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Ununoctium, or "Element 118" has been discovered, according to Russian and U.S. scientists, and was detected for 1/1000th of a second.  The heaviest element known to occur naturally, uranium, has 92 protons.  The new element has 118.  Apparently the discovery of this element was faked once before; the creation of element 118 will need to be duplicated by another lab before its discovery is made really official.

 While some scientists investigate bacteria that could potentially survive on Mars, others explain the technical reasons why we haven't found any on Mars yet.  Next they'll probably suggest we take some bacteria there, just to see if we can find it later.

That Antarctic hole in the ozone layer looks to be getting pretty big.  10.6 million square miles. 

This just in:  It appears evidence has been found that parasites roamed the intestines of dinosaurs.  Now if we could only link them to dinosaur extinction. . .

(Not to be confused with Einstein's work . . .)

In chapter seven of their book Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air, Francis Beckwith and Gregory Koukl list "Seven Fatal Flaws" of relativism. Relativism, as a philosophy of morality, claims there is no objective standard of right or wrong.

Here are the flaws:

1. Relativists can't accuse others of wrongdoing.
2. Relativists can't complain about the problem of evil.
3. Relativists can't place blame or accept praise.
4. Relativists can't make charges of unfairness or injustice.
5. Relativists can't improve their morality.
6. Relativists can't hold meaningful moral discussions.
7. Relativists can't promote the obligation of tolerance.

If you're unclear why relativists can't do all these things without logically contradicting themselves, you might want to read Beckwith and Koukl's book.

Relativism and science aren't a good mix.  When we reject an absolute moral code, we open the door to any kind of behavior--acceptable as long as society or those in power agree to it.  Relativism in a society where science and progress are held in high esteem will dictate that any new technology be exploited without inhibition, regardless of the ramifications to human life or sexuality. Human life may be disposed of as long as science progresses and society as a whole is benefited.  Chimeras may be created between humans and animals as long as they increase our scientific knowledge.  Handicapped humans may be aborted or terminated as long as the end goal is a genetically perfected human race. 

In the hands of a relativist, science is a insidious tool.

NG News features a shot of the "monster" ichthyosaur skull that was discovered, along with 27 other ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, on the Svalbard islands (Where's that?  See an overview map here, or one with more detail.)  These guys were all buried in a giant underwater landslide, right?  Not according to Jørn Hurum, a co-leader of the research team that found the fossils.  He thinks the extinct marine predators died out individually over thousands of years, sank to deep ocean floor in the same spot, and were preserved in a layer of black mud.  Hurum calls the fact that almost all of the 28 specimens were well articulated, "amazing."  Looks to me like evidence of a cataclysm, but oh well.

 A new finch has been discovered in Columbia.

 Naked mole-rats are long-livers.  The American Phsyiological Society explains why this messes up the current "oxidative stress" theory that is supposed to partially account for aging.  (If I understand correctly, aging is theoretically the product of cell stress, resulting from a number of factors, not all of which are known.)

The completed evidence against the notion that the "Hobbit" fossil (aka the "Flores" specimen, or LB1) belongs to a new species of hominid will be published in the November Anatomical Record, reports ScienceDaily.  Research spokesperson Robert Martin (curator of Biological Anthropology at Chicago's Field Museum) said of the fossil, "It's no accident that this supposedly new species of hominid was dubbed the 'Hobbit.' It is simply fanciful to imagine that this fossil represents anything other than a modern human." Of the controversy surrounding the Hobbit fossil,  Martin says "Science needs more balance and less acrimony as we continue to unravel this discovery."  (See my August 22 post that points to National Geographic's premature claims about the Hobbit fossil.)

For 50 years, biologist Thomas Eisner studied chemical ecology and bugs, and made fascinating pictures.  The New York times has a fascinating gallery (login required) of his photos, including one of the Bombardier beetle squirting hot chemicals from its abdomen, and many floral landscapes that were made using--ta-da!--a simple copier.  Go take a look.  It'll get your creative chemicals flowing.

As many news outlets have announced, this year's Nobel for physics has gone to two Americans, John Mather and George Smoot, for their research on cosmic background radiation, faint microwaves that pervade the universe.  With a team of over a thousand scientists and technicians, Mather and Smoot designed a satellite called the Cosmic Background Explorer, or COBE, that launched in 1989 and measured the background radiation from space.  The results of their research, published in 1992, was hailed as virtual proof of big-bang theory.  Stephen Hawking called it the "greatest discovery of the century, if not of all time."

