Modern Science Archives : Page 28 of 52 : Proslogion

More Amazing News About Breast Milk

This is an oligosaccharide - a molecule made up of a few simple sugars linked together. (click for credit) — This is an oligosaccharide – a molecule made up of a few simple sugars linked together.
(click for credit)

Approximately a year ago, I wrote about the bacteria in human breast milk. While that may sound like a bad thing, it is actually a very good thing. Over the years, scientists have begun to realize just how important the bacteria that live in and on our bodies are (see here, here, here, here, and here), and the bacteria in breast milk allow an infant to be populated with these beneficial microbes as early as possible. Not surprisingly, as scientists have continued to study breast milk, they have been amazed at just how much of it is devoted to establishing a good relationship between these bacteria and the infant who is consuming the milk.

For example, research over the years has shown that human breast milk contains chemicals called oligosaccharides. These molecules, such as the one pictured above, contain a small number (usually 3-9) simple sugars strung together. Because oligosaccharides are composed of sugars, you might think they are there to feed the baby who is consuming the milk, but that’s not correct. The baby doesn’t have the enzymes necessary to digest them. So what are they there for? According to a review article in Science News:¹

These oligosaccharides serve as sustenance for an elite class of microbes known to promote a healthy gut, while less desirable bacteria lack the machinery needed to digest them.

In the end, then, breast milk doesn’t just give a baby the bacteria he or she needs. It also includes nutrition that can be used only by those bacteria, so as to encourage them to stay with the baby! Indeed, this was recently demonstrated in a study in which the authors spiked either infant formula or bottled breast milk with two strains of beneficial bacteria. After observing the premature babies who received the concoctions for several weeks, they found that the ones who had been feed bacteria-spiked formula did not have nearly as many of the beneficial microbes in their intestines as those who had been feed bacteria-spiked breast milk.²

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Can Fear Be Inherited? This Study Seems to Say “Yes,” at Least in Mice.

These infant mice might be able to inherit their parents' and grandparents' fears! (click for credit) — These infant mice might be able to inherit their parents’ and grandparents’ fears! (click for credit)

Since the realization that DNA is the molecule that passes traits from parents to offspring, it has been thought that the only way to inherit a trait is through the genes. If offspring have traits that are similar to their parents, it is because they inherited similar genes. If they have a trait that is different from their parents, it’s because the genes are different. Over the past decade, however, that view has been moderated to some extent. There seems to be something other than genes at play when it comes to inheritance. The study of heritable traits that do not involve the genes themselves is called epigentics, and it is a fascinating field of study.

While there have been a lot of studies trying to figure out if traits really can be inherited through epigenetics, many of them have been inconclusive or suffer from experimental design flaws. However, I recently ran across a study that I think produces the most convincing argument yet that at least some new traits can be passed from parents to offspring (and beyond) without any change in the genes themselves.

In the experiment, the authors started by exposing male mice to acetophenone, a chemical that has a fruity smell. When the mice were exposed to the chemical, they were also given a mild electrical shock. As a result, the mice began to associate the shock with the smell. After a while, the mice would shudder when they smelled acetophenone, even if they weren’t given a shock. The authors then bred those males with females who had never been exposed to acetophenone. During the entire time the offspring from this mating were raised, neither the offspring nor the parents were exposed to acetophenone. Once the offspring matured, they were then exposed to acetophenone, and they shuddered, even though no shock was given to them. When those offspring were bred, their offspring also exhibited the same behavior. Offspring bred from males who had not been conditioned with acetophenone and shock did not shudder when exposed to the chemical.¹

Now, of course, there are several possible explanations for these results, and had the authors stopped there, the paper would not be nearly as convincing as it is. However, the authors did several follow-up experiments that seemed to rule out any explanation other than inheritance.

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Will This Bring Back the Moon Dust Argument?

This NASA photo shows the thin layer of dust on the moon. (public domain image)

Answers in Genesis keeps a list of creationist arguments that should never be used. It is a good list, and I am glad that Answers in Genesis maintains it. It would be nice if an evolutionary source did the same thing. I don’t know how many times I have to refute nonsense like vestigial tails, lanugo hair, vestigial hair, the vestigial appendix, junk DNA, and all manner of evolutionary arguments that are simply not consistent with the data we currently know.

