Piltdown Superman

This post was almost scratched because a lot of us detest skeeters, and I did a post a spell back about the design and dangers of the dreadful things . But this one has different details to examine: their flight. Y'all can appreciate the wonders of not only science and technology, but the design work of the Master Engineer, right? Mosquito on elder plant image credit: Pixabay / zsuzstot For a very long time, scientists could not figure out how mosquitoes were able to fly. Like so many other discoveries that affirm creation and refute evolution, advances in science and technology made it possible to commence understanding mosquito flight — they can beat their wings 800 times a second, after all. Many components had to be in place from the beginning or it simply could not fly. At all. Ever. Evolutionists use their special system of Making Things UP™ to "explain" how maybe perhaps it could be they suspect how wings formed. As the fossil record shows, there is no evid

You may not know the word, but arthropods are all over the place, on land, in the sea, and so on. They comprise most of the animal world, and have an external skeleton, many limbs, a segmented body, and are cold blooded. You have your spiders, insects, scorpions, lobsters, and a whole passel of other things. Let's highlight a few of them, which are being studied for biomimetics (imitation for our benefit). Credit: National Science Foundation (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) That big nose-like thing you see in the butterfly picture that looks like a straw is called the proboscis . It works like a straw, or maybe a sponge, or is that a sensor, or some of all of those things. This is being studied for several applications, including a drug delivery system. Did you know that mosquitoes beat their wings about 800 times a second? (I still swat at the things when I hear that annoying whine.) More impressive is that they make efficient use of their wing strokes

Some of y'all have been watching too many movies. I hope you put what I call "the eww factor" on hold so you can appreciate the amazing design of a critter that some folks love to hate: the bat. You may want to read this article on bat myths and facts . I find bats fascinating, and could make this post unnecessarily long with remarks about how beneficial they are, that some people se t out bat houses , and so on. Credit: Department of the Interior/USGS (Usage does not imply endorsement) Stories on the evolution of bats strike out . The bat is recalcitrant when it comes to secularists' guesses about its origin. Instead, it is a testimony of creation and intricate design. It's not a mouse with wings, and not a rodent at all. Those wings are very intricately designed, as is the flight system itself. Scientists are studying the vampire bat's saliva, draculin (great word, some scientists show humor) in hopes of helping stroke victims . There is also work b

Maybe I've been reading too many plays on words, but the misspelling in the title is intentional. Biomimetics is where scientists study nature and come up with imitations ideas for our own use. Inspirations include the pitcher plant , firefly , spider webs , and many more. The great irony here is that secular scientists use their education, equipment, training, and so forth to try and intelligently design something that they think is the product of evolution through chance and random processes. No, Hoss, God designed the critters you're studying as well as your mind. Give credit where it's due, you savvy? Credit: Freeimages / patryk krause Tough and strong are not the same thing. Tough stuff gets flexible, and hard stuff can break. How do you get a good steel with properties of both? By studying the way our Creator designed the microstructure of bones! How does one build a structural material that withstands stress and fracture? The answer is to copy optimal desig

Sometimes, it's mighty nice to have a copy of something. To make a copy, you need the necessary equipment, such as a computer, printing press, or somesuch. I have a series of s teps to obtain articles: go to the Web article, send it to the e-book reader, then convert it using te xt-to-speech into an MP3. For copies of other objects, you need skill, imagination, special equipment — here, I'm thinking of biomimetics , where nature inspires man-made applications. When we copy a feature of something that God designed, it's clunky at best when compared to the original. Image credit: Pixabay / Patrice_Audet One of the strongest indications of life is that something is able to reproduce itself. You know, like make young 'uns. Even at the cellular level, copying happens. The Evo Sith disingenuously try to distance themselves from abiogenesis (the origin of life), because the origin of cells, and the steps needed in reproduction (not to mention evolving into higher life

