Today’s New Reason To Believe

David H. Rogstad, Ph.D.

My favorite science fiction stories, next to those tales involving time-travel, include some aspect of extra-dimensionality, where the reader gets to explore the strange effects that could occur when moving beyond the three spatial dimensions in which we live. Unlike time travel, however, there is a possibility that higher dimensions actually exist. I refer to string theory, where as many as seven spatial dimensions beyond the normal three are posited to exist.

In the physics and engineering departments of the Virginia Institute of Technology, scientists are working together to explore the possibility of an extra dimension in the structure of our universe. As they note in a news release describing their research, “this extra dimension would be curled up, in a state similar to that of the entire universe at the time of the Big Bang.” They hope to find some type of evidence that would indicate the existence of higher dimensions.

The group is looking for small primordial black holes that, when they explode, may produce a radio frequency pulse of radiation that could be detected here on Earth. Scientists believe these black holes were created in the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang. Usually we think of black holes as objects that gain mass by gravitationally pulling in any material in their surroundings but also have gravitational fields so strong they will not let anything out, including light. However, theory says that black holes evaporate over time by a quantum tunneling process called Hawking Radiation, losing mass and thereby shrinking. This process can take a very long time, about 10⁶⁷ years for a black hole the size of a solar mass. For smaller black holes the time can be much shorter, even as brief as one second for a black hole of mass equivalent to about 3 cubic meters of rock.

When the size of the black hole is larger than the curled-up extra dimension, it wraps around that dimension like a rubber band wrapped around a rolled-up hose. As the black hole shrinks down to the size of the extra dimension, it becomes stretched so thin that it snaps, causing an explosion and releasing a pulse of radio emission. The Virginia Tech team has built an Eight-meter-wavelength Transient Array (ETA) radio telescope to search the sky for these radio pulses. Its sensitivity should pick up this radiation from explosions as far away as 300 light-years. They have had a similar telescope in operation for several months. By requiring coincident pulses from both instruments, they can weed out false detections.

If these observers can detect this radiation, it will provide some of the first direct evidence for the extra dimensions required by string theory. Extra dimensions also play an important role, by analogy, in RTB’s argument for the transcendence of the Creator.

Posted by Fazale ‘Fuz’ Rana, Ph.D.

New research raise questions about the identity of Homo floresiensis, or does it?

Anyone who has read or seen the Lord of the Rings trilogy knows that the noble creatures called hobbits played a pivotal role. Recently, a team of anatomists have suggested that real-life hobbits were not the hobbits of Tolkien fame, but cretins known as Homo floresiensis, nick-named hobbits because of their small stature.

In the fall of 2004, Australian and Indonesian paleoanthropologists stunned the archeological world when they published evidence for hobbit-sized hominids that co-existed for a time with modern humans. Fossils recovered on the Flores Island of Indonesia indicate that these hominids stood just over three feet tall with a chimpanzee-like brain size (380 cm3). Their cranial and facial features appear to bear resemblance to Homo erectus and their post-cranial skeleton seems to combine characteristics of theaustralopithecines (like “Lucy”) and H. erectus. The paleoanthropologists who recovered these remains classified them as a new species, Homo floresiensis.

The most remarkable specimen recovered was a nearly complete skeleton of a female that dates to about 18,000 years in age. Other fossil and archeological evidence indicates that H. floresiensisexisted on Flores Island from about 95,000 to 12,000 years ago, when they became extinct. It appears that H. floresiensis, co-existed with modern humans. Still, paleoanthropologists are not sure if the hominids had any contact with human beings.

Archeological evidence and animal remains indicate that H. floresiensis hunted and scavenged the dwarf elephants on the island, as well as rats, fish, snakes, frogs, birds, and tortoises.

The coexistence of H. floresiensis with modern humans and their remarkable behavior—given their small brains—has prompted a minority of paleoanthropologists to argue that these creatures are microcephalic human beings. This interpretation of H. floresiensis has been met by skepticism from many paleoanthropologists.

