* CU's Fiske Planetarium's Show on Christ's Birth: The University of Colorado's planetarium presents annually a live program, The Astronomical Star of Bethlehem, by amateur astronomer Gil Buller. From the planetarium's website, "This exciting program examines the sky at the time of the birth of Christ to see which astronomical phenomenon may have been the Star of Bethlehem."

* Orbital Mechanics Help Identify the Star of Bethlehem: Using computer-generated images of the night sky in ancient Israel, this planetarium program does in great style what Bob Enyart's DVD does using more modest computer simulation software. Click to get Bob's classic DVD, The Planets, Stars, and The Bible. Gil Buller joins Bob Enyart in studio for this Christmas week's special episode of Real Science Friday.

* Resistant Strains Predate Antibiotics, Impact Can't Explain Dino Extinction,  Gold Sinks,  and Plants Protect Against Ultra Violet Rays: Real Science Friday co-hosts Fred Williams and Bob Enyart discuss great news stories from the winter 2012 edition of Creation magazine. The guys explain why plants evolving their sophisticated feedback system for ultra-violet protection is a logical impossibility.

* Post-Show Note: Help RSR Create a Dawkins Color Vision Challenge: Following in the lines of our PZ Myers Trochlea Challenge (for which PZ honestly answered, "I don't know"), Bob and Fred are constructing a similar challenge but for Richard Dawkins and regarding a different aspect of the alleged evolution of vision. The guys are hoping to get an artist to volunteer to sketch their challenge, and also, they're eager to get comments and constructive criticism on the challenge itself.

* Super-massive Black Holes, Cloning Mammoths, & a Challenge in the Works for Dawkins: Real Science Friday co-hosts Fred Williams and Bob Enyart discuss super-massive structures in the universe including walls, bubbles and filaments made up of galaxies which could not be formed even in the 14 billion years that atheists claim the universe has been around.

* Bob Quotes Source for AronRa on Millions of Mammoths: In Bob's AronRa debate, the atheist doubted Bob's account that there is evidence of at least a million mammoths that were buried high in the northern hemisphere. So as promised: 

"Nikolai Vereshchagin, Chairman of the Russian Academy of Science’s Committee for the Study of Mammoths, estimated that more than half a million tons of mammoth tusks were buried along a 600-mile stretch of the Arctic coast. Because the typical tusk weighs 100 pounds, this implies that about 5 million mammoths lived in this small region." Walt Brown referencing John Massey Stewart, “Frozen Mammoths from Siberia Bring the Ice Ages to Vivid Life,” Smithsonian, 1977, p. 68 [recent 7-foot tusk find]

"There is an estimate of 150 million mammoth remains in Russia's Siberian permafrost, which covers a vast sparsely inhabited area." Retrieved from Wikipedia on 12-9-2011 referencing a 2009 New York Times article.

* Fossils, Bacteria, & Life Based on Information: Real Science Friday co-hosts Fred Williams and Bob Enyart discuss whale fossils in Chile, jellyfish fossils in Minnesota and dinosaurs in Mongolia and how they were deposited by a water catastrophe.  Bacteria have amazing abilities to work together to find food.  Scientists invent the lightest material on earth. A listener asks Bob to explain more on how life is information based as opposed to carbon based as was discussed in the AronRa debate.

* Fossil Graveyards: A new find of whale fossils in Chile leads scientists to theorize that they may have been buried in their mass grave by an earthquake or a storm.  Is this a viable theory or is there an alternate theory of this mass burial?  Consider jellyfish fossils in Minnesota, dinosaurs in Mongolia, petrified forests and the evidence for a water catastrophe.

* Bacteria's Amazing Abilities: Professor Eshel Ben-Jacob of Tel Aviv University in his Microbes Mind Forum found that bacteria are amazingly efficient at finding the best path towards food,  work together to avoid harm and swarm together like fish.

* Life is Information Based: Is what you are reading on this page determined by the structure of the pixels and the electronics or is it the information imbedded within?  Just as the ink on a written page has no information to determine a design, carbon doesn't determine the design of life.  It is the information inherent in the genetic code which defines the life of an organism.

* Bob Enyart in Round Two with AronRa - Pt 4: Bob completes his discussion with one of the web's leading anti-creationists, AronRa.

* UPDATE: Bob Enyart and AronRa Began their Debate 1-31-12 on a UK Site: Check it out!

* Bob Enyart in Round Two with AronRa - Pt 3: Discussing YouTube videos #1 and #3 of the series titled, The Foundational Falsehoods of Creation, Bob continues his discussion with one of the web's leading anti-creationists, AronRa.

