Sunday 30 August 2020

A New Study Says Animal Hibernation Is A Remedy To Harsh Winters


Image courtesy of Crystal Shin, fair use doctrine
 


Joel Kontinen

Some 250 millions of years , a Seussian-looking beast with clawed digits, a turtle-like beak and two tusks may have survived Antarctica's chilly winters not by fruitlessly foraging for food, but by curling up into a sleep-like state, meaning that according to evolutionists, it may be the oldest animal on record to hibernate, a new study finds.

 

Analysis of this Triassic  vertebrate's ever-growing tusks revealed that it may have spent part of the year hibernating, a strategy that is still used by modern animals to tough out long winters. Like hibernators alive today, these ancient animals, who belong to the extinct genus Lystrosaurus, slowed down their metabolism and underwent periods of minimal activity when conditions got rough. 

 

"The closest analogue we can find to the 'stress marks' that we observed in Antarctic Lystrosaurus tusks are stress marks in teeth associated with hibernation in certain modern animals," Megan Whitney the lead author of the study, said in the statement

Lystrosaurus,  could grow up to 2.4 meters or 8 feet long. The genus managed to survive the planet's largest mass extinction, which happened at the end of the Permian period about 252 million years ago and killed 70% of land vertebrates. Lystrosaurus fossils have been found in India, China, Russia, Africa and Antarctica, according to the statement

So, this animal was older that the dinosaurs and managed to solve the Permian extinction  

Source

Saplakoglu, Yasemin, 2020. Seussian beast survived the Triassic by taking lots of naps. Live Science  28 August


Friday 28 August 2020

Bronz Zoo’s Apology For The Incarceration Of 0ta Benga Came 114 Years After The Offence

.
Unknown author, public domain. 

Joel Kontinen 

 In 1904, the African pigmy Ota Benga (1883-1916) was put in a in Bronx Zoo, to show his affinity to monkeys . 


 Here’s what Darwin said racism in his book The Descent of Man; “At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time, the anthropomorphous apes. . . will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla.” (vol. 1, p. 201). 

 Here's what the BBC says about Ota Benga: Ota Benga was kidnapped from what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1904 and taken to the US to be exhibited. Journalist Pamela Newkirk, who has written extensively about the subject, looks at the attempts over the decades to cover up what happened to him. The zoo’s apology comes in the wake of global protests prompted by the videotaped police killing of George Floyd that again shone a bright light on racism in the United States. Why did not the angry protesters take of the statue of Darwin, who seems to be the case of all racism in the USA. 
 
In 1904, the African pigmy  Ota Benga (1883-1916) was put in a in Bronx Zoo, to show his affinity to monkeys,

Outrage from Christian ministers ended his incarceration, that was ended after 20 days.  The zoo’s apology comes in the wake of global protests prompted by the videotaped police killing of George Floyd that again shone a bright light on racism in the United States. 

 Why did not the angry protesters take of the statue of Darwin, who seems to be the case of all racism in the USA?. 

 Source: 

BBC News. Caged Congolese man: Why a zoo took 114 years to apologise BBC News 27 OCTOBER 

Wednesday 26 August 2020

Earliest Human Bedding Found In South Africa



Image courtesy of Bob Rayner CC BY 2.0.


Joel Kontinen

Evolutionists see the Border Cave in the Lebombo Mountains of South Africa as the earliest bedding made by humans, some 200,000 years ago.

They see that “the ancient humans used ash and plant material to repel insects while they slept. “

“Lyn Wadley, an archaeologist at the University of the Witwatersrand, made the discovery when excavating Border Cave with her team.”

Researchers aren’t sure about the dates. They could be off by thousands of years

Source. 

O’Grady Cathleen. 2020. World’s oldest camp bedding found in South Africa  Science August 13.

 

Monday 24 August 2020

Democrats don’t want to say under God in their pledge

 


Joel Kontinen

Democrats don’t to have God in their pledge of allegiance. They just skipped it in their pronouncement for the Muslims.  

During the Democratic National Convention this week, at least two meetings omitted the words “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump was attacked for characterizing Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden as “against God.” 

The pledge, according to the United States Flag Code, reads, “I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

The Democrats’ Muslim Caucus began with the God-less pledge recited by one of the delegates. According to Chris Brody, chief political analyst at the Christian Broadcasting Network, both Senator Bernie Sanders and Rep. Rashida Tlaib participated in the meeting.

 The Democrats’ Muslim Caucus began with the God-less pledge recited by one of the delegates. According to Chris Brody, chief political analyst at the Christian Broadcasting Network, both Senator Bernie Sanders and Rep. Rashida Tlaib participated in the meeting.

 The words “under God” were added in 1954 – the last change to the pledge that the dems want to forget.

