Creationism News – January 2013 创造论新闻 – 2013 年 1 月

Creationism News – January 2013创造论新闻 – 2013年1月 Dedicated to David Coppedge who sacrificed his career as the Head Systems Administrator for the Cassini Spacecraft in JPL to honor the Creator of the Universe. He also spent literally thousands of hours to make his excellent websites. The contents of this presentation were taken from David Coppedge’s website http://crev.info. Pray for the Lord’s guidance and help in his excellent websites. Pastor Chui http://ChristCenterGospel.org ckchui1@yahoo.com 9/13/2014 1

Is Science a Special Interest Group for One Party?科学是一个党的特别兴趣小组？ • A commentator in the world’s leading science journal advised that science needs to work harder at becoming bipartisan. • Daniel Sarewitz, whose pointed commentaries are often critical of science as it is compared to how it should be, wrote a disturbing “World View” column in Nature (Jan 3 issue) – disturbing, that is, for American Democrats. He accused both individual scientists and scientific institutions of neglecting Republicans and conservatives, appearing to overwhelmingly support the Democratic Party. 9/13/2014 2

Is Science a Special Interest Group for One Party?科学是一个党的特别兴趣小组？ • Science must be seen to bridge the political divide • Scientists in the United States are often perceived as a Democratic interest group. For science’s sake this has to change, argues Daniel Sarewitz. • To prevent science from continuing its worrying slide towards politicization, here’s a New Year’s resolution for scientists, especially in the United States: gain the confidence of people and politicians across the political spectrum by demonstrating that science is bipartisan. 9/13/2014 3

Is Science a Special Interest Group for One Party?科学是一个党的特别兴趣小组？ • Sarewitz discussed how key spokespersons for science are often very partisan, simply assuming that the Democratic Party is their friend, and the Republican Party the enemy. • That President Barack Obama chose to mention “technology, discovery and innovation” in his passionate victory speech in November shows just how strongly science has come, over the past decade or so, to be a part of the identity of one political party, the Democrats, in the United States. The highest-profile voices in the scientific community have avidly pursued this embrace. For the third presidential election in a row, dozens of Nobel prizewinners in physics, chemistry and medicine signed a letter endorsing the Democratic candidate. 9/13/2014 4

Is Science a Special Interest Group for One Party?科学是一个党的特别兴趣小组？ • He tallied the record and found that “Of the 43 (out of 68) signatories on record as having made past political donations, only five had ever contributed to a Republican candidate, and none did so in the last election cycle.” That’s not right. Nobel laureates are “citizens with political preferences,” he said, and should not treat science like a political football. “If the laureates are speaking on behalf of science, then science is revealing itself, like the unions, the civil service, environmentalists and tort lawyers, to be a Democratic interest, not a democratic one.” Ouch! 9/13/2014 5

Is Science a Special Interest Group for One Party?科学是一个党的特别兴趣小组？ • Sarewitz went on to describe how historically, science has prospered under both parties. “The claim that Republicans are anti-science is a staple of Democratic political rhetoric, but bipartisan support among politicians for national investment in science, especially basic research, is still strong,” he said, providing some statistics. 9/13/2014 6

Is Science a Special Interest Group for One Party?科学是一个党的特别兴趣小组？ • He voiced a theory about why Republicans get a bad rap: they typically oppose “social science,” not so much science per se. That’s because “they believe [social science] tilts towards liberal political agendas.” Compounding the trouble is that social science is invading more and more scientific initiatives: “As scientists seek to provide policy-relevant knowledge on complex, interdisciplinary problems ranging from fisheries depletion and carbon emissions to obesity and natural hazards, the boundary between the natural and the social sciences has blurred more than many scientists want to acknowledge.” When leading scientists enthusiastically align themselves with the Democratic Party, it’s no wonder that conservatives are suspicious that “all science is social science” when it comes to “contentious issues such as climate change, natural-resource management and policies around reproduction”. 9/13/2014 7

