“I am a worm and not a man,” David writes in Psalm 22:6. But which worm did he have in mind?

In this episode of Stars, Cells, and God, Fazale “Fuz” Rana and Hugh Ross explore a discovery from a Judean Desert. Cave researchers discovered a wool fragment about two centimeters across, dyed with kermes—the scarlet dye the ancient world produced from a scale insect known as the crimson worm. The find provides physical evidence for a dye the Old Testament connects to the tabernacle, the priests’ garments, and rites of cleansing—long before David wrote his psalm.

Fuz and Hugh explain why biblical archaeology matters, how Psalm 22 foreshadows the crucifixion, why death and life are interwoven throughout creation, and how fulfilled prophecy points to the Bible’s reliability.

In this episode, they also discuss:

• How archaeologists identified a 3,800-year-old red dye
• What the Bible’s “scarlet worm” meant to ancient readers
• How Psalm 22 describes Jesus’s crucifixion in remarkable detail
• Why David’s word for “worm” matters
• How life through death runs through creation and the gospel

RESOURCES:

Read the paper discussed in the episode HERE

DIG DEEPER:

• 10 Prophecies of Jesus’s Birth in the Old Testament:
• Was Jesus a Real Person?
• Fulfilled Prophecy: Evidence for the Reliability of the Bible
• Spotlight on Fulfilled Prophecy
• Are Scientific Predictions Like Biblical Prophecy?

For a billion years, life on Earth survived without the one process it can no longer live without. The moment that changed might be the clearest evidence yet that we’re not here by accident.

In this episode, Hugh Ross and Fazale “Fuz” Rana explore a discovery published in Science Advances that raises a fascinating question: Was the emergence of biological nitrogen fixation simply the result of natural processes, or does its timing point to something more?

In this episode we discuss:

• The dramatic rise in the abundance and diversity of life
• The transition from prokaryotes to complex eukaryotic life
• The “hard steps” that had to occur for humanity to appear eventually
• Why nitrogen fixation represents such an extraordinary biological challenge for evolution
• Skeptical objections and alternative explanations
• What Psalm 104 reveals about God’s purposes in creation
• How Earth’s history reveals not only God’s power but also his profound care and love for humanity

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📄 The Science Advances paper discussed in this episode: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aec4450

🌐 Nitrogen Fixation Processes https://reasons.org/creation/earth/nitrogen-fixation-processes

Get Hugh & Fuz’s book Origins of Life HERE: https://support.reasons.org/purchase/origins-of-life

A small army of PhD scientists spent 17 years building a protein motor that limps 11 steps down a DNA strand. Your cells build billions of motors—perfectly, instantly, with no research budget. Coincidence, or design?

Astronomer Hugh Ross and biochemist Fazale “Fuz” Rana unpack a Nature Nanotechnology study from Lund University, where a synthetic protein “walking machine” called Tumbleweed was engineered from scratch to move along DNA. They break down how it works—and why it makes a compelling case for a Creator.

In this episode we discuss:

• How Tumbleweed was built, and why it needed a precisely timed chemical wash just to wobble 11 steps
• Why AI (AlphaFold) was needed to do what natural motors do flawlessly on their own
• Why this experiment weakens the “evolution cobbled it together” argument
• What it means to be made in God’s image, and why humans alone do science
• What this discovery means for the biblical case for a Creator
• The future of nanotech medicine

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📄 The paper discussed in this episode: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-026-02211-3

📖 The Cell’s Design: How Chemistry Reveals the Creator’s Artistry https://support.reasons.org/purchase/the-cells-design

📖 Creating Life in the Lab: How New Discoveries in Synthetic Biology Make a Case for the Creator https://support.reasons.org/purchase/creating-life-in-the-lab

The young Sun may have hurled 1,000 to 10 million times more energetic particles at early Earth than it does today. So how did life survive?

In this episode of Stars, Cells, and God, Hugh Ross and Fazale “Fuz” Rana examine two new studies and what they reveal about the Moon’s surprising role in protecting early life. They also explore why Earth’s Moon is so unusual, how its formation and timing appear to align with the presence of the earliest life, and why proposed naturalistic workarounds still seem to require design.

