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November 23, 2020
As parents know, taking young children to the forest for camping, hiking, and recreation is a great way to relax and create family memories. The mental benefits of such excursions help offset the stresses of city life. New research shows that the benefits to children may be more extensive than we realize. Playing in forests appears to confer health gains and enhanced learning.
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November 16, 2020
The proximity of Veterans Day made me think of the American flag and then, about stars. Astronomers like to think about the properties of stars, including their nuclear burning histories, in order to appreciate how they gave us the life-friendly conditions we enjoy today. Part of that stellar history involves detection of neutral hydrogen in galaxies more than 8 billion light-years away. Now, a team of astronomers has employed an innovative telescope technique to detect this hydrogen, a find that helps us understand star formation history and the conditions conducive to life today.
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Universe Design
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Fine-Tuning
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Anthropic Principle
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November 9, 2020
The proximity of Veterans Day made me think of the American flag and then, about stars. Astronomers like to think about the properties of stars, including their nuclear burning histories, in order to appreciate how they gave us the life-friendly conditions we enjoy today. Part of that stellar history involves detection of neutral hydrogen in galaxies more than 8 billion light-years away. Now, a team of astronomers has employed an innovative telescope technique to detect this hydrogen, a find that helps us understand star formation history and the conditions conducive to life today.
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Universe Design
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Fine-Tuning
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Anthropic Principle
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November 2, 2020
With all the problems humans face managing Earth’s resources for the benefit of all life, many people wonder if we can abandon Earth and move to a superior planet. Are there planets better suited for habitability than Earth? Three astronomers at the University of Washington have published a paper in which they list 24 candidate superhabitable planets.1 Naturally, their paper has caused quite a stir on the internet.
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Extrasolar Planets
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Earth Design
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October 26, 2020
Two months ago, Kathy and I watched the reality television series Alone. The show chronicles a competition among ten wilderness experts who are isolated from each other and all other humans as they attempt to survive in the Canadian Arctic for 100 days. Contestants begin with no food and only 10 basic survival items like a sleeping bag, tarp, axe, saw, flint, nylon line for making snares or a gill net, a bow, and a limited number of arrows. The 100 days extended from late September until the end of December when the contestants would be facing blizzards and temperatures below -40°.
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Psychology & Mental Health
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Adam & Eve
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October 19, 2020
Climate change discussions can range from casual to serious, from dismissive to alarmist. But how many people talk about Earth’s current period of extreme climate stability and how we got it? Scientists have been debating the cause of our 9,500-year stable climate, and their findings stand to provide further understanding into an event that has made high-tech human civilization possible.
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October 12, 2020
How many of us take breathing for granted? Our environment consists of about 21% oxygen, which is just right to sustain us. Yet, Earth has not always had the ideal amount of oxygen that we enjoy today. Scientists have learned of a secondary source, called the deep oxygen cycle, that has been “piped in” from Earth’s interior—an elegant process with creation implications.
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October 5, 2020
A casual look at the world of plants and insects may suggest that nothing much is going on, but the constant struggle is anything but quiet. In this “eat, fight, or be eaten” world, scientists continue to learn how species’ various defense mechanisms, both direct and indirect, have emerged concurrently in life’s history to yield balanced, healthy ecosystems. These symbiotic relationships—sometimes involving multiple species—provide evidence for a Creator’s intelligent agency.
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September 28, 2020
The biggest island in the United States also is the fastest growing. Thanks to a steadily rising hot plume from the lower mantle, Hawaii Island’s land area grows by an average of a little more than 40 acres per year. Though geophysicists have known about hot mantle plumes for several decades, only in the past few weeks have they gained an understanding of the source and mechanisms that produce hot plumes.
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September 21, 2020
Did Earth hide some of its treasure on the Moon?
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Earth Design
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Moon & Its Formation
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September 14, 2020
Those of us who are over 60 will never forget the chilling words spoken by the Apollo 13 command module pilot, Jack Swigert, and repeated by the mission commander, Jim Lovell, late evening on April 13 of 1970, “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”
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Origin of Life
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Life History
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September 7, 2020
Our planet is endowed with extravagantly rich mineral ore deposits. How did we get them and why is it significant? It turns out that the source of these deposits is not indigenous; rather, large asteroid/comet strikes over the past 2 billion years produced Earth’s richest metal ore deposits.
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August 31, 2020
How did the Moon form and why does it matter? Researchers have learned that the size of the colliding bodies that resulted in our Moon provides more evidence for lunar design.
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Fine-Tuning
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Moon & Its Formation
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August 24, 2020
Does an out-of-this-world sugar discovery help solve one of science’s great mysteries?
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Origin of Life
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Prebiotic Chemistry
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August 17, 2020
Have you ever wondered how birds and insects can fly through heavy rainfall without adverse consequences? Researchers have discovered that their wings are exquisitely designed to repel water—a feature that points to an intelligent designer.
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August 10, 2020
Many Christians affirm that God has given us two “books” in which he reveals himself the book of Scripture and the book of nature. The more we learn from the book of nature the more evidence we uncover for the trustworthiness and reliability of the book of Scripture. Two papers submitted to the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics by an international team of 140 astronomers provide a recent example.1 Results from this considerable research effort deliver yet another confirmation of the biblically predicted big bang cosmic creation model.
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Origin of the Universe
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Big Bang Theory
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August 3, 2020
Many devout Jews recognize the Creator-God revealed in nature (Romans 1:20), but they reject Jesus as the Messiah. Why? And how should we respond?
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July 27, 2020
The Bible, especially the Old Testament, is filled with prophecies about future events in human history. The best known of these prophecies are the ones concerning the first and second comings of the Messiah. Many want to know if there are any Bible prophecies relevant to the time we are living in now, especially in regard to Israel.
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Prophecy
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Interpretation
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Bible
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July 20, 2020
A cornerstone belief of the Christian faith, the doctrine of the Trinity distinguishes Christianity from all other faiths. This doctrine makes possible the redemption of sinful human beings and God’s eventual eradication of evil and suffering. Also, a trinitarian God enhances the free will capability of redeemed humans to experience and express his love. Due to its weighty implications, helping people of other faiths see the Trinity in texts they accept as sacred is a worthwhile endeavor.
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July 13, 2020
We’re all familiar with Earth’s surface water cycle. Anytime it rains or we boil water on the stove, we see that cycle in action. However, Earth’s deep water cycle doesn’t get the attention or appreciation it deserves. In fact, without a fine-tuned deep water cycle, civilization would not be possible.
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Plate Tectonics
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Earth Design
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