The scientists estimated the average change in Earth’s radius to be 0.004 inches (0.1 millimeters) per year, or about the thickness of a human hair, a rate considered statistically insignificant.

I am sure you were waiting with bated breath for that bit of news!

I’m just wondering if that means 108 hair-widths for the diameter??

The measurement of river sediment output into the oceans indicates that all of North America would have been eroded flat to sea level in just 10 Ma. However, this does ignore a range of geotectonic factors. Regardless, a maximum erosion time to level North America is probably no more than 40 to 50 Ma.

As  you can see, the quote qualifies itself, so maybe we have an extra 30 to 40 million years… That’s a relief!

All kidding aside, an interesting article about the Devil’s Tower, a phenomenon I have thought of visiting on one of my cross-continent treks. It’s a bit off the beaten path, so we haven’t taken the time to visit, but it is a natural wonder in God’s great world.

CML in its chronic phase can be treated with Gleevec and most patients respond well to it. But unfortunately, some do not. The disease can progress to what is called ‘blast phase’ where things go from bad to worse in a hurry.

Today’s article has to do with an apparent discovery of the cause for the transition from chronic to blast phase. Here it is:

They found that chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) progresses when immature white blood cells lose a molecule called miR-328.

That’s it. The white blood cells lose ONE MOLECULE. (The disease is initially caused by a mutation resulting from one part of one chromosome breaking off and reattaching itself to the DNA in a different spot on the chain.)

That isn’t much of a big deal to kill you, eh? One chromosome mutates and soon you have a chronic and life threatening disease. Left untreated, after some time, one white blood cell loses ONE molecule (and then many follow), and suddenly you are in blast phase. And shortly after that, if untreated, you are gone from this world.

A couple of observations:

1. Are their any good mutations? How can anyone believe that chance can produce any beneficial change in any organism that is then perpetuated to new generations? Every part of our body is essential. All it takes to kill you is one chromosome change and one molecule loss. Mutations are not good.
2. What a mighty God we serve! He designed us, in all our complexity, to live as we do in a complex, interdependent world. His mind conceived it all. Though the struggle with cancer can be daunting and is often tragic, it ought to remind us of how great God is.

P.S., I am working on an article to follow up my ‘godliness’ post a few days ago. It is getting longer and longer as I work. Maybe it should be more than one post. It will definitely become a series in our Bible Study time at our church. I think the idea of godliness (godly living) is vital for Christians in our world. So more is coming… in the meantime I am putting up links to things that interest me…

I have written about this before, but I just want to again give praise to the Lord for the gifts he gives to men.

Six and a half years ago, my wife began to lose weight rapidly and was bruising easily. She was becoming more and more exhausted each day. (She was enjoying the weight loss part!) We called our doctor who immediately got the ball rolling in our health care system, no small feat. The diagnosis was Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML). Our hematologist was very upbeat, however. The new therapy for this disease was a drug called Gleevec, just approved for CML treatment two years previously. We haven’t looked back. Gleevec has very minimal side-effects (we haven’t really noticed any). My wife is living a normal life.

The interview with Bryan Druker, the doctor in charge of developing Gleevec reminded me of how close my dear wife was to death’s door:

The problem [with a CML diagnosis] was that the death rate in the first year was 25 to 50 percent.

The life expectancy after diagnosis before Gleevec was about 5 years. And the previous treatments would make those years pretty miserable.

This interview gives you a bit of insight into the persistence and dedication of Dr. Druker in bringing Gleevec into production. It is now approved for ten different forms of cancer, but is most successful with CML, I believe.

My wife takes a couple of little orange pills every morning and God has given her six and a half years of normal life. If there is a drawback, as I was commenting to a friend, is that she would have been in heaven these last five years or so … instead, she gets to live with me.

Maybe there is a purgatory?

Whew! Not complaining, I relish the activity. But I suspect I won’t be blogging a lot over the next few days.

Here are a few things that caught my eye. Some of them would be good for the illustration file:

An article on The Scientist.com: “Bone fat squelches new blood” talks about how fat cells in bone marrow regulate the production of new blood cells in the body. This is news because it was formerly thought fat cells in bone marrow really served no function. And the illustration point: an additional layer of complexity that increases the impossibility of evolution – all these interdependent cells and mechanisms had to be in place for life to exist, all at once. How could they evolve? [Free registration is required to access this article.]

