I have noted, in other posts, my belief that because God is a Communicator, it seems logical to me that He would design all of His creation with the ability to communicate. There is a beetle whose system of communication amazes me.
While the call of the cicada sounds like raucous chaos to us, researchers have only just learned that these amazing creatures have a complicated system of communication. Cicada beetles live underground for 13 to 17 years before emerging to live a few brief weeks to sing and mate before they die.
Immature cicadas feed off the fluids flowing through tree roots. One acre of ground can have as many as 400 pounds of immature cicadas beneath its surface. Once out of the ground, cicadas molt into their final adult form and, after a few days, are ready to begin mating. At this point, they have only four to six weeks to mate before they die. Males begin their call to find a suitable female. The male's rasping call ends by slurring into a lower pitch. Then he listens.
If a female is interested, she will make a click with her wings. The male responds and after several successful conversations, the male changes his style. If the female responds to this change with more clicks, the female will allow him to mate.
Eggs are laid in the twigs. After they hatch, the hatchlings fall to the ground and begin burrowing to start the life cycle again. While the racket made by cicadas sounds like random noise to us, it is a complex communication system that follows set rules. Complex systems of communication can only be the product of an intelligent Designer, the very Creator God Who is revealed in the Bible.
Did you know your body and its systems are engineering wonders?The human brain is the most complex arrangement of matter in the universe. Now, research shows that your brain is even more wonderfully made than anyone thought.
It used to be believed that the brain cells you were born with were all the brain cells you would ever have. Then, research showed that canaries grow new brain cells to learn new songs.
Later research showed that the human hippocampus grows new cells. That's the part of your brain where you form memories and remember new faces.
Research now shows that your cerebral cortex also gets new cells every day. That's the part of your brain where you do higher intellectual functions and where your personality lies.
The study, which used macaque monkeys, concluded that literally thousands of new brain cells are added to your cerebral cortex every day. Scientists concluded that this also happens in humans because monkeys' bodies usually work pretty much the same as human bodies. Scientists hope that this finding may help develop new treatments for degenerative brain diseases and to replace cells that are lost with age.
God has given us wonderful bodies that have amazing abilities, many of which we are still learning about. There is not enough good luck in the universe to enable blind evolutionary chance to create our bodies, much less our brains. Our very existence bears witness to God's wisdom and power. Reference: Star Tribune
(Israel)—The Jerusalem Post reports that a new medicine in development in Europe and the U.S., called Olaparib, is expected to make chemotherapy "irrelevant" in treating breast and ovarian cancers. (Photo by: Eli Dadon, edited)
The study was undertaken in 16 centers in Australia, Germany, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the US, and included women aged 18 years or more who suffered from recurrent, advanced breast cancer and had been given a few previous chemotherapy regimens.
There were a few adverse side effects in trials in those taking higher doses. They included fatigue, nausea, vomiting and anemia. The report notes that more clinical trials are necessary before Olaparib may be used in practice, but that the recent studies give new hope for the future. Oh, God, let it be so!
It's funny how honest science seems to eventually come around to confirming or agreeing with things written in the Bible. A recent revelation by researchers at Sheffield and Warwick universities in England was no exception, as it answers the age-old question; "which came first, the chicken or the egg?"
Of course, Believers in God's creation of the heavens, earth and everything in them would say, "Duh! The chicken!" But, scientists needed to study it anyway, and now they've come to the same conclusion.
According to a Sun article, the researchers discovered that the "formation of eggs is possible only thanks to a protein found in chicken's ovaries. That means eggs have to be formed in chickens first."
And, there you have it. God created the chicken first; the chicken laid an egg.
He added, "The protein had been identified before and it was linked to egg formation, but by examining it closely we have been able to see how it controls the process."
CREATION, DAY 5: "And God said, 'Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.' So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, 'Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.'" –Gen.1:20-22
How many hairs on are your head today? What? You don't know?
In showing how the Creator is intimately involved with His creation, Jesus said that the very hairs of each of our heads are numbered by Him. No detail is too small to escape His attention; no change misses His careful and loving eye.
The hair that you see is nothing more than dead protein produced by the cells of the hair follicle anchored inside the layers of the skin. The total number of hair follicles in an adult is about 5 million, with only about 100,000 on the scalp. Each hair grows out of one follicle for about three to five years. Then the hair is shed and the follicle rests for about three months before starting to grow hair again.
So you see, even once you know how many hairs are on your head, it’s no easy job to keep track of their changing number. The average scalp hair grows about one inch every two or three months. This means that each day your head is growing the equivalent of one 100-foot long hair – that’s nearly seven miles per year!
Yes, it’s true; the Creator cares so much about you that He knows from moment to moment how many hairs are on your head. He has not created our world and then left us to drift through space and life all alone. He has even expressed His love and purpose for you in the words of the Bible. Take a look today at what Scripture says about His Son, who loved you so much that He even gave His life for you!
I confess that I cannot understand how God can keep track of all the details of the creation as His Word says He does. But He is God and I am only human. I pray He doesn't let my weakness limit or weaken my faith in His day-to-day involvement in my life.
There are 79 medical schools in the United States that have courses on prayer and healing. Why? The answer is the scientific studies!
There are those who cannot believe there is any power in prayer. Why would they if they do not believe there is Someone Powerful, with the ability to answer prayer? They say, "Oh, those Christians can believe anything they want, I want proof!"
You can't prove God in a test tube. But there are some fascinating scientific studies that have been done recently on prayer that give me more evidence to believe than to disbelieve.
Now it doesn't take away the need for faith. But the evidence is definitely on the side of faith and not on the side of doubt. And intelligence has nothing to do with it. It is God's Intelligence I am addressing.
Compared to today's 79 Medical schools that have courses on prayer, in the 1980s there were only three. And the reason for that is this: The scientific studies. Two hundred scientific studies have been done on intercessory prayer. Some of them have been called double blind studies.
A double-blind study is one in which the people praying are praying for specific people, but neither the doctors nor the nurses nor the people being prayed for know that they're being prayed for. In other words, if a person is being prayed for, the argument would be that he will send out positive chemical endorphins in his mind and with positive thinking will heal himself. If that were true, there would be no divine activity.
Some believe it Ãs simply psychosomatic. He knows he is being prayed for and so it helps. Interestingly, there are physicians who are atheists that say to their patients,"You go pray." Not because they believe in prayer or because they believe in God, but because they believe that if you pray, you release these positive chemical endorphins and you'll heal yourself.
So what happened when nobody knew they were being prayed for? The first study was done by Dr. Randolph Byrd in San Francisco in the San Francisco General Hospital. It was done on people who had coronary bypass surgery. There were 393 of these people and they divided them into two groups, the prayed-for group and the non-prayed-for group. Neither group knew that they were being prayed for, so it Ãs difficult for your mind to influence your body if you don't know you're being prayed for.
The names of the prayed-for group were given to committed, faithful Christians. They prayed for each name. Then something remarkable happened. The ones that were prayed for had fewer infections and fewer complications. They improved much more quickly.
Dr. Luvicki studied 3,300 patients from 1991 to 1993 with bloodstream infections. And he studied their hospital stay. The prayed-for patients had a drastically reduced hospital stay.
One of my favorite studies was the study done in the Cha General Hospital in Seoul, Korea. It was a study done on in-vitro fertilization - women who would come in and have in-vitro fertilization to become pregnant. The pregnancy rate in the studies was 26 percent.
Now the interesting thing that they did was this. They decided to study this question: What if we start praying for these women who are getting in-vitro fertilization?
No Christian church was involved in monitoring the study. It was a study monitored by the hospital, monitored by physicians. But they gave the names of these women out to praying Christians. The in-vitro fertilization rate from the ones who were being prayed for went from 26 percent to more than 50 percent.
Now I also need to say, that of the 200 studies, in about two-thirds of the cases, prayer made a dramatic difference. And about one-third of them, statistically, we've not seen a difference.
Prayer and science are not antithetical! There is no big wall between them. Prayer makes a significant difference and there is hard scientific evidence. But if you were in the two-thirds majority, you surely don't doubt the power of prayer!
Why should we be surprised that every creature on earth communicates? After all, their Creator spoke the world into existence! Communication is a gift from God that reflects His glory.
Speaking, singing, writing, and body language are all familiar ways of communicating. Science has now learned of another means of communication that has been going on all around us yet we are not even aware of it. I call it seismic communication.
A vast range of creatures communicate through vibration. This vibratory, orseismic communication goes on at frequencies beyond human hearing. Researchers have learned that a number of insects communicate with other members of their species on the same plant by quivering the plant.
A tree hopper will call its friends with a specific type of vibration when it finds a good place to feed.
The cape mole rat spends nearly its entire life underground. When a solitary male is ready to mate, he thumps against the side of his burrow and then listens for a female's response. The female's burrow may be nine feet away, but she'll sense the vibration.
Golden moles are completely blind, but they hunt for live prey. Further, they live in a desert environment where there are only small stands of grass. They hunt by sensing ground vibrations generated when the wind blows through a stand of grass, where the next meal is likely to be found.
Communication is God's gift. However, we want to be clear in our communication of our faith. To do that, our communication of our faith needs to center on Jesus Christ.
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light... And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water... (All in Genesis 1)
Siberian chipmunks are pretty low on the food chain. Everything from snakes to foxes seek out a chipmunk meal. However, Siberian chipmunks are very clever at using one of their enemies to defend themselves.
If a Siberian chipmunk discovers a dead snake, it will be understandably careful in making sure that it is dead. Once it is certain, the chipmunk will chew on the dead snake's skin. Then, in behavior naturalists call "self anointing," the chipmunk applies the chewed snake skin to its coat. The chipmunks will also self-anoint with snake urine and feces. Field studies showed that while the chipmunks ignore the carcasses of frogs, birds or lizards, they will self-anoint in this way from four species of snake.
Further field observations explained the reason for this strange behavior. Snakes are less likely to eat an anointed chipmunk. The snake odor on the chipmunk may also deter other animals that feed on the chipmunks. The chipmunks' defense strategy raises some difficult questions for those who believe that the living world is a product of chance. How could these chipmunks figure out that coating themselves with the skin of their mortal enemy would protect them from that enemy?
The task of developing this strategy and then overcoming its natural fear to approach that enemy, albeit dead, seems far too large for a chipmunk's mind. However, it is a small and simple task for the Creator, Who made all things and taught the chipmunks to protect themselves. That same God protects us from that old serpent, the devil, through His Son, Jesus Christ.
For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.Romans 1:20
In 1969 Dr. Dean Kenyon, then professor of biology at San Francisco State University, published a book that left him recognized as one of the leading evolutionary scientists. His book, Biological Predestination, tried to explain how simple living things could, over millions of years, become more complex, and finally evolve into human beings.
When Dr. A.E. Wilder-Smith, a biochemist with a world-wide reputation and a creationist, wrote his book, The Creation of Life, he carefully showed what was scientifically wrong with Dr. Kenyon's evolutionary explanation. One day, one of Dr. Kenyon's students gave him a copy of Dr. Wilder-Smith's book.
After reading Wilder-Smith's scientific arguments, Dr. Kenyon said, “I found myself hard-pressed to come up with a counter-rebuttal.” This was a turning point in Dr. Kenyon's personal search, as he learned that “it is possible to have a rational alternative explanation of the past.” Dr. Kenyon came to believe that creation better supported all the scientific facts. He eventually became an international spokesman for creationism.
Too many people stand before the truth in silence, hoping they won't have to give up their own ideas. May God make all of us as honest with the truth as Dr. Kenyon!
For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. Romans 1:20
If I were to ask you what you thought was the most sensitive mammal on earth, what would you say? By "sensitive" I mean physically sensitive, not emotionally sensitive! If your answer were to be your precious dog, you would be wrong. Here's a clue... it ain't pretty!
No matter where you live, it is likely that a wondrous creature is, right now, at work in or near your lawn. This creature has more ability to sense the things going on around him than a sophisticated space probe. It can even hear earthworms chewing beneath the ground.
This wondrous and misunderstood creature is the mole. But let's start by dismissing the myth that the mole is blind or that he is crippled. Although his eyes are tiny he is not blind, and his front feet have specialized claws for digging; this causes him to walk on his knuckles.
The mole's nose and tail have vibration sensors that are more heat sensitive than any that man's science has been able to make. These sensors are composed of thousands of parts, and allow the mole to hear and locate the grubs chewing on the roots of your lawn – even through several feet of soil! In one year's time a mole can eat almost 60 pounds of grubs - more than enough grubs to kill a fair-sized lawn.
Every one of God's creatures has a purpose, whether we the understand it or not. Although you might not like the little trails that moles leave in your lawn, the trails are quite harmless. The thing to remember is that there is a mole on patrol in your yard.
For 75 years, scientists have been trying to figure out how the gecko can walk across a ceiling. Scientists ruled out suction or glue. Then it was thought that perhaps the tiny hairs on its feet were able to grasp microscopic imperfections in the surface in which it walks. However, the gecko can not only walk across a polished glass ceiling, it can even hang by just one toe.
Geckos have tiny hairs on their feet called setae. From these tiny hairs grow even tinier hairs called spatulae. These spatulae are so tiny that there are about a billion of them on each foot. Researchers have found that these tiniest hairs are so small that they contact the molecules of a surface so closely that they actually use the very forces that hold the molecules together!
Scientists have tested the strength of these forces, called van der Waals forces, for the first time. They found that these forces are much more powerful than first thought. As the gecko walks across a surface, it unrolls its toes, bringing the spatulae into contact with the surface. Then it gives a tiny tug that aligns the spatulae parallel to the surface, increasing their hold by ten times.
As the gecko lifts its foot for the next step, it levers the spatulae off the surface, breaking the bond. Based on this research on the gecko's trick, scientists are working to develop glues based on the same principle.
While geckos and chance evolution know nothing about van der Waals bonds, the Creator Who made them both has left His signature in this unique and elegant design.
