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Sermons From Science -- Dec 2012
科学布道-- 2012年12月
Sermons from Science is now published in both
YouTube under the name “Pastor Chui” and also in
PowerPoint slides in the website
http://ChristCenterGospel.org.
The contents of this presentation were taken from Dave
Coppedge’s website http://crev.info. May God have all
the glory.
Pastor Chui
http://ChristCenterGospel.org
[email protected]
5/23/2017
1
Volcano Date Was 3,000% Wrong
火山日期为3000％错误

Volcanoes at the south end of California’s Salton Sea
erupted as recently as the time of Christ, not 30,000 years
ago, and may be active today.
5/23/2017
2
Volcano Date Was 3,000% Wrong
火山日期为3000％错误


Live Science reported the correction about Salton
Buttes. It makes the five domes a possible threat for
a new eruption.
The buttes last erupted between 940 and 0 B.C.,
not 30,000 years ago, as previously thought, a
new study detailed online Oct. 15 in the journal
Geology reports. The new age — which makes
these some of California’s youngest
volcanoes — pushes the volcanic quintuplets into
active status. The California Volcano Observatory,
launched in February by the U.S. Geological Survey
(USGS), already lists the area as a high threat for
5/23/2017
3
future blasts.
Volcano Date Was 3,000% Wrong
火山日期为3000％错误


Last August, an earthquake swarm alerted the USGS of activity
in the area. This was followed by a foul smell of rotten eggs
over a wide area that could have come from an outgassing
event in the volcanic field, not from a fish die-off as first
suggested. This means the volcanoes are active today, not
30,000 years ago.
A new helium-zircon dating technique was used to arrive at the
new date. Scientists should have known, though, that the
cones were young. If they had been underneath prehistoric
Lake Cahuilla (a precursor to Salton Sea), they would have
been covered with sediments. Native Americans worked the
obsidian between 510 and 640 BC, the article said, but not
before–probably because it wasn’t available before the recent
eruptions.
5/23/2017
4
Volcano Date Was 3,000% Wrong
火山日期为3000％错误

What would happen if Salton Buttes erupted
again? “The amounts of magma involved are
relatively small and the impacts of an explosive
eruption, meaning an ash cloud, would most
likely be very local,” said UCLA geochronologist
Axel Schmitt. His paper in Geology states,
“The (U-Th)/He eruption age is younger and
significantly more precise than previous ages
for these volcanoes, and is the first indication
that the eruption of obsidian flows coincided
with human presence in the region.”
5/23/2017
5
Volcano Date Was 3,000% Wrong
火山日期为3000％错误

Long ages are a playground for
speculation. It’s like giving a packrat vast
numbers of closets for storing his junk. Rather
than constrain scientific thinking, it produces
irresponsible storytelling and puts the burden
on others to explain why the tens of thousands
of years, or millions, or billions, is
unreasonable. When you see the catch-phrase
“as previously thought,” always ask, “Who
thought that?” If it wasn’t you, don’t let them
lump you in with the storytellers.
5/23/2017
6
Gloria Deo
愿荣耀归上帝

5/23/2017
7
Sermons From Science -- Dec 2012
科学布道-- 2012年12月
Sermons from Science is now published in both
YouTube under the name “Pastor Chui” and also in
PowerPoint slides in the website
http://ChristCenterGospel.org.
The contents of this presentation were taken from Dave
Coppedge’s website http://crev.info. May God have all
the glory.
Pastor Chui
http://ChristCenterGospel.org
[email protected]
5/23/2017
8
Inventions Inspired by Mother Nature’s Designs
来自大自然的发明灵感设计


Biological solutions to physical challenges
are inspiring new technologies.
A fuel and its money are soon partners: A
“scientific breakthrough” reported
on PhysOrg is promising the possibility to
store sunlight in chemical energy, the way
plants do it with photosynthesis. “Nature
inspires research to convert solar into
liquid fuel” is the headline.
5/23/2017
9
Inventions Inspired by Mother Nature’s Designs
来自大自然的发明灵感设计

Fish skin diodes: In a short piece in the category
“Biomaterials,” Nature News explained why silvery fish
have such bright skin, then turned the findings into an
app. Three species of fish seem to have “found a way
around a law of physics” that dictates that reflections
from scales should be polarized. “The skin contains a
mixture of two types of guanine crystal with different
optical properties — when the two are present in a
specific ratio, this mixture prevents polarization and
maintains high reflectivity,” the article said, adding,
“the principles at work in these fish could have
applications in optical devices such as lightemitting diodes” (LED’s).
5/23/2017
10
Inventions Inspired by Mother Nature’s Designs
来自大自然的发明灵感设计

Smart as a bird: Birds are exceptionally good at
avoiding obstacles as they fly. Imagine building a
robot that can do that. Cornell researchers are
trying; they have a prototype flying robot that is
claimed to be “smart as a bird,” according
to PhysOrg. Although flying robots are common, the
engineers were tackling “the hard part: how to
keep the vehicle from slamming into walls and
tree branches.” It’s scoring pretty good in the hits
and misses game but having some trouble in
wind. As they improve their bird mimicking, they
might come up with a device with “tremendous
5/23/2017
11
value in search-and-rescue operations.”
Inventions Inspired by Mother Nature’s Designs
来自大自然的发明灵感设计

Wood you believe: “Using the legendary properties of
heartwood from the black locust tree as their inspiration,
scientists have discovered a way to improve the performance of
softwoods widely used in construction.” Thus begins an article
on PhysOrg titled, “Inspiration from Mother Nature leads to
improved wood.” It’s not that wood is faulty for trees, but in
construction, builders would like to prevent moisture absorption
and warping. The article says, “wood’s position as a mainstay
building material over the centuries results from a
combination of desirable factors, including surprising
strength for a material so light in weight.” Since the black
locust waterproofs its sapwood with flavonoids, turning it into
rot-resisting heartwood, “The scientists used this process as an
inspiration for trying an improved softwood” like spruce to make
it more stable.
5/23/2017
12
Inventions Inspired by Mother Nature’s Designs
来自大自然的发明灵感设计

