Animals Archives

September 1, 2021August 31, 2021

Autoimmune Diseases and God’s Design

“Autoimmunity is the system of immune responses of an organism against its own healthy cells, tissues, and other body normal constituents. Any disease that results from such an aberrant immune response is termed an “autoimmune disease.” –Wikipedia

As many as 4.5% of the world’s population may be affected by any of about 80 autoimmune diseases. Some such as psoriasis are cosmetic, and others such as multiple sclerosis are life-threatening. So when the human body attacks itself, should we assume that it is because the body’s design is flawed? The exact cause of autoimmune disorders is unknown, but as more and more data becomes available, it is clear that this is not a flaw in the design of the immune system.

First of all, the number of autoimmune disorders that affect large populations is minimal. Psoriasis, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, celiac disease, Graves disease, and rheumatoid arthritis are the most common, affecting one person out of every 100. Type 1 diabetes, vitiligo, and rheumatic fever can affect one person out of every 1000 or so. Most autoimmune diseases are infrequent, with some affecting fewer than 1 in a million people.

Secondly, we now know that some bacteria or viruses entering the human body from animals may confuse the immune system and lead to disorders. COVID and AIDS have shown us that animals are a source of viruses that can cause disease in humans.

Thirdly, chemicals can trigger changes in cells that the immune system is not designed to handle. Pesticides, herbicides, recreational drugs, industrial waste, and medical waste have caused all kinds of problems for humans. Immune disorders may not be because of bad design of the immune system but the result of human ignorance, carelessness, and greed.

Fourth, a new study has suggested that stress may lead to some autoimmune diseases, such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis. There is a higher incidence of autoimmune diseases among people who were previously diagnosed with stress-related disorders.

God’s design of the human immune system is amazing. As the Psalmist said. “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalms 139:14). The immune system that allows most of us to live for many years with good health is one of the best demonstrations of the truth of that statement.

— John N. Clayton

See the September 2021 issue of Scientific American (pages 26-51) for much more information about autoimmune diseases, their causes, and potential cures. Pages 32 and 33 display a fascinating chart with data on 76 autoimmune disorders.

August 25, 2021August 29, 2021

Plants use Magnetism

One area of constant scientific investigation is the involvement of magnetism in living things. Studies have shown that cattle can align themselves with Earth’s magnetic field. Magnetism seems to be used by some animals in migrations. The presence of magnetism in the human brain has led to research into what that magnetism does and how medical science can use it to treat certain diseases. In addition to animals, plants use magnetism.

Scientists have found that magnetism plays a role in the survival of some plants. For example, the Venus flytrap uses jaw-like leaves to trap insects. Scientists have been mystified by what causes the “jaws” to close. However, it appears that stimulation from prey produces a small magnetic field which triggers the “jaws” to snap shut.

Studies have shown that other plants use magnetism by generating magnetic fields, including a bean and a single-celled alga and bacteria. This magnetic ability seems to be built into the plants for highly specialized functions. Thus, God’s design for every living thing is both subtle and complex.

Science is just beginning to understand how plants use magnetism. As we have said before, that Earth’s magnetic field has reversed in the past. We are far from understanding the many ways such a reversal could have affected life on this planet.

Realize that magnetism in a living plant requires ferromagnetic materials to be built into the plant. Those magnetic materials would serve no other purpose than to allow the plant to use magnetism somehow. Everywhere we look in the natural world, we see that a wonder-working hand has gone before.

Reference: National Geographic, September 2021, page 19.

August 20, 2021August 20, 2021

Upside-Down Beetle Walking Underwater

The insect world continually surprises scientists who sometimes see an insect do something that no one had noticed or paid attention to before. For example, most of us have witnessed water striders that use surface tension to skate along the top of quiet pools of water. However, recently a researcher in Australia noticed a beetle walking on the water surface, but upside down from below. The upside-down beetle is a species of water scavenger beetle (Hyrophilidae) and the first beetle in which a scientist has documented this behavior.

Some snails can slide along the underside of the water surface on a layer of mucus. However, these beetles seem to have a unique method of walking upside down in the water. They can even stop and pause or change directions as if walking on a solid surface. This gives the beetle some advantage to avoid predators.

This behavior was noticed and documented by behavioral biologist John Gould of the University of Newcastle in Australia. The picture is of another water scavenger beetle in Ohio. However, you can see a video taken by Gould on YouTube at THIS LINK.

