Category: Plants

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Trees Prepare for Winter

Trees Prepare for Winter

Imagine standing naked outside on a cold winter day. When winter’s chill comes, people take shelter. If we have to be out, we put on more clothing. Most animals have fur or feathers to help keep them warm, and they also seek shelter from the cold. Trees in winter can only stand there and take it for months at a time. So how do trees prepare for winter?

Living cells in plants or animals consist primarily of water inside a membrane. If you leave a bottle of water in your car on a night when the temperature drops below freezing, you know it will freeze and break the bottle. That is because water has the unique property of expanding as it freezes. The same thing can happen in living cells. If the water in the cell freezes, it will expand and rupture the membrane. Animals that are endothermic (warm-blooded) generate heat within their cells by burning sugar to produce energy. Plants make sugar using light energy. With a few exceptions, they don’t produce heat.

How do trees prepare for winter? They use a process botanists refer to as “hardening.” The cell walls become more permeable to allow water to escape. At the same time, sugars, proteins, and acids in the cell are concentrated into a syrupy liquid, which acts as an antifreeze. The spaces between the cell walls become filled with ultra-pure water filtered through the cell walls. Pure water without stray atoms to form a nucleus around which ice crystals can grow, will freeze only at a much lower temperature. With the cells filled with antifreeze and spaces between having only ultra-pure water that can be super-cooled without freezing, the tree is ready for what the winter brings.

How does the tree know that it’s time to harden for winter? Fall weather can fluctuate quickly and dramatically. A tree can’t depend on the fickle weather because it could easily be fooled by warm days that suddenly turn cold, causing it to freeze to death. Trees know when to prepare for winter because of the length of the days – the “photoperiod.” Weather is unpredictable. The Sun is absolutely dependable. When the tree senses a decrease in light in each 24-hour cycle, it knows winter is coming, even if the weather is unusually warm. The pattern of changing daylight and darkness is exactly the same every year, even though the weather is capricious.

God engineered this incredibly well-designed system. “Then God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night. They will serve as signs for seasons and for days and for years’” (Genesis 1:14). Thus God designed the system which says, “Trees prepare for winter.” It’s another engineering marvel from the Creator.

— Roland Earnst © 2019

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Design of Symbiosis

Design of Symbiosis

One of the most interesting examples of design is the massive number of symbiotic relationships that exist in the natural world. These are arrangements two or more plants or animals benefit each other. Sometimes the design of symbiosis is essential for their survival.

Living by a river in Michigan, we see many animals that couldn’t exist without symbiotic relationships. Such common animals as squirrels need a designed symbiotic relationship that allows them gives them a growing abundance of food. We have a wealth of oak trees. In the fall, there are so many acorns on the ground that you can’t go barefoot. I counted 14 squirrels in my yard this morning, gathering acorns. They not only eat the acorns, but they bury them so that they will have a reserve of food for the rest of the year. They hide so many in so many different places that they eat only a small fraction of the acorns. The rest sprout and produce more oak trees. The oak forest spreads, and that means that the squirrel population can increase. The trees feed the squirrels, and the squirrels plant the trees in the design of symbiosis.

I grew up in the upper peninsula of Michigan. The bedrock there is mostly granite. Granite is hard, and water cannot penetrate it. That means that growing crops is difficult in the “U.P.” Animals would have it tough except that God has provided an animal with a symbiotic relationship to the soil and rocks of the area. To retain enough water to take the entire ecosystem through periods of drought, beavers construct dams in the streams. The multiple dams create small ponds that supply the water needs of plants and animals. What would otherwise be a sterile wasteland is a temperate paradise of woods with a wealth of birds and animals all dependent on the beavers. As beavers reproduce, their kits build their own system of dams and ponds, expanding the availability of water for all northern life.

What is the most expensive meal you can order when you go out to eat? Ask for the “diamonds of the kitchen” and you will be served a fungus called a truffle. A three-pound truffle recently sold for $300,000, and yet it is just a fungus. Truffles grow underground on the roots of trees. The truffle keeps bacteria and corrosive elements away from the tree roots, and the roots provide a protected place for the truffle to grow. This is another design of symbiosis. The way most people search for truffles is to have pigs root around trees until they uncover a truffle. Truffles are said to be the most expensive food in the world, but to locate them requires the use of animals that most of us don’t care to be around.