Protein origami: It would be nice to make selfassembling materials the way cells do with
automatically-folding proteins. “Proteins are able to
self-assemble into a wide range of highly ordered
structures that feature a diverse array of properties,”
another article on
PhysOrg begins. “Through biomimicry —
technological innovation inspired by nature –
humans hope to emulate proteins and produce our own
version of self-assembling molecules.” That’s why the
U.S. Department of Energy is studying the “folding
funnel,” an energy diagram that captures how a protein
falls through a guided pathway into its target shape,
5/23/2017
13
achieving the goal with minimal free energy.
Inventions Inspired by Mother Nature’s Designs
来自大自然的发明灵感设计

Firefly lanterns: LED’s are quickly becoming established as
the light bulbs of the future because of their high
efficiency. Korean scientists publishing in the Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences have created a
“Biologically inspired LED lens from cuticular
nanostructures of firefly lantern.” Why look at fireflies
instead of engineering textbooks? Fireflies have “recently
inspired many imaging and display applications,” they
said, because their “Cuticular nanostructures found in
insects effectively manage light for light polarization,
structural color, or optical index matching within an ultrathin
natural scale.” The fireflies’ “highly efficient” lanterns send
“strong optical signals” desirable in human
applications. The short abstract of this paper mentioned
5/23/2017
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biological inspiration no fewer than six times.
Inventions Inspired by Mother Nature’s Designs
来自大自然的发明灵感设计

Robots to reach out and touch: Word of the day:
haptics. Haptics is the psychology of touch. Touch involves
more than physical contact; it requires sensation and
signaling. Can robots do that? PhysOrg reported that a
Swedish design engineer is trying to outfit robots with
“Simple Haptics,” a sense of touch. “Camille Moussette
explores how interaction designers can leverage and
embrace the sense of touch to develop interfaces and
experiences that go beyond traditional visual and formbased aesthetics.” This implies that even your finger has
designs that engineers wish to imitate. Moussette wants to
“develop haptics from a design perspective… leading to a
new field of activities labeled haptic interaction design.” The
word design appears 17 times in the short article.
5/23/2017
15
Inventions Inspired by Mother Nature’s Designs
来自大自然的发明灵感设计

These examples show that scientists
believe in intelligent design in spite of
their evolutionary inclinations. They
even go beyond the self-imposed
constraints of the Intelligent Design
Movement by identifying the designer
by name: “Mother Nature.”
5/23/2017
16
Gloria Deo
愿荣耀归上帝

5/23/2017
17
Sermons From Science -- Dec 2012
科学布道-- 2012年12月
Sermons from Science is now published in both
YouTube under the name “Pastor Chui” and also in
PowerPoint slides in the website
http://ChristCenterGospel.org.
The contents of this presentation were taken from Dave
Coppedge’s website http://crev.info. May God have all
the glory.
Pastor Chui
http://ChristCenterGospel.org
[email protected]
5/23/2017
18
Evolutionists Indulge in Navel-Gazing
进化论者沉浸在注视脐


Sampling bacteria inhabiting our belly buttons
sounds like fun, but do the results tell an
evolutionary story?
Some science questions might arouse curiosity
even if not practically useful. One of them is “belly
button ecology.” PhysOrg posed the question
alongside a cave-like navel: “Ever wonder what’s
living in there?” Some scientists in Florida decided
to engage citizens in a survey of their
navels. Their sample is instructive of where the
researchers were coming from:
5/23/2017
19
Evolutionists Indulge in Navel-Gazing
进化论者沉浸在注视脐


Over the past six months, we have sampled over five
hundred volunteers for belly button bacteria. We focus
on the first two subsamples (60 individuals in total): a
sample from the Science Online meeting of science
communicators (January 13–15, 2011,
Raleigh, NC, USA), and a sample from the Darwin
Day at the Museum of Natural Sciences in
Raleigh, NC(February 12, 2011).
[Materials and Methods, Hulcr J, Latimer AM,
Henley JB, Rountree NR, Fierer N, et al. (2012) A
Jungle in There: Bacteria in Belly Buttons are Highly
Diverse, but Predictable. PLoS ONE 7(11): e47712.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.004771.]
5/23/2017
20
Evolutionists Indulge in Navel-Gazing
进化论者沉浸在注视脐
 What did they find? Lots of
bacteria. Archaea were rare, but
each navel contained about 67
species on average. Certain species
tended to be more common, forming
related clusters called “oligarchs,” but
no species was universally found in
all individuals.
5/23/2017
21
Evolutionists Indulge in Navel-Gazing
进化论者沉浸在注视脐

A simple experiment like this shows that drawing
conclusions is difficult. Even the simplest observations did
not lead to confident conclusions: “Such oligarchs were
represented by multiple reads in most sampled human
individuals, yet not a single one of the oligarchs is
present in all samples.” What does that mean? The
researchers didn’t control for simple things like lifestyle
habits (swimmers vs mud racers), hygiene, sex, age, and
other factors, like using other mammals as
outgroups. They just swabbed a few dozen human belly
buttons and looked in petri dishes for what turned up. In
addition, they defined a “phylotype” arbitrarily,
choosing RNA differences of 3% as diagnostic of species.
5/23/2017
22
Evolutionists Indulge in Navel-Gazing
进化论者沉浸在注视脐

What if they had used 2%, or 4%, or 10%? In
addition, they chose to ignore rare species,
which might have something to say about the
conclusions. It appears not much more can be
said than, “Here are the bacteria that were
found in certain individuals’ belly buttons from
certain locations at a certain time.” How would
they know whether science teachers and
attendees at a Darwin Day event have different
navel ecologies than normal people?
5/23/2017
23
Evolutionists Indulge in Navel-Gazing
进化论者沉浸在注视脐

