LSI BLOG

How Long Do You Have? — Doctors May Not Know

2012-01-27T11:03:00.000-06:00

Some researchers are trying to reverse the de-emphasis on making accurate prognoses.

Summary: A century ago the art and science of “prognosticating” or predicting a patient’s life expectancy was an essential part of doctoring. It occupied an important position in textbooks, journals and conversations with patients. But as technology advanced, doctors began focusing more of their time on treatment and diagnosis and less on prognosis.

Being able to predict the timing of a patient’s death may be useful, but the tools to treat and diagnose are more profitable. Perhaps more important, while there may be an array of successful treatments at hand to help doctors forestall death, the subject raises the issue of fallibility and also possibly culpability. “Even in the privacy of their own minds, doctors don’t like to think about prognosis,” said Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis of the Harvard Medical School.

There are few tools to help doctors with prognosis. It is rarely alluded to in most popular medical textbooks or on clinical websites such as PubMed, maintained by the National Library of Medicine. In order to help rectify this situation, a group of physicians in California has collected and studied all the research that has been done on so-called prognostic indexes. The researchers have been able to find 16 indexes that could help doctors predict how long a patient might live, but there is insufficient reason to recommend any of them for widespread clinical use.

With so little research to help them, physicians often end up making “guesstimates” which can be wildly inaccurate and adversely affect an older patient’s quality of life and care. Too much doctor optimism may mean unnecessary and painful procedures and treatments. Too much pessimism may lead to a neglect in offering adequate care.

The authors of the study have created a website, ePrognosis, to help physicians and patients access available prognostic tools. Yet, the researchers admit this tool is only a small part of what is required. More work is needed in creating and validating assessment tools and also in teaching doctors again about the art and science of prognoses. “We actually have a moral responsibility to our patients to help provide them with the best prognostic information,” said Dr. Alexander K. Smith, one of the study authors.

To read the entire article, click on THE NEW YORK TIMES.

Comment: One can appreciate how difficult it may be for doctors to make reasonably accurate predictions of how long a patient has to live, but it is a bit discouraging to hear that the subject of prognosis has apparently been given so little emphasis in medical schools and journals in recent years. Bravo to the doctors who are trying to change that situation.

Right now there are simple age-based cutoffs for recommending some medical testing such as for colon or prostate cancer, but, as the story pointed out, some patients may be much healthier and could expect to live much longer than other patients. For example, is 75 a good age for stopping routine colon cancer screening for everyone?

I believe each of us has the moral responsibility to take care of ourself and our body (“a temple of the Holy Spirit” 1 Corinthians 6:19) as best we can. But despite the best care we might get, it is ultimately up to God to decide how long He wants us living on this planet.

As Christians, we need not fear death. God has given us victory over death itself. “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:55-57). Repent of your sins and believe in Jesus Christ for full forgiveness and the promise of a life in heaven that will never end.

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

When is the best time to take blood pressure medication?

A study was published Oct. 24, 2011 in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology which involved 661 people with kidney disease and high blood pressure. The study found that taking medications at bedtime rather than in the morning resulted in better control of blood pressure and a one-third reduced risk of a cardiovascular event such as a heart attack or stroke. Talk to your doctor though before making any changes.

Source: Cleveland Clinic Men’s Health Advisor (January, 2012)

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The Claim of Life on Venus Debunked

2012-01-25T09:06:00.000-06:00

A Russian scientist thought he saw evidence of living creatures on an old photo of Venus.

Summary: A claim by a Russian scientist that he saw living creatures in photos taken by Venerea-13, a Soviet probe to Venus 30 years ago, has been debunked. According to a Russian news service, Leonid Ksanfomaliti, a respected member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, says he spotted several interesting objects on the Venetian surface in the photos. The features, described as a disc and a scorpion, seemed to change locations from one photo to the next.

"Let's boldly suggest that the objects' morphological features would allow us to say that they are living," Ksanfomaliti stated, according to the news service, Ria Novosti. Ksanfomaliti worked on unmanned Soviet missions to Venus during the 1970s and 1980s. His words have made headlines around the world, but could they have been mistranslated or misconstrued?

In one photo, an object shaped somewhat like a crab stands inches away from the Venera-13. In another Venera-13 image, the crab-like object appears in a different location. But Jonathan Hill, a technician and mission planner at the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State U., says higher-resolution versions of these images show the crab-like object is really a mechanical component. The same object shows up in a photo taken by an identical landing probe, Venera-14, and is in the same position relative to the spacecraft.

NASA says the half-circle components seen in the photos are camera lens covers which popped off the Venera probes when they landed. The reason they appear in different places in the two Venera-13 photographs suggesting movement is that the space probe had both a front and a back camera. One image shows the front camera lens cap and the other the rear lens cap. The scorpion-like creature in the photo has been identified as processed noise.

(Radar image of Venus from NASA.)

To read the entire article, click on LIVE SCIENCE.

Comment: The old adage “Seeing is believing” falls short of always being completely accurate. The most famous case of mistaken identity in the search for life in the solar system is the Face on Mars, which turned out to be merely a trick played by shadows.

People do tend sometimes to see only what they want to see. Unless we are born pessimists, we see things in our favorite sports team that give us confidence of future success on the field or court. We tend to see the leaders of our chosen political party as being more pure and gifted than what they likely are.

In science too, the adage often falls short. Secularists see similarities between various animals as evidence of their having a common ancestor. Bible believers see these similarities as evidence of a common Creator. Secularists seem to see the discovery of new planets as a promise of eventually discovering life in space. Bible believers see life as not possible without a living Creator.

What we really need is a perfect set of eyes that are not capable of misperceiving — and we have them in the testimony of the God who sees everything (Proverbs 15:3). God sees that we are all sinners (Romans 3:23), in desperate need of a Savior (“The soul who sins is the one who will die” Ezekial 18:20). But we see in His Word the path to this salvation. “We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved” (Acts 15:11).

While we can see everything we need to see for the present, when we look into the future our vision is clouded. St. Paul says, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.” What heaven will hold for our eyes will truly be beyond human words. The last book of the Bible compares the beauty of heaven to that of precious jewels (Revelation 21:10-11). Even those who are physically blind believers at present will be able to witness this beauty, but not those who are spiritually blind or, in other words, those who do not see their Savior in the person of Jesus Christ.

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

Who was the youngest person ever to discover a supernova?

A 10-year-old Canadian girl by the name of Kathryn Gray. She made her big discovery in January of 2011. (Photo of a supernova from NASA.)

Source: Parade (12/18/11)

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Evolution Nominated as a ‘Most Beautiful Theory’

2012-01-23T10:23:00.001-06:00

General relativity and something called emergence are among other ideas also being suggested by scholars.

Summary: Every January John Brockman, who presides over the Edge.org website, asks scientists and other scholars to consider one thought-provoking question. In previous years these questions have included “how is the Internet changing the way you think?” and “what is the most important invention in the last 2,000 years?” This year, Brockman posed the question “what is your favorite deep, elegant or beautiful explanation?”

Many of the nominated ideas won’t be found in high school or college courses. For instance, computational neuroscientist Terrence Sejnowski suggests our conscious mind does not lead us to make important decisions, but rather we make decisions because of an ancient brain system called basal ganglia or brain circuits, which is unavailable to consciousness. Behavioral scientist Stephen Kosslyn nominates Pavlovian conditioning as the reason for placebo effects. Psychologist Alison Gopnik favors an idea that accounts for why teenagers are so restless and reckless. She explains that two brain systems, an emotional motivational system and a cognitive control system, have fallen out of sync in teens.

But the ideas that got the most votes were arguably “the two most powerful scientific theories ever developed” — Einstein’s theory of relativity and Darwinian evolution. Einstein’s theory of relativity explains gravity as the curvature of space. Theoretical physicist Steve Giddings writes, "This central idea has shaped our ideas of modern cosmology (and) given us the image of the expanding universe." General relativity explains black holes, the bending of light and even a possible explanation for the origin of the Universe.

But evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins insists, “Darwin's natural selection wins hands down.” Of this theory, which is based on natural selection operating on random genetic mutations, he adds, “Never in the field of human comprehension were so many facts explained by assuming so few.”

Another nominee is one by neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky. He thinks the most beautiful idea is one called emergence, in which complex phenomena almost magically come into existence from extremely simple components. For instance, the intelligence of an ant colony emerges from the seemingly senseless behavior of thousands of individual ants. "Critically, there's no blueprint or central source of command," says Sapolsky. Each individual ant has a simple algorithm for interacting with the environment, "and out of this emerges a highly efficient colony."

(Human evolution drawing from Wikimedia Commons.)

To read the entire article, click on YAHOO NEWS.

Comment: Of all the theories presented, I would vote for Mr. Sapolsky’s emergence as the “most beautiful idea” because it comes so close to describing intelligent design. Of course, if he is a secularist, he would never use the words “intelligent design,” but how else could you explain how the “seemingly senseless behavior” of individual ants could work together to produce the “intelligence of an ant colony”? Explaining how complex phenomena almost “magically” can come into existence from simple components would make much more sense if God was given the credit and not magic.

Richard Dawkins is one of the most outspoken defenders of evolution, so it is no surprise he votes for Darwinism. However, many people may find evolution to be anything but beautiful because this theory deals with the gruesome “struggle for survival,” with the less-fit dying out and no hope in the future being offered to mankind. In addition, if evolution is so beautiful, why the well-documented repression of popular alternate viewpoints, specifically creation science, in public colleges, in science magazines, and in the media?

Want to know what idea really wins the “beautiful idea” contest hands down, and it is no mere theory. According to the book of Isaiah,
“How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace,
who bring good tidings,
who proclaim salvation” (Isaiah 52:7)

And the good news is that we have a Savior, Jesus Christ, Who loves us, Who died for us, and Who wants us to be with Him eternally in His beautiful home in heaven (Revelation 21:2).

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

What’s a good use for an old sock?

Stick your hand in it and use it as a dust rag. Your fingers will prove good at getting around runs, spindles and other tight spaces and the palm will do the rest.

Source: USA Weekend (January 6-8, 2012)

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Solving the Mystery of Rhino’s Tiny Feet

2012-01-20T10:09:00.001-06:00

Researchers have a hard time figuring out how these huge animals can stand on such dainty feet.

Summary: Some veterinary scientists in the U. K. are trying to discover how the dainty little pigeon-toed feet of a rhinoceros can support its huge weight. A rhino can weigh as much as 8,000 pounds (3,600 kilograms), but somehow his feet manages just fine.

The researchers coaxed three white rhinos to walk across a “pressure pad” embedded with thousands of pressure sensors. The scientists collected data on how much force the beasts exert on different parts of their feet as they walk. Initial results show toes feel pressures of up to 75 pounds per square inch (psi) while the pads on their feet feel 15 psi.

"Impressively, the peak pressures aren't that different from human feet (similar range of values), although the timing and distribution of pressures around the feet surely are different to some degree we haven't yet quantified," said John Hutchinson, professor of evolutionary biomechanics at the Royal Veterinary College.

The scientists are also comparing how the locomotion of rhinoceroses differs from that of other large animals like elephants. Compared to the column-like legs of elephants, rhinos’ legs are thinner and splay out into larger circular pads tipped with three rigid toes. Their bodies look like they are teetering on four saplings. The two animals carry their weight differently too. "Rhinos put more pressure on the inside [edge] of their feet; elephants on the outside, which is weird and we don't really understand it yet," Hutchinson said.

Because the rhinoceroses proved somewhat reluctant to follow the directions of the researchers, what good is this research? Hutchinson said the project could help detect and treat abnormal foot pressure patterns in rhinos that could indicate health problems, potentially a serious issue with large land mammals. Secondly, learning how rhinos carry their bulk with minimal pressure on the feet could help engineers design heavy load lifters, “but we still have a ways to go before we can really suggest new inspirations for design."

To read the entire article, click on YAHOO NEWS.

Comment: I hope followers of this blog are not getting bored with the frequent stories that point out evidence of “intelligent design” in various creatures. But the more stories like this one which get reported, the harder it is to continue to insist that living organisms are nothing more than the result of natural processes.

Here we have a huge animal which doesn’t look like it should be able to stand up on its relatively skinny legs, but it does and it does so without complaining. We can hear the amazement in Mr. Hutchinson’s comments about this ability being “weird and we don’t really understand it yet.” As for the possibility engineers might copy this design when planning for new and improved heavy load lifters, Mr. Hutchinson indicated scientists still have a ways to go yet in completely understanding the rhino and its locomotion and how its design can be used by human inventors.

The practice of studying nature in order to design human “inventions” and new ways of doing things is known as biomimicry or bionics. Again, there are so many examples of biomimicry, one wonders why humans, the most advanced species, are able to learn so many lessons from these less-advanced species if evolution is true.

When commenting on the wickedness of the citizens of Jerusalem during His time, Jesus made reference to another well-designed albeit lowly creature, the chicken. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing“ (Matthew 23:37).

Like the compassion a hen has for her chicks, Jesus has compassion for all of us. We can run away from Him if we wish, but not if we care about our futures. “As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him” (Psalm 103:13). And Jesus had so much compassion for us, He died on a cross so we could be saved.

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

Is it okay for family members to share the same bath towels?

Not recommended. This practice has the potential to spread skin organisms that can cause skin and other infections. So says Dr. Amesh A. Adalja of the U. of Pittsburgh Medical Center. It would be better if each family member had a designated towel and to wash it weekly in hot water.

Source: Spry (January, 2012)

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Warmer Summers, Cooler Winters

2012-01-18T11:07:00.000-06:00

Scientists struggle to understand why warmer summers often lead to cooler winters.

Summary: Warmer summers in the far Northern Hemisphere are the cause for the more frequent severe winter weather in the U. S. and Europe, a team of scientists says. Blizzards and extreme cold temperatures during the winters of 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 caused such widespread travel woes in the U. S. and Europe, some people were led to question the theory of global warming.

