Human heads have changed shape a lot in the past 100 years

 

Image courtesy of Zeresenay Alemseged

Joel Kontinen

Since the early 20th century, people’s skulls have got rounder and their jaws have got wider, probably because of changes in health, diet and environment.

In the past 100 years, the heads of Japanese people have got rounder, with narrower cheekbones, wider upper jaws and slimmer, more prominent noses.

While changes outside Japan may vary, the overall trend is probably common across the globe, says Shiori Usui at the National Research Institute of Police Science in Chiba, Japan.

Humans are the only primate that has a chin. This is not according to Darwinian evolution but according to creation.  

Source:

Christa Lesté-Lasserre 2026 Human heads have changed shape a lot in the past 100 years | New Scientist 30 April 

 

What does intelligent design do for ants?

 

Kuva:  Piotr Naskrecki. 

Joel Kontinen

The leafcutter ant (A. echinatior) genome contained a whopping 34,821genes with over 12,151 genes not found in any other insect or ant species, not only does the leafcutter ant have a highly complex social structure. but it forms a special fungus from the leaves in a large factual garden, the complexity of this ant’s behavior and the specialized digestive system needed to farm and eat fungus require a large set of specialized genes.

Averaged all over in all 30 included insect and arthropod out-cropped species, approximately 13% of all protein coding genes lack a similar counterpart in any other species. These numbers fall within the expected range of 10 to 3o per cent for all species-specific orphan genes in other studies.

Darwinian evolution does not account for this, they were produced by the creator of all things, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Source:  

Jeffery P Tomkins. 2026. Novel orphan genes aid in regulated adaptation, Acts and Facts 1 – 2, 18- 22.

Euclid telescope captures young stars being born inside dark cloud

 

Image courtesy of ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, image processing by M. Schirmer (MPIA, Heidelberg)

Joel Kontinen

Space tells of the wonders of creation.

 A dark cloud named LDN 1641 is around 1300 light years away from Earth. Dark clouds are so called because they block the visible light from stars behind them. It is only thanks to the infrared instruments aboard the European Space Agency’s Euclid telescope that we have been able to capture this stunning image.

This twinkling tapestry of young stars being born amidst a swirling sea of gas and dust is part of a dark cloud named LDN 1641, around 1300 light years away from Earth. Dark clouds are so called because they block the visible light from stars behind them. It is only thanks to the infrared instruments aboard the European Space Agency’s Euclid telescope that we have been able to capture this stunning image.

Source:

New Scientist 2025 Euclid telescope captures young stars being born inside dark cloud  12 November 

Peculiar galaxy seems to contain surprisingly pristine stars

Abell 2744, the galaxy cluster where AMORE6 was spotted. Image courtesy of NASA, ESA, Jennifer Lotz, Matt Mountain, Anton M. Koekemoer, HFF Team (STScI)

Joel Kontinen

Can galaxies form in a beginning?

Stars uncontaminated by heavier elements are thought to have formed very early in the universe, but a galaxy much later in cosmic history might let us see them for the first time.

A galaxy marooned in an empty region of the universe appears to be unexpectedly full of primordial stars. This could give astronomers their first glimpse of a kind of stellar object thought to have formed shortly after the universe’s first moments and which has never been directly observed.

Despite being able to peer back to near the beginning of the universe with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have struggled to definitively find evidence of the first stars. Known as population III stars, these are giant balls of mostly hydrogen that would have formed in the early universe. Being the first stars, they would have almost none of the heavier elements that are produced when stars die and explode.

By Alex Wilkins 2025 Peculiar galaxy seems to contain surprisingly pristine stars | New Scientist 25 July 

Water might be even more important for alien life than we thought

 

Image courtesy of PandorumBS/Alamy

Joel Kontinen

Without enough liquid water on the surface, a planet's atmosphere can become choked with carbon dioxide, raising temperatures to a level beyond what is survivable for all known life

Is water important for life on exoplanets? According to Genesis, it is important also in space in which God created the planets.

