Life Sciences Commons^™

How Dna Reveals God’S Design, Alan L. Gillen

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Codes are big in today’s world: QR codes, barcodes, computer codes, cell phone codes, and more. Specific information is needed to identify, diagnose, and inform. DNA is the code for life: microbes, plants, parasites, animals, and man. DNA Day is April 25 because it was this day in history (April 25, 1953) when James Watson and Francis Crick described DNA as the double helix and the code for life. Although we consider DNA the genetic blueprint for life, it has only been known for 80 years. On February 1, 1944, Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty wrote a revolutionary …

Celebrating Leeuwenhoek’S Life 300 Years Later, Alan L. Gillen

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Antony van Leeuwenhoek entered eternity 300 years ago (August 26, 1723). He made hundreds of discoveries with his simple microscope. Perhaps his most notable discovery was of bacteria and its many shapes. He found great joy in God [http://answersingenesis.org/god/] ’s smallest creatures. I believe that his curiosity about the world, fueled by his belief in biblical creation [http://answersingenesis.org/creation/] , led to his discovery of bacteria. In a similar manner, his curiosity of blood led to his discovery of red corpuscles and capillaries. He remained a curious man until the last days of his life 300 years …

The Return Of Malaria To The Usa: Did God Create Parasites To Make Us Sick?, Alan L. Gillen

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Summer 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported several cases of locally acquired malaria in Florida, Texas, and Maryland, meaning that patients were infected within the US—the first such cases in over two decades (CDC 2023). The significance of the cases and how individuals and public health officials should respond to the situation is still unknown. The CDC is collaborating with state health departments on an investigation of seven locally acquired cases of Plasmodium vivax malaria in Sarasota County, Florida, and one case in Cameron County, Texas, and Maryland near Washington DC. There is no evidence to suggest …

Molecular And Morphological Analyses Confirm That All Loons (Aves: Gaviiformes) Form A Single Holobaramin, Timothy R. Brophy, Mary-Clark A. Matthews, Mckayla M. Guillory, Alexis M. Ramerth

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Loons or divers (Aves: Gaviiformes), a group of waterbirds found primarily in the Northern Hemisphere, are comprised of several extinct taxa as well as an extant family (Gaviidae) with one genus (Gavia) and five species. Recent phylogenetic studies suggest that the Sphenisciformes (penguins) and Procellariiformes (petrels, albatrosses, and shearwaters) form a sister group to the loons. Our previous research, based on hybridization, morphological, and vocalization data, found that all extant loons form a single holobaramin (i.e., created kind). This previous study, however, was inconclusive as to the membership of fossil taxa within the kind. The goal of the present study …

Hybridization And Genetic Distances Suggest One Large Monobaramin In The Gourd Family (Cucurbitales: Cucurbitaceae), Timothy R. Brophy, Jack R. Gregory, Brigitte Townsend

Faculty Publications and Presentations

The gourds form a primarily tropical and subtropical family (Cucurbitales: Cucurbitaceae) of herbaceous climbers and woody lianas composed of approximately 960 species in 95 genera and 15 tribes. Many of these are globally important food crops and ornamentals including cucumbers, gourds, squashes, melons, pumpkins, and luffas. Utilizing published literature, there is evidence of interspecific hybridization (natural, experimental cross-pollination, and embryo/ovule culture) in five of the 15 tribes. These consist of successful crosses between 131 unique species pairs, including two intergeneric and one intertribal cross, forming eight monobaramins. In addition, species that do not hybridize directly, but hybridize with the same …

A New Spin On The Bacterial Flagellum: Its Normal Niche And Displacement, Alan L. Gillen

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Antoni van Leeuwenhoek observed individual living cells for the first time in history in 1674. Two years later, he noted microbes with long, thin appendages protruding from globular cells that seemed to provide locomotion, like “little feet” as they moved in drops of water. He gave credit to God in his writings over these new moving wonders. These appendages are now known as flagella (fig. 1), meaning “little whips” (from Latin).