Judah Cohen, lead author of a study published in Environmental Research Letters, found a clear trend of strong Arctic warming during summer months, which should have resulted in a warmer winter as well. This was not always the case. The counter-intuitive discovery suggests the world’s climate system may be more complex than previously thought. The large-scale cooling trends seen in eastern North America and Northern Eurasia over the past two decades are likely not due to internal variability alone, according to the scientists.

Using temperature, rainfall, snow and ice data, the team found rising summer temperatures in the Arctic allowed the atmosphere to hold more moisture, leading to more autumn snow in high-latitude areas. The increased snow cover in Eurasia caused changes in the Arctic Oscillation (atmospheric pressure patterns that govern winter weather in the far Northern Hemisphere).

When the oscillation is in a negative phase, high pressure cells over the Arctic push colder air towards mid-latitudes resulting in colder temperatures than normal and fierce snow storms. A positive phase tends to bring in milder winter weather, which is the case at present in the U. S. and Europe.

The winter cooling trends are complex and need more study. However, Cohen said their discovery could improve long-range forecasting if snow cover is included in a seasonal forecast. The team’s research is just one of several recent studies that highlight the complexity of the climate system. Scientists are still learning how much mankind and natural factors can influence long-term patterns.

To read the entire article, click on YAHOO NEWS.

Comment: Today’s key word is “complex.” By relying on recent past data and analyzing present data, with the help of computers scientists who study the weather can come up with simulations to predict future weather trends. It is no secret that most simulations suggest that the globe is warming up.

However, this story indicates that the total picture may be more complex than some scientists are willing to admit. There appear to be a lot of factors which aren’t being considered and which need to be considered for scientists to be able to make more accurate forecasts of future weather trends. If scientists are struggling to understand something as relatively simple as present weather trends (compared to very complex things like living organisms), they must avoid being too dogmatic in making their predictions.

The point is that if conditions in the present are so complex that it is difficult to completely understand them, how can those scientists who study the distant, murky past be so sure they understand what conditions were like way back then? In other words, are not paleontologists and anthropologists and all those other “ologists” who are so confidently telling us what the world and its living creatures were like “millions” and “billions” of years ago overstating their case?

The faith of countless number of believers has been threatened and even destroyed by the arrogant scientists who look at the past and tell us that they pretty much know what the earth was like long ago, that living organisms began with single-celled organisms and now have evolved into human beings, and that there is no need for a Creator or an Intelligent Designer.

However, the complexity of the world in which we are living and especially the complexity of the living creatures around us challenges the idea that the universe and its living organisms could possibly be the result of blind, random processes. Let us stick with the Bible, which gives us the true account of Earth’s history by the One who was there. He tells us how we got here and where we are going. If we have come to trust in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, for our salvation, where we are going is heaven, a place where “perfection” is a key word. “I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far” (Philippians 1:23).

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

How similar is the DNA of chimpanzees to that of humans, according to ICR research?

Numerous experiments by ICR (the Institute for Creation Research) involving the entire human genome has found human-chimp DNA similarity, conservatively speaking, of 86-89 percent. That is 10 to 12 percent less than what is commonly claimed.

Source: Acts and Facts (January, 2012)

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Study: Internet Addiction Can Harm Our Brains

2012-01-16T09:10:00.000-06:00

Too much time spent online can produce changes in the brain similar to those seen in people addicted to alcohol or illegal drugs.

Summary: Internet addiction has now been linked to changes in the brain similar to those observed in people addicted to alcohol, cocaine and cannabis. Researchers in England used MRI scans to reveal abnormalities in brains of adolescents who spent so much time on the Internet, their social and personal lives were affected. Some 5 to 10 per cent of Internet users are thought to be addicted, meaning they can’t control their use. The discovery could lead to new approaches in treating behavioral problems resulting from this addiction.

Henrietta Bowden Jones, a psychiatrist at Imperial College, London, who runs that country’s only clinic for Internet addicts and problem gamblers, said, "The majority of people we see with serious Internet addiction are gamers – people who spend long hours in roles in various games that cause them to disregard their obligations. I have seen people who stopped attending university lectures, failed their degrees or their marriages broke down because they were unable to emotionally connect with anything outside the game."

Case studies include a 20-year-old in England who died of a blood clot when he developed deep vein thrombosis after spending up to 12 hours at a time playing his Xbox; a mother in New Mexico who received a 25-year jail sentence because her daughter died from neglect due to her online game addiction; and an English woman who was jailed because she stole £76,000 ($116,300) from her company to feed her Internet gambling addiction. However, most people can spend long hours online without evidence of addiction. They may go on the Internet because of their jobs or for harmless social activities.

In China researchers scanned the brains of 17 adolescents who had been diagnosed with “Internet addiction disorder” and compared the scans to those of 16 of their peers. The results showed impairment of white matter fibers in the brain which connect regions involved in emotional processing, attention, decision making and cognitive control. Similar changes in white matter have been seen in cases of alcohol and cocaine addiction.

However, the study’s authors are not sure whether the brain changes are the consequence or the cause of the Internet addiction. Because the study was not controlled, it is also possible illicit drugs, alcohol, or other stimulants might account for the changes.

To read the entire article, click on THE INDEPENDENT.

Comment: The Internet, like printed matter, television, automobiles, and just about everything else in life including the human ability to speak, can be used for either positive or negative purposes. Regarding the usefulness of the Internet, compare having to trudge down to the local library and perhaps spend hours in order to find the answer to a question to the ability to almost instantly find your answer on the Internet, using a search window like Google.

However, when it comes to realizing when we have a serious addiction, we need to seek help if we can’t learn to control it ourselves. This story paints a picture of Internet addiction as being about as serious as addiction to alcohol or illegal drugs.

On the other hand, if meaningless activity such as playing games for hours on the Internet can hurt us mentally, shouldn’t the opposite also be true? If we submerse ourselves in wholesome activities such as volunteering to help people in need, reading good literature, or spending more time with family, shouldn’t we expect to benefit mentally and socially from such activities?

As Christians, we know where we should be spending a significant amount of our time. In doing good works: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink” (Romans 12:20) In worship and Bible study: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42). And in spreading the good news of the Gospel: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19)

There will be no harmful addictions in heaven. If there is an addiction in Paradise, it will be a healthy addiction to praising and serving the Lord. “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!” (Revelation 5:13). For those people who have come to faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior, such positive thoughts will frequently travel the pathways in our brains. Nothing could be healthier for us.

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

Do heavy smokers ever reach the point where quitting no longer has a positive effect?

No. According to Bill Blatt of the American Lung Association, fifteen years after quitting, a smoker’s lung cancer risk will be the same as that of someone who has never smoked.

Source: Spry (January, 2012)

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An ‘Extinct’ Tortoise May Still Be Alive

2012-01-13T10:46:00.001-06:00

Evidence indicates a Galapagos tortoise thought extinct since the mid-1800s may still be around.

Summary: DNA testing of 1,600 tortoises on Isabela Island in the Galapagos has suggested a giant tortoise species long thought to have gone extinct in the mid-1800s may still be alive. Among the native Chelonoidis becki tortoises, researchers found at least 84 animals that were the direct offspring of a different tortoise species, Chelonoidis elephantopus, which originally lived on nearby Floreana Island, an island that now has no tortoises.

The 84 tortoises were Isabela/Floreana hybrids, but the scientists think there could potentially be 38 or more pure blooded Floreana tortoises still alive on Isabela Island. "The only way these hybrids could be produced is if we had some pure Floreana animals still alive on the island… because some of these animals are hybrids which are first-generation crosses," Adalgisa Caccone, an evolutionary biologist at Yale University, says.

The researchers believe the Floreana animals were taken by whalers onboard ships to be used as food but then must have been dropped off or escaped in order to find their way to Isabela island, which was never settled by humans.

This discovery dates to 1994 when the same researchers took 60 blood samples from tortoises living on the sides of a volcano on Isabela. Caccone says they found some individuals so divergent genetically they were referred to as “aliens.” Years later, after DNA analysis had improved, tests of bone and shell from extinct Galapagos tortoise species kept in museums revealed that the “aliens” had actually come from Floreana island. An expedition involving 50 people spent two weeks recently on Isabela and took 1,660 blood samples to confirm these conclusions.

While the scientists did not find any purebred Chelonoidis elephantopus individuals, they are satisfied that the purebreds are there on Isabela island and reproducing. If pure blooded animals are found, they will be reintroduced to their home island of Floreana. Otherwise, a breeding program might back cross the hybrids to build up a population closer to full-blooded Floreanas, which would later be taken to Floreana.

The Galapagos tortoises are among the animal species there that Charles Darwin said helped him form his ideas on evolution. Darwin noted that many of the islands had their own, distinct, tortoise species and inferred that each species had evolved to survive best on its own home island. Some of the Floreana tortoises, which can live to be 100 or older, may be the children of ones that Darwin saw.

(Thanks to Dr. Bruce Holman for suggesting this story.)

(Photo of a Galapagos tortoise with a scientific name [Geochelone elephantopus] similar to the “extinct” species is from Wikimedia Commons, credited to Matthew Field.)

To read the entire article, click on USA TODAY.

Comment: Where did Darwin go wrong in the Galapagos, considering he obviously was correct in his observation that different environments can lead to differences in animals? Like evolutionary scientists today, he erred when he inferred that minor changes in animals (variations within a type of animal) can be strung together in such a way that they can lead to major changes (molecule-to-man evolution).

However, nature cannot be shown to be a ladder, where one step will take you to another and another and another. The overwhelming evidence indicates that while there is room for variation within the genome of each type of animal, there are also strict limits to how much change is possible. Limited variation, sometimes called microevolution, is affirmed by all scientists, evolutionist and creationist alike. However, creationist scientists want to see evidence for the microbe-to-man type of change, referred to as macroevolution or Darwinian evolution.

It is easy for the people to be fooled. A type of faulty reasoning, called affirmation of the consequent, is sometimes employed to convince people that major changes, aka macroevolution, can occur and have occurred. This false logic takes a form something like the following: If A is true, we should see B. We see B. Therefore A is must be true. Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? But many examples can be provided to show this approach can produce entirely wrong conclusions. For instance, consider: If there is a total eclipse of the sun, it should be dark outside. It is dark outside. Therefore, there must be a total eclipse of the sun. This thinking can be faculty because B can be due to other reasons besides A.

An evolutionist then might reason: If evolution is true, we should see changes in animals. We do see changes in animals. Therefore evolution must be true. But the changes we see in animals such as the tortoises are due to their genomes which permit some variation, but they are not due to Darwinian evolution. For example, the animals that descended from the “cat kind” which left Noah’s ark have taken on various different appearances and sizes, but they are all clearly cats. No part-cat, part-non-cat has ever been documented. The changes in felines down through the ages have been limited.

The human race today also displays many differences in appearance, but we are all clearly human. We are all descended from the original pair of humans, Adam and Eve, and also from the four couples aboard the ark. While different in some respects, we are all perfectly alike in one crucial way. We are all sinful creatures in desperate need of a Savior. And we all indeed do have a Savior. We are being offered total forgiveness of our sins and the assurance that through faith in Jesus Christ, heaven will be our future home. “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

Where is the world’s longest bridge over water?

The Qingdao Haiwan Bridge (aka Jiaozhou Bay Bridge) in northwest China covers 26.4 miles, making it the world’s longest sea bridge. The bridge opened in June, cost an estimated $2.3 billion, and required enough steel to build seven Empire State Buildings. (Photo from Wikipedia)

Source: Discover (November, 2011)

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Broken Hearts Often Lead to Heart Attacks

2012-01-11T09:34:00.000-06:00

A study finds more stress and increases in other medical conditions among those who grieve the loss of a loved one.

Summary: Grief over the loss of a loved one significantly elevates the risk of a heart attack, a study released Monday suggests. Research which tracked 2,000 adults who had survived a heart attack found the risk soared by 21 times the first day after a loved one died and was still 6 times higher than normal through the first week, before slowly declining. The findings were reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Intense grief can cause increases in heart rate, blood pressure, stress hormone levels and blood clotting. Also, grieving people are prone to sleeping less, missing their medications and eating less, all factors which boost cardiovascular risks.

"Friends and family of bereaved people should provide close support to help prevent such incidents, especially near the beginning of the grieving process," said Elizabeth Mostofsky, lead author of the research.

While previous studies had shown the link between grieving spouses and increased risk of heart disease and strokes, this study may have been the first to examine the short term risk of heart attack after a loved one’s death. Researchers reviewed charts and conducted interviews with patients who had heart attacks from 1989 to 1994. The patients were asked questions about their personal lives, whether and when they had lost a loved one, and the importance of their relationship.

To read the entire article, click on BREITBART.

Comment: I have heard more than once that morticians can usually tell the difference between a funeral involving a firm believer in Jesus Christ and one that doesn’t. The difference, of course, is that in a truly Christian funeral, it is understood the separation between the departed and his/her loved ones is only temporary, that the loved ones will meet again in heaven.

Having said this, some sadness is bound to be present. Separation even for a short time is a legitimate reason for a certain degree of sadness, for example when a son or daughter goes away to a distant college for the first time. Still, it is to be expected that among loved ones, the grief and the stress that can contribute to cardiovascular problems will be significantly less. On the other hand, perhaps the will to live, in anticipation of an early reunion in Paradise, might in some cases be significantly less too when a spouse dies.

Christians rejoice that we can look forward to meeting all our believing loved ones again in heaven. We rejoice even more that we will be able to see our Savior face to face. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:1-3)

How sad it is for those secularists who have no hope for the future. A death of a loved one means for them an eternal separation. They should be in our prayers as we work to get the Gospel out to the many who are not yet following Jesus.

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

What are the five best states for good hospital care at reasonable costs?

North Dakota, South Dakota, Pennsylvania, Nebraska and Iowa. Rankings were based on the number of hospital beds per 1,000 people, medical staffing levels, costs for patient care, and average annual spending on health-care services.

Source: www.Bundle.com, quoted in Bottom Line Personal (1/15/12)

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Was an Octopus the World’s First Geneticist?

2012-01-09T10:07:00.002-06:00

Scientists discover a species of octopus can manipulate its RNA in order to survive chilly polar waters.