Apparently, the beetle traps an air bubble against its upturned belly, allowing it to press against the water-air boundary. The beetle’s feet must have some way of getting traction to enable movement. Robotics experts have learned from the ability of water striders to walk on the water’s surface. Therefore, it seems likely they will find some uses for walking upside down under liquid surfaces.

Gould said that “the findings about the upside-down beetle highlight how often we ignore or miss the amazing things the smallest animals are doing every day, and describing the natural history of the small is just as important as describing the natural history of any large mammal or bird.” In addition, the upside-down beetle reminds us that we can learn by studying God’s creation and the design He built into every living thing.

Reference: Science News, July 31, 2021, and Ethology.

August 17, 2021August 16, 2021

Cruel Deaths of Animals

One of our regular readers has raised a good point about our discussion of why predators are essential to the survival of life on Earth. He said, “Your article reasoned why there must be predators: ‘to keep nature in balance.’ But that doesn’t answer the question. It was ‘why must animals undergo such cruel deaths?’”

The question of “cruel deaths” raises many issues and assumptions. We tend to assign human values to animals and assume they have the same feelings and emotions we have. This complicates the question and causes responses that are not consistent with the evidence.

The phrase “cruel deaths” is the real issue in this discussion. Has God designed anything in animals that reduces the pain animals perceive in being killed? First, we need to understand that there is a difference in the physiology of different kinds of animals. All animals have a nociception response to pain. You have a quick response when you touch something hot. It is essentially a reflex response to pain. It is obvious that to avoid a negative sensation, animals must know when something is injuring them.

The real issue is pain that comes about by some other means. Only primates, including humans, have a neocortex area in their brain in which we can realize the sensation of pain. The neocortex receives signals from group C nerve fibers, allowing pain sensations to travel from an affected area to the brain. In humans, nerve fibers connect 83% of the body’s extremities to the neocortex area. On the other hand, fish have only 5% of the group C nerve fibers, and they are smaller in diameter, meaning that there is a low nerve conduction velocity. The bottom line is that animals do not feel pain as humans do. Another interesting fact is that animals have an instinctive drive to eat food containing analgesics (pain-killing substances).

We have to understand that it is a delicate balance to design an animal with the necessary nociception response to pain required for survival without having a neocortex response to pain. We can’t imagine the pain of having our stomach torn open by a predator, but even for humans losing a lot of blood, leading to death may not be a painful experience.

It is easy for humans to criticize the Creator’s design of an animal until we try to design one ourselves. What God has done is to build living things, so they do not suffer in the way humans do. We must be careful to avoid anthropomorphizing animals—thinking of them in human terms—suggesting cruel deaths.

Data for the above came from a variety of websites in a search for “animals and pain.”

August 13, 2021August 12, 2021

Glasswing Butterflies – Practically Invisible

We often overlook how hard it is to maintain the balance between different kinds of life in the natural world. For example, if an animal is too successful at avoiding predators and reproducing, it will eat up all of its available food. If it is not successful enough, it will become extinct because predators will wipe it out. Then the predators will be short of food. The design of life which allows animals and plants to exist in balance with their environment is amazing.

One design factor that protects many animals is camouflage. An excellent example of that is an insect known as glasswing butterflies (Greta oto) which have transparent wings. One scientist said that “transparency is the ultimate form of camouflage” because the insect can blend into any background, but transparency is “really hard to do.” Glasswings live in the rainforests of Central and South America.

Most living things are visible because they reflect light. However, microscopic studies of glasswing butterflies show that the wing material has low absorption, low reflection, and low scattering of light. Microscopic nanopillars on the wing’s surface are designed to minimize light reflection and smooth the refraction index gradient between the wing surface and the air. The result is a practically invisible wing except for the dark brown borders tinted with red or orange.

If you believe that natural selection is the sole cause of this design, why don’t all butterflies have transparent wings? This feature obviously favors the survival of the butterfly. Most butterflies have colorful, eye-catching wing patterns that make them visible while giving us an appreciation for the role of beauty in the creation.

From an evolutionary standpoint, there should be no butterflies left with colorful wings, but glasswing butterflies are the exception, not the rule. God has designed creatures to survive in all kinds of environments.

Reference: Science News, July 31, 2021, page 32.

August 11, 2021August 15, 2021

Missile Defense Systems and Dragonfly Brains

Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have been studying the brains of insects to learn how to build computers that can intercept incoming missiles. Dragonflies successfully capture up to 95% of the prey they pursue – which is usually mosquitoes. The dragonfly doesn’t just aim its body at the mosquito, but rather it points its body at where the mosquito is going to be. You can see the connection between missile defense systems and dragonfly brains.

