Focus 44(4)
creation news and views
New type of cell found in our lungs
Researchers have discovered a new type of cell within the small air-tubes (bronchioles, which branch from the larger tubes called bronchi) of human lungs. Named respiratory airway secretory (RAS) cells, they are now understood to be crucial in sustaining healthy lungs. “Emerging technologies have only recently allowed us to sample and identify unique cell types” said Edward Morrisey, one of the lead authors of the study.
These cells have a dual function. First, they help to preserve a fluid lining in the bronchioles, to hold their structure and prevent collapse. Second, they are progenitor cells, i.e. cells which still retain some of stem cells’ ability to change into various other cell types. In this case, they can become alveolar type 2 cells. These are essential for the normal functioning of the tiny air sacs (alveoli) in the lungs, allowing efficient gas exchange.
The researchers hope that the discovery of these cells and their properties may lead to better treatments for such respiratory diseases as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Such discoveries testify to deliberate design, and should give pause to those who claim to know the details of human evolutionary changes over millions of years. Researchers still don’t know everything about the human body or our complicated genetics. These cells add to a still-growing list of newly discovered purposeful parts of the human body. The Bible is clear on what the lungs are to be used for: “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!” (Psalm 150:6).
- Basil, M.C. et al., Human distal airways contain a multipotent secretory cell that can regenerate alveoli, Nature 604:120–126, 30 Mar 2022.
- Baker, H., New part of the body found hiding in the lungs, livescience.com, 6 Apr 2022.
T. rex posed a serious risk—to other T. rexes, too
Tyrannosaurus rex is known for its short front limbs. The arms are approximately the same length as adult human arms, despite the dinosaur growing to some 3.5 m (12 ft) high and 12 m (40 ft) long. A study claims the relatively tiny limbs were likely an adaptation that reduced the risk of damage from “the deadliest jaws ever recorded on land.” But they were far stronger even than the strongest human weightlifter’s arms; the bones were very strong and had areas for attachment of huge muscles. The biceps could curl 199 kg (439 lb).
The idea is that T. rex supposedly fed in packs, with rivals snapping at each other during feeding frenzies. The large, banana-shaped teeth and long jaws were easily able to inflict nasty wounds. A serious bite to the arm could lead to the animal bleeding to death or dying a prolonged death from infection.
Despite a shortage of fossil evidence, evolutionists assume that T. rex evolved from earlier (smaller, different) dinosaurs. These all had relatively longer arms, so in the evolutionary wordview, the forelimbs’ relative length must have declined over time. The study tries to answer why, and concludes it was to keep the arms out of easy range of bites, since longer arms meant greater risk of death. But there are plenty of long-armed pack-hunting carnivores today, so the proposal seems ad hoc.
Alternatively, even if the short arms were adaptive, it would still be consistent with God creating the tyrannosaur kind with short arms. The pack feeding scenario described is feasible in the violent world that followed the Fall/Curse. Natural selection within the tyrannosaur kind as proposed in the study could conceivably have shortened forelimbs to an extent. (Elephants’ tusks have shortened, within a few generations, due to selection pressure from poaching—see creation.com/elephant-tusks.)
None of this requires any new information to arise, so no Darwinian evolution.
- Padian, K., Why tyrannosaurid forelimbs were so short: An integrative hypothesis, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 67(1):63–76, 2022.
Our incredibly complex design
The Human Genome Project predicted about 20,000 proteins in humans, based on the number of genes in the DNA sequence. About 90% of these have been found. However, the number is likely much, much greater than that. This is because the information in one ‘gene’ can be used in many different ways to generate many different proteins.
For example, genes comprise of segments called exons separated by introns. The protein-manufacturing machinery can mix and match which exons it uses to generate many different protein variants. Machines can also edit proteins after they are made—e.g. insulin comes from cutting a section out of a longer protein.
All this is highly controlled by sophisticated programs that decide which protein variants, and how many, to make in every cell of the body. There are hundreds of cell types, each producing different unique sets of proteins. And some of them are only produced at specific times and places.
So, how many proteins can human cells make? In short, no one knows. Some estimate there are millions. Dr Lydie Lane of the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics says, “there could be millions of varieties of proteins inside each of us, all coming from the same 20,000 genes” and “We don’t have the means to know how many there are, and when and why, etc.,” she says. “So this is quite dark.”
Scientists are only beginning to scratch the surface of the astounding functional complexity in the design of the human body.
- Howes, L., Many of our proteins remain hidden in the dark proteome, cen.acs.org, 24 Jan 2022.
New dates for South African fossils cause contention
Recently Granger et al. published new dates for the Sterkfontein Australopithecus fossils from South Africa. They used a method known as Cosmogenic Nuclide Burial Dating. This technique had earlier been used to date the Australopithecus Little Foot skeleton to allegedly 3.7 Ma (million years ago). This date, along with the new dates for the other Australopithecus fossils (including Australopithecus africanus), yielded a combined range of supposedly 3.4 to 3.7 Ma for the Australopithecus assemblage. This was about a million years older than the previous ages attributed to these fossils.
The new age range overlaps with Australopithecus afarensis fossils (e.g., Lucy) from East Africa, alleged to be the ancestor of the human lineage. The Sterkfontein Australopithecus assemblage now competes with Australopithecus afarensis as ancestors of later supposed hominins, including the genus Homo.
On how to resolve disagreements between different research teams on the ages of the Sterkfontein fossils, Charles Choi writes (quoting paleoanthropologist John Hawks):
“For example, scientists who want to solve the puzzle of the ages of these bones may take part in double-blind experiments involving ‘different groups of researchers examining the same samples, without knowing where they are from until they report their results,’ Hawks said. ‘Otherwise, there is too much potential for researchers to choose samples and methods that reinforce their own ideas.’”