Summary: Cold temperatures normally slow organisms down because all molecules move slower under such circumstances, including the proteins that send “movement“ messages along nerve cells. But one species of octopus that has relocated into the chilly waters of the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans has been found to actually be able to manipulate its genetic material in order to keep moving.

The chilly-water octopus has the ability to “edit” its RNA (intermediate protein-making molecules) to provide a short term solution that allows greater flexibility than if it were to alter its DNA, a process referred to as a genetic mutation. Scientists had known about RNA editing and how it can help electricity-conducting ion channels in the body to open and close, but they hadn’t previously seen it happen in response to an environmental cue like temperature.

The researchers compared two octopi species, the Pareledone species from an area in the Antarctic where water temperatures average 35.2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.8 degrees Celsius) and the Octopus vulgaris from Puerto Rico with its 86 degree Fahrenheit waters (30 degrees Celsius). They analyzed the genes that regulate when a brain cell sends a message. The scientists found little difference in the signals between the two species.

"What really surprised us, when we cloned [looked at the code of] the genes, they were virtually identical between the Antarctic and the tropical octopus, after millions of years apart in very different temperatures," a researcher named Rosenthal said. It isn’t any differences in the genes that allow adaptations to the cold, but the important factor is how the organisms edit their RNA.

RNA is the intermediate form of DNA that produces proteins which tell the body how to function. The RNA of the cold-water octopi was changed before they were made into proteins. When editing did not take place, the cold water ion channels opened 14 times slower and closed 60 times more slowly in cold water compared to warm waters. But with RNA editing, the channels worked and allowed the octopus to keep its nerve signals moving relatively quickly even in chilly waters.

(Photo of an Octopus vulgaris from Wikimedia Commons, credited to albert kok.)

To read the entire article, click on LIVE SCIENCE.

Comment: Gregor Mendel, the Austrian friar who lived from 1822 to 1884, is given the credit for founding the new science of genetics, even though the significance of his work was not fully recognized until much later. So, it’s remarkable that the lowly octopus which, according to most secular scientists, evolved during the Cambrian period (542 to 483 million years ago) appears to know something about the subject.

It’s not only that the octopus is at least somewhat genetics-savvy, but even more amazing is the observation that it actually has some control over its genes. (Consider that we humans can’t directly control our RNA in order to feel warmer; all we can do is shiver, or put on a coat.) Even the secular researcher Rosenthal seemed impressed by this apparent ability of the octopi when he said, "From the standpoint of the organism … it gives you good options because you can decide to change protein function now or you don't want to. You don't have to stick to exactly what your gene says."

How many examples of the amazing intelligence and abilities of mere animals such as this one will it take to convince even the most stubborn naturalist that there must be a Supreme Intelligence who built these remarkable talents into the fabric of these creatures? Sadly, many scientists and others have hardened their hearts to the point they will never admit the obvious. But God has a warning for all who refuse to see Him in His creation.

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse” (Romans 1:18-20).

Such a warning need not bother anyone who will confess his sins and come to Jesus Christ for forgiveness and the promise of eternal life in heaven. “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him” (John 3:36).

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

Why does drinking alcohol do such a poor job of warming people up?

Alcohol increases blood flow to the skin making a person feel warmer, but that actually allows body warmth to escape into the air more rapidly. This means his/her body is actually getting cooler and putting the person at risk for hypothermia.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, quoted in Bottom Line Personal (1/15/12)

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Scientists Create Super Ants

2012-01-06T10:46:00.001-06:00

Researchers use hormones on ant larvae to turn them into supersoldiers.

Summary: An international team of researchers says it has programmed ants to become “supersoldiers.” Writing in Science magazine, the scientists say they worked with Pheidole ants, a large group of 1,000 related species among whom only eight naturally have a so-called supersoldier caste. Soldier ants protect their colonies by using their large heads to block entrances from invaders.

Led by Dr. Ehab Abouheif from Montreal’s McGill U., the team found it could treat ant larvae with a hormone at a very specific time during their development in order to turn them into giant supersoldiers. They accomplished this in two ant species that do not normally have a supersoldier caste.

The idea for programming developing ants to become giant soldiers came to Dr. Abouheif when he noticed a few strange big-headed ants in a Pheidole ant species that lacks supersoldiers. This led to the scientists studying the ants to discover what caused these “mutant ants.” When a queen ant lays eggs, each egg develops into a certain caste such as soldiers or workers depending upon its environment (temperature; the nutrition it receives). However, switching into a specific caste is controlled largely by one chemical called a juvenile hormone inside the eggs .

"So if you treat any species at the right time in development, just with a hormone, you can induce the development of the supersoldier," explained Dr. Abouheif. "The fact that you can induce it in all these different species [that don't naturally have that caste], means that one common ancestor of all these species had [supersoldiers]." He saw this discovery as having far-reaching implications for evolution studies. "This ancestral potential is locked in place for 35 million years and... if you can find it, you can unleash [it]."

Abouheif thinks that unlocking hidden traits in many species could lead to such advances as breeding more nutritious crops or even tackling cancer.

(Photo of soldier ants from Wikimedia Commons.)

To read the entire article, click on BBC NEWS.

Comment: By using their evolution-tinted eyeglasses, these scientists have interpreted their discoveries in terms of Darwinism. But I see this story as having more to do with intelligent design.

Genetic engineering has been performed by intelligent scientists for quite some time now and in many fields including medicine, research, industry and agriculture. It involves direct human manipulation of an organism’s genome by the introduction of foreign DNA or synthetic genes. Evolution is a blind, random process that has no particular goal in mind. But genetic engineering performed by humans is different in that there are specific outcomes that are desired such as a new medicine or better food.

The lesson from this story is that we should critically read science stories in order to detect statements that are colored by a scientist’s or a writer’s worldview. There is no reason to see evolution in every new scientific development. Science can be done quite well without reference to evolution theory. Dr. Marc Kirschner of the Harvard Medical School, as quoted by Dr. Jonathan Sarfati, has said that almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution. “Molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all,” Dr. Kirschner has said.

It was interesting to read Dr. Abouheif’s reference to “one common ancestor” of all the ant species which he has been studying. That fits in well with the biblical picture of one or a few ant species surviving the Flood with the genetic potential to develop into the various modern species. (Note: some creationists hold open the possibility that insects were not on the ark but survived outside the structure on floating debris.)

Genetic engineering may prove to especially be a blessing as scientists discover how to use it better in treating human genetic-based diseases. Meanwhile, the greatest disease we are dealing with, our sick, sin-filled souls, will not yield to any human manipulation. It can be cured only through faith in Jesus Christ, which brings with it complete healing.

“Praise the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits—
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases” (Psalm 103:2-3).

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

What were the first genetically-engineered organisms and when did this breakthrough occur?

Bacteria became the first genetically-engineered organisms in 1973, followed by mice in 1974. Insulin-producing bacteria were commercialized in 1982, and since 1994 genetically modified food has been sold.

Source: Wikipedia

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Where Fish Became Amphibians (?) -- A New Hypothesis

2012-01-04T11:08:00.001-06:00

Scientist says fish grew legs in woodlands, not deserts.

Summary: The leading hypothesis for how fish “evolved” into amphibians is being questioned by a U. of Oregon scientist. The prevailing picture for fish-to-amphibian evolution portrays small fish some “360 million years ago” crawling on stumpy limbs out of shrinking desert ponds in response to changing environmental conditions. Paleontologist Alfred Romer, who died in 1973, had popularized the idea. However, Gregory J. Retallack, Oregon professor of geological sciences, disagrees with that scenario.

Retallack doesn’t believe such a hypothetical ancestor of ours could have survived the overwhelming odds of perishing in traveling from one shrinking pond to another. Writing in the May, 2011 Journal of Geology, Retallack, who is also a co-director of paleontological collections at an U. of Oregon museum, said he examined numerous buried soils in rocks yielding footprints and bones of “early transitional fossils” between fish and amphibians, and what he found raises a major challenge to Romer’s theory.

"These transitional fossils were not associated with drying ponds or deserts, but consistently were found with humid woodland soils," he said. "Remains of drying ponds and desert soils also are known and are littered with fossil fish, but none of our distant ancestors. Judging from where their fossils were found, transitional forms between fish and amphibians lived in wooded floodplains.”

Limbs would have proven handy in getting around woody obstacles, and flexible necks would have allowed for obtaining food in shallow water. Limbs and necks, which distinguish salamanders from fish, would not have arisen from desert experiences. Retallack’s discoveries not only cast doubt on Romer’s hypothesis but also a newer inter-tidal theory which came into being when tetrapods were found in lagoonal mud in Poland.

To read the entire article, click on SCIENCE DAILY.

Comment: Transitional fossils? Here we go again. I did a web search of “transitional fossils” to see if I could find any clear photographs of these hypothetical creatures. You can do the same. What I found were mostly drawings and paintings - in other words, artist conceptions. (Don’t be confused by the illustration above of a fish-amphibian which is my own artist conception.) There were a few photos of fossils of ancient creatures such as archaeopteryx, which once was considered a link between reptiles and birds. I believe most paleontologists now think this creature was a true bird because true bird fossils have been dated as older than this fossil.

For transitional fossils to be proven to really be transitional fossils and not just the remains of some ancient, now-extinct animal, a series of fossils showing a gradual change of one animal into another would be extremely helpful. Unfortunately for evolutionists, such series of fossils are extremely difficult to find now that the famed horse evolution series has been discounted by DNA testing.

An alleged transitional fossil that is quite relevant to this story is something called Tiktaalik, supposedly a walking fish. But, rocks have been found containing walking animals which have been dated as older than Tiktaalik, meaning that secularists can’t consider it to be a transition between fish and tetrapods. Moreover, there are fish such as mudskippers alive today which can move around on their fins, in the water or sometimes even over land, and then there is a salamander called an axoloti which looks like a walking fish. But they can’t be transitional animals either because there is no evidence they were anything else than what they are today.

I would suggest that the biggest transition that ever happened to life on this planet was when sin entered the world. All creatures started experiencing imperfections (Romans 8:22). Human beings began doing ungodly things. However, another big transition is in the future for us, as long as we have come to faith in Jesus as our Savior. We currently are transitional species between what humans once were in the Garden of Eden and what we will once again be in the heavenly gardens. We will inherit perfect, glorified bodies and sinless souls on the last day, thanks entirely to the life and death of our Savior.

“Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:51-52).

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

How many Americans are hurt each year by medication mistakes made by doctors or in hospitals?

Nearly two million Americans are hurt each year when they are given the wrong drug or the wrong dose. This figure doesn’t include the mistakes many people make on their own such as forgetting to take a pill or accidentally double dosing. Thankfully, most of these mistakes are not fatal.

Source: Bottom Line Personal (December 15, 2011)

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Bugs Becoming Resistant to Corn Toxin

2012-01-02T09:50:00.002-06:00

An example of natural selection, but is it evolution?

Summary: Bt corn, one of the nation’s most widely grown crops, is a genetically engineered plant that makes its own insecticide. Introduced in 2003, Bt corn allows growers to produce large crops while using fewer chemicals because the corn naturally produces a toxin (considered harmless to humans and livestock) which poisons the western corn rootworm that threatens it. Created by the Monsanto Co. by splicing a gene from a soil organism called Bacillus thuringiensis into the plant, the hybrid and similar varieties account for 65% of all U. S. corn acres and end up in thousands of everyday foods such as cereal, sweeteners and cooking oil.

But over the last few summers, rootworms have been seen increasingly feasting on the roots of Bt corn in parts of four states — Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Nebraska. Apparently, rootworms in some Bt cornfields have “evolved” a resistance to the corn’s formidable defenses. Although the problem seems to have eased in Minnesota in recent years, it is hard to detect because winds or wet soil have to topple the corn plants for the damage to be observed. According to U. of Minnesota entomologist Kenneth Ostlie, we may be seeing only the tip of the iceberg.

Scientists say farmers who do not rotate Bt corn with other crops could be partly to blame. High corn prices may be the reason they don‘t do this. However, farmers could help by rotating their crops and also by planting non-BT corn within or next to BT cornfields. That could entice non-resistant rootworms to mate with resistant rootworms which would dilute their genes. Another possible help might be to switch between Bt corn varieties that produce different toxins or multiple toxins. Damaged fields might also be treated with insecticides to kill the resistant rootworms.

Seed companies are supposed to cut off farmers who violate Environmental Protection Agency planting rules which require growers to devote 20% of their fields to non-Bt corn. Many farmers apparently ignore that rule. And Monsanto was recently criticized by EPA for not doing enough to monitor the resistance problem among rootworm populations. For their part, Monsanto denies there is conclusive proof the rootworms really are immune to the toxin, but it says it does take the situation seriously.

At present, the U.S. food supply is not in any immediate danger due to the fact the rootworm problem is so isolated. Scientists are concerned though because, while they fully expected the rootworms to eventually develop a resistance to the Bt corn toxin, the signs of possible resistance have emerged sooner than they imagined.

To read the entire article, click on YAHOO NEWS.

Comment: This story appears to be another case of natural selection, but, despite the word “evolved” that popped up in the story, it is not an example of Darwinian (amoeba-to-man) evolution. From time to time we would do well to remind ourselves of the difference between natural selection and evolution. Evolutionists still confuse the issue by suggesting evidence for the former is also evidence for the latter.

Natural selection is sometimes also called “survival of the fittest.” If the resistant rootworms do have a genetic trait that protects them from the corn’s toxin, they are indeed better fit and able to survive in the Bt cornfields than rootworms lacking that trait. Thus, natural selection would in this case lead to more of the toxin-resistant rootworms.

For Darwinian evolution to have happened to these rootworms though, some new genetic information would have had to have been introduced into their genomes. There is no evidence that this happened. The genetic information already present in some of the rootworms was what led to their ability to better resist the toxin. Scientists know of no way new genetic information can naturally enter the genome of any creature. The resistant rootworms and the non-resistant rootworms are all still rootworms. No new type of creature has evolved.