More than 300 years later, Dr. Michael J. Behe used the flagellum and its nanomotor to introduce the concept of “irreducible complexity”—the idea that a structure is so complex …

Assessing The Effects Of Elevation On The Peaks Of Otter Salamander (Plethodon Hubrichti) Using Body Condition Index, Norman Reichenbach, Timothy R. Brophy, Hannah Suber, Elisabeth Russell, Hannah Kinsley, Liam Cusack, Cetia Dawson, Savannah Dunn, Olivia De Araujo

Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Peaks of Otter Salamander (Plethodon hubrichti; POS) is a montane species found at elevations above 442 m within a 117 km2 area of the Blue Ridge Mountains in central Virginia. In allopatric areas (areas without the Eastern Red-backed Salamander, P. cinereus, a known competitor), POS body condition was hypothesized to decline both above and below some optimal elevation. Decreased condition at lower elevations would most likely be due to increased temperatures and lower relative humidities, which may adversely affect the ability of salamanders to forage effectively on vegetation due to desiccation risk. Decreased condition at elevations above …

Why Are There So Many Mosquitoes?, Alan L. Gillen, Savannah Childs, Megan Goin, Karly Mckinney

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Mosquitoes have been challenging man and animals alike since the fall.Mosquitoes number in the trillions worldwide. Not only is the mosquito a nuisance with the constant buzz around your ear, they also are the primary vector of many dangerous diseases including the West Nile Virus (WNV). WNV has become a more prominent mosquito-transmitted disease in the United States and more specifically in Colorado, Texas, and other states in the Midwest. While commonly found in the genus Culex, WNV and other diseases can be found in differentgenera of mosquito, including Aedes and Anopheles. While these two are not themost common regarding …

The Directed Steps Of Hans Christian Gram: How Providence Played A Role In The Gram Stain, Which Illumines The Ordered Pattern Of Bacterial Cell Walls And Helps Identify Pathogens Of Infectious Diseases, Alan L. Gillen

Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper honors Hans Christian Joachim Gram. In published papers, he simply identified as Christian Gram. Gram devised a staining technique that is still used to identify and classify different types of bacteria. He was a Danish microbiologist, born in Copenhagen on September 13, 1853. In German microbiologist Karl Friedländer’s lab, Gram noticed that staining a smear of pneumonia bacteria with a crystal violet followed by iodine and organic solvent showed differences in various samples. “Gram-negative” bacteria have thin cell walls that allow the solvent to wash away part of the stain. “Gram-positive” bacteria appear purple in microscopy because their …

A Baraminological Analysis Of The Loons (Gaviiformes: Gaviidae) Reveals Their Holobaraminic Status, Timothy R. Brophy, Mary-Clark Matthews, Alexis Ramerth, Mckayla Guillory

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

New Baraminological Methods Confirm Monobaraminic Status Of The Horses (Perissodactyla: Equidae) And Preliminary Analyses Of New Datasets Suggest The Possibility Of Discontinuity Between Horses And Various Outgroup Taxa, Timothy R. Brophy, Jack Gregory, Mary-Elizabeth Tallman, Kara Ray

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Population Ecology Of The Queensnake (Regina Septemvittata) In An Urban Creek, 2008 To 2019, Rachel Beiler, R. Elliot Miller, Norman Reichenbach

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Habitat fragmentation is a common result of urbanization and species living in these fragments are at risk of extirpation. We conducted a 12-y (2008–2019) capture-mark-recapture study on snakes living in a 593-m section of Rock Castle Creek flowing through an urban area in central Virginia, USA. Our study site was occupied primarily by Queensnakes (Regina septemvittata). We used data from 168 individual Queensnakes to examine several aspects of their population ecology including survival rates (0.52), reproductive effort (21.3% juvenile to adult ratio), growth rates (68% and 30.6% increase for 1 to 2 y-old and 2 to 3+ y-old snakes, respectively), …