More convincingly than a butchered pledge of allegiance, Joe Biden' Agenda for Women shows that the Democrats are “against God,” as President Trump put it, especially by its almost unconditional support for killing unborn babies.

Biden dedicated one section of his Agenda for Women to “Reproductive Health,” which is generally a reference to abortion. The former vice president under President Barack Obama said he “will work to codify Roe v. Wade, and his Justice Department will do everything in its power to stop the rash of state laws that so blatantly violate Roe v. Wade.”

Source:

Bürger, Martin. 2020. DNC drops ‘under God’ from Pledge of Allegiance in Muslim, ‘LGBTQ’ Caucus meetings  Life Site News 20 August. 



Thursday 20 August 2020

Christians say why they’re defying California gov’s order and going to church

 



Cameron Spach and Anna Lopez, members of Godspeak Calvary Chapel in Newbury Park, California, speak with LifeSite prior to church service, Aug. 16, 2020.



Joel Kontinen

In California, they can attend Black Lives matter demonstration but not go to church. The governor can’t order the congregation to stay at home.

They were doing just like Peter told the Jewish leaders in Acts. 4. 29 “We ought to obey God rather than man.”

Source:

BürgerMartin. 2020. WATCH: Christians say why they’re defying California gov’s order and going to church.  Life Site News. 17 August, 2020 



Tuesday 18 August 2020

Water On Uranus And Neptune Does Not Look Like Water On Earth


Image courtesy of  Federico Grassell

e courtesy of  Federico Grassell

Joel Kontinen 


Researchers are investigating an alien version of water inside the strange, icy interiors of  Uranus and Neptune. In a new study, scientists have devised a theoretical computer model and used it to peer inside the ice giants Uranus and Neptune. With this tool, the team studied the thermal and electrical conductivity of the unusual water inside of these planets. In simulating these physical processes on the teeny-tiny atomic scale, the researchers hope that this new model will reveal information about the icy bodies' internal structure, magnetic fields, how they evolved and exactly how old they are. The team looked at three different phases of water that could exist in these planets interiors: ice, liquid and superionic (superionic water exists at extremely high temperatures and pressures.) But, as the researchers explained in the statement, water on (and inside of) an alien planet is far different from water on Earth/ 

The study did not give hints of the ago of the gas planets, which is taught to be 13.8 million years, and life is taught to be living on the icy moons.

 "In such exotic physical conditions, we cannot think of ice as we are used to," SISSA professors and study co-authors Federico Grasselli and Stefano Baroni said in the statement. 

Source: 

 Gohd, Chelsea, 2020. Scientists probe the weird, alien water inside of Uranus and Neptune. Space. com 14 August

Sunday 16 August 2020

Floating bombs from Gaza spark raging fires in Israel

Greek Temples Had Visitors With Impaired Mobility


John Goodinson and John Svolos/Anasynthesis Project


Joel Kontinen 

 Many people tend to think that ancient men could not have been as clever as we are. This is in keeping with the Darwinian idea that humans evolved very gradually from ape-like creatures and learning was a slow hit-or-miss affair. intellectuall ape-like creatures and learning was a slow hit-or-miss affair.  They were not expected to accomplish much intellectually.

Features at  Greek sanctuary would have aided visitors with impaired mobility. Architects who built temples and sanctuaries in ancient Greece seem to have had access for people with disabilities in mind — thousands of years before such inclusiveness became a concern for modern societies. Stone ramps found at many Greek temples are thought to have allowed wheeled carts to deliver supplies and sacrificial animals.

 But Debby Sneed at California State University in Long Beach argues that many ramps, especially those at healing sanctuaries, served mainly to facilitate the access of visitors with impaired mobility. 

This would reject the views of evolution, according to which we only saw the need for things like that recently.

 For example, reconstructions of the Sanctuary of Asclepius at Epidaurus, dedicated to the Greek god of medicine, reveal ramp access to nine small and large structures on the site. The temple’s uncommonly generous supply of access aids, added during an expansion in the fourth century BC, provides strong evidence that the ramps were built mainly with disabled visitors in mind, she says. Ancient evidence such as vase paintings and skeletal remains suggest that arthritis and other ailments that impair mobility were common in ancient Greece, Sneed notes. 

 According to evolution, humans  started to look like us in the distant past and their views changed not so long ago. 

 Source: 
 Nation. 2020.This temple was equipped with accessibility ramps more than 2,000  years ago. Nature  24 July

Friday 14 August 2020

Darwin Was Wrong About The Evolution Of Eyes

Image courtesy of Brigitte Schoenemann

Joel Kontinen

“An animal that lived 429 million years ago had compound eyes almost identical to those of modern insects like bees and dragonflies. The finding implies that the compound eye evolved very early in the history of animals.”

This is contrary to what Richard Dawkins says and what Charles Darwin said about them. 