The famous peppered-moth experiment of biologist Bernard Kettlewell also illustrates the difference between natural selection and Darwinian evolution. Kettlewell’s tests showed that dark-colored moths survived much better on tree trunks darkened by soot from factories than did light-colored moths because predator birds could not spot them as easily. The same was true of light-colored moths surviving better on light-colored tree trunks. Some lecturers still point to this example as evidence for evolution, but it is not, because it is freely admitted that both light-colored and dark-colored moths existed before factories with their smoky chimneys were built. Therefore, nothing new had evolved.

We can take comfort in the fact that natural selection is not involved when it comes to selecting those people who are being saved for eternal life. If nature did the selecting, we would all be selected out of the picture, because by nature we are all guilty of sin (Romans 3:23). Thankfully, God will on the last day do the selecting, and every person who has repented of his sins and come to faith in Jesus Christ will have those sins washed away and be selected for eternity in heaven (1 Corinthians 6:11).

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

Why is chewing on apricot pits dangerous?

When chewed, an apricot pit can release about 1.5 milligrams of cyanide. A lethal dose for an adult is around 100 milligrams. One 41-year-old woman was rushed to the hospital after eating 30 of the pits. The pits sometimes are sold as a relief for constipation.

Source: Discover (September, 2011)

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Fearing Divorce, Many Couples Avoid Marriage

2011-12-30T10:27:00.000-06:00

Marriage rates are at an all-time low.

Summary: The fear of divorce is one reason why many committed couples aren’t getting married, according to a new study. The Pew Research Center’s survey found marriage rates are at their lowest point ever, with only about half of American adults currently married. The median ages for first marriages for both men and women have also risen to new records.

In the new study, researchers conducted interviews with 122 people (61 couples interviewed as individuals) who lived with a partner in and around Columbus, Ohio. The participants were divided into two groups, middle-class and working-class, depending upon their education and income. They were asked questions on several topics including their thoughts and plans for marriage.

Middle-class participants were more excited about the prospects for marriage, and they saw living together as being merely a stepping stone to matrimony. Yet, some 67% worried about the potential for divorce with its social, legal, emotional and economic consequences, not to mention the consequences of divorce on children.

According to the researchers, divorce came up in 81 of 122 interviews, and finding the right partner before entering a marriage was a big concern for many of the respondents who indicated they wanted to “do it right” and get married only once. Some reasons for deferring marriage included not being ready to take it seriously, religious strictures against divorce, and insufficient finances. The prominence of divorce in society along with experiences with divorce among friends and parents had their effect on the participants.

Working-class women had strong doubts about marriage and feared the difficulty of exiting the institution if things didn’t work out. They were twice as likely as middle-class women to fear being stuck in a marriage with no way out if they had to rely on their spouse’s income. They saw fewer benefits to being married and thought it would lead to more responsibilities because of the “expectations” for a wife. Working-class cohabitating couples were more likely to think of marriage as “just a piece of paper” and were less likely to change their existing relationships. Counselors working with these couples might want to get them to clarify their expectations for household division of labor before getting married.

To read the entire article, click on LIVE SCIENCE.

Comment: For people who see healthy families as forming the foundation for a healthy society, having to witness the decline in the institution of marriage is a cause for sadness and concern. How many of our society’s problems with crime and poverty could be avoided if every person would see marriage as an honorable estate and every child could grow up in a family with a caring father and a loving mother?

It was God who instituted marriage when He brought together the first couple, Adam and Eve. So we would do well to see what He has to say about the subject. God says it is not good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18) and marriage He says is honorable (Hebrews 13:4)(Proverbs 18:22). Marriages which produce children attract His blessings (Psalm 127; Psalm 128). And for the sincere Christian, the chances of ever having to face the agony of a divorce would be greatly reduced if he/she married a sincere fellow Christian (2 Corinthians 6:14), so that whatever each does will be done to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).

To be sure, there are undoubtedly many single people who greatly desire to get married but have not yet found their lifelong marriage partner. (Even choosing to remain single is not in itself a sin — 1 Corinthians 7:1.) There are also married couples who greatly desire children but have not been blessed by God with offspring. These situations are among the “crosses” that we are told Christians must bear (Matthew 10:38).

It is interesting that at times Jesus referred to Himself as a bridegroom. “Jesus answered, ‘How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them’” (Matthew 9:15). What a remarkable picture this presents — a groom willing to give up His life for His guests and His bride, in this case, His church (Ephesians 5:25-27). We therefore desire to honor Jesus Christ for this greatest of all sacrifices, the giving up of His life for us so that we can one day enjoy the marriage feast in heaven (Revelation 19:9).

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

What kind of water cannot conduct electricity?

Totally demineralized water with no gaseous impurities. While it’s not found on supermarket shelves because it isn’t fit for cooking or human consumption, demineralized water is used in some industrial applications.

Source: Marilyn vos Savant, writing in Parade (11/27/11)

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Comet Loses Tail When Passing By the Sun

2011-12-28T10:55:00.000-06:00

Comet Lovejoy suffers less damage than expected.

Summary: A newly seen comet lost its long, bright tail as it passed through the sun’s atmosphere December 15. According to solar researcher Karl Battams, the comet, named Comet Lovejoy, had its tail when it entered the sun’s corona but reappeared tailless on the other side. The tail could still be seen “gently floating out in space where it was before perihelion,” according to Battams.

The comet passed within 87,000 miles (140,000 kilometers) of the sun’s surface. Instruments called coronagraphs on several space observatories noticed the encounter. Battams indicated surprise that the comet was able to survive in the several million-degree solar corona for almost an hour.

Lovejoy’s tail may be older dust and gas ejected before the comet entered the corona. Comet tails are created when their icy surfaces warm up to create a gas that gets blown outward by the sun’s solar wind. Some of the comet’s gases can also be changed into charged ions to form an ion tail. Comet tails always point away from the sun, and Battams thinks Lovejoy will eventually regrow a new one.

Battams and other astronomers were amazed by the unexpected survival of comet Lovejoy because comets usually are destroyed by their close encounters with the sun. This comet was discovered by and named after Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy, who first spotted it November 27.

(Photo of the famous Halley’s comet as seen in 1986, from Wikimedia Commons, credited to NASA/W. Liller.)

To read the entire article, click on LIVE SCIENCE.

Comment: Comets are not only among the most beautiful objects in space, but they do send a message. What they proclaim is that we live in a young universe, or at least a young solar system.

Comets are sometimes called “dirty snowballs” because they are made up of frozen gases and dust. Scientists think they have been around since the beginning of the solar system. What normally happens whenever a comet approaches the sun is that ice in its nucleus evaporates and the comet is slowly destroyed over time. Many short-period comets have been observed to have grown dimmer each time they have been seen. Besides having to deal with an unfriendly sun, the perilous existence of comets is also increased by the danger of crashing into planets, as happened to Comet Shoemaker-Levy in 1994 when it smashed into Jupiter, and by the danger of being ejected from the solar system.

Astronomers agree that comets lead relatively short lives and, without some way of replenishing themselves, shouldn’t exist in an old solar system of billions of years. So secular cosmologists have come up with two hypothetical “birthplaces” for new comets. They speculate that something called the Kuiper Belt exists beyond Neptune where short-period comets (those with orbits of 200 years or less) are born and a farther-out Oort Cloud (for comets with longer orbits). The problem is that there is absolutely no evidence either one exists. A number of objects beyond Neptune besides Pluto have been found. They are called Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) or Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs), but they tend to be too large to ever become comet nuclei.

Some 2,000 years ago there was a bright object in the sky that did send an entirely different message. A “star” appeared at the time of Jesus’ birth to announce to some Wise Men that the long-awaited Messiah had been born. It likely was a supernatural object because its description in the Bible does not seem to fit with any natural explanation. But its message is one everybody should take to heart. The Savior, whose life and death earned for us the forgiveness of our sins and the certainty of an eternal life in heaven, has come and completed His work. This is why we have such joy at Christmastime.

“After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh” (Matthew 2:9-11).

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

How many different versions of A Christmas Carol have been filmed?

Including movies like Scrooged and Ebbie, more than 60 English-language adaptations of the Charles Dickens classic have been produced for either the movie theaters or television.

Source: Parade (December 25, 2011)

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Why Atheists Attend Christmas Services

2011-12-23T10:36:00.001-06:00

Many unbelieving scientists want their own children to make up their own minds about religion.

Summary: Many atheists observe religious traditions at Christmas, according to a new study. The research, led by Rice U. sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund, focused on atheist scientists and found that 17% attend a religious service more than once a year. Her report was published in the December issue of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

In her survey of 275 participants selected from elite U.S. research universities, Ecklund found various social and personal reasons for why some atheists observe religion. Some of the scientists said they were encouraged to attend religious services by their religious spouses or partners. Others enjoyed the companionship they found at places of worship.

Perhaps the most interesting reason though was that many atheist scientists take their children to religious services so their children could make up their own minds about God. Ecklund was surprised by this finding but said it was consistent with their science identity to expose their children to all sources of knowledge. One study participant who was raised as a Catholic, rather than passing his atheism on to his daughter, had her learn about various religions including Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. "I … don't indoctrinate her that she should believe in God," he said. "I don't indoctrinate her into not believing in God."

The line between believing and not believing is not always clear, as Ecklund’s earlier research which found 20% of atheist scientists are “spiritual” had indicated. "Our research shows just how tightly linked religion and family are in U.S. society — so much so that even some of society's least religious people find religion to be important in their private lives,” she said.

(Illustration from The Bible Revival.)

To read the entire article, click on LIVE SCIENCE.

Comment: Could it be that there are few people who are 100% atheist, that there may reside in the soul of even the most unspoken opponent of religion at least a sliver of doubt about their belief in the nonexistence of God?

Surely scientists among all people are exposed on an almost daily basis to the wonders of the world around them. They may say that such things as the finely-tuned universe, the amazingly-designed creatures we see around us, and our creative human minds are merely the result of blind, random processes, but deep down, could there still be some flicker of belief that it can’t all be just a happy accident?

The reason why some scientific atheists expose their children to religion — in order for their kids to have the opportunity to make up their own minds about God — is interesting. That is a mirror image of what some Christians say about letting their own children decide on whether to follow a religion or not. However, such a practice on the part of Christians is not God-pleasing or biblical. God says in Proverbs 22:6, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” When they are well trained to understand the fallacies of thinking that opposes God’s Word, children will be far less tempted to fall for the temptations of atheism.

During this and every Christmas season, the secular side of the holiday and the over-emphasis on earthly gift-giving tend to get in the way of true worship of Jesus Christ, “the reason for the season.” If we could only keep our focus on the Christ-child and why He came down to Earth as revealed in God‘s Word, perhaps our faith might positively rub off on those unbelievers who haven’t completely shut the door to the spiritual gifts God wants to give to them. No better time of year than the present exists for such hopes and prayers and evangelistic efforts on our part. “When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them” (Luke 2:17-18).

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

Where can the world’s largest Christmas “tree” be found?

Actually, it’s a 750-foot-tall mountain. Tenderfoot Mountain overlooking Salida, Colorado becomes Christmas mountain after Thanksgiving when a switch is flipped to turn on red, orange and white lights. The lights outline the mountain to form a tree shape complete with ornaments, garlands and a treetop star.

Source: American Profile (Nov. 27-Dec. 3, 2011)

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Bees Behave Like Complex Brains

2011-12-21T09:01:00.000-06:00

Honey bees must make decisions when more than one suitable site for a nest is found.

Summary: Scientists have discovered that when faced with the problem of where to live, honey bees will work together like a complex brain in arriving at a solution. P. Kirk Visscher of the U. of California, Riverside, and Thomas Seeley of Cornell U. have long been studying how the bees make their decisions and have reported their new findings in the Dec. 8 Science Express.

When it splits off from its mother colony, a bee swarm will go looking for a secure cavity in a tree or elsewhere that would make a good home. They communicate with each other by dancing. Usually, the swarm’s scout bees will find more than one promising site, thus forcing the swarm to make a decision. They must make a choice quickly before the swarm is exposed and the season for collecting honey has passed.

To advertise a nest site, a bee will run a figure eight pattern while waggling. The angle of her body indicates the direction the other bees need to fly and the length of the waggling period tells them the distance to the nest site.

Visscher, Seeley and colleagues say they have found an overlooked signal that helps bees arrive at their decisions. Called a “stop signal,” a very short buzz delivered by a sender scout while butting her head against the dancer will shorten and end the dance. "It appears that the stop signals in bee swarms serve the same purpose as the inhibitory connections in the brains of monkeys deciding how to move their eyes in response to visual input," said Visscher, a professor of entomology. These stop signals appear to be a message from a scout bee that the dancer should slow down because there is another nest site worthy of consideration. According to Visscher, this example of cross inhibition mirrors cross inhibition found in nervous systems.

Once a site attracts a quorum of scout bees, the other bees detect it and begin changing their signals. They produce a piping signal by vibrating their wing muscles while pressing down on another bee. That leads the swarm bees, which simply hang out while the decision-making process is progressing, to warm up in preparation for takeoff. The piping signal forces the stop signal to change into a “time to go” alert. The scout bees will then lead the swam to the new nest site.

To read the entire article, click on SCIENCE DAILY.

Comment: Are you impressed? Let’s list all the indications of intelligence these “lowly” bees exhibit in arriving at their choice for a new nest. First they have to know what a suitable new home should look like. Then they must be able to do their clever dance that tells the other bees what direction to go to find the proposed new site and how far to go. Next the other bees must show they are able to interpret the dance correctly. They also have a system of signals including a stop signal and a piping signal. They show that they know enough to follow the scout bees to the new site which they have agreed upon should be their new home. In addition, they all somehow know their roles: queen, worker, drone, or scout.

Similar examples of built-in intelligence can be seen throughout all species. Perhaps most amazing of all though is that many scientists appear to be living in a state of denial by ignoring the implications that some superior intelligence had to design these bees and provided them with all the knowledge to accomplish their feats. As we learn more and more about the world of living creatures, it is becoming harder and harder to understand how these examples of wisdom and intelligent design in animals can be dismissed by so many people as just being an illusion.

In writing about human intelligence, the philosopher Voltaire is quoted as saying, “We are intelligent beings: intelligent beings cannot have been formed by a crude, blind, insensible being: there is certainly some difference between the ideas of (the great scientist Isaac) Newton and the dung of a mule. Newton's intelligence, therefore, came from another intelligence.” More recently, computer magnate Bill Gates was reported to have marveled at DNA when he said, “DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created.”