Alien worlds found in the “habitable zone” of their star may still not be right for life

PandorumBS/Alamy

The number of planets capable of hosting alien life may be smaller than we thought, thanks to a new understanding of how water levels drive a planet’s climate. Below a certain level, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can grow too much and make a planet unbearably hot, which could also explain why Venus is as inhospitable as it appears today.

All life that we know of needs liquid water, which is why astronomers are keen to find planets in the “habitable zone” around their star region where temperatures are conducive for liquid water to exist. But now Haskelle White-Gianella at the University of Washington and her colleagues have found that source;

Source:

Alex Wilkins 2025 Water might be even more important for alien life than we thought | New Scientist 15 July

Strange 'sticky' dark matter could be lurking in a distant galaxy

Galaxy SDSS J0946+1006 acts as a gravitational lens, helping astronomers see the signs of dark matter

Image courtesy of NASA/ESA/R. T. Treu/University of California/SLACS

Joel Kontinen

Dark matter is thought to only interact through gravity, which is why it is so difficult to spot, but now evidence is growing for a type of dark matter that can also stick to itself.

Evolutionists and those who believe in Big Bang may be welcoming this study with expectation for a non-theistic view of the world.

An unusually dense galaxy could be the first clear evidence for the existence of an unconventional form of “sticky” dark matter, altering our understanding of this mysterious cosmic substance.

In the standard picture of cosmology, so-called cold dark matter only interacts with the rest of the universe through gravity, which causes it to bunch together in invisible, puffy clouds around galaxies. We can map these clouds indirectly by measuring the gravitational pull they exert.

Source:

Alex Wilkins 2025 Strange 'sticky' dark matter could be lurking in a distant galaxy | New Scientist 19 May

Hohle Fels water bird: The oldest depiction of a bird in the world

 

Image courtesy of © Alamy 

Joel Kontinen

This tiny bird sculpture was created 40,000 years ago by early humans in Europe who carved the key animals in their lives. 

It is from Hohle Fels cave, Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany. it looks like a modern bird, not featured by evolution.

“Archaeologists excavating Hohle Fels cave in southwestern Germany over two decades ago discovered three tiny figurines carved out of mammoth ivory. Dated to around 40,000 years ago, the sculptures represent some of the oldest examples of figurative art, and the tiny carved bird is god, the oldest depiction of a bird anywhere in the world.”

The date of the bird is not correct, as such birds came into existence about 6 000 years ago, when God created the world.

Source:

Khoristina Killgrove 2025 Hohle Fels water bird: The oldest depiction of a bird in the world 31 March

 

Hubble hunts a stellar 'imposter' hiding in the Great Bear

 

Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Jacobson-Galán, A. Filippenko, J. Mauerha

Joel Kontinen

The legendary Hubble Space Telescope has turned its gaze to the Ursa Major-adjacent galaxy UGC 5460, revealing spiral arms, star clusters and a possible supernova "imposter".

 Where it is: 60 billion light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major.

When it was shared: Feb. 21, 2025 and the beginning of creation.

Space is big and wonderful. It has the signature of the One who made it, at the beginning of creation.

“This stunning new image of a spiral galaxy — and a very bright star above it — was recently captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. The image shows the galaxy's central bar of stars, along with its spiral arms and young, blue star clusters. The top-left of the image, meanwhile, is dominated by a star that's just 577 light-years away in the Milky Way.

This galaxy has hosted two significant supernova explosions in the last 14 years. Such events are landmarks for astronomers and are the final, destructive stage for some massive stars. A supernova explosion can briefly have the power of up to 100 billion stars and temporarily outshine their host galaxies.”

Source:

By Jamie Carter 2025 Space photo of the week: Hubble hunts a stellar 'imposter' hiding in the Great Bear | Live Science March 9

The asteroid Bennu is even weirder than we thought

 

Image courtesy of NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

Joel Kontinen

“The asteroid Bennu is puzzling scientists, with samples from the space rock showing weirder properties than they expected. These include extremely high nitrogen levels and improbably magnetic properties.