Is Science a Special Interest Group for One Party?科学是一个党的特别兴趣小组？ • One-party science is “dangerous for science and for the nation,” he warned. A healthy national scientific enterprise needs to be bipartisan. Sarewitz rebuked the scientific community about this in no uncertain terms: • The US scientific community must decide if it wants to be a Democratic interest group or if it wants to reassert its value as an independent national asset. If scientists want to claim that their recommendations are independent of their political beliefs, they ought to be able to show that those recommendations have the support of scientists with conflicting beliefs. • Bipartisan science, by contrast, would benefit science and the nation. “Politicians would find it more difficult to attack science endorsed by avowedly bipartisan groups of scientists, and more difficult to justify their policy preferences by scientific claims that were contradicted by bipartisan panels.” 9/13/2014 8

Is Science a Special Interest Group for One Party?科学是一个党的特别兴趣小组？ • Sarewitz ended with an unfortunate analogy, comparing his advice to bridge the divide with Republicans with the historic attempts of scientists during the Cold War to bridge the divide with Russian scientists. By implication, this might suggest the Republicans are like the Russian Reds (even though “red” is the current color of the Republican Party), when in fact communism is more aligned with far left ideology. 9/13/2014 9

Is Science a Special Interest Group for One Party?科学是一个党的特别兴趣小组？ • Other than that, this article is important, not only for its good advice, but for reinforcing what CEH has alleged for a long time – that scientists and academics are (to an overwhelming degree) willing agents of the liberals, leftists, and the Democratic Party (see9/07/2012, 8/22/2012, 7/06/2012, 8/07/2011, 10/14/2010, 7/05/2010, 9/28/2008, or search on Democrats in the search bar). Notice these same people are predominantly Darwinist, too. Unless parity is achieved, scientists and their institutions have lost credibility to claim science is an “independent national asset” providing value to all Americans. 9/13/2014 10

Is Science a Special Interest Group for One Party?科学是一个党的特别兴趣小组？ • One can detect a faint undertone that Sarewitz is more concerned about loss of funding than about political balance. “In the current period of dire fiscal stress, one way to undermine this stable funding and bipartisan support would be to convince Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, that science is a Democratic special interest,” he worried. 9/13/2014 11

Is Science a Special Interest Group for One Party?科学是一个党的特别兴趣小组？ • Well, guess what Sarewitz left out of his equation. When does scientific funding go up? In a booming economy! Republicans should be seen as the greatest friends of science, because they strongly support growth of the private sector by reducing taxes and regulations. When business thrives because entrepreneurs are not punished with stifling taxes and interference, the economy surges, and government becomes one of the key beneficiaries. More growth means more jobs. More jobs means more taxpayers. It doesn’t take high tax rates to increase revenues: it takes a growing and expanding pool of successful businesses and the jobs they create. A strong economy (the Republican model) is the very boost science needs. That’s when revenues are strong, lifting all ships, including science funding. 9/13/2014 12

Is Science a Special Interest Group for One Party?科学是一个党的特别兴趣小组？ • The redistributionist path we are on under the current administration, though, will damage science along with the rest of the private sector, because all ships will founder on the rocks. President Obama is intent on “fairness,” by which he means taking from the wealthy and handing it out to the poor. This doesn’t spread the wealth around (remember that phrase from his conversation with Joe the Plumber); it spreads the misery around. It reduces incentive to take risks. The economy falters, joblessness rises. The President cannot be blind to the fact that taking all the money from the wealthiest Americans would only run the government for a few days or weeks. He knows that increasing taxes on capital gains does not increase revenues. But he is stuck on “fairness” regardless; everyone should be equally miserable, including scientists. 9/13/2014 13

Is Science a Special Interest Group for One Party?科学是一个党的特别兴趣小组？ • The Democrats own this economy now. As the debt skyrockets into unprecedented trillions (more than incurred by all previous presidents combined), scientists are getting hurt along with every other American. The value of the currency drops as inflation threatens to rise. Everything becomes more costly. Scientists will have to argue for the smallest cuts rather than affordable increases, with the spectre of complete economic collapse looming on the horizon – a time when all scientific funding by the government would be a fool’s luxury, last on the priority list. The economic crisis America faces, along with many of the world’s democratic nations bent on “equality of outcome” instead of “equality of opportunity,” is being exacerbated by liberal policies. Scientists who align with the Democratic Party have a death wish; they love what is destroying them. Instead of pampering the goose that lays the golden egg, they slay it in greed. 9/13/2014 14