The Origin Of Ticks And The Genesis And Emergence Of Lyme Disease, Alan L. Gillen, Matthew Eakin

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Ticks are notorious for their capability of transmitting diseases that have debilitated humanity for thousands of years. They can confer lifelong chronic ailments via pathogenic bacterial species that they harbor inside themselves. These parasitic tick species, namely the Ixodes scapularis tick is responsible for hundreds of thousands of Lyme disease infections each year. This profound tick continues to produce the highest rate of zoonotic disease in the United States each year. Many may ask why these tick species are so infectious when ticks were originally designed by a benevolent God. Why would a good Creator choose to design a creature …

Why New Diseases Keep Popping Up, Alan L. Gillen, Jason Conrad

Faculty Publications and Presentations

New and reemerging diseases are terrifying and concerning problems. Not only do they carry a financial and emotional toll, but they account for significant numbers of death. Emerging diseases are usually zoonotic and highly virulent in nature. These are pathogenic and parasitic diseases of high consequence and impact. Why would a good Creator allow these new diseases? Why do new diseases keep popping up? Mutation and displacement of original types of microbes account for many new diseases; however, the answer is more complex than just these two factors. Zoonoses are the most common type of infection, specifically from viral pathogens, …

A Baraminological Analysis Of The Landfowl (Aves: Galliformes), Timothy R. Brophy

Faculty Publications and Presentations

We performed a baraminological analysis on 60 extant landfowl taxa (Aves: Galliformes) using 102 morphological characters. Both baraminic distance correlation analysis and multidimensional scaling suggest the possibility of four holobaramins within the landfowl order: Megapodiidae, Cracidae, Numididae, and the remaining Phasianoidea. Hybridization, however, connects three of these holobaramins (six of the currently recognized families). Considering both sets of evidence, we conclude that the landfowl are composed of two holobaramins: Megapodiidae and [Phasianoidea + Cracidae]. The five currently recognized families in the superfamily Phasianoidea have, until recently, been considered subfamilies in a more broadly conceived family Phasianidae, so it should not …

Results Of Bdistmds And Barclay Are Generally Similar And Confirm Baraminological Conclusions For The Landfowl, Timothy R. Brophy

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Wood (2020a, b) recently introduced BARCLAY, a statistical baraminology web application designed to revise and replace BDISTMDS (Wood 2008). Revisions included use of Jaccard distances in addition to classical “baraminic distances,” replacement of parametric Pearson correlations with the nonparametric Spearman, and addition of medoid partitioning (PAM) and fuzzy analysis (FANNY) clustering techniques (Kaufman and Rousseeuw 1990). A BDISTMDS analysis of the landfowl (Aves: Gallifomes) suggested the possibility of four holobaramins within this order (Brophy and Mullis in press). Hybridization, however, connected three of these holobaramins and the authors ultimately concluded that the landfowl were composed of only two holobaramins (Megapodiidae …

The Genesis Of Sars-Cov-2 Virus And The Origin Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Alan L. Gillen

Faculty Publications and Presentations

The current outbreak of the 2019 novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2, fig. 1), causing a respiratory-tract illness, first started in Wuhan, China, and has been escalating worldwide. The official disease name became known as COVID-19 in mid-spring 2020. It shares some characteristics of the SARS virus of 2002–3. Early on, with many cases in Wuhan, China, it was reported that the outbreak had some association with animal markets, which indicated that there was animal-to-person transmission. Like SARS-CoV-1, the suspected animal source of the virus is bats. We have not seen this virus before, and our bodies were not ready for this, nor …

Wise Blood: Antibodies, The Principle Of Overcoming In Disease (Part 2), Alan L. Gillen, Keoprommony Huy

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Wise Blood: The Principle Of Overcoming In Disease And Immunity (Part 1), Alan L. Gillen, Keoprommony Huy