The Globe & Mail, Canada’s arrogant numbskull paper, reports on the importance of little details: “Comma quirk irks Rogers”. It appears that a little detail like a comma is going to cost one of Canada’s big cable companies about 2.13 MILLION dollars. That’s got to be a good illustration for some sermon… now to find a passage to put it in!

“Waving the Flag – Part 2” on SI has some valuable conclusions concerning the drift and decay in Christian colleges:

First, institutions normally do not change radically overnight. The change is usually gradual and continues over a lengthy period of time.

Second, institutions move toward liberalism under trusted conservative administrators who tolerate agents of change.

Third, because the changes are gradual and take place under conservative leadership, many do not understand the significance of what is happening. When people speak out, they are viewed as extreme and disloyal. Only after significant time has passed are others willing to recognize and admit the changes which now are firmly in place.

Fourth, what needs to happen, then? Early on in the process and throughout an institution’s history and life there needs to be a lot of flag-waving going on! Unless a firm commitment to founding convictions is voiced and consistently practiced by those who can do something about it—rather than tolerating ideas and persons who wish to broaden or modify—the tragic story of what has happened elsewhere will be repeated.

May the people of this generation realize that we need to be constantly vigilant lest we drift as others did.

Do you know how powerful the technology was that controlled that mission?

The flight computer onboard the Lunar Excursion Module, which landed on the Moon during the Apollo program, had a whopping 4 kilobytes of RAM and a 74 KB "hard drive." In places, the craft’s outer skin was as thin as two sheets of aluminum foil.

That was then.

This is now. NASA’s plans for the coming longer moon missions are much more elaborate with much more sophisticated equipment. You can read about some of it at the link above.

The many extremes faced by astronauts heading for the moon, and later, they hope, to Mars, seem to reinforce the notion that the earth is truly the only home of life in the universe. (Can’t prove it, but it is a notion I hold nonetheless.)

How inhospitable the rest of creation seems to be!

And how fascinating!

Science can’t explain the big bang – there is still scope for a creator

This article apparently from an evolutionist, admits:

Although science can state a great deal about what followed after the big bang, it cannot in fact explain how "something" (the energy of the universe compressed into a volume the size of a golf ball) arose from nothing beforehand.

Mark Steyn on The Corner writes:

If the non-political sphere is permanently left-of-center — the movies, the pop songs, the plays, the sitcoms, the newspapers plus the churches, schools and much else — it’s simply unreasonable to expect people to walk into a polling booth every other November and vote conservative. The culture is where the issues get framed and the boundaries set.

This comment attracts my attention from my recent reading on culture. It seems that Mark’s comment here (perhaps a worthy observation for politics) is what motivates so much the push for change by the culturally hip amongst religionists. The polis is going in a certain direction, best to get out in front and lead (or at least not lag too far behind.)