There are countless symbiotic relationships. The question of interest is, how does such a relationship develop? Is it merely by accident? We suggest God has looked at the nutritional needs of all of His creatures. In His wisdom, He has created living things in a way that links their food supply to other living things in their environment. The design of symbiosis is a marvelous creation of God.

— John N. Clayton © 2019

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Mushrooms, God’s Waste Processors

Mushrooms, God's Waste Processors

We are all familiar with the green plants that grow in our yards and gardens. Most of us know that the process that converts the energy of the Sun into food for the plant is called photosynthesis. “Photo” means light, and “synthesis” means change. The change is made possible by a wonderfully well-designed material called chlorophyll, which means “green leaf” in Greek. What happens when there is no light and no chlorophyll? This is essentially the issue on the forest floor, where detritus piles up, including cellulose from plants and organic material from both plants and animals. A whole different kind of organism is required to change all of that material into useful energy. That is why we have plants such as mushrooms, God’s waste processors.

Instead of cellulose, which makes up the cell walls of most plants, the cell walls of a mushroom are made of chitin. Chitin is a protein similar to the keratin in your hair and fingernails. Mushrooms are fungi that use chemical changes to turn dead plant material into energy, which may be useful to other forms of life. There are hundreds of different kinds of mushrooms and thousands of different types of toadstools. Each kind contains materials that allow these plants to clean up anything that might be on the floor of the forest.

Not only do mushrooms and toadstools clean up the forest floor, but they also supply humans and animals with a variety of useful materials. Humans can eat many forms of mushrooms, and animals can eat some varieties that humans cannot. We use mushrooms and toadstools to make dye, detergents, bug killers, and medicines for humans and animals.

Everything in the creation has a purpose, but sometimes we are ignorant of the uses and benefits of things like mushrooms. God has designed not only the beautiful things we see, but also the beautiful things we don’t see, but which are essential to our existence. Mushrooms are fungi, and we often think of a fungus as something negative and bad. However, mushrooms, God’s waste processors, play a positive role in support of our life on this planet.

We have a children’s book titled The Friendly Fungus Among Us by Charlsy Ford and John Clayton. You can read it online HERE or purchase it HERE.

— John N. Clayton © 2019

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Negative Data on Marijuana

Negative Data on MarijuanaThe current craze on the use of marijuana has convinced many people that it is a miracle drug that will take care of all health issues. Some claim that it can not only help in cases of mental illness and dementia but that it also can cure cancer, Crone’s disease, Alzheimer’s, and a host of other common maladies. There are medical uses of components of marijuana that are promising and may be refined and used as pharmaceuticals in years ahead. What many are ignoring is negative data on marijuana.

There are good reasons to avoid using marijuana in some cases. In Colorado, the following negative factors are connected to the use of recreational marijuana:

1) Since marijuana was legalized in Colorado, there has been an 8% rise in homelessness. The Colorado Division of Criminal Justice has shown that the legalization of marijuana has attracted transient people to the state.

2) The Colorado Health Department has shown a 400% increase in children younger than eight years of age who have been poisoned by high potency cannabis leading to emergency room visits.

3) Children ages 1 to 13 have been exposed to second-hand marijuana smoke in thousands of homes.

4) A study by the University of Colorado of 639 teenagers treated in 2015 in one Colorado hospital system either had cannabis in their urine or told a doctor they had used it.

5) The Highway Loss Data Institute has reported that Colorado, Oregon, and Washington have seen a 3% jump in auto collision claims since the legalization of marijuana in those states.

Having cannabis available as a controlled medical substance is one thing. It is another thing to make recreational marijuana available to anyone and everyone knowing the negative data on marijuana use. Like cigarette smoke, this is a health hazard that doesn’t just involve the user but also involves people in the user’s house and environment.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

Data from Rebecca R. Bibbs in the Herald Bulletin 11/4/19, page A2.

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Beauty of Earth’s Diversity

Beauty of Earths DiversityThe plant in the picture is called the “bird of paradise.” It is neither a bird, nor is it found in paradise. However, it is indeed a beautiful example of the beauty of Earth’s diversity in the plant world. One of the primary reasons many of us enjoy travel and visiting museums, zoos, and arboretums is that we are enthralled with the incredible diversity of living things.

We want to suggest that this diversity is more than a device to entertain us humans. From a scientific standpoint, it is the diversity of life on Earth that has led to the high standard of living available to us on this planet. As geneticists unravel the genome of living things, it becomes more and more apparent why agricultural breeding practices of the past have been successful. The production of super chickens, super cows, low-fat pork, and all the other unique breeds has been possible because of all the different genetic options God built into life. If, for example, there had been only one set of genes for all bovines on this planet, such cattle as the Charolais would not have been possible. It is only because we have an infinite number of genetic possibilities to draw from that we can select those that will serve our particular needs.

