By Jeff Zweerink, Ph.D.

Every now and again, a cool scientific discovery comes along that doesn’t have an obvious apologetic connection. I have decided that these discoveries occasionally warrant mention simply because they are interesting. So, here are three.

1. Most Distant Gamma-ray Burst

One aspect of my research in gamma-ray astronomy involved looking for very high-energy gamma rays associated with gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). These events rank as the most energetic processes occurring in the universe. Scientists have detected thousands of GRBs since they were first discovered in the 1960s (for a description of their serendipitous discovery, see this site). The most distant GRB yet detected occured when the universe was a mere 800 million years old. This places it among the most distant objects in our universe ever observed.

2. Brightest Gamma-ray Burst

Another GRB discovered stands as the most distant object viewable with the naked eye. All the individual stars one observes when looking at the night sky inhabit our Milky Way Galaxy and therefore are no more than a hundred thousand light-years away (the diameter of the Milky Way). At 2.5 million light-years away, the Andromeda Galaxy is one of the few objects outside the Milky Way visible to the naked eye (at least for those in the northern hemisphere). The brightest GRB, designated GRB 080319B, was briefly visible to the naked eye, even though it occurred 7.5 billion years ago, more than halfway across the observable universe!

3. Earth’s Oldest Crust Material

Here on planet Earth scientists recently found the oldest known rocks. Dated at 4.28 billion years old, these rocks best the previous oldest known rocks by 300 million years. Although Earth formed 4.6 billion years ago, rocks more than three billion years old are rare because they have usually been eroded and/or recycled back into Earth’s interior via plate tectonics. These particular rocks escaped that fate and were found along the Hudson Bay in Northern Quebec.

Posted at Reasons.org

By Rich Deem, M.Sc. 

William Thomson Kelvin (1824-1907)
Kelvin was foremost among the small group of British scientists who helped to lay the foundations of modern physics. His work covered many areas of physics, and he was said to have more letters after his name than anyone else in the Commonwealth, since he received numerous honorary degrees from European Universities, which recognized the value of his work. He was a very committed Christian, who was certainly more religious than the average for his era. Interestingly, his fellow physicists George Gabriel Stokes (1819-1903) and James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) were also men of deep Christian commitment, in an era when many were nominal, apathetic, or anti-Christian.

The Encyclopedia Britannica says “Maxwell is regarded by most modern physicists as the scientist of the 19th century who had the greatest influence on 20th century physics; he is ranked with Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein for the fundamental nature of his contributions.” Lord Kelvin was an Old Earth creationist, who estimated the Earth’s age to be somewhere between 20 million and 100 million years, with an upper limit at 500 million years based on cooling rates (a low estimate due to his lack of knowledge about radiogenic heating).

By Richard Deem 

Gregor Mendel (1822-1884)
Mendel was the first to lay the mathematical foundations of genetics, in what came to be called “Mendelianism”. He began his research in 1856 (three years before Darwin published his Origin of Species) in the garden of the Monastery in which he was a monk. Mendel was elected Abbot of his Monastery in 1868. His work remained comparatively unknown until the turn of the century, when a new generation of botanists began finding similar results and “rediscovered” him (though their ideas were not identical to his). An interesting point is that the 1860’s was notable for formation of the X-Club, which was dedicated to lessening religious influences and propagating an image of “conflict” between science and religion. One sympathizer was Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton, whose scientific interest was in genetics (a proponent of eugenics - selective breeding among humans to “improve” the stock). He was writing how the “priestly mind” was not conducive to science while, at around the same time, an Austrian monk was making the breakthrough in genetics. The rediscovery of the work of Mendel came too late to affect Galton’s contribution.

Michael Faraday (1791-1867)
Michael Faraday was the son of a blacksmith who became one of the greatest scientists of the 19th century. His work on electricity and magnetism not only revolutionized physics, but led to much of our lifestyles today, which depends on them (including computers and telephone lines and, so, web sites). Faraday was a devoutly Christian member of the Sandemanians, which significantly influenced him and strongly affected the way in which he approached and interpreted nature. Originating from Presbyterians, the Sandemanians rejected the idea of state churches, and tried to go back to a New Testament type of Christianity.

By Hugh Ross, Ph.D.