We do indeed have a Creator with a wisdom that far surpasses our own. “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out” (Romans 11:33). May we use the wisdom given to us to see that we have sins which need to be forgiven but which are forgiven through the suffering and death on a cross of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Acceptance of this truth comes through study of God’s Word. “Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17) (2 Timothy 3:15).

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

Is steam from a hot shower good for your skin?

No. Hot baths and showers can strip the skin by wearing away natural oils. It would be better to take a lukewarm shower and bath and limit them to five minutes.

Source: Dermatologist Dr. Jeannette Graf, quoted in Parade (December 4, 2011)

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Biology Test Omits Creation and a School Official Complains

2011-12-19T09:51:00.000-06:00

A Kentucky school superintendent objects to a proposed new state biology test he believes treats evolution as a fact.

Summary: The theory of evolution can be controversial in Kentucky. In Hart County near Louisville, the local school superintendent is objecting to a new state biology test in the works that he believes treats evolution as a fact and omits any mention of the “creation story” which cites God as the Creator of the universe.

Superintendent Ricky D. Line sent his objections to the state education commissioner and education board via e-mails and letters. "I have a very difficult time believing that we have come to a point ... that we are teaching evolution ... as a factual occurrence, while totally omitting the creation story by a God who is bigger than all of us," he wrote.

Line believes the majority of Kentuckians reject the evolution theory. Some supporters of teaching evolution agree that many Americans have a hard time accepting what Darwin called his “dangerous idea.” "Overall, the nation has a big problem," Dr. Brian Alters, a professor and author of the book Evolution in the Classroom, has said. "Approximately half of the U.S. population thinks evolution does (or did) not occur. While 99.9% of scientists accept evolution, 40% to 50% of college students do not accept evolution and believe it to be 'just' a theory."

State education commissioner, Terry Holliday, said the state biology test would deal with evolution as theory, not fact. And, according to a Lexington newspaper reporter, teachers in Kentucky have the freedom to discuss theories of creation other than evolution although they are not required to do so.

Teachers in Line’s district apparently told him they would have to spend considerable time teaching evolution in order to prepare students for the test. And Line was not impressed by claims of a scientific consensus in favor of evolution. He noted a great majority of scientists once considered Pluto to be a planet but no longer do.

To read the entire article, click on LOS ANGELES TIMES.

Comment: Kentucky is the state that has warmly welcomed the Creation museum to its turf. The Creation museum supports the biblical account of creation and a young universe of about 6,000 years. So it is not out of character to find some leaders in that state raising concerns about evolution being taught as fact in Kentucky schools.

However, if Superintendent Line really wants the creation account in Genesis to be taught in Kentucky public schools, I see problems with that, and I believe from what I read, most creationist leaders are not pushing for that proposal. In the first place, people who believe in the separation of church and state would agree that teaching Genesis as science and history would clearly be crossing the line. Allowing for Genesis to be taught in public schools would also open the door for allowing creation accounts from other cultures to be taught as fact, stories such as the Four Creations from the Hopi Indians or the Pan Gu and Nü Wa from China, to name just a couple. Secondly, an atheistic teacher or even a theistic evolution teacher might well mock the Genesis account if forced to teach it, and that could do more harm to students than good.

On the other hand, tax-paying Christian citizens have the right and even the duty to try to improve education programs in their state, even if they home-school their own children or send them to private schools. That means Christian citizens should be concerned about what is being taught in public school science classes. The tons of books which point out serious flaws with evolution theory written by authors with advanced degrees in science show there is another side to Darwinism that doesn’t seem to be presented in secular science textbooks. What possible objection should anyone have to the right of public school science teachers to point out weaknesses in evolution theory as long as the educators stick to science?

Opponents of Christianity will sometimes point to the many creation stories from other cultures and try to lump Genesis in with them as just one of many creation fables. That is where faith comes in for the Christian (Hebrews 11:3), but it is not a faith that hangs on nothing. It is a faith supported, first of all, by the unerring Word of God. It is also supported by what we see in the world around us (Romans 1:18-20). The Genesis account of creation is not contradicted by anything in the natural world because the Author of Genesis and the Creator of our universe are one and the same, and He is a holy God who can’t contradict Himself.

In Genesis we have the true story of where we came from and how we fell into sin. But in Genesis we also have the first promise of a Savior, a promise repeated many times until the Savior finally appeared. That Savior came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ as a little baby born in the village of Bethlehem on the first Christmas day. “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11).

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

Which is a better value, buying bottled water or buying a water filter?

Buying and using bottled water will on average cost $3 a day or $1,095 a year. Using a water filter costs about 12.5 cents a day or $45.63 a year.

Source: USA Today (September 2-4,2011)

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Ancient People: Expert Mattress Makers

2011-12-16T10:34:00.000-06:00

People long ago knew how to use medicinal plants to make bug-repelling bedding.

Summary: The world’s oldest bedding, dated at “77,000 years old” and made of mosquito-repellant evergreens, has been discovered in a South African cave. The use of medicinal plants along with other artifacts at the cave helps show how creative these early peoples were, according to an international team of archaeologists.

A stack of ancient beds was found at Sibudu, a cave in a sandstone cliff in South Africa. They are made of compacted stems and leaves from sedges, rushes and grasses that grew along the uThongathi River directly below the site. The oldest of the mats are “50,000 years” older than other known examples of plant bedding.

"The preservation of material at Sibudu is really exceptional," said researcher Christopher Miller, a geoarchaeologist at Germany’s U. of Tübingen. The plant remains are of evergreen plants from the species Cryptocarya which are used extensively in traditional medicines. When the leaves are crushed, insect-repelling scents are released.

"The selection of these leaves for the construction of bedding suggests that the early inhabitants of Sibudu had an intimate knowledge of the plants surrounding the shelter, and were aware of their medicinal uses,” archaeologist Lyn Wadley said. "Herbal medicines would have provided advantages for human health, and the use of insect-repelling plants adds a new dimension to our understanding of behavior 77,000 years ago."

Research showed the inhabitants repeatedly refurbished the mats and apparently also burned the bedding regularly, possibly to remove pests. According to Miller, it was a novel use of fire. The age of the oldest mats is roughly contemporaneous with other evidence of modern human behavior such as perforated shell beads, sharpened bone points used for hunting, bow and arrow technology, the use of snares and traps and the production of glue. "These discoveries show the creativity and diversity of behavior that these early humans practiced," Miller said.

(Photo of Cryptocarya from Wikimedia, credited to Penarc.)

To read the entire article, click on MSNBC.

Comment: The key word in today’s post is surprise. Scientists once again appear genuinely surprised that people they consider ancients were capable of some really creative abilities. (The December 5 post dealt with the surprise scientists experienced when they discovered how adept ancient fishermen were at fishing the deep seas and catching fast-moving fish like tuna.)

In my 50+ years of studying creation-evolution issues, it has become commonplace to read of the surprise archaeologists, anthropologists, paleontologists and other scientists have over some recent discoveries. Whether it’s the discovery that Neanderthals were as similar to modern man as one “race” is to another or the discovery that dinosaur fossils still contain soft tissue or the acknowledgement that the universe appears to have been designed specifically for life, it’s one surprise after another. Researchers really should be questioning their presuppositions concerning old ages (“deep time”) and an evolutionist origin of the universe and life. If they got rid of these notions, they wouldn’t get surprised so often.

While the discoveries of old, cleverly-designed bedding or ancient intelligent fishermen doesn’t prove evolution and its timeline are wrong, this research does fit in nicely with the picture the Bible paints of how the world and its living creatures got started. Mankind was created with intelligence, animals were given their gifts at the time of creation, and the world was designed by the Creator specifically for life.

It may not be politically correct, but it is biblically correct to warn that many scientists and non-scientists alike will experience a hugely unhappy surprise one day. According to Daniel 12:2, “multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.” Some people who have not repented of their sins and who have rejected Jesus may still know or strongly suspect what will happen to them when they die. But for most unbelievers, the entrance into the afterlife will be a really unpleasant surprise. However, for those people who have repented of their sins and do trust in Jesus for forgiveness and salvation, death is like a sleep from which they will awaken to enjoy the pleasures of heaven, as they have long been promised. No surprise there.

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

How many people have died from AIDS since it was first identified 30 years ago?

More then 33 million people worldwide have died from AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) which is caused by the HIV virus. About 50,000 Americans still become affected every year, with homosexual men still accounting for most of the cases. There is no cure yet.

Source: USA Weekend (December 2-4, 2011)

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Rats Show Their Kind Side

2011-12-14T11:02:00.002-06:00

The rodents appear to display real concern for trapped peers.

Summary: Rats may have a bad reputation, but according to a report in the Dec. 9 Science magazine, they have been shown to be capable of real empathy and self-sacrifice, more than evolution theory would have predicted.

In 2007 neuroscientist Peggy Mason of the U. of Chicago and Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal, a PhD student in integrative neuroscience, worked together on research to test the capacity of these rodents for feelings. In one study a rat was trapped inside a cage in the middle of a pen while another rat was allowed to run free around the cage. The imprisoned rat could be let out only if the free rat applied pressure to a cage door. Most of the free rats circled the cage, gnawing at it and sticking their paws, noses and whiskers through any openings. After a week, 23 of 30 rats learned to open the cage by head-butting the cage door or applying weight to it. They showed no interest in empty cages or cages containing toy rats.

In a second test Mason placed rats in a pen with two cages. One cage contained another rat while the other cage contained milk chocolate chips, a favorite treat for these particular rodents. The free rats could easily have eaten all the chocolate by themselves before freeing their peers. Instead, most of the rats opened both cages and shared the chocolate chips. Sometimes the free rats even placed the chips near their recently sprung peers “as if delivering it.”

McGill U. psychologist Jeffrey Mogil, who had previously shown mice could recognize their peers’ pain, did have questions about the findings. What was the motivation for the prosocial behavior of the rats — did the free rats open the cages because of empathy or to silence the alarm calls of the trapped rats? Why did all six female rats liberate their peers but only 17 of the 24 male rats — are females generally more empathic than males? Can mice as well as rats demonstrate this apparent ability for altruism (concern for others)?

Mason’s study is just one of several recent experiments which are changing how scientists think of empathy and altruism in the animal kingdom. Once most people thought altruism was a uniquely human characteristic, but now it seems that many animals have “evolved” instincts to help others, even at a cost to themselves, instincts that humans have “inherited.” "The bottom line is that helping an individual in distress is part of our biology," Mason says. "It's not something that develops or doesn't develop because of culture."

To read the entire article, click on SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN.

Comment: As we know, secular scientists and creation scientists will often look at the same data and come to different conclusions based on their beliefs and assumptions. We can’t be surprised that evolutionists looking at this experiment are seeing a pattern of empathy developing in the animal world and being passed on via evolution to humans. On the other hand, evolutionists shouldn’t be surprised that Bible believers see a pattern of God instilling knowledge in all his created beings and not just humans.

Animals don’t always seem altruistic. What about the male lions who insist on eating first even though it was the females that made the kill? Cats don’t always get along well with each other and may even act aggressive toward unrelated newborns. And in many animal groups leadership is achieved only through physical combat.

Of course, the same can be said for us humans, considering the murderers, thieves, and “Scrooges” among us. We can‘t read the minds of the rats to see what they are thinking when they do their acts of apparent kindness, but the same could be true for some human activity. A man who makes a generous donation to a charity or a school, but only if he gets his name in the paper or on a plaque, cannot be evaluated in the same way as a person who makes an anonymous gift.

For Christians, a God-pleasing gift or act of kindness must be done for the proper reasons. “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). “In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). So, the altruistic things we do must be done out of faith and love for our God and Savior and not because we expect to earn anything because of them. “Again Jesus said, ‘Simon son of John, do you truly love me?’ He answered, ‘Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.’ Jesus said, ‘Take care of my sheep’” (John 21:16) The best way to show love for Jesus and care for His sheep is to make sure they hear the good news of salvation.

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

How does the risk of radiation from airport scanners compare to other radiation risks?

It would take 50 scans at the airport to equal the radiation exposure from a single dental X-ray and 1,000 such scans to equal the exposure from a chest X-ray. In fact, a traveler is exposed to 100 times more radiation just traveling in a plane 30,000 feet above the Earth. It is impossible to avoid all radiation, as there are radioactive substances in the soil and cosmic rays from outer space.

Source: Dr. Anthony Konaroff, (Racine) Journal-Times

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Turkey Tries to Censor Evolution on the Web

2011-12-12T10:46:00.000-06:00

Internet freedom groups are challenging a Turkish censorship program.

Summary: The government of Turkey has been trying to keep children from stumbling onto evolution websites, according to a report in Hurriyet Daily News. Websites explaining Darwin’s evolution theory were inaccessible to users applying a “Children Profile” to their connection. This is a filter designed for under-aged users in compliance with government regulations. However, the censor reportedly allows access to creation websites.

The editor of a Turkish science and research magazine said the ban was not against the theory of evolution specifically because not all websites containing the word “evolution” were banned. But a particular evolution website “may have been banned for containing harmful material to children.”

After the report in Hurriyet Daily News was published, the ban was lifted, but science advocates and Internet freedom activists say they are still worried about the government’s attitude toward evolution. Turkey’s filtering program, which was launched in late November, was criticized because it also filters political sites of opponents of the government and sites that go against “Turkish values.”

The ban came to light when Aykut Kence, a biologist at Middle East Technical U. in Ankara reported in an e-mail that children were being blocked from evolution sites. That shows the “mentality of people censoring the websites,” he wrote. “Apparently they thought that this was deleterious for kids.” Anti-evolution websites developed by “Harun Yahya” remained accessible without any restrictions.

According to Yaman Akdeniz, the entire Internet censorship program is being challenged by Internet freedom groups in the Council of State, Turkey’s highest court.

To read the entire article, click on SCIENCE.

