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How do you measure the impact a person has on your life? Perhaps it’s by the size of the hole that is in your heart once she is gone. My aunt Kay recently passed into the arms of her loving Savior, and by that measure, I am just beginning to realize the huge impact she had on me. Not only did she do the typical kinds of things an aunt does for a nephew (babysit me, spoil me, punish me, love me, etc.), there are specific things she did that I know changed the course of my life forever. For example, I was in love with a young lady back in high school, and I was determined to marry her. However, my aunt Kay took me aside one day and had a long talk with me. She explained to me why this young lady would not be good for me. Amazingly enough, I ended up listening to her, and as a result, I was able to meet and marry Kathleen, who is truly my perfect match.

But it’s more than the babysitting, spoiling, punishing, and expert advice. It’s that, along with my parents, she modeled what sacrificial and unconditional love is all about. Some people say they love their family, but aunt Kay really meant it. She showed how much she meant it by regularly giving up her own time, money, and pleasure for the sake of another family member.

She also showed me that love is not something we give when someone does the right thing. It is something we give regardless of what the other is doing. I can think of dozens of times she reared up like a mother bear protecting her cubs when I griped and complained about someone in the family. She didn’t tolerate such nonsense, because as far as she was concerned, we are supposed to love our family unconditionally. There were simply no ifs ands or buts about it.

She also showed me the value of simple faith. Aunt Kay was a very smart woman; she was even a teacher at one time. However, she didn’t like to overanalyze the Christian faith. To her, it was very simple. Jesus loved her, and she loved Jesus. That’s all there was to it. As a former atheist who essentially had to be argued into the Kingdom, I learned from her that there is more to being a Christian than knowing and believing the right things.

Now that she is gone, I will no longer have the benefit of her example. I will no longer have the benefit of her counsel. I will no longer have the benefit of her laughter. I will no longer have the benefit of her love. I know there are many in heaven who are rejoicing at her arrival, but here on earth, this mortal can do nothing but weep.

In a recent comment, the poster known as “Black Sheep” stated, “No matter what you think, science isn’t sexy.” I beg to differ. Just read these chemistry pickup lines, listed in the December 20, 2010 edition of Chemical and Engineering News (p. 56):

“I’m cobalt and you’re nickel. Let’s make an alloy.”

“I’d like to form a covalent bond with you.”

“If I could rearrange the periodic table, I’d put U and I together.”

“You’re lutetium and I’m vanadium. Together, we’re in LuV.”

“Our love will be like sodium in water: brief, explosive, and hot.”

And here’s my favorite:

“You’re so hot, your electrons are changing state.”

If that’s not sexy, I don’t know what is!

In a previous post, I noted that from a scientific point of view, it is quite clear that a baby developing in the womb is fully human. In fact, people who claim otherwise are forced to argue against science. This produces some really absurd ideas, such as Josh Rosenau’s claim that it is hard to distinguish between a baby developing in the womb and cancer!

Now even though I doubt that it will change the minds of the fervent pro-abortion crowd out there, it is important to communicate what science tells us about a baby developing in the womb. As I mentioned in the previous post linked above, not only does genetics tell us that from the moment of fertilization, a baby is 100% human, but recent studies also indicate that when given the opportunity, babies in the womb will socialize. This, of course, adds to the genetic evidence and confirms that babies in the womb are, indeed, fully human.

The newest thing science tells us is that parts of the brain that were thought not to develop until after a baby is born are actually well-developed in the womb. Interestingly enough, those parts of the brain are involved in the kinds of activities that make us…well…human.

Continue reading “Still More Evidence That Babies in the Womb are Fully Human”

Monarch butterflies are not only beautiful, they are truly marvelous creatures. Consider, for example, their annual migration. The story begins in a fir forest in Mexico, where monarch butterflies from eastern North America blanket the trees. They slow down their biological processes so that they can last through the winter months, and then in February or March, they start the 3,000-mile journey back to Eastern North America.¹

However, none of them makes the entire trip. Instead, they lay their eggs and die along the way. The new monarchs that hatch develop into adults and then continue the journey. These monarchs typically live only about two months in total, at which point they lay their eggs and die. This continues until August, when the members of the current generation, none of which has ever seen the fir forest in Mexico, make the trip back there. Individuals often end up landing on the same tree in which their forefathers spent the winter!² How do these intrepid travelers know where to go? That matter is still under investigation.