Is Science a Special Interest Group for One Party?科学是一个党的特别兴趣小组？ • As for hoping that scientists will heed Sarewitz’s advice to become more bipartisan – that’s funny, it’s so unlikely. If anything happens at all, it will be a scheme to “appear” more bipartisan without any substantive change (for example of phony “engagement,” see this article on ENV). It could take a generation or longer to get real bipartisanship. Will the country last that long? 9/13/2014 15

What’s Up with Alley Oop? 空中接力是怎么回事？ • Here are some recent stories about human evolution. Some might deserve to be in the comics. • 1. Lucy walked up right into the trees: Nathaniel Dominy thinks Lucy’s ankle bones don’t rule out the possibility she was a tree-climber. By studying the Twa tribe in Uganda, whose members routinely climb trees looking for honey, Dominy and colleagues found the fossil evidence of Australopithecus afarensis ambiguous. That’s because the muscle and tendon changes associated with habitual tree climbing don’t fossilize. PhysOrg posted a video clip explaining the problem. Dominy’s work was published in an open-access paper in PNAS, where the abstract states, 9/13/2014 16

What’s Up with Alley Oop? 空中接力是怎么回事？ • Paleoanthropologists have long argued—often contentiously—about the climbing abilities of early hominins and whether a foot adapted to terrestrial bipedalism constrained regular access to trees. However, some modern humans climb tall trees routinely in pursuit of honey, fruit, and game, often without the aid of tools or support systems… Here we show that Twa hunter–gatherers use extraordinary ankle dorsiflexion (>45°) during climbing, similar to the degree observed in wild chimpanzees.… [O]ur results imply that derived aspects of the hominin ankle associated with bipedalism remain compatible with vertical climbing and arboreal resource acquisition. Our findings challenge the persistent arboreal–terrestrial dichotomy that has informed behavioral reconstructions of fossil hominins and highlight the value of using modern humans as models for inferring the limits of hominin arboreality. 9/13/2014 17

What’s Up with Alley Oop? 空中接力是怎么回事？ • “Not so fast,” PhysOrg put it. Claiming that Lucy didn’t climb trees “may be a rush to judgment in light of new evidence” in the paper. • 2. Clothes make the Peking Man: The Homo erectus specimens collectively dubbed Peking Man apparently exhibited another human trait: they were fastidious about fashion. Reporter Owen Jarus said in Live Science, • “Peking Man,” a human ancestor who lived in China between roughly 200,000 and 750,000 years ago, was a wood-working, fire-using, spear-hafting hominid who, mysteriously, liked to drill holes into objects for unknown reasons. • And, yes, these hominids, a form of Homo erectus, appear to have been quite meticulous about their clothing, using stone tools to soften and depress animal hides. 9/13/2014 18

What’s Up with Alley Oop? 空中接力是怎么回事？ • Jarus pointed out that these people made spears like Heidelberg Man, but they’re not sure if they learned the skill independently or at the same time. As for the drilling of holes, just because living humans can’t figure out why they did it doesn’t mean the cave dwellers didn’t have good reasons. They apparently made tools for their fashion industry. “‘If they are depressing the hides, if they are softening hides, they can use the hides for their clothes,’” something no sophisticated hominids would dare live without.” Alley Oop wore clothes, we remember from the cartoons, but since the hides didn’t fossilize with the skulls, we can’t really know how chic Mrs. Oop looked. 9/13/2014 19

What’s Up with Alley Oop? 空中接力是怎么回事？ • 3. Climate makes the man: If you can believe a headline on PhysOrg, we are what we are because the weather was what it was. “Fluctuating environment may have driven human evolution,” it reads; “A series of rapid environmental changes in East Africa roughly 2 million years ago may be responsible for driving human evolution, according to researchers at Penn State and Rutgers University.” How did they come up with this notion? By looking at leaves in an ancient lake. Presuming the dates of those leaves tell a climate story, and presuming they match epochal periods of human evolution, they placed cause with effect. But if anthropogenic climate change is a big modern debate, perhaps the hominids caused the climate change, not the other way around. 9/13/2014 20