In any event, the first item on the list of creationist arguments that should never be used is the Moon Dust Argument. In brief, the argument used an estimate of how quickly dust accumulates on the moon to calculate how much dust the astronauts should have found when they landed there. It claims that if the moon were really billions of years old, there should be more than 100 feet of dust on its surface. Astronauts found only a thin layer of dust when they landed, so the moon is not billions of years old.

The problem with that argument rests on the estimate for how quickly dust accumulates on the moon. It was based on how quickly dust accumulates on earth. Obviously, the earth is quite different from the moon, so it’s not clear how good such an estimate is. In addition, other estimates have been made using other methods, and those estimates mostly disagree with one another. Since there seemed to be no good way of estimating how quickly dust accumulates on the moon, responsible creationists stopped using the argument, and that’s how it ended up on the Answers in Genesis list of arguments that should never be used.

Well, some interesting experiments have been done to provide a more direct measurement of dust accumulation on the moon, and the results are surprising, at least to those who are committed to an old earth.

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Cellular Communication – Another “Truth” Destroyed

The insulin-producing cells in the islets of the pancreas use a communication strategy that is probably not the most common form in nature (click for credit).

Naturalistic evolutionists are forced to look at the world very simply. After all, they think there is no plan or design in nature. Instead, they believe that random events filtered by natural selection are responsible for all the marvels we see today. Because of this unscientific way of thinking, they tend to look for simple processes to explain amazingly complex interactions in nature. Cellular communication is a perfect example of how this simplistic way of looking at things can produce serious errors.

In order for the different cells of an organism to be able to work together, they must communicate with one another. One of the most well-studied versions of cellular communication is called endocrine communication, and the insulin-producing cells in the islets of the pancreas (illustrated above) provide an example of how it works. These cells produce insulin, which is then released into the bloodstream. When cells in the liver, skeletal muscles, and fat tissues are exposed to this chemical, they absorb glucose (a simple sugar) from the blood. By controlling the release of insulin from the pancreatic islets, then, the body can control how much glucose is in the blood.

Now, of course, this is a great design for cellular communication that needs to affect a wide array of cells in many different places. It makes the release of the chemicals easy to control but their effect long-ranging. As a result, when the body needs widespread communication in different cells, endocrine communication is used. However, there are often times when cells need to communicate with other cells that are nearby. This is called paracrine communication, and biologists have taught (as fact) for many, many years that paracrine communication happens in essentially the same way as endocrine communication. For example, one of the volumes of the Handbook of Cell Signaling says:¹

Paracrine interactions induce signaling activities that occur from cell to cell within a given tissue or organ, rather than through the general circulation. This takes place as locally produced hormones or other small signaling molecules exit their cell of origin, and then, by diffusion or local circulation, act only regionally on other cells of a different type within that tissue. (emphasis mine)

In other words, a cell releases some signaling chemicals, and those chemicals simply have to find their way to their targets via diffusion or some other local means of movement. Of course, such a signalling scheme is rather inefficient for communication with nearby cells, and new research indicates that it’s not the way paracrine communication is done.

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Babies Learn Music and Language in the Womb!

Studies show that babies learn words and music in the womb. (click for credit)

As I have written previously, several lines of scientific evidence point to the fact that even while they are in the womb, babies are fully human. Far from being a “mass of flesh” that hasn’t reached the status of personhood, a baby in the womb has all the genetic characteristics of a human being as well as some of the social and mental characteristics of a human being. Three new studies demonstrate that they also have some communication characteristics of a human being.

In one study, for example, 12 pregnant women played a CD loudly five times each week during the last trimester of their pregnancy. It contained excerpts from several different melodies, and there was talking in between the excerpts. However, the important melody on the CD was “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” which was repeated 3 times. The babies developing in these mothers’ wombs heard this melody 138 to 192 times before they were born. The mothers then destroyed the CD once their child was born, so that there was no chance the baby could hear the contents of the CD afterwards.

Shortly after birth and again at the ripe old age of 4 months, the babies were played a modified version the “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” melody nine times. In this modified version, 12.5% of the notes from the original melody were randomly changed to a single note – “B.” While the modified melody was playing, an EEG recorded the electrical activity in each baby’s brain. The researchers also chose 12 babies whose mothers had not been given the CD and did the same thing to them. The babies who had heard the CD in the womb had significantly higher electrical brain activity when the modified notes were played, indicating that these notes were unfamiliar to them. For the babies whose mothers had not been given the CD, the electrical activity in the brain was the same during both the original notes and the changed notes.¹ This gives strong evidence that babies can learn the music they hear while they are in the womb.

