algae Archives

January 3, 2025January 5, 2025

Heart Cockle Fiber Optics

God has equipped all living things with some method of survival. Research on the heart cockle, a small clam that lives in shallow waters in the Indian and Pacific oceans, has shown that it uses fiber optics to get sunlight through its shell to supply the food it needs.

Heart cockles get their food from algae living within their shells in a symbiotic relationship, benefiting both parties. The algae get sunlight through a crystalline form of calcium carbonate called aragonite arranged in tiny tubes that function like fiber-optic cables. These tubes allow visible light to pass through the cockle’s shell while blocking infrared and ultraviolet light. The algae use the light to produce sugars and other nutrients that benefit the clam while the clam protects the algae within its shell.

According to Science News, the aragonite can channel light without the reflective coatings that telecommunications fiber optics require. While filtering out harmful ultraviolet light, the fiber optic-like structures are “finely tuned to balance the shell’s mechanical strength with its ability to efficiently transmit light.” The “finely tuned” heart cockle shell design had to have a designer, and trying to explain it by chance alone requires a vivid imagination. This is one more evidence that God has designed a vast number of ways for life to survive.

— John N. Clayton © 2025
Reference: Science News December 14 & 28, 2024, page 10

September 6, 2021September 3, 2021

Animals Growing Crops

We generally think of farming as a human enterprise, but there are cases in the natural world of animals growing crops. In most cases, the crop they are raising could not survive without the animal tending it. Some good examples are living things that eat fungi or algae.

Researchers at Kyoto University in Japan studied red algae called Polysiphonia. These algae have a symbiotic relationship with a species of damselfish (Stegastes nigricans). Red algae look like a brown carpet, and the damselfish make sure that the carpet is not disturbed. If any other species of algae shows up among the red algae, the damselfish will nip it off and take it out of the fish’s territory. If the damselfish is removed from the area, the red algae can’t survive. So it appears that the damselfish are critical to the survival of the red algae and vice versa.

There have been other studies of certain species of ants, termites, and ambrosia beetles that grow fungi for food. Some of these “farmers” even use bacteria to produce pesticides to protect their fungus crops. How do such symbiotic relationships happen? Evolutionists suggest that initially, the animal had a varied diet but becoming dependent on one thing offered such an advantage that the animal gave up any other foods.

The difficulties with the evolutionary explanation are many and quite complex. The nutritional issues are a problem because a single source of nutrition must have a balanced collection of minerals. Going from a varied diet to a single food does not seem to be an evolutionary advantage. Defending the food source is also an issue. For example, when the researchers removed the damselfish, other fish and sea urchins had eaten all of the red algae within days.

Another explanation is that symbiotic relationships are part of the design of every animal’s genome. The earliest fossil remains of many animals show that a symbiotic relationship was already in place. We suggest that animals growing crops is part of God’s design. He gave them the genetic messaging and instinctive drive necessary for them to survive.

Reference: Original article in Science News August 12, 2006, page 102. You can find many other references on the web.

July 15, 2019July 15, 2019

Algae Solutions to Human Problems

Algae Solutions to Human Problems When you hear the word algae, negative thoughts may come to your mind. You may have problems with algae growths in your pond or birdbath. You have heard about toxic algal blooms that have hit seafood industries on the Pacific Coast. Many of us have viewed the red tide in Florida first hand. There are lawsuits in progress against companies that allowed chemical runoffs to trigger the destructive growth of algae in lakes and the ocean causing economic hardship for fishing trades and seafood producers. Unlike human-caused algae problems, there is a promise of algae solutions to human problems.

Consider the following facts:

Algae is probably our best tool for reducing greenhouse gases. Algae take carbon dioxide from the air and produce oxygen. More than half of the oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere comes from converting carbon dioxide to oxygen and algae is the primary agent for doing that. There is good evidence that excessive algae growth in the past caused global cooling.

Phytoplankton algae grow world-wide and make up the base of aquatic food-chains, eventually leading to most of the seafood we eat.

Giant kelp, which are algae, provide food and protected ecosystems for ocean creatures.

Cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, such as spirulina contain proteins, vitamins, minerals, and essential fatty acids. People in many countries have been harvesting spirulina for nutrition since the 1940s. Japanese cooks use algae in soups and sushi wrappers. The additives agar and carrageenan from algae are used in ice cream and jellies.

Symbiotic relationships exist between algae and coral, helping to prevent storm damage to coral reefs that house sea life and protect shoreline structures. Algae solutions to human problems are many.

Research continues into how we can use algae to produce fuel. New foods made of algae are being developed. Most recently sea grapes, which are algae, have been used as green caviar because their texture and appearance looks like caviar and they are very nutritious.

God has provided for us in so many ways that it has taken our entire human history to discover them. For many years people did not eat tomatoes because they were considered to be poisonous. That seems silly to us today when whole industries are built around the tomato. In the future, perhaps we can say the same of algae. These rootless, leafless plants have incredible potential to provide algae solutions to human problems both here on Earth and as we travel into outer space.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

Reference: Science Digest, July 2019

February 3, 2019January 30, 2019

Ice Algae – Designed Polar Grass

Have you ever wondered how animals that live near Earth’s North and South Poles survive? What do they eat, and how can any kind of food chain exist? The answer to this is ice algae.

Unlike most plants, algae do not have flowers, roots, stems, leaves, or vascular tissue. However, ice algae, like most plants, provide the starting point for a food chain. In this case, it is a food chain in very cold places. Tiny krill, penguins, seals, polar bears, and blue whales all depend on ice algae to survive. In 2016 Dr. Thomas Brown of the Scottish Association for Marine Science studied polar bears and found that 86% of the polar bears’ nutrition came from a food chain that originated with ice algae.

Ice algae have chlorophyll so they can use whatever light is available for photosynthesis. There are a variety of types of algae that live in different conditions. Some live on the surface of the ocean, some on the floor of the ocean, and some in or on the ice itself. Ice algae produce fatty acids which supply nutritional value for animals that live in what would otherwise be a nutritional void. Because there is ice algae, animal life is abundant under, in, and around the ice at both poles.

God has provided interesting food chains all over the planet. As we study global warming and its effect on life in places like the polar seas, we see more of His handiwork and learn why we need to take care of it. The admonition of Genesis 2:15 to “take care of the garden to dress it and keep it” applies as much to us today as it did to Adam and Eve.
–John N. Clayton © 2019

Data from National Wildlife, February/March 2019, pages 14-16.