Animals Archives - Page 14 of 56 - DOES GOD EXIST? TODAY

September 21, 2022September 15, 2022

Endothermic or Ectothermic – What’s the Difference?

You are an endothermic mammal. That means your body’s metabolic rate controls your internal body temperature. We describe that condition by saying you are “warm-blooded.” Many life forms on our planet are “cold-blooded” (ectothermic) because the environment controls their internal body temperature. The limitation of being cold-blooded is that it requires warm environmental temperatures. Ectothermic life forms can’t survive in polar areas. Endothermic life can survive almost anywhere.

During the time of the dinosaurs, the planet was very hot. That means biological systems, including plants, grew quickly. Those conditions were part of God’s preparation of resources that humans would need, including oil, coal, topsoil, and oxygen. However, the geologic record shows a point in Earth’s history when the climate radically changed.

As the entire planet cooled, areas at or near the poles became too cold for cold-blooded life to exist. Studies of bone growth rates and oxygen isotopes in ancient bones indicate a rapid change. This change would not be a problem for warm-blooded animals but would reduce the number, size, and activity of cold-blooded life forms.

The challenge would be to design living creatures that can translate food into enough internal heat to survive in a cold environment. Science News reported on studies of the inner ears of reptiles and mammals. In warm-blooded animals, the inner ear fluid is less viscous, requiring that the ear canals become smaller. As a result, fossils show a sharp change in inner ear morphology at the time when Earth’s climate became colder.

Many other changes were required for life to go from ectothermic to endothermic. However, the inner ear structure is preserved in the fossils, making it useful for scientists to study the history of life on Earth. The complexity of endothermy reminds us again of the words of Psalms 139:14, “I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are your works.” In our time of changing climate, the design of life continues to show the wisdom involved in life’s creation.

Reference: Science News August 27, 2022, page 9, and Nature.com

September 15, 2022September 12, 2022

Mauna Kea Wekiu Bug

We have frequently pointed out the importance of recycling agents in the natural world. They are creatures that take waste material of any kind and process it so that our planet is not inundated with excrement and dead bodies. The microbes that process dead material and produce soil, the dung beetles that handle excrement, and the vultures that eat carrion are among those recyclers essential to our environment. From the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory comes a recent discovery of another recycling agent to handle waste most of us would not even know existed. It’s the Mauna Kea wekiu bug (Nysius wekiuicola).

In 1980, scientists on Mauna Kea in Hawaii discovered the wekiu bug that handles natural waste on the summits of mountains where it is too cold for life to exist. At these extreme elevations, the jet stream, typhoons, and other sources of high elevation winds deposit the dead bodies of insects and birds. Instead of those bodies piling up, the Mauna Kea wekiu bug processes them. It’s a beetle whose name comes from the Hawaiian word for “summit.” This bug is specially designed to process mountaintop waste.

The wekiu bug has a straw-shaped mouth that it inserts into a dead insect or bird, allowing the bug to draw out any fluids or nutrients. That leaves the hard parts, which crumble and are carried away by rain, snow, ice, and wind. Even in this very inhospitable area for life, with frequent temperatures well below freezing and no surviving plant life, these bugs process organic material. The Mauna Kea wekiu bug is another example of God’s design to provide balance in nature. He created a natural system designed to allow the constant reprocessing of organic materials so that our planet can support an abundance of all kinds of life.

Reference: The PBS series of Planet Earth for 2022 and Wikipedia.

September 14, 2022September 12, 2022

Natural Insect Control by an Insect

People struggle with many insects that give us diseases, impact our food supply, and even damage our clothing. Mosquitoes, locusts, grasshoppers, cockroaches, crickets, and the like have been a scourge prompting the use of pesticides. The pesticides, in turn, have brought cancer and attacks on our immune systems. Yet, we often overlook the fact that God has given us natural insect control by providing agents that eat insects, including birds, bats, fish, and even insects. One insect-eating insect that looks like it came from another planet is known to entomologists as “Mantis religiosa” but is commonly called the praying mantis.

The mantis has bulging eyes and a triangular-shaped head that swivels atop a long neck, giving it an odd extraterrestrial look. It is the only insect with three-dimensional vision. It holds its two front legs at an angle as if folded in prayer while actually poised to ambush prey. Those forelegs are armed with spikes so that when they capture an insect, it cannot escape.

Humans introduced the praying mantis from Europe into New York state in 1900 to control grasshopper infestations. Mantises are voracious eaters and can even be cannibalistic. Their population is partly controlled by eating each other when the food supply becomes reduced. Females sometimes eat the males and the egg capsules when there is a food shortage.