The authors appeared eager to attach some
evolutionary significance to their results. One of
the team said, “The common, abundant species
are from a relatively small number of evolutionary
lines, indicating that they have evolved
traits that make them at home on human
skin.” That, however, is a statement of ideology,
not a conclusion drawn from the data. It doesn’t
really add anything new to evolutionary
theory. Everyone, even creationists, already
knows that similar organisms, like orchids, tend to
inhabit similar environments.
5/23/2017
24
Evolutionists Indulge in Navel-Gazing
进化论者沉浸在注视脐

If we can’t understand evolution by
studying data right under our chins, what
can evolutionists possibly infer from
observations harder to come by? It’s nice
to ask unique questions, and worthwhile to
involve “citizen scientists” in research, but
this study only serves to reinforce a Law
of Evolution and its converse: the more
abundant the data, the less storytelling.
5/23/2017
25
Gloria Deo
愿荣耀归上帝
5/23/2017
26
Sermons From Science -- Dec 2012
科学布道-- 2012年12月
Sermons from Science is now published in both
YouTube under the name “Pastor Chui” and also in
PowerPoint slides in the website
http://ChristCenterGospel.org.
The contents of this presentation were taken from Dave
Coppedge’s website http://crev.info. May God have all
the glory.
Pastor Chui
http://ChristCenterGospel.org
[email protected]
5/23/2017
27
“Very Unreal and Fantastic”: Electric Cables Created by Bacteria
创建由细菌“非常虚幻和意想不到的”电力电缆


Researchers discovered bacteria at the ocean floor
that conduct electrons at distances more than a
centimeter through elaborate cables.
Publishing in Nature, Danish researchers with
American colleagues determined that the seafloor
is full of “live wires” that may play an essential role
in ocean ecology, if not the ecology of the whole
biosphere. These wires are formed by colonies of
“novel members of the deltaproteobacterial family
Desulfobulbaceae” that effectively form electrical
cables, complete with insulation.
5/23/2017
28
“Very Unreal and Fantastic”: Electric Cables Created by Bacteria
创建由细菌“非常虚幻和意想不到的”电力电缆


A few years ago, these researchers had detected electric
currents in the ocean floor. How they were mediated, though,
was unknown till now. In the Introduction to their paper, they
explained why the current is necessary:
Marine sediments become anoxic because oxygen is
consumed by microbial processes at the surface. Without
available oxygen the microorganisms living below the surface
are supposed to depend on energetically less favourable,
anaerobic processes. Recently, however, electric currents
have been found to directly connect oxygen reduction at
the surface with sulphide oxidation in the subsurface, even
when oxygen and sulphide are separated by more than 1 cm.
Half of the sediment oxygen consumption can be driven by
electrons transported from below.
5/23/2017
29
“Very Unreal and Fantastic”: Electric Cables Created by Bacteria
创建由细菌“非常虚幻和意想不到的”电力电缆

The spatial separation of oxidation and
reduction processes invokes steep pH
gradients leading to distinct
dissolutions and precipitations of
minerals. Microbial activity apparently
drives the electrochemical halfreactions and the establishment of
electron-conducting structures through
the sediment.
5/23/2017
30
“Very Unreal and Fantastic”: Electric Cables Created by Bacteria
创建由细菌“非常虚幻和意想不到的”电力电缆

Science Daily reported on this discovery on
Oct. 24, saying that a mystery of electrical
conductivity in the seafloor has been solved by
the discovery of these bacteria. “They make
up a kind of live electric cable that no one
had ever imagined existed,” the article said. It
quoted one of the researchers’ reactions: “On
the one hand, it is still very unreal and
fantastic. On the other hand, it is also very
tangible,” said Professor at Aarhus University,
Lars Peter Nielsen.
5/23/2017
31
“Very Unreal and Fantastic”: Electric Cables Created by Bacteria
创建由细菌“非常虚幻和意想不到的”电力电缆

Another interesting summary can be found
(appropriately) on Wired.com. The article includes six
illustrations and photographs of the “marvelous
microbes.” Even though they are 1/100 the diameter
of the human hair, they have an elaborate structure
with 15 to 17 channels down their exteriors that match
up from cell to cell, forming a continuous protective
sheath, like insulation. Their smallness should not
diminish what they accomplish:“Were bacteria the
size of humans, the signals would be making a
journey 12 miles long.” The fragile cables break
easily, but because they are alive, they can grow and
regenerate themselves, unlike man-made cables. 32
5/23/2017
“Very Unreal and Fantastic”: Electric Cables Created by Bacteria
创建由细菌“非常虚幻和意想不到的”电力电缆

A single teaspoon of mud from the seafloor contains at
least a half mile of these living cables. Moreover, the
researchers found these in sediments from widely
distributed samples, suggesting that much of the
planet conducts electricity from the anoxic layer to the
oxic layer. The electrical charge circuit is completed
by ions in seawater, producing water in the
process. This has led the researchers to speculate on
their role in planetary ecology. In their concluding
discussion, they asked follow-up questions and paid a
compliment to evolution for creating electrical
engineers:
5/23/2017
33
“Very Unreal and Fantastic”: Electric Cables Created by Bacteria
创建由细菌“非常虚幻和意想不到的”电力电缆

Bacterial micro-cables represent a hitherto unknown
lifestyle, which immediately raises many intriguing
questions for further research: How are energy
conservation and growth allocated among the cells?
What is their genetic and metabolic diversity? How are
filament division and dispersal controlled? What is the
molecular and electronic basis of the electron
transport? How widespread are they in
nature? Transmission improvement and control of
electric currents have been major drivers for
electronic innovation. It appears that biological
evolution has worked successfully in the same
direction.
5/23/2017
34
“Very Unreal and Fantastic”: Electric Cables Created by Bacteria
创建由细菌“非常虚幻和意想不到的”电力电缆