One of the strangest creatures in the world is a rather reluctant fish called the mudskipper. Even though it is a fish it can dig burrows, travel miles on land and even does a mating dance on land that can last up to an hour.Some species of mudskipper can even climb trees! Really! Who is in charge with this fish?
The mudskipper has the ability to absorb oxygen from water on its skin. All it needs to do is stay wet. It also has sponge-like sacks around its gills that hold a supply of water. And should any of these systems not be enough, the mudskipper can also take in air directly. And just as our eyes do not see well under water, most fish cannot see well out of the water. But the mudskipper has special eyes that give him good vision in and out of the water.
The mudskipper is an excellent example of God's unbridled creativity. Imagine giving such a wondrous design to a fish! The prophet Habakkuk compares men to fish when he asks why God allows men to be caught by evil people, as fish are caught by men. But God reminds Habakkuk that when the evil attack the godly, it is an opportunity to see the power of God. Ultimately, the Lord tells Habakkuk, and us, that all things serve the glory of God.
This makes me feel ashamed of those times when I worry, forgetting that God is in complete charge and that He has an unlimited mind for finding solutions and bringing good out of the worst situation.
When you go into the desert, it's always a good idea to take a canteen of water with you. Our Creator applied that same simple wisdom when he designed the Yarrow's spiny lizard.
Like many desert dwellers, Yarrow's spiny lizards are well designed to conserve water in the dry desert climate. For example, they don't even have a urinary bladder. Their bodies are designed to remove water from their waste before it is released. The water is recycled within the body, since water is a precious resource in the desert.
Unlike many reptiles, Yarrow's spiny lizard bears live young. The two-inch-long newborn lizards can dry out quickly in the desert. To increase their ability to survive, the Creator gave the newborns a built-in canteen of water. At birth, a full canteen makes up 10% of the lizard's weight. After the first month of life, the canteen shrivels and is no longer used. This, too, is a wise design, since the growing lizard has learned the ways of the desert and now has a greater need for speed than it has for a bulky water reservoir.
I don't believe that any of us can fully appreciate God's limitless imagination and creativity that we see in the living world around us. However, we can appreciate the fact that He is willing and able to provide practical and workable solutions to every problem that we face. His solutions, beginning with our greatest need - the forgiveness of sins - are found in the Bible. The trust to apply His solutions to our lives is found in faith, worked by His Holy Spirit.
The beast of the field will honor Me, the jackals and the ostriches, because I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to My people, My chosen. Isaiah 43:20
I sometimes wonder why there are people who have such trouble believing in the truth of the Bible. So many thousands of biblical facts have been proven true, so why would anyone have trouble believing, for instance, that Noah actually spent years building a huge ship?
According to the Bible, Noah's Ark was 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. It was built of a type of wood called "gopher wood." This may have been laminated wood, but it was wood. However, skeptics claim that even today wooden boats cannot be made that large simply because wood is not strong enough to endure the huge stresses generated by such a large structure; they say only iron can endure these stresses.
That is, of course, not true. Ancient writers tell us of a sea battle in 280 B.C. in which the Leontifera participated. They describe the Leontifera in some detail.
They tell us that she carried 1,600 rowers and 1,200 additional fighting men. From these and other details, the Leontifera has been estimated to have been between 400 and 500 feet long.
Plutarch tells us of another ship built around 294 B.C. that had twice as many banks of oars as the Leontifera.
In the late third century B.C., Ptolemy Philopator built a ship that took 400 sailors to run, in addition to 4,000 rowers. With additional soldiers on board, the ship carried 7,250 men.This battleship was 420 feet long, wider than Noah's Ark and about the same height.
The Bible is trustworthy in all that it teaches, even when it talks about historical fact or the natural world that science studies.
And this is how you shall make it: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. Genesis 6:15
Everyone has heard that it is healthier to offer babies human breast milk. And most know it immunizes newborns against many illnesses. But how many know why? What are the secrets in human breast milk?
While many people recognize the virtues of feeding their infants human breast milk, science is still learning its amazing secrets. Although cow’s milk contains many substances found in human milk, it does not contain certain very specific substances necessary to protect the infant.
Human milk not only helps protect the infant’s digestive system by discouraging bad bacteria, it also introduces and encourages good bacteria. In fact, some of the good bacteria that protect the infant are found in no other place on earth.
Oligosaccharides in milk kill bad bacteria in a way in which the bad bacteria can never develop immunity.
Lactoferrin in human milk can suppress inflammation. It also boosts the immune system and kills viruses, bad bacteria and fungi. Not only does the mother’s milk pass mom’s immunities on to the infant, the milk’s oligosaccharides give infants immunity to germs the mother has never even encountered.
The protein alphalactalbumin, in an acid environment such as the digestive tract, can even reduce warts and kills cancer cells. So far, alphalactalbumin has been shown to effectively kill forty different kinds of cancer cells. Use of this protein in preliminary clinical trials to treat bladder cancer has been promising.
So in addition to the bonding that takes place between mother and child, God has provided numerous health benefits to the baby whose mother is willing to be inconvenienced by breastfeeding.
What breathes with its feet, has thousands of jaws but no mouth, has up to fifty arms, and an eye on the end of each arm?
No, it's not a new creature for the next Star Wars movie. It's the starfish!
When God designed the starfish, it almost seems as if He tried to see how differently He could make this creature from all the others. Depending upon the species, the starfish can have from three to fifty arms while there is an eye on the end of each one.
The rough skin of the starfish is covered with tiny jaws to keep parasites from attaching themselves to the starfish. Even more amazing is the fact that each of these thousands of jaws works independently of the rest. To get its oxygen, the starfish takes water in through tubes in its feet, each containing a tiny pump and a pipe system linking it to the other feet.
The starfish presents us with the lesson that our Creator did not have to make the creation in any specific way. This is referred to by theologians as “voluntary creation.” If God had chosen, you and I might be breathing through our feet — although I'm glad we don't. But the biblical truth of the voluntary creation was one of the crucial ideas that provided the basis for the modern scientific method.
Researchers have discovered a species of mammal that can actually survive being frozen for several weeks, just like a Popsicle!
Scientists were amazed to find that the little Arctic ground squirrel can allow its body to drop to 27 degrees F - that’s five degrees below the freezing point of water - for up to two weeks at a time during its unusual eight-to ten-month hibernation period.
After the two weeks at this very low temperature, the squirrel rouses itself, returns to normal body temperature, takes care of a few bathroom duties, and then returns to a state of nearly frozen hibernation for another two weeks.
The squirrel usually comes out of hibernation for its short summer in June. It has only two or three months before the ground freezes again and it returns to hibernation, so the squirrel is very busy eating and mating for two short months. You could say that the Arctic ground squirrel sleeps most of its life away, just like a Popsicle!
Scientists say that the Arctic ground squirrel is the only mammal that is able to allow its body temperature to fall below freezing. If they can find out how the squirrel does it, they believe the same method might be used to preserve transplant organs for longer than a few hours. So once again, scientists expect to learn new medical methods by studying how the Creator does the same thing.
Then the beasts go into dens, and remain in their places. Out of the south comes the whirlwind: and cold out of the north. By the breath of God frost is given: and the breadth of the waters is straitened. Job 37:8-10
Did it ever occur to you that the hummingbird actually sleeps a good eight hours every day? If so, hats off to you because it never crossed my mind! I am so accustomed to the hummingbird's hum, plus I know hummingbirds need to eat constantly just to stay alive.
You, too, might guess that the hummingbird, darting around from flower to flower with wings beating some 60 times a second, must burn a lot of energy to keep going. If a 65-pound boy burned up energy at the same rate, he would eat 100 pounds of chicken every day.
The fact is, the hummingbird will die if it goes for more than two hours without eating. You might wonder, if the hummingbird cannot go more than two hours without eating, when does it sleep? The fact is, the hummingbird does sleep a good eight hours every night. How does the hummingbird do it?
God has given the hummingbird a most remarkable metabolism. During the day, the hummingbird's heart must beat 10 times every second as it keeps its incredibly fast metabolism going. But when it goes to sleep, the hummingbird's heart slows down to less than one beat per second - about the same as ours. And to further slow his metabolism, the hummingbird's normal daytime temperature drops from 100 degrees to the same temperature as the night air - 50 or 60 degrees. This drop in temperature would kill most warm-blooded animals. But all of this enables the hummingbird to go without food for a good eight-hour sleep.
The hummingbird provides more than enough evidence that the Creator really does care for His creatures, even when they are asleep.
So you have never heard of "Bee Bread"? It's not something you can purchase at the local grocery store! And you can't make it yourself.
Bee bread is a highly nutritional derivative, made from pollen by bees. Scientists have understood for some time that worker bees who have just emerged from the comb must eat bee bread so that their glands produce food for the queen and developing larvae. However, older worker bees get by on honey alone. So scientists suspected that bee bread must have a higher nutritional value than honey.
Now, after painstaking work, researchers have learned how bee bread is made. Even as bees collect the pollen, they begin to work on the recipe. They add secretions from special glands, as well as microorganisms that produce enzymes which release a number of important nutrients from the pollen. Other microbes are added to produce antibiotics and fatty acids to prevent spoilage. At the same time, unwanted microbes are removed, and the bees add honey or nectar to the bread to get it to stick together.
The bees' recipe for bee bread involves a highly sophisticated knowledge of microbiology, nutritional chemistry, and biochemistry in general. Modern science therefore, absolutely requires us to reject the idea that bees and their culture evolved by blind chance and ignorant natural forces.
Only a perfect Creator could have made these wonderful creatures and taught them how to make bee bread!
And they told him, and said: We came unto the land whither thou sent us, and surely it flows with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it. Numbers 13:27
The mongoose is a superb snake fighter. The little creature is about three feet long and weighs about ten pounds. In many parts of the world, a mongoose is kept as a house pet because they keep the snake population down. This includes some of the most poisonous snakes in the world.
One of the most amazing features of the mongoose is its ability to walk away from a snakebite. Even if a cobra bites a baby mongoose, the baby mongoose is not in the least affected by the venom. This is because the mongoose has venom antibodies in its bloodstream and nervous system.
Scientists studying mongoose behavior have found that even a mongoose that has been raised by humans and has never seen a snake instinctively knows how to effectively attack and kill a snake on sight.
The mongoose's size, shape and speed all show it to be perfectly designed for killing snakes. Its amazing ability to ignore snake venom and its internal programming that allows the mongoose to be an effective snake-killer and friend to man certainly shows the power and wisdom of the Creator.
Now, if He can make a creature such as the mongoose to protect humans from earthly serpents, we know that He is also able to provide us with protection from that old serpent, the devil, through His Son, Jesus Christ!
The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stops her ear; Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely. Psalm 58:3-5
Did you ever have a Swiss army knife? I did! Yep, I was a tomboy who climbed mountains, was good at archery and rifle-shooting, rode horses bareback, went fishing, caught poly-wogs, and had a Swiss Army Knife.
Just about everybody has seen a Swiss army knife, even if they haven't owned one. This tool is much more than a knife and has all sorts of other devices tucked away in its handle.
The legs of the worker honeybee are very much like the Swiss army knife. Each leg has an extra joint between the knee and the joint of the foot. The bee's foreleg has a special notch with bristles like a brush for cleaning its antenna. The middle leg has what has been called a crowbar that comes in handy for a variety of jobs in the hive. The back legs of the worker honeybee have pollen baskets that the bee uses to carry pollen to the hive. In addition, the back legs have a combination of spears and pincers for use in defending the hive. The back legs also have cleaning bristles for scraping pollen off the middle legs, while the middle legs have the same bristles for scraping pollen off the front legs.
Just as no one finding a Swiss army knife would think that it was just a random formation of nature, no one should think that the worker honeybee is something formed randomly by nature either. God has made the bee's legs for the purpose of making it an efficient link in the production of honey, a food prized by many living things, including man.
And their father Israel said to them, If it must be so now, do this; take of the best fruits in the land in your vessels, and carry down the man a present, a little balm, and a little honey, spices, and myrrh, nuts and almonds… Genesis 43:11
We live in such a materialistic world - why would anyone be motivated to reach out to others who need help? Aren't we in a "survival of the fittest" world? Apparently not. How do we explain the existence of this unusual motivation?
Altruism — helping one another — is a real puzzle to those who explain the world of living things in terms of materialistic evolution. Evolution is supposed to work on the selfish survival-of-the-fittest principle, so there should be no reason for any creature, including man, to develop a helping attitude. In fact, there is no way to explain how the genetic code could possibly develop and pass on a trait such as altruism.
Researchers have studied a bird called the white-fronted African bee-eater. Members of this species help each other, sometimes even at the sacrifice of their own life. For example, one bird will face a spitting cobra to defend another, and scientists have been puzzled to know how this altruistic trait can possibly be passed on, when it often results in death. Another common altruistic habit of the African bee-eater is that one female will put off starting her own family to help another bee-eater raise her young. Some argue that such behavior is limited to birds that are related. But they admit that even adopted orphaned bee-eaters will help their adopted parents in this way.
While it is often denied, the theory of evolution has yet to adequately explain altruism. Altruism is a demonstration of that commandment given by our Creator to “love our neighbor.”
But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. Luke 10:33-34
Can you imagine a bird who has no feet? How does he walk? How does he perch?
The small bird, known as the chimney swift, is unmatched in its flying ability. These little birds are so adapted to the air that they have only small, weak feet that do not permit them to walk or perch like other birds. In fact, their Latin name even means “without feet.”
When swifts do come to rest, they do so against a vertical surface like a wall. They are often found resting inside the protection of chimneys, which led to their English name, chimney swift. A large flock of swifts may sight a chimney and begin circling it in smaller and smaller circles. Finally, the birds closest to the chimney enter it, followed by the rest. One person reported seeing a flock of 10,000 swifts enter one chimney over a period of 37 minutes!
When David was cursed by Shimei, he realized that the curse would be of no effect because he was innocent of murdering members of Saul's family. In Proverbs 26:2, his son, Solomon, compares unjust curses to a bird which never lands, meaning that when people speak evil of us, or curse us, if what they say is untrue or unjust, their words will have no effect. It is God's wisdom to think of unjust things that are said about us as being like the swift, always in flight and never landing upon us.
New discovery: Venus Fly Traps burp! Oh, they wait several hours after a meal, but until recently no one knew of the burp.
The exotic Venus flytrap is an insect-catching plant and a wonder of God's engineering. For example, these meat-eating plants usually live in mineral-poor soils, but by catching their own lunch, they actually provide their own fertilizer.
Up until now, scientists have not fully understood what causes the trap of the flytrap to close so rapidly on its victim. They knew that when an insect trips the little trigger hairs inside the trap, those hairs send an electric impulse to the cells on the outside of the trap.
Now it has been learned that this impulse almost instantly causes the outer cells of the trap to secrete acid. The acid breaks down the cell walls and they expand at high speed, causing the trap to close. The more the insect fights the trap, the more tightly it closes.
Six to twelve hours later, after lunch is digested, the trap receives chemical signals from inside - the carnivorous plant's version of a burp - and opens to await the next meal.
The Venus flytrap is a glowing example of what Scripture is talking about when it says that the works of the Lord are manifold - that He has made so much variety, and so many ways of providing for living things. Truly, the Lord's imagination and creativity are a wonder to behold!
What do you know about your liver? Unless you are a doctor, you probably don't know a whole lot about your body's refinery system. But since your life depends on having a healthy liver, let's learn something about it.
An adult's liver is about the size of a football and weighs about three pounds, making it the body's largest internal organ. Tucked neatly beneath the ribs, your liver performs more than 500 different tasks! It is a vital link between your heart, lungs and digestive system.
Inside the liver is a bewildering array of microscopic veins in which each drop of blood is processed. Here, blood conditions are constantly monitored to make sure everything is up to standard. If more of certain substances are needed in the blood, they are supplied.
Useless chemicals are broken down into useful chemicals. Proteins are made in the liver, blood-clotting factors are corrected, hormone balances are maintained, and poisons are neutralized. If substances are needed to fight an infection, they are produced and added to the blood.
The liver also stores vitamins and minerals and prepares itself to provide your body with quick energy when you need it. In addition, the liver makes bile, which is essential for digestion.
Structures like the liver have caused many evolutionists to abandon the idea that life is a result of millions of years of accidents. The liver is just too well designed and integrated into the body to have been produced by purposelessness and mindlessness. Surely it makes more sense to acknowledge a supremely wise Creator who loves His Creation, including you and me.
The tropical-looking flower Virginia Meadow Beauty offers some rare tricks for those who would pollinate it. A honeybee can poke around the flower all day and never get any pollen from the gaudy pink flowers. In fact, researchers report that honeybees don't seem to know what to do with the flowers. Rather, the Virginia Meadow Beauty is pollinated by bumblebees, nothoneybees.
The pollen of a newly opened pink flower is good only for that day. But the flowers stay open for several days. It signals the bumblebees that the pollen in old flowers are not good by changing colors. Yet, the spent flowers are serving one more purpose. Researchers report that large displays, even if mostly spent flowers, attract more bumblebees than small displays of all fresh flowers.
How is it that the bumblebee can get the pollen and the honeybees can't? They just buzz. And when a bumblebee buzzes, the flower ejects its pollen at 30 times the force of gravity – a force greater than any astronaut must endure! It's not that the bumblebee gets the pollen because it is larger than a honeybee; no, even bumblebees no larger than the honeybee's head can get the pollen. It's the frequency of buzzing. The Lord has abundantly provided for the Meadow Beauty.
So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Matthew 6:28-29
Blister beetles of California's Mojave Desert depend on solitary bees for their life cycle. However, the beetles have nothing of interest to offer the bees.
Blister beetle larvae are so tiny that dozens of them can infest the solitary bee's body. Riding on the female bee, they transfer into the solitary bee's nursery when the female lays her eggs. There the beetle larvae eat the pollen that the mother has packed there for her hatchlings. Once they pupate into wingless adults, they then need a male bee to carry them to a female so the next cycle of life can begin.
To attract a male bee, large numbers of the beetles pile together into a clump that looks like a female bee. They will hold this shape for up to two weeks, waiting for a male bee to show interest. Researchers have also concluded that while in this position the beetles also generate the scent of a female bee ready to mate!
Once a male bee gets close enough, the tiny beetles jump on his body. When he mates with a female, the beetles transfer to her body and wait for her to lay eggs.