Comment: Anti-evolutionism used to be (and maybe still is) portrayed by mainstream scientists as merely being the product of some fundamentalist Christian groups. That portrayal took a big hit with the advent of the Intelligent Design movement whose scientists aren’t necessarily even Christians, much less Bible-based ones. The article above reminds us that many or most Muslims are also strong anti-evolutionists, or even creationists in the sense that many accept Adam and Eve and a six-day creation. Islam is the dominant religion in Turkey.

This article also reminds us that when the shoe is on the other foot, evolutionists will not hesitate to cry foul. Although there is no government ban on Americans going on the Internet to visit creationist sites or even the suggestion of such a ban, creationists see a ban against anti-evolutionism in many other arenas, such as public museums, public college classrooms, mainstream media, and so on. The courts have also (until recently in some cases) not been friendly regarding the right to present the scientific case against evolution in all public forums. So, it would be great if all scientists and freedom-of-information advocates would criticize the virtual ban on anti-evolutionism in these public places in America just as evolutionists and freedom-of-information advocates have criticized the ban in Turkey.

We creationists should not be afraid of confronting our opponents, as Darwinists often appear to be. We have God’s Word on our side. It is “sharper than any double-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12) and has yet to be proven wrong. We also shouldn’t be afraid to study God’s natural world which shows us the true Creator and testifies to the truth of the creation account in Genesis (Romans 1:18-20).

The Answers in Genesis link above suggests that similar beliefs in the two religions regarding creation could be a bridge in bringing the Gospel to the millions of Muslims living in North America and Europe. Why should Muslims be denied the right to hear about the love the Creator had for his children in sending His Son, Jesus Christ, down to Earth to become our Savior? Jesus said, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19).

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

Are all white deer albinos?

White deer are not uncommon, but not all of them are true albinos. True or pure albino deer have a genetic defect that causes a total absence of pigment in their bodies. They will not even have pigment in their eyes, which results in pink eyes, pink from blood vessels. Other white deer also have a genetic defect, but one which makes their skin and hair white but which can leave their eyes and hooves with some pigment.

Source: Creation (January-March, 2012)

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A Frozen Earth May Have Set the Stage for the Cambrian Explosion

2011-12-09T10:40:00.001-06:00

Scientists hypothesize life diversified during a frigid Cryogenian period.

Summary: Earth was once completely frozen, according to researchers, and that may have helped bring about the period known as the Cambrian explosion, a time about “540 million years ago” when there appears to have been the beginning of a rapid expansion in the diversity of life forms. At that time early in the Cambrian period, all the major groups of animals seemed to materialize rapidly.

Scientists have debated the causes for this Cambrian explosion, but researchers now think they have evidence that major groups of animals may have existed for tens of millions of years earlier and that this early activity helped light the fuse for the later Cambrian explosion. Their ideas are detailed in the Nov. 25 Science.

Researchers analyzed the fossil record as well as the genomes of existing organisms which are related to Cambrian species. Their findings suggest many of the early organisms developed genetic programs for their body plans during the Cryogenian period from “635 to 800 million years ago.” Then these creatures could have flourished when later conditions were more favorable, such as when then was more oxygen.

"We see that there's this long lag between the evolution of the developmental toolkits for their bodies and the explosion of diversity we see in the fossil record," said researcher Douglas Erwin of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. "Lots of lineages of animals appear to have their start back in the Cryogenian.”

Some recent studies suggest the Earth may have been a snowball during the Cryogenian period, completely covered with ice. The deep freeze could have pumped nutrients into the oceans which then might have accelerated evolution in animals. The burst of activity later in the Cambrian might have been due to how the animals evolved and interacted with each other while the Earth was still frozen. For instance, sponges and worms might have altered the landscape to help other life flourish, as earthworms do now by churning up soil.

(Photo of the Arctic region from Wikimedia Commons, credited to NOAA.)

To read the entire article, click on LIVE SCIENCE.

Comment: For evolutionists, the Cambrian Explosion is a big problem. On the basis of the theory of evolution, as one studies the various rock layers he might expect to see a few simple organisms in bottom layers, and as one proceeds up the geological column a gradually increasing diversity as well as increasingly complex creatures. But that is not what one sees.

In the Precambrian rocks just below the Cambrian, which evolutionists say covered more than 3 billion years of history, only a few species of organisms can be found, organisms such as bacteria, algae and sponges as well as some fairly complex creatures called the Ediacara fauna. Then, all of a sudden, in a span of “5 million years” during the Cambrian period, a great variety of animal life covering the vast majority of all animal phyla suddenly bursts upon the scene with little evidence of ancestors. The question is where did they come from and how did they evolve so fast. And, by the way, another problem exists in the rock layers above the Cambrian — apparently NO new or different body plans appear in these rocks, a puzzle the journal Scientific American called “evolutionary biology’s deepest paradox.”

It is not surprising then that secular researchers would be trying to come up with some kind of hypothesis to explain this conundrum. I see problems with their explanation, although I was unable to read Science magazine’s online article about the research because it is only available with a subscription.

In the first place, this hypothesis is loaded with words like “may have” and “could have” which suggests there is a lot of speculation involved. I have read nothing elsewhere about scores of new fossils being found in the Precambrian rock layers that could have evolved into the Cambrian organisms. Secondly, there is no explanation for what caused the Earth to become so completely frozen over for so long or what then caused it to thaw out. Even more important is the idea, suggested in this article, that organisms can on their own develop genetic programs for their body plans. Genetics knows of no way a genome can acquire new genetic information that could result in a completely new body plan.

The Bible offers the best explanation for the Cambrian explosion — the global Flood of Noah. While details of how this flood buried all the living creatures of that period in what is now called the Cambrian rocks may never be fully understood, the general idea is easy to accept. This would also explain why no new body plans for creatures can be found in the rock layers above the Cambrian because God has not created new kinds of creatures since the Flood or even since the original creation (Genesis 2:1). Wouldn’t it be better to go with a completely reliable explanation for life, the written record of God’s Word which has been with us for thousands of years, than to have to come up with yet another manmade invention to explain a “puzzle” in nature? The Bible not only offers us an unassailable look into the past, but also an accurate look into the future. Now is the time to prepare for the “explosion” of new, holy, perfect human beings who will inherit the glorious land of heaven on the last day because they have come to faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior from sin.

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

Who was Ibn Khaldun and what does he have to do with evolution?

Ibn Khaldun who lived from 1332-1406 was a famous Tunisian Arab historian who had an evolutionary view about the origin of all things. He believed the world started with minerals which gradually progressed to plants and animals and finally to man. Khaldun offered no cause or causes for this “ingenious gradual” progress in nature. (Illustration from Wikimedia Commons)

Source: Creation (January-March, 2012)

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‘Super-Earth’ Could Support Life, NASA Says

2011-12-07T10:26:00.001-06:00

Scientists are excited that conditions on Kepler-22b appear suitable for life.

Summary: NASA on Monday said its Kepler space telescope has for the first time confirmed the existence of an exoplanet (a planet outside our Solar System) lying in a habitable zone. Although French astronomers earlier this year said they found a rocky exoplanet with key requirements for sustaining life, Kepler-22b is the first for the U.S. space agency. It was first seen in 2009.

Confirmation means the astronomers have seen a planet crossing in front of its star three times, but it doesn’t mean astronomers know life actually exists there, only that the conditions are right. These planets are the right distance from their star to support life and have suitable temperatures and atmosphere.

NASA’s Bill Borucki said, “We are certain that it is in the habitable zone and if it has a surface, it ought to have a nice temperature.” Kepler-22b is 2.4 times the size of Earth, putting it in a class known as “super-Earths,” and it orbits a star some 600 light years away. Its near-surface temperature is “presumed” to be about 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 Celsius), but scientists don’t know if the planet is rocky, gaseous or liquid.

NASA says Kepler has uncovered 1,094 more potential planets. It is NASA’s first mission designed to find Earth-like planets orbiting suns similar to ours. It is equipped with the largest camera ever sent into space and is expected to continue sending information back to Earth until at least November, 2012. Kepler cost the space agency about $600 million.

French and Swiss astronomers had earlier confirmed finding planets named Gliese 581d and HD 85512 b which appear to lie in habitable zones, but the stars of these planets are smaller and cooler than our Sun. There are many other candidates as well. "So we are just thrilled about this. We need all telescopes observing these candidates so we can confirm as many as possible," said Natalie Batalha of the Kepler science team.

(Thanks to Dr. Bruce Holman for suggesting this article.)

To read the entire article, click on THE ECONOMIC TIMES.

Comment: Here we go again. Another Earth-like planet is discovered on which secular scientists are desperately hoping to find evidence of living organisms. Did you notice the excitement in the remarks of Ms. Batalha of the Kepler team? But why the excitement? Why are so many astronomers so eager to find life on planets besides Earth?

Yes, we are a curious people. We want to know what’s on the bottom of the ocean or in the rock strata or living in unexplored areas of jungles here on our own planet. So it is not surprising that we are curious as to what there is out there in deep space. Yet, the optimism of secular scientists that life may be confirmed some day on some other planet appears to be, at least at this point in time, greatly misplaced.

Notice that Kepler-22b may not even be a rocky planet. Notice that it is only a presumption that the surface temperature is in a suitable range. If the planet does have an atmosphere, how do we know it is not a poisonous one like what we find on Jupiter or Venus? It also hasn’t been confirmed that there is water on the planet. And the biggest problem of all—nothing was said about how scientists might determine how life could have arisen on this planet even if all the conditions should turn out to be perfect. Remember that scientists have yet to determine how life could have arisen from non-life even on our own planet Earth.

So, we return to the question of why some scientists have their hopes up so high, hopes that seem to go beyond just satisfying normal curiosity. Undoubtedly, at least some of these secular scientists believe that finding life beyond Earth could discredit the Bible and belief in God. If life is found on some other planet, they could say, “See, we don’t need to believe God created life on Earth as the Bible claims, because life has happened elsewhere too.” If the Bible is discredited in their eyes, then they may think there is less need to feel accountable to a higher power. (And to think $600 million of our tax money is apparently going to support “secular religion” projects like this one.)

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). A living God is absolutely required to pass on life to His creatures, as the law of biogenesis suggests. God has not only given life to his creatures for their existence on this planet, but for His human creatures He has promised an even better life—life in heaven. The way to this heavenly life is to repent of our sins and to follow Jesus Christ. “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’” (John 14:6)

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

If all the people in the world would lie in a straight line head to foot, how long would the line be?

Assuming a population of 7 billion and an average height, including children, of 5 feet, the line would stretch for 35 billion feet. That line would circle the Earth more than 266 times?

Source: Columnist Marilyn vos Savant, Parade (December 4, 2011)

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Early Humans Were Skilled Fishermen

2011-12-05T10:49:00.001-06:00

Archaeologists are surprised at evidence indicating early humans could fish the deep seas.

Summary: Past studies have provided evidence that humans could cross the open ocean as far back as “50,000 years ago,” but until now, evidence that they could fish while in the open sea dated back only “12,000 years.” However, some recently discovered fishhooks and other findings are revealing a different story.

"In most areas of the world, evidence for our early ancestors' coastal exploitation is now submerged — it was drowned by rising sea levels," researcher Sue O'Connor, an archaeologist at Australian National University said. But O’Connor and colleagues have found prehistoric fishing gear and the remains of large fish such as tuna in a cave shelter known as Jerimalai, located in the Southeast Asian island of East Timor. Their findings were reported in the Nov. 25 issue of Science magazine.

The fishing hooks are made of bone that date back to “42,000 years ago” which make them the earliest definitive evidence of such tools in the world. The site, first uncovered in 2005, also included bone points, shell beads, 10,000 stone artifacts and the remains of animals such as fish, turtles, pythons, rodents, bats and birds. The island of Timor has very few terrestrial animals and only small native birds, and that may perhaps explain why the ancient people pursued fishing, O’Connor suggested.

"There is a lot of debate about whether or not early modern humans had the ability to hunt animals and fish that were difficult to capture," O'Connor said. "I think the Timor evidence demonstrates that people definitely had this ability very early."

About half the fish remains came from fish that dwell near the ocean’s surface or deeper in water, fish such as tuna. Capturing such fast-moving fish requires planning and complex maritime technology which indicates early humans developed these skills earlier than previously thought. While most of the fish bones were from juvenile fish, it would not make the job of catching tuna easy, O’Connor said. “It would still require nets set in deep water.”

(Picture of tuna from Wikipedia and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.)

To read the entire article, click on YAHOO NEWS/LIVE SCIENCE.

Comment: People who have been reading science stories for a number of years won’t be surprised at how often archaeologists and anthropologists, after new discoveries, have had to elevate their opinions about early man and his abilities. Because most of these scientists are secularists tied to the evolution theory and old ages, they must believe that the human intellect has grown slowly over the ages as Homo sapiens has been emerging out of the animal kingdom and as societies have evolved from primitive to more modern. So, discoveries like this one may puzzle them.

But if the evolution theory isn’t true and humans have always been humans possessing human minds, then we won’t be surprised that early man was ingenious enough to have been able to build ocean-going vessels and fish the deep seas? Just because some early people may have found caves to be comfortable dwelling places (some contemporary people still do), this is no reason to doubt their mental abilities.

People today are able to accomplish so much because we are able to build upon past discoveries. It’s not because we are intellectually more gifted. Suppose tomorrow the world would revert back to a primitive state without technology, modern medicine, or even memories of these things. In other words, we would once more have to start from scratch. Does anybody think, even with our modern minds, that it would not take us eons of time to reach the state where we would again be able to produce spaceships and computers and the other amazing technological and medical advances that we have become accustomed to?

According to the Bible, humans from the beginning have been given certain skills that have placed us above the animals (Genesis 1:26). We haven’t always used these gifts wisely — think of the many wars, murders, crimes and the horrible state of affairs that caused God to destroy the world in the global flood of Noah (Genesis 6:11-13).

But also, according to the Bible, God has devised a plan to rescue us from our own follies. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to Earth to suffer for the sins that we have committed so that we can appear before Him one day with a clean slate (2 Corinthians 5:19). The truly wise people today are those who believe this message, for it is only through faith in Christ that we can attain eternal life in heaven. “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock” (Matthew 7:24).

