kontinen

“The archaeological dig at Shiloh in Samaria has produced yet another wonder straight out of the Bible: stone horns from the altar that once stood in front of the Tabernacle.”

This is what the Bible says:

"This is the height of the altar: from the base on the ground to the lower ledge, two cubits; the width of the ledge, one cubit; from the smaller ledge to the larger ledge, four cubits; and the width of the ledge, one cubit."( Ezekiel 43:15, New King James Version).

Archaeologists and volunteers, led by led by Dr. Scott Stripling, digged up the artefacts in 2017.

According to Biblical accounts, the Tabernacle stood in Shiloh until the First Temple was built in Jerusalem. The age of the find is significant as archaeologists have discovered a change of cultures in the region, transitioning in the period between 1200 BC – 1000 BC from a Canaanite culture to the Tribes of Israel and the Philistines.

The horns that stood by the altar had to come from the portable structure that stood until the temple was build.

Thus, this artefact once again proves that the Bible got it right.

Source:

Berkowitz, Adam Eliyahu. 2019. Horn of the Stone Altar Discovered at Shiloh. Breaking Israel News (1 November).

Creationist were right on the causes to build proteins

Image courtesy of Aza Toth, public domain.



Joel Kontinen

Life uses a common set of 20 coded amino acids (CAAs) to construct proteins. This set was likely canonicalized during early evolution; before this, smaller amino acid sets were gradually expanded as new synthetic, proofreading and coding mechanisms became biologically available.

The expression, likely canonised during early evolution,is evolution speak. That is, it is not possible to make it any stronger.

This study showed that in silico hypothetical CAA sets of 3–19 amino acids comprised of 1913 structurally diverse α-amino acids, exploring the adaptive value of their combined physicochemical properties relative to those of the modern CAA set.

Thus, life came about because it was intelligently designed by God.

Source:

Ilardo, Mwlisssa et al. Adaptive Properties of the Genetically Encoded Amino Acid Alphabet Are Inherited from Its Subsets. Scientific Reports 9, Article number: 12468 (2019).

Neandertals Visited Naxos, Greece, By Boat

Image courtesy of Tango 7174, CC BY-SA 4.



Joel Kontinen

Humans were visiting some Greek Islands earlier that what we knew. A study, published in Science Advances, is based on years of excavations and it challenges current thinking about human movement in the region. They found about 9,000 artefacts, including Mousterian products.

This all happen way back when the Neanderthals and earlier humans (this is, Homo erectus) where the only humans around, according to evolution.

We already know that Neanderthals were fully human. they built their culture in the same way we do, we belief that they lived in Europe after the flood of Noah’s days. Thus this study with their artefacts made in 13,000 to 200,000 years ago were made by humans. And Naxos from where they found these was roughly hundreds of kilometres from the shores. They had to come by boats.

"The new evidence is leading researchers to reconsider the routes our early ancestors took as they moved out of Africa into Europe and demonstrates their ability to adapt to new environmental challenges."

The out of Africa thing is an old Darwinian rule than has not withstood the times. Along with millions of years, it has gone bust. We know that God created man in the Near East.

Source:

Carter, Tristan et al. 2019. Earliest occupation of the Central Aegean (Naxos), Greece: Implications for hominin and Homo sapiens’ behavior and dispersals. Science Advances (16 October). 5, 10, eaax0997DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aax0997.

McMaster University. 2019. Scientists find early humans moved through Mediterranean earlier than believed. Science Daily (16 October).

Alarmist Want to Cut Nitrogen Pollution

Testing of nitrogen flux measurement methods over rice in Odisha, India. Image courtesy of Mark Sutton, Fair use doctrine.




Joel Kontinen

Nitrogen, which consist of 78 of the air that we breath, can be a toxic pollution.

Nitrous through its many forms, such as "ammonia, nitrogen dioxide oxide (that is 300 time more powerful than having carbon dioxide), and nitrate. it is polluting our air, soil and water, posing a threat to human health, biodiversity, economies and livelihoods."

They hope tackle the widespread harm it is causing to humans, wildlife and the planet.