I am quite sure that its roots lie far back in the Precambrian somewhere,” says Brigitte Schoenemann at the University of Cologne in Germany. The Cambrian period, when many of the major animal groups appeared, began about 540 million years ago.

With Euan Clarkson at the University of Edinburgh in the UK, Schoenemann re-examined a fossil of a 1.2-centimetre-long animal called Aulacopleura koninckii. It was a trilobite: a marine animal a bit like a woodlouse, related to insects and shrimp.

Trilobites dominated the oceans for 300 million years, beginning about 520 million years ago. The last ones died out 252 million years ago. Studying trilobites offers clues to the origins of related groups like insects and crustaceans.

Schoenemann and Clarkson found that one A. koninckii specimen still had its left eye. It was a compound eye like those of modern insects, which contains many tiny receptors called ommatidia, each with light-sensitive cells and a lens to focus light. Each ommatidium contributes a single “pixel” to create a mosaic-like image.

The internal structures of its ommatidia were almost identical to those of modern insects. The only difference was that they weren’t quite as densely packed into the eye, probably reducing the amount of detail the animal could see. But to all intents and purposes, it was a modern compound eye, says Schoenemann.

The oldest known compound eye with preserved internal structures belonged to another trilobite, which lived in the early Cambrian over 500 million years ago. Schoenemann´s team described it in 2017. That eye was more primitive though. “There were no distinct lenses,” says Schoenemann. The ommatidia were topped with “a kind of translucent window, without any capacity of focusing”. Also, the eye only had about 100 ommatidia.

So, the evolution’s story of how the eye developed from a single organ to what we’re seeing today.

Source:

Marshall, Michael. 2020. Trilobites living 429 million years ago had eyes like modern insects New Scientist 13 August


Wednesday 12 August 2020

The Dinosaur That Never Went Extinct Has Some Features That Mammals Have

 

Image courtesy of Sid Mosdell, CC BY 2.0.

 

Joel Kontinen

It’s called the dinosaur that never went extinct The Tuatara  (Sphendon punctatus) is a special reptile that lives only in New Zealand. It is often called a living dinosaur. Tuatara has successfully opposed both extinction and change. Tuatara is the only surviving reptile in the order Sphehodontia. Evolutionists believe it coincided with the early dinosaurs in the Triassic about 250 million years ago .

Now, Scientists from the University of Adelaide and South Australian Museum have collaborated with Otago University, New Zealand and a global team to sequence the genome of the tuatara—a rare reptile whose ancestors once roamed the earth with dinosaurs.

Professor David Adelson's lab of the University of Adelaide's Department of Molecular and Biomedical Science and Dr. Terry Bertozzi of the South Australian Museum carried out key analysis of the tuatara genome that revealed an unusual architecture, half-way between mammal and reptile.

"The tuatara is the last surviving species of a reptile group that roamed the earth with the dinosaurs and remarkably, its genome shares features with those of mammals such as the platypus and echidna," said Professor Adelson.

The key contribution of Professor Adelson's lab and Dr. Bertozzi was to demonstrate that some sequences of DNA that move or jump location, referred to as 'jumping genes', found in the tuatara are most similar to those found in platypus while others are more similar to those in lizards.

"The tuatara genome contained about 4% jumping genes that are common in reptiles, about 10% common in monotremes (platypus and echidna) and less than 1% common in placental mammals such as humans," said Professor Adelson.

"This was a highly unusual observation and indicated that the tuatara genome is an odd combination of both mammalian and reptilian components."

"The unusual sharing of both monotreme and reptile-like repetitive elements is a clear indication of shared ancestry albeit a long time ago," said Dr. Bertozzi.

With no close relatives, the position of tuatara on the tree of life has long been contentious. The research places tuatara firmly in the branch shared with lizards and snakes, but they appear to have split off and been their own species for around 250 million years—an enormous amount of time given primates only originated around 65 million years ago, and hominids, from which humans descend, originated approximately six million years ago.

"It has been a privilege to be part of this project, which has been a true, historic collaboration with local iwi (Māori indigenous tribe) Ngātiwai. While this is largely fundamental science, I expect it to yield new ways of thinking about our own genome structure that may have relevance to our health," said Professor Adelson.

Source:

University of Adelaide Dinosaur relative's genome linked to mammals.Phys.org  5 August. 



Monday 10 August 2020

Ant Napped At A Cockroach, Turned To Amber Afterwards

Image courtesy of Barden, Perrichot, Wang 2020. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.06.106.

Joel Kontinen

Some  99 million years ago, an extinct type of cockroach relative called Caputoraptor elegans was caught by a hell ant called Ceratomyrmex ellenbergeri and the ant started to eat the cockroach.

But then they were trapped in sticky sap that eventually turned to amber.

