Re: Star Physics Prove the Delicacy of Life

From: Stephen E. Jones (sejones@iinet.net.au)
Date: Sun Jul 23 2000 - 17:41:45 EDT

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    Reflectorites

    Here are excerpts from web articles for the period 17 - 21 July 2000, with
    my comments in square brackets.

    Steve

    ==========================================================================
    http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/carbonstar_000607.html
    SPACE.com ... Jul 17, 2000 ... Star Physics Prove the Delicacy of Life ...
    If physical forces within stars were only a little different, our universe
    would be almost devoid of carbon and oxygen, so life would not exist,
    physicists have concluded in a new study. "I am not a religious person, but
    I could say this universe is designed very well for the existence of life," said
    Heinz Oberhummer, a nuclear astrophysicist at the University of Vienna,
    Austria. ... The study ...began five years ago when Oberhummer "was just
    thinking what would happen if the forces were a little different in our
    universe. We found that with a small change, life would not exist in the
    universe." He added: "Life is like a silk thread which can be torn very
    easily." Oberhummer and colleagues used computers to simulate or model
    the "triple-alpha process" by which helium burns to produce carbon during
    the red-giant stage of a star's life. Oxygen, a key component of life-
    sustaining water, is produced by the addition of a fourth alpha particle,
    which is a helium nucleus. The researchers varied the strengths of the
    "strong" force that holds protons and neutrons together in atomic nuclei,
    and the weaker Coulomb force that makes protons try to repel each other.
    They found that a change in more than one-half percent of the strong force
    or more than 4 percent in the Coulomb force would destroy nearly all the
    carbon or oxygen in every star. Under such conditions, "the creation of
    carbon-based life in our universe would be strongly disfavored," ...
    Physicist Steven Weinberg ... disagreed with the findings ...However,
    astrophysicist Craig Hogan ... defended Oberhummer and colleagues ...
    Oberhummer said the findings mean "the basic forces in the universe are
    tailor-made for the production of carbon and oxygen, and therefore carbon-
    based life. At present we have no idea why the strength of the forces are
    fine-tuned in our universe in such a way that enables the existence of life.
    The fine-tuning is really very subtle." Helium is burned to produce carbon
    in the "triple-alpha process" in red-giant stars. Hogan saw no need to
    invoke religion or any sort of intentional design in forming the universe. ...
    "One of the remarkable things that is quite plausible now is the idea there
    are many universes, and in each one of those universes the forces might be
    different." ... "Some scientists think it goes beyond the boundaries of
    science because you are talking about universes you cannot see. But I think
    you have to be more tolerant about that. It could be nature is made this
    way, and it is not the same as invoking supernatural forces." ... [Science is
    now forced to become pseudoscience to escape the obvious design
    inference of subtly fine-tuned laws of physics. As Paul Davies said: "In
    spite of the apparent ease with which the many-universes theory can
    account for what would otherwise be considered remarkable feature of the
    universe, the theory faces a number of serious objections. Not least of these
    is Ockham's razor: one must introduce a vast (indeed infinite) complexity
    to explain the regularities of just one universe." (Davies P.C.W., "The
    Unreasonable Effectiveness of Science," in Templeton J.M., ed., "Evidence
    of Purpose," 1994, pp.52-53)]

    http://www.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/07/18/fossil.flap.ap/ ... CNN ...
    Auction of winged reptile fossil stirs debate Icarosaurus siefkeri July 18,
    2000 ... SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The fossil of a 200-million-year-old
    winged reptile is headed for the auction block, peeving paleontologists who
    argue the relic belongs in a museum. Known as the Icarosaurus siefkeri, the
    reptile resembles a huge dragonfly that's about 7 inches (18 centimeters)
    long and about 10 inches (25 centimeters) from wingtip to wingtip. ... The
    creature lived some 50 million years before dinosaurs and Archaeopteryx --
    evolution's first true bird. ... excavated it from the black shale of an
    abandoned New Jersey quarry 39 years ago. At the time, it was the oldest
    airborne vertebrate known to scientists. The fossil had been kept at the
    American Museum of Natural History in New York. But Alfred Siefker,
    the man who found the fossil when he was 17 and whose name museum
    scientists gave to it, reclaimed the relic 10 years ago. ... Now age 56 and ill,
    Siefker is selling it because he needs the money .... "The Icarosaurus is our
    most outstanding object and really belongs on exhibit in a museum, not in
    some private collector's living room," .... "So we've notified every natural
    history museum about it, and they ought to get some of their wealthy
    trustees to buy it and donate it." Scientists say they are disturbed by the
    increasing commercialization of fossil collections. ... Goodwin ... blasted
    any sale of the Icarosaurus as a "highly unethical event that will only
    increase commercialization and encourage the theft of fossils from
    museums."... [A "winged reptile" that "resembles a huge dragonfly"? I had
    not heard of this but it is in Colbert, with a drawing. It appears that on at
    least two separate occasions, in the Coelurosauravus and Kuehneosaurus
    reptiles, their ribs elongated out covered by a membrane to form a gliding
    wing. The picture accompanying this article looks a bit like Longisquama's
    `wings'. So maybe Longisquama's `wing' is a similar elongation but of its
    spinal ridges? It is strange that this hasn't been mentioned before in the
    Longisquama dispute. Have I discovered something? Is there a Nobel
    Prize in paleontology? :-)]

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_841000/841401.stm BBC
    ... 19 July, 2000 ... Parasite's web of death ... The extraordinary behaviour
    of a parasitic wasp that forces its spider host to weave a special web on
    which it can hang a cocoon has been described .... On the evening of the
    day that it will kill the spider, the larva induces the spider to spin this
    unusual web ... The larva of the wasp Hymenopimecis sp. will suck on the
    "blood" of the spider and eventually eat it - but not before it has injected a
    behaviour-bending chemical that makes the spider construct a special
    scaffold. Only this design, which is quite different from the spider's normal
    fly-trap, has the strength to support the pupating wasp. Dr William
    Eberhard ... [said] that the manipulation of the spider was probably the
    most complex alteration of behaviour ever attributed to an insect
    parasitoid. ... The spider, Plesiometa argyra, is doomed from the moment it
    is stung in the mouth by the adult female wasp. This paralyses the spider
    and allows the wasp to lay an egg on the arachnid's abdomen. ... When the
    spider recovers it goes about its daily business of web weaving and feeding,
    unaware that it has become a meal for the developing larva now hatched
    and clinging to its body. The larva will make small holes in the spider's
    abdomen through which it can suck the creature's haemolymph, a task
    made easier by the apparent introduction of an anti-coagulant that prevents
    the circulatory fluid from clotting too quickly. When this blood does
    eventually clot, it makes a large scab that acts as a "saddle" for the larva to
    hang on to the spider and reach for its next meal. ... "Finally, on the
    evening of the day that it will kill the spider, the larva induces the spider to
    spin this unusual web," ... "This is basically the ideal web from the wasp
    larva point of view because it needs to hang up its cocoon on a very solid
    and durable support. "The design is unique - the spider will not build
    anything similar during its normal life. "When the wasp somehow senses
    that the construction is finished, it will kill and start to eat the spider. This
    happens more or less at midnight and lasts until about midday. "It will then
    drop the spider's empty body to the ground and sit in this special web until
    the next evening when it begins to build a cocoon." ... ....there are at least
    three types of biochemical manipulation taking place. And because the
    larva lives on the outside of the spider, it is clear these chemicals must be
    injected. The effects of an anti-coagulant and a death-inducing poison are
    relatively obvious. Just how the web-spinning behaviour is altered is not so
    easy to explain. "The larva somehow biochemically manipulates the spider's
    nervous system causing it to perform one small piece of a subroutine,
    which is normally only a part of orb construction, while repressing all the
    other routines." ... [Yet another example of an irreducibly complex life-
    cycle which resists a Darwinian explanation? Macbeth says of another
    similar example: "These are marvels, beyond any doubt; but there is no
    compelling reason to regard them as adaptations. Each is a tour de force by
    a virtuoso ..." (Macbeth N., "Darwin Retried," 1971, p.71). Darwinists
    usually try to bluff their way out of this problem by a theological argument
    from incredulity, following Darwin: "I cannot persuade myself that a
    beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the
    Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living
    bodies of caterpillars." (Darwin C., letter to Asa Gray, May 22, 1860). But
    while this might be a problem for the Christian concept of a good God
    (personally I don't think it is), it is no problem at all for basic ID.]

    http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000717/sc/health_mouse_dc_2.html
    Yahoo! ... July 17 ... Mice And Men: Rodent Genome Key to Human
    Disease ... BIRMINGHAM (Reuters) - Scientists, fresh from charting
    the human "book of life," said ... that making sense of it would depend
    heavily on comparisons with genomes of other mammals -- starting with
    the humble mouse. So-called comparative genomics is the next big idea ...
    By comparing human genes with those in other organisms, scientists
    believe they can work out more quickly the function of genes and their
    role in disease. ... "Comparative genomics is going to be the single most
    important tool going forward in analyzing genomes," said Craig Venter ...
    he expected to complete the mouse genome in December this year.
    Scientists have already mapped the genomes of a host of lower life forms,
    including the fruit fly and yeast, but the mouse will be only the second
    mammal to have its genetic code mapped, after man. ... it has taken 10
    years to identify 10 genes involved in FHC, a complex multi-gene
    condition, and an unknown number of others have yet to be found. The
    ability to overlay the complete mouse genome on the human one should
    help tease out the missing genes and provide an insight into the
    biochemical process triggered by genetic mutations ... Researchers and
    drug firms are already working out the function of genes in mice, which
    share around 90 percent of their genetic code with humans, by "knocking
    out" certain genes and watching the result. The process is based on the
    fact that many of the basic mechanisms that control our bodies have
    changed little as they have been passed down from species to species
    through evolution. As a result, scientists can get a good idea of what a
    newly discovered human gene does by mutating a similar gene in lower
    life forms. "The mouse is extremely important because we can change
    any gene we wish and mimic exactly the mutation which causes disease in
    human patients,"... Comparative genomics is unlikely to stop at the mouse
    ... mapping the genetic blueprint of animals such as the dog, the cat or the
    rat would be more useful than sequencing close relatives of man, such as
    the chimpanzee, because there will be more variations to examine.
    Already comparative genomics is revealing that humans share a lot more
    genetic traits with other species than might have been expected. Some of
    the blocks along the mouse genome which have already been sequenced,
    for example, are proving impossible to tell apart from the human version.
    ... [This is *very* interesting. It seems that just sequencing a human
    genome is not enough. And sequencing an ape's genome is not enough
    either because it is too much alike. But what if even a mouse's genome is
    not enough? If we share 50% of our genes with the banana, then maybe
    they will have to sequence its genome next? :-) If more and human genes
    are found to be not much different from genes in other, quite dissimilar
    species, then this means that the differences are not in the genes
    themselves, but would include which genes are turned on and off, in what
    order, and when. In the end I suspect the whole genomic, protenomic,
    cellular, developmental, organismal, informational and temporal context
    will need to be known, for not only the species in question, but for other
    species, before scientists can *really* understand the relationship between
    genes and the bodies they inhabit. If this is the case, it is not going to
    happen `real soon now', and may be beyond the human mind to grasp, even
    with the help of computers. But from my ID perspective, I note that if a
    human intelligent designer can switch genes on and off to produce the
    effect required, then it shows that an Intelligent Designer could do it too
    (see tagline). Therefore I would not be surprised if it turns out that not
    enough intelligence can be found in the genome, or in the natural
    environment, to account for the marks of intelligence in the genome, and
    external intelligent causation would be required to account for it, as it
    already is required to account for the marks of intelligence in the
    universe!]

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=003168993645327&rtmo=pIQQeUee&atmo=FFFFFk3X&pg=/et/00/7/20/ecnbab20.html
    20.07.00 Electronic Telegraph ... How mothers start a baby's body clock ...
    Researchers investigating the body's natural rhythms have found that
    mothers programme their offspring's internal clocks before birth. ...The
    research was published ... by a team ... who investigated circadian clocks,
    the internal time keeping system, of zebrafish. Circadian clocks give living
    things a sense of time and are involved in the waking and sleeping cycle.
    Many scientists have assumed that the circadian clock does not start ticking
    until birth. But the researchers found that the clock started working in
    zebrafish eggs even before they were fertilised. Dr Vincent Laudet, a co-
    author of the paper, said: "These findings were quite a surprise." He
    suspects that humans may inherit the same gene. ... [Another design
    feature? Why should a `blind watchmaker' give all living things an inbuilt,
    programmed "sense of time"?]

    http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000719/sc/health_trout_dc_1.html
    Yahoo! ... July 19 ... Iron-Rich Crystals Give Trout Sense of Direction
    LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists said Wednesday they had found iron-rich
    crystals in trout that can detect changes in magnetic fields, providing the
    fish with a sense of direction. ... the scientists said the crystals lay at the
    heart of a receiver that transformed magnetic signals into electrical stimuli
    in the nervous system. The magnetite crystals ... were similar to crystals
    found in salmon .... [Another design feature? Isn't the `blind watchmaker'
    wonderful? :-)]

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_844000/844217.stm BBC
    ... 21 July, 2000 ... Scientists 'locate' intelligence ... scientists believe they
    have identified a specific area of the human brain which appears to be
    responsible for intelligence. The research ... found that a part of the brain
    called the frontal lateral cortex was the only area where blood flow
    increased when volunteers tackled complicated puzzles involving
    sequences of symbols and letters. ... Other theories contend that intelligent
    thinking requires various portions of the brain working together like
    different parts of an engine. The results suggest that "general intelligence"
    derives from a specific frontal system ... The researchers ... used scanning
    techniques to assess the blood flow in subjects' brains when they were
    performing the tests. Science magazine also carries an article attacking the
    scientists' approach to the subject, and arguing that human intelligence can't
    be defined in such a specific way. ... While taking the tests, the volunteers'
    brains were scanned using a technique called positron emission
    tomography. The scientists found that high-g tasks did not require
    numerous regions spread around the brain to be used together. Instead
    activity was concentrated in the lateral frontal cortex, in one or both brain
    hemispheres. The researchers wrote: "The results suggest that "general
    intelligence" derives from a specific frontal system important in the control
    of diverse forms of behaviour." But they acknowledged that this apparent
    intelligence centre might itself be divided into finer components. ... [This
    might be interesting if human high intelligence turns out to be a unique
    feature.]

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_843000/843163.stm BBC
    ... 20 July, 2000 ... Science finds particle perfection ... Physicists have
    found the particle that completes our understanding of the fundamental
    building blocks of the Universe. It is a ghostly particle called the tau
    neutrino. Its discovery ... scientists at the US Fermilab Tevatron particle
    accelerator near Chicago. ... According to the so-called Standard Model of
    particles, the tau neutrino completes our inventory of what everything is
    made of at the sub-atomic level. ... With the tau's detection, matter's
    construction set is complete. The building blocks of the Universe consist
    of: six quarks - known as up, down, strange, charm, top, and bottom; six
    leptons - electron, electron neutrino, muon, muon neutrino, tau, and the
    newly discovered tau neutrino. Other sub-atomic particles, such as the anti-
    matter counterparts of the quarks and leptons, the force-carrying particles
    called bosons (such as photons), and the Higgs Boson (which gives mass to
    some of the other particles) also appear in the Standard Model. However,
    the Higgs particle is not essential to the theory. ... Although physicists
    expected to find the particle someday, the actual detection is a highly
    significant discovery and completes an important stage in our
    understanding of what everything around is made. However, this not the
    final explanation of the way nature has constructed the cosmos. Scientists
    speculate that there might be so-called "supersymmetric" particles. If
    found, these would be accepted by the Standard Model but would not
    strictly be a part of it. ... [How can "nature" construct itself?]

    http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000720/sc/light_speed_dc_1.html
    Yahoo! ... July 20 ... Getting There Faster: Light's Speed Accelerated ...
    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists using lasers and specially prepared
    atoms have managed to make a pulse of light exceed its own top speed of
    186,000 miles per second, appearing to leave a laboratory tube before it
    had fully entered. This feat might seem more like wizardry than physics to
    some scientists, who have long assumed that nothing in the universe could
    go faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. But researchers ... found they
    could make pulses of light zoom through a tube at a much faster speed,
    with the peak of the pulse emerging from the tube 62 billionths of a second
    before the peak had entered. "It looks as if you've done something magical
    ... but you can explain this based on physics. This is not a time machine,"
    ...The ... findings ... do not contradict Albert Einstein's theory of relativity
    ... nothing with mass -- like people or things -- can ever go faster than light
    .... But something with no mass, like a packet of light waves known as a
    pulse, can. ... "Precisely speaking, it is the speed of information transfer
    that is limited by the speed of light in a vacuum." ... All the necessary
    information about the pulse is contained in its tiny leading edge. As soon as
    this sliver of the pulse enters the chamber, the specially prepared atoms can
    begin making another, identical pulse at the chamber's far side. ... A
    telecommunications application may exist even though information cannot
    move any faster than the speed of light ... "If you can create the medium in
    which pulses propagate, it would allow them to go through faster as a
    packet of waves," ... Normally light would pass through a vacuum chamber
    of that length in 0.2 nanoseconds .... But the cesium atoms in the chamber
    shift the light pulse, making it zip through the chamber and exit 62
    nanoseconds sooner, or more than 300 times earlier. As soon as the leading
    edge of the pulse enters the chamber, the atoms start to reconstruct the
    pulse at the chamber's far side. This reconstructed pulse can then emerge
    from the far end of the chamber sooner than it would go through a vacuum.
    ... [I don't pretend to understand this! I find it interesting how the atoms
    `know' when one pulse exists so the next one can form. There seems to be
    some `information' flowing between them and this seems to be faster than
    light?]
    ==========================================================================

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    "The drawback for scientists is that nature's shrewd economy conceals
    enormous complexity. Researchers are finding evidence that the Hox genes
    and the non-Hox homeobox genes are not independent agents but members
    of vast genetic networks that connect hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
    other genes. Change one component, and myriad others will change as
    well--and not necessarily for the better. Thus dreams of tinkering with
    nature's toolbox to bring to life what scientists call a "hopeful monster"-
    such as a fish with feet--are likely to remain elusive." (Nash J.M., "Where
    Do Toes Come From?," Time, Vol. 146, No. 5, July 31, 1995.
    http://www.time.com/time/magazine/archive/1995/950731/950731.science.html)
    Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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