In plants, this is equally obvious. We have only begun to appreciate all that plants can do. Scientists have studied only a small percentage of all plants on this planet to see how we can use them. Cures for cancer, AIDS, the common cold, and a variety of other ailments may well be in a plant we have not yet investigated. It is self-evident in today’s world that solving the problem of hunger lies in the fuller use of plants. The diversity of plants holds the key to better nutrition, more and better fabrics to protect and shelter us, and even the improvement of air quality.

In God’s creative wisdom, He gave us a wide diversity of life of all kinds and told us to “take care of the Garden, dress it, and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). The future has vast potential for good if we will use in a constructive way all that God has given us. To arbitrarily destroy any of this diversity and thus end its potential usefulness is not only poor management of the “Garden,” but also the worst kind of foolishness.

We also suggest that the beauty of Earth’s diversity of humans offers the potential for vast good. Each of us has a gift designed into our makeup that uniquely qualifies us to bring great blessings to others. Paul said it best:

“According to the grace given to us, we have different gifts: If prophecy, use it according to the proportion of one’s faith; if service, use it in service, if teaching, in teaching; if exhorting, in exhortation; giving, with generosity; leading, with diligence; showing mercy, with cheerfulness” (Romans 12:6-8). See also 1 Corinthians 12:8-27.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

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Cotyledon’s Engineered Preparation for life

Cotyledon’s Engineered Preparation for lifePlant seedlings emerging from the ground use the cotyledon’s engineered preparation for life. You may not be familiar with cotyledons, but you have undoubtedly seen them on newly emerged seedlings.

To get the idea, think about some other engineered devices that serve an essential preparatory function. When skydivers jump from a plane, they use carefully engineered equipment. The first thing they deploy to prepare for landing is a pilot chute. The pilot chute can’t land them safely on the ground. Its purpose is to deploy the main parachute. Perhaps more familiar to most people is the limited-use spare tire for automobiles. Those “donuts,” as many people call them, are not designed for high-speed driving or for driving long distances. They are engineered to get you to the nearest service station where the punctured tire can be repaired or replaced. The pilot chute and the limited-use spare tire are examples of engineered preparation.

Just as the pilot chute is packed into the jumper’s gear and the donut is packed into the vehicle, there is something packed into the seed called a cotyledon. Scientists classify flowering plants (angiosperms) as monocots or dicots depending whether they have one or two cotyledons folded into the seed. As soon as the seed has sent a taproot into the soil, it pulls in moisture and uses the hydrostatic pressure to push up a green shoot bearing the cotyledons. As those “donuts” break through the surface, they inflate to provide temporary, emergency photosynthesis. The seedling begins to drink up the water and nutrients from the taproot and use energy from sunlight to kickstart the photosynthesis process.

As the cotyledon’s engineered preparation for life gets the new plant started, real leaves begin to form. In a sense, the cotyledons have taken the plant to the first service station or deployed the main chute. Now it is ready to go from a seedling to a full-grown plant or tree. The seedling still has many challenges ahead, just as the parachutist or motorist does. But just as having the pilot chute or the donut packed and ready for deployment aids the jumper or the driver, the cotyledon supports the plant. Would anyone suggest the pilot chute or donut are merely accidents? We know those devices would not be possible without engineering design. In truth, cotyledons require far more complex engineering that only the master Designer can do.
— Roland Earnst © 2019

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Spring-loaded Movement in Living Things

Spring-loaded Movement in Living ThingsAn interesting study of living things in the world around us involves how things move from one place to another. There are many creatures with muscles that move their legs or wings to travel from place-to-place. Other forms of life use spring-loaded movement with power greater than muscles can provide.

The larvae of the gall midge Asphondylia flip with power by using a built-in latch that acts as a spring. Gall midges lay their eggs on silverrod or goldenrod plants (Solidago). The midges grow from an egg to a larva inside a gall that grows on the plant. The larva’s body forms into an ellipse by meshing together the back and front using a velcro-like surface on each end. As the midge larva grows, the tension on the surfaces increases until it finally breaks free, shooting the midge as far as 36 times its body length. We previously reported on the so-called “Dracula ant” (Mystrium camillae) which has the world’s fastest jaws that operate on a mechanism which gives them spring-loaded movement.

