Science and Culture Today Discovering Design in Nature
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nitrogen

leaf senescence
Photo: Leaf senescence, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Superior Programming that Makes Plants Look Smart

Two signaling molecules — strigolactone and ethylene — can work independently to begin the process of leaf senescence. Read More ›
swimming bear
Photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar, via Flickr.

From Bears to Whales: A Difficult Transition

Critics laughed, and he removed it from later editions, but Charles Darwin privately continued to believe that whales evolved from a “race of bears.” Read More ›
supply chain
Photo credit: David Vives via Unsplash.

How the Earth Operates Supply Chains for Life

It’s no help having essential elements in the Earth’s crust if they can’t get to the organisms that need them. Read More ›
Hunga-Tonga blast
Photo: Hunga-Tonga blast from space, by NASA

Is There Enough Phosphorus for Us?

The element phosphorus, on which life heavily depends for its codes and metabolic processes, is a limiting factor for complex beings on habitable planets. Read More ›
Curiosity rover
Photo: Curiosity rover on Mars, by NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.

Rare Earth: How Vital Minerals “Evolve”

It's intriguing that life as we know it depends on a seemingly un-natural distribution of minerals. Read More ›
farmer Sri Lanka
Photo credit: Kannan Arunasalam, IWMI, via Flickr (cropped).

Stifling Food Production to “Save the Planet”

After Sri Lanka’s government restricted non-organic fertilizer use, the economy and government collapsed. Read More ›
phosfate mine
Photo: Phosfate mine, Republic of Nauru, by Lorrie Graham/AusAID, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

Miracle of Man: The Problem of Phosphorus

To complete the argument for prior fitness of the elements for our Privileged Species, we must deal with the availability of another essential element. Read More ›
microbe 1
Image source: "Secrets of the Cell," via Discovery Institute.

Wonderful Microbes Are the Planet’s Ecosystem Engineers

The few pathogens among bacteria give a bad rap to the majority that do wonderful things — for us and for our environment. Read More ›
Europa
Photo credit: NASA / Jet Propulsion Lab-Caltech / SETI Institute, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Why Scientists Think There Could Be Life on Europa

Jupiter’s moon Europa, somewhat smaller than Earth’s moon, may have surface water and organic chemicals, researchers say. Read More ›
Top_of_Atmosphere 2
Photo: Earth's atmosphere, via Wikimedia Commons.

Earth’s Atmosphere Demonstrates Stunning Biocentric Fine-Tuning

For photosynthesis to proceed on a planet like Earth, sunlight (visual light) must penetrate the atmosphere all the way to the ground. Read More ›

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