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

How many animals might Adam have named in the Garden of Eden?

Genesis 2:20 lists only livestock, birds, and “beasts of the field” as the animals which Adam named. If the kinds of animals God created corresponded roughly to the modern category of “families,” Adam may have had to name fewer than 200 animals.

Source: Answers Update (Volume 18, Issue 12)

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Infants Demand Justice, Study Finds

2011-12-02T09:51:00.001-06:00

Scientists discover even little babies believe wrongdoers should be punished.

Summary: Babies as young as 8 months believe wrongdoers should be punished, but they also prefer individuals who are nice to one another, even to wrongdoers, a study has found. Kiley Hamlin, a psychologist at the U. of British Columbia, and colleagues set up a series of experiments using puppets to act out scenarios. Watching separately were 32 5-month-olds and 32 8-month-olds. After each experiment, the infants showed their preference for how the puppets behaved by selecting their favorite puppet to hold.

The puppets were shown first acting either in nice or mean ways. One puppet would struggle to open a box containing a toy while another jumped in either to help or to cruelly slam the lid shut. In the next scene the second puppet would play with a ball and then drop it. A third puppet would arrive and then either take the second puppet’s ball away or hand it back.

The researchers discovered that the 5-month-olds always preferred the puppet who gave the ball back, whether that puppet had previously been kind or mean. The more discerning 8-month-olds only liked it when the ball was returned to the helpful puppet but not when it was returned to the puppet who previously had been mean. The 8-month-old babies, by 13 to 3, favored having the third puppet take the ball away from the box-slamming puppet. Older babies 19 months to 23 months who got to share a treat with the puppets also indicated they wanted justice, either giving a treat to the nice puppet or withholding a treat from the mean one.

The findings were reported in the Nov. 28 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Hamlin said they reveal babies do develop a sense of justice between 5 and 8 months of age. Although this sense of justice may be learned, Hamlin said the early age at which it develops suggests the desire to punish antisocial behavior may be partially innate.

Hamlin also said, “This study helps to answer questions that have puzzled evolutionary psychologists for decades. Namely, how have we survived as intensely social creatures if our sociability makes us vulnerable to being cheated and exploited? These findings suggest that, from as early as eight months, we are watching for people who might put us in danger.”

To read the entire article, click on LIVE SCIENCE.

Comment: Christian parents who have had a child die in infancy often worry about the spiritual fate of their child. Some spiritual advisors try to reassure these parents by saying that infants and toddlers are too young to sin and therefore the parents need not worry that the infants might not go to heaven. However, this well-meaning approach is not scriptural. We are told in the Bible that humans are sinful from conception and are born into sin (Psalm 51:5; Romans 5:12; Genesis 8:21)

On the other hand, the Word of God clearly indicates young children can indeed be blessed with saving faith, even before birth (Luke 1:41; Luke 18:16; Matthew 18:6; Jeremiah 1:5). It is interesting that some scientific studies in recent years have tended to support this belief — that even little children can have faith. Our Feb. 23, 2009 post covered studies which suggested babies are believers when they are born, and the March 4, 2009 post dealt with studies that indicated belief in a Creator and a purpose for life is in our genes.

Other research has discovered even little or unborn babies may have more reasoning abilities than what we have given them credit for having, such as the ability to learn language in the womb. What all this suggests is that our Creator God appears to have given His little lambs gifts beyond what most people can imagine, and that includes the gift of faith. This story about infants and justice fits right in with that observation.

Evolutionary scientists who have been puzzled by how humans have survived over the years because of a perceived vulnerability due to their sociability shouldn’t have been puzzled. If these researchers had opened their eyes to the reality of a Creator and studied His Word, they would have realized that God is actively caring for His creatures.

Jesus once said, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? (Matthew 6:25-26)” And the least of our worries is what will happen to us when we die; that is, if we have faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior who has opened heaven’s gates to us.

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

How fast does a sneeze travel?

A sneeze can spray thousands of wet germs into the air at speeds of 80 to 100 miles per hour, which is equal to that of a hurricane.

Source: Spry (November, 2011)

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Bashed Skull Suggests Early Human Aggression

2011-11-30T10:48:00.001-06:00

But scientists also find that early humans cared for each other.

Summary: The discovery of a prehistoric skull from China, which scientists think was clubbed by a weapon such as a stone, heavy bone, or lump of wood, is evidence of one of the earliest known acts of aggression. But there is also evidence that early humans cared for each other.

CT scans of a “126,000-year-old” human known as Maba man, who got his name because his fossil remains were found near Maba in Guangdong Province, revealed a skull fracture caused by blunt force trauma. While accidental injury can’t be ruled out, modern forensic science and other evidence suggests foul play.

"This person had a pretty serious injury—it would have been a real good knock to the head," said team member Lynne Schepartz, of South Africa’s U. of Witwatersrand. The blow likely caused bleeding and a concussion which induced nausea, vomiting and perhaps even brain damage and left the victim helpless.

The CT scans also revealed that the wound eventually healed and Maba Man lived for years afterward. This means the man must have been cared for after his injury which, according to Schepartz, was not the cause of his immediate death. Maba Man lived into his 40s, a good old age for a prehistoric human.

The science team said the man’s recovery indicates Neanderthals and other ancient humans, while often violently aggressive, also took care of their sick and vulnerable. Maba Man’s convalescence would have taken days if not weeks, and he probably needed help with food and cooking.

(Photo of a brain injury from Wikipedia, credited to James Heilman, MD.)

To read the entire article, click on NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.

Comment: The first documented case of serious human-on-human aggression was, of course, the murder of Abel by his older brother, Cain, the children of Adam and Eve (Genesis 4:8). Ever since then the human race has continuously seen examples of both kindness and hostility, though at the time of the Flood the world was especially violent (Genesis 6:11-13). So, it was not surprising that both sides of the coin seemed to be evident in this story of ancient humans.

Anthropologists should not be surprised anymore by anything they discover concerning early humans, whether it is evidence of aggression, compassion or intelligence. The human character in general has not substantially changed in the thousands of years of human history.

We have been assured from the Word of God though that the character of the human race will one day change indeed, when the day that will never end arrives. Every defect of soul and brain will be eliminated from those people who will be going with Jesus Christ to our heavenly home. Those people who have repented of their sins and found complete forgiveness in Jesus, because He suffered and died on a cross in our place, will one day find nothing but compassion, peace and joy in God’s heavenly kingdom.

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4)

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

What possible danger is there for diabetics who fly on airplanes?

If they use insulin pumps, diabetics should be aware that the change in air pressure inside the cabin could disrupt the device and cause it to dispense too much or too little medication. This is a warning from Australian researchers.

Source: Spry (November, 2011)

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Huge Number of Whale Fossils Found—in a Desert

2011-11-28T10:52:00.001-06:00

Scientists are not sure how they got there.

Summary: “Two million years ago” a huge number of whales died in a corner of Chile’s Atacama Desert. So far, fossils from 75 whales have been discovered a half-mile or more from the Pacific coast, including 20 perfectly intact skeletons, and hundreds more whales may be waiting in the area to be uncovered.

How did the whales die? Scientists working at the site don’t know and have not yet published their findings. Maybe the whales became disoriented and beached themselves. Maybe they were trapped in a lagoon by a landslide or a storm. Maybe they died over a period of thousands of years. Somehow though they ended up right next to one another, entombed as the sea floor was driven upward by geological forces and transformed into the driest place on earth.

Nicholas Pyenson, curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and a co-leader of the research, thinks they died more or less at the same time. Most of the fossils are of baleen whales that measured about 25 feet (8 meters long), but fossils of other animals including a sperm whale and a now-extinct dolphin with two tusks have also been found. Paleontologist Mario Suarez, director of a museum in nearby Caledera where many of the fossils have been taken, is the other co-leader of the research.

Some experts think the whales died over long periods of time, but dating fossils is so complicated it will be hard to distinguish dates precisely enough to determine whether the whales all died simultaneously.

Because of road construction, the researchers are under pressure to finish their onsite studies quickly and move the fossils. The Chilean government has declared the site a protected zone. Pyenson hopes a museum will be built to showcase the intact skeletons where they lie, just as fossils are displayed at Dinosaur National Monument in Utah and Colorado

(Photo of a baleen whale known as a humpback from Wikimedia, credited to Whit Welles.)

To read the entire article, click on YAHOO NEWS.

Comment: It would be interesting to know how many people while reading this article thought about the major historical event that likely was responsible for creating the majority of fossils all around us, i.e. the event known as Noah’s flood. Surely, it had to take something major to have caused huge marine animals such as whales to have ended up more than a half-mile from the ocean. A local flood couldn’t have done that.

The suggestion that the animals may have become trapped in a lagoon sounds very possible. As the floodwaters from the global flood receded, lagoons and pools likely formed in many places, and if the lagoon waters then evaporated, any marine animals therein would have been left to die.

It is not surprising that a major flood like Noah’s was not listed as a possible reason for these whales turning up where they are. Secular evolutionists maintain there is no evidence for a global flood and think creationists are holding on to a myth if they accept the historicity of the Noah account. Creationists, on the other hand, believe there is considerable evidence for a planet-wide flood such as marine fossils found in mountainous areas, strata laid down rapidly, and stories of a global flood which can be found in the folklore of so many cultures.

Bible-believers have something that the secularists don’t have or use—the inerrant Word of God. The “bibles” of the evolutionists such as Origin of Species can see only darkly into the past. But we have the Word of God which is “living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12). The account of Noah and the flood serves much more than just being an interesting story from history or even as a possible explanation for scientific mysteries such as whale fossils found in deserts.   It also serves as a helpful warning.

“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all” (Luke 17:26-27) Unbelievers, take note. There is an “ark” that can rescue you from the impending disaster just as surely as Noah’s Ark saved the eight people aboard it. Our ark is Jesus Christ who came to earth to die for our sins, suffer the punishment we deserve, and open the way to everlasting life in heaven. But we must “get on board this ark” by believing in Him. Otherwise we shall suffer unhappy consequences just as did those who rejected Noah’s warnings. Study the Word of God if your faith isn’t what it should be. God uses His Word to increase our faith (Romans 1:16).

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

How did Mississippi mud pie get its name?

This pie made of chocolate, butter, sugar and other staples has a chocolate crust that reminds some people of the muddy banks of the Mississippi River.

Source: Parade (November 13, 2011)

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Giving Thanks is Good for You

2011-11-25T09:53:00.001-06:00

Psychologists believe showing gratitude to others can lift up our own spirits.

Summary: While it seems obvious gratitude is a positive emotion, psychologists have in the past rarely delved into the science of giving thanks. Recent experiments though are showing it is one of our most powerful emotions and can change our lives, especially in these hard times. Psychologists are trying to figure out the brain chemistry behind this emotion.

U. of Miami psychology professor Michael McCullough says counting our blessings can significantly elevate our emotions. "It does make people happier ... It's that incredible feeling," he says. Research by McCullough and others finds that giving thanks can feed on itself to create a positive circle. One of the reasons gratitude works is that it connects us to others. McCullough encourages that when we thank someone, it should be heartfelt and personal, not like a terse thank-you note or a hasty prayer before dinner.

A Chicago psychologist, author Maryann Troiani, said she tries to get clients gradually into expressing thanks, first by limiting their complaints and then by logging in journals the good things that happen to them. Writing down things each night that go well during the day may take longer for positive feelings to develop, but the good feelings seem to last longer.

Gratitude journals or diaries are becoming regular therapy tools, but, according to U. of California, Davis psychology professor Robert Emmons, they should focus more on the people for whom we are grateful. Gratitude also serves as a stress buffer, Emmons says. "Grateful people are less likely to experience envy, anger, resentment, regret and other unpleasant states that produce stress." Even cancer patients, when gratitude was involved in their interactions with support groups, displayed positive results.

Preliminary theories into the brain chemistry of gratitude are looking at hormones in the blood and neurotransmitters in the brain. The left prefrontal cortex of the brain, which is associated with positive emotions like love and compassion, also seems to be a key spot for gratitude.

To read the entire article, click on YAHOO NEWS.

Comment: Much of what was said in this article is probably self-evident. However, occasional reminders to give thanks are helpful. How many times have our feelings been hurt when someone whom we went out of our way to help failed to express sufficient gratitude? And, on the other hand, how many people might we have upset when we failed to say a warm, heartfelt thanks for a gift or a deed done for us?

However, the Thanksgiving holiday was begun not to encourage gratitude between people but to encourage people to thank their Creator and Benefactor. According to Wikipedia, the “First Thanksgiving” was a three-day event by the Pilgrims celebrated to “give thanks to God for guiding them safely to the New World.” Thanksgiving was established as a national holiday by Abraham Lincoln at the height of the Civil War. He encouraged Americans to ask God to “commend to his tender care” those who were suffering from the war.

A cornucopia and a roasted turkey may be symbols of the Thanksgiving holiday here in the United States, but they don’t capture all the reasons for being thankful. If we were in church yesterday to appropriately thank the Lord for His earthly blessings of food and other gifts, we likely also thanked Him for His spiritual blessings — faith, forgiveness, salvation and the promise of eternal life in heaven.

Now thank we all our God with hearts and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in whom his world rejoices,
Who from our mother’s arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love and still is ours today.

Oh, may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
With ever-joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us
And keep us in his grace and guide us when perplexed
And free us from all ills in this world and the next.
--Martin Rinkart, 1586-1649, translated by Catherine Winkworth, 1827-78

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

What was the weight of the world’s largest open-faced sandwich?

The world’s heaviest open-faced sandwich weighed 1,652 pounds and featured more than 11,500 slices of Spam. Made for a July festival in Fremont, Nebraska, it broke the old record by 300 pounds, according to Guinness World Records.

Source: American Profile (October 16-22, 2011)

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Fired NASA Employee to Get Jury Trial

2011-11-23T10:45:00.001-06:00

David Coppedge of the Jet Propulsion Lab got into trouble after lending Intelligent Design DVDs to coworkers.