Faculty Publications and Presentations

The immune system is an intelligently made system designed for interaction with microbes even in a perfect world; it is more than a defense. However, in a post-fall world, it is primarily a body’s defense system. Battle imagery is appropriate for describing the interaction with pathogens and parasites. A person’s blood becomes more potent over time as that person prevails and overcomes pathogens and parasites with its newly formed antibodies in high numbers. Antibodies have the secret locked away to defeat the germ that has invaded. The second infection usually has minimal harm; hence, the “wise” blood is more likely …

Range Limitation Of The Peaks Of Otter Salamander (Plethodon Hubrichti) Due To Competition With The Eastern Red-Backed Salamander (Plethodon Cinereus) In Sympatry, Timothy R. Brophy, Norman G. Reichenbach

Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Peaks of Otter salamander, Plethodon hubrichti, is a montane species found at altitudes above 442 m within a 117 km2 area of the Blue Ridge Mountains in central Virginia, USA. In areas where this species is sympatric with the eastern red-backed salamander (Plethodon cinereus) it seemed likely that P. hubrichti populations were either depressed or eliminated. The habitability of areas beyond the current range boundaries for P. hubrichti is supported by several disjunct populations in areas sympatric with P. cinereus. From 2009 to 2012 we tested whether P. hubrichti was negatively impacted by competition with P. cinereus by removing …

Ohio Conservation Plan, Revised 2019, For The Plains Gartersnake, Thamnophis Radix, Norman Reichenbach

Faculty Publications and Presentations

This plan outlines strategies and methods used in an ongoing study initiated in 1999 to restore a self- sustaining population of the Plains Gartersnake (Thamnophis radix) in Ohio. Restoring a self-sustaining population would require increases in the current population to where the ratios of T. radix to T. sirtalis are from 1:1 to 1:12.2 in multiple locations in Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area (KPWA). This range of ratios would be similar to what was seen between 1978-80 by Reichenbach and Dalrymple (1986) at one site in KPWA and then more recently (2002 to 2009) by Wynn and Reichenbach (2018) at two …

Life Is In The Blood, Alan L. Gillen, Jason Conrad

Faculty Publications and Presentations

It takes about 60 seconds for all the blood in your body to complete its journey. It travels from your heart to your extremities and returns, there and back again. Blood moves with the rapid current of the great arterial rivers and through the smallest capillary creeks. William Harvey first noticed circulation (1628) through the heart into arteries and veins; however, he could not see how they connected since he did not have a microscope. The man who first described this was Anton van Leeuwenhoek about 46 years later (1674). Then, J. J. Lister and Thomas Hodgkin described the rouleaux …

The Genesis Of The “Brain-Eating” Amoeba, Alan L. Gillen, Jonathan Augusta, Kurt Schneckenburger

Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Creator made all creatures, including amoebas, with variation and plasticity in their genome for global differences of climate, terrain, and environment. God made all creatures to multiply and fill the earth. Diversification and speciation from the original kind would be normal even in a perfect world. Naegleria fowleri is a global amoeba pathogen that is the causative agent of primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), thus termed “brain-eating.” Many people are evidently exposed, based upon antibody levels, to this amoeba while swimming in warm waters. Only a small percentage succumb to the germ, but once invasion happens, only about 1% survive. …

Distribution, Hybridization, And Taxonomic Status Of Two-Lined Salamanders (Eurycea Bislineata Complex) In Virginia And West Virginia, Paul W. Sattler, Timothy R. Brophy

Faculty Publications and Presentations

We used three diagnostic protein markers to examine salamanders of the Eurycea bislineata complex at 80 localities in Virginia and West Virginia. Two groups were strongly differentiated and met at a narrow contact zone. Rare hybridization was observed as well as limited introgression up to 5 km north and 10 km south of the contact zone. At the contact zone, 1% F1, 2% F2, 32% backcross, and 66% parental genotypes were observed. This pattern of parapatric distribution with limited hybridization and introgression argues for the recognition of Eurycea bislineata and E. cirrigera as separate species.