Scientists have been analysing clumps of rock from Bennu since NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft returned samples from the asteroid to Earth in 2023. They quickly found these contained a plethora of chemical building blocks for life.”

Space is big and we do not know all that is hiddenthere. “

Source:

 Alex Wilkins 2025 The asteroid Bennu is even weirder than we thought | New Scientist 11 March 

Speeding star offers a rare glimpse of the Milky Way's galactic centre

 

Image courtesy of ESA/Gaia/DPAC

Joel Kontinen

When do astronomers see a n errant star that is speeding from the centre of our galaxy? They see it now,. This did not happen years and years ago.

“Astronomers have had a rare glimpse into the heart of the Milky Way thanks to an errant star expelled from the galactic centre.

At the middle of our galaxy is a supermassive black hole, closely surrounded by a group of hundreds of stars. Slightly further out is a larger disc of stars, and further out still is an even larger star group, called the nuclear star cluster (NSC).”

Space is big and wonderful, as God made it that way, and unexpected things happen all the time, like this speeding star.

Source:

Alex Wilkins 2025 Speeding star offers a rare glimpse of the Milky Way's galactic centre | New Scientist 7 March 

When did life begin on Earth? New evidence reveals a shocking story

 

Image courtesy of Ingo Oeland/Alamy

Joel Kontinen 

When did live appear on Earth?

Earth is some 4.5 billion years old. When it formed from colliding rocks around a dim, young sun, it was presumably lifeless, and geologists long thought that life didn’t emerge for a billion years or more. This idea came from analysis of moon rocks brought back from the Apollo landings, which indicated Earth was pummelled by space rocks between 4 billion and 3.8 billion years ago – appear n event called the Late Heavy Bombardment. The implication was that the origin of life as we know it must have begun after that, since any earlier organisms would have been blitzed.

But science tells that Earth had live at the beginning just as Genesis says.  

Fossils and genetics are starting to point to life emerging surprisingly soon after Earth formed, when the planet was hellishly hot and seemingly uninhabitable.

“There’s two issues with that,” says Philip Donoghue at the University of Bristol, UK. First, models suggest that some life could have survived deep in the oceans. More damningly, it now seems that the Late Heavy Bombardment didn’t actually happen. The Apollo missions only created the impression of a huge bombardment over a brief period because they all collected rocks of a similar age.

We now know that, early in Earth’s history, large impacts occurred sporadically over hundreds of millions of years. However, we also know that a body the size of Mars collided with Earth just after it was formed, vaporising the planet’s surface. “If life originated before then, it would have been wiped out,” says Donoghue.

Life began when inert matter self-organised into living systems, but, despite decades of research, how that happened remains a mystery. Figuring out when it happened is also a big challenge because the fossil record gets worse the further back.

Those all speaks of creation, as Genesis tells us. 

Source:

 Michael Marshall When did life begin on Earth? New evidence reveals a shocking story | New Scientist 19 February 2025

 

 

See the fluorescing tail feathers of a male emperor bird-of-paradise

Birds-of-paradise are known for their bright colours and courtship displays. Now, it turns out that many species also have body parts that fluoresce

Image courtesy of American Museum of Natural History

Joel Kontinen

”This striking plume of yellow is the fluorescing tail feathers of a male emperor bird-of-paradise (Paradisaea guilielmi). Birds-of-paradise are known for their bright colours and courtship displays. Now, it turns out that many species also fluoresce – absorbing light and re-emitting it at lower-energy wavelengths. Fluorescent patches are found in body parts used during courtship, like tail feathers and bills.”

When God  make the birds, He formed some of them beautiful, as can be said in this instance.

Source:

See the fluorescing tail feathers of a male emperor bird-of-paradise | New Scientist

12 February 2025 

Astronomers baffled by bizarre 'zombie star' that shouldn't exist

Image courtesy of  James Josephides

Joel Kontinen

A newly discovered neutron star is behaving so strangely that it may alter our understanding of the dense remains left behind when stellar objects die

Some astronomers are  worried because they see a neutron star that should not be living.  It is a mystery that is brought about the Big Bang story . But who do they support a theory that is one the way out?