A mistake humans have made is using chemicals to control insect populations instead of using the natural controls God has given us. Spraying massive amounts of insect-killing chemicals kills everything, including insect-eating birds, fish, and insects like the praying mantis. We often hear people blaming God for the diseases and afflictions humans have caused.

The more we study the creation, the more we see natural insect control agents. They may require work and a more significant time investment than the easy process of spraying, but they cause far less collateral damage.

References: The Spokesman-Review for 8/30/22 page A01 by Linda Welford and Wikipedia

September 9, 2022September 7, 2022

Invasive Species and Environmental Problems

It is interesting to hear skeptics blaming God for the existence of invasive plants and animals. There is no question that non-native species thrive in the United States. However, some species brought to this country have no natural predators to keep them in check. As a result, they cause crop damage, human health problems, and environmental damage. There are nearly 6,500 invasive species in America, and they cause more damage every year than all natural disasters combined. The stories of how they got here are interesting. Here are some examples:

NUTRIA – Also known as coypu or “swamp rats,” these South American rodents were brought to America by fur farmers in the 20th century.
BROWN GARDEN SNAIL – These mollusks were brought to California as food by French immigrants in the 1850s.
KUDZU – This Asian vine was brought to the U.S. as an ornamental plant in 1876, and farmers used it to feed livestock and reduce soil erosion. To make kudzu widely available to farmers, government agencies provided 85 million seedlings.
WILD BOAR – These animals were native to Eurasia and brought to the U.S. in the early 1900s for hunting. Early settlers in the 1500s introduced domestic pigs as a food source. Unfortunately, some escaped pigs mated with the boars resulting in the invasive species we have today.
LIONFISH – These beautiful fish with venomous spines are natives of the South Pacific and Indian oceans. Aquarium enthusiasts brought them to the U.S. between 1985 and 1992, but when released, they wipe out native fish populations.
DANDELION – Early European settlers brought these “weeds” to the U.S. for food and medicinal purposes.

These invasive species and others cause billions of dollars in economic damage annually. However, we should understand that not all non-native species are considered invasive. For example, corn and wheat are not native to the United States but were brought here as successful food crops.

In Genesis 9:3, God told Noah, “Everything that moves shall be food for you, just as I have given you green plants.” God has given us a wide variety of food sources designed to thrive in various ecological environments, but we must be good stewards of how we use and spread them.

Problems arise when people purposely or accidentally transport plants or animals to new locations where they become out of control. Without predators to control populations, they can throw an entire environment out of balance. Most of our environmental problems are human-caused, and invasive species of plants and animals are good examples.

Reference: Discover magazine for September/October 2022 (pages 34 – 41)

September 8, 2022September 7, 2022

Structural Color in Plants

When you see a peacock with brilliant green in its feathers, realize that it has no green feathers. Its feathers are actually brown, but God has used a clever optical trick to make them look green to us. We call it structural color. Likewise, many butterflies have bright blue spots on their wings, but there are no blue pigments in a butterfly’s wings.

Some plants produce fruits that look blue to us without having any blue pigment in the fruits. The only plants known to produce blue fruits in this way are Viburnum tinus and Lantana strigocamara. You will not get a blue stain if you crush their berries in your fingers. On the other hand, if you crush a common blueberry, its blue pigments will stain your fingers.

When you see a blue pigment, it is blue because it absorbs all other colors while reflecting blue. Structural color uses microscopic pyramid-like structures that manipulate the light. Since blue light has higher energy than other colors, it escapes the structure. Structural color requires no pigments, and you might call it an optical illusion.

Color is essential in the natural world. For example, animals with color vision use colors to camouflage, attract others, or discern whether something is good to eat. The problem with using pigments to produce color is that the chemistry to get a particular color is quite complex, but structural color does not involve any chemistry.

People have used chemicals to produce the colors we see in our fabrics, but some colors can be costly and time-consuming to produce. God has created a chemical-free method to produce much of the beauty we see in the world around us. Beauty in structural color gives evidence of a wise Creator.

Reference: National Science Foundation Research News

September 6, 2022September 6, 2022

Nadir Asteroid Impact Crater

One of the challenges to evolutionary theory is the principle of uniformitarianism–the assumption that no process has ever functioned on Earth that is not going on today. We are not talking about common disasters but events in Earth’s history that would have altered the course of evolution or stopped it entirely. For many years, scientists have known about the Chicxulub asteroid that struck the area that is now Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, probably causing the extinction of the dinosaurs. Such an event would have changed life’s future direction. Now, there is news of a Nadir asteroid impact crater.

