Today's New Reason To Believe Archives

March 2005

Today’s New Reason To Believe-Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Extrasolar Planets Update

  • American astronomers have found more evidence that the solar system is uniquely designed for the support of life. The team discovered five new extrasolar planets. With these five, the list of discovered extrasolar planets orbiting stars of similar mass and age as the Sun now includes 153 planets and 134 planetary systems. The prediction from a naturalistic perspective that at least several of these systems would prove to be solar system analogues is false. The Jupiter-sized planets that have been discovered either orbit their stars at too close a distance or with too great an eccentricity (ellipticity) for any planet in the same system to remain in the life-support zone. Thus, it appears that the more we learn about extrasolar planets, the more evidence we uncover that we live in a planetary system uniquely designed to provide us with a good habitat.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Biochemical Design: Molecular Fine-Tuning

  • Biochemists recognize that in order for biomolecules to effectively carry out life’s necessary operations, cellular chemistry must be fine-tuned. New research illustrating this concept explores the relationship between the structure and function of the anion-selective channel, aquaporin 6. This protein complex spans the cell membrane and allows negatively charged ions and other materials essential for cell function to flow through the channel. Researchers have demonstrated the importance of a single amino acid (asparganine) residue in the anion-selective behavior of the channel. Replacement of asparganine (at position 60) with another amino acid abolishes the anion permeability of aquaporin 6. The functional properties of this ion channel depend precisely on its fine-tuned structural makeup. Fine-tuning is one hallmark of well-designed man-made devices. Similarly, the fine-tuning observed in biochemical systems signifies that life originated from the Creator’s hand.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Monday, March 28, 2005
Density and Average Mass of Galaxies

  • A Russian astronomer has found more evidence that supports supernatural design-specifically, that the universe is designed to be more observable for humans and better suited for humanity’s well-being. His analysis of the best galaxy surveys has shown that the Local Volume (the volume within 100 million light years of Earth) manifests an exceptionally low density of galaxies and an exceptionally low average mass per galaxy. These conditions are critical for making the Milky Way Galaxy habitable by protecting our galaxy from catastrophic gravitational disturbances and violent star formation events. Such a low galaxy density and low average galaxy mass also give astronomers an unblocked view of the entire universe. Thus, it appears that the more we learn about the universe, the more evidence we uncover that we live in a universe that is optimally designed both to provide us with a good habitat and a window on cosmic history.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Sunday, March 27, 2005
Biochemical Design: Life’s Molecular Machinery

  • A watch requires a watchmaker. On this basis it logically follows that life requires a "life maker" or Creator. Biochemists have discovered that many biochemical systems appear to be designed and function as molecular-level machines. Some display an eerie resemblance to man-made machines. One is F1-F0-ATP synthase, a literal rotary motor replete with rotor, stator, drive shaft, and turbine. Remarkably, this motor rotates in response to the flow of electrical current through the cell membrane, making F1-F0-ATP synthase an electrical rotary motor. This study adds new insight into the structure and mechanical operation of this tiny motor. The elegant design and machine-like behavior of F1-F0-ATP synthase indicates that this biomolecular machine is the work of a divine "Motor Maker."
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Saturday, March 26, 2005
Trigonometric Distance to Andromeda Galaxy

  • Princeton University astronomers have developed a new distance measuring technique that soon will dramatically improve the capacity of astronomers to uncover more evidence for the supernatural creation of the universe and for the supernatural design of the universe for the benefit of life. Accurate, direct distance measurements to nearby galaxies provide a foundational step for astronomers. These measurements help determine the manner in which the universe was created and the quality of design in the density parameters that govern cosmic expansion so as to make life possible. The Princeton team noted that dust in the Andromeda Galaxy overlaps the image of a much more distant galaxy that emits short-period x-ray fluctuations. The team calculated that measurements made with currently available instruments, of different times when such fluctuations stimulate a response in the Andromeda Galaxy’s dust, can produce a trigonometric determination of the Andromeda Galaxy’s distance that is accurate to one percent precision. This factor-of-five improvement in the distance measurement to Andromeda potentially will deliver even more impressive evidence for a superintelligent, supernatural Creator than we possess today.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Friday, March 25, 2005
Bipedalism Discovery Walks All Over Evolution