Dragonflies have specialized eyes that send data to their brains at the equivalent of 200 frames per second, which is several times faster than the human eye. The human brain has many more neurons than the dragonfly–86 billion as opposed to the 250,000. The larger number of neurons in human brains allows us to have cognition and do many things. However, dragonflies are designed to do one thing—to catch their food—and do it fast.

Dragonflies respond to a maneuver by their prey in 50 milliseconds (ms). That requires the eye to detect and transmit information to the brain in 10 ms. The brain has to calculate the dragonfly’s counter-maneuver in 35 ms to leave 5 ms for flight muscles to activate and take the dragonfly to where the mosquito will be. In-flight, the dragonfly must continually monitor the mosquito’s path and recalculate the trajectory. The speed of the process means there is time for only three or four neuron layers to act. Missile defense systems and dragonfly brains must act quickly.

Other insects have neurons designed for specific functions. For example, monarch butterflies have a navigational system that depends on the position of the Sun. Since the Sun’s position changes from morning to afternoon, the butterflies must have a designed system that allows them to always travel in the right direction. In addition to that, they need an instinct that tells them when to start their journey. Ants and bees also have neuron structures that allow them to return to their nest or hive no matter how far they get from it in their search for food.

Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories and Janelia Research Campus are studying these insect brains with the idea of building computers that will allow interception of missiles, prevent cars from colliding, and serve other practical purposes that require focus and speed. Proverbs 6:6 tells us to “go to the ant … consider its ways and be wise.” The design we see in even the simplest of God’s creatures radiates purpose and intelligence beyond that of mechanical chance.

Reference: IEEE Spectrum

August 5, 2021August 4, 2021

A Fish with Four Eyes – Anableps

God has equipped living things with some amazing equipment to enable them to survive in all kinds of environments. One example is the fish in the Anableps genus, which have what appears to be four eyes. These “fish with four eyes” live in the coastal waters of Venezuela and Trinidad and along the coastline to the northeast coastal areas of South America.

The Anableps eyes are located above the top of the head, and the fish swim on the water’s surface. They have two eyes out of the water to see what is above the surface and two eyes below the water to see what is there. Actually, they have only two eyeballs, each divided horizontally by a thin band of epithelial tissue. Each eye has two corneas and two pupils. The lens is oval-shaped, while the retina splits into two sections. The lens varies in thickness because of the difference in refraction between the air (index of refraction 1) and the water (1.33). That means light is bent differently for the bottom of the lens than for the top. To correct for that, the lens thickness varies, with the top being thicker than the bottom.

What is the advantage of being able to see above and below the water at the same time? The upper eye can detect insects, while the lower eye detects small fish, diatoms, algae, and small water creatures. That gives these fish with four eyes more food options.

What may not be obvious is how complicated the Anablep’s brain has to be to handle four sets of data. For example, when an upper eye sees a bug on the water’s surface and the lower eye sees a small fish, the brain has to know which part of the eye is sending the signal. Then it has to decide which food to catch and how to do it. Scientists are studying how the Anableps brain performs these tasks.

Anableps also have a very unique reproductive system, but we’ll save that for a later discussion. There is no way to trace an evolutionary process from a typical fish or a single cell organism to a modern Anableps. These fish with four eyes are another example of God’s design that allows life to exist in every environment and situation on Earth.

Reference: Scientific American, August 2021, page 22

August 3, 2021August 2, 2021

God Must be Cruel – Or Not

Skeptics often argue against the existence of a compassionate God. They say that God must be cruel because there is so much cruelty in nature. Television documentaries give us gory videos of lions ripping apart a beautiful impala or wolves tearing apart a baby moose. There are countless examples of situations in the natural world where a predator violently eats a helpless animal. These images even affect human diets in which some people choose not to eat meat because it means someone killed a defenseless animal.

In the past several years, studies have shown that nature has a design that involves “keystone species.” These are animals essential to a local environment. That means without them the entire ecosystem would collapse. Here are some examples that scientific studies have documented:

Sea otters eat sea urchins. When fur hunters removed otters, the urchins reproduced in massive numbers and eventually ate all the ocean plants, so fish, clams, and squid died. The area became void of life.

Army ants eat leaf cutter ants. When army ants were removed from a jungle area, leaf cutter ants ate all the plants, and the jungle became a desert with bird and animal life gone.