BBC news reported that geologists discovered a possible asteroid crater off the coast of Guinea in west Africa. They call it the Nadir crater because it is at the Nadir (opposite lowest point) of the Chicxulub crater. This new crater is 8,500 meters wide and over 300 meters lower than the seabed. It is about the same age as Chicxulub but much smaller. The Chicxulub crater, caused by a larger asteroid, is 12,000 meters wide.

Both of these asteroid collisions would have violated uniformitarianism, dramatically affecting life on Earth. The Chicxulub asteroid impact would have caused major earthquakes, tsunamis, and a global firestorm. The result would have thrown enough dust into the atmosphere to plunge Earth into a deep freeze that dinosaurs could not have survived.

Since the Nadir asteroid impact crater is in an ocean environment, it would have caused a tsunami with a wall of water over 1000 meters high. The Nadir collision would have produced about 1,000 times more energy than Tonga’s recent (January 2022) volcano eruption. However, the energy from the Chicxulub impact would have been about 10 million times greater.

The textbook model of evolution is greatly simplified. We don’t fully understand how an asteroid collision would have affected life on Earth. It seems unlikely that most life forms could have survived the one-two punch of Chicxulub and Nadir asteroid impacts.

Genesis 1:1-3 indicates that there was a change in the Earth. An accurate translation of verse 2 is that Earth “became empty and wasted.” That is precisely what the asteroid collisions would have caused. This may have been God’s methodology of a final step to make Earth fit for human life. This new evidence supports the biblical account in ways we are only beginning to understand.

References: BBC news August 19, 2022, and Science Advances

August 26, 2022August 25, 2022

Synthetic Embryo and Synthetic Organs

Synthetic Embryo - Real Mouse Embryo — Real Mouse Embryo at 11 Days

Can a baby be produced in a laboratory without sperm and an egg? The answer for mice, at least, is a partial “yes.” Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Sciences in Israel produced a “lab-created womb” in which they placed mouse stem cells producing a mouse embryo. The synthetic embryo “lived” for eight days.

Researchers could coax stem cells into a placenta or yolk sac by treating stem cells with chemicals. Then other stem cells developed into organs and tissues without intervention by the researchers. Some turned into beating heart tissue or a rudimentary nervous system. However, 99.5% of the stem cells failed.

This kind of research has a practical purpose beyond producing a synthetic embryo. For example, scientists hope to eventually grow human organs in a synthetic womb to replace diseased organs for which no donor is available. Scientists have already used this system to produce rudimentary artificial kidneys and hearts, but they are not yet suitable for medical use. Researchers are also hoping to find a way to nurture premature babies outside of the mother’s womb.

It is not true that all human stem cells come from aborted babies. Stem cells can be derived from various cells in the human body and can even be secured, under the right conditions, from a person who has just died. These stem cells are called “induced pluripotent stem cells.”

Like many efforts to produce life, researchers are copying natural processes to create a synthetic embryo of a mouse. Scientists and engineers have copied God’s creation for many practical uses. We have frequently shown how engineers have copied what they see in nature to produce everything from Velcro to jet engines. The debate among philosophers and ethics professionals concerns philosophical and ethical problems with this type of medical research.

Over and over, the biblical writers challenge us to learn from the natural world. In Job chapters 38 to 41, we see God challenging Job to deal with the creation in which he was living. Proverbs 6:6 says, “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise.” In Proverbs 8:22-31, Wisdom challenges us to think about the design and planning of God’s creation.

The struggle to duplicate the design of reproduction that God built into living things shows us how impossible it is to believe that the original creation was the product of blind chance. As Paul wrote to the Romans, “We can know there is a God through the things He has made (Romans 1:20).

Reference: Global Research

August 20, 2022August 16, 2022

Arctic Whales Called Narwhals

When they see an unusual physical characteristic in an animal, evolutionists try to find a sexual explanation for it. If your religious belief is “survival of the fittest” and reproduction is a major part of explaining who is fit and who isn’t, you look for sexual explanations for everything in the animal kingdom. We see an example of why sexual selection is not always the complete answer in Arctic whales called narwhals.