  • A new discovery on the emergence of bipedalism provides a test for evolutionary human origins models. Evolutionary biologists posit that humans evolved from an ape-like ancestor about 5 to 6 million years ago. Given the extensive anatomical differences between a knuckle-walking ape and an erect-walking (bipedal) hominid, this transition would have taken place gradually over a significant period of time. And, the transformation from a woodland environment to an open savanna produced the evolutionary pressure that drove this process. However, new research challenges these evolutionary expectations. Researchers studied the remains of nine hominids dated between 4.32 and 4.51 million years ago and assigned to the species, Ardipithecus ramidus. They detected bipedal capacity in these hominids that confirms previous studies ascribing bipedal capabilities to A. ramidus. The research also indicates that A. ramidus lived in a woodland environment. In other words, contrary to evolutionary expectations, bipedalism emerged far too rapidly and without any apparent driving force, to be accounted for from an evolutionary perspective.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Thursday, March 24, 2005
Design of the Triple-Alpha Process

  • A very large team of European nuclear astrophysicists has produced a new measurement that significantly strengthens the evidence for the supernatural design of the universe for the benefit of life. They made careful laboratory measurements of the rate at which three helium nuclei combine to make a carbon nuclei under stellar nuclear fusion conditions. Their rate is higher than the previous standard and implies that the first stars in the universe produced twice as much carbon as previously believed. This revision resolved two small problems in the big bang creation model: 1) new measurements showing that the first stars are smaller than previously believed would still produce the observed amount of carbon, and 2) the higher rate of carbon production explains why the early universe gets enriched with heavy elements so quickly. Consequently, astronomers now possess even stronger evidence for the biblically predicted big bang creation model.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Wednesday, March 23, 2005
The Image of God Unique to Humans

  • The Bible declares that humanity was uniquely made in God’s image. A recent study supports this biblical teaching. While not defined in Scripture, some Bible scholars would include creative musical expression in the list of characteristics that define God’s image. If this is the case, then humans should be the only primates that appreciate music. Even though primates, like monkeys and apes, and songbirds can distinguish between consonant and dissonant sounds, new research demonstrates that only humans prefer the consonant sounds associated with music. The researcher who headed the study speculates that the human preference for music stems from the unique properties of the human brain, not the inherent characteristics of the mammalian auditory system. Science continues to affirm important distinctions between humans and other animals.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Design of Rate of Remineralization of Organics

  • American marine biologists have found a new design feature for sustaining advanced life on Earth. They discovered that the rate of remineralization of particulate organic matter in the ocean must be fine-tuned. Oceanic dissolved organic carbon is one of the largest sources of reduced carbon in the biosphere. Remineralization of this carbon and its subsequent deposition into the deep ocean represents a large fraction of the total carbon flux in the carbon cycle. If the rate of remineralization is too low, the carbon cycle will not run at an adequate rate to sustain advanced life (for example, not enough carbon dioxide will be removed from the atmosphere). If the rate of remineralization is too high, parts of the carbon cycle will be out of balance with other parts (for example, too much carbon dioxide will be removed from the atmosphere). The production of oceanic dissolved organic carbon, its rate of remineralization, the depth and extent of Earth’s oceans, and the level of plate tectonic activity all must be fine-tuned to maintain the carbon cycle at a rate ideal for advanced life. These improbable features testify of a supernatural, superintelligent Creator.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Monday, March 21, 2005
What’s the Explanation for the Human Brain?

