You probably think insects are everywhere, and you would be correct. You will not find a single home in the United States, or anywhere else, that does not have ants, beetles, or spiders. The truth is that we could not live without insects because they fill many beneficial roles in the ecosystem. For the past four decades, scientists have estimated that there are about six million insect species. However, a new study published in June 2026 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has revised that estimate upward – a lot! How many insect species are there?
Nobody knows for sure, but the new research estimates that there are 14 to 20 million species. That is SPECIES, not the total number of insects. There are “thousands of billions” of individual ants crawling around the planet. Coming up with a total number of individual insects would be impossible, but the number far exceeds the number of people. Don’t let that bother you because they are essential to life on this planet.
The diversity of insects is also amazing. Some are so small we may not even see them. Some fly, and others crawl. We never see some of them because they live as parasites inside other insects. Many clean up organic waste in our environment. Others pollinate our crops. I am sure there are some that you would rather do without, such as flies and mosquitoes, but even they have a purpose. At the same time, you probably appreciate the beauty of butterflies.
One thing is certain. Insects are the most diverse and pervasive group of animals. Only God knows how many insect species there are, but those who study them are discovering new species every year.
What is a star-filled sky worth? When David wrote his psalms, he sat under a star-filled sky without the problem of light pollution from city lights, satellites, or reflective mirrors in the sky. What would it be like if there were tens of thousands of mirrors in low Earth orbit reflecting sunlight down onto various dark areas of the planet?
A California company called Reflect Orbital (we reported on it earlier) hopes to put at least 50,000 mirrors in orbit by 2035 to reflect sunlight onto various customers on Earth’s surface. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has just given them permission to test the idea by launching their first space mirror into orbit.
Ben Nowak, the CEO of Reflect Orbital, suggests endless possibilities with sunlight not limited by geography or time of day. His company’s website says it could help search-and-rescue teams locate a missing person much more quickly. Another suggestion is that a city could have evenly lit streets without carbon emissions from electric-powered streetlights. Furthermore, construction projects could be completed in half the time because the crews could work safely through the night. And, of course, they also suggest mirrors reflecting sunlight onto solar arrays could extend their electricity-generating ability and reduce the use of fossil fuels.
The question is, what is a star-filled sky worth? Many people visit dark-sky locations to enjoy the stars and the Milky Way at night. The Colorado Plateau in the southwestern United States spans Colorado, Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico and is home to many of the best dark-sky locations. Places like Grand Canyon National Park, Zion National Park, Great Basin National Park, Arches National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Canyonlands National Park, and Natural Bridges National Monument are locations where visitors see the night sky without major light pollution.
So far, the emphasis has been on the economic advantages that could be derived from placing mirrors in space to direct sunlight into various locations. But a team of researchers is attempting to put an economic price on the cost of the loss of dark skies and the impact on tourism. They’re concerned about the “decline in visitor satisfaction when environmental quality deteriorates.” Another factor that must be considered is the effect on wildlife in areas where those mirrors are beamed and the circadian rhythm of animals, plants, and people from the diffused light that is scattered out into a larger area. God has given us a beautiful night sky that the psalmist was able to enjoy thousands of years ago. It is already disappearing. Will that be completely lost to coming generations? What is a star-filled sky worth?
On July 1st, 2026, the New York Times science story of the day was titled “This Cell Feeds, Grows and Reproduces. And it’s Manmade.” The story described a new effort to create a living cell from nonliving materials. Dr. Kate Adamala, a synthetic biologist, and a team of researchers at the University of Minnesota developed a synthetic cell with some of the capabilities of living cells. She calls it a SpudCell because, under the microscope, it looks like a potato, though much smaller, of course. Is this the breakthrough to creating synthetic life?
This project involved selecting about 100 protein types and simple molecules required by living cells and combining them into a molecular soup under laboratory conditions. The researchers also added genes borrowed from a virus and from E. coli bacteria. They selected 36 genes to perform basic functions, including copying DNA. After mixing these ingredients in the soup, they added building blocks to form membranes, since cells need them to hold their contents together. The bubbles that simulated membranes sometimes enclosed the right mix of genes, proteins, and other molecules needed to initiate some of the chemical reactions that occur in cells.
Then the researchers added “food.” As the cells were fed, they began to grow. Finally, the scientists added a special protein that caused the cells’ surface to bend, splitting them into two and producing a pair of molecules that kept growing. To simulate evolution, the researchers created mutated cells and mixed them with the original SpudCells. The mutated cells competed for food until the mutants eventually outnumbered the originals, thereby driving evolution.
Perhaps the biggest problem with the SpudCells is that they cannot make ribosomes, which are necessary to produce new proteins. The researchers had to add ribosomes, but in five to 10 generations, the ribosomes became defective and the cells “died.”
The result of this procedure for creating synthetic life is a very simple, cell-like structure capable of some of the functions of living cells. However, this “cell” came into being only because of the hard work of several researchers who supplied the necessary materials, none of which they had created. It seems to show that, with enough pre-created materials and precise scientific procedures, a simple cell-like structure can be created by intelligent agents. It does not show that life can create itself. The Bible told us long ago that an intelligent Agent has created time, space, and matter/energy and assembled some of the matter into living beings.
Despite what The New York Times or any other media outlet might indicate, this project does not make faith in God obsolete or disprove His existence. It demonstrates that the creation of life is not an accident. Dr. Adamala and Dr. Drew Endy, a synthetic biologist at Stanford University, have created a nonprofit organization called Biotic. The purpose is to share this process for creating synthetic life with other scientists to further improve it. Biotic will likely be in the news for years as it tries to perfect a living cell. Their first meeting of scientists is scheduled for Philadelphia in September 2026. Hundreds of leading scientists are expected to join, and Dr. Edy estimates they will spend hundreds of millions of dollars over the next decade to create synthetic life.
In various countries with totalitarian leadership, the founders’ embalmed bodies are displayed under glass for people to venerate. That’s true of Vladimir Lenin in the Soviet Union, Mao Zedong in Communist China, Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il in North Korea, and Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam. If you go to our nation’s capital, you will not see an embalmed body of George Washington or any other founder under glass. What you will see displayed under glass is our founding document — the Declaration of Independence. This document expresses the American creed and the source of our rights.
According to the Declaration of Independence, our freedom and equality are based on “the laws of nature and of nature’s God.” That reverence for nature’s God is the basis of true equality and the “unalienable rights” our founders were concerned about. As John Adams said, we are all “made by the same God.” According to a recent survey, only 63% of Americans today hold that view.
Societies that believe their rights come from the government, not from God, place no limits on what the government can do. If our rights are granted by the government rather than by our Creator, the government can take them away. A society that does not recognize that all human beings, including government officials, are sinful ends up granting those sinful leaders the absolute power of tyrants.
Our founders realized that humans are fallible and corruptible, but according to a recent survey, only 48% of Americans today agree that all humans are fallible or sinful. Failure to believe in a Creator who created us and is the source of our rights, not the government, leads to the loss of those rights and the freedom that goes with them.
As America celebrates 250 years of existence, we need to return to faith in a Creator. We need to understand that all humans are sinners and that we can only be redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Since God is the source of our rights, not the government, the government cannot take them away. We must continue to have the freedom to worship God and the desire to do so. That may not be a popular view in American society today, but it is what our nation was founded on. Moreover, it is the only thing that can keep our country free and prosperous for another 250 years.
There continues to be a lot of talk and concern about intelligent alien life invading planet Earth. This shows up in news reports about the federal government releasing UFO (UAP) files and in recent movies. Is it possible that extraterrestrial life has visited Earth or is presently visiting Earth?
There is no evidence of intelligent alien life anywhere in our solar system. That means any extraterrestrial visitors would have to come from another star system elsewhere in our Milky Way. We don’t have any evidence, either through SETI or by any of our space telescopes, to indicate that intelligent life could be living on a planet or possibly a moon anywhere closer than many light-years from Earth. The closest star to our Sun is Proxima Centauri, which is 4.25 light-years away. So, any intelligent aliens would have to travel for many years, or possibly centuries, to get here. That assumes they could travel at 10% of the speed of light. Light speed is 186,000 miles (300,000,000 meters) per second. Einstein’s equations, which have been verified, indicate that it is not possible to travel anywhere near the speed of light. In fact, most studies suggest that 10% of the speed of light (19,000 miles per second) is the highest realistic speed for traveling through space.
The reason for the speed limitation involves the laws of physics, engineering constraints, and the amount of fuel required to propel a spacecraft. Because space has no air, traveling through it causes less resistance than traveling through our atmosphere. Once the spacecraft achieves its cruising speed, the propulsion system could be shut down. However, it would have to be used again many years later for deceleration at the end of the journey.
Even though there’s no air in space, there are hydrogen atoms and microscopic-sized grains of dust. Traveling at 19,000 miles per second, those dust particles would hit a spacecraft’s hull like speeding bullets, possibly piercing the hull unless it was sufficiently thick. Even striking hydrogen atoms would produce radiation that could erode the hull. Therefore, the hull would have to be thicker, increasing the mass and requiring more fuel. More fuel adds more weight, so you must add more fuel to compensate for the weight of that extra fuel. It’s a vicious cycle.
All of our rockets that propel payloads into space have used chemical reactions for propulsion. The mass of fuel needed for a spacecraft to reach a velocity of 19,000 miles per second would require more chemical fuel than the mass of the entire observable universe. Therefore, chemical propulsion is not feasible. Nuclear fusion is something that NASA has been working on, and it would be a more efficient way to generate propulsion, but getting a spaceship to cruise at 19,000 miles per second would require nuclear fuel equivalent to 150 times the spaceship’s mass. Therefore, that doesn’t seem like a good alternative. Another possibility would be antimatter propulsion, which exists only in theory. So far, scientists have created only 20 billionths of a gram of antimatter, and it lasts only a fraction of a second. Plus, the cost of producing it runs into hundreds of millions of dollars.
