News to Note, December 3, 2011

1. Interracial Marriage Banned at Kentucky Church

Interracial marriage is an issue for some . . . but not for God

2. New Evidence Finds Dinosaurs Ate Birds

Last meal is a testament . . . but to what?

3. Discovering the Cause of Giant Dinosaur Stampede

The great dinosaur stampede mystery solved (again)

4. Researchers Devise Alternate Theory For Cambrian Explosion

Cambrian secrets of small beginnings

5. Reexamining Teaching Creationism in Schools

Creationists accused of conspiring to create intellectual prisoners

And Don’t Miss . . .

• Forensic analysis of an ancient human skull from Guangdong Province in China suggests the owner sustained a crushing blow to the skull. The injury, confined to an isolated area, is most consistent with blunt force trauma from a weapon rather than a fall. Anthropologists, dating the skull at 126,000 years old, believe it represents one of the earliest examples of human violence. They also note that the wound, which likely caused brain damage and required a long convalescence, healed. This suggests the victim was cared for by others. While evolutionists debate how such social behavior evolved, the Bible describes in Genesis how God created man to live with others. Genesis tells us of a city founded by Cain, the first person ever born. Unfortunately, Cain was also the perpetrator in the first murder, and the victim was his brother. Violence soon became prevalent as people persisted in worsening rebellion against God. Violence does indeed reach back to antiquity, and the Bible tells us it started after man rebelled against His Creator.
• Thanks to biomimicry, Virginia Tech engineers have built a better aquatic robot. According to mechanical engineer Alex Villanueva, Robojelly’s “geometry is copied almost exactly from a moon jellyfish [Aurelia aurita]." The robot swims by contracting faux metal “muscles” along its sides when stimulated by an electrical charge. As in a real jellyfish, these contractions cause the umbrella to deform and pulse. But engineers, who just premiered their improvement at the American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics annual meeting, decided to try to improve the robot’s performance by copying the moon jelly’s “mud flap.” This slightly less flexible strip along the edge of the umbrella lags as the rest of the umbrella pulses, causing a more sustained vortex in the water, strengthening each push and giving the robot a truer jellyfish swimming stroke and more speed. The biomimetic innovation should increase Robojelly’s usefulness as an underwater surveillance tool. The robot may also help marine biologists better understand how the God-designed propulsion systems in real jellyfish function. Villanueva adds, "These results clearly demonstrate that the flap plays an important role in the propulsion mechanism of Robojelly and provides an anatomical understanding of natural jellyfish.” God, the Master Engineer, thought of it first and created each kind of organism fully functional about 6,000 years ago. No evolution required. Man can now intelligently design many things by imitating God’s designs. Watch for the January Answers magazine for many more examples of biomimicry.
• If you'd like to see the beautifully preserved fossils in the Mongolian dinosaur nursery we wrote about last week, they are now available online at. news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/11/pictures/111129-dinosaurs-nest-babies-egg-mongolia-ancient-parents-pictures/