What’s Up with Alley Oop? 空中接力是怎么回事？ • It seems this idea could be testable. See if people in the polar regions are regrowing fur. Without asking questions like this, the researchers convinced themselves that they had found natural “forcing mechanisms” to drive hominid evolution toward scholarship. They didn’t explain why other species didn’t simultaneously learn abstract language and philosophy. 9/13/2014 21

What’s Up with Alley Oop? 空中接力是怎么回事？ • 4. Out of “Out of Africa” theories: A new find musses up common ideas about humans emerging out of Africa. Pamela Willoughby has found evidence of continuous habitation at two sites in Tanzania between 200,000 years ago and the present. According to PhysOrg, this “may lead to a rethinking of how, when and from where our ancestors left Africa.” Many paleoanthropologists believe a genetic bottleneck after the Ice Age shows there was a migration into Europe at around 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, but Willoughby’s evidence includes the whole period before and after the bottleneck – all the way to the present. She explained why this represents an upset: 9/13/2014 22

What’s Up with Alley Oop? 空中接力是怎么回事？ • “It was only about 20 years ago that people recognized that modern Homo sapiens actually had an African ancestry, and everyone was focused on looking at early Homo sapiens in Europe who appeared around 40,000 years ago,” she said. “But we now know that as far as back as around 200,000 years ago, Africa was inhabited by people who were already physically exactly like us today or really close to being the same as us. All of a sudden, it’s not Europe in this time period that’s really important, it’s Africa.” 9/13/2014 23

What’s Up with Alley Oop? 空中接力是怎么回事？ • What were hominids identical to us doing for 200,000 years against the inexorable forces of evolution? Didn’t they read the bumper stickers, “Evolve or perish?” Willoughby’s upset is just the latest upset until the next upset. 9/13/2014 24

What’s Up with Alley Oop? 空中接力是怎么回事？ • 5. Annus horribilis, a new endangered species: Latin speakers will know that Annus horribilis means “terrible year,” not a Linnaean classification name. But according to Science Magazine (Dec. 21), it was a terrible year for Homo sapiens var. anthropologist – a recent entry in the endangered species list. A lot of anthropology graduates can’t find work. There just aren’t that many jobs labeled “anthropologist,” so graduates are evolving into subspecies that adapt their image to a changing environment. With multiculturalism a buzzword in certain quarters, anthropologists can advertise themselves as ones able to “research human life, history, and culture, and apply that knowledge to current issues” such as “diversity in the world”. The article did not describe the plight of a minor subspecies of the clade, paleoanthropologists. 9/13/2014 25

What’s Up with Alley Oop? 空中接力是怎么回事？ • None of these stories really matter, because paleoanthropology is a field where every year or two they announce, “Everything you know is wrong.” Since there are infinitely more wrong ideas than correct ones, changes to this pattern are unlikely when the blind lead the blind. We offer paleoanthropology stories less as scientific discovery as much as funny pages. 9/13/2014 26

Happy New Biomimetics Year新年快乐仿生学年 • The variety of design applications coming from the imitation of natural solutions continues to be astonishing. • Hope for sensitive teeth: When is it time to see the dentist? At 2:30 (tooth hurty). If you have sensitive teeth like 3 out of 4 people, there may be a biomimetic solution coming. Sensitivity occurs when dentin at the gum line erodes, leaving nerves exposed to hot, cold, sweet or sour signals. PhysOrg and Science Daily, echoing a press release from the American Chemical Society, announced a way to rebuild enamel and dentin, taking a clue from mussels. Mussels build a waterproof adhesive to secure themselves to the rocks. “Taking inspiration from nature,” a team “reasoned that it could help keep minerals in contact with dentin long enough for the rebuilding process to occur.” They have invented a “gooey substance” that allows the dentin and enamel to grow together (see picture on PhysOrg). This solution would be far better than the current band-aid treatment of brushing with special toothpaste that deadens the nerves. Instead, the adhesive could allow the teeth to be reconstructed for good. 9/13/2014 27