“What we have found is evidence for the birth of the universe and its evolution,” Dr. Smoot said in a press conference about the results in 1992. About a map showing the splotchy seeds of galaxy formation, he famously said, “If you are religious, it is like looking at God.”    --from the New York Times, 10/03/06.

Commenting on the big bang and his own research in a Reuters interview Tuesday, Smoot said, "It gives us a common viewpoint on how the world came into being and what our place in it might be. . . It is extremely important for human beings to know their origins and their place in the world."

"It's just a magnificent verification of the big bang,'' Lawrence Krauss, a physics professor from a Cleveland university told AP News.

But is this the complete story?  Is the big bang as perfect a theory as these physicists and cosmologists would suggest? 

From the Bible's perspective, people are expected to take the words of "Moses and the Prophets," including the Genesis account of creation, as truth (Luke 16:29).  They are called to look toward God's word to understand their origins and their place in the world.  As Christians, then, we should be skeptical of theories that don't line up with a biblical description of creation, and open-minded enough to take a second, scientific look at the evidence.  Our understanding of the available evidence has a lot to do with the philosophical assumptions we begin with.

A friend of mine (a Christian who isn't an advocate of creationism) alerted me and sent me a link to the Nobel Prize story, and asked how creationists explain the apparent proof of big-bang theory.  Below I list several articles, compliments of the vast resources of AIG, that deal with these cosmological questions from a creationist perspective.  Before you begin, keep in mind the words of the 1962 winner of the physics Nobel Prize, Lev Davidovich Landau:

Cosmologists are often wrong, but never in doubt.

 For a short history of big-bang theory, and its primary problems, read "The Mind of God and the 'Big Bang'" by Russell Grigg.  Then read how some astronomers are doubting the big-bang model in "What About the Big Bang?" by Werner Gitt.  Learn more about cosmic background radiation in "Recent Cosmic Microwave Background Data Supports Creationist Cosmologies", then follow-up with "Cosmologists Can't Agree and Are Still in Doubt!" --both by John Hartnett.

If you're still hungry for more, read Carl Wieland's "Secular Scientists Blast the Big Bang", in which he shows why big-bang cosmology creates big-big problems for the Bible and Christian theology.  He also explains how a large body of scientists have rejected big-bang theory and published "An Open Letter to the Scientific Community" in the May 22, 2004 addition of New Scientist.  Here I quote a portion of the letter.

The big bang today relies on a growing number of hypothetical entities, things that we have never observed-- inflation, dark matter and dark energy are the most prominent examples. Without them, there would be a fatal contradiction between the observations made by astronomers and the predictions of the big bang theory. In no other field of physics would this continual recourse to new hypothetical objects be accepted as a way of bridging the gap between theory and observation. It would, at the least, raise serious questions about the validity of the underlying theory.

But the big bang theory can't survive without these fudge factors. Without the hypothetical inflation field, the big bang does not predict the smooth, isotropic cosmic background radiation that is observed, because there would be no way for parts of the universe that are now more than a few degrees away in the sky to come to the same temperature and thus emit the same amount of microwave radiation.

Without some kind of dark matter, unlike any that we have observed on Earth despite 20 years of experiments, big-bang theory makes contradictory predictions for the density of matter in the universe. Inflation requires a density 20 times larger than that implied by big bang nucleosynthesis, the theory's explanation of the origin of the light elements. And without dark energy, the theory predicts that the universe is only about 8 billion years old, which is billions of years younger than the age of many stars in our galaxy.

Please note that while the "Open Letter" doesn't propose a creationist or young-age cosmology, it points to the unproven assumptions that big-bang theory is built upon, and some contradictions that result from the model.  At this point the letter has been signed by over 200 scientists and engineers from around the world.

 With the apprehensions expressed by the scientific community alone, even a secularist ought to feel compelled to hold the big bang less tightly. 

(For more info about creationist cosmology, check out AIG's Astronomy and Astrophysics Q&A page)

Creation on the Web posted an article by Shaun Doyle yesterday that cuts to the chase on "walking sharks," featured as one of the 50 marine species newly discovered in Indonesia.  In case you were confused that this shark was on the same evolutionary path as Tiktaalik roseae--you'll want to check out Doyle's article.

Have I had my head stuck in the mud, or does Tas Walker need a little publicity?  When did this gem of a geology site crop up?