Sunflowers Co-operate to Get More Space and More Sunshine

Image courtesy of North Carolina Department of Transportation, (CC BY 2.0).



Joel Kontinen

Charles Darwin called the origin of flowering plants an abominable mystery as they did not fit in well with his naturalistic thinking.

Flowers appear suddenly and fully formed in the fossil record. Even the earliest flowers look very modern.

New research has shown that sunflowers know how to work together in a way that benefits all of them. Antonio Hall, a crop eco-physiologist at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and colleagues noticed a strange zig zag pattern that

“starts early in growth, when one ‘pioneer’ plant leans about 10 degrees from the vertical to escape a neighbour’s shade. The plants on either side of the pioneer sense the change to their own light and lean in the opposite direction to escape the pioneer’s shade, and the alternation cascades outwards.”

This way, sunflowers were able to produce 25 to 50 per cent more seeds than those that couldn’t use this strategy.

Intelligent solutions like these remind us of the Designer, the God of the Bible, who is perfect in all His deeds.

Design features in sunflowers and other flowers challenge naturalistic explanations.

So do the amazing traits we see in trees: they sleep and make self-assembling solar panels.

Source:

Holmes, Bob. 2017. Sunflowers work together to avoid overcrowding and soak up rays. New Scientist (10 July).

Stephen Hawking: Earth Could Become a Hothouse Planet Like Venus

Earth’s future according to Stephen Hawking? Image courtesy of NASA.





Joel Kontinen

Stephen Hawking likes being in the news. But often his speciality is news that could hardly be described as good or even pleasant.

He has kept on drumming that our time on planet Earth is about to end and we should search for a new planet.

Prof. Hawking has also warned of big bad aliens on at least two occasions.

And he sees artificial intelligence (AI) as a major threat to mankind.

Now, he has joined the global warning bandwagon. He warns that if we “don't curb irreversible climate change,” Earth could turn into a hot planet like Venus.

However, even Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the Pennsylvania State University, does not agree with Hawking.

Mann sent Live Science an email, saying:

"Hawking is taking some rhetorical license here Earth is further away from the sun than Venus and likely cannot experience a runaway greenhouse effect in the same sense as Venus — i.e. a literal boiling away of the oceans.”

Speculations nearly always get noticed, regardless of how little facts (if any) there are to give substance to them.

Source:

Ghose, Tia. 2017. Stephen Hawking: Earth Could Turn Into Hothouse Planet Like Venus. Live Science (5 July).

Amazing Material: Sea Sponge Makes Strong Glass That Bends But Doesn’t Break

The Venus flower basket. Image courtesy of NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration.




Joel Kontinen

We might think that sea sponges such as the Venus flower basket (Euplectella aspergillum) are simple creatures, but research has shown that they have some incredible features.

A new paper describes why they are special:

“The remarkable mechanical properties of biological structures, like tooth and bone, are often a consequence of their architecture. The tree ring-like layers that comprise the skeletal elements of the marine sponge Euplectella aspergillum are a quintessential example of the intricate architectures prevalent in biological structures. These skeletal elements, known as spicules, are hair-like fibers that consist of a concentric array of silica cylinders separated by thin, organic layers.”

The secret of their strength is in these tiny spicules:

“Thousands of spicules act like roots to anchor the sponge to the sea floor.”

Made of a glass-like substance, they bend but do not break.

Other superb design features in animals such as the octopus, starfish, mantis shrimp and water strider likewise defy Darwinian explanations and are proof of creation.

Source:

Monn, Michael A. and Haneesh Kesari. 2017. Enhanced bending failure strain in biological glass fibers due to internal lamellar architecture. Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials (in press).

“Excellently Preserved” Land Reptile Fossil Found in Swiss Mountains with Marine Creatures

Eusaurosphargis dalsassoi. Image courtesy of Torsten M. Scheyer, James M. Neenan, Timea Bodogan, Heinz Furrer, Christian Obrist & Mathieu Plamondon (2017): A new, exceptionally preserved juvenile specimen of Eusaurosphargis dalsassoi (Diapsida) and implications for Mesozoic marine diapsid phylogeny. Scientific Reports 7, 4406.