”A collapsed star around 13,000 light years away is so unusual that the researchers who have discovered it say it shouldn’t exist.

It was first detected in January 2024 by the ASKAP radio telescope in Western Australia and is likely to be a kind of pulsar that has never been seen before.

When supermassive stars reach the end of their lives and explode in a supernova, the remnants form a super-dense object called a neutron star. Pulsars are neutron stars that spin rapidly, emitting radio waves from their magnetic poles as they rotate. Most pulsars spin at speeds of more than one revolution per second and we receive a pulse at

the same frequency, each time a radio beam points towards us.

But in recent years, astronomers have begun to find compact objects that emit pulses of radio waves at a much slower rate. This has baffled scientists, who had thought that radio wave flashes should cease when the rotation slows to more than a minute for each spin.

These slow-spinning objects are known as long-period radio transients. Last year, a team led by Manisha Caleb at the University of Sydney, Australia, announced the discovery of a transient with a period of 54 minutes.”

God made the universe at the beginning, it is full of wonders that people do not understand.

Source: 

James Woodford 2025 Astronomers baffled by bizarre 'zombie star' that shouldn't exist | New Scientist 15 January 

A supermassive black hole is sending out a mysterious pulsing beat

 

Image courtesy of Aurore Simonnet/Sonoma State University

Joel Kontinen

What are black holes? Recently, a black hole appears to send more noise to us.  

“Strange vibrations emanating from a supermassive black hole appear to be growing more frequent and they could be caused by a white dwarf star orbiting perilously close to its event horizon.

In 2018, a supermassive black hole called 1ES 1927+654 took astronomers by surprise by changing from a relatively inactive black hole to an extremely bright one. It was the first time a supermassive black hole had been observed changing in this way.”

Space is unique, as God created it that way,

Source:

Alex Wilkins 2025 A supermassive black hole is sending out a mysterious pulsing beat | New Scientist 13 January 

Magic mushrooms found in Africa are a species new to science

 

Image courtesy of Cathy Sharp

Joel Kontinen

A fungus named Psilocybe ochraceocentrata is the closest relative of a widely cultivated psychedelic mushroom, giving clues to their evolutionary origins.

Can evolution bring up new species? However, the scientist have discovered a new species in Africa.  

Psychedelic mushrooms growing in southern Africa have been identified as a new species that is the closest relative of Psilocybe cubensis, the most well-known magic mushroom species. The discovery brings scientists a step closer to understanding the evolutionary origins of these psychoactive fungi.

But they were not brought about by evolution.

Alex Bradshaw at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, and his colleagues have named the newly described species Psilocybe ochraceocentrata, because of the ochre colour in the centre of the cap. It was collected from multiple sites across Zimbabwe and South Africa between 2013.

Source:

James Woodford 2024 Magic mushrooms found in Africa are a species new to science | New Scientist 12 December 

Why hairy animals shake themselves dry?

 

Image courtesy of 4 PM production/Shutterstock.

Joel Kontinen

Why do hairy animals shake themselves dry? They don’t want to stay wet.

”The brain pathway that causes hairy mammals like mice and dogs to shake themselves dry appears to have more to do with pressure than temperature

If you have ever been close to a dog after it has gone for a swim, you have probably been sprayed with water flinging from its fur. We now know the brain pathway that causes animals to rapidly wiggle themselves dry – a phenomenon known as the wet dog shake.”

It has to do with intelligent design that keeps dogs dry, unlike ducks.

“At least 12 different types of nerve cells help hairy mammals like mice and dogs feel physical sensations, such as temperature changes or touch. “

Source:

Grace Wade 2024 Why hairy animals shake themselves dry | New Scientist 7.11.

Ancient life of Mars?

 

Image courtesy of NASA/PL-Caltech/MSSS

Joel Kontinen

Are there signs of life on Mars?

Mars was thought to be a planet that had never  had life, in spite of the canals that were supposed to have made by Martians.

