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A couple years ago, most anthropologists claimed that Homo sapiens first appeared in the Americas between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago.  In July of this year, a group of British scientists presented their own evidence that humans walked the New World as early as 40,000 years ago: footprints of both animals and hominids in a layer of volcanic ash.  The British team used "several methods" to date the footprints, chiefly carbon-14 dating on organic material found just above the ash layer.  "We have materials that have been dated below the footprint layer, the footprint layer itself and on top of the footprint layer. Everything is making sense," said Dr Silvia Gonzalez, leader of the British team who first discovered the tracks in 2003. 

 For the moment, never mind that creationists like myself don't generally believe the earth is older than 10,000 years.  Never mind that the 40,000-year-old date is based on only one site and with questionable dating techniques.  Never mind that the disparity in numbers above is 30,000 years, or, a 300% increase.

Enter Paul Renne from the Berkeley Geochronology Center in California.   Apparently Mr. Renne does't like the insinuation the tracks made--that humans came to the Americas 40,000 years ago.  After all, if that is correct, it flies in the face of the Clovis-First Model, which says humans migrated across the Bering Land Bridge into Alaska about 11,500 years ago.  If humans were here already, where did they come from?  Consequently, Mr. Renne decides to use argon-argon dating to test the ash deposits in which the footprints were found.  Argon-argon dating reads out 1.3 million years.  Mr. Renne smiles, because he knows that, according to evolutionary models, the oldest Homo sapiens fossils are only 160,000 years old.  "I'm totally unconvinced by the argument that they are footprints," concludes Renne, and publishes himself an article in the evolutionist-reviewed journal, Nature.

For the moment, never mind the other dating methods the British team used.  Never mind that this new argon-argon date is 1,260,000 years older, or about 3000% greater, than the other dates.

This situation just goes to show how wishy-washy "science" can be.  One minute you have in your hands the so-called missing link, and the next minute it's nothing but a funny-looking rock.  As for myself, I think both Gonzalez and Renne are incorrect, and overshoot the age of the ash layer.  I think the dating methods used by both teams are woefully unreliable.  I'm sympathetic towards the Clovis-First Model (though open to other theories), and I'm sympathetic towards the idea that the indentations you see here and here are indeed footprints.  I'm surprised at how tilted the ScienceDaily news story was against the British team.

To their credit, the Gonzalez team has posted a response to Renne and his Nature paper here.  They still think they've found human prints, and they say that they, too, used argon-argon dating on the prints, and "had no good results, and concluded that they were not reliable."  (Of course this means that the argon-argon dates were closer to Renne's results, and conflicted with the carbon-14 dates.)  They question the sample Mr. Renne actually tested, suggesting it was not from the prints themselves.  They also admit that Dr. Silvia Gonzalez "is one of a growing number of scientists who believes that the first Americans may have arrived by water rather than on foot, island hopping along the Pacific coast."

Isn't science fun? 

Fountains of Enceladus.

Fountains of Enceladus #2.  Images courtesy NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

Saturn moon Enceladus [en-SELL-ah-dus] is expelling what seems to be particles of water ice out of its crust.  Why the south pole of this moon is so active remains a mystery, and scientists are also baffled at the surface features of the moon, which seem to indicate that its interior is liquid--if the moon is millions of years old it should be frozen.  The liquid interior theory fits well with this model that has been postulated to explain the ice plumes now being observed.  It seems these plumes are emanating from the "tiger stripes," or cracks, seen in Enceladus' fractured crust below.  Creation-Evolution Headlines has posted more in-depth coverage of this story.

Zooming in on Enceladus -- Mosaic.  Courtesy NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute. 

An ice-covered island far, far south--east of the gap between South America and Antarctica--is undergoing a major volcanic eruption, complete with a huge smoke plume and immense lava flows.  Montagu Island is one of several volcanic islands that make up a U.K. territory named the South Sandwich Islands.  Mount Belinda, seen on Montagu Island below, has been active for the last couple years, and really went wild this past September.

Courtesy NASA Earth Observatory

 So vehement has been the volcano's expulsions that the area of Montagu Island has grown by 50 acres, as this image points out.

For those of you who know the DeRosas, they've officially unveiled the Allosaur skull, beautifully excavated and preserved and mounted behind glass.  Nicknamed "Ebenezer," the huge skull may be the best preserved Allosaurus skull in the world.  It was found in Colorado at a site the DeRosas have named "The Dragon's Den."

What's unique about these paleontologists is that they hold a Biblical view of Creation, the Fall, and the Global Flood.  As they have excavated in numerous fossil sites, they've seen firsthand evidence that points to a catastrophic deluge.  To find out more, visit the Creation Expeditions website.

The British Medical Journal reports that more HIV-positive people are developing a resistance to drug treatments in the UK, raising fears about an outbreak of a stronger HIV virus.  HIV drug treatment consist of a mix of drugs and is called "combination antiretroviral therapy."  Antiretroviral drugs do not eliminate the virus but work to slow its reproduction and spread.  HIV, which I wrote about a few weeks ago, has no cure and is especially tricky because it uses RNA rather than DNA to replicate, and like all viruses it can mutate into new forms that are immune to older treatments.  That, apparently, is what is happening in the United Kingdom.

HIV and the resulting disease AIDS are a global pandemic, killing approximately 3,000,000 people each year.  The most effective defense against them and all STDs is sexual faithfulness. 

[In other news:  Moondust is tested in the lab for electrical charge;  NOVA is gearing up to air the "Storm that Drowned a City" tomorrow night (PBS, 8 pm Eastern Time), a documentary about the New Orleans disaster.]

[note: the links in this post are primarily for reference purposes and may contain objectionable material] 

And that's putting it lightly.  A video clip I can't really recommend over at National Geographic shows two women drinking their own (I apologize) urine.  They were advised to do so by American Indian Pablo Falcon, who claims "urine therapy" keeps him healthy and will keep you healthy too.  His two female victims participated with him in some American Indian rituals before taking their first dose on camera.  The second, Sue, felt strong emotions and said she felt "bad or evil" about what she had just done.

This is a new low for National Geographic, which is always so quick to jump on board with the sometimes bizarre practices of non-Christian cultures and religions.  There is no mention of any medical evidence for or against the drinking of urine--only an uncritical look at the practice, as if anything connected with a non-Christian culture were by definition legitimate.

Incidentally, many Chinese people have been drinking their urine for hundreds of years, claiming health benefits both when ingested or massaged.  Asia is an origin for the practice because of several ancient Hindu texts that promote it (see Shivambu Kalpa Vidhi, in Damar Tantra), chiefly based on the philosophical assumption that god exists in everything:  "[D]ifferent deities are living in that water from which urine is made, then why is urine said to be contaminated?" (From Gyanarnava Tantra, Chapter 22)

From a medical standpoint, urine isn't necessarily toxic unless an bacterial infection is present within it, but any benefits from ingesting it or using it on your skin are dubious.  Urine is mostly water plus excess vitamins, minerals, and salts that your body had no use for.  If your body had already  expelled excess vitamin C, for example, what good will it do to re-ingest what you've just expelled?  And why not eat an orange?  The claims of health benefits come almost entirely from non-doctors who use it along with other "natural" health therapies, and who have no statistics to back up their claims.  In other words, if you're going to drink your urine, why not stew some toads and cure those warts while you're at it?  Given the highly superstitious and spiritual beliefs that seem to go along with urine therapy, it's no surprise that it found its way into Yoga Journal and the ranks of hypnotists.

 Nearly every advocate of urine therapy will smugly use the Bible to back up their behavior:  Proverbs 5:15 reads, "Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well."  Any student of the Bible should at this point break into laughter, knowing that this verse has been completely ripped from its context.  Not only does this verse not advocate drinking urine (in contrast to the above Hindu texts), it is referring to something entirely different.  In context "water" is a euphemism for sexual pleasure, while "well" and "cistern" refer to your wife.  There is no connection to urine, not even remotely.  Nowhere does the Bible promote this practice.

In fact, during the Israelites' 40-year excursion in the desert, post-Egypt, Mosaic law required them to relieve themselves at a designated place outside the camp.  All body waste was considered unclean, and we should continue to treat it as such, for our own health and for the sake of common sense.

If any of you are struggling with what to get me for Christmas this year, you can get me a Fly pen.  Remember the old cartoons where an artist drew a character on his sketch board, and the character came to life and started talking?  The Fly Pentop Computer does that--sort of.  With the use of a computer chip, a speaker, and a tiny pen-mounted camera, this pen can speak whatever phrase you write, or identify countries on a map, telling you their capitals and playing national anthems.  You can write out your own math problem and the pen will tell you if you've made a mistake (and just tap on that division sign to rework your problem).  How about this one--draw a keyboard and make your own music by tapping on the keys.  Is there anything the Fly pen can't do?  Well, it only works on special paper.  There had to be a catch somewhere.

In the first notion I have ever found enlightening from the The Panda's Thumb, Matt Young snidely suggests that since Christians are so keen on including religion in the science classroom, perhaps the Church should accept tit for tat and allow science the Sunday School classroom.  Instead of always keeping religion solely in the realm of personal belief, let science bring its mighty anvil to the table and test the claims of religion--by which I presume he means Christianity.

I think this is a wonderful idea.  If we really believe to be true what our faith claims, we should have no fear of science, or knowledge.  In fact it is our greatest ally, because true knowledge, built upon consistent revelation rather than man's morphing philosophies, always points to God and Christ.  Christ is the foundation of science.  There was one man who set out on a quest to disprove Christianity, but when he rudely encountered the facts, he decided the odds were against him.  Josh McDowell became a Christian, and has gone on to write great works expounding the scientific accuracy of the Christian faith and the Bible, such as The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict (1999, Thomas Nelson).

Does this position downplay the role of faith in religion, or do you think Christians have for too long been silent in the lab?