Free Republic

A new Facebook meme paints two leading Republicans as anti-science because of their alleged views of the age of the Earth. The Facebook group Being Liberal posted a picture March 10, 2014, featuring side-by-side images of Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., looking somewhat sheepish. Bolded text under the images describes the senators’ views on the age of the Earth and the extinction of the dinosaurs. According to the meme, Rubio "believes Earth (is) 9,000 years old," and "humans hunted dinosaurs to extinction." Paul, the image proclaims, says the Earth is 10,000 years old and believes "God...

A tiny 4.4-billion-year-old crystal has been confirmed as the oldest fragment of Earth's crust. The zircon was found in sandstone in the Jack Hills region of Western Australia. Scientists dated the crystal by studying its uranium and lead atoms. The former decays into the latter very slowly over time and can be used like a clock. The finding has been reported in the journal Nature Geoscience. Its implication is that Earth had formed a solid crust much sooner after its formation 4.6 billion years ago than was previously thought, and very quickly following the great collision with a Mars-sized body...

After dabbling in creationism earlier this month, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., clarified that he does believe that scientists know the Earth is “at least 4.5 billion years old.” “There is no scientific debate on the age of the earth. I mean, it’s established pretty definitively, it’s at least 4.5 billion years old,” Rubio told Mike Allen of Politico. ”I was referring to a theological debate, which is a pretty healthy debate. “The theological debate is, how do you reconcile with what science has definitively established with what you may think your faith teaches,” Rubio continued. “Now for me, actually, when...

[If dinos walked with man, there should be dino DNA, however, there is not.] Claims of extreme survival of DNA have emphasized the need for reliable models of DNA degradation through time. By analysing mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from 158 radiocarbon-dated bones of the extinct New Zealand moa, we confirm empirically a long-hypothesized exponential decay relationship. The average DNA half-life within this geographically constrained fossil assemblage was estimated to be 521 years for a 242 bp mtDNA sequence, corresponding to a per nucleotide fragmentation rate (k) of 5.50 × 10–6 per year. With an effective burial temperature of 13.1°C, the rate...

<p>Maybe the 1992 movie Brendan Fraser film Encino Man wasn’t too far from the mark?</p> <p>Fossilized human feces and other evidence from a West Coast cave demonstrates the existence of a long-lost, 13,500-year-old American culture, scientists said Thursday.</p> <p>The fossilized feces, known to researchers as a coprolite, from the Paisley Caves in Oregon has turned assumptions about the history of the Americas on its ear.</p>

In this week's installment: 1. PhysOrg: “In Search of the Original Flapper[—]New Theory on Evolution of Flight” Can evolutionists rescue their own model of bird origins? 2. ScienceNOW: “Oldest Stone Blades Uncovered” Stone blades from more than 500,000 years ago: the work of an alleged human ancestor or someone playing Survivorman? 3. BBC News: “Jews Celebrate ‘Dawn of Creation’” People around the world celebrated a recent, literal creation this week. 4. The Local: “Creationists Taking on Evolution in Germany” In February we noted a Der Spiegel article on European creationists (which followed a Guardian article that covered British creationists). Now...

A group of physicists in Germany claims to have discovered a way of speeding up radioactive decay that could render nuclear waste harmless on timescales of just a few tens of years. Their proposed technique – which involves slashing the half-life of an alpha emitter by embedding it in a metal and cooling the metal to a few degrees kelvin – could therefore avoid the need to bury nuclear waste in deep repositories, a hugely expensive and politically difficult process. But other researchers are sceptical and believe that the technique contradicts well-established theory as well as experiment. The leader of...

Scientists have extracted intact bone marrow from the fossilized remains of 10-million-year-old frogs and salamanders. The finding, detailed in the August issue of the journal Geology, is the first case of fossilized bone marrow ever to be discovered and only the second report of fossilized soft tissue. In June of 2005, scientists announced they had found preserved red blood cells from a Tyrannosaurus rex leg bone. "It pushes back the boundary for how far [soft tissue] fossilization can go," said study leader Maria McNamara of University College Dublin in Ireland. Why it matters Preserved soft tissue could provide insight into...

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada author Clive Douglas Campbell and Phoenix, Arizona, USA publisher Selah Publishing Group are pleased to announce the release of Messiah: 2030. Nobody knows the day and hour of the Second Coming, but the following years are on the front cover: Messiah: 2030 Cluny: 1030 Jesus: 30 David: 970 Abraham: 1970 Noah: 2970 Adam: 3970 Messiah: 2030 claims the Bible prophesies a sixth Arab-Israeli war will be over in 2003 and include the following: --the Palestinians will be deported to Jordan --Israel will go to war with Jordan, possess Jordanian land east of the Jordan River and King...