Pop Science and Apologetics

A new study published in the journal Nature Microbiology found that humans have lost half of the gut bacteria (microbiota) that were present in our primate ancestors. The study, conducted by researchers at Cornell University, compared the gut microbiomes of chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest living relatives, with those of humans. The researchers found that humans were missing a significant number of bacterial groups that are present in chimpanzees and bonobos. The researchers believe that this loss of gut bacteria may be due to changes in human diet and lifestyle over the past few million years. Humans have evolved to eat a more diverse diet than our primate ancestors, which may have led to the loss of some bacterial groups that were specialized for digesting certain foods. Additionally, changes in human social behavior, such as the development of agriculture and cities, may have led to changes in the environment that our gut bacteria live in. The loss of gut bacteria ma...

Artist’s imagination of an assemblage of first primordial eukaryotic organisms of the ‘Protosterol Biota’ inhabiting a bacterial mat on the ocean floor.  Genesis 1:2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering (creating life)  over the surface of the waters. For a long time, scientists thought that complex life, or eukaryotic life, only appeared on Earth relatively recently. This was because there were few fossils of eukaryotic organisms found in rocks that were more than 800 million years old. However, a recent study has found evidence of a group of organisms called protosterols in rocks that are 1,640 million years old. Protosterols are the building blocks of sterols, which are found in the membranes of eukaryotic cells. This suggests that eukaryotic life may have existed much earlier than previously thought. The study also found that the number of protosterols in the rocks increased dramatica...