Today’s New Reason To Believe

Nature’s “Bad” Designs
Air date: 5-15-07
Fuz Rana, Jeff Zweerink, and Joe Aguirre

• Discoveries

  • Is the inverted retina evidence for bad designs in nature?
    • Kristian Franze et al., “Muller Cells Are Living Optical Fibers in the Vertebrate Retina,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA (May 15, 2007): 8287-92.
    • Michael J. Denton, “The Inverted Retina: Maladaptation or Preadaptation?” Origins and Design, Winter 1999, 11-17.
      • Resources:
        • Who Was Adam? by Fazale Rana with Hugh Ross (book).
        • Fazale Rana, “Is Junk DNA Evidence for Biological Evolution?” Today’s New Reason To Believe, May 3, 2007.
  • Narrower constraints on dark energy.
    • Adam G. Riess et al., “New Hubble Space Telescope Discoveries of Type Ia Supernovae at z *≥ 1: Narrowing Constraints on the Early Behavior of Dark Energy,” *Astrophysical Journal 659 (April 10, 2007): 98-121.
      • Resources:
        • The Creator and the Cosmos, 3rd ed., by Hugh Ross.
        • Creation as Science, by Hugh Ross.
  • Function for junk DNA in opossum genome.
    • Tarjei S. Mikkelsen et al., “Genome of the Marsupial Monodelphis domestica Reveals Innovation in Noncoding Sequences,” Nature 447 (May 10, 2007): 167-78.

• Call-in questions

  • Roger from Portland, ME:
    • Any other examples of genome comparisons besides elephant shark genome?
    • What is the error minimization distribution?
    • A question on the design of plate tectonics.
    • Are all planets in habitable zones tidally locked?

• Email questions

  • Robert from Santa Rosa, CA:
    • What did Einstein mean when he said the cosmological constant was the “greatest blunder” of his scientific career?
  • Doug asks:
    • Whatever happened to cosmic strings? Weren’t they supposed to explain how galaxies formed?