Stars, Cells, and God

Join Hugh Ross in this breaking News of the Day episode of Stars, Cells, and God. Hugh interviews fellow RTB astrophysicist Jeff Zweerink while Jeff is in Antarctica. Jeff is part of a research team that’s preparing to launch a balloon loaded with instruments that will either detect dark matter particles or impose more stringent constraints that will guide future efforts to find the universe’s elusive dark matter particles. The quest to find dark matter particles is considered the holy grail for astrophysicists, with a Nobel Prize in the waiting for the discovery team. Links and Resources: No Dark Matter Near the Sun—Oh Wait, We Found It Designed to the Core  

Join Jeff Zweerink in a conversation with authors Krista Bontrager and Monique Duson as they discuss their theological and philosophical journey toward understanding what the Bible says about racial harmony. How good and pleasant it is for brothers and sisters to dwell together in unity! Yet conversations between people who hold different views on the topic of race rarely bring unity. Join Jeff, Krista, and Monique as they provide a shining example of how seeking biblical truth can bring true unity even while exploring a divisive topic.

Will AI Ever Be Like Us? In this episode, biochemist Fuz Rana and philosopher Kristen Davis explore the question, Will AI ever be like us? One of the most important questions to emerge from advances in AI is the age-old, Who are we as human beings? Some people claim that when we achieve artificial general intelligence—the ability of machines to learn intellectual tasks that human beings can—AI systems will be persons, just like us. Others claim that when we achieve artificial superintelligence—the ability of machines to surpass human beings’ capabilities—AI systems will represent the next stage in evolutionary history. Are these viewpoints valid?

AI and the Genome In this episode, biochemist Fuz Rana describes recent insight from two investigators who make the case that genomes are generative AI systems. The architecture and operation of biochemical information is far more sophisticated and complex than previously recognized and points to purposeful design. Earth’s Past Temperature Two new studies on Earth’s past climate have provided important data for predicting Earth’s future climate, as well as exoplanet habitability. Oxygen-18 measurements from shale, iron oxide, carbonates, and chert show that Earth’s climate was warm from 2.0–0.5 billion years ago. Then a drop in global mean surface temperature (GMST) occurred 500 million years ago to a decline in atmospheric carbon dioxide. An integration of geological data with climate model simulations shows that GMSTs varied from 11–36°C over the past 485 million years, a much larger range than previous reconstructions. Temperature changes were especially dramatic at high latitudes. During the Phanerozoic, Earth spent more time in warm climate states than cold ones and atmospheric CO2 was the dominant control on climate. Throughout the past 2 billion years, atmospheric CO2 played the most important role in compensating for increasing solar luminosity. Links and Resources: Hot and Cold Earth Through Time A 485-Million-Year History of Earth’s Surface Temperature Oxygen Isotope Ensemble Reveals Earth’s Seawater, Temperature, and Carbon Cycle History The Genomic Code: The Genome Instantiates a Generative Model of the Organism