Happy New Biomimetics Year新年快乐仿生学年 • Pearl of great price: The beauty of pearl and mother-of-pearl (nacre) goes beyond its attractiveness in jewelry. The material is also desirable for its durability against cracks. Biomimetics engineers would like to imitate the construction of similar materials, but understanding how the mollusk does it is a prerequisite. It looks like imitation will be a way off; in a PNAS paper, researchers described how they “identified 80 shell matrix proteins, among which 66 are entirely unique.” Although they believed that shell-making was key to the “evolutionary success” of mollusks, they didn’t describe how these unique proteins arose, each one being a highly improbable outcome for a blind evolutionary process (see online book). The French team said, 9/13/2014 28

Happy New Biomimetics Year新年快乐仿生学年 • This is the only description of the whole “biomineralization toolkit” of the matrices that, at least in part, is thought to regulate the formation of the prismatic and nacreous shell layers in the pearl oysters. We unambiguously demonstrate that prisms and nacre are assembled from very different protein repertoires. This suggests that these layers do not derive from each other. 9/13/2014 29

Happy New Biomimetics Year新年快乐仿生学年 • Imitating rapid steroid synthesis: Researchers at Scripps Institute are achieving “a feat … that only nature could make on a large scale” – the synthesis of polyhydroxylated steroids. ““These compounds. used in heart-failure medications and other drugs, have been notoriously problematic to synthesize in the laboratory,” PhysOrg reported. The work “points the way to a scalable formation and modification of a variety of useful compounds that had been obtainable in significant quantities only from plants or animals.” They reduced the number of steps from 41 to 21, making nature’s feat still look superior. 9/13/2014 30

Happy New Biomimetics Year新年快乐仿生学年 • Bioinspired catalysts: Nature makes it look so easy. “Naturally occurring metalloenzymes have long been recognized as attractive catalysts for aerobic oxidations because they can operate under mild conditions with complete chemoselectivity,” Science Magazine said. “Simulation of the function of these enzymes has led to the discovery of many biomimetic oxidation catalysts.” Martine Largeron and Maurice-Bernard Fleury described progress in this dynamic research field. Researchers aren’t yet close to catching up with what living cells do every day: 9/13/2014 31

Happy New Biomimetics Year新年快乐仿生学年 • Many challenges remain, including the development of biomimetic catalytic systems that operate effectively at room temperature with ambient air rather than pure molecular oxygen. The development of recyclable heterogeneous nanocluster catalysts that contain biocompatible rather than rare and precious metals would also be welcome. From a more general viewpoint, mimicking the function of amine oxidase enzymes would provide environmentally friendly organic synthesis because air is the cheaper and less polluting stoichiometric oxidant. 9/13/2014 32

Happy New Biomimetics Year新年快乐仿生学年 • Mitochondria-inspired fuel cells: Inspired by how cellular organelles like mitochondria and chloroplasts harvest sunlight so efficiently, researchers at the University of Reading have built nanowire networks with vastly increased surface area that can reside on plastic substrates, promising fuel cells and other products that are more efficient, cheaper, lightweight, and environmentally friendly. PhysOrg headlined this, “Nanomaterial inspired by nature paves way for greener energy.” If you don’t mind the goofy music, a video clip shows the manufacturing process. 9/13/2014 33

Happy New Biomimetics Year新年快乐仿生学年 • Living buildings: Imagine buildings of the future hosting lichens and mosses that can absorb excess C02. That’s becoming an option, reported Science Daily, with a drawing of a building with a “vegetated facade” making the most of the sunlight. The new material, designed at a university in Barcelona, Spain, “offers environmental, thermal and aesthetic advantages over other similar construction solutions.” It also improves the thermal comfort of people inside. “The innovative feature of this new (vertical multilayer) concrete is that it acts as a natural biological support for the growth and development of certain biological organisms, to be specific, certain families of microalgae, fungi, lichens and mosses.” The layered structure captures rainwater for use by the organisms, and as they grow, the buildings will change in color over time. The researchers see their patented concrete being used for renovating buildings, creating “vertical gardens” and designing architectures that blend into the landscape. 9/13/2014 34

Happy New Biomimetics Year新年快乐仿生学年 • Everyone can love biomimetics. Many of the above are unique stories, not mentioned here before. Faster, better, cheaper – nature shows us the way. Darwin-talk drops out of the discussion when the focus is on natural design we can use to improve our lives. 9/13/2014 35