Biomimetics (or biomimicry) is the concept of getting ideas from nature and building practical applications for our use . Usually, the owlhoots give credit to the puny god of evolution for the design in nature. (In academia, this theft of credit is called plagiarism. ) Image credit: Elizabeth Hertel / US National Park Service Use does not imply endorsement of site contents Moving on, pitcher — I mean, picture this: a slick surface is needed. Sure, we get those, they repel water. But how about repelling other fluids as well? And repair itself? Such a thing is happening, inspired by our Creator's handiwork on the pitcher plant. We have probably all seen the sign, “Caution—slippery surface,” and likely experienced the slipperiness of a wet floor firsthand. Not surprisingly, surfaces which repel fluids efficiently are correspondingly slippery, and such surfaces can have many useful applications in industry. Vast amounts of money are spent each year in developing materials t

The more that trees and plants are studied, the more scientist find out that there's much more to learn. They do us a lot of good, you know. Praise should be given to the Creator, not to evolution. Did you know that coconuts float? One of those things I didn't know until recently. Okay. Did you know that structure of coconuts is being studied in a biomimetics effort to make building more sturdy during earthquakes? When you branch out with your studying, we can see that trees and other plants — well, there's a wagon train load of things we didn't know about plants. Coconut tree image credit: FreeImages /  Srinivasan M.V Trees seem to be able to grow out of some unlikely places, including what looks like solid rock. They have nutrient foraging strategies. Another function of trees is water transport, especially of snowmelt. Plants have complex chemical activities going on, including that good ol' photosynthesis. Evolutionists don't understand much about

I have to admit that I was confused about the invention of Velcro. It wasn't from studying the gecko as I had thought (and possibly written), Velcro was inspired by burrs on a dog's fur . Even so, it was an early example of biomimetics (studying nature for applications that benefit humans). Interesting that when man imitates God's creation, he has limited success. Anyway, the gecko is  getting studied for biomimetics as well. Gecko image credit: Pixabay /  katurahdesigns The gecko's ability to "stick" to surfaces, become unstuck, repeat as much as necessary, is based on atomic forces and the hairs on their feet. But tape, Velcro, and so on wear out, unlike the critter's footies. Naturally, someone is going to invoke Evolution of the Gaps so Darwin can get the glory, even though they have no reasonable explanation or model. The actual reasonable conclusion is that the Creator designed them this way — and we can benefit from studying them. Geckos h

The book of Job is considered by most scholars to be the oldest book of the Bible. (It may have been written during or shortly after the Ice Age, since there are some icy references given in this Middle Eastern book.) There are a couple of creatures that God discusses that many biblical creationists believe are dinosaurs, the behemoth and the leviathan . (No, not the "leviathan" from the "Dark Shadows" television series .) This bad boy was a really ornery cuss, and nobody in his right mind wanted to get him riled. Sarcosuchus may have been the leviathan, image credit: Wikimedia Commons / ArthurWeasley Fortunately, we haven't seen hide nor hair (hair?) of him for a mighty long time, but it's the hide that interests us today. God's sarcastic questioning of Job described the leviathan's bad temper and how it was pretty much impervious to spears and hooks . There are creatures living today (maybe some are leviathan's descendants) that have

It's easy to dislike ants, I'll allow. They get in the house, spoil picnics, crawl up your leg, and other nuisance things. Ever have an ant farm as a kid? I didn't. Anyway, many of us like to stop and watch them carry things that are proportionally larger than they are and wonder how they can do that — and maybe want that ability ourselves.Well, some people are using biomimetics and thinking that mayhaps they can get inspiration from ants for robot designs. Image credit: Openclipart There was a study on the things, and it was discovered that they their structure is conducive to carrying. Part of this is that since their exoskeletons are so light, they do not have to carry their own weight, so they can focus on getting something from here and bringing it over there. Of course, the study praised evolution, blessed be! What they should have done is realize that the evidence shows the skill of their Designer. Now, I’m far from being an entomologist, but the diver

