How did life begin? For those who reject the testimony of Genesis, the search is restricted to clues in nature.

One such clue is the minimum essentials required for growth and reproduction. If that number is small enough, then life might conceivably have formed by chance.

Astronomers have found "the supernova of a generation," according to University of California's Joshua Bloom.¹ Sequential photographs show the star rapidly increasing in brightness as the supernova progresses. If standard models are correct, it should soon produce a vast cloud or nebula surrounding a small, dense neutron star.

Viruses have a bad reputation. They are ultra-tiny, well-designed machines that copy themselves in a process that sometimes causes disease in the organisms in which they reside. One class called retroviruses is equipped with machinery that splices its own viral code into the DNA of a host cell.

IBM researchers are working on a new computing device that could process massive data sets while using very little energy. It would also be able to quickly learn and remember patterns, which might make it able to "issue tsunami warnings in case of an earthquake" or calculate the likelihood of contaminated produce on grocers' shelves.¹

According to the Bible, God introduced different human languages at Babel about 4,000 years ago.¹ This brought about a dispersal and migration of the people assembled there, in accord with His original command to fill the earth.² In contrast, evolutionary linguists believe that all languages developed over the last 12,000 years.