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Ken Ham and Bill Nye the Anti-Science Guy

On February 4th at the Creation Museum in Kentucky, Ken Ham and Bill Nye will debate the question, Is creation a viable model of origins?

More than a year ago, Bill Nye was in an anti-science video that tried to convince people the creationist view should be censored. As I pointed out then, this is an incredibly anti-science notion. Unfortunately, this isn’t the only example of Mr. Nye’s anti-science behavior.

Nevertheless, I now have to give Mr. Nye some credit for doing something very pro-science: He is going to debate Ken Ham on the question, “Is creation a viable model of origins?” The debate will take place on February 4th at the Creation Museum in Kentucky. It is good to see that Nye is stepping away from his promotion of censorship and is interested in actually engaging the creationist view. I tried to order tickets online as soon as they were available, but the event seems to already be sold out!

Now even though this is a positive step towards a more pro-science attitude for Bill Nye, many evolutionists are trying to convince him to be more anti-science. As one Christian-turned-secular-humanist put it:

Will the Bill Nye-Ken Ham Debate Advance the Secular Cause? Of course not. Debates are all about the faithful on each side saying their side wiped the floor with the other side. I am not sure why Bill Nye decided to debate Ken Ham. Nothing good can come of it.

I obviously disagree. I think debate is usually a good thing, because it allows us to hear another point of view from someone who actually believes in that view. For the creationists who attend the debate (and I suspect they will be the large majority), they will hear from an evolutionist who actually believes in evolution. This will be good, because most likely, much of what they hear about evolution comes from creationists. For the evolutionists in attendance, they will hear about the creationist point of view from a creationist. This is also good, since most of them have probably never bothered to get the creationist view from someone who actually believes it.

In an effort to help Mr. Nye with his budding pro-science attitude, I will give him a piece of advice: Be Prepared!

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More Consequences of Anti-Vaccination Misinformation

Vaccines are a powerful means by which certain diseases can be prevented. Many scientific studies demonstrate that they are both safe and effective, but unfortunately, there are those who have been convinced by misinformation produced by anti-vaccination groups. As a result, some infectious diseases are beginning to make a comeback in the United States. One of those diseases is measles.

One reason measles is making a comeback in the United States is that there are several other parts of the world where measles has a stronghold. Since world travel is common, it is easy for someone to import the disease back to the U.S. In most cases, this isn’t a problem, because most travelers come into contact with people who have been vaccinated. As a result, the virus has a difficult time spreading, and the traveler is usually the only one who ends up suffering from the infection. Every once in a while, however, a traveler will come into contact with a group that has a very low vaccination rate. When that happens, the disease spreads quickly.

For example, in April of 2013, an unvaccinated person returned home to North Carolina after spending three months in India. Along with souvenirs and stories, the traveler brought home the measles virus. Two other unvaccinated family members got the disease, and in the end, there were 23 confirmed cases of the measles. The vast majority of them (18) were among unvaccinated people. Two of the measles cases were in people of unknown vaccination status, and three were in people who were fully vaccinated.

This, of course, brings up a very important point. When people refuse vaccination, they often think that the only possible consequences will be to them and their family, but that’s just not true. No medicine, including vaccines, is 100% effective. Thus, there will be a small percentage of people who get the vaccine but are not fully protected against the disease. When unvaccinated people provide a breeding and transmission population for the disease, this increases the risk to all people, even those who are vaccinated.

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Earthrise: A Re-Creation

The picture you see above is an iconic image in science. Does it look a bit odd to you? That’s probably because it’s usually rotated 90 degrees when it is shown in most resources. After all, it is a picture of the earth rising over the horizon of the moon. Shouldn’t the moon’s surface be at the bottom of the photo, with the earth at the top? It should be if it were taken from the surface of the moon, but it wasn’t. It was taken from a spacecraft that was orbiting the moon. The photographer was in the spacecraft, so he didn’t see it from the same perspective as he would have had he been standing on the moon.

While I have seen this photograph many times and have even put it in a textbook, I got to appreciate it in a whole new way thanks to a team at NASA. By correlating an automatic camera that was taking pictures of the moon’s surface while the spacecraft was making its orbit back in 1968 with data from the modern Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, they were able to determine exactly when the picture was taken and where the spacecraft was at the time. They then made an animation in which the events were correlated to the audio taken during the December 24, 1968 orbit. The result (shown below) is an exciting re-creation of how this iconic image was captured.