  • How do scientists explain the unusually large human brain? A recent study exposes the difficulty faced by evolutionary biologists as they attempt to account for the emergence of the human brain by naturalistic processes. Researchers studied 214 genes involved in human brain development and showed, from an evolutionary perspective, that these genes must have undergone hyper-fast evolution to produce the large human brain with its advanced cognitive capacities. In the words of one of the investigators involved with the work, "To accomplish so much in so little evolutionary time…requires a selective process that is perhaps categorically different from the typical processes of acquiring new biological traits." This type of rapid and extensive genetic change makes little sense from an evolutionary perspective, given the deleterious effects of most mutations and the extensive complexity and integration of the biological systems that make up the human brain. If anything, this hyper-fast evolution should be catastrophic. These results make sense, however, from a creation perspective, with the Creator divinely engineering the extensive genetic differences that produced the human brain.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Sunday, March 20, 2005
Bacterial Design for Recycling Phosphorous

  • A microbiologist and a geologist in Germany have found some amazing design features in a large sulfur bacterial species that benefits all life. Thiomargarita namibiensis is a colossal bacterium (nearly 1 mm in diameter) that thrives in surface marine sediments under both oxic (containing oxygen) and anoxic conditions. It periodically contacts oxic bottom water to take up nitrate. Such internally stored nitrate allows it to survive for long periods under anoxic conditions. The bacterium’s prime energy source is sulfide oxidation. The sulfide accumulates in anoxic marine sediments when sulfate-reducing bacteria there degrade organic matter. The researchers discovered that aggressive sulfide oxidation by large populations of T. namibiensis is responsible for phosphorite deposits in marine sediments. Such deposits play a critical role in the life-essential phosphorous cycle. The amazing, unique designs and behaviors of T. namibiensis that allow it to take advantage of sulfide produced by sulfate-reducing bacteria so as to sustain Earth’s phosphorous cycle at an ideal rate for the benefit of all life testifies of a supernatural, super-intelligent Creator.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Saturday, March 19, 2005
Challenge to Biological Evolution: Convergence

  • With chance as its mechanism, evolution should not produce the same outcome repeatedly. Yet numerous recent studies run counter to this prediction. Authors of this new research describe the repeated, independent origin of the syncytin family of proteins in Primates and Muridae (mice, rats, gerbils, voles, and hamsters). These enzymes play a key role in placental development. From an evolutionary perspective, it appears as if these proteins arose independently from endogenous retroviral (ERV) genes that evolved to perform identical functions. This process would have occurred after Primate and Muridae genomes incorporated retroviral DNA following separate infections. Instances of independent, multiple origins of complex biomolecules, like syncytins, through a wildly improbable sequence of events challenge the veracity of the theory of evolution, but find ready explanation if a Creator repeatedly used the same good designs as He brought life into existence.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Friday, March 18, 2005
Hypersaline Life and the Design of Global Cycles

  • European microbiologists have found new evidence for the design of Earth and for the design of an unusual set of microbial species that benefits advanced life. They discovered a new order of prokaryotic life living in the most extreme terrestrial saline environment known, the deep hypersaline anoxic basins that lie just below the floor of the Mediterranean Sea. The design of these life forms that allows them to thrive under such extremely salty conditions is remarkable. The team also noted that the widespread sulfate reduction and methanogenesis carried out by these creatures make a significant contribution to the global cycles that are critical for sustaining advanced life. The design and function of such tiny creatures thriving beneath the ocean floor seem no accident of evolution.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Thursday, March 17, 2005
Junk DNA Has Function

  • So-called "junk" DNA has achieved iconic status in evolutionary circles. Evolutionary biologists maintain that because junk (noncoding) DNA is an imperfection, it provides incontrovertible evidence for evolution. Numerous recent studies, however, rebuff this idea by identifying function for many types of junk DNA. In this new study researchers have determined that endogenous retroviral DNA sequences play a role in placental development in Primates and Muridae (mice, rats, gerbils, voles, and hamsters). The functional importance of junk DNA indicates that careful planning by an Intelligent Designer shaped the genomes of organisms and that it may be time for an icon to be toppled.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Wednesday, March 16, 2005
New Test for General Relativity

