Reflectorites
Here are excerpts from web articles for the period 17 - 21 July 2000, with
my comments in square brackets.
Steve
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http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/carbonstar_000607.html
SPACE.com ... Jul 17, 2000 ... Star Physics Prove the Delicacy of Life ...
If physical forces within stars were only a little different, our universe
would be almost devoid of carbon and oxygen, so life would not exist,
physicists have concluded in a new study. "I am not a religious person, but
I could say this universe is designed very well for the existence of life," said
Heinz Oberhummer, a nuclear astrophysicist at the University of Vienna,
Austria. ... The study ...began five years ago when Oberhummer "was just
thinking what would happen if the forces were a little different in our
universe. We found that with a small change, life would not exist in the
universe." He added: "Life is like a silk thread which can be torn very
easily." Oberhummer and colleagues used computers to simulate or model
the "triple-alpha process" by which helium burns to produce carbon during
the red-giant stage of a star's life. Oxygen, a key component of life-
sustaining water, is produced by the addition of a fourth alpha particle,
which is a helium nucleus. The researchers varied the strengths of the
"strong" force that holds protons and neutrons together in atomic nuclei,
and the weaker Coulomb force that makes protons try to repel each other.
They found that a change in more than one-half percent of the strong force
or more than 4 percent in the Coulomb force would destroy nearly all the
carbon or oxygen in every star. Under such conditions, "the creation of
carbon-based life in our universe would be strongly disfavored," ...
Physicist Steven Weinberg ... disagreed with the findings ...However,
astrophysicist Craig Hogan ... defended Oberhummer and colleagues ...
Oberhummer said the findings mean "the basic forces in the universe are
tailor-made for the production of carbon and oxygen, and therefore carbon-
based life. At present we have no idea why the strength of the forces are
fine-tuned in our universe in such a way that enables the existence of life.
The fine-tuning is really very subtle." Helium is burned to produce carbon
in the "triple-alpha process" in red-giant stars. Hogan saw no need to
invoke religion or any sort of intentional design in forming the universe. ...
"One of the remarkable things that is quite plausible now is the idea there
are many universes, and in each one of those universes the forces might be
different." ... "Some scientists think it goes beyond the boundaries of
science because you are talking about universes you cannot see. But I think
you have to be more tolerant about that. It could be nature is made this
way, and it is not the same as invoking supernatural forces." ... [Science is
now forced to become pseudoscience to escape the obvious design
inference of subtly fine-tuned laws of physics. As Paul Davies said: "In
spite of the apparent ease with which the many-universes theory can
account for what would otherwise be considered remarkable feature of the
universe, the theory faces a number of serious objections. Not least of these
is Ockham's razor: one must introduce a vast (indeed infinite) complexity
to explain the regularities of just one universe." (Davies P.C.W., "The
Unreasonable Effectiveness of Science," in Templeton J.M., ed., "Evidence
of Purpose," 1994, pp.52-53)]
http://www.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/07/18/fossil.flap.ap/ ... CNN ...
Auction of winged reptile fossil stirs debate Icarosaurus siefkeri July 18,
2000 ... SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The fossil of a 200-million-year-old
winged reptile is headed for the auction block, peeving paleontologists who
argue the relic belongs in a museum. Known as the Icarosaurus siefkeri, the
reptile resembles a huge dragonfly that's about 7 inches (18 centimeters)
long and about 10 inches (25 centimeters) from wingtip to wingtip. ... The
creature lived some 50 million years before dinosaurs and Archaeopteryx --
evolution's first true bird. ... excavated it from the black shale of an
abandoned New Jersey quarry 39 years ago. At the time, it was the oldest
airborne vertebrate known to scientists. The fossil had been kept at the
American Museum of Natural History in New York. But Alfred Siefker,
the man who found the fossil when he was 17 and whose name museum
scientists gave to it, reclaimed the relic 10 years ago. ... Now age 56 and ill,
Siefker is selling it because he needs the money .... "The Icarosaurus is our
most outstanding object and really belongs on exhibit in a museum, not in
some private collector's living room," .... "So we've notified every natural
history museum about it, and they ought to get some of their wealthy
trustees to buy it and donate it." Scientists say they are disturbed by the
increasing commercialization of fossil collections. ... Goodwin ... blasted
any sale of the Icarosaurus as a "highly unethical event that will only
increase commercialization and encourage the theft of fossils from