As you watch the video, note how it demonstrates that this iconic photo is not the result of careful planning. Instead, the spacecraft just happened to be making a maneuver at the right time, and the astronauts quickly understood what an amazing photo-op they had. It’s especially exciting when the astronauts are afraid they missed taking a color version of the picture because they couldn’t find the color film quickly enough!

DNA Is Even More Sophisticated Than We Thought!

DNA_wide — The information in DNA is stored in sequences of four different nucleotide bases (A, T, C, and G). In a gene, three nucleotide bases code for a specific amino acid, and that three-nucleotide-base sequence is called a 'codon.' (click for credit)

Over the years, scientists have learned a lot about DNA. Nevertheless, the molecule continues to surprise us with its exquisite design. Not long ago, scientists demonstrated that a single gram of DNA can store about 500,000 CDs worth of information. It has also been shown that the code used by DNA to store this information has been specifically designed to allow living organisms to respond to their environment in many different ways. In addition, we know that DNA stores its information in “modules” that can be rearranged in many different ways. This allows a single stretch of DNA to contain many different meanings, depending on how the modules are put together.

In the December 13 issues of Science, researchers have demonstrated yet another incredible design feature of DNA, and according to the University of Washington, the scientists who made the discovery were “stunned.” To understand what was done and what the discovery means, however, you need a little bit of background information on DNA and how it is used by the cell.

DNA stores its information in sequences of nucleotide bases called adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G), and cytosine (C). As shown in the illustration above, those nucleotide bases link together to hold DNA in its familiar double helix shape. The meaning of each sequence depends on where it is in the molecule. In many organisms, a small fraction of the DNA is made up of genes, and in most of the organisms with which you and I are familiar, the genes consist of two regions: exons and introns. The exons of a gene contain the recipe that tells the cell exactly how to make a protein. This recipe is given in groups of three nucleotide bases, which are called codons. Each codon specifies a certain chemical called an amino acid. When the cell stitches amino acids together in the sequence given by the codons, it makes a useful protein.

Introns are “spacers” that exist between the codons in a gene. Once derided by evolutionists as “junk DNA,” we now know that introns are a powerful means by which the exons are split up into functional information modules. The cell can stitch the modules together in different ways, so that a single gene can instruct the cell on how to make many different proteins. This is called alternative splicing, and it is a incredibly powerful design feature that allows DNA to store its information with amazing efficiency. Indeed, thanks to alternative splicing, there is a single gene in fruit flies that can tell the cells to make 38,016 different proteins!¹

Now don’t get lost in all the terminology. Think of it this way: genes tell the cell how to make proteins. However, to increase the information storage capability of DNA, these genes are split into two regions: exons and introns. The introns separate the exons into modules of useful information, and the cell stitches those modules together in different ways so that a single gene can tell the cell how to make lots and lots of different proteins.

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Some “Vegetative” Patients are Probably at Least Partially Aware

coma — An EEG image of a person in a vegetative state listening to a list of words that contains the word to which he is attending and a bunch of distractor words. (click for credit)

The Royal College of Physicians defines a vegetative state as:¹

a clinical condition of unawareness of self and environment, in which the patient breathes spontaneously, has a stable circulation, and shows cycles of eye closure and opening that may simulate sleep and waking

When I read this definition, a question immediately arises: How do you know whether or not a person is aware of himself or his environment? You might ask him a serious of questions, but if he doesn’t have the ability to move his mouth or other parts of his body, how can he make you aware of his responses?

A few years ago, Dr Steven Laureys made headlines with his pronouncement that a man in a coma was able to communicate with people when given the aid of a keyboard and someone to support his hand as he typed. Based on Dr. Laureys’s work, it seemed that the man was describing exactly what you might think is going on in the mind of a person who is aware of himself and his surroundings but cannot communicate with the outside world. However, as skeptics started pointing out the flaws in Dr. Laureys’s method, further tests were done, and it turns out that the person supporting the patient’s hand was actually directing the patient’s hand. In other words, the patient wasn’t communicating; the helper was.

So what can we say scientifically about such patients? If they cannot do anything to communicate with the world, how do we know whether or not they are aware of it? A collaboration of scientists from Cambridge University, the University of California at Los Angeles, and the University of Western Ontario have gotten us a step closer to answering that question. They have published a study in the journal NeuroImage: Clinical that might help us produce a method by which an aware patient can communicate, even if he is not able to do so by traditional means.

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