Do these crowns I own mean that I'm a royal personage? Probably not, they're all in my mouth. Bacteria gets in there, wreaks havoc, and I pay big money to get the crowns. Still, our teeth are very strong. Dentin, that stuff beneath tooth enamel, is actually quite durable. It has to be, since out teeth come into contact about 1.8 million times a year, and a bit is somewhere around 70 pounds per square inch (mainly in the back molars). A silverback gorilla bite at 1,300 PSI, and the saltwater crocodile chows in at about 7,700 PSI. Not important, but I thought it was interesting anyway. Image credit: Clker clipart Scientists did a study on dentin, and were impressed at what what they found. In addition, they are hoping for biomimetics development so we can have replacement parts more along the lines of what our Creator gave us. Aspects of human teeth appear over-designed for their function. Apparently German scientists are less reticent about appealing to the supernatu

Have you ever been around a hummingbird after seeing a Star Wars  movie? Funny that their buzzy flying has a sound like a lightsaber. I almost expect to hear the bird say, "You should not have come back..." By the way, I've said this before, and I'll say it again: if you don't want to poison the cute little things, clean your hummingbird feeders often , you savvy? Good. Image credit: Anna's Hummingbird by Alan Vernon, ( CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 ) These winged little marvels have been studied for biomimetics (where humans observe something in nature, claim it happened by accident, then try to intelligently design an application) for miniature flying robots . As if drones peeking in windows weren't bad enough. (For me, it's, "Mr. Drone, say hello and goodbye to Samuel Colt!" Privacy concerns , you know. But I digress.) The hummingbird frustrates bacteria-to-bird evolution. In fact, it frustrates other-bird-to-hummingbird evolution because it

Remember that post about how DNA stores a tremendous amount of information, and there are biomimetics efforts to develop DNA for data storage ? Well, this ain't it. It's been known for a long time that there is a great deal of information stored and processed in the brain, but discoveries of what's happening at the cellular level show that there is more going on than was ever dreamed of. Image credit: Pixabay / geralt Y'all probably know that the Web has a passel of people all over the world sending, receiving, sharing information, right? That's a lot of computing power and memory going on. Your brain has more power than that. Instead of 1 and 0, the brain transfers 26 levels of synaptic information, and is inspiring ideas of biomimetics for future computer development. Let's face it, cells could not possibly have evolved from simple organisms into such specified complexity — which is still not fully understood. No, the Creator was behind all this. Who

Advocates of molecules-to-machinist evolution can cook up some mighty convincing stories about why and how evolution happened, but they leave out important information and talk about what happened in the distant past without any real evidence. What they come up with are comparable to Kipling's Just So Stories . They sound good, but do not have plausible mechanisms or explanations. And yet, true believers accept them by faith. Regular readers know that I have featured material by Dr. David Coppedge's " Creation-Evolution Headlines " on this site many times. (Here's another: he has some personal anecdotes in an interesting article called " Secret Animal Hideouts ".) Bob Enyart interviewed Dr. Coppedge on Real Science Radio, and they discussed several evolutionary stories, and touched on biomimetics, design, and more. You can listen to or download the podcast by clicking on " crev.info headlines on RSR with David Coppedge ". The picture bel

Have you ever watched a bee come in for a landing? Most of us don't pay it no nevermind, but keep an eye out next time and think about pilots of aircraft. It's tricky enough for them to land on a flat surface, and worse on an incline. Bees land on all sorts of inclines, and you don't see them have crash landings. Image credit: Pixabay / skeeze Scientists, many of whom believe that bees and other critters are the products of time, chance, random processes and other evolutionary fables, are looking into intelligently designing biomimetics applications for human use. The bee's brain has a guidance system that was designed by the Creator, not by evolution. That should be obvious. Landing safely is a difficult aspect of flight, because the rate of approach must be reduced to near zero at touchdown. This is hard enough on horizontal surfaces, but even more challenging as inclination increases, i.e. when landing on surfaces of different orientation. Yet honey bees ac