Summary: A judge in Los Angeles County has ruled that a jury will decide if NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) discriminated against a former employee. David Coppedge, a 14-year JPL veteran and a team leader for the Cassini Mission to Saturn, was demoted for lending Intelligent Design (ID) DVDs to coworkers. One complainant termed his activity “harassment” while another said he was “pushing religion.” After Coppedge filed suit to vindicate his free expression rights, JPL terminated him.

The evidence shows Coppedge was fired because he expressed pro-ID viewpoints which JPL labeled “religion.“ Joshua Youngkin, a legal affairs policy analyst with Discovery Institute, said that California law forbids employers from punishing employees whose viewpoints are viewed as religion. Youngkin added, "Although ID is not religion, it can't be singled out by JPL or other employers in this way."

In its ruling, the court found there were “triable” issues related to the plaintiff’s demotion, written warning, negative performance evaluations, and ultimate termination that may have involved discrimination.

In the past year, the California Science Center, the University of Kentucky, and the journal Applied Mathematics Letters have all paid thousands of dollars to avoid trial for suppressing anti-evolution viewpoints. Youngkin said, "The upcoming JPL trial will remind employers that it is costly to discriminate against ID in the workplace."

(Thanks to Brent Nemmers for suggesting this story.)

To read the entire article, click on EVOLUTION NEWS.

Comment: Has the tide turned? We are aware of how creation science and Intelligent Design have not fared well in the court in recent years and decades. However, if the institutions mentioned above were confident they could now prevail in court, I don’t believe they would have settled out of court for the relatively large amounts of money involved. Still, if this latest suit should go to trial, it is hard to say how it will end. Strange things happen in court trials, but based on this report, JPL without doubt appears to be in the wrong.

It does seem sometimes that in America Darwinists are increasingly running scared. Despite the near-monopoly of evolution thinking in the national media, on college campuses including even many religious college campuses, on science magazines, and the like, evolution in recent years has not garnered a majority of support from the general population when polling is conducted. A CBS poll found 55% of Americans believe God created humans in our present form and only 13% believe humans evolved without divine input. Other polls have shown more than two-thirds of the public want biology teachers to have the freedom to teach the evidence against evolution as well as the evidence in favor of it.

Intelligent Design proponents seem to want their viewpoint to be considered a scientific rather than a religious argument, as shown by Mr. Youngkin’s comments. There is some validity to this thinking. If an archaeologist finds a piece of beautifully painted pottery deep in the ground and attributes it to some ancient civilization, nobody would accuse him of a religious bias. So, if scientists find evidence of planning and design in something as large as the universe or as small as a single cell, they might ask why their discoveries have to be automatically labeled “religion”?

While secular scientists are reluctant to embrace the ID movement, biblical creationists are not eager to jump on board either. Although we might want to cheer for ID in hopes their scientists can help to eventually dethrone the evolutionists from their lofty perch, we must remain on the sidelines. Because ID cannot or will not identify the God of the Bible as the Intelligent Designer, we cannot actively participate in that movement. We might at times refer to the work of ID scientists, but we do not hesitate to say it was God who created the universe. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).

And this God who created this world and everything in it has also created a way out of it so that we can enjoy a paradise like our original ancestors, Adam and Eve, enjoyed for a time in the Garden of Eden. Faith alone in Jesus Christ as our Savior, without reference to any good works we may have done, is the ticket to heaven. “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

What percentage of Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving Day?

Some 88% of Americans consume turkey on Thanksgiving Day.

Source: American Profile (November 6-12, 2011)

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Was Einstein Wrong About the Speed of Light?

2011-11-21T09:08:00.001-06:00

Scientists at CERN find subatomic particles which can apparently travel faster than light.

Summary: If the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is correct, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein was wrong. According to his 1905 theory of relativity, nothing can go faster than the speed of light — 186,282 miles per second or 299,792 kilometers per second. Now scientists at the world’s biggest physics lab say their tests seem to show that subatomic neutrino particles can travel slightly faster.

Back in September, measurements by French and Italian researchers seemed to show subatomic neutrino particles had broken what Einstein said was the ultimate speed barrier. Many physicists were skeptical, but CERN has said more precise testing recently has confirmed the accuracy of at least one part of the experiment.

Using very short beam pulses, the scientists checked the starting time for the neutrinos before firing them 454 miles (730 kilometers) underground from Geneva to an Italian lab. The results matched those of the previous test, “ruling out one potential source of systematic error.” The neutrinos appeared to travel 60 nanoseconds faster than light. A nanosecond is one-billionth of a second.

Additional tests are needed. "A measurement so delicate and carrying a profound implication on physics requires an extraordinary level of scrutiny," said Fernando Ferroni, president of Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics. "The positive outcome of the test makes us more confident in the result, although a final word can only be said by analogous measurements performed elsewhere in the world."

(Photo of the CERN facility from Wikimedia Commons, credited to Juhanson.)

To read the entire article, click on MY WAY.

Comment: It will be interesting to see what, if anything, creationist physicists and astronomers might have to say about this development. In my search of the main creationist websites, I found only one article that discussed the September CERN test and its possible implications on creationist thinking. Dr. Larry Vardiman, implying that these experiments show the speed of light might not be constant, wrote on the Institute for Creation Research’s website, “Creation cosmogonies are not likely to be nullified by the speed of light not always being constant, but could be further complicated by it.”

Perhaps the most vexing problem creationist scientists have not yet satisfactorily solved is the starlight problem — how light from stars appears to have traveled for billions of years to an Earth that the Bible strongly suggests is only thousands of years old. There are theories, however. Perhaps the easiest to understand is that God could have created mature starlight just as He created mature humans, animals, and soil for plants to grow in. However, this idea suffers from a severe problem. Starlight can portray such things as exploding stars or stars changing brightness. For what purpose would a holy God plant a false history of these events in light from stars billions of light-years away?

Another theory advanced by scientists such as Dr. Russell Humphreys is that time travels much faster in deep space than it does in the vicinity of Earth. In other words, light can be traveling for billions of years far out in space while only thousands of years are passing by on Earth. He finds support for his ideas in Einstein’s general theory of relativity. A more recent and mind-boggling possible explanation for the starlight problem, as proposed by Dr. Jason Lisle, is called the Anisotropic synchrony convention, which states that while we can measure the time it takes for light to make a round-trip, we can’t measure the one-way trip. In other words, light traveling from point A to point B can take no time at all as long as the round trip from A to B and back to A complies with the constant speed of light. Lisle also finds support for this idea in Einstein’s theory.

The other theory for explaining the starlight problem proposes that the speed of light was much faster in the early history of the universe than it is now. Only time will tell whether this proposal might regain some lost support from the experiments performed by the CERN group.

Needless to say, secular cosmologists don’t find any of these potential solutions to the starlight problem credible, while they mostly ignore their own starlight problem, known as the horizon problem. It makes no difference. If we haven’t been given a satisfactory scientific solution before we get to heaven and if God so wills it, He will let us know what the answer is in Paradise. If you want to know the path to Paradise to possibly uncover this mystery, Jesus Christ tell us, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

What happens to the turkeys the President pardons for Thanksgiving?

Each year the President receives the gift of a living turkey which he then pardons in a ceremony. The freed bird is taken to a farm where it lives out the rest of its life.

Source: American Profile (November 6-12, 2011)

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Frogs in Danger of Going Extinct

2011-11-18T09:48:00.001-06:00

Amphibians threatened by climate change, a fungus, and a shrinking habitat.

Summary: A killer fungus, climate change, and a shrinking habitat are threatening the existence of frogs and other amphibians, scientists said Wednesday in the journal Nature. Computer models project that in about 70 years the three threats will leave no part of the world safe for amphibians. According to Christian Hof of the Biodiversity and Climate Research Center in Frankfort, who led the study, frogs seem to be in the most trouble.

Meanwhile, federal scientists are meeting in St. Louis to try to figure out how to reverse the trend. Several U.S. amphibian species such as boreal toads and mountain yellow legged frogs are shrinking in numbers, says Steve Corn of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative, and the western U.S. has more problems than the East.

About one-third of the world’s amphibian species are threatened with extinction. Some 159 species have already disappeared according to a 2008 international study. "It's no fun being a frog," said biodiversity conservationist Stuart Pimm of Duke U. "They are getting it from all three different factors."

Hof’s study was the first to look at projections of all three threats to see if they overlap by geography. While there is some overlap, the wide distribution of the threats leaves no refuge for amphibians. And the strongest threats seem to be where most species of amphibians live. Climate change is seen as the biggest danger to frogs and other amphibians in tropical Africa, northern South America and the Andes Mountains. More than 160 frog species are at risk in the Andes, Hof says.

Some scientists believe Hof’s work might be too pessimistic but that studying the geographic distribution of amphibian threats is still important.

To read the entire article, click on YAHOO NEWS.

Comment: It is truly sad that so many of God’s creatures are disappearing from the face of the earth. I believe it is good stewardship for Christians to be doing their part, within reason, to support efforts to try to reverse the ongoing threats of extinction to these creatures.

Why is it happening? Climate change is mentioned as one of the threats to amphibians. But the world has experienced climate changes before and frogs and other amphibians have survived. Surely humans are to blame when it comes to shrinking the habitats in which these animals can live and survive.

Perhaps entropy has a lot to do with all these animals going extinct. We know the world is running down. Humans and animals seem to be becoming less fit, genetically speaking. Maybe the frogs today are not as able to resist the dangerous fungus and environmental changes that now threaten them as were their ancestors.

One wonders why natural selection, if it is supposedly so powerful that a single-celled organism could eventually evolve into a human, has not seemingly helped these frogs to better survive the triple-threats. In all honesty, we see numerous species going extinct or about to go extinct but not much in the way of new species to take their place.

Could there be a spiritual message underlying these stories of endangerment and extinction? Might there not be a warning here that the entire world as we know it is headed for extinction (2 Peter 3:10). Now is the time to get our spiritual houses in order and prepare for the new world to come, the everlasting world which will see no extinctions, death or destruction of any kind. This new world will be the home for all people who have repented of their sins and come to Jesus for complete forgiveness as well as the promise of everlasting life in heaven. “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world’” (Matthew 25:34).

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

What’s the best way to disinfect a dirty sponge?

According to an NSF International test involving 22 families, 77% of sponges and dish cloths contained coli form bacteria, 86% had yeast and mold, and 18% had Staph bacteria. Microwaving wet sponges (without metal) for one minute destroyed a significant amount of the bacteria, running them through a dishwasher was almost as good. Soaking them in a bleach solution was not much better than doing nothing.

Source: Nutrition Action (November, 2011)

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Einstein’s Laws Cited to Prove Ghosts Exist

2011-11-16T10:38:00.001-06:00

Ghosthunters believe spirits of departed people produce an electrical field that can be detected by machines.

Summary: Every night amateur ghost-hunting groups across the country are dragging electronic equipment into old buildings and cemeteries in attempts to find spirits. Despite the ghost hunting programs on TV and in real life, there is still no proof ghosts exist.

Now ghost hunters think they have found support in modern physics for the existence of spirits. Specifically, they cite Albert Einstein and his work regarding the conservation of energy. Ghost researcher John Kachuba, in his 2007 book Ghosthunters, writes, "Einstein proved that all the energy of the universe is constant and that it can neither be created nor destroyed. ... So what happens to that energy when we die? If it cannot be destroyed, it must then, according to Dr. Einstein, be transformed into another form of energy. What is that new energy? ... Could we call that new creation a ghost?"

This idea — that the energy which leaves a dying body can exist as a ghost — is commonly presented on almost all ghost-themed websites, but is it realistic? When a person dies, the energy in his or her body goes into the environment in the form of heat. It is then transferred into the bodies of the organisms that consume us — worms, bacteria, plants, wild animals. In a similar way, we consume the energy of plants and animals we eat and convert it for our own use. The food is metabolized when digested and chemical reactions release the energy we need to live and move. This energy does not exist as a glowing, ghostly ball of electromagnetic energy but rather in the form of heat and chemical energy.

Ghost hunters say they can detect the electric fields created by ghosts. While it’s true humans and other organisms do generate very low-level electrical currents, the currents stop once an organism dies, just like a light bulb being turned off. The energy that is released when a person dies takes years to re-enter the environment in the form of food. The rest dissipates shortly after death and not in a form that can be detected years later by machines. If ghosts do exist, Einstein’s laws of physics can’t be cited for supporting the idea they can be detected.

To read the entire article, click on YAHOO NEWS/LIVE SCIENCE.

Comment: We don’t need science to confirm that spirits exist. The Bible proves that. However, the picture that the Bible paints of spirits is that they are supernatural beings, not beings who normally reside in our natural world. God is a spirit (John 4:24). God’s angels are spirits.

Except for unbelievers and the evil angels in hell (Matthew 25:41), which may be responsible for some of the mischief attributed to ghosts, all other spirits have heaven as their home. When believers die, their souls or spirits enter heaven (Acts 7:59) until the Day of Judgment when the souls reunite with their then-glorified bodies (Job 19:25-27). The Bible suggests that the human souls in heaven not only can’t return to earth (Luke 16:27-29) but are cut off from even knowing about us (Isaiah 63:16). However, I can think of one and possibly two exceptions to this rule in the Bible, the visit of Moses and Elijah to Jesus on a mountain during His transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-3) and the visit of Samuel’s spirit (if it was really Samuel) to King Saul at Endor (1 Samuel 28).

So, what about the good angels who still do enter this world to serve the Lord, service which includes the duty of protecting us (Psalm 34:7)? What if anything they might do to Einstein’s law of the conversation of energy is not for me to say, but it isn’t important. We may not be able to see spirits, but we can feel the presence of God’s angels as they intercede in the affairs of this world to do the Lord’s work. Especially can we feel the presence of the Holy Spirit who brings us to faith in Jesus as our Savior through the Word of God. “Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus be cursed,’ and no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3). There is no reason to believe there are ex-human ghosts or spirits wandering around here on earth, but we rejoice to know about the Holy Spirit and the good angels who are here to help and protect us.

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

How much daily exercise would you need in order to add up to three years to your life?

Just 15 minutes a day could add up to 3 years to your life. So say researchers in Taiwan.

Source: Spry (November, 2011)

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