When people have removed wolves from an area, deer reproduced in excessive numbers and ate all plant life within their reach. The result was that when old trees died, the forest ceased to exist and became a barren wasteland. In Yellowstone National Park, the introduction of wolves has resulted in the reduction of deer and elk populations. Then new trees and bushes came back, allowing all animal life to flourish.

When people fished largemouth bass out of a lake, minnows reproduced in massive numbers and ate all the plants and microscopic life. As a result, everything in the lake died, including the minnows.

Scientists refer to the elimination of keystone species as “downgrading.” Those who say God must be cruel are not seeing the whole picture. What humans might interpret as unnecessary cruelty is actually necessary for life to exist. We anthropomorphize living things by attaching human values to animals. The design built into creation allows life of all kinds to exist. Therefore, it is not cruel but a part of a wise God’s design for balance in living things.

— John N. Clayton E 2021

Reference: “Keystone Species” by PBS on July 22, 2021.

July 27, 2021July 18, 2021

Design of an Elephant’s Trunk

Some of the exciting things about the natural world are the cases where the design is so advanced that any evolutionary explanation is difficult to believe. An excellent example of that is the design of an elephant’s trunk.

Recent ultrasound studies of elephant trunks have shown they are incredibly complex examples of design. The elephant is the only living land animal to have a long boneless appendage. A septum stretching the length of the trunk separates the trunk’s two nostrils. The elephant can expand each nostril’s volume up to 64%. The flow rate of water through the trunk averages about 3.7 liters per second, which would be the same as 24 shower heads operating all at once.

An elephant’s trunk is not just a drinking straw. When the elephant uses the trunk for something other than water, such as food, the nostrils don’t expand, but the elephant uses its lungs to suck up the food. The nostrils can bring air in at more than 150 meters per second, 30 times as fast as in a human’s sneeze.

Research is continuing on the muscular design of an elephant’s trunk. The intricate muscular structure and lack of joints give the elephant a highly complex trunk movement. Engineers have built robotic devices based on the design of an elephant’s trunk,

One researcher commented, “You never know where bio-inspiration will lead.” Designs from Velcro to airplane wings have come about by studying what God has created in living things. Everywhere we look, we see that a wonder-working hand has gone before.

Reference: Science News July 3 & 17, 2021 page 11.

July 17, 2021July 17, 2021

Birds are Better Than Pesticides

One of the major scourges that farmers face is crop damage from insects. Farmers spend massive amounts of money on pesticides to get rid of the pests that invade almost every crop they grow. There is also a significant problem with rodents in some crops, and again chemical elimination of rodents is expensive and does a great deal of collateral damage. The solution to all of this is birds. Birds are better than pesticides.

God has always built into the natural environment a way to keep insects and rodents in check. Predators prevent the overpopulation of these pest challenges to human farmers. When humans kill off the predators, the only recourse is using chemicals. New studies have shown how vital birds are to the control of insects and rodents. Birds are better than pesticides. Here are some examples:

FLOOD CONTROL DAMS AND LEVEES – Ground squirrels and gophers burrow under dams and levees, causing the collapse of these structures. Chemical use of anticoagulant rodenticides cost Ventura County, California, $7500 a year and also killed coyotes, bobcats, and mountain lions. So instead, the county installed raptor perches to attract owls, hawks, and falcons. Studies showed that those birds were 67% more effective in controlling rodent burrows and saved $7500.

INDONESIAN CACAO PLANTATIONS – Yields of cacao, used for making chocolate, have increased by 290 pounds per acre after adding bird boxes to the fields.

EUROPEAN APPLE GROWERS – Growers have reduced caterpillar damage by 50% by adding nest boxes that attract insectivorous birds known as great tits.

COFFEE BEANS – Farmers in Jamaica added bird boxes and reduced the number of coffee berry borers, increasing profits by $126 per acre.

CALIFORNIA VINEYARDS – Pocket gophers and voles were damaging crops up to $58 per acre. A single family of barn owls placed in a nest box killed 3,000 rodents in a single year. Armyworms are a problem for U.S. Vineyards as well as for beet growers. In California, nest boxes have attracted bluebirds that eat 2.4 times the number of armyworms as areas without bird boxes.

WALNUT GROVES – Moth Larvae are a problem for walnut growers. Placing bird boxes eliminated four times as many of the larvae as other methods.

Humans have created many problems by not using God’s methods of controlling pests. Research shows that chemicals which cause cancer and other issues are not nearly as effective as birds in eliminating the scourges farmers face. Birds are better than pesticides.

Reference: Living Bird, Summer 2021, Volume 40 # 3, pages 33 – 42. Available from Cornell Lab of Ornithology.