Wired.com’s article said, “It’s possible that, at the
microbial level, the deep seafloor is humming with
current.” The final caption recognized the planetary
implications of the living power grid:
With so much electricity being transferred, are other
organisms tapping the lines? Might the
Desulfobulbaceae be a power source for entire asyet-unappreciated deep-sea microbial ecologies,
which in turn shape some of the planet’s
fundamental biogeochemical processes? That’s
“an interesting possibility,” said Nielsen, but it’s still
speculation.
5/23/2017
35
“Very Unreal and Fantastic”: Electric Cables Created by Bacteria
创建由细菌“非常虚幻和意想不到的”电力电缆

Less speculatively, the Desulfobulbaceae are
definitely breaking down iron sulfides and
carbonates in deeper sediment,
while generating iron oxide and magnesium
calcite at the surface, Nielsen said. The latter
are important compounds for life in the oceans
above, and ultimately on land. If the new
Desulfobulbaceae are as widespread and
populous as they seem, they could be an
important component of life’s deep-time
cycles.
5/23/2017
36
“Very Unreal and Fantastic”: Electric Cables Created by Bacteria
创建由细菌“非常虚幻和意想不到的”电力电缆


In the Editor’s Summary at Nature.com, the editors added a
biomimetic angle to the story:
A major challenge for multicellular organisms is that of
supplying every cell with food and oxygen. Nils RisgaardPetersen and colleagues report a surprising solution to the
problem, arrived at by multicelluar filamentous
Desulfobulbaceae bacteria several centimetres long, living in
the upper layers of marine sediments sampled in Aarhus Bay,
Denmark. These organisms seem to function as living
electric cables, transporting electrons from sulphides
generated in organic matter in deeper anoxic sediments to the
oxygen available in the surface layers. These living microcables raise a host of topics for future research, and could
also find technological applications.
5/23/2017
37
“Very Unreal and Fantastic”: Electric Cables Created by Bacteria
创建由细菌“非常虚幻和意想不到的”电力电缆

The original paper by researchers at Aarhus
University in Denmark was published by Nature on
Nov. 8, though posted online on Oct. 24. Finding
bacteria that form insulated electrical cables that
may play a fundamental role in the ecology of the
planet goes to show how much remains to be
discovered about the “primitive” microbes
surrounding us. Source: Pffefer, Larson et al.,
“Filamentous bacteria transport electrons over
centimetre distances,” Nature 491, 08 November
2012, pp. 218–221, doi:10.1038/nature11586.
5/23/2017
38
“Very Unreal and Fantastic”: Electric Cables Created by Bacteria
创建由细菌“非常虚幻和意想不到的”电力电缆

It will be interesting to see if similar electrical cabling
occurs in other contexts, such as in the soil networks
known to connect plants with each other. This
intriguing discovery is another example of the
empirical trend against evolution: the closer scientists
look at the microbial world, the more complex and
interconnected it is found to be, and the less plausible
the evolutionary just-so stories become. These
bacteria appear to exist not only for their own sakes,
but also to enable nutrient cycles that affect the whole
biosphere. How would the first organisms survive
without them? How did they form such elaborate
structures?
5/23/2017
39
“Very Unreal and Fantastic”: Electric Cables Created by Bacteria
创建由细菌“非常虚幻和意想不到的”电力电缆

Evolutionists can’t just wave their hands and say
they “evolved to” conduct electricity more
effectively by transmitting electrons through their
interiors, and then “evolved to” add insulating
sheaths for “transmission improvement.” No
teleology allowed for Darwinists. Their critics can
rejoice at here another fine example of
sophisticated design, not only in the bacteria
themselves, but also in their functional role for their
ecology, and possibly the biogeochemical balance
of the entire world.
5/23/2017
40
Gloria Deo
愿荣耀归上帝

5/23/2017
41
Sermons From Science -- Dec 2012
科学布道-- 2012年12月
Sermons from Science is now published in both
YouTube under the name “Pastor Chui” and also in
PowerPoint slides in the website
http://ChristCenterGospel.org.
The contents of this presentation were taken from Dave
Coppedge’s website http://crev.info. May God have all
the glory.
Pastor Chui
http://ChristCenterGospel.org
[email protected]
5/23/2017
42
Jellyfish for Your Health
水母为了您的健康


Jellyfish have inspired a cancer cell search tool – just
one of new products and services inspired by nature.
Tentacle probe: “Inspired by marine creatures that
present long tentacles containing multiple adhesive
domains to effectively capture flowing food
particulates,” medical researchers built a new probe
for blood that catches more circulating tumor cells
(CTCs) than possible before, a new paper
in PNAS reported. The tentacles allow a 3-D network
arrangement of DNA strands that match rare cancer
cells in small samples of blood. Science
Daily describes what they did:
5/23/2017
43
Jellyfish for Your Health
水母为了您的健康


A new device from researchers at MIT and Brigham
and Women’s Hospital overcomes those
obstacles. Inspired by the tentacles of a jellyfish,
the team coated a microfluidic channel with long
strands of DNA that grab specific proteins found on
the surfaces of leukemia cells as they flow by. Using
this strategy, the researchers achieved flow rates 10
times higher than existing devices — fast enough
to make the systems practical for clinical use.
Science Daily posted a second article on this new bioinspired technology that can help “catch and release”
marker cells before they metastasize, all by mimicking
5/23/2017
the tentacle method of jellyfish and sea cucumbers. 44
Jellyfish for Your Health
水母为了您的健康

Mr. Clean butterfly: Did you ever think about how hard it would
be for a butterfly to fly with dirty wings? Fortunately, they come
equipped with self-cleaning surfaces that resist water and
dust. Researchers at Ohio State University have created a
surface with similar properties that does a much better job at
staying clean, Science Daily reported. We’ve heard about
shark skin and lotus leaves with this property, but now
butterflies – already a source of bio-inspiration for their bright
colors – join the cleaning crew. Their research paper is
entitled, “Bioinspired rice leaf and butterfly wing surface
structures combining shark skin and lotus effects.” Put that
texture inside pipes and you could “enhance fluid flow and
prevent surfaces from getting dirty — characteristics that
could be mimicked in high-tech surfaces for aircraft and
watercraft, pipelines, and medical equipment.”
5/23/2017
45
Jellyfish for Your Health
水母为了您的健康

