Amazing Numbers of Stone Tools in Africa

Creationists believe that evolution is fundamentally flawed. I tend to agree with them on that, especially on the issue of how life began.

But here is an article that shows that stone agers must have had factories for the mass production of tools if they were to fit into the Young Age timeline.

From godandscience.org

Trillions of Stone Age Artifacts: A Young Earth Anthropology Paradox
by Naturalis Historia

Stone tools galore!

Young earth creationists say that the “Stone Age” in Africa lasted less than 500 years. However, a survey of the African landscape shows that there are 15 to 150 trillion stone tools, requiring hundreds of thousands of years (minimum) to produce. Did God plant all those tools to trick us into believing they had been produced over millennia?

Rich Deem, editor

Introduction

Trillions of stone artifacts cover the surface of the African continent. The product of the manufacturing of stone tools by hunters and gathers over long periods of time, these stone artifacts literally carpet the ground in some places in Egypt and Libya.

Just how much Stone-Age produced rock could be strewn across the African continent?

Imagine a volume of rockequivalent to 42-84 million Great Pyramids of Giza.

The “million” isn’t a typo. That number sounds absolutely fantastic, doesn’t it? Let’s take a look at how these numbers were derived.

PLoS Study

The results of a study just published (seereferencesbelow) shows how incredibly dense stone artifacts can be in some places in Africa. Working in a remote location in southern Libya, researchers took surveys from hundreds of one or two-meter square plots. From the tens of thousands of artifacts found in them, they estimateda minimum density of 250,000 stone artifacts per square kilometeris present in this portion of Libya.

And this only included what was visible on the surface.

Figure C of the supplemental material from ????? PLOSone
Figure C of the supplemental material from the paper by Foley RA, Lahr MM (2015) Lithic Landscapes: Early Human Impact from Stone Tool Production on the Central Saharan Environment. PLoS ONE 10(3): e0116482. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0116482. This shows the rocky landscape of southern Libya and the artifacts that are found in high abundance.

The researchers surveyed other published estimates of stone-tool densities in other areas of Africa. For example, some parts of the Nubian Desert average 12 million artifacts per square kilometer. They also calculate expected stone production given certain assumptions about population size and stone tool use over time. Overall, the researchers estimate that stone tool production across the entire continent of Africa has resulted in an average of 500,000 to 5,000,000 artifacts per square kilometer.

Africa is roughly 30 million square kilometers in area, so that would put the total number of stone artifacts between 15 and 150 trillion. Yes, that is trillion with a T—an astounding number.

The authors of this paper turn their estimate of stone production into a volumetric estimate and reach the following equally amazing conclusion:

“Taking the maximum figures, this yields … 2.1 x 10 14 cubic meters of rock. This is the equivalent of 84 million Great Pyramids of Giza… or 42 million taking into account the uneven hominid occupation suggested above. To extend the comparison further, it would be the equivalent of finding between 1.2 and 2.7 Great Pyramids per square kilometer throughout Africa.”Lithic Landscapes: Early Human Impact from Stone Tool Production on the Central Saharan Environment.

A few months ago I wrote (How Rare Are Stone Age Artifacts? A Visit to a Stone Tool-Making Factory in South America) about a dense stone artifact site in South Africa and stated that in just a few acres there had to be billions upon billions of artifacts. As well, in South America alone, there must be hundreds of billions of artifacts.

But this new analysis shows that my estimates were far too conservative.

 

Full article here

The Amazing Human Heart

The Human heart is an amazing organ. Heather Brinson writes about the engineering challenges you overcome every day just to survive.

To survive, we require a specialized pump that can deliver life-giving blood to all our body parts, day and night, year after year, without fail. To get the job done within the body of a living organism, the heart must overcome some incredible engineering challenges.

Our lives hang on a thread. A constant flow of rich blood must reach cells throughout the body, delivering oxygen and essential nutrients to our extremities, while removing waste products like carbon dioxide. Stop the flow for just a few minutes, and life will cease.

How did the Creator ensure a steady flow? He gave us a pump made of soft flesh, not of hard steel. Estimates vary, but this powerful muscle pushes blood through at least 1,500 miles (2500 km) of blood vessels, some as narrow as one red blood cell. The heart must keep beating 100,000 times a day without tiring or malfunctioning.

We are a walking miracle, exquisitely designed for life on Earth. Just consider three engineering challenges that our heart has to overcome.