Faint Young Sun Paradox Solution Criticized 批评年轻太阳悖论解决方案 • A proposed solution for keeping the Earth warm when the sun was 25% cooler leaves other evolutionists doubtful. • The “faint young sun paradox” has been a worry for decades. Theoretically, stars like our sun would have been 20–30% cooler in their early years – about the time when the Earth was preparing for life in evolutionary scenarios. How did the Earth’s surface avoid becoming frozen solid, from which an escape to springtime was impossible? Besides, records of the “oldest” crustal rocks show signs that oceans were liquid 3–4 billion years ago in the evolutionary timeline. 9/13/2014 36

Faint Young Sun Paradox Solution Criticized 批评年轻太阳悖论解决方案 • A new solution was proposed in the 4 Jan issue of Science Magazine by Robin Wordsworth and Raymond Pierrehumbert of the University of Chicago. They propose that higher levels of nitrogen combined with 10% hydrogen would have increased collisional and rotational states in these gases. That would produce global warming enough to keep the surface from freezing. This new proposal adds to earlier hypotheses about other greenhouse gases that might have been present, such as methane or more carbon dioxide. 9/13/2014 37

Faint Young Sun Paradox Solution Criticized 批评年轻太阳悖论解决方案 • But in the same issue of Science, James Kasting of Penn State threw cold water on the new proposal. Hydrogen gas was unlikely to have existed once life evolved, because methanogens would have eaten it out of the atmosphere in short order. In addition, Sara Reardon in New Scientist noted that fossil raindrop imprints, which are large and show free fall through a thin atmosphere, contradict the idea that nitrogen and hydrogen were abundant. She also pointed out that volcanoes do not typically exude the amount of hydrogen needed in the new model. And on Space.com, Charles Q. Choi said that “Past research had suggested that the early Earth was not rich in hydrogen.” Even Wordsworth admitted, “Hydrogen is such a rare gas in Earth’s atmosphere today that at first glance, it seems crazy that it could ever have played a role in warming the climate.” 9/13/2014 38

Faint Young Sun Paradox Solution Criticized 批评年轻太阳悖论解决方案 • While not overthrowing the new proposal, Kasting, Reardon and Choi suggested that the paradox will require further work to resolve. Woodworth agreed: “There’s been lots of previous work on the faint young sun paradox, and we’re sure our study won’t be the last word on the matter,” Wordsworth added. “It’s of course quite possible that the early Earth was kept warm by a combination of effects.” 9/13/2014 39

Faint Young Sun Paradox Solution Criticized 批评年轻太阳悖论解决方案 • Nevertheless, the headlines in the popular media put the proposal in a positive light. Because Titan’s atmosphere has more hydrogen than Earth’s, New Scientist titled its entry, “Titan holds clue to faint young sun paradox.” This is misleading because the hydrogen does not contribute significantly to warming on Titan due to the low temperature, according to Kasting. And Space.com promised but did not deliver on its headline, “How Early Earth Kept Warm Despite Faint Sun.” 9/13/2014 40

Faint Young Sun Paradox Solution Criticized 批评年轻太阳悖论解决方案 • This is a classic case of special pleading. Planetary evolutionists need a warm Earth to fit their old-age ideas of the sun and the planet, but the Earth has to maintain a stable temperature as the sun gets warmer and life evolves. So they invent scenarios to walk that tightrope. The Earth could have stayed warm if hydrogen made up 10% of the atmosphere and nitrogen was 2–3 times as dense as it is today. This implausible ad hoc scenario could conceivably have increased surface temperatures by as much as 10° to 15°C. But then the hydrogen had to leak out, and the nitrogen become less dense, to match the increasing temperature of the sun over time. 9/13/2014 41

Faint Young Sun Paradox Solution Criticized 批评年轻太阳悖论解决方案 • Building on the house of cards, Kasting says it “could have been caused by pressure broadening of CO2 and H2O lines” with the higher nitrogen levels. Climbing higher on the house of cards, he says “the realization that H2 can warm terrestrial planet climates could be important for the prebiotic Earth, early Mars, and young Earth-like exoplanets.” Wow—we got from one implausible hypothesis to life all over the place! Isn’t evolution wonderful. It explains everything. (So does unbounded imagination.) 9/13/2014 42