Hell ants lived during the Cretaceous period (about 145.5 million to 65.5 million years ago), and are known from amber deposits in Myanmar, France and Canada spanning 100 million to 78 million years ago, said evolutionary biologist Phillip Barden, an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

It is amazing, all species trapped in amber tend to be 99 million years ago   – the scientist were only successful in trapping a single one.

Source:

Weisberger, Mindy. 2020.  Scythelike jaws of Cretaceous 'hell ant' clutch a baby cockroach in an amber tomb. Live Science   6 August.


Saturday 8 August 2020

Earthlike Planets Hiding Behind A Black Hole



Image courtesy of Shutterstock

Joel Kontinen

 

Here’s a new trick the secularists are playing.


“Supermassive black holes dot our universe, monstrous gravity wells that bind galaxies together and wreath themselves in whirling cocoons of dust that emit bright X-ray beams. Sometimes, bright columns of matter burst up from their poles, forming jets visible across space. And now some scientists suspect these gravitational monsters might host blanets — tens of thousands of them.

Nope, that's not a typo: Scientists suggest calling these black hole planets by the name "blanets." Such blanets would form from the clouds of whirling dust that circle black holes. And they wouldn't be too different from planets that orbit normal stars. Some would be hard and rocky, like Earth, though likely as much as 10 times larger. Some would be gas giants, like our solar system's Neptune.” They'd almost certainly be invisible to us, hidden in the disk of matter that birthed them and dwarfed by their supermassive parents. But in a pair of papers published in The Astrophysical Journal in November 2019 and on arXiv in July 2020, respectively, a team of researchers laid out the case that these black hole planets must exist.

 This has to do with the secularist’s view that the universe is 13,7 million years. To fill up the universe stars have to be built up since its birth. 


Source:

Letzter, Rafi. 2020 Thousands of Earthlike 'blanets' might circle the Milky Way's central black hole.  Life Science 4. August


Thursday 6 August 2020

Dogs may sense Earth's magnetic field and use it like a compass


Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Joel Kontinen

Have you ever seen the movie “Lassie Come Home," that is, about a dog who can travel long distances Now, scientist in the Czech Republic have done a study on hunting dogs, they use the Earth’s magnetic field  magnetic field and use it as a compass.

 “This ability, called magnetoreception, is common in many animals, including some whale species, dolphins and sea turtles, among others. Now, a new study carried out in the Czech Republic and detailed in the journal eLife, suggests adding at least some hunting dogs to this list.”

 "This 'sense' is beyond our own human perception and it is, therefore, very hard to understand its meaning for animals," study researcher Kateřina Benediktová, at Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, said. Benediktová is a graduate student in the lab of Hynek Burda, another study author.” 


In the study, Benediktová and her colleagues “equipped 27 hunting dogs of 10 different breeds, including fox terriers and miniature dachshunds, with GPS trackers. These dogs were allowed to roam in forested areas away from buildings, roads and powerlines. Dogs ran individually and returned on their own. Trips took between 30 and 90 minutes. Owners hid close to the location where the dog was released. The GPS data, from a total of 622 excursions in 62 different locations in the Czech Republic, were then compiled and analysed.”

Source:

Lincoln Diane. 2020. Dogs may sense Earth's magnetic field and use it like a compass.  Life Science 3 August





Tuesday 4 August 2020

Water Beetle Just Slips Through The Frog

 

Image courtesy of  Live Science/Photos Shinji Sugiura.



Joel Kontinen



·         It seems that God has provided the water beetle Regimbartia attenuate the way it could withstand a frog’s stomach. It sneaks out through the captor’s anus.


·         This reminds me of the other ways God has found ways for beetles to evade predators, like the  bombardier beetle, who  Shinji Sugiura also mentioned in his study, published on August 3 in Current Biology.

·        

SoSource,

·         Weisberger, Mindy. 2020.  After being swallowed alive, water beetle stages 'backdoor' escape from frog’s gut Live Science 3. August,  





Sunday 2 August 2020

Big Tech Takes A Stand Against Covid-19 Treatment

Breitbart / Facebook.



Joel Kontinen

When 20 physicians told the people that hydroxychloroquine was safe as a remedy against covid-19, the Big Tech took a stand against them, First, it was Facebook  pulled the video, insisting it was full of "false information about cures and treatments for COVID-19." Twitter and YouTube soon followed suit,

Now, democrats and Big Tech have to answer, Why are you letting your political agenda get in the way of the coronavirus facts?

With 17 million views, even the group — America's Frontline Doctors — was surprised at how desperate people were for information. They'd come to D.C. with one goal: to address some of the rumours about the pandemic and share their views on the best ways to fight it. But then it was pulled off Facebook., Twitter and YouTube.

Source:

Perkins,Tony. 2020.  Censored Frontline Doctors speak out: ‘We want to help people’Life Site News  31 July.