Now, 150 top international scientists are calling for a curb to nitrogen pollution, “to tackle the widespread harm it is causing to humans, wildlife and the planet.”

They hope to tackle the nitrogen problem which is more than a carbon problem.

We don’t have Greta Thunberg, who warns us of nitrogen’s ill effects. Yet,” Nitrogen losses in UK are estimated at 1.4 million tonnes a year, at a market cost of US $1.4 billion, globally this amounts to 200 million tonnes a year at cost of US $200 billion,”. "80 per cent of nitrogen used by humans—including through crop, meat and dairy production, as well as via transport, energy, industrial and wastewater processes—is wasted and enters the environment as pollution."

The experts want to cut the use of nitrogen pollutants by 2030. God has given us nitrogen. However, we have misused it, as we have also misused some other substances with which we are blessed.

Source:

Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. 2019. We must wake up to devastating impact of nitrogen, say scientists. 2019. Phys.org (23 October).

The Aye -Aye Have Extra Thumbs

Image courtesy of Nomis-simon, CC BY 2.0.



Joel Kontinen

The aye-aye. a monkey living in Madagascar, have a strange extra thumb.

Says Adam Hartstone-Rose, an associate professor of biological sciences at North Carolina State University (NCSU); "The species has so many features that are unique among primates — ever-growing incisors, their specialized fingers, and huge ears — and their pseudothumb is yet more more evidence of this."

The extra thumb helps them to tap into tree branches to find what’s inside of them, helping them to taste the find the taste grub inside of them.

It is not a thumb that has accidentally grown so long. it speaks of intelligent design.


Source

Weisberger, Mindy. 2019. 'Cursed' Primate Weirdos Have Extra Thumbs. Scientists Didn't Know About Them Until Now. Live Science (21 Oxtober).

A “Lost” Street Built by Pontius Pilate Found In Jerusalem

Image courtesy of Shutterstock, fair use doctrine.



Joel Kontinen


A street build by Pontius Pilate needed 10,000 tons of cement to build it. Archaeologists have now found a street 600 meters long (2,000-foot) street, that “would have connected the Siloam Pool — a place where pilgrims could stop to bathe and get fresh water — to the Temple Mount.”

Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority and Tel Aviv University dug under the current streets to come up with the street Pilate built. They also found They found dozens of coins, with the most recent dating back to A.D. 30/31, a time when historical records show that Pontius Pilate was prefect of Judea.

All archaeologists think that the street was built by Pilate.

Source:

Jarus, Owen. 2019. Archaeologists Identify 'Lost' Jerusalem Street Built by Pontius Pilate — the Man Who Condemned Jesus to Death. Live Science (22 October).

Why Don’t Mountains Grow Taller Than Mount Everest?

Image courtesy of Pavel Novak, CC BY-SA 2.



Joel Kontinen:

Why don-t mountains on Earth grow taller than Mount Everest? According to Life Science, there are two factors:

As Nadine McQuarrie, a professor in the department of geology and environmental science at the University of Pittsburg says, the first is gravity. That is, it can only grow to 8,840 meters (29,029 feet ) above sea level. Mmountains of mars can grow much taller. “Within Mars' Olympus Mons, the tallest known volcano in the solar system, extends 82,020 feet (25,000 m) high, nearly three times taller than Mount Everest”, she says.

The second factor is rivers: they erode material, so that the height of Everest is the limit.

What she hasn’t noticed: The flood of Noah’s day brought the uplift that Mars didn.t have, It brought the rise of mountains, that secular science can’t tell.

Source:

5aplakoglu, Yasemin. 2019.Why Don't Mountains Grow Forever? Live Science (19. October).

Sea Cucumber Help to Protect the Coral Reefs

Image courtesy of Leonard Low, CC BY 2.0.



Joel Kontinen

A sea cucumber looks a bit like a cucumber.it is an invertebrate, living on the seafloor. there are 1,250 of them. they measure some 1.9 centimetres or three-quarters of an inch to 1.8 metres or 6 feet long.