It turns out that this migration is just one of the marvels of the monarch. Current research indicates that monarch mothers are also able to medicate their offspring!

Continue reading “Marvelous Monarch Medicine”

As anyone who has a blog knows, one of the nuisances associated with blogging is the spammers. They have automated programs that find blogs and then leave “comments” that essentially advertise something. Of course, most bloggers use some sort of anti-spam software to keep the spammers at bay, but no such software is perfect. The software I use, Akismet, is pretty good, but every once in a while, it misidentifies a real comment as spam. Since I don’t want to lose any real comments, I go through the spam folder from time to time.

It’s usually not a big deal. Spams have a pattern to them, so I can usually get through 50 spams in just a few minutes. For example, most of them are short, and they say things like:

yes your portal incomparable ac, (link to the site being advertised)

wow that site class ap, (link to the site being advertised)

whant to say this board class gx, (link to the site being advertised)

wanna say it’s site peerless hs, (link to the site being advertised)

Well, yesterday I was going through my spam folder and saw something that didn’t fit the pattern. Here’s what it said:

HELP! I’m currently being held prisoner by the Russian mafia (link) and being forced to post spam comments on blogs and forums! If you don’t approve this they will kill me. (link) They’re coming back now. Please send help!
HELP! (link)

I think spammers are probably the lowest form of life, or at least they are giving politicians a good run for that position. Nevertheless, I think I could come to like the spammer who thought up that one!

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you probably recognize the name “Norwegian Shooter.” He is a regular commenter, and even though he relies on character assassination, distraction, and quoting out of context, his comments were entertaining. I don’t know of anyone else who has so clearly demonstrated the irrationality of the atheist point of view.

Unfortunately, because he refused to observe a basic request from me regarding his comportment (most likely as a result of his frustration at being demonstrated wrong time and time again), he has been banned from commenting on this blog.

I was reading PZ Myers’s blog today, and I found out that he has been nominated for several blog awards. One of those awards is for the Best Religion Blog, and he seems a bit confused about that. He says:

I’ve been nominated for what?

OK, what is this thing? I’ve been nominated for Best Blog About Stuff, which is OK, but then…Best Celebrity Blogger? Somebody has a very slack definition of “celebrity”. Then there’s Best Religion Blogger — this is an atheist blog…

I am not sure why PZ is confused. He seems to think that his blog shouldn’t be characterized as a “religious” blog because he happens to be an atheist. This, of course, is nonsense. While I know some atheists who are not religious, PZ is most certainly a very, very religious man. Thus, I am not surprised that he has been nominated for the honor of Best Religion Blogger.

Continue reading “PZ Myers – A Top RELIGION Blogger”

It’s not a really new story, but I was interviewed by an internet radio show about the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome¹ and its comparison to present-day people, so I decided I would blog about it as well.

The first thing to discuss is how they sequenced the genome of something that no longer exists. In this case, they used three Neanderthal fossil fragments found in the Vindija cave in Croatia. Fossils (especially those belonging to genus Homo) are rare and very valuable, and this process required the destruction of the fossils, so the three fragments were chosen carefully. They were all fragments that contained very little anatomical information, so anything lost due to the destruction of the fossils was minimal. Based on some pretty good reasoning, it was concluded that the fossil fragments came from three different women, two of which may be relatives. According to scientifically irresponsible dating techniques, these fragments are supposedly around 40 thousand years old.

When they looked at the DNA in the samples they prepared from the bones, they found that between 95 and 99 percent of the DNA came from organisms other than Neanderthals, like bacteria that colonized the fossil. In other words, only 1-5 percent of the DNA found was DNA of interest. How did they get rid of the other 95-99 percent so they could focus on Neanderthal DNA? They used restriction enzymes that tend to cut only bacterial DNA.

So even though this is a remarkable achievement, there are a lot of potential errors in the derived genome sequence. After all, any time the “signal” you are looking at is 20-99 times weaker than the “noise,” it will be hard to determine exactly what the signal is. Keeping in mind these potential errors, what was learned? In short, it was learned that creationists have been right about Neanderthals all along.

Continue reading “Neanderthals Didn’t…Didn’t…DID Interbreed with People”

I just got back from a great fishing trip with one of my favorite people in the world. Here is a picture of the catch:

The fish look a lot prettier right after they have been caught. Here is an example of what a fresh mahi-mahi (Coryphaena hippurus) looks like: