From LiveScience: Extinct Woolly Mammoth's DNA Mapped Scientists for the first time have unraveled much of the genetic code of an extinct animal, the ice age's woolly mammoth, and with it they are thawing Jurassic Park dreams. Their groundbreaking achievement has them contemplating a once unimaginable future when certain prehistoric species might one day be …
Category: Biology
Cicada molting
A cicada molting, from the Wikipedia Picture of the Day archive. Grace and Peace
Cell transformation
Once again, news reports are showing that using human embryonic stem cells for research is not only immoral, but perhaps scientifically unnecessary. An article in the science journal Nature reports that ordinary pancreas cells in adult mice have been transformed into cells that produce insulin. Here are the first few paragraphs from an article on …
Asexual Reproduction
Gene Edward Veith (Cranach) has a post on generating human embryos from human skin cells. The ability to generate stem cells from skin cells was a promising medical breakthrough that bypasses the serious ethical concerns that are associated with embryonic stem cell research; the ability to create an entire human being brings all kinds of …
The Inner Life of the Cell — The Extended Version
This item was originally posted in September, 2006. It is now part of my blog recycling program. Because I have new readers of The GeoChristian, I will occasionally go back and re-use some of my favorite blog entries. There is a version of this video on YouTube that I don't think was available last year. …
Continue reading The Inner Life of the Cell — The Extended Version
Simple Cells?
This item was originally posted in March, 2006. It is now part of my blog recycling program. Because I have more people reading The GeoChristian now than I did a year ago, I will occasionally go back and re-use some of my best blog entries. Having read a number of technical books and papers on …
Human Rice
An article in Friday's Washington Post has an article with the headline USDA Backs Production of Rice With Human Genes. The Agriculture Department has given a preliminary green light for the first commercial production of a food crop engineered to contain human genes, reigniting fears that biomedically potent substances in high-tech plants could escape and …
Predator-Prey Relationships
What happens when the street dog population decreases? The cat population increases. Here are a few of up to fourteen cats we have counted behind our apartment in Bucharest. We still have a few street dogs around, but they are old and lazy, and don't seem to bother the cats too much. We don't really …
A wild world of a different sort
Back in October, I wrote a post about the idea of introducing large mammals (elephants, camels, lions, and so on) into the high plains of the United States (see Pleistocene mega-fauna -- coming to a drive-thru safari park near you). The idea is to somewhat restore the pre-human ecosystem by bringing in mammals that went …
Wild World
At the middle school and high school level, biology textbooks usually have a section on biomes, which are large regions of the Earth that have distinctive communities of plants and animals. Examples of biomes include desert, tropical rainforest, temperate grasslands, and tundra. These biomes can be subdivided into smaller ecoregions, which have more specific assemblages …
Electron transport chain and ATP synthase animations
ATP synthase moves me to worship the Creator. Every cell on Earth, from simple bacteria to human brain cells, needs a molecule called ATP (adenosine triphosphate; pictured to the left) in order to do a wide variety of tasks. ATP is used as the cell's energy molecule; the source of energy for everything from cell …
Continue reading Electron transport chain and ATP synthase animations
Baby Pictures
Check out the preview of National Geographic's In the Womb: Animals. Some links with more pictures: Daily Mail The Sun Question: If an elephant is an elephant, even when it is in the womb; and a dolphin is a dolphin, even when it is in the womb; then what is a human even when it …
PETA strikes again
Welcome to The GeoChristian. Out of over 600 posts on my blog, this one on frog dissection is in the top five in terms of how many people view it. The purpose of The GeoChristian is twofold: 1. To enhance science literacy within the Evangelical Christian community. 2. To present a Biblical Christianity that is …
Stem Cells and Muscular Dystrophy
The headline is "Stem cells help dogs with dystrophy." Someone who sees this headline but doesn't read the article might think, "Oh, isn't it wonderful what can be done with those embryonic stem cells?" Wrong. Reading the article, the researchers did not use embryonic stem cells, but stem cells derived from adult dogs. Here's a …
Pleistocene megafauna — Coming to a drive-thru safari park near you
North America just isn't the same without its native camels, horses, mastodons, and saber-toothed cats. Not all of these can be brought back, but how about reintroducing what we can into the wild? And substituting elephants for mastodons, and lions for saber-toothed cats. That is the proposal in the November issue of The American Naturalist. …
Continue reading Pleistocene megafauna — Coming to a drive-thru safari park near you
The Inner Life of the Cell
Web site of the week: "The Inner Life of the Cell." This site has a computer animation of the inner workings of a white blood cell. Absolutely amazing—both in terms of the animation, and the processes it portrays. It is a testimony to the wisdom and power of the Creator. I got this link from …
eNature — Online Field Guide
A good online field guide—with images and information about 5500 different species—is at eNature.com, which is produced by the National Wildlife Federation. With sections on birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, insects, spiders, seashells, wildflowers, and more; eNature is a good site for those of us who don't have a complete shelf of field guides (I …
The Language of God
Francis Collins was the director for the Human Genome Project, which sequenced all of the base pairs for human DNA. He recently spoke as the keynote speaker at the annual conference of the American Scientific Affiliation, and that speech can be found as a video or mp3 audio file at http://www.asa3.org. The speech is entitled …
Bears in Germany — Found
Bears are common in some parts of Europe—Romania for example—but had not been seen in Germany since 1835. The news article is Bear Reported in Germany, First for 170 Years. BERLIN (AFP) - A bear has been reported in Germany for the first time since 1835, police at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the Bavarian Alps said, following …
Apes That Plan Ahead — Found
Some apes, birds can think ahead, studies show So why don't we always plan ahead? Grace and peace
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