Some plants like the Chinese Witch Hazel (Hamamelis mollis) have a similar structure in their fruit. As the fruit grows, it builds up stress until the edges of the fruit break, shooting the seed great distances. That spring-loaded launch method spreads the seeds over a wider area. Also, we previously reported on the sandbox tree (Hura crepitans) nicknamed “the dynamite tree.” Its seedpods open explosively by a spring-loaded movement that scatters the seeds.

These are all design features built into the very structure of the organisms to allow locomotion. Even the smallest creatures such as ants and midge flies and plants that are rooted in place use spring-loaded movement. Everywhere we look in the creation, we see God’s designs at work. His wonder-working hand has created a great diversity in all of life.

As Paul wrote in Romans 1:20, “For the invisible things of Him (His wisdom, power, and design) from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made even His eternal power and deity; so that mankind is without excuse…”
— John N. Clayton © 2019

Reference: Science News, August 31, 2019, page 10.

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National Geographic and Alternative Medicine

National Geographic and Alternative Medicine
We frequently refer to articles in National Geographic magazine. There have been times when the National Geographic Society has jumped to conclusions about some issue because of their bias to the currently held scientific beliefs. That is especially true when evolutionary theory is involved. However, their articles always have excellent photography and are usually well documented by credible scientists. That makes the relationship between National Geographic and alternative medicine very surprising.

The National Geographic Society has published six books promoting alternative medicine that are not only bad science but also bad journalism. These books go back to 2010, but in the last three years, the books have moved past just presenting data and have gone to promoting a wide range of alternative remedies.

In 2010 they released a book titled Guide to Medicinal Herbs followed by Complete Guide to Natural Home Remedies in 2012. Starting in 2014 the editors began promoting what they called Healing Remedies, Nature’s Best Remedies (2015), Natural Home Remedies (2017), and Nature’s Best Remedies (2019). These books claimed to offer ways to cure or heal illnesses. It is disturbing is that there is virtually no documentation nor any attempt to point out problems in the promoted “remedies” such as side effects or possible collateral damage.

It is important to understand that there are natural materials that can help treat physical problems in the human body. It is also important to know that this is a huge business with an expanding market making it attractive to every fast-talking con-artist. There is virtually no supervision of alternative medicine. That means people can make all kinds of claims without documenting them. To see National Geographic enter this circus is very disappointing. Skeptical Inquirer has taken on National Geographic in their September/October 2019 special issue titled “The Health Wars.” Skeptical Inquirer describes the problem this way:

“Producing books full of claims that lack evidence and don’t even meet minimum scientific standards belies the NGS’s stated ‘passion for science.’ Some of the advice can actually harm. The inconsistencies among the books are troubling and weaken any argument that they are providing ‘information people can trust.’ The National Geographic Society should not sully its reputation by promoting health practices and products not supported by credible scientific evidence.”

We encourage those interested in alternative medicine to examine what is presented in this issue of Skeptical Inquirer about National Geographic and alternative medicine. Click HERE to read the article and always use caution when taking medical advice.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

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Facts About Plant Design

Facts About Plant Design including WatermelonOne of our gardener friends sent us these interesting facts about plant design:

Seeds may be dropped into the ground upside down or sideways, yet the plants always come up to the surface.

One grain of corn will produce a stalk on which there may be two ears, with perhaps 742 grains on each ear.

A light crop of wheat will produce approximately 30 grains on each stalk. A good crop of wheat will produce approximately 60 grains on each stalk. There will always be an even number of grains.

Beans grow up a pole from left to right. Morning glories grow up a pole from right to left. If turned upside down, “twining” plants will uncoil and recircle their support. Guide a twiner in the “wrong” direction, and the plant will rewind itself. The higher the twiner grows, the more tightly it clasps its support.

Dandelions will grow above their surroundings whether the grass is two, ten, or twenty inches, for it must grow up into the sunlight.

An average watermelon will have ten stripes on it. Larger ones may have 12 to 16 stripes, but they always an even number.

Those are just a few facts about plant design. Every form of life in the vegetable and animal kingdom has a predetermined set of characteristics – a master plan perfect in every detail – God’s plan. God has a perfect plan for my life and yours, which supplies all our needs – His Word (2 Peter 1:3). By His grace, we receive strength to rise above all our circumstances (Romans 8:31).
— Bob Schweikard © 2019