Stars, Cells, and God

Hubble Constant Tension Resolution | News of the Day

Join Hugh Ross in this breaking News of the Day episode of Stars, Cells, and God. Hugh describes how the latest measurements of cosmic baryon acoustic oscillations shed light on the true nature of dark energy and may resolve the tension between measurements of the cosmic expansion rate (Hubble constant) based on nearby galaxies with measurements based on the cosmic microwave background radiation and extremely distant galaxies. 
Some of the Hubble constant tension is resolved by the fact that our galaxy resides in an under-dense part of the universe.
The remaining tension can be resolved if (1) the curvature of the universe slightly departs from a flat geometry, (2) the dark energy equation of state slightly varies as the universe ages, and/or (3) systematic errors in expansion rate measurements based on Cepheid variable stars are greater than they are for the tip of the red giant branch stars.
The Dark Energy Survey Collaboration (DESC) analyzed 1,829 type Ia supernovae with distances spanning 0.14–10.92 billion light-years calibrated by the most extensive survey of baryon acoustic oscillations.
The DESC found that systematic errors in Cepheid variable star measures are a significant factor in the Hubble constant tension.
The DESC showed that the latest survey of baryon acoustic oscillations revealed a slight variation in the dark energy equation of state.
The Euclid telescope will soon map baryon acoustic oscillations to a far greater extent, which will provide a definitive resolution of the Hubble constant tension.
Links and Resources:
The Dark Energy Survey Supernova Program: An Updated Measurement of the Hubble Constant Using the Inverse Distance Ladder
The Dark Energy Survey Supernova Program: Investigating Beyond—ΛLCDM
Resolving Hubble Constant and Creation Tension

Identity and Medical Ethics

Gender Identity and Medical Ethics
There’s still much to explore regarding the ethical implications of gender identity and medical interventions. In this insightful dialogue, biochemist Fazale “Fuz” Rana and medical doctor Christina Cirucci discuss what puberty blockers are, their use in gender-affirming healthcare, and their reversibility and safety. Through her work and research with RTB, Dr. Cirucci raises thought-provoking questions that challenge Christians to consider their stance on issues such as:
What are the undisclosed risks associated with puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones in children and adolescents?
What roles do parents and medical professionals play in decisions concerning gender identity care?
How do Christian ethics shape our understanding of gender identity and medical interventions?
Central to our discussion is the biblical concept that every human bears God’s image, underscoring their inherent dignity and worth. We emphasize the necessity of accurate and reliable information regarding gender identity care and advocate for compassionate, informed, and respectful responses.
Disclaimer: Reasons to Believe is expressing our Christian beliefs on the issues of gender identity in the intersection of science and faith, as it’s an important discussion and many people have valid questions.
This research showcases the expertise of select members of the Reasons to Believe Scholar Community on matters of gender identity. RTB is not offering medical or other professional advice. Individuals still need to consult with their own physicians, psychologists, psychiatrists, etc. Our desire is to see everyone make informed, educated decisions.
Links and Resources
A Scientific and Medical Evaluation of Transgenderism
Transgenderism and the Bible

Stabilizing Continents

Himalayan Snow Warming
Three physicists used data collected from 165 stations in the Himalayan-Tibetan region and a regional climate model to determine the effect of black carbon aerosols (BCAs) on the climate of South Asia. Their analysis revealed warming at high elevations due to BCAs. Such atmospheric heating reduces the global mean precipitation, which impacts the summer monsoons in South Asia. Thus, all of South Asia is facing a climate change crisis with both dire economic and health consequences. In this episode, astrophysicist Hugh Ross explains that replacing coal and biofuels with natural gas as an energy source is the quickest and most economical solution to South Asia’s climate crisis.   
Stabilizing Continents
Continents play a critical role in Earth’s capacity to support a thriving and diverse array of life. Scientific studies show that some present-day continents formed at least 3 billion years ago. Those studies have assumed that the same process responsible for how our continents look today also ensured their stability. However, a recent paper highlights some important processes needed for large pieces of continents to stick around for billions of years. In this episode, astrophysicist Jeff Zweerink discusses how those processes reveal more fine-tuning of Earth to support life.
Links and Resources:
Subaerial Weathering Drove Stabilization of Continents
Elevation-Dependence of Warming Due to Aerosol-Induced Snow Darkening over the Himalayan-Tibetan Region
Climate-Relevant Properties of Black Carbon Aerosols Revealed by In Situ Measurements: A Review