If extraterrestrial life has visited Earth, we would expect it to face many physical problems. Beyond that, there is the time required. If they were coming from a star system 50 light-years away and traveling at 10 percent of the speed of light, it would take them 500 years to get here. Unless these intelligent space aliens have extremely long lifespans, it would have to be a multi-generational trip. They would have to be much better than human earthlings at getting along with each other in confined spaces. They would also need a strong desire to visit our planet. If they were that interested in us, they could send electromagnetic radio waves, which travel at the speed of light.
The intelligence, technology, and physical resources required for extraterrestrials to travel to Earth are enormous. In addition, if they came from a civilization so advanced that they could solve all of these problems, why would they waste all those resources to visit the relatively primitive planet Earth?
Considering the facts, the probability that extraterrestrial life has visited Earth seems extremely slim. However, there is very strong evidence that extraterrestrial life has visited Earth. This planet has been visited by its Creator, and He looked like one of us. We have dealt with the evidence of that visitation many times before, and you can read the story of it in the first 14 verses of the Gospel of John in your Bible.
Yesterday, we examined the fact that the 20 amino acids commonly used in biological proteins are not a random set but are precisely fine-tuned for optimal protein synthesis. But that is only the beginning of the fine-tuning of the genetic code. A series of articles by biologist Dr. Jonathan McLatchie reports on further fine-tuning.
Cell reproduction requires the replication of the DNA contained within those cells. RNA is the molecule that facilitates DNA replication. RNA has 64 different codons–three-letter “words” that are the fundamental units of the genetic code. Of those, 61 specify amino acids that build proteins, and the other three are stop codons that mark the termination point in creating those proteins. As we mentioned before, there are 20 amino acids used for life. Since there are 64 codons, “a marvel of molecular logic” selects the proper amino acids. That coding system shows evidence of a conscious, deliberate, intelligent agent guiding the creation of the genetic code.
The genetic code in living cells seems to be beautifully fine-tuned to protect cells from mutations during replication. As reported by Dr. McLatchie, the statistical rarity of the conventional genetic code is 1 in 2 billion. That does not seem to be a random chance occurrence. But there are additional levels of fine-tuning, including the fact that the genetic code has been written to reduce the impact of frameshift mutations. It’s beyond the scope of this article to discuss what frameshift mutations are, but the point is that the 64-to-20 mapping system is designed to minimize the number of amino acids translated from a frameshifted transcript before a stop codon halts the process.
But that does not fully cover the fine-tuning of the genetic code. It has multiple layers of highly optimized, independent constraints. The genetic code has been established and used by all forms of life on this planet, with each of the 20 amino acids tied to specific codons. Making significant modifications to the code would create major problems in every cell because the relationships between codons and amino acids are essential for every polypeptide (protein) the cell makes.
Dr. McLatchie’s report contains this statement: “Why is the genetic code the way it is, and how did it come to be? That was asked over 50 years ago, at the dawn of molecular biology, (and) might remain pertinent even in another 50 years.” The point I make is that until scientists consider the possibility of an intelligent Agent who designed the genetic code, that question will never be answered. Why not at least consider the possibility that all these signs of the fine-tuning of the genetic code are not merely accidental but the product of design? The reason modern science refuses to do so is that design requires an intelligent Designer.
Organic compounds are large molecules containing carbon and having carbon-hydrogen or carbon-carbon bonds. Many organic compounds are involved in life, and life as we know it could not exist without carbon. One group of organic compounds, known as amino acids, numbers at least 500. Of those, only 20 (or, in some cases, 22) are used in plants and animals. Why and how were these amino acids selected to make living things? Amazingly, the amino acid set was fine-tuned for life.
There are three possibilities for how they could have been “selected.” The selection could have been due to chance, with no intelligent agent involved. It could have been because of necessity, meaning that some kind of law could allow only those amino acids to be selected. The third possibility is selection by an intelligent agent with a purpose. Did this apparent choice happen because of mere chance or because of laws that required no other choice? No known laws required this selection, and chance seems questionable since the choice appears to be perfect.
With many alternatives, why this 20? Would any 20 out of the 500 work just as well? The answer is “No,” according to a research paper published in the journal Astrobiology, titled “Did Evolution Select a Nonrandom Alphabet of Amino Acids?” by Gayle K. Philip and Stephen J. Freeland. They wrote, “Random chance would be highly unlikely to represent the chemical space of possible amino acids with such breadth and evenness in charge, size, and hydrophobicity (properties that define what protein structures and functions can be built).” In other words, these 20 amino acids represent the best choice. You can say that the amino acid set was fine-tuned for life.
We have often talked about the cosmic creation event (“big bang”), the laws of physics, the physical constants, and the fundamental forces of nature as having been fine-tuned for life. It appears that the amino acid set was fine-tuned for life. The amino acids that make up the proteins in our bodies seem to be optimally selected. They must have been selected by an agent with the wisdom and power to design a complex, finