The first total solar eclipse in the contiguous United States since 1979 will sweep across the continent Aug. 21 and treat observers to one more example of the beauty God created on this special little planet. The eclipse will cut a 70-mile-wide path of totality, the region where the moon will completely block the sun.

A new study is reigniting the old debate about junk DNA and evolution.

For years, evolutionary scientists claimed most human DNA was a useless byproduct of the evolutionary process. And they used that theory to support their contention that there was no design or purpose to the universe.

A much-anticipated solar eclipse will sweep across the United States on Aug. 21, cutting a path of totality from Oregon to South Carolina. But more than just a fun fest for sky gazers, the coming eclipse will be an example of design in the universe.

Total solar eclipses occur because the sun, while 400 times bigger than the moon, is also 400 times farther away, making the apparent size of both in the sky approximately equal. Many modern astronomers view this perfectly orchestrated phenomenon as a remarkable “coincidence.”

It may be hard to imagine the pesky little vampires that like to ruin summertime fun as examples of God’s design, but it turns out mosquitoes are more complex than they appear.

Giant shape-shifting rangeomorphs with soft bodies like an animal but a branching structure like a fern sound like something out of the latest science fiction movie. But evolutionary scientists say they appeared suddenly and mysteriously in the earth’s oceans about 571 million years ago. “They show up in the fossil record with a bang, at very large size,” Jennifer Hoyal Cuthill of the University of Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences said in a statement.

The perfectly choreographed movement of thousands of starlings as they swoop and billow across the sky, almost like a single organism, is spectacular to see and a perfect example of well-planned design. Scientists have marveled for years at how the birds can twist and turn in perfect unison, without one single bird crashing into another.

Twenty thousand people each year in the United States suffer major burns, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Recovery from a severe burn is slow and painful, and often results in permanently scarred skin and disfigurement.