Scientists are amazed that the beetles, which are not social insects, are smart enough to work together to fool the male bees. Obviously, the beetles did not design this clever strategy by themselves. The cooperation they show for their survival was designed and programmed into them by their wise Creator, perhaps to show us how important working together is for survival.
… you also helping together in prayer for us, that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the gift granted to us through many. 2 Corinthians 1:11
My childhood was spent in the Southwest, so I didn't have much opportunity to become familiar with octopi. I had no idea how mega-intelligent octopi were until I moved to the beaches of California!
Researchers in the 1950s and '60s established that the octopus is quite intelligent and can learn different visual patterns. Octopi have very large brains with large areas reserved for storing information.
New research has shown that they are even more intelligent than earlier studies revealed. These findings run counter to evolutionary theory, which says that intelligence evolves in social species to help them deal with social relationships. The octopus is not a social animal and operates alone.
Unlike other animals, octopi use a variety of strategies to solve the same problem. They can use their eight powerful arms to open clams or they can drill through the shell and inject a fast-acting poison. In the laboratory, octopi kept in isolation were given a floating plastic bottle. The bored octopi quickly devised a variety of games to play with the bottle, a sure sign of intelligence.
If the octopus sees dinner in a mason jar with the lid on, guess what? He opens the jar and gets his dinner! Don't believe me? Here's proof!
The Creator gave the octopus the ability to learn a lot so it could cope with its unusual way of life. Octopi begin life as tiny plankton that drift with the ocean currents. When they finally settle to the bottom, they may find themselves in any of the many habitats provided by the ocean and face any variety of predators and food sources. Thus, their Creator designed them with the ability learn how to adapt to a large variety of habitats and situations.
Unless you are fighting allergies or a summer cold, you probably love your nose. The ability to smell is one gift we often take for granted. That’s probably because we usually identify things more quickly with one of our other senses. At the same time, Thanksgiving dinner wouldn’t be the same without the smells.
Some of the most unlikely creatures have a sense of smell. Believe it or not, even fungi have a sense of smell. Worms have organs on their heads to sense odor. Ticks carry their scent-detecting organs on their feet; this arrangement wouldn’t work well for us! Mollusks smell through their gills! The salmon uses smell to find the same brook in which he was spawned. Lizards and snakes use their tongues to detect scents.
The most skilled smellers in the animal world can detect a scent even if there is only one molecule of that scent mixed in with 10 trillion molecules of average air. The modern perfumer’s highly trained nose can identify about 10,000 different odors. How many smells can you identify?
Before the days of modern medicine, a doctor’s diagnosis would consist in part of sniffing the patient. Ew! For example, the plague had the scent of honey. Scarlet fever often gave its presence away by the smell of hot bread, and measles smelled like fresh-plucked feathers.
It takes a keen knowledge of biochemistry to design a system that can detect and identify scents. So next time you smell a wonderful meal or a beautiful flower, you may want to thank your Creator.
I thank You, Lord, for my senses and all the wonderful scents with which You have filled the world. Help my life to be a sweet-smelling offering ascending to You.
John Stevens Henslow was a highly respected scientist of the 19th century. He taught both botany and mineralogy at England's Cambridge University. In addition to being a scientist and professor, he was also a devout Christian and ordained into the Anglican clergy.
Charles Darwin was an undergraduate at Cambridge studying for the ministry. However, after his first year of study he found he had no interest in religion.
Because of his enthusiasm for his subjects, John Henslow was one of the most popular professors at Cambridge. That probably contributed to the friendship Charles Darwin developed with him.
Darwin's friendship with Henslow was also an opportunity to see living Christianity in action. However, while Darwin learned a great deal about botany from Henslow, he rejected Henslow's Christian faith. In 1831, when Darwin received his B.A. degree, Henslow recommended that Darwin be an unpaid naturalist on the H. M. S. Beagle.
It was during that five-year voyage on the Beagle that Darwin began to formalize his theory of evolution. Darwin's book On the Origin of the Species was finalized and published almost 30 years after the voyage. The aging Henslow publicly expressed his opposition to Darwin's theory, stating that "Darwin attempts more than is granted to man...."
Henslow was only one of many outstanding 19th century scientists who rejected Darwin's theory. He understood that anyone who promotes so-called knowledge that contradicts Scripture dangerously places himself above God.
While the call of the cicada sounds like raucous chaos to us, researchers have only just learned that these amazing creatures have a complicated system of communication. Cicada beetles live underground for 13 to 17 years before emerging to live a few brief weeks to sing and mate before they die.
While the call of the cicada sounds like raucous chaos to us, researchers have only just learned that these amazing creatures have a complicated system of communication. Cicada beetles live underground for 13 to 17 years before emerging to live a few brief weeks to sing and mate before they die.