In this episode:

• How the young Sun’s wind compares with today’s
• What MAVEN is teaching us about Mars’s disappearing atmosphere
• How the Moon may have helped shield early Earth
• Why a stable tilt and steady seasons depend on the Moon
• Whether the universe is friendly or hostile to life
• Why naturalistic workarounds still require design
• Why Christians have nothing to fear from science
• What the Bible says about creation beyond Genesis

RESOURCES:

The papers discussed in this episode

• https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stag1238
• https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.00170

DIVE DEEPER:

Designed to the Core by Hugh Ross: https://support.reasons.org/category/featured-products/designed-to-the-core

Improbable Planet by Hugh Ross: https://a.co/d/0296qZMN

Join biochemist Fazale “Fuz” Rana and astrophysicist Hugh Ross as they discuss discoveries with theological and philosophical implications that point to the reality of God’s existence.

According to the evolutionary paradigm, there have been eleven times in Earth’s history when animals transitioned from water to land. Recent work by researchers in the UK and Spain indicates that these transitions involved similar genomic changes, providing another remarkable example of convergence. In this episode, Fuz describes this work and its implications for the RTB creation model.

Astronomers have identified many different “habitable zones” in space—places where conditions might allow life to exist. Now, they’ve found a new one: a chemical habitable zone. For life to exist, both nitrogen and phosphorus must be present in just-right amounts and forms. The availability of these elements depends on how much oxygen is involved during a rocky planet’s core formation. Earth falls within this zone. If a rocky planet is formed with less oxygen, it will lack the needed phosphorus for life. If it forms with too much oxygen, it will lack the needed nitrogen. Either way, life as we know it wouldn’t survive.

LINKS AND RESOURCES:

• Convergent Genome Evolution Shaped the Emergence of Terrestrial Animals
• The Chemical Habitability of Earth and Rocky Planets Prescribed by Core Formation
• Are Humans Alone in the Cosmos?

We’re taking a short hiatus in July and will return with more scientific discoveries and theological conversations on August 5.

Join astrophysicist Hugh Ross and astronomer David Block as they discuss discoveries with theological and philosophical implications that point to the reality of God’s existence.

Astrophysicist Hugh Ross interviews astronomer David Block, director of Reasons to Believe Africa, about eclipses and the upcoming total solar eclipse in Egypt. Hugh and David discuss why we are living at the one time in Earth’s history where we can learn the most about the physics of the universe by observing total solar eclipses. This is possible because total solar eclipses can last from just 1 second to as long as 7 minutes, 28 seconds. These remarkable conditions underscore a broader biblical theme: God's timing for creating Adam and Eve was the best possible for humanity.

LINKS AND RESOURCES:

• Faint Sun Paradox
• How Life-Friendly Are Other Terrestrial Planets?
• How the 1919 Total Solar Eclipse Proved Einstein Was Right
• What We Can Learn from Total Solar Eclipses
• God Is Wisdom

Join biochemist Fazale “Fuz” Rana and physicist Hugh Henry as they discuss discoveries with theological and philosophical implications that point to the reality of God’s existence.

In this episode, Fuz and Hugh discuss hypernaturalism, an intriguing concept that suggests God employs natural law from outside the visible universe to orchestrate creation and cause miracles, such as the parting of the Red Sea. They define hypernaturalism, explain how it differs from supernatural miracles (such as the virgin birth), and show how it helps unite nature and Scripture to point to the all-powerful Creator.

LINKS AND RESOURCES:

• Hypernaturalism: Integrating the Bible and Science

• Hypernaturalism and the Origin of Life

Join biochemist Fazale “Fuz” Rana and Ryan Pauly, founder and president of Think Well, as they discuss discoveries with theological and philosophical implications that point to the reality of God’s existence.

Artificial intelligence is transforming every area of human life. Whether we use it to help or harm, its very existence is shaping us physically, intellectually, spiritually, and relationally. Rather than avoiding technological advances or embracing them uncritically, Christians are called to approach them with biblical wisdom and faithful stewardship. That begins with stewarding the way we think and speak about AI, then applying biblical truth to develop a theology of technology. The central question is discerning how to engage AI in ways that honor God, reflect biblical truth, and promote genuine human flourishing.