Joel Kontinen

New research published in the journal Scientific Reports includes details that might surprise evolutionists but not creationists.

The paper, by Torsten Scheyer, a paleontologist at the University of Zurich, and colleagues, features a 20 centimetre (8 inchees) long reptile called Eusaurosphargis dalsassoi.

It was found at an altitude of 2,740 meters together with fossils of fish and marine reptiles. While it is believed to be “241 million years” old, it is “exceptionally preserved.”

An article in Science Daily also presents a convergent evolution dimension.

“Externally, Eusaurosphargis dalsassoi looks very similar to girdled lizards (Cordylidae), a group of small, scaled reptiles (Lepidosauria) that usually live in the dry regions of southern Africa. Some of the more strongly armored girdled lizard species could have served as the basis of mythical dragon legends due to their appearance.”

Obviously, land reptiles should not be buried together with fish and other marine creatures, unless, of course, there was a global flood that threw them in the same graveyard and left reminders of an enormous cataclysm on all continents.

Now, evolutionists have to invoke a fishy just so story:

“Instead of amidst high mountains, a small reptile suns itself on an island beach in a warm shallow sea, where many fish and marine reptiles frolic.”

The Flood is a much more logical explanation, and the convergent part shows that Darwinian predictions (distant relatives should not look alike) are all wrong.

Source:

University of Zurich. 2017. Ancient Swiss reptile shows its bizarre scale armor for the first time. Science Daily (30 June).

We Can’t Ignore Cosmic Fine Tuning, Astrophysics Professor Says

We can see fine tuning in things like ferns, for instance.




Joel Kontinen

Fine tuning is an enormous hurdle for the naturalistic worldview.

We see it everywhere, from the tiny to the huge, and it is often displayed as great beauty, as in fractals, Fibonacci numbers and the golden rule that are practically ubiquitous in the universe.

Writing in New Scientist, Geraint Lewis, who is Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Sydney, takes the naturalist bull by the horns and suggests that the universe “may be fine-tuned for life. The idea is that physical laws and constants are inexplicably just right to support it.”

He says that this view is becoming more popular and thinks that a heated debate may be just round the proverbial corner.

Some agnostics and atheists would want to explain away the fine tuning by invoking the multiverse, which, as astronomer Danny R. Faulkner puts it, is “a radical departure into philosophy or religion” and is not science at all.

There’s only one logical explanation for all this fine tuning: “In the beginning God created.”

Source:

Lewis, Geraint. 2017. A fine-tuned universe may be controversial but can’t be ignored. New Scientist (28 June).

Cockatoo Makes Music With a Stick, Defying Darwinian Expectations

Image courtesy of Doug Janson, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).



Joel Kontinen

Previous research has shown that cockatoos are better tool makers than chimps.

And there’s more. A recent paper on 18 palm cockatoos (Probosciger aterrimus) published in the journal Science Advances looks at the birds’ ability to make their own drumsticks and produce a rhythmic beat.

In contrast, chimps (that evolutionists hail as our cousins) can’t make music instruments.

Even crows beat chimps in intelligence and innovation, defying Darwinian expectations.

Source:

Wagner, Andrew. 2017. Watch this cockatoo make music with a stick. Science (28 June).

Convergent Evolution Does Not Rescue a Darwinian Dilemma

Look like my distant cousin? Image courtesy of KENPEI, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).




Joel Kontinen

The Darwinian community has an enormous problem that Science Daily recently tried to downplay.

When Australian fish “separated by 30– 50 million years of evolution" look like they were siblings, this is said to fulfil a Darwinian prediction.

The report was based on a paper published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B and it “identified significant convergence in body form between Australian freshwater terapontid grunters and several distantly related marine fish families.”

Science Daily goes on to exclaim: “Convergent evolution is one of the fundamental predictions of evolutionary theory.”

It is no such thing. In contrast, it falsifies Darwin’s tree of life. Only close relatives should look alike.

But very often genetically distant species look alike, regardless of how long ago they parted ways (in the Darwinian scenario, that is).

Evolutionists resort to convergent evolution as an excuse for why Darwinian predictions fail so often.

Source:

James Cook University. 2017. Distant fish relatives share looks. Science Daily (15 June).