Automatic assembly: Proteins fold into intricate shapes by nature of
their amino acid sequences. Scientists would like to build nanomachines that do that trick. In Nature last week (Nov 8), a team
came a little closer to that goal by designing sequences that could
fold into very simple shapes that constitute building blocks of higher
protein structures, namely, alpha coils and beta sheets. So far the
results only demonstrate proof of concept for the idea; natural
proteins are much more complex. According to the Editor’s Summary
of a Nature News & Views article on this effort, “The design
principles and methodology described here should allow
the design of a wide range of robust and stable protein building
blocks for the next generation of engineered functional
proteins.” Birte Hocker wrote, “With lengths of 80–100 amino acids,
the authors’ protein structures are comparable in size to small
protein domains that act as building blocks of larger, more
complex proteins. The design of custom protein scaffolds that
perform new functions is now conceivable, as is the assembly of 46
5/23/2017
bigger designed domains and quaternary complexes.”
Jellyfish for Your Health
水母为了您的健康

Nano-machines: Speaking of proteins, many of
them fold into molecular machines that capture
random thermal energy and turn it into useful
work. Scientists in Berlin succeeded in making a
very simple lever-like device that turns randomly
moving hydrogen molecules into specified
work, New Scientist said. “Jose Ignacio Pascual at
the Free University of Berlin in Germany and
colleagues took inspiration from the natural
world, where random motion powers structures
such as proteins that move cargo around inside
cells.”
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47
Jellyfish for Your Health
水母为了您的健康

Weird brain: In a case of biomimetics in reverse, one
organism appears to mimic human intellectual
abilities. That organism is Physarum polycephalum, a
slime mold. Nature News published an article about
how this colonial microbe shows an uncanny ability to
“solve mazes, mimic the layout of man-made
transportation networks and choose the healthiest
food from a diverse menu—and all this without a
brain or nervous system.” This organism is raising
questions about what constitutes intelligence. The
article includes a video clip of the organism solving a
maze and creating a memory of the most direct path.
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Jellyfish for Your Health
水母为了您的健康

Our Creator must laugh when proud man
struggles to catch up with the technologies He
built into the simplest living things. Christian
parents should think seriously about a
biomimetics career for their science-precocious
kids. It’s 100% Darwin-free and can help
mankind. Start them on a science project to
take a bug, spider or leaf from around the
house and try to build something that imitates
some desirable feature of its life. If they
hesitate, tell them they can be Spiderman.
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49
Gloria Deo
愿荣耀归上帝

5/23/2017
50
Sermons From Science -- Dec 2012
科学布道-- 2012年12月
Sermons from Science is now published in both
YouTube under the name “Pastor Chui” and also in
PowerPoint slides in the website
http://ChristCenterGospel.org.
The contents of this presentation were taken from Dave
Coppedge’s website http://crev.info. May God have all
the glory.
Pastor Chui
http://ChristCenterGospel.org
[email protected]
5/23/2017
51
Even for Quantum Particles, Time Flows One Way
即使是量子粒子，时间流动单程



Claims of time symmetry at the quantum level have
been discounted by a high-reliability experiment by the
Department of Energy.
A press release from the SLAC National Accelerator
Laboratory announced:
Time marches relentlessly forward for you and me;
watch a movie in reverse, and you’ll quickly see
something is amiss. But from the point of view of a
single, isolated particle, the passage of time looks the
same in either direction. For instance, a movie of two
particles scattering off of each other would look just as
sensible in reverse – a concept known as time
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52
reversal symmetry.
Even for Quantum Particles, Time Flows One Way
即使是量子粒子，时间流动单程


Now the BaBar experiment at the Department of
Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator
Laboratory has made the first direct observation of
a long-theorized exception to this rule.
Digging through nearly 10 years of data from
billions of particle collisions, researchers found that
certain particle types change into one another
much more often in one way than they do in the
other, a violation of time reversal symmetry and
confirmation that some subatomic processes have
a preferred direction of time.
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53
Even for Quantum Particles, Time Flows One Way
即使是量子粒子，时间流动单程

Reported this week in the
journal Physical Review Letters, the
results are impressively robust, with a
1 in 10 tredecillion (1043) or 14-sigma
level of certainty – far more than
needed to declare a discovery.
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Even for Quantum Particles, Time Flows One Way
即使是量子粒子，时间流动单程

The BaBar experiment was an ideal test of
the CPT (charge-parity-time) Theorem that states, “the
three symmetries must remain in balance for any given
particle system. If one of the symmetries is out of whack,
at least one of the others must be, too.” Since 10 years of
BaBar data already had evidence of CP asymmetry in
hand, physicists thought it “was a good place to look for
violation of time reversal symmetry that would serve to
balance CPT as a whole.” Other hints of time reversal
were harder to test. This one shows that the rate of time
reversal for quantum events is outmatched: “the changes
are happening at a different rate as time moves forward
than when it is reversed,” a diagram caption states.
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Even for Quantum Particles, Time Flows One Way
即使是量子粒子，时间流动单程

One researcher said, “It was exciting to design an
experimental analysis that enabled us to observe,
directly and unambiguously, the asymmetrical
nature of time.” BaBar also had another goal:
“BaBar, which collected data at SLAC from 1999 to
2008, was designed to tease out subtle differences
in the behavior of matter and antimatter that might
help account for the preponderance of matter in
the universe.” The “antimatter problem” still is a
puzzle for modern cosmology. See also Science
Daily’s coverage.
5/23/2017
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Even for Quantum Particles, Time Flows One Way
即使是量子粒子，时间流动单程