After the first appearance of life on Earth, the Great Oxygenation Event marked the biggest chemical transformation of the planet. This event occurred approximately 2.4 billion years ago. The oxygen content of Earth’s atmosphere rose from just one thousandth of a percent (10^-5) of its present level (about 21 percent of the total volume of the atmosphere) to several percent of its present level.

Before the Great Oxygenation Event only unicellular life was possible. After the event, more complex life could be introduced. Also, the extra oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere meant that the great oxygen sinks on and in Earth (the crust and the mantle) could be filled up. This ample supply paved the way for the Second Great Oxygenation Event and the possibility for large, active animals. Unless the First Great Oxygenation Event had occurred as early as it did in Earth’s history, human life would never have been possible on Earth.

Recently, a team of British environmental scientists discovered how Earth transitioned from a low atmospheric oxygen state to a high one and how it did so as early and as quickly as it did. The team determined that a certain minimum level of oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere will trigger the development of effective ultraviolet shielding in the troposphere through the formation of ozone. That shielding not only permits more efficient photosynthesis to occur, but it also gives oxygen molecules in the troposphere a longer lifetime. These effects result in a large and rapid boost in the oxygen content of the atmosphere.

The development of these conclusions is where the research of the British team stops. What they overlooked is that the trigger will not be “pulled” unless considerable supernatural intervention occurs. For the trigger to be pulled early enough and effectively enough that human life becomes an eventual possibility, photosynthetic life must be introduced on Earth at the earliest possible moment; that is, immediately after the late heavy bombardment event ends (date = 3.8 billion years ago). This early photosynthetic life must be both abundant and ubiquitous throughout the Earth. For the abundance and ubiquity to be possible, there must be many diverse species of photosynthetic life. Furthermore, photosynthetic life must remain abundant, ubiquitous, and diverse continuously for many hundreds of millions of years. Such life, therefore, either must be hardy enough to survive the many life-disturbing events occurring during Earth’s early history and/or the Creator must be aggressively re-creating life during this era (see Psalm 104:27-30).

Thanks to the many supernatural interventions on the part of the Creator, all these conditions were met and the Great Oxygenation Event did indeed occur.

Posted at Reasons.org

Robert Boyle (1791-1867)
One of the founders and key early members of the Royal Society, Boyle gave his name to “Boyle’s Law” for gases, and also wrote an important work on chemistry. Encyclopedia Britannica says of him: “By his will he endowed a series of Boyle lectures, or sermons, which still continue, ‘for proving the Christian religion against notorious infidels…’ As a devout Protestant, Boyle took a special interest in promoting the Christian religion abroad, giving money to translate and publish the New Testament into Irish and Turkish. In 1690 he developed his theological views in The Christian Virtuoso, which he wrote to show that the study of nature was a central religious duty.” Boyle wrote against atheists in his day (the notion that atheism is a modern invention is a myth), and was clearly much more devoutly Christian than the average in his era.

By Hugh Ross, Ph.D.

 A team of American astronomers recently announced the discovery of the first known planet outside our solar system to spend its entire orbit within the “habitable zone.”¹ When astronomers talk about a habitable zone for a planet they simply mean that the planet is orbiting within that distance from its star where surface liquid water would be possible—assuming the atmosphere of the planet is fine-tuned so as to trap the just right amount of heat from the planet’s star.

The newly discovered planet, 55 Cancri f, orbits the star 55 Cancri and weighs in at 45 times the mass of Earth, making it a gas giant. All astronomers recognize that the dense atmosphere that such a planet must possess precludes any possibility of habitation. However, as Debra Fischer, leader of the research team, explained to reporters, “The gas giant planets in our solar system all have large moons. If there is a moon orbiting this new, massive planet, it might have pools of liquid water on a rocky surface.” ²

The characteristics of 55 Cancri and four known planets orbiting it rule out the possibility of life anywhere within the 55 Cancri planetary system. I discussed these hostile conditions on the November 10, 2007, Reasons To Believe Science News Flash. A more general discussion centers on whether or not moons for any planetary system make realistic candidates for life.

As Fischer says, all the gas giant planets in the solar system possess large moons. Compared to the mass of Earth, the largest moons for each of the solar system’s gas giants are: Jupiter’s at 2.48%, Saturn’s at 2.25%, Neptune’s at 0.36%, and Uranus’ at 0.06%. Earth’s moon weighs in at 1.23%

However, life requires a strong, stable magnetic field to protect the moon from the charged particles emanating from the star that would otherwise sputter away the moon’s atmosphere. Life also needs strong, stable plate tectonics to contribute to the necessary mechanisms for compensating for the star’s increasing luminosity over its burning history. Unless the moon’s mass exceeds 23 percent of Earth’s mass, plate tectonics and a strong magnetic field are impossible. For such necessities to last for a few billion years requires a mass and a density virtually equivalent to Earth’s.³ Thus, the solar system’s largest moons fall short by a factor of forty or more from being large enough for life.

The orbital zone where surface liquid water could theoretically exist on some rocky body is relatively broad if one adjusts the atmosphere to compensate. For example, Earth’s orbit could be pushed out to a little more than halfway beyond the mid-point between Earth’s and Mars’ present orbits and still sustain surface liquid water—if greenhouse gases saturated Earth’s atmosphere. Removing all of Earth’s greenhouse gases would allow liquid water to persist on Earth even if it were situated 10 percent closer to Venus’ orbit than it is now. But, a liquid water zone does not equate to a truly habitable zone. Without adequate greenhouse gases, life—at least life more advanced than bacteria—dies. Conversely, overly plentiful greenhouse gases would cripple the operations of breathing organs like lungs. Therefore, existence of plants and animals demands a much narrower zone than what astronomers refer to as “the habitable zone.”

Actually, for any given planet or moon the true habitable zone would be far more narrow yet. If Earth’s orbit moved about a half percent farther from the Sun, Earth’s surface would experience a runaway freeze. Cooler temperatures caused by the greater distance from the Sun would result in more snowfall. Since snow reflects sunlight more effectively than soil, greater snow cover causes Earth’s surface temperature to drop even more, which results in still more snow falling and an even greater drop in temperature until all of Earth’s surface freezes over.

On the other hand, if Earth’s orbit moved about a half percent closer to the Sun, Earth’s surface would experience a runaway evaporation of water. This happens because the closer distance to the Sun yields a higher surface temperature on Earth that causes more water to evaporate. Water vapor is a greenhouse gas. Thus, more water in Earth’s atmosphere causes the surface temperature to rise, which results in more evaporation. The cycle continues until all of Earth’s water evaporates.

If the moon orbits too close to its planet it becomes tidally locked, culminating in one side of the moon perpetually facing the planet. Typically, this causes long cold nights and long hot days. Such a close-in orbit would also generate destructive tides and volcanic eruptions; and if the planet possesses a strong magnetic field, its magnetosphere could wreck havoc on the moon’s atmospheric layers. Orbiting too far away from its planet causes a moon to experience enormous seasonal temperature differences as its journey about the planet puts it alternately closer and farther away from its star.

Close-in or far-out, a large moon orbiting a large gas giant planet would experience heavy bombardment from comets and asteroids. Just as the gravity of Jupiter attracts a lot of asteroids and comets to veer into its vicinity, so, too, the gravity of large gas giant planets implies that any big moon orbiting them will receive a lot of life-catastrophic collisions.

Even moons with interior ice-water environments heated through tidal friction from the planet’s gravity (such as may be the case for Jupiter’s moon Europa) also provide poor long-term life sites. Without a carbonate-silicate cycle, such a moon cannot properly compensate for the star’s increasing luminosity. However, this cycle will not operate without plenty of dry land exposed to a specific atmosphere where that dry land contains particular kinds and quantities of life.

With such a narrow true habitable zone, life on a moon becomes especially problematic. More reasons than the few described here rule out moons as potential life sites for any kind of long-term plant and animal life.⁴ Since the discovery of the first extra-solar planet in 1995, astronomers have cataloged 265 extra-solar planets. All these planets have taught us much about the formation and dynamics of planetary systems. The record of the past twelve years shows that the more astronomers learn about the characteristics of planets, moons, and their stars, the more evidence they uncover for the exceptional rarity of the solar system’s conditions that permit the existence of life. The case for the supernatural design of the human-friendly Milky Way Galaxy and solar system continues to build.

1. Ian Sample, “Could This Be Earth’s New Twin? Introducing Planet 55 Cancri f,” The Guardian (Wednesday, November 7, 2007).
2. Ian Sample, The Guardian (Wednesday, November 7, 2007);
3. Diana Valencia, Richard J. O’Connell, and Dimitar D. Sasselov, “Inevitability of Plate Tectonics on Super Earths, “Astrophysical Journal Letters,” 670 (2007): L45-L48.
4. Hugh Ross, Kenneth Samples, and Mark Clark, Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2002): 39-41.

By Fazale Rana, Ph.D.

Scientists Create Novel Allosteric Enzyme

It’s not out of the ordinary for my wife to call me on my cell phone when I’m on the way home from the office to ask me to get something at the grocery store or pick up a meal from our local Chinese take-out restaurant.

With cell phones, my wife can affect my actions from a distance.

Biochemists have learned that small molecules inside the cell can also affect the actions of proteins at a distance. These small molecules are called allosteric effectors and the long-distance influence they exert is called allosteric regulation.

Scientists have a lot of interest in learning how allosteric regulation works. Of course, this insight will lead to a fundamental understanding of life’s chemistry, but it also holds promise for important applications in biotechnology and biomedicine. Biochemists want to make use of any knowledge they can gain to design and engineer novel proteins that can be controlled through allosteric interactions.

Designing novel proteins is also a key stepping-stone on the pathway to making artificial and synthetic life. Allostery is particularly important because it is widespread and provides the means to exert feedback and feedforward regulation of biochemical operations.

New work published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describes the design and production of a non-natural, novel allosteric enzyme that binds DNA when light is shined on it. This elegant work is precisely what is needed to make novel proteins available for use in biotechnology and biomedicine and in the creation of artificial life.

It’s also the type of research that’s needed to demonstrate conclusively that life must stem from an intelligent agent. Some background information will encourage appreciation of this work and its significance to biotechnology and biomedicine—and the creation/intelligent design/evolution controversy.

Protein Structure

Proteins are chain-like molecules that fold into precise three-dimensional structures. A protein’s three-dimensional architecture determines its function.

Smaller subunit molecules called amino acids link together in a head-to-tail fashion to form proteins. Cells employ twenty different amino acids to make proteins (to a first approximation). In principle, the twenty amino acids can join up in any possible amino acid combination to form a protein chain.

The amino acids that make up the cell’s protein chains possess a variety of chemical and physical properties. Each amino acid sequence imparts the protein with a unique chemical and physical profile along its chain. This profile determines how the protein folds; and, therefore, how it interacts with other protein chains to form functional protein complexes. Hence, the amino acid sequence of a protein ultimately determines its function, since the amino acid sequence determines the protein’s structure, and structure dictates function.

Protein Binding Sites

Even though proteins are large molecules only a small portion of their structure plays an immediate role in their activities. The business portion is typically a pocket or crevice located on the three-dimensional surface of the folded protein chain. For proteins that catalyze or assist chemical reactions (called enzymes), the pocket (or crevice) is called the active site.

For some proteins, these surface regions bind small molecules that elicit structural changes in the protein. These changes trigger interactions between the protein and other cellular components, causing biochemical pathways and processes to turn on or turn off. These sites are referred to as binding sites. Other binding sites latch onto portions of larger molecules like other proteins or DNA. The molecules (or regions of larger molecules) that bind to active and binding sites are called substrates.

The chemical groups that form active and binding sites come from the amino acids that constitute the protein chain. The amino acids that contribute to the active and binding sites may be located in completely different regions of the protein chain. They are brought into the appropriate juxtaposition when the protein chain folds into a three-dimensional shape.

Protein active and binding sites can only latch onto select molecules or select regions of proteins or DNA. This selectivity stems from the ability of the protein’s active or binding site to precisely match the geometry of the substrate molecules, as well as the exacting molecular interactions that take place between the chemical groups found in the active or binding site and the substrates. As noted in an earlier entry, this fine-tuning evinces the work of intelligent agency.

