News to Note, July 14, 2007

1. More Lucy-Like Fossils Appear in Ethiopia

A new “cache” of fossil remains belonging to what are described as “early human ancestors” has been discovered in the Woranso-Mille area of Ethiopia, reports BBC NEWS based on information from America’s Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

2. Possible Water Vapor Tantalizes Astronomers

The exoplanetary-analysis community is buzzing with news this week of the possible discovery of water on HD189733b, an exoplanet 64 light-years from earth. This “could-be” announcement echoes a similar announcement three months ago that water had been found on HD209458b.

3. "Rapid" Evolution: an Account

You heard it here first: “evolution” happens fast! This fact has long been pointed out by creationists (see, for example, the video “Rapid Speciation”), and slowly but surely, evolutionists seem to be catching on.

4. Neutral DNA

And speaking of genetic information, we note a new report in PLoS Genetics from Johns Hopkins researchers adds “to the growing mound of evidence that many of the genetic bits and pieces that drive evolutionary changes do not confer any advantages or disadvantages to humans or other animals,” reports ScienceDaily based on a Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions news release.

5. Always Keep Your Receipts

Although Answers in Genesis is known (for good reason!) for our focus on a literal Genesis, we see “Genesis apologetics” not as a standalone project, but as an important defense of the standpoint that all of the Bible is God’s Word, and, thus, that the message of salvation presented in it is true. And so, while there is a long period of time between “Confusion” (the Tower of Babel)and “Christ” that our ministry focuses on less directly, our goal is to promote the truth of the entire Bible.

6. LiveScience: “Astronomers Find Farthest Known Galaxies”

Astronomers continue to peer farther and farther beyond our galaxy, and continue—as reported by a recent team of astronomers—to find galaxies farther and farther out. An international team lead by California Institute of Technology astronomer Richard Ellis has benefited by a natural “gravitational lens” that allowed the team to identify light coming from over 13 billion light-years away. Based on uniformitarian astrophysical assumptions, the scientists have concluded that these galaxies are from “only” 500 million years after the dawn of big-bang-based astronomical time.

Fascinating as the discovery is, and as much as the astonishing distance reminds us of the almost incomprehensible size of the universe (and of its incredible Creator, as we powerfully show in our new planetarium), it’s important to remember it is only through uniformitarian assumptions that such distant light can be equated with such extreme age. There are numerous frameworks that both agree with the Bible and explain “distant starlight,” including differing conventions of time measurement and the popular white-hole cosmology of Dr. Russell Humphreys.