They have “ five rows of tiny feet that run lengthwise down their bodies, from mouth to anus.” and can live on “pieces of algae and marine creatures”.

They can digest sand and , “sea cucumbers excrete byproducts that benefit ocean ecosystems, particularly coral reefs,” and as their products a relatively high (or basic) pH, which means the water surrounding sea cucumber habitats is somewhat protected from ocean acidification. Sea cucumbers also excrete calcium carbonate, which is a primary ingredient in coral formation, and ammonia, which acts as a fertilizer and promotes coral growth.”

So, we see that God has created the animals to care for nature.

Source:

Ross, Rachel. 2019. What Is a Sea Cucumber? Live Science. (16 October).

Computers Will Never Be Truly Conscious, Says Professor

Image courtesy of Jared C. Benedict, CC BY-SA 2.0.



Joel Kontinen


Some Artificial intelligent folks are saying that we will soon give way to computers who will say what’s best for us.

However, a professor in of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Oklahoma State University says that will not certainly happen, Subhash Kak says that computers can never be truly conscious.

While firms such as Microsoft have spent or are spending 1 million dollars on project to make computers faster, they have never even come close to having a supercomputer with brains. All such attempts, both by European and US, have failed entirely.

Professor Kak says that our brains are far different to those in computers, In particular, “A conscious person is aware of what they're thinking, and has the ability to stop thinking about one thing and start thinking about another — no matter where they were in the initial train of thought. But that's impossible for a computer to do.”

Thus, he says that the human brain is too much for those having a go at artificial intelligence.

Source:

Kak, Subhash, 2019. Why Computers Will Never Be Truly Conscious. Live Science (16 October),

Bones Filled with Marrow Served as Prehistoric Humans' 'Cans of Soup'

Image courtesy of Dr. Ruth Blasco/AFTAU.



Joel Kontinen


Eating a can or tin of meat isn’t as new as we would subject. When people were assumed to be hunter-gatherers, they did not just eat what they caught, they also reserved some of it for later use.

In a cave in Israel, thought to be at least 400,000 years old, the humans stored “bones packed with fat and tasty, nutrient-rich marrow to crack open and eat later.”

The dates in this context are all wrong.

They “stored bones packed with fat and tasty, nutrient-rich marrow to crack open and eat later.”

The bones were usual as cans, for later use.

The findings were posted in October 9th in the journal Science Advances.

Source:

Weisberger, Mindy. 2019, Bones Filled with Marrow Served as Prehistoric Humans' 'Cans of Soup' Live Science (11 October).

The Golden Ratio in Human Skulls

The Golden Ratio is shown in this picture. Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, public domain.



Joel Kontinen

The golden ratio is supposedly hidden in every beautiful site, from a snail's shell to Greece's Parthenon and Egypt's pyramids, it's perhaps not surprising that humans have long tried to link it to - humans.

Now, however, Dr. Rafael Tamargo, professor of neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and his colleague Dr. Jonathan Pindrik, a neurosurgeon at Nationwide Children's Hospital and an assistant professor of neurological surgery at The Ohio State University College of Medicine, decided to look into humans.

Nonetheless, anatomists were not pleased with the results, published in the findings were published September 1 in The Journal of Craniofacial Surgery. They said that the results wanted to make humans special, unlike their hairy cousins.

But humans are special – created by God in the beginning.

Source:

Saplakoglu. Yasemin. 2019.The Human Skull Obeys the 'Golden Ratio,' Study Suggests. Anatomists Say That's Ridiculous. Live Science (11 October).

'Mold Pigs' Are the New Micro-Beast in Town

Image courtesy of George Poinar Jr, Fair use doctrine.



Joel Kontinen

Tardigrades were the smallest animals yet to be found, but Geogge Poinar jr, and electron-microscopist Roberta Hess (who happens to be Poinar’s wife), captured these small 100 micrometres or 0.003 inches long individuals, found in the Dominican republic, as their name Sialomorpha dominicana suggests.

They we found in amber and are supposed to be “ "30 million years old.”

Although the mold pigs resemble the tardigrades, They are their own species.