Lensed Supernovae Creation Data and Milky Way's Massive Black Hole

Lensed Supernovae Creation Data (Hugh):
Links and Resources:
The Hubble Constant from Strongly Lensed Supernovae with Standardizable Magnifications                                                                                                  
The Creator and the Cosmos, 4th edition (Covina, CA: RTB Press, 2018), by Hugh Ross
A Matter of Days, 2nd edition (Covina, CA: RTB Press, 2015), by Hugh Ross
Resolving the Cosmic Expansion Rate Anomaly
Resolving Hubble Constant and Creation Tension
First Image of the Milky Way’s Black Hole

Nature Inspired Design

Nature-Inspired Designs
One of the most exciting areas of science and engineering is biomimetics and bioinspiration. Scientists and engineers working in this field develop new technology and solve engineering problems by studying and copying biological designs. In this episode biochemist Fuz Rana and special guest Casey Luskin, associate director of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, discuss recent findings in biomimetics and bioinspiration and explore the implications of this work for the design argument.
Links and Resources:
Effect of Schooling on Flow Generated Sounds from Carangiform Swimmers
Bioinspired Multiscale Adaptive Suction on Complex Dry Surfaces Enhanced by Regulated Water Secretion
Geometric Design of Antireflective Leafhopper Brochosomes
Spider Silk Inspires New Technology and the Case for a Creator

A New Organelle? and Atmospheric Oxygenation

A New Organelle?
A team of life scientists has claimed to discover a new organelle (called a nitroplast) that fixes nitrogen. It looks like this organelle evolved from an endosymbiont that assumed permanent residence in a eukaryotic cell. If so, this discovery provides support for the endosymbiont hypothesis, challenging the notion that a Creator is responsible for life’s origin and design. In this episode, biochemist Fuz Rana describes this work and its significance to life’s history, and offers a critical assessment of the study’s conclusion.
Atmospheric Oxygenation
An international team of 17 scientists has proposed that a dramatic weakening of Earth’s magnetic field caused an oxygen level jump 575 million years ago. They showed that a much weaker magnetic field would cause solar particles to split apart water molecules in Earth’s atmosphere into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen would escape to interplanetary space, leaving the oxygen to accumulate in Earth’s atmosphere. They demonstrated that that the magnetic field decline is sufficient to explain most of the rapid oxygen rise (from 2% to 8%) that occurred at the time of the Avalon explosion, which marked the first appearance of macroscopic animals. In this episode, Hugh Ross explains that the transition of Earth’s core from being 100% liquid to where a solid inner core begins to form would explain the dramatic weakening of Earth’s magnetic field—and the minimum oxygen level needed for complex life—that occurred 0.6 million years ago.
Links and Resources:
Near-Collapse of the Geomagnetic Field May Have Contributed to Atmospheric Oxygenation and Animal Radiation in the Ediacaran Period
Designed to the Core, 183–197
Nitrogen-Fixing Organelle in a Marine Alga
Mitochondrial Protein Import Advances the Case for Creation

Human Brain Tissue Controls Robot | News of the Day

Join Fazale “Fuz” Rana in this breaking News of the Day episode of Stars, Cells, and God. Fuz reports on the work by a research team from Tianjin University in China, who, recently stole headlines when they announced that they developed a chip that used human brain tissue to control a robotics system. This remarkable breakthrough (called organoid intelligence) generates excitement and also raises some profound ethical and theological questions.
In this episode Fuz explains:
How this technology works
Why researchers are pursuing the development of biocomputing and organoid intelligence
Ethical concerns associated with this work
Christian perspective on organoid intelligence
Links and Resources:
Lab-Grown Human Brain Tissue Used to Control Robot
Organoid Intelligence (OI): The New Frontier in Biocomputing and Intelligence-in-a Dish
A Christian Perspective on Living Electrodes
Brain Organoids Cultivate the Case for Human Exceptionalism