One wonders how many alleged ages reported in the literature were selected because they reinforced the ideas of the researchers. Redating of fossils is not a rare occurrence. The new dates discussed above illustrate the fickle nature of age estimates obtained from dating methods.
- Choi, C.Q., South African fossils may rewrite history of human evolution, livescience.com, 3 Jul 2022.
- Granger, D.E. et al., Cosmogenic nuclide dating of Australopithecus at Sterkfontein, South Africa, PNAS 119(27):e2123516119, 27 Jun 2022.
‘Junk dna’ mutations linked to cancer
By far the greater part of our DNA doesn’t carry instructions to make specific proteins. This is known as the non-coding portion of the genome. It has long been regarded as ‘junk DNA’—supposedly a useless leftover from our evolutionary past.
The idea that most of our DNA is useless is a prediction of evolutionary theory, which needs lots of junk DNA. However, this has been shown to be false. Further research has revealed more and more functions of non-coding DNA. These include major roles in regulating genes (see creation.com/junk-roles).
Recent research has now discovered that almost 300 mutations (errors) in non-coding DNA are linked to increased risks of cancer. (If non-coding DNA had no function, errors should have no impact.) Hopefully, continuing research into this will give more information on how various cancers develop and how we might prevent them.
The research is still in its infancy, as it is an open secret that evolutionary ideas attached to non-coding DNA historically led to neglect in studying it. It seems a clear case of evolutionism hampering scientific and medical progress.
- Colatriano, J., Researchers link mutations in long neglected non-coding genome to cancer, biospace.com, 14 Jun 2022.
Plants use memory for adaptation
A team of scientists researching adaptation in Arabidopsis (a group of plants related to mustard and cabbage), discovered that they can remember hot daytime temperatures and grow their stems during the following night in response.
By lengthening their stems, they lift their leaves further from the hot ground, preventing damage from excess heat. The plants can remember and respond to heat because of a specially designed program built inside them, involving multiple genes. Amazing evidence of intelligent design.
- Adam, D, Plants remember hot days gone by, pnas.org, 25 Mar 2022.
Another strike against sparked origin of life
The widely publicized 1950s Miller–Urey experiment was long hailed as a breakthrough in explaining life without God. Electrical sparking was used to simulate lightning in a mix of gases assumed to represent the early atmosphere.
The experiment produced only some simple amino acids, and the arguments against its relevance to the origin of life have kept accumulating over the years. Now there is one more. Based on the gaseous mix that is currently speculated to have been present, new research suggests “that lightning strikes were actually less common on the early Earth than previously thought”.
The idea that life formed itself without a Creator is already vanishingly improbable to the point of impossible: see creation.com/origin-of-life.
- Nield, D., Primordial Earth had a major difference in its skies we didn’t realize until now, sciencealert.com, 15 Apr 2022.
Plants successfully grown in moon dust
Scientists have successfully grown some plants in moon dust collected by NASA astronauts during the Apollo missions. This is a fascinating result, and there is excitement about the possibility of growing plants on the moon when astronauts return there in the coming years.
However, the plants weren’t just grown in moon dust—they were given added nutrients and water, and grown in Earth’s atmosphere. Even then, most of the plants were stunted and grew more slowly than plants grown in volcanic ash from Earth. While this discovery is interesting, it also reveals how well designed Earth is to sustain life—even down to the makeup of Earth’s dust.
- Dunn, M., Scientists grow plants in moon dirt for the first time, stuff.co.nz, 13 May 2022
Smart cells amaze
During embryonic development, cells must migrate through long, complex mazes in the developing embryo to reach their proper locations. Puzzled at how cells could achieve such a feat of navigation, a team of scientists tested the ability of cells from slime mould and mice to solve mazes in a lab.
They discovered that by generating self-guiding chemical gradients, the cells were able to accurately solve the correct paths through the mazes—even remarkably complex ones. The cells were able to accurately decide which way to go at maze junctions to avoid dead-end paths—even around corners—in a way that seemed “intuitively impossible.”
Such stunning navigational abilities of single cells point to God’s amazing design.
- Tweedy, L. and 6 others, Seeing around corners: cells solve mazes and respond at a distance using attractant breakdown, Science 369(6507):eaay9792, 2020.
Bird nests—very well-engineered
Birds’ nests are engineering marvels, being both lightweight, flexible, and cohesive. To have these properties, nests must be made in specific ways using sticks with specific properties. “Birds seem to have a sense for how the properties of an individual stick will translate to the characteristics of the nest”. This is something which humans have been unable to do until now.
A team of researchers have combined laboratory experiments and computer simulations to start unravelling this mystery. They found that the distribution and friction of contact points between different sticks are crucial to nest design.
Engineers wish to understand how birds’ nests are designed so they can copy their design, but there are still many mysteries to be solved.
- Conover, E., Experiments hint at why bird nests are so sturdy, sciencenews.org, 12 May 2022
A new type of cell division
At school you were likely taught that there are two types of cell division: mitosis and meiosis. Scientists have now accidentally discovered a third type in the skin of zebrafish larvae.
This third type skips DNA replication and simply splits the DNA between the two new cells. This makes cell division much faster, which is why it is used to rapidly produce new skin cells as needed during the rapid growth of zebrafish larvae.
After a few weeks, when the larval growth rate has slowed, these cells are replaced with new cells which have the full set of zebrafish DNA. From an engineering perspective, this design is brilliant.
- Scientists identify a new form of cellular division, taipeitimes.com, 4 May 2022.
Readers’ comments
Comments are automatically closed 14 days after publication.