Recently a team of scientists proposed that the hobbits were modern humans suffering from congenital hypothyroidism. This condition severely limits growth and results in a small brain. Researchers reached this conclusion after analyzing a cast of the only skull of H. floresiensis that has been recovered to date. They point to an enlarged pituitary fossa at the base of the skull behind the nasal cavity. This feature is a diagnostic for endemic cretinism that results from hypothyroidism.

Other paleoanthropologists are unconvinced. They claim that the cast the researchers used in their analysis was a poor replica because the research team did not have access to the actual fossil. This is not uncommon in paleoanthropology. More often than not, researchers have to rely on replicas of the actual fossil specimen. If the replica is poorly made, analyses based on it will be flawed by definition. It appears as if this is the case for the replica that led the team of anatomists to conclude that the hobbits were cretins. The casts of the H. floresiensis skull that are part of the collections of Dean Falk and Ralph Holloway don’t show any evidence for an enlarged pituitary gland.

Peter Brown, who was among the paleoanthropologists who discovered H. floresiensis, also disagrees with the cretin interpretation. He maintains that the actual specimen has a poorly preserved pituitary fossa that doesn’t permit the measurements needed to support the notion that this hominid suffered from hypothyroidism. Brown is one of the few scientists who have seen and handled the actual H. floresiensis skull fossil.

At this juncture, it appears that the original interpretation of the Flores fossils stands. The hobbits aren’t cretins, but remarkable creatures that had close kinship to H. erectus. For a discussion of why it’s unlikely that H. floresiensis were microcephalic humans and of how these hominids fit into RTB’s human origins model, see the article I wrote for our free minimagazine Connections.

by Jeff Zweerink

Of all the planets in the solar system, Venus most closely resembles Earth. Venus’s mass and radius are only 20% and 5% smaller, respectively. In addition, it orbits about 30% closer to the sun than Earth. A hypothetical observer outside the solar system might expect Earth and Venus to share an abundance of qualities in common.

But they would be wrong.

Compared to Earth’s pleasant global temperature which permits abundant liquid water, Venus’s surface measures a hellishly hot 800 degrees Fahrenheit. Where Earth’s thin atmosphere consists primarily of nitrogen and oxygen, a dense carbon dioxide atmosphere surrounds Venus. Further, a day on Venus lasts 243 times longer than an Earth day. Consequently, Venus presents a completely inhospitable environment for life. What caused the marked difference between these sister planets?

A paper published in the Earth and Planetary Science Letters journal (and summarized in a Science Daily article) proposes one explanation. Just as a collision during Earth’s formation impacted Earth’s future development, Venus might have experienced a collision from another planetary embryo. A head-on collision would have totally melted (and even vaporized some of) both bodies. The water released from such a collision would rapidly react with the iron in the merged body. The hydrogen produced from these reactions either escapes to space or is sequestered in the core. Either way, no hydrogen remains available to form water as Venus cools.

Such a head-on collision explains the lack of water on Venus as well as the absence of a moon and its slow rotation rate. In contrast, the embryo that collided with Earth impacted with a more glancing blow, resulting in three important differences. First, the glancing blow did not melt Earth entirely, which significantly diminished the hydrogen-removing water/iron reactions. Second, the impact blasted more of Earth’s primordial atmosphere into space so that, subsequently, a much thinner atmosphere replaced the denser one. Third, Earth’s impactor formed a large moon which has stablized Earth’s rotation over billions of years.

While Venus and Earth might have exhibited a family resemblance for a few million years, the different impact events directed them toward divergent futures. Earth’s large moon, thin atmosphere, and relatively quick rotation rate became the initial steps in its transformation from a “formless and void” planet to one teeming with life. In contrast, the proposed impact event destroyed any possibility of Venus ever supporting life.

This research raises questions about reports in the media where scientists claim to have found life-supporting planets outside the solar system. Those reports are based on finding planets with masses, radii, and orbits analogous to Earth’s. However, a truly habitable planet requires a large number of additional fine-tuned transformations. That all these transformations occurred here on Earth comports well with the idea that a supernatural Creator fashioned Earth specifically as a habitat for humanity.