Stars, Cells, and God

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.

Neanderthal with Down Syndrome | News of the Day

Join Fazale “Fuz” Rana in this breaking News of the Day episode of Stars, Cells, and God. Fuz discusses work by a team of anthropologists from Spain who maintain that analysis of a partial skull fossil indicates that Neanderthals provided compassionate care for a Neanderthal child with Down syndrome.
Neanderthal with Down Syndrome
Does this discovery mean that Neanderthals were just like us?
In light of this find, can humans be regarded as exceptional and unique?
If Neanderthals were like us, can the biblical claim that humans solely bear God’s image remain valid?

Dark Matter Particles? | News of the Day

Join Hugh Ross in this breaking News of the Day episode of Stars, Cells, and God. Hugh describes stars at our galaxy’s center showing their luminosities are augmented by the annihilation of dark matter particles in their cores. This could be the first direct discovery of dark matter particles.
 
Dark Matter Particles?
Dark matter makes up 24.5% of the universe.
Neutrinos are the only dark matter particles detected so far and comprise <1% of dark matter.
Three astronomers produced a mock stellar population that evolves both with and without energy from dark matter particle annihilation.
High-mass stars that gain much of their luminosities from dark matter particle annihilation can shine brightly for >10 billion years rather than <100 million years. They shine as brightly as young stars, spectroscopically measure to be old, and have lower temperatures.
Density of dark matter in our galaxy is extremely high within one light-year of its supermassive black hole (SMBH).
Stars within one light-year of our galaxy’s SMBH have the distinct properties of stars whose luminosities are augmented by dark matter particle annihilation.
Observations by 30-meter telescopes will find enough stars within a light-year of our galaxy’s SMBH to make possible an indisputable detection of dark matter particles.
Links and Resources:
Dark Branches of Immortal Stars at the Galactic Center
Black Holes as Evidence of God’s Care

Do Primordial Black Holes Resolve Dark Matter Mystery? | News of the Day

Join Hugh Ross in this breaking News of the Day episode of Stars, Cells, and God. Hugh describes a discovery that may resolve a long-standing mystery about dark matter.
Do Primordial Black Holes Resolve Dark Matter Mystery?
Dark matter is matter that doesn’t interact with light or interacts at an extremely weak level.
The quantity of dark matter that exists and its locations in the universe are not mysteries.
Dark matter’s composition is a mystery that has stymied astronomers and physicists for 50 years.
Leading candidates for dark matter’s composition are axions and sterile neutrinos, but neither of these particles has been detected.
Physicists Elba Alonso-Monsalve and David Kaiser propose that primordial black holes (PBHs) could make up all or a large fraction of dark matter if they formed prior to a tenth of a quadrillionth of a second after the cosmic creation event.
These PBHs would take two forms: (1) atom-sized bodies with masses equal to that of the Martian moons; (2) bodies one 10,000th the diameter of a proton with masses equal to one ton.
Observable tests for these PBHs include the degree to which they would (1) shift the balance between protons and neutrons, (2) cause ripples in the cosmic spacetime fabric, and (3) affect the amount of helium produced during the universe’s first 3 minutes.
Links and Resources:
Primordial Black Holes with QCD Color Charge
Quantum Gravity Constraints Affirm Cosmic Creator

Distant Galaxy and 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 the most distant known galaxy and what the characteristics of this galaxy imply for the cosmic dawn and the big bang creation model.
Distant Galaxy and the Big Bang
Join us as we explore:
The astounding measurement of galaxy JADES-GS-z14-0 at a redshift of 14.32, revealing a glimpse into the universe just 280 million years after the cosmic creation event.
Insights into the size and brightness of this newly discovered galaxy, with its light spanning over 1,600 light-years, predominantly from young stars rather than a supermassive black hole.
The implications of JWST observations on the big bang model, sparking discussions among young-earth creationists and other astrophysicists about potential overhauls to our understanding of cosmic origins.
The standard big bang creation model and its components—including dark energy, exotic dark matter, and ordinary matter—and how JWST’s mission aims to detail the masses and populations of the universe’s first stars.
How JWST’s latest findings support the biblically predicted big bang cosmic model and strengthen the evidence for a universe finely tuned by a cosmic Creator.
This episode is packed with astronomical insights and cosmic revelations!

Biological Basis for Belief? and Woke at the University?

Biological Basis for Belief?
As human beings, our religious nature defines us. Treating it as a scientific question, many scientists wonder, how do we account for human spirituality and religiosity? Are there brain structures and processes that explain this behavior? Using lesion mapping, a research team from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital recently determined the brain regions and neural circuits that account for religiosity and spirituality.
This study (amongst others) raises troubling questions for Christians.
Is our spirituality and response to religion based on our brain’s biology?
Is there a materialistic, mechanistic explanation for religious acceptance?
Do people really experience God?
In this episode, biochemist Fuz Rana addresses these questions and presents a model that accommodates these scientific findings, while retaining a biblical view of human nature.
Woke at the University
During the 2023–2024 academic year, Rice University offered a course called “Afrochemistry” that claimed to “apply chemical tools and analysis to understand Black life in the US.” From January 16 to May 16, 2024, AcademicJobsOnline.org advertised a job for the University of Victoria’s physics and astronomy department that was only open to an indigenous person. Both examples show how a worldview subversive to the scientific enterprise is spreading into the scientific community. This view of contemporary critical theory sees the world in terms of oppressors and oppressed. In contrast, the Judeo-Christian worldview sees all people as valuable and worthy of God’s and our love. Additionally, the Judeo-Christian worldview buttresses and supports the foundation needed for the scientific enterprise to flourish.
Links and Resources: 
A Neural Circuit for Spirituality and Religiosity Derived from Patients with Brain Lesions
University of Victoria, Department of Physics and Astronomy
New ‘Afrochemistry’ Course Widely Panned as Identity Politics Dumbing Down Hard Sciences