It appears that time asymmetry, a
consequence of the Second Law of
Thermodynamics, is more firmly
established by this experiment
(confirmation to a one part in a
tredecillion is pretty rare!), but we will
leave it to the specialists to explain
the implications. What impact will this
have on cosmology?
5/23/2017
57
Gloria Deo
愿荣耀归上帝

5/23/2017
58
Sermons From Science -- Dec 2012
科学布道-- 2012年12月
Sermons from Science is now published in both
YouTube under the name “Pastor Chui” and also in
PowerPoint slides in the website
http://ChristCenterGospel.org.
The contents of this presentation were taken from Dave
Coppedge’s website http://crev.info. May God have all
the glory.
Pastor Chui
http://ChristCenterGospel.org
[email protected]
5/23/2017
59
Venus Flytrap Still Mystifies, Inspires
维纳斯捕蝇草依然迷惑与启示


The Venus flytrap remains one of the most
intriguing plants in the world. What makes
it snap shut in a tenth of a second? Can
we imitate its motion without muscles,
wires or batteries?
A press release from the American
Physical Society’s Division of Fluid
Dynamics sets up the questions:
5/23/2017
60
Venus Flytrap Still Mystifies, Inspires
维纳斯捕蝇草依然迷惑与启示

Plants lack muscles, yet in only a tenth of a
second, the meat-eating Venus fly trap
hydrodynamically snaps its leaves shut to trap
an insect meal. This astonishingly rapid
display of botanical movement has long
fascinated biologists. Commercially,
understanding the mechanism of the Venus fly
trap’s leaf snapping may one day help
improve products such as release-oncommand coatings and adhesives,
electronic circuits, optical lenses, and drug
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delivery.
Venus Flytrap Still Mystifies, Inspires
维纳斯捕蝇草依然迷惑与启示

Both Science Daily and Live Science reported
on research by a French team that seeks to
understand how botanical tissues can respond
so quickly. One theory has been ruled out –
that water travels from the inside cells to
outside cells. By measuring the fluid pressure
of the cells (a tricky experiment), Mathieu
Colombani’s team found that movement of
water is too slow to account for the traps’ fast
action. They were scheduled to present their
findings at an APU meeting in San Diego on
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62
Nov. 18.
Venus Flytrap Still Mystifies, Inspires
维纳斯捕蝇草依然迷惑与启示

Live Science quoted Charles Darwin calling the Venus flytrap
“one of the most wonderful plants in the world.” It grows
in coastal bogs in North Carolina where soil nutrients are
scarce – thus insects provide some of its nitrogen. Still,
“despite the plant’s notoriety, its closing mechanism
remains a mystery 250 years after its
discovery.” Colombani’s team is the first to examine the
mechanism at the cellular level. “The researchers are
currently testing another popular explanation that says the
elasticity of the plant’s cell walls changes, causing the leaves
to destabilize and snap together,” Live
Science said. “Colombani says that whatever the
mechanisms behind the remarkable plant’s bite are, they
could have potential applications in medicine or other
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fields.”
Venus Flytrap Still Mystifies, Inspires
维纳斯捕蝇草依然迷惑与启示

Teachable Moment: Parents, kids are fascinated
by the Venus flytrap. You can often buy the little
plants in local nurseries. Build a little Venus flytrap
terrarium at home for the family, and teach the kids
how to feed and care for the plants like they would
a pet. Much as they want to snap the traps over
and over, they will quickly learn that the delicate
plants need care and gentle handling. Tell them
that here is something easily observed and tested
right under a scientist’s nose, yet science cannot
explain it after 250 years of trying.
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Venus Flytrap Still Mystifies, Inspires
维纳斯捕蝇草依然迷惑与启示

Focus on the beautiful design of these traps, how
elegant and effective they are. Add that an
explanation might lead to cool toys and products
that operate without batteries. Kids need to know
that there are still fascinating questions in science
they might be able to solve, and that solving this
puzzle might make the world a better place. Show
them, though, that science needs to explain via
experimental proof, not speculation. As it was
for Faraday, Joule and other great creationary
scientists who started young when they became
intrigued by the wonders of nature, science is for
5/23/2017
65
everyone.
Gloria Deo
愿荣耀归上帝

5/23/2017
66
Sermons From Science -- Dec 2012
科学布道-- 2012年12月
Sermons from Science is now published in both
YouTube under the name “Pastor Chui” and also in
PowerPoint slides in the website
http://ChristCenterGospel.org.
The contents of this presentation were taken from Dave
Coppedge’s website http://crev.info. May God have all
the glory.
Pastor Chui
http://ChristCenterGospel.org
[email protected]
5/23/2017
67
Gratitude Is Good for Health
感恩是对健康有益
 For Thanksgiving Day in America, we
should realize that gratitude is good
for everyone – provided they know
what it means.
5/23/2017
68
Gratitude Is Good for Health
感恩是对健康有益


“Gratitude is vital to well-being, research
shows.” That’s the headline of an article on Medical
Xpress that argues people should cultivate gratitude:
“if we developed the discipline to be consciously
grateful on a regular basis, year-round, research
shows we’d be happier and suffer less depression and
stress. We’d sleep better and be better able to face
our problems.”
The article goes on to explain that gratitude implies
another virtue: humility. Psychologists quoted in the
article also said that materialism (the shopping-mall
kind) has a negative relationship with
gratitude. Robert Emmons, a UC Davis psychologist,
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69
is worried about the decrease in gratitude in society:
Gratitude Is Good for Health
感恩是对健康有益

But despite the benefits, Emmons says,
gratitude is in trouble. “Outside of
happiness, gratitude’s benefits are rarely
discussed these days. Indeed, in
contemporary American society, we’ve
come to overlook, dismiss or even
disparage the significance of gratitude as
a virtue,” he says. “We have become
entitled, resentful, ungrateful and
forgetful.”
5/23/2017
70
Gratitude Is Good for Health
感恩是对健康有益


Gratitude is difficult to cultivate, but needs to
be, the article explained, describing ways to
cultivate it, such as journaling. It’s so important
that one filmmaker quoted in the article said it
could “save the planet.”
Usually, Thanksgiving is considered a time to
be thankful to God for His provision. This
article, though, seemed to distance itself from
God in favor of “science,” making psychologists
the new preachers –
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71
Gratitude Is Good for Health
感恩是对健康有益

Long embraced by religion as a
“manifestation of virtue,” it’s one of the few
things that “can measurably change
people’s lives,” says Robert Emmons, a
University of California-Davis professor
who has been studying it since 1998 and
is the author of the book “Thanks!
How the New Science of Gratitude Can
Make You Happier.”
5/23/2017
72
Gratitude Is Good for Health
感恩是对健康有益
 None of the psychologists explained
how gratitude (or any other “virtue”)
evolved. For that matter, they didn’t
explain how or why the human
products of evolution could or should
be grateful except perhaps in a
utilitarian sense.
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73
Gratitude Is Good for Health
感恩是对健康有益


The article was also unclear about whom to thank. Gratitude
requires an object—someone to whom to address
thanks. Instead of illustrating the point with pilgrims or
modern Bible believers thanking God, the psychologists
featured a yoga practitioner who improved her health with
gratitude exercises, and a non-traditional nun who said,
“Gratitude gives an opening to the universe to give more
good things. Gratitude is opening to receive more good
things from the universe.” But can one really thank the
universe? And is acting grateful for the purpose of getting
more goodies really being grateful?
Other than that, the article suggested learning to be in awe of
nature, and “saying thanks” as a habit, without mentioning
the object of the thanks.
5/23/2017
74
Gratitude Is Good for Health
感恩是对健康有益

Psychologists have it so wrong. If you’re trying
to cultivate gratitude to get something out of it
(like good mental health or a feeling of wellbeing), you’re not being grateful. And if you’re
trying to be humble to be thought well of, you’re
not really humble. You can’t just make grateful
motions and vocalize humble words. These
things require deep introspection about one’s
motives. No faking; no duplicity allowed. Even
when you think you’ve finally achieved humility
or gratitude, you prove you haven’t.
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75
Gratitude Is Good for Health
感恩是对健康有益

Gratitude also requires an object,
otherwise it’s just a selfish feeling. We
can be grateful to people, such as
parents, teachers and others who have
been kind to us, but ultimately all gratitude
needs to point to our Creator. One cannot
thank the universe. One certainly cannot
thank a cold, pointless process of natural
selection. True gratitude is a form of
praise – an act of worship. An old hymn
got it right:
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76
Gratitude Is Good for Health
感恩是对健康有益
 For the beauty of the earth,
 For the glory of the skies,
 For the love which from our birth
 Over and around us lies.
 Lord of all, to Thee we raise,
 This our hymn of grateful praise.
5/23/2017
77
Gloria Deo
愿荣耀归上帝

5/23/2017
78
Sermons From Science -- Dec 2012
科学布道-- 2012年12月
Sermons from Science is now published in both
YouTube under the name “Pastor Chui” and also in
PowerPoint slides in the website
http://ChristCenterGospel.org.
The contents of this presentation were taken from Dave
Coppedge’s website http://crev.info. May God have all
the glory.
Pastor Chui
http://ChristCenterGospel.org
[email protected]
5/23/2017
79
Proteins Conduct Electricity
蛋白质的导电性


A remarkable finding at the single-molecule level
shows a protein can conduct a large amount of
electricity.
A press release from the University of
Cardiff describes how researchers isolated a single
protein molecule and measured the passage of a
current when placed between electrodes. This could
represent a fundamental property of proteins that
might explain their function. Two collaborators at the
university said, “The highly conducting nature of
this protein was a surprise and the result raises
questions about the fundamental nature of
electron transfer in proteins.” Could it be that
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80
proteins operate as transistors?
Proteins Conduct Electricity
蛋白质的导电性


The team showed that the protein could carry large
currents, equivalent to a human hair carrying one
amp. The team also discovered that current flow could
be regulated in much the same way as transistors, the
tiny devices driving computers and smartphones, work but
on a smaller scale: the proteins are only a quarter of the
size of current silicon based transistors.
The finding represents a leap forward in measurement at
the nano scale. “Prior to this work, measurement of
millions, if not billions of proteins was only possible, so
losing crucial details of how an individual molecule
functions.” The team used scanning tunneling microscopy
(STM) to read the electronics of a single molecule of
cytochrome b562, a protein just 5 nanometers (billions of a
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meter) long.
Proteins Conduct Electricity
蛋白质的导电性


While the focus of the press release was on human
engineering of this conductance for nanotechnology,
the discovery may elucidate how the cell’s protein
machines work. PhysOrg’s headline was,
“Electronics of nature’s nano machines.” Its
summary reads, “A team from the Cardiff University’s
Schools of Biosciences and Physics and Astronomy
have made a breakthrough in our understanding of
proteins — the workhorse molecules of the cell
and nature’s very own nano machines.”
Details of the research have been published as a
series of papers in the journals Nano Letters,
ACS Nano, Small and Nanoscale, the press release
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indicated.
Proteins Conduct Electricity
蛋白质的导电性

While it’s premature to compare proteins to human
electrical tools, it is known that electron or proton
transfer is essential to some of them, such as
photosynthesis, ATPsynthase and other machines
in the respiratory chain. What about the motor
proteins dynein, kinesin, and myosin? What about
the flagellar motor, mitochondrial machines
and DNA transcription and translation
machines? How is ATP energy transduced into
proteins’ mechanical actions? This is a discovery
to watch. If your own cells can be someday
described as electronic machines, wouldn’t that be
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83
cool?
Gloria Deo
愿荣耀归上帝