* Bob Enyart in Round Two with Aron Ra: Discussing YouTube videos #1 and #3 of the series titled, The Foundational Falsehoods of Creation, Bob continues his discussion with one of the web's leading anti-creationists, Aron Ra.

* See Also: Our RSR Aron Ra page and our six-round RSR written debate with Aron Ra.

* Millions of Mammoths Doubted by Aron: In today's show, Aron Ra doubted Bob's recollection that there is evidence of at least a million mammoths that were buried high in the northern hemisphere. So here is the documentation that Bob promised:

"Nikolai Vereshchagin, Chairman of the Russian Academy of Science’s Committee for the Study of Mammoths, estimated that more than half a million tons of mammoth tusks were buried along a 600-mile stretch of the Arctic coast. Because the typical tusk weighs 100 pounds, this implies that about 5 million mammoths lived in this small region." Walt Brown referencing John Massey Stewart, “Frozen Mammoths from Siberia Bring the Ice Ages to Vivid Life,” Smithsonian, 1977, p. 68 [A recent 150-pound, 7-foot tusk was found 110 miles north of the Arctic Circle where, today, for five months of the year the high temperature is lower than freezing, and for six months of the year the low is less than 0 degrees F, but during the ice age would have been even much colder!]

"There is an estimate of 150 million mammoth remains in Russia's Siberian permafrost, which covers a vast sparsely inhabited area." Retrieved from Wikipedia on 12-9-2011 referencing a 2008 New York Times article

[Update: Within 24 hours of posting this source, a Wikipedia editor removed that reference (as happens, as with our KGOV.com/math show), so here's the original 2008 NY Times article, Trade in mammoth ivory... flourishes.]

* Bob Enyart and Fred Williams Analyze the AronRa Interview: Real Science Radio co-host Fred Williams talks to Bob Enyart about the series of RSR programs with atheist and evolutionist AronRa.

Today's Resource: Check out this stunning DVD, Living Fossils by Dr. Carl Werner. You'll LOVE IT! You owe it to yourself, and your loved ones, to watch this DVD! Whether a shark, leaf, or crab, living fossils are a challenge for evolutionary theorists and create a fascinating debate among scholars. Do they indicate a younger earth than thought, placing the millions of years timeline of evolution in question? Or do they represent a deep mystery? And if you enjoy the science you hear about on our RSR radio shows, you'll really love all the books, audio, and DVD science materials in our online store's Science Department or just call us at 1-800-8Enyart (836-9278).

* Bob Enyart's Round Two Interviews with AronRa: On the Foundational Falsehood videos, specifically #1 and #3, Bob begins a new round of programs with one of the web's leading anti-creationists, AronRa.

* Bob Enyart Interviews AronRa: Continuing with AronRa's Foundational Falsehood videos, Bob talks to one of the web's leading anti-creationists. In today's program, AronRa denies the existence of dinosaur soft tissue, and he rejects Bob's argument that a lack of evidence would not prove the negative, as in today's discussion regarding whether or not the universe has a center.

* See our List of Soft Tissue Deniers: at rsr.org/science-deniers. 

* AronRa Unaware of Widespread and Confirmed Dinosaur Tissue Finds: Evolutionists should be excited and up-to-date about what may be among the top biological discoveries of the 21st century: the widespread finds and confirmation of original dinosaur soft tissue! Instead, as is common, even with leading evolutionists (like PZ Myers who said the same when recently addressing our RSR Trochlea Challenge), they tend to be unread and out-of-date on the topic, and therefore claim that the many finds are some kind of contamination like "biofilm," which would be a more recently-formed bacterial residue. Here's the exchange, as transcribed from this 1.5 minute segment (starting 27 minutes into today's program):

Bob Enyart: The soft-tissue that we find, the Tyrannosaurus Rex that we've got original biological material [from, and] then they found it in a Mosasaur that's [allegedly] 80 million years old. Then they found it in...
AronRa: You don't have original biological material.
Bob Enyart: Yes you do.
AronRa: No you don't. I've read Schweitzer's paper [Mary S., Jack Horner, etc. [Proc. Bio. Sci. 2007]. I suggest you review it.
Bob Enyart: Well you need to read the last five years worth of refereed scientific journals including from everywhere... in Nature, Science, PLoS -- Public Library of Science, [Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, etc.]
AronRa: [dismissive laughter]
Bob Enyart: Ten universities [and institutes] just published a report, in the U.S. and [Europe], leading universities, I can list them for you, saying we have absolutely ruled out contamination. This is not biofilm. This is original...
AronRa: Are you going to argue that you have blood cells? ... I'm not even going to argue this for the moment. I've covered this in my series.
Bob Enyart: It's out-of-date. Because there are now dozens of institutions [acknowledging the studies]. They're finding biological tissue, dinosaur tissue.