Review—The Riot and the Dance: Water
New nature documentary by Dr. Gordon Wilson premiers on March 6.
New nature documentary by Dr. Gordon Wilson premiers on March 6.
Fossilized crane fly eyes discovered to be calcified and have melanin
Cnidarians appear to have recruited as toxins the same kinds of proteins recruited by many other venomous animals. However, toxin diversity within groups of organisms does not appear to be related to the alleged evolutionary history of the various groups.
How can some people be so certain about evolution, while others, with the same certainty, deny it? Part of the answer can, in broad terms, be boiled down to the difference between what is seen and what is not seen. More specifically, and in the context of evolution itself, this disparity arises from the difference between microevolution and macroevolution. What are these two concepts, and how does the difference between them help explain much of the controversy surrounding the theory of evolution? This article was published on the August 2019 issue of Signs of the Times.
The specific genes have been identified that cause a lizard to match the black rocks it lives on.
Is the genetic basis of loss of flight due to mutations in protein-coding genes or in regulatory genes?
Comparison of genomes of jellyfish and sea anemones highlights the importance of orphan genes in taxonomically close organisms.
Different populations of stickleback fish have parallel genetic adaptations to similar local habitats.
A jumping spider has been discovered to produce a kind of milk to nourish its babies, in a manner similar to what mammals do.
Hybridization among wood warblers suggests “filling the earth” through dispersal, speciation and adaptation to local habitats.
In recent decades, epigenetics has been shown to be a promising field of research, since it describes changes in inheritance patterns that do not involve DNA modifications and are related to interactions between the organism and the environment. Epigenetic marks are chemical changes that occur in chromosomes and result in the silencing or activation of specific genes in different tissues. It has been…
A living being is more than the collection of the multitude of organic components of which it is made.
A review of the book "Undeniable." Intelligent beings and their know- how are necessary to implement the highly improbable combination of steps that bring into existence functional things. Published in Origins, n. 65.
During one of my frequent visits to the office of my high school headmaster, his individual tutelage yielded a life lesson that I’ve never forgotten. His exact words were, “You think you’re right!” Of course I thought I was right, wouldn’t anyone who thought they were wrong change their mind and then immediately think they are right? Now that I’m an adult biologist, I still think that I’m right. Inevitably…
Most nature documentaries include some language that refers to an underlying naturalistic understanding of origins. However, the recently released nature documentary “The Riot and the Dance” breaks this common pattern in a refreshing way.
Imagine walking down the beach and coming across the words “Romeo loves Juliet” written in the sand. Most of us have experienced something like this and would not be surprised, but most people would be surprised to find the entire text of William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet written in sand. Why is this? The obvious reason is that sand is the wrong material for large writing projects. Sand grains…
Archaeopteryx is arguably the most famous fossil ever discovered. It has a mixture of bird-like and reptile-like traits, and was first reported only two years after Charles Darwin published his book, The Origin of Species. Since then, another eleven Archaeopteryx specimens have been recovered from the limestones near Solnhofen, Germany.
The creation of God was designed to exist in goodness and harmony. To keep this harmony, God entrusts human beings with the duty to take care of the earth. The message of Scripture encourages us to foster ethical behavior towards the creation, centered on caring and stewarding, for at least seven main reasons.
If given the choice where in our Milky Way galaxy you would prefer to live, where would you go? To one of those newly-discovered extra-solar planets the media get enthusiastic about when water has been detected there? Before you answer these questions remember that, beyond the presence of water, many other conditions must be fulfilled before any planet can support the continued existence of life as-we-know-it,…
One person’s cultural background can bias their view about people from other cultures… even before they have ever met. Could people also have a bias about how they think about other creatures? It may even be possible that scientific culture could prejudice the way researchers see creature-environmental relations with the potential to bias whole research programs.