Faint Young Sun Paradox Solution Criticized 批评年轻太阳悖论解决方案 • The faint young sun paradox is a self-contradiction within evolutionary theory. It does not exist for creationists. They know that God created Earth to be inhabited from the start, not that long ago. 9/13/2014 43

A Brain Wouldn’t Survive Star Travel大脑将无法生存星旅游 • Don’t take a star trek unless you want to arrive demented. • According to Science Daily, prolonged exposure to cosmic radiation accelerates the development of dementia, including Alzheimer’s Disease. The headline says it: “Space Travel May Be Harmful to the Brain, Study Suggests; Prolonged Cosmic Radiation Exposure Could Hasten Alzheimer’s.” The press release at the University of Rochester put it this way: “Houston, We Have Another Problem.” 9/13/2014 44

A Brain Wouldn’t Survive Star Travel大脑将无法生存星旅游 • A study published in PLoS ONE (open access) found that mice at Brookhaven National Lab exposed to radiation levels similar to those in space had accelerated levels of dementia. This damage adds to the well-known cancer risks and potential for muscle atrophy for long trips in weightlessness. The new study shows that galactic cosmic rays not only have cardiovascular and musculoskeletal impacts – they slowly destroy the brain. 9/13/2014 45

A Brain Wouldn’t Survive Star Travel大脑将无法生存星旅游 • Why is galactic cosmic radiation so damaging? Can’t NASA guard against it? The press release explains, • While space is full of radiation, the earth’s magnetic field generally protects the planet and people in low earth orbit from these particles. However, once astronauts leave orbit, they are exposed to constant shower of various radioactive particles. With appropriate warning, astronauts can be shielded from dangerous radiation associated with solar flares. But there are also other forms of cosmic radiation that, for all intents and purposes, cannot be effectively blocked. 9/13/2014 46

A Brain Wouldn’t Survive Star Travel大脑将无法生存星旅游 • That’s because cosmic rays are so energetic; shielding cannot stop them, or else it creates a shower of lower-energy particles that are also damaging. Heavy ion particles sent out from galaxies would be impossible to deflect: “One would have to essentially wrap a spacecraft in a six-foot block of lead or concrete,” co-author M. Kerry O’Banion said. Try launching that out of Earth gravity. • There aren’t as many cosmic particles as those in the solar wind, but the damage they cause accumulates. “Because this radiation exists in low levels, the longer an astronaut is in deep space, the greater the exposure.” At this rate, forget star travel; the effects may be too harsh for astronauts on NASA’s drawing-board proposals for a 3-year mission to Mars. 9/13/2014 47

A Brain Wouldn’t Survive Star Travel大脑将无法生存星旅游 • Update 1/07/13: Science NOW reported on results from the Mars500 mission simulation, during which six practice crewmen lived in the confinement of a space capsule for 520 days – the length of time for a Mars round trip. In short, they became couch potatoes: lethargic, bored, and unenthusiastic. This is another reality that mission planners will have to take into account. 9/13/2014 48

A Brain Wouldn’t Survive Star Travel大脑将无法生存星旅游 • This updates an entry from 9/23/2006, showing that the problem has not gone away with six more years of research. The take-home lesson should be gratitude for the safety bubble we inhabit in the cosmic shooting gallery, allowing us to live, love, and enjoy the beauty of creation. Safe within our bubble, Hollywood screenwriters can envision epic space voyages (acted out by actors in Earth-bound studios), and astronomers can search out the most distant galaxies and strive to understand the entire universe from a protected platform – our Privileged Planet. 9/13/2014 49

Wilt Thou? Not with Guards in the Chem Lab你愿意吗？没有警卫的化学实验室 • Plants avoid wilting with pairs of guard cells performing chemical wizardry. • Leaves are peppered with oval pores called stomata (singular, stoma). Surrounding these pores are guard cells that control the rate of moisture escape and carbon dioxide intake. Under dry conditions, the guard cells relax and close the pores; when moisture is plentiful, they stiffen, opening the pore. But how do they do it? How do they “know” it’s dry, and what causes them to open the gates? 9/13/2014 50

Creationism News – January 2013 创造论新闻 – 2013 年 1 月