He and Diane Nelson described their discovery in a paper published on September 28 in the journal Invertebrate Biology.

The discovery speaks of God's guidance in creating the world.

Source:

Lanese, Nicoletta. 2019, Move Over, Tardigrades — 'Mold Pigs' Are the New Micro-Beast in Town. Live Science (9.10.).

Archaeologists Find Old City Near Tel Aviv

Image courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority. Fair use doctrine.




Joel Kontinen

Israeli Archaeologists have discovered a lost city north of Tel Aviv, This large with approximately 6,000 inhabitants city is from 5,000 years back.

It’s been called the "early Bronze Age New York.” It confirms the Geneses account of creation, where men lived in “tents and raised livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all who play stringed instruments and pipes. Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of[g] bronze and iron”, as Genesis 4: 20 – 22 (NIV) tells us.

“The city's intricate design of residential and public areas, streets and alleys points to the organized society.”


Source:

Saplakoglu, Yasemin. 2019. Ancient Megalopolis Uncovered in Israel Was the 'New York City' of Its Time Period. Live Science (7 October).

Tardigrades Use Intelligent Design Feature

Image courtesy of Scuttleshock, fair use doctrine.




Joel Kontinen

Tardigrades have the so-called damage-suppressor protein, or Dsup, which is a protein that keeps them from exposure to freezing cold, broiling heat, and the vacuum and lethal radiation of space.

"We thought this fascinating protein in an extreme organism might tell us something new that we wouldn't get from regular proteins," said study co-author James Kadonaga, a professor with the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of California, San Diego."

This is an intelligent design evidence. It can be used for better long-lived cells to protect people in many ways, protecting them from DNA damage.

The study was published on October 1 in the journal eLife.

Source:

Weisberger, Mindy, 2019. 'Damage Suppressor' Protein Protects Adorable Tardigrades ... and Human Cells, Too. Live Science (3 October).

Ground Squirrels Keep Their Blood Levels Low

Ground squirrels also live in Fuerteventura, Spain.




Joel Kontinen

Squirrels seem to remember where they buried their nuts.

Now, scientist have made an interesting discovery of squirrels. While most squirrels don’t hibernate, they spend their day of cold days in their nest.

However, in particular the “13-lined ground squirrel (Ictidomys tridecemlineatus), whose heart rate, metabolism, and body temperature dramatically plummet during their long rest—similar to bears, woodchucks, and other hibernating animals.”

This is in keeping with the laws of nature, they accept intelligent design for their task of getting through winter.

In a study published in Current Biology, scientists measured the “blood fluid, or serum, of dozens of squirrels. the squirrels seemed to regulate their blood concentration, to keep it low by removing electrolytes like sodium and other chemicals like glucose and urea and storing them elsewhere in the body (possibly in the bladder).”

Source:

Frederhick, Eva, 2019, Here’s how hibernating squirrels live for months without water. (1 October).
,

Giant Planet Around Tiny Star 'Should Not Exist'

University of Bern, Fair use doctrine.



Joel Kontinen


A planet that circles around a sun should not exists, say astronomers who reported on it in the journal Science. The planet, called GJ 3512b, orbits its Sun at 31 light years away from us.

It is a Jupiter-like world the most circles a M-type red dwarf, Oddball solar system throws planet formation theories into question. the most common type in our galaxy. the planet orbits its Sun closer that mercury our Sun. However, there it is also orbited by a planet that moves around it at a distance of 3.8 years or so, is the size of a half a Saturn.

Ssays Sid Perkins in Science, “For a solar system that contains such a small parent star, these large, gassy orbs probably didn’t gradually grow around rocky cores like those in our solar system, because that process would have been so slow that much of the gas now part of the planets would have instead escaped into interstellar space."

So the planet that should not exists, continues to exist – to the consternation of secular astronomers.

The Earth is a very unique planet, created to be lived by men.

Sources:

Perkins, Sid. 2019. Oddball solar system throws planet formation theories into question. science (26 September).

Rincon, Paul, 2019. Giant planet around tiny star 'should not exist'. BBC News website (27 September).