I am thinking that if the mission of the church is redemption, then we need to be framing the issues for the culture, rather than be framed by the culture. When men are redeemed, their culture should be transformed. In this sense, the mission of redemption is oriented towards the culture. But the order must be men (individuals) first, then the culture – not the other way around.

~~~

And give this one a read:

‘Leaving Isn’t the Answer’

Why the pastor of the largest Episcopalian congregation is staying put in a ‘very sick’ church.

The article is an interview with an allegedly ‘evangelical’ Anglican pastor who is staying in the main, corrupt Anglican communion. Lots of sanctimonious ‘respect’ for those who leave, but completely fails to see the consequences of staying in.

The concluding paragraph:

I had the opportunity to visit with John Stott in late November. We talked and prayed about many things, including the ongoing challenges in the Anglican Communion and Episcopal Church. As I asked him which path he thought it best for me to take, he said, clearly, "If I were you, I would stay … you have the truth on your side … and I think you are called to stay and faithfully preach the gospel. Remember what Max Warren said, ‘the church is evidence of God’s patience.’ And we just don’t know what fruit or reform will be born as a result of a long period of faithful preaching and witness to the evangelical faith we share."

All too typical of Stott. What has his ‘staying in’ since the infamous confrontation with Lloyd-Jones wrought? Nothing of substance. How many years will it take for those who ‘stay in’?

Today, a story about another disease, neurofibromatosis, which affects one in 3500 births. Research is being conducted to see if this disease, which makes the patient disposed to very difficult to treat cancerous tumours, can benefit from Gleevec. This story contains this hopeful little paragraph:

While the research was being conducted in animal models, a critically ill three-year-old patient presented at Riley Hospital for Children with a plexiform neurofibroma that was compressing her airway. With Gleevec administered under a compassionate use protocol, the patient’s tumor was reduced by about 80 percent, Dr. Clapp said. The patient was subsequently removed from treatment and is being followed, he said.

Again, a word of thanks to our Lord who gifted men, even unbelieving men, with minds capable of searching out these hidden things of our earthly lives. May God grant them insight to see the hidden things of their spiritual lives and find redemption in his Son!

The first article is What makes science “science”? By James Williams, subtitled ‘Trainee teachers don’t have a clue, and most scientists probably don’t either. That’s bad news.’

The second article is Why the philosophy of science matters By Richard Gallagher, ‘The central tenets of science enhance communication and our influence on society’.

Here are some concerns Williams highlights in his article:

As a science educator, I train science graduates to become science teachers. Over the past two years I’ve surveyed their understanding of key terminology and my findings reveal a serious problem. Graduates, from a range of science disciplines and from a variety of universities in Britain and around the world, have a poor grasp of the meaning of simple terms and are unable to provide appropriate definitions of key scientific terminology. So how can these hopeful young trainees possibly teach science to children so that they become scientifically literate? How will school-kids learn to distinguish the questions and problems that science can answer from those that science cannot and, more importantly, the difference between science and pseudoscience?

What kind of ignorance is Williams talking about?

The results show a lack of understanding of what scientific theories and laws are. And the nature of a ‘fact’ in science was not commonly understood … Some of the graduates implicitly or explicitly equated theories with hypotheses

Gallagher makes this observation concerning Williams’ findings:

Williams’ findings demand a thorough assessment of what’s being taught to science students. If, as seems likely, university science departments are churning out technically sophisticated but intellectually stunted drones that don’t understand the underpinnings of science, then urgent reforms to the curriculum are required because such people aren’t really scientists at all.

Those students who go on to grad school will presumably be exposed to aspects of the philosophy of science, if only through engaging in research. But this is not so for the group that Williams is working with, trainee teachers.

He goes on to say this:

Williams’ calls for a core course in the history and philosophy of science to be taught to all science undergraduates strikes a chord. I’d add that a further course on the philosophy of biology should be required of students in the life and medical sciences.

And calls scientists to “get back to our guiding philosophy”.

Why are they so concerned? Well consider these lines from each man:

Williams:

The point is this: you must understand your discipline, know its foundations so you are able to defend it from attack by those who seek to hijack science for their own ends, such as climate change deniers, GM modification scaremongers, or creationists. [emphasis mine]

Gallagher:

One young innocent, for instance, defined scientific theory as “an idea about something, not necessarily true.” If that isn’t playing into the hands of creationists, then I don’t know what is! [emphasis mine]

There you have it! The real reason for their concern… if these students aren’t taught the philosophy of science … scratch that … the right philosophy of science, then (Horrors!!) those ignorant creationists might gain some ground!

“Ultimately we want to provide cartridges for all kinds of micro-organisms and chemical compounds,” says Morris. “We’d even like to be able to use our system to figure out what ‘bug’ an astronaut has if he or she becomes ill.”

Lisa Monaco, LOCAD project scientist, adds her vision of the future: “What we are developing at MSFC has use not only on the ISS, but also on lunar missions, long duration stays on other planets, and most certainly here on Earth.”

In the years ahead, as space voyages become longer and longer, it will be even more imperative to have ways of checking astronauts’ health and monitoring electronics. For the record, no astronaut has ever become seriously ill on any space mission. However, the scientists point out that if an astronaut did ever get sick, it would take too much time to send a sample back to Earth, have it tested, and receive a long-distance answer. With next-generation LOCAD technologies, detection and diagnosis would be quick, easy, and on the spot.

Dr. McCoy, here we come.

Emphasis mine.

Just one of those cool things going on at NASA.

Read the whole article for the current state of the project.