Soft and Extremely Tiny Cambrian Creature Defies Belief in Millions of Years

Spinoloricus (Loricifera). Image courtesy of Roberto Danovaro, Antonio Dell'Anno, Antonio Pusceddu, Cristina Gambi, Iben Heiner & Reinhardt Mobjerg Kristensen, Creative Commons (CC BY 2.0).




Joel Kontinen

Researchers have recently witnessed a miracle of sorts: they found an extremely tiny Cambrian fossil in western Canada.

The “exceptionally well-preserved” loriciferan is less than a millimetre long. Scientists think that it was far too small to have been fossilised.

Dr Tom Harvey (Department of Geology, University of Leicester) co-discoverer of the fossil explains why the discovery is important:

“Loriciferans lack hard parts (they have no shell), so no-one expected them ever to be found as fossils -- but here they are! The fossils represent a new genus and species, which we name Eolorica deadwoodensis, loosely meaning the ‘ancient corset-animal from rocks of the Deadwood Formation.’ "

The discovery defies belief in millions of years. It should definitely not be possible for soft animals to retain their shape for half a billion years.

For Darwinists, the assumed Cambrian Era is a real headache:

Tardigrades or water bears (that still live in our day), compound eyes and complex brains have been found in Cambrian strata.

Source:

University of Leicester. 2017. Discovery of new fossil from half billion years ago sheds light on life on Earth: Scientists find 'unfossilizable' creature. Science Daily. (30 January).

Earth Had Water at the Very Beginning, New Research Suggests

There’s water almost everywhere on Earth.




Joel Kontinen

New research published in Nature suggests that Earth had water at a very early stage.

Mario Fisher-Gödde and Thorsten Kleine at the University of Münster, Germany examined meteorites that fell in British Columbia in January 2000.

They found that the ruthenium isotopes in them did not match those found in the Earth’s mantle. This suggests that meteorites are not the earliest source of our planets water, which had to be present at the very beginning.

Just like Moses said in Genesis.

The research puts the emergence of water at 4,5 billion years – far too back in history since secular dates tend to be inflated.

We also know that Earth had a magnetic field from the beginning and that life began early.

Two other studies have also suggested that Earth was blue and had water from the beginning.

Source:

Whyte, Chelsea. 2017. Earth’s water must have arrived here earlier than we thought. New Scientist (25 January).

Limpets are “Busy Little Construction Workers of the Seashore”

Image courtesy of Tango22, Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0).




Joel Kontinen

Limpets or marine snails might not look very brainy but a recent report issued by Trinity College Dublin describes them as “busy little construction workers of the seashore.”

The brief report goes on to say:

“Limpets frequently suffer damage at the apex of their conical shells, but rather than drying out due to dehydration or getting picked off like sitting ducks by dinner-hungry predators such as seagulls, the hard-working creatures quickly patch over small holes with new biological building material from within.

Incredibly, these repaired shells turned out to be just as strong as the originals when subjected to impacts from rocks.”

There is a huge distinction between the Darwinian world with its blind watchmaker and the real world where intelligent design is evident in most if not all details.


Source:

Trinity College Dublin. 2017. ‘Marine repairmen’ – little limpets are construction workers of the seashore (19 January).

The Amazing Power of the Seed

Desert flowers can be colourful.


Joel Kontinen

Seeds are amazing things. They seem to be programmed to produce certain kinds of plants at the very earliest time this is possible.

In a desert environment, this might entail a long waiting time, perhaps even two or three years. A miracle occurs just a few hours after a heavy rain: the ground that hitherto had been brown or yellow becomes alive with green grasses and flowers of a variety colours – blue, white, yellow, red etc.

And all the genetic information for producing this beauty is packed into a tiny seed.

No wonder the Lord Jesus compared faith to a mustard seed. It is tiny but can do great deeds.

Ants Defy Naturalistic Expectations with their Impressive Navigation Skills

Image courtesy of Dawidi, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).