Allosteric Binding Sites

In addition to active and binding sites, many proteins harbor additional small-molecule binding sites on their surfaces called allosteric sites. These surface locales are often remotely located from the active and binding sites. When allosteric effectors bind to these sites, they cause structural changes in the protein that translate through the entire molecule, modifying the structure of the active and functional binding sites. Due to the fine-tuning of the interactions between substrates and protein active and binding sites, these structural changes—even if they are ever so slight—can affect substrate binding (and subsequent chemical changes to the substrate if the allosteric protein is an enzyme.)

Allosteric effectors that shut down the protein’s operation at the active or binding sites are called allosteric inhibitors. Those that increase the activity are termed allosteric activators.

Evolutionary Origin of Allostery

Evolutionary biologists think that allosteric proteins evolved through a process called genomic shuffling. (For a technical article go here.)

To understand this proposal, a little more detail about protein structure is required. When proteins fold they form modular regions called domains. The overall three-dimensional architecture of a protein can be thought of as the sum of several structural modules. Protein domains are stable, self-consistent regions that can carry out specific functions, independent of the rest of the protein. Of course, as part of a protein, the domain’s function contributes to the overall activity of the protein.

Allosteric proteins consist of a domain(s) that binds allosteric compounds and domains that contain active or binding sites. The domains connect to each other, usually through a structural junction able to transmit structural changes in the allosteric binding domain to the domain that harbors the proteins’ functional regions.

Evolutionary biologists reason that the regions of genes that encode protein domains can become shuffled through an assortment of biochemical mechanisms to generate new proteins that represent a mix-and-match of preexisting domains. In this way allosteric domains can fuse with functional protein domains to yield a new protein that is subject to allosteric regulation.

Design of a Novel Light-Activated, DNA-Binding Protein

On the basis of this model, researchers from the University of Chicago developed a strategy to create a novel, non-natural allosteric protein with two domains: one taken from the protein phototropin 1 and the other from a DNA-binding protein, called trp repressor.

The phototropin 1 domain absorbs light (in this case the photon of light equates to a small molecule binding at an allosteric site) and undergoes a structural change. The DNA-binding domain attaches to DNA in the presence of the small molecule tryptophan, shutting down the genes that make this amino acid.

In contrast to the proposed evolutionary mechanism for the origin of allostric proteins—again, a mechanism that requires protein domains to randomly combine in the hopes of hitting upon a novel protein with beneficial function for the cell—the biochemists who designed the artificial allosteric protein took painstaking efforts to carefully marry the light-absorbing and DNA-binding domains.

These efforts included:

• Thoughtfully choosing the best domains to combine
• Rationally selecting the juncture between the two domains
• Fine-tuning the juncture by iteratively trying out amino acid compositions and sequences to find the exact structure that would provide an allosteric conduit between the two domains.

In other words, these researchers just didn’t happen upon the protein they created, or even produce it with minimal effort. The creation of this protein represents a biochemical tour-de-force.

Perhaps most impressive was their selection of the junction between the two domains. Through careful reasoning, they decided to use an alpha-helix to join the two domains. (This conformation of the protein backbone resembles a spiral staircase.) They noted that the bond angles between amino acids necessary to form an alpha-helix are highly restricted. This means that any change in the bond angles of an alpha-helix caused by changes in the domains associated with it will unravel the helix. This unraveling process can be used to transmit changes to another domain joined to the alpha-helix.

The researchers chose the light-absorbing domain of phototropin 1 and the DNA-binding domain of the trp repressor, in part, because both have terminal alpha-helical segments. They reasoned that they could fuse these two alpha-helicies to form a juncture between the two domains that would transmit structural changes between the two.

Once they made this determination, the scientists had to carefully design the alpha-helix so that it would allow the domains from the two proteins to maintain their natural three-dimensional structure when fused together, and then force a change in the DNA-binding domain when light impinges on the domain taken from phototropin 1. This required a combination of rational design efforts and trial and error to create the right juncture between the two domains.

Implications of the Work

This incredibly important work helps biochemists gain some understanding of how allosteric regulation works. It also provides a workable strategy for biochemists to design novel allosteric proteins that can be controlled by light. There is no end to the possible biotechnology and biomedical applications that can be conceived utilizing this technology.

This work also sets the stage for biochemists to create artificial life in the lab.