Narwhals can weigh up to 3000 pounds and reach over 15 feet long. Their unusual feature is the world’s longest tooth. The narwhal’s tooth is a spiraling, pointed tusk that can reach nine feet long. Since the tooth appears in male narwhals, evolutionists have said that it’s just another example of sexual selection. Females pick the males with the longest tusk. That explanation is similar to cases like the peacock, where the males have elaborate feathers, which they use to attract females. Another idea is that narwhals use the tusks as weapons in conflicts between males. However, no one has ever seen the tusks used that way, and no dead narwhals have been found with a wound that appears to have come from being stabbed by a tusk.

Researchers at the Smithsonian working with the Harvard School of Dental Medicine have studied the tusks under an electron microscope. They discovered millions of tubules leading from the surface to nerve endings deep inside the tusk. The researchers believe this system allows narwhals to detect changes in water pressure, temperature, and salinity. That information would enable the narwhals to tell when water is starting to freeze, allowing them to avoid getting trapped. It also may help them locate food. Of course, that leaves a question of why females don’t have tusks, but since they travel in groups, it may be that the tusks identify the leader.

We know that the Arctic whales called narwhals have a tusk like no other animal. We know it is a tooth in structure and form, but how it became an integral part of the species is a mystery to evolutionists. We suggest it is another example of God’s design in which every animal has what it needs to survive in a given environment. The Arctic Ocean is a place where narwhals might need special survival equipment.

Reference: The Chronicle Review Volume 52, Issue 37, page B16.

August 19, 2022August 16, 2022

Medical Benefits of Spiders

The entertainment industry has done much to encourage arachnophobia (fear of spiders), and it starts at an early age. Remember, “Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey. Along came a spider and sat down beside her and frightened Miss Muffet away.” It’s true that some spiders have venom that is dangerous to humans. However, we can’t let arachnophobia keep us from finding medical benefits of spiders.

There are many potential benefits of spider venom and secretions in medicine and agriculture. Here are five examples:

1) The venom of a Brazilian wandering spider has an ingredient that has been found helpful in treating erectile dysfunction.
2) The venom of a South American tarantula can calm an irregular heartbeat and may be used to treat atrial fibrillation.
3) Australia’s Blue Mountains funnel-web spider has a venom that attacks the nervous system of insects that eat crops but doesn’t affect humans.
4) Spider silk can be used as synthetic muscles for drug delivery systems or robotic devices.
5) Glue secreted by orbed web spiders gets stronger in the presence of water, possibly making it useful for surgery and underwater engineering.

God built these materials into the life processes of spiders so that they could survive and fulfill their purpose in the natural world. The medical benefits of spiders are not alone in the natural world. There are many plants and animals in the creation with chemicals that can have significant medical and agricultural benefits for humans. Science can recognize God’s chemical design and copy it to solve human problems.

In Proverbs 8:22-33, we find Wisdom personified by speaking and describing some of God’s actions in the creation process. The more we know of the creation, the more we understand God’s nature and wisdom.

Reference: Discover magazine Volume 32 #2, page 80.

August 18, 2022August 16, 2022

Mussel Superglue and Human Problems

Have you ever tried to glue something underwater? I needed to do that in several situations, and I have tried everything on the market. The various commercial glue and epoxy products don’t last very long underwater. That is especially true when subject to vibration or stress. Somehow, barnacles and mussels firmly attach themselves to boats and rocks underwater. How does this mussel superglue work?

A mussel has glands in its slug-like feet that secrete a glue that hardens into a filament that attaches it to a rock or hard surface in less than five minutes. Within a few days, it has a cable of several hundred such threads that will withstand years of pounding surf. Measurements show it can withstand a force of a thousand pounds per square inch and even stick to Teflon.

The U.S. Navy spends millions of dollars each year trying to find ways to stop crustaceans and mollusks from fouling their underwater equipment. Dr. Herbert Waite, a marine biochemist at the University of California studying mussel superglue, discovered that a mussel has two separate compartments to produce its glue. One compartment contains resin-like proteins, and the second produces chemicals that act like hardeners. When the two come in contact, the proteins harden in minutes.

The mussel superglue contains various adhesive proteins with different functions. Some are catalysts, while others act to separate the filaments. Some contain an amino acid called dopa that makes gels that bond filaments together. These gels have gotten significant attention from dentists and surgeons who need materials that will bond in wet environments.

Undoing mussel glue is another issue that scientists are studying. Understanding how mussel superglue works could lead to anti-glues. Dentists could apply them to teeth to prevent the buildup of dental plaque. Doctors could use anti-glues to prevent cardiovascular stents from becoming clogged. Mussel superglue is another case where studying what God has designed can give us answers to human problems.

Reference: Discover magazine for February 2003, pages 22-23.