  • An international team of astronomers has found another astronomical tool for testing the biblical doctrine of cosmic creation. They discovered another relativistic double neutron star system (a system of two neutron stars orbiting one another so closely that relativistic effects are dramatic), the third such system astronomers have found. This system, similar to what observations on the other two systems already have delivered, soon will provide the most definitive test of Einstein’s theory of general relativity (GR)-potentially confirming the reliability of GR to better than one part in a hundred trillion. Such a confirmation would strengthen the already very high confidence in the spacetime theorems of GR, which conclude, based on the reliability of GR, that a causal Agent created the universe and all the spacetime dimensions associated with the universe. Such a conclusion establishes the existence and the creative work of the God of the Bible.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Alternates to Stem Cell Research

  • Embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) continues to spur ethical debate. Supporters hold that ESCR has potential to effectively treat debilitating diseases and injuries. Yet ESCR troubles many because it involves the destruction of human embryos. Recent breakthroughs, however, offer the hope for treatments that don’t require the use of embryonic stem cells. One advance calls for the potential use of drug therapy to inhibit the transformation of fibroblasts to myofibroblasts in heart muscle. This transformation occurs in cardiac tissue after cell injury (which results from a heart attack, for example) and plays a key role in wound healing and tissue repair. But it can also lead to abnormal tissue changes associated with cardiac fibrosis that ultimately leads to a loss of heart function. Inhibiting the excessive generation of myofibroblasts after a heart attack will prevent undue damage and reduce the urgency for tissue replacement therapies that depend upon ESCs. Thus, scientific advance-in this case, drug therapy-can provide the way out of the ethical dilemma created by emerging biotechnologies.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Monday, March 14, 2005
Bacterial Design for Disposing of Chlorine Toxins

  • Scientific advance has given human beings reason to be grateful for a certain bacterium. A team of American and German geneticists has found new evidence for the specific design of a bacterial species for the particular benefit of human civilization. For a certain class of chlorinated toxins, commonly used as industrial cleansers, there is no effective industrial process for degrading the toxins. However, one organism, the bacterium, Dehalococcoides ethenogenes (De), is capable of breaking down the chlorinated toxins into nontoxic ethenes. In sequencing the genome of De the team discovered that its chromosome contains genes that encode instructions for the assembly of 22 complex molecules. Together these molecules give the bacterium the capacity not only to break down dangerous toxins generated by human industrial activity but also to take advantage of such chemical breakdown to support some of its metabolic reactions. The team described this amazing bacterium as "highly evolved," but it seems much more than that. De contains genes found in no other species of life and these genes anticipate and effectively deal with the life-threatening consequences of human industrial activity. Such design strongly suggests an intelligent Creator who knew in advance the direction of the development of human civilization.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Sunday, March 13, 2005
Challenge to Biological Evolution: Convergence

  • Given its mechanism, chance, evolution should not produce the same outcome repeatedly. Yet studies continue to show such repetition in nature. The authors of this research describe the repeated, independent origin in humans and songbirds of the capacity to learn the sounds needed to communicate. Independent, multiple origins of complex behaviors challenge the veracity of the theory of evolution, but find ready explanation if a Creator repeatedly used the same good designs as He brought life into existence.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Saturday, March 12, 2005
Repeated Creations of Insect Police Systems

  • Two zoologists from Britain and Germany have found more evidence challenging the evolutionary model and supporting repeated creation. They discovered that many different species of social insects (bees, wasps, and ants) each manifest police organizations that are optimally designed, for the benefit of the colony as a whole, to restrain the Darwinian drive of individual insects to look out for their own self interests. Naturalistic evolution cannot easily explain why such complex police systems would arise to overcome powerful Darwinian drives nor why such diverse species of insects would "evolve" the identical police organization outcomes. Such circumstances, however, are both predicted and well explained by a biblical creation model.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Friday, March 11, 2005
Adult Stem Cells Offer Hope

  • Even though embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) holds potential to treat several debilitating diseases and injuries, the thought of destroying human embryos in the process troubles many people. Recent advances, however, suggest ethically acceptable alternatives to ESCR. Adult stem cells from a variety of tissues display the capacity to develop into a wide range of cell types, just like embryonic stem cells, but they are not derived from embryos. A new study illustrates the potential utility of adult stem cells to treat diseases. Researchers found that adult stem cells from bone marrow can differentiate into liver cells. They demonstrated that in mice bone marrow cells transplanted into the liver reduce fibrosis and may one day effectively treat chronic liver failure and liver cirrhosis. By looking to alternatives, scientific advance may provide the way out of the ethical dilemma created by emerging biotechnologies.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Thursday, March 10, 2005
New Technique for Measuring Cosmic Distances