5/23/2017
84
Sermons From Science -- Dec 2012
科学布道-- 2012年12月
Sermons from Science is now published in both
YouTube under the name “Pastor Chui” and also in
PowerPoint slides in the website
http://ChristCenterGospel.org.
The contents of this presentation were taken from Dave
Coppedge’s website http://crev.info. May God have all
the glory.
Pastor Chui
http://ChristCenterGospel.org
[email protected]
5/23/2017
85
Adult Stem Cell Breakthroughs Continue
成人干细胞的继续突破


Adult stem cells continue to show promise as
more about these pluripotent cells comes to
light.
Heart repair: Medical Xpress reported that
organ-derived stem cell injections appear to
have promise for tissue repair from myocardial
infarction. The cells come from skeletal muscle
or adipose tissue. A week after injection in
subjects, “led to a substantial decrease in
infarct size and a significant improvement in left
ventricle function when compared with
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86
injections of cell culture medium alone.”
Adult Stem Cell Breakthroughs Continue
成人干细胞的继续突破

Automatic wound repair: New
Scientist reported that human skin appears to
maintain a pool of adult stem cells used in
repairing wounds. The cells exist in eccrine
glands, “a type of sweat gland not found in
animals,” the article said, adding, “Humans
have three times more eccrine glands than hair
follicles, making them the major contributor to
new skin cells.” A researcher from Howard
Hughes Medical Institute remarked that the
finding was “unexpected and against current
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dogma.”
Adult Stem Cell Breakthroughs Continue
成人干细胞的继续突破

Personalized medicine: According
to Medical Xpress, researchers at Johns
Hopkins and Memorial Sloan-Kettering are
investigating the use of induced
pluripotent stem cells for personalized
medicine for those with genetic
diseases. “This approach could move
much of the trial-and-error process of
beginning a new treatment from the
patient to the petri dish, and help people
to get better faster.”
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Adult Stem Cell Breakthroughs Continue
成人干细胞的继续突破
 Rebuilding skeletal muscle: Another
article on Medical Xpress discussed
the potential for rebuilding muscle for
those with degenerative diseases:
“The therapy brings together two
existing techniques for muscle repair
– cell transplantation and tissue
engineering – specifically,
mesoangioblast stem cells delivered
via a hydrogel cell-carrier matrix.”
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89
Adult Stem Cell Breakthroughs Continue
成人干细胞的继续突破

Stem cell transposable elements as un-junk: PhysOrg reported
that linc-RNAs, a type of non-coding RNA thought to be genetic
junk from viral invasions, appear to be landing spots for
endogenous retroviruses (ERVs). David Kelley said that during
his PhD work, “these repetitive hopping genes were a major
nuisance, which got me thinking about what they were doing in
the genome.” He and John Rinn found that they appear to
promote gene transcription. “Perhaps more intriguingly, lincRNAs
containing an ERV family known as HERVH correlated with
expression in stem cells relative to dozens of other tested
tissues and cells.” Rinn got emotional about this: “This strongly
suggests that ERV transposition in the genome may have given
rise to stem cell-specific lincRNAs. The observation that HERVHs
landed at the start of dozens of lincRNAs was almost chilling;
that this appears to impart a stem cell-specific expression
pattern was simply stunning!” From there the article went on to
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speculate about how this evolved.
Adult Stem Cell Breakthroughs Continue
成人干细胞的继续突破

New kind of stem cell that may make
regenerative medicine possible was reported
by Medical Xpress. Adult epithelial cells can
be coaxed into induced pluripotent stem cells
with desirable attributes; “These seem to
be exactly the kind of cells that we need to
make regenerative medicine a reality.” For
example, these cells could be used to create
personalized medicine for cancer patients. The
cells appear to take on the characteristics of the
organ they are transplanted into.
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Adult Stem Cell Breakthroughs Continue
成人干细胞的继续突破

Fountain of youth: A way to refresh aging stem
cells to look young again was found by
researchers at the University of Toronto, Science
Daily said. It involves inserting growth factors
into the stem cells that turn aging factors
off. “The discovery, which transforms aged stem
cells into cells that function like much younger
ones, may one day enable scientists to grow
cardiac patches for damaged or diseased
hearts from a patient’s own stem cells — no
matter what age the patient — while avoiding
the threat of rejection.”
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92
Adult Stem Cell Breakthroughs Continue
成人干细胞的继续突破

With so much success continuing for adult stem cells, it
seems superfluous to work with ethically-charged embryonic
stem cells. Work continues on them as well, though – some
of it raising fears of abuse. Nature News, for instance,
reported that “Researchers have coaxed cultured
embryonic stem cells to develop into eggs that then give
rise to normal offspring” in mice. The article admitted
ethical concerns. The experiments might lead to treatments
for infertility; “However, the prospect of transplanting such
oocytes into women raises major safety and ethical
concerns that will need to be discussed carefully if the
findings are repeated in humans.” But who will discuss the
concerns? Who will decide what “carefully” enough
means? And will it stop mad scientists more concerned
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93
about money than ethics?
Adult Stem Cell Breakthroughs Continue
成人干细胞的继续突破

The Family Research Council, which
maintains StemCellResearchFacts.org website,
recently congratulated Dr. David Prentice, “one
of the world’s leading experts on adult stem
cells,” for getting a scholarly article published
in Tissue and Cell Engineering,
titled, Remembering Pioneers in Patient
Treatments. The article “talks about the
groundbreaking new science that won Dr.
Shinya Yamanaka this year’s Nobel Prize,”
according to the FRC newsletter.
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Adult Stem Cell Breakthroughs Continue
成人干细胞的继续突破

Adult stem cells: proven track record, no
ethical qualms. Embryonic stem cells: no
track record, large ethical
qualms. Enough said? We cannot trust
the scientists themselves to regulate
safety and ethics. These are issues for
the public to insist on. Beware when
scientists perform “public engagement” to
determine what people approve; read this
case of rigged public engagement
on Evolution News & Views.
5/23/2017
95
Gloria Deo
愿荣耀归上帝

5/23/2017
96