At first blush when biochemists create sophisticated artificial proteins, it appears as if scientists are one step closer to creating life in the lab. And if scientists can create life, where does that leave God?

In the face of this concern, it’s remarkable to note how much effort it took to design a single allosteric protein by joining together two domains of proteins that already exist in nature. This research demanded a significant collaborative effort among some of the finest minds in the world to develop and employ an effective design strategy. And then these researchers relied on sophisticated laboratory technology to carry out their scheme.

If it takes this much work and intellectual input to create a single protein from already-existing parts, is it really reasonable to think that undirected evolutionary processes could routinely accomplish this task through random genetic shuffling?

It’s important to keep in mind that the simplest organism requires a few thousand different proteins to exist independently in its environment. How much effort would it take to construct the full range of proteins needed for life, let alone design them to interact properly with each other? (For more details on life’s minimal complexity see Origins of Life and The Cell’s Design.

In addition to the questions it raises about molecular evolution, this new research provides direct experimental evidence that life’s molecules (and hence, life) must originate from the work of an intelligent agent, in this case, a team of protein engineers, biochemists, and molecular biologists.

This recognition adds to the powerful case for intelligent design based on the features of biochemical systems. (See The Cell’s Design.)

I have to be sure to let my wife know about this new research when she calls me on my way home from work today.

Posted at Reasons.org

By Dave Rogstad, Ph.D.  

Ever since childhood I have been fascinated with the idea that there are other intelligent beings living in outer space. At the age of seven, I heard about the crash of a flying saucer recovered on a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. While my dad thought the whole thing was a bunch of foolishness, my friends and I had great fun imagining “Martinis” coming from Mars to visit our planet. We later learned they were called Martians.

In the course of my research in radio astronomy, I worked with a graduate student who was so fascinated with the possibility of intelligent life in outer space that he would spend any spare time on the telescopes searching for signals that might have been sent from distant stars. Needless to say, he didn’t discover anything. I suggested to him that whoever he might hear from out there would have been made by the same creator who made us. So, I asked, why doesn’t he also spend some time investigating the existence of this creator? So far as I know, he didn’t follow up on my recommendation. However, he did later become very active in SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) research.

SETI work based at the University of California, Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory has received a boost recently with the upgrade of the 1,000-ft diameter antenna at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. This instrument is the largest single-dish radio telescope in the world, and some of its time has been made available for SETI. With its additional frequency coverage from new and more sensitive receivers, the capability of this system can generate 500 times more data than before in its search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Interestingly, this project makes use of private home computers to do the processing. Referred to as SETI@home, the Berkeley researchers invite anyone who has a home computer attached to the Internet to contribute its unused time to process the data. Those interested can download a screensaver that works on the SETI task when the computer is in screensaver mode. This has little or no impact on the volunteer, but provides huge amounts of computer time for the project. The SETI@home boasts a community that provides as many as 320,000 computers. They are now asking for more in order to process the new level of data-taking.

Researchers in this project mention that despite the fact UC Berkeley has been analyzing radio signals from space since 1978 on various telescopes, no telltale signals from an intelligent civilization have yet been found. However, with the new upgrades they have great hope that the future will vastly improve the possibility of success. While many SETI researchers acknowledge the low probability for discovering an intelligent signal, they are convinced that such a discovery would be so profound that it merits the effort.

Researchers at RTB, on the other hand, have a different view as expressed in their creation model. Essentially, conservative estimates of the probability of another site beyond the Earth having the necessary conditions for advanced life are zero. There are no “others” out there with whom we can communicate. For further discussion of this conclusion, see here for a secular perspective, and here for the RTB perspective.

Posted at Reasons.org

By Rich Deem, M.Sc.

Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
In optics, mechanics, and mathematics, Newton was a figure of undisputed genius and innovation. In all his science (including chemistry) he saw mathematics and numbers as central. What is less well known is that he was devoutly religious and saw numbers as involved in understanding God’s plan for history from the Bible. He did a considerable work on biblical numerology, and, though aspects of his beliefs were not orthodox, he thought theology was very important. In his system of physics, God is essential to the nature and absoluteness of space. In Principia he stated, “The most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion on an intelligent and powerful Being.”