  • A team of American and European astronomers has found a new and powerful tool for testing the biblically predicted big bang creation model and for confirming the supernatural design of the cosmic density parameters. They developed a technique for determining accurate distance measures for type IIP supernovae, the brightest stellar events in the universe. The team uses spectral measurements of the expanding atmosphere of the exploding supernova to determine the supernova’s distance. For one type IIP supernova near enough that its distance can be independently determined by adjacent Cepheid variable stars, the team showed that their new technique is both accurate and reliable. Since the James Webb Space Telescope will be able to measure the spectra of type IIP supernova out to a redshift distance of six, astronomers soon will be able to extend their accurate measures of the cosmic expansion rate 7 billion years earlier in cosmic history than they can now. Such measures will allow far more definitive tests of the big bang creation model and more accurate measures of the highly fine-tuned cosmic density parameters.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Wednesday, March 9, 2005
The Sociocultural "Big Bang" and The Image of God

  • The Bible describes humanity as being made in God’s image. This idea entails, in part, that when modern humans appear on Earth, advanced culture, which expresses God’s image, should appear concurrently. This study indicates that musical expression appeared dramatically, not gradually. Researchers have discovered in southern Germany the oldest musical instrument, a flute made of ivory that dates between 30,000 and 37,000 years ago. This flute’s design indicates to researchers that it was used to play complex and harmonious melodies. Ivory was the best material available to the first humans. Fabrication of a flute out of ivory is technically far more difficult than from bird bones which are already hollow. Neanderthals (hominids that pre-dated the first humans in Europe) were not capable of this type of complex behavior. This new archeological find places musical expression even closer to the timing of humanity’s origin (and spread into Europe) in a way consistent with the biblical account.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Tuesday, March 8, 2005
PhotoresponseDesign of an Organic Salt

  • A large team of chemists in Japan has found an amazing design feature in a particular biomolecule. For the organic salt, (EDO-TTF)2PF6, they discovered that exposure even to weak light can transform the salt from an insulator into a metal in just a few trillionths of a second. This discovery provides yet one more example where design in biomolecules is superior to design in man-made devices. Thus, the discovery will not only provide humanity with ultrafast switches for the next technology generation but also will testify to the supernatural, superintelligent design inherent in many complex biological molecules.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Monday, March 7, 2005
New Evidence for Early Life on Earth

  • RTB’s creation model for life’s origin predicts life’s sudden appearance early in Earth’s history. Evolutionary models, on the other hand, require a long percolation time before life can emerge via natural processes. Prior to about 3.8 billion years ago, life would have been impossible on Earth, since the planet’s conditions were "hellish" and unsuitable for life. This study reports on new evidence for the early appearance of complex metabolic life on Earth. Based on an analysis of iron isotopes, researchers conclude that the banded iron rocks found in Greenland that date at 3.8 billion years in age are banded iron formations that formed by sedimentary processes. The researchers also conclude that biological processes (either anoxygenic or oxygenic photosynthesis) may well have generated the enrichment of heavy iron isotopes in these rocks via biologically mediated oxidation. The appearance of complex metabolic forms of life so rapidly after the Earth became suitable for life defies a naturalistic explanation. However, this fact finds ready explanation if a Creator supernaturally intervened to make the first life forms on Earth.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Sunday, March 6, 2005
Supernova Remnant Test for Creation Models

