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).