The Coliform Kind: E. Coli And Its “Cousins” The Good, The Bad, And The Deadly, Alan L. Gillen, Matthew Augusta

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Even though some intestinal bacteria strains are pathogenic and even deadly, most coliforms strains still show evidence of being one of God’s “very good” creations. In fact, bacteria serve an intrinsic role in the colon of the human body. These bacteria aid in the early development of the immune system and stimulate up to 80% of immune cells in adults. In addition, digestive enzymes, Vitamins K and B12, are produced byEscherichia coli and other coliforms. E. coli is the best-known bacteria that is classified as coliforms. The term “coliform” name was historically attributed due to the “Bacillus coli …

Serratia Marcescens, The “Flame” Strain: The Genesis Of A New Variant A Newly Described Strain With Prolific Pigment Produced At High Temperature, Alan L. Gillen, Mandy Morgante, Matthew Augusta, Ryan Mackay

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Serratia marcescens, a Gram-negative, rod-shaped, facultative anaerobe (Fig. 1), is ubiquitous in water, soil, and natural settings. It is easily grown in the lab and may serve as an ideal model for adaptation studies because of the natural color variation of S. marcescens (Gillen 2008). In this paper, we describe a new variant with prolific pigment (prodigiosin) production at high temperatures. In the wild and in buildings, S. marcescens is noted for the production of a bright red pigment called prodigiosin (Williams 1973). We have found a new strain that appears to have adapted to a relatively new pond …

Peaks Of Otter Salamander (Plethodon Hubrichti) Condition Declines Along An Elevational Gradient, Olivia De Araujo, Jesse Hughes, Josh Twiddy, Liam Cusack, Cass Rupert, Timothy R. Brophy, Paul W. Sattler, Norman Reichenbach

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

The Design Of Giardia And The Genesis Of Giardiasis, Alan L. Gillen, Frank Sherwin

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Giardia is a genus of protozoa discovered in 1681. Six morphologically distinct species are recognized. It mainly attaches in the upper GI tract of a wide variety of vertebrates (including zebrafish), often with beaver and muskrat as reservoirs/carriers but exhibiting minimal—if any—disease in some animals. Giardia is usually non-pathogenic in the human population, even in children if exposed early in life. Although Giardia can be pathogenic, some strains colonize the gut with no malady. This parasite is not invasive and only serious infections depress the small intestine. Giardia are pear-shaped, have an adhesive disc for attaching to enterocyte cells in …

Staph Bacteria From First Breath The Interweaving Of The Nasal Microbiome With The Intricate And Complex Nose, Alan L. Gillen

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Many microbes live in a mutualistic relationship with the human body, make up the human microbiome, and play a role in our health by stimulating and modulating the immune system. Man’s body is “covered” both inside and outside with millions of microbes that play a role in maintaining normal bodily functions and sustaining life in our changing world. The inner nose in the human body is colonized by millions of microbes during the first week of life. This internal colonization of the upper respiratory system is termed our nasal microbiome. Though we cannot see it, this microbiome is important for …

Natural History Of The Peaks Of Otter Salamander (Plethodon Hubrichti) Along An Elevational Gradient, Timothy Brophy, Norman Reichenbach

Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Peaks of Otter salamander, Plethodon hubrichti, is a montane species found at elevations above 442 m within a 117 km2 area of the Blue Ridge Mountains in central Virginia, USA. In areas of this species’ range where the Eastern Red-backed salamander Plethodon cinereus, a potential competitor, is absent, surface-active salamander density was hypothesised to decrease at lower elevations due to increased temperatures and lower humidities, which may adversely affect salamander reproductive output and survival rates. Eggs/female, % gravid females, surface-active salamander density, temperature and relative humidity were recorded from nine sites ranging in elevation from 488 to 1143 m. …