  • New measurements by astronomers provide yet another refutation of a recent prediction made by young-earth creationists while confirming a contravening prediction made by old-earth creationists. The young-earth prediction is that astronomical evidence for highly dispersed supernova remnants will prove false and astronomers will fail to uncover any more evidence for widely dispersed supernova remnants. Such supernova remnants have been practically impossible to detect in the disk of the Milky Way Galaxy because of background noise, but they have been detected in the halo of the Milky Way Galaxy and in the Magellanic Clouds. Now, thanks to the Canadian Galactic Plane Survey, a provable old remnant has been identified even in the Milky Way disk. New measurements show that the identified supernova remnant, G116.5+1.1, has been dispersing for between 15,000 to 50,000 years. While not as long a dispersal time as for remnants found in the Milky Way Galaxy’s halo and the Magellanic Clouds, this new measurement helps to confirm an important prediction of the old-earth creationist model while refuting the corresponding young-earth creationist prediction.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Saturday, March 5, 2005
Origin-of-Life Loophole Closed

  • The appearance of complex metabolic forms of life so rapidly after Earth became suitable for life defies a naturalistic explanation. To avoid this troubling scenario, some origin-of-life researchers speculate that life originated deep in Earth’s crust. According to this hypothesis, life could have emerged much earlier in Earth’s history because in a subsurface environment, it would be protected from the "hellish" environment of Earth’s surface. According to this view, subsurface life eventually evolved to generate surface life that appears in the fossil record at 3.8 billion years ago. To support this idea, origin-of-life researchers point to subsurface microbial communities that exist several hundred meters below Earth’s surface. When first discovered, it was thought that these microbial communities were independent of surface life, relying on subsurface resources to sustain their metabolic activity. New research, however, demonstrates that subsurface communities rely on key metabolic compounds produced by photosynthetic surface life. In other words, surface life must have existed before subsurface microbial communities could appear.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Friday, March 4, 2005
Design of the Quantum Tunneling Phenomenon

  • American chemists have found more evidence for the supernatural design of the quantum tunneling phenomenon. In quantum tunneling, a particle crosses or tunnels through a potential energy barrier where classical physics would conclude that the particle did not have enough energy to do so. They discovered that the value of the level of uncertainty in the Heisenberg uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics is exquisitely fine-tuned so as to permit an extremely broad range of quantum tunneling rates (a factor of 50 or more) for many life-essential biological reactions. Without such exquisite fine tuning life would be impossible.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Thursday, March 3, 2005
Biblical Account of Humanity’s Origin Affirmed

  • Genetic studies of DNA taken from representatives of different population groups demonstrate that humanity had a recent origin from a single location. These studies also indicate that humanity’s original population size was small and traces back to a single woman, called mitochondrial Eve, and a single man, called Y chromosomal Adam. The genetic data also indicates that humanity expanded from near the Middle East to populate the globe. These results square with the biblical account of humanity’s origin. This new study, which examines the genetic variation of endogenous retroviruses in human population groups, provides additional evidence that humanity had a recent origin in a single location. The biblical description of Adam and Eve’s creation has greater scientific credibility than at any time in human history.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Wednesday, March 2, 2005
Designer Water

  • American chemists have found more evidence for the supernatural design of water for the benefit of life. They discovered that the water molecule is uniquely designed so that in the liquid state fifty or more water molecules can easily form "anionic clusters" (negatively charged ions) so that excess electrons are bound to surfaces of the clusters. This unique and complex property of water, namely the capacity to densely pack excess electrons onto the surface of a large cluster of water molecules, is essential for supporting many life-essential biological electron transfer reactions.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Tuesday, March 1, 2005
Complexity of Earth’s First Life

  • One of the most remarkable discoveries in paleontology is the rapid and early appearance of life on Earth. The first life forms were single-cell microbes. Even though Earth’s first life was morphologically simple, it displayed metabolic complexity. For example, geochemical and microfossil evidence indicates that photosynthetic bacteria were present on Earth around 3.8 billion years ago. This study provides insight into the extensive complexity of photosynthetic bacteria. Researchers have uncovered the complex organization of the photosynthetic machinery. It turns out that the photosynthetic apparatus displays a far greater elegance and efficiency than previously conceived. Naturalistic origin-of-life scenarios struggle to account for the sudden emergence of metabolically complex organisms. On the other hand, this fact finds ready explanation if a Creator supernaturally intervened to make the first life forms on Earth.
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