Thinking people may find this hard to believe, but there are scum-to-skeptic evolutionists who insist that Bible-believing scientists are not really scientists despite their credentials. (Reminds me of that bumper sticker I used to see here in the US, "If it ain't country, it ain't music!" In their case, "If it ain't naturalism, it ain't science!") Some of this is also related to the claim that creation science is a "science stopper" because creationists believe that "God did it", and do not investigate further. Not hardly! Creationists give God the glory, but don't stop, they want to know how God designed things to work. Ironically, "Evolution did it™" is the real science stopper. Coal, diamonds, fossils, other things were not tested for carbon-14 because they "knew" there was none in those items; they were too old. It was found in many things after reluctant testing. Scientists "knew" th

Imagine a spider that spent an hour building a web (usually at night), then seeing a clumsy bird blast on through it, ruining the work. Well, back to the drawing board. Except that it doesn't happen all that often. Why not? FreeImages.com / Aleš Čerin The special property that the spider puts into the web so that the bird can see it is being imitated (biomimetics) in special bird-safe glass, and considered for other applications. God gave critters special abilities, and he gave us intelligently-designed minds to observe and implement characteristics of his creation. Ironically, many people who are intelligently designing items based on what they see in nature believe that those creatures evolved by time, chance, mutations and random processes. Makes perfect sense. No, not really. Have you ever heard the thump of a confused bird hitting a window? Countless birds are killed each year when they fly directly into window glass. Sometimes they can’t see the glass panes that are

Have you ever been riding down Mexico way, maybe in the Chihuahua Desert, when a snake spooks your horse, it rears up, and you get thrown into a patch of bunny ears cactus? Me, neither. That cactus doesn't have the typical long pointy spines that you see in picture books, movies, and television. No, these bad boys are very fine, and come out in bunches at even a light touch. I reckon they hurt real bad, and people need first aid right quick. And yet, this cactus ( Opuntia microdasys ) has inspired biomimetics to help with oil spills. Opuntia microdasys / Wikimedia Commons /  Stan Shebs Scientists studied the special spines on this cactus and how they relate with water. This in turn may help recover spilled oil below the surface of the water. But where did these special spines come from? They are obviously designed for their purpose, just like the spines on other cacti. The following article discusses the technology of the biomimetics idea, as well as how evolution does not e

One of the more common critters of the sea is the urchin (or sea hedgehog, you can see a bit of a resemblance). Not only are they all over the place, but exist in a variety of sizes and colors. Their spines are partly for defense, but several predators consider them good eatin'. For that matter, some people like to chow down on them as well  (but you won't find them stashed in my saddle bags for a snack on the trail, nosiree). The urchins prefer algae and kelp for their own nutrition. Credit: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration / Department of Commerce Lots of people get injured on the sharp, pointy spines. Some of the spines even inject poison , so watch out. And I ain't kiddin', neither. While we're on the subject, sea urchin spines have been examined quite closely, and are found to be amazingly well designed by the Creator. No, the scientists give credit to evolution, even though they have no evidence of any kind of evolving going on. Ironic, t

Those stripes on the Oriental hornet are not there just to gussy it up so we an admire it — or avoid it. Hornets do have a reputation for stinging, as I recollect. No, the stripes were analyzed in detail, and it looks like they not only help it absorb solar energy, but they may also store and use it. Secular scientists are doing the typical thing by seeing the amazingly intricate the design and workings of the Oriental hornet, and instead of giving glory to the Creator, they bow in adoration to blind, purposeless evolution. Ironic, what they consider a product of evolution is also something worthy of biomimetics (copying nature for human purposes). They want to see if they can imitate it and get something useful for converting solar energy. Oh, boy. Looking for some “green” technology to cut your energy bills? Maybe you should check out the Oriental hornet. Unlike many other wasp species, the Oriental hornet (Vespa orientalis) becomes most active in the heat of the afternoon. In