museums."... [A "winged reptile" that "resembles a huge dragonfly"? I had
not heard of this but it is in Colbert, with a drawing. It appears that on at
least two separate occasions, in the Coelurosauravus and Kuehneosaurus
reptiles, their ribs elongated out covered by a membrane to form a gliding
wing. The picture accompanying this article looks a bit like Longisquama's
`wings'. So maybe Longisquama's `wing' is a similar elongation but of its
spinal ridges? It is strange that this hasn't been mentioned before in the
Longisquama dispute. Have I discovered something? Is there a Nobel
Prize in paleontology? :-)]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_841000/841401.stm BBC
... 19 July, 2000 ... Parasite's web of death ... The extraordinary behaviour
of a parasitic wasp that forces its spider host to weave a special web on
which it can hang a cocoon has been described .... On the evening of the
day that it will kill the spider, the larva induces the spider to spin this
unusual web ... The larva of the wasp Hymenopimecis sp. will suck on the
"blood" of the spider and eventually eat it - but not before it has injected a
behaviour-bending chemical that makes the spider construct a special
scaffold. Only this design, which is quite different from the spider's normal
fly-trap, has the strength to support the pupating wasp. Dr William
Eberhard ... [said] that the manipulation of the spider was probably the
most complex alteration of behaviour ever attributed to an insect
parasitoid. ... The spider, Plesiometa argyra, is doomed from the moment it
is stung in the mouth by the adult female wasp. This paralyses the spider
and allows the wasp to lay an egg on the arachnid's abdomen. ... When the
spider recovers it goes about its daily business of web weaving and feeding,
unaware that it has become a meal for the developing larva now hatched
and clinging to its body. The larva will make small holes in the spider's
abdomen through which it can suck the creature's haemolymph, a task
made easier by the apparent introduction of an anti-coagulant that prevents
the circulatory fluid from clotting too quickly. When this blood does
eventually clot, it makes a large scab that acts as a "saddle" for the larva to
hang on to the spider and reach for its next meal. ... "Finally, on the
evening of the day that it will kill the spider, the larva induces the spider to
spin this unusual web," ... "This is basically the ideal web from the wasp
larva point of view because it needs to hang up its cocoon on a very solid
and durable support. "The design is unique - the spider will not build
anything similar during its normal life. "When the wasp somehow senses
that the construction is finished, it will kill and start to eat the spider. This
happens more or less at midnight and lasts until about midday. "It will then
drop the spider's empty body to the ground and sit in this special web until
the next evening when it begins to build a cocoon." ... ....there are at least
three types of biochemical manipulation taking place. And because the
larva lives on the outside of the spider, it is clear these chemicals must be
injected. The effects of an anti-coagulant and a death-inducing poison are
relatively obvious. Just how the web-spinning behaviour is altered is not so
easy to explain. "The larva somehow biochemically manipulates the spider's
nervous system causing it to perform one small piece of a subroutine,
which is normally only a part of orb construction, while repressing all the
other routines." ... [Yet another example of an irreducibly complex life-
cycle which resists a Darwinian explanation? Macbeth says of another
similar example: "These are marvels, beyond any doubt; but there is no
compelling reason to regard them as adaptations. Each is a tour de force by
a virtuoso ..." (Macbeth N., "Darwin Retried," 1971, p.71). Darwinists
usually try to bluff their way out of this problem by a theological argument
from incredulity, following Darwin: "I cannot persuade myself that a
beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the
Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living
bodies of caterpillars." (Darwin C., letter to Asa Gray, May 22, 1860). But
while this might be a problem for the Christian concept of a good God
(personally I don't think it is), it is no problem at all for basic ID.]
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000717/sc/health_mouse_dc_2.html
Yahoo! ... July 17 ... Mice And Men: Rodent Genome Key to Human
Disease ... BIRMINGHAM (Reuters) - Scientists, fresh from charting
the human "book of life," said ... that making sense of it would depend
heavily on comparisons with genomes of other mammals -- starting with
the humble mouse. So-called comparative genomics is the next big idea ...
By comparing human genes with those in other organisms, scientists
believe they can work out more quickly the function of genes and their
role in disease. ... "Comparative genomics is going to be the single most
important tool going forward in analyzing genomes," said Craig Venter ...
he expected to complete the mouse genome in December this year.
Scientists have already mapped the genomes of a host of lower life forms,
including the fruit fly and yeast, but the mouse will be only the second
mammal to have its genetic code mapped, after man. ... it has taken 10
years to identify 10 genes involved in FHC, a complex multi-gene
condition, and an unknown number of others have yet to be found. The
ability to overlay the complete mouse genome on the human one should
help tease out the missing genes and provide an insight into the
biochemical process triggered by genetic mutations ... Researchers and
drug firms are already working out the function of genes in mice, which
share around 90 percent of their genetic code with humans, by "knocking
out" certain genes and watching the result. The process is based on the
fact that many of the basic mechanisms that control our bodies have
changed little as they have been passed down from species to species
through evolution. As a result, scientists can get a good idea of what a
newly discovered human gene does by mutating a similar gene in lower
life forms. "The mouse is extremely important because we can change
any gene we wish and mimic exactly the mutation which causes disease in
human patients,"... Comparative genomics is unlikely to stop at the mouse
... mapping the genetic blueprint of animals such as the dog, the cat or the
rat would be more useful than sequencing close relatives of man, such as
the chimpanzee, because there will be more variations to examine.
Already comparative genomics is revealing that humans share a lot more
genetic traits with other species than might have been expected. Some of
the blocks along the mouse genome which have already been sequenced,
for example, are proving impossible to tell apart from the human version.
... [This is *very* interesting. It seems that just sequencing a human
genome is not enough. And sequencing an ape's genome is not enough
either because it is too much alike. But what if even a mouse's genome is
not enough? If we share 50% of our genes with the banana, then maybe
they will have to sequence its genome next? :-) If more and human genes
are found to be not much different from genes in other, quite dissimilar
species, then this means that the differences are not in the genes
themselves, but would include which genes are turned on and off, in what
order, and when. In the end I suspect the whole genomic, protenomic,
cellular, developmental, organismal, informational and temporal context
will need to be known, for not only the species in question, but for other
species, before scientists can *really* understand the relationship between
genes and the bodies they inhabit. If this is the case, it is not going to
happen `real soon now', and may be beyond the human mind to grasp, even
with the help of computers. But from my ID perspective, I note that if a
human intelligent designer can switch genes on and off to produce the
effect required, then it shows that an Intelligent Designer could do it too
(see tagline). Therefore I would not be surprised if it turns out that not
enough intelligence can be found in the genome, or in the natural
environment, to account for the marks of intelligence in the genome, and
external intelligent causation would be required to account for it, as it
already is required to account for the marks of intelligence in the
universe!]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=003168993645327&rtmo=pIQQeUee&atmo=FFFFFk3X&pg=/et/00/7/20/ecnbab20.html
20.07.00 Electronic Telegraph ... How mothers start a baby's body clock ...
Researchers investigating the body's natural rhythms have found that
mothers programme their offspring's internal clocks before birth. ...The
research was published ... by a team ... who investigated circadian clocks,
the internal time keeping system, of zebrafish. Circadian clocks give living
things a sense of time and are involved in the waking and sleeping cycle.
Many scientists have assumed that the circadian clock does not start ticking
until birth. But the researchers found that the clock started working in
zebrafish eggs even before they were fertilised. Dr Vincent Laudet, a co-
author of the paper, said: "These findings were quite a surprise." He
suspects that humans may inherit the same gene. ... [Another design
feature? Why should a `blind watchmaker' give all living things an inbuilt,
programmed "sense of time"?]
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000719/sc/health_trout_dc_1.html
Yahoo! ... July 19 ... Iron-Rich Crystals Give Trout Sense of Direction
LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists said Wednesday they had found iron-rich
crystals in trout that can detect changes in magnetic fields, providing the
fish with a sense of direction. ... the scientists said the crystals lay at the
heart of a receiver that transformed magnetic signals into electrical stimuli
in the nervous system. The magnetite crystals ... were similar to crystals
found in salmon .... [Another design feature? Isn't the `blind watchmaker'
wonderful? :-)]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_844000/844217.stm BBC
... 21 July, 2000 ... Scientists 'locate' intelligence ... scientists believe they
have identified a specific area of the human brain which appears to be
responsible for intelligence. The research ... found that a part of the brain
called the frontal lateral cortex was the only area where blood flow
increased when volunteers tackled complicated puzzles involving
sequences of symbols and letters. ... Other theories contend that intelligent
thinking requires various portions of the brain working together like
different parts of an engine. The results suggest that "general intelligence"
derives from a specific frontal system ... The researchers ... used scanning
techniques to assess the blood flow in subjects' brains when they were
performing the tests. Science magazine also carries an article attacking the
scientists' approach to the subject, and arguing that human intelligence can't
be defined in such a specific way. ... While taking the tests, the volunteers'
brains were scanned using a technique called positron emission
tomography. The scientists found that high-g tasks did not require
numerous regions spread around the brain to be used together. Instead
activity was concentrated in the lateral frontal cortex, in one or both brain
hemispheres. The researchers wrote: "The results suggest that "general
intelligence" derives from a specific frontal system important in the control
of diverse forms of behaviour." But they acknowledged that this apparent
intelligence centre might itself be divided into finer components. ... [This
might be interesting if human high intelligence turns out to be a unique
feature.]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_843000/843163.stm BBC
... 20 July, 2000 ... Science finds particle perfection ... Physicists have
found the particle that completes our understanding of the fundamental
building blocks of the Universe. It is a ghostly particle called the tau
neutrino. Its discovery ... scientists at the US Fermilab Tevatron particle
accelerator near Chicago. ... According to the so-called Standard Model of
particles, the tau neutrino completes our inventory of what everything is
made of at the sub-atomic level. ... With the tau's detection, matter's
construction set is complete. The building blocks of the Universe consist
of: six quarks - known as up, down, strange, charm, top, and bottom; six
leptons - electron, electron neutrino, muon, muon neutrino, tau, and the
newly discovered tau neutrino. Other sub-atomic particles, such as the anti-
matter counterparts of the quarks and leptons, the force-carrying particles
called bosons (such as photons), and the Higgs Boson (which gives mass to
some of the other particles) also appear in the Standard Model. However,
the Higgs particle is not essential to the theory. ... Although physicists
expected to find the particle someday, the actual detection is a highly
significant discovery and completes an important stage in our
understanding of what everything around is made. However, this not the
final explanation of the way nature has constructed the cosmos. Scientists
speculate that there might be so-called "supersymmetric" particles. If
found, these would be accepted by the Standard Model but would not
strictly be a part of it. ... [How can "nature" construct itself?]
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000720/sc/light_speed_dc_1.html
Yahoo! ... July 20 ... Getting There Faster: Light's Speed Accelerated ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists using lasers and specially prepared
atoms have managed to make a pulse of light exceed its own top speed of
186,000 miles per second, appearing to leave a laboratory tube before it
had fully entered. This feat might seem more like wizardry than physics to
some scientists, who have long assumed that nothing in the universe could
go faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. But researchers ... found they
could make pulses of light zoom through a tube at a much faster speed,
with the peak of the pulse emerging from the tube 62 billionths of a second
before the peak had entered. "It looks as if you've done something magical
... but you can explain this based on physics. This is not a time machine,"
...The ... findings ... do not contradict Albert Einstein's theory of relativity
... nothing with mass -- like people or things -- can ever go faster than light
.... But something with no mass, like a packet of light waves known as a
pulse, can. ... "Precisely speaking, it is the speed of information transfer
that is limited by the speed of light in a vacuum." ... All the necessary
information about the pulse is contained in its tiny leading edge. As soon as
this sliver of the pulse enters the chamber, the specially prepared atoms can
begin making another, identical pulse at the chamber's far side. ... A
telecommunications application may exist even though information cannot
move any faster than the speed of light ... "If you can create the medium in
which pulses propagate, it would allow them to go through faster as a
packet of waves," ... Normally light would pass through a vacuum chamber
of that length in 0.2 nanoseconds .... But the cesium atoms in the chamber
shift the light pulse, making it zip through the chamber and exit 62
nanoseconds sooner, or more than 300 times earlier. As soon as the leading
edge of the pulse enters the chamber, the atoms start to reconstruct the
pulse at the chamber's far side. This reconstructed pulse can then emerge
from the far end of the chamber sooner than it would go through a vacuum.
... [I don't pretend to understand this! I find it interesting how the atoms
`know' when one pulse exists so the next one can form. There seems to be
some `information' flowing between them and this seems to be faster than
light?]
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"The drawback for scientists is that nature's shrewd economy conceals
enormous complexity. Researchers are finding evidence that the Hox genes
and the non-Hox homeobox genes are not independent agents but members
of vast genetic networks that connect hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
other genes. Change one component, and myriad others will change as
well--and not necessarily for the better. Thus dreams of tinkering with
nature's toolbox to bring to life what scientists call a "hopeful monster"-
such as a fish with feet--are likely to remain elusive." (Nash J.M., "Where
Do Toes Come From?," Time, Vol. 146, No. 5, July 31, 1995.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/archive/1995/950731/950731.science.html)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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