Full story here

Lifesitenews: What Babies Do Before They Are Born

When we read in Psalm 139 “You knitted me together in my mother’s womb”, this is what it’s talking about. Awesome article from Lifesitenews

10 mind-blowing things that happen to babies before they’re born

Image

With today’s modern technology and medical information, we have a real-time window into the womb. What happens to babies before birth – all the ways they move, grow, and change – is nothing short of amazing.

Here are just 10 things that happen to babies before birth. These 10 things demonstrate their uniqueness, value, and of course, their humanity.

What’s more, each of these 10 things happen in the first trimester – when approximately 90% of abortions in the U.S. occur!

1) “On the first day following fertilization, the human embryo is identifiable as a specific individual human being on a molecular level.”

A South Dakota legislative task force, appointed to examine the science behind unborn life, found that “the new recombinant DNA technologies indisputably prove that the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a living human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine.”

2) A Baby’s Heart Begins to Beat at 21 Days.

Here is a video of the baby’s heart beating at four weeks and four days, just a little over a week after it began beating.

According to The Endowment for Human Development, “(b)etween fertilization and birth, the heart beats approximately 54 million times…”

3) At 2 to 3 Weeks, a Baby’s Brain is the “First Organ to Appear.”

4) A Baby May Feel Physical Pain as Early as His Fifth Week.

After examining scientific resources and hearing medical testimony, the South Dakota Task Force found that “(the necessary pieces) for pain detection in the spinal cord exists at very early developmental stages.” Babies have also been documented moving away from unwanted or painful touch in their first few weeks of in utero life.

5) A Baby’s Kidneys are Present at Only 5 Weeks.

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A depiction of an unborn baby at about 10 weeks gestation

In fact, by eight weeks old, all of the baby’s organs are in place and only need to be fully developed.

6) A Baby’s Brainwaves Can be Measured at 6 Weeks Old.

See the brainwaves for yourself here.

7) At 6 Weeks, a Baby Will Move Away if His Mouth is Touched.

The Endowment for Human Development has a video of a six-week-old baby responding to touch here.

8) A Baby’s Ear Can Begin to be Seen Around 6 Weeks.

9) A Baby Has Fingerprints at 9-10 Weeks.

These fingerprints will be the same throughout the baby’s life. His permanent identification is already developing. Watch a video and see an unborn baby’s fingerprints here.

10) A Baby Can Suck Her Thumb and Yawn at 9 1/2 Weeks Old.

According to The Endowment for Human Development, most babies prefer their right thumb. At this age, plenty is going on. A baby’s vocal cords are forming, her bones are hardening, and her toenails and fingernails are emerging. See a video of a ten-week-old baby yawning here.

For more on prenatal development, go here.

Editor’s Note: The information here has, in large part, been studied and documented by The Endowment for Human Development (“a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving health science education and public health” that has cooperated with National Geographic to put out a video about prenatal development) and The South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortion.

Double Coded DNA

There is just no way this could have happened by random mutation. DNA is one of the biggest, most explicit declarations by God, to all who will listen, that there is a creator.

From the ABC

Scientists discover second, secret DNA code

DNA

While we all know DNA instructs our cells how to make proteins, scientists have now discovered a second DNA code that suggests the body uses the same alphabet to speak two different languages.

The findings in the journal Science may have big implications for how medical experts use the genomes of patients to interpret and diagnose diseases, say researchers.

The newfound genetic code within deoxyribonucleic acid, the hereditary material that exists in nearly every cell of the body, was written right on top of the DNA code scientists had already cracked.

Rather than concerning itself with proteins, this one instructs the cells on how genes are controlled.

Its discovery means DNA changes, or mutations that come with age or in response to viruses, may be doing more than what scientists previously thought, say the researchers.

“For over 40 years we have assumed that DNA changes affecting the genetic code solely impact how proteins are made,” says lead author Dr John Stamatoyannopoulos, University of Washington associate professor of genome sciences and of medicine.

“Now we know that this basic assumption about reading the human genome missed half of the picture.”

“Many DNA changes that appear to alter protein sequences may actually cause disease by disrupting gene control programs or even both mechanisms simultaneously.”

Double meaning

Scientists already knew that the genetic code uses a 64-letter alphabet called codons.

But now researchers have figured out that some of these codons have two meanings.

Coined duons, these new elements of DNA language have one meaning related to protein sequence and another that is related to gene control.

The latter instructions “appear to stabilise certain beneficial features of proteins and how they are made,” say the researchers.

The discovery was made as part of the international collaboration of research groups known as the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements Project, or ENCODE.

It is funded by the US National Human Genome Research Institute with the goal of finding out where and how the directions for biological functions are stored in the human genome.