Burt we know  there were no Martians.

Here is a new study:

“NASA’s Perseverance rover has found a rock riddled with what may be signs of ancient life. The rock, nicknamed “Cheyava Falls” after a famous waterfall in Arizon a, shows hints that it could have supported living microbes billions of years ago – but for now, there is no way to be sure if life really existed there.

The rock measures about 1 metre by 0.6 metres and is mostly reddish, with thin veins of white calcium sulphate that probably formed when water flowed through fissures in the rock, depositing minerals in the cracks. Water is one of the ingredients necessary for life, but it wasn’t the only one that researchers found while poring over the Perseverance data.

They saw that between the streaks of white, there were strange light-coloured splotches, each just millimetres across and ringed with dark material containing iron and phosphate. “These spots are a big surprise,” said David Flannery at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia in a NASA press release. “On Earth, these types of features in rocks are often associated with the fossilized record of microbes living in the subsurface.” That is because the type of chemical reaction that creates these  sorts of leopard spots on Earth rocks can also provide useful energy for microbes.”

But only God has the capacity to create life.  

Leah Crane.  2024.  Mars rover found a rock with possible signs of ancient life | New Scientist  25 July

When did humans start wearing shoes?

 

Ancient sandals woven out of sagebrush bark from Fort Rock Cave in Oregon, which are on display at the Oregon Historical Society Museum. 

Image courtesy of Ian Poellet, CC BY-SA 4.0. Oregon Historical Society

Joel Kontinen

“Scientists have discovered many ancient shoes around the world, including 5,500-year-old leather shoes in Armenia, 6,200-year-old grass sandals in Spain, and footwear as old as 8,300 years old in Missouri.”

So the question is: When did humans invent shoes?

“There may be evidence that humans invented shoes much, much earlier. Fossil tracks on a beach in South Africa may be shoe prints dating back up to 150,000 years, according to a 2023 study. ."

According to Genesis, mankind invented cities andmusic instruments very early, so why not shoes?

Source:

Charles Q. Choi 2024. When did humans start wearing shoes? | Live Science 2.July

Water on Mars

 

Image courtesy of NASA

Joel Kontinen

Mars is covered by water. This is the conclusion of scientists who studied the volcanoes of the solar system.  They said that water frost has been spotted atop Mars' gargantuan equatorial volcanoes for the first time — defying previous beliefs that the presence of water there was impossible.

“Scientists spotted a hair-thin dusting of frost atop the peaks of the svolcanoes in the Tharsis region of the Red Planet he Red Planet — the largest mountains in the solar system, which tower up to three times the height of Mount Everest. In colder months, the frost could consist of up to 150,000 tons of water, or the equivalent of 60 Olympic swimming pools. “

When God created the solar system, He saw that water was everywhere, including planets and even moons.

Source:  

Ben Turner, 2024. 'At least 150,000 tons' of water frost discovered atop Mars' tallest volcanoes (msn.com) 12 June

Elephants seem to invent names for each other

 

Two juvenile elephants greet each other in Samburu National Reserve in Kenya

Image courtesy of George Wittemyer.

Joel Kontinen

An analysis of their vocalisations suggests that African savannah elephants invent names for each other, making them the only animals other than humans thought to do so.

Elephants have an interesting feature. They probably invent names for each other. A survey of elephants sounds of more than 600 recordings found that “some calls from African savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana) seem to contain name-like components specific to certain individuals. What’s more, those individuals know their names, responding more strongly than others do when calls addressed to them are played back on a speaker.”

“I had noticed from years back that when an elephant gave a contact rumble, within a group of elephants I would see one individual lift its head, listen and give an answer,” says Joyce Poole at ElephantVoices, a small organisation that studies elephants and aims to protect them. “And the rest seemed to just ignore the elephant. So I did wonder whether the calls were being directed toward a specific individual.”

This speaks of intelligent design.

Source:

Michael Le Page 2024. Elephants seem to invent names for each other | New Scientist 10 June