Joel Kontinen


Ants have recently made headlines in science publications.

They have been lauded for their farming skills, their engineering acumen, their innovation and even their mathematical skills.

A recent paper published in the journal Current Biology found another amazing skill. BBC News gives us the gist of their almost incredible ability:

“Ants are even more impressive at navigating than we thought.

Scientists say they can follow a compass route, regardless of the direction in which they are facing.

It is the equivalent of trying to find your way home while walking backwards or even spinning round and round.

Experiments suggest ants keep to the right path by plotting the Sun's position in the sky which they combine with visual information about their surroundings.”

Engineers are hoping to use ant technology to build robots that are able to navigate in forests.

Tiny ants remind us of our big Creator God.

Source:

Briggs, Helen. 2017. Ants use Sun and memories to navigate. BBC News (19 January).

Our Smart Eyes Defy Dawkinsian Explanations

Image courtesy of Paul Savage, Creative Commons (CC BY 2.0).




Joel Kontinen

Richard Dawkins’ view of the human eye is badly outdated.

And it seems that each new discovery makes his case less credible.

The backward wired retina is actually an example of clever design.

Many experts will say that bad design is no longer a viable option.

Research shows us that our eyes are amazing. Superb design would be an apt description.

The design of our eyes has inspired engineers to develop more efficient cameras.

A new study published online in the journal Current Biology found an intelligent reason for why we blink.

It shows that blinking “prompts eye muscles to keep our vision in line.”

An article in Science Daily gives us some details:

“Every few seconds, our eyelids automatically shutter and our eyeballs roll back in their sockets. So why doesn't blinking plunge us into intermittent darkness and light? New research led by the University of California, Berkeley, shows that the brain works extra hard to stabilize our vision despite our fluttering eyes.

Scientists at UC Berkeley, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, Université Paris Descartes and Dartmouth College have found that blinking does more than lubricate dry eyes and protect them from irritants.”

Science Daily discloses what else happens:

“Our brain repositions our eyeballs so we can stay focused on what we're viewing…

When our eyeballs roll back in their sockets during a blink, they don't always return to the same spot when we reopen our eyes. This misalignment prompts the brain to activate the eye muscles to realign our vision, said study lead author Gerrit Maus, an assistant professor of psychology at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.”

Everything is done for a purpose. Intelligent communication prompts our eyes to make the necessary corrections so we continue seeing.

Without this “powerful oculomotor mechanism … our surroundings would appear shadowy, erratic and jittery.”

They don’t. This is powerful evidence for intelligent design.

Source:

University of California - Berkeley. 2017. Why the lights don't dim when we blink: Blinking prompts eye muscles to keep our vision in line. Science Daily. (19 January).

Intelligent Design: Seals Use Their Whiskers to Detect Fish Hidden in Sand

These whiskers were made to detect fish. Image courtesy of Marcel Burkhard, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0 DE).




Joel Kontinen

New research published in the Journal of Experimental Biology suggests that seals use their whiskers to detect fish hidden beneath sand.

An article in New Scientist states:

“Harbour seals use their whiskers to follow underwater vibrations rippling away from gills of fish so they can home in on prey.”

They can do this even when their meal is covered with sand.

This discovery has prompted engineers to build a device for detecting underwater disturbances. Collen Reichmuth, a marine biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, explains:

“It has a variety of purposes, but the most obvious one is related to military defence, being able to detect and track moving objects underwater and being able to do it potentially quietly without using active sonar.”

This is not the first time that whiskers have made headlines. In 2014, Wired published an article entitled Tactile electronic cat whiskers could help robots 'feel' their surroundings.

Hi-tech whiskers don’t just appear out of thin air. They have to be designed. And that is something the Darwinian blind watchmaker cannot do.

Researchers have also drawn inspiration for robots from butterfly wings, octopuses, fruit flies and dragonflies, for instance.

Source:

Whyte, Chelsea. 2017. Seals hunt down hidden fish by sensing their breath in the sand. New Scientist (18 January).