Do Early Supermassive Black Holes Refute the Big Bang? | News of the Day

Join Hugh Ross in this breaking News of the Day episode of Stars, Cells, and God. Hugh describes the discovery of four fully-formed supermassive black holes that existed just 410–760 million years after the cosmic creation event.
Do Early Supermassive Black Holes Refute the Big Bang?
Quasar J1120+0641, seen 760 million years after the cosmic beginning, has a supermassive black hole (SMBH) weighing 1.52 billion solar masses.
Quasar J1342+0928, seen 700 million years after the beginning, has a SMBH weighing 0.78 billion solar masses.
Quasar J0313-1806, seen 690 million years after the beginning, has a SMBH of 1.6 billion solar masses.
The most distantly detected SMBH belongs to GN-z11. Just 410 million after the beginning, its SMBH weighs 0.002 billion solar masses.
There are three ways such SMBHs can form so early in a big bang universe: through 1) very aggressive early gas accretion by the BHs; 2) mergers of the BHs arising from many 500+ solar-mass first generation stars; and 3) mergers of 10,000+ solar-mass gas clouds that collapse into black holes without forming stars.
The discovery of many more cosmic dawn SMBHs will determine which one, of more, of the three ways explains the SMBHs.  
Links and Resources:
A Mature Quasar at Cosmic Dawn Revealed by JWST Rest-Frame Infrared Spectroscopy
Black Holes as Evidence of God’s Care

Smart Dams and Malicious AIs

Smart Dams
More than 58,000 dams that are built higher than 15 meters (50 feet) exist on nearly all the world’s rivers. Consequently, migratory fish stocks have declined by 76% since 1970 and populations of “megafish” have declined by 94%. Two water resource engineers combined fish migratory taxonomy data with migratory fish life cycle and dam impact models to determine the best fish rescue strategies for five flagship fish species residing in the 12 large dams on the Yangtze River in China. They identified six major misjudgments in China’s fish rescue programs and concluded that large, effective fishways are essential for maintaining robust fish stocks.
Malicious AIs
The quest for more powerful and capable AIs inevitably involves making more sophisticated training algorithms and models with a larger number of parameters. While pursuing this quest, AI developers are also investigating how to align AIs with the values and behaviors we want. Recent research demonstrated that those two goals currently stand in opposition to one another. Specifically, making larger, more sophisticated models results in AIs that effectively resist training to eliminate malicious behavior—regardless of whether the malicious behavior was intentionally programmed or an unintended consequence. Such results provide additional evidence that we humans need to build godly character in ourselves so that we can wisely and responsibly develop and use these powerful AI tools.
Links and Resources:
Dams Trigger Exponential Population Declines of Migratory Fish
The Evaluation of a Definite Integral by the Method of Brackets Illustrating Its Flexibility

Bolide Airbursts Trigger Recent Global Cooling Event | News of the Day

Join Hugh Ross in this breaking News of the Day episode of Stars, Cells, and God. Hugh describes the discovery of microspherules and meltglass at three North American sites, consistent with low-altitude airbursts from a disintegrating comet, that explain the Younger Dryas cooling onset 12,800 years ago.
Bolide Airbursts Trigger Recent Global Cooling Event
During the younger Dryas (12,800–11,700 years ago), global mean temperatures plummeted by 10–15°C. This cooling event, in part, explains the unprecedented climate stability that persisted from 9,500 to 75 years ago.
Geologists had cited the Hiawatha Impact Crater in northwestern Greenland as evidence for an asteroid impact that caused the younger Dryas cooling event.
Recently, physicists disputed the claimed 12,800 years ago date for the Hiawatha Crater, citing argon-argon and uranium-lead dating of zircon crystals that yielded a melt date of 57.99±0.54 million years ago.
26 scientists report their discovery of microspherules, meltglass, nanodiamonds, and combustion aerosols, consistent with them being caused by low-altitude airbursts, at sites in New Jersey, Maryland, and South Carolina.
The microspherules, meltglass, and nanodiamonds all have radiocarbon dates of 12,835—12,735 years ago. The implied melt temperatures range from 1,250°C to 3,053°C.
The high-temperature, high-pressure shock waves generated by low-altitude airbursts from a disintegrating comet would explain the Younger Dryas Cooling Event and the accompanying multi-continent megafaunal extinctions but would not necessarily leave behind any discoverable impact craters.
Links and Resources:
Platinum, Shock-Fractured Quartz, Microspherules, and Meltglass Widely Distributed in Eastern USA at the Younger Dryas Onset (12.8 ka)
Hugh Ross, Weathering Climate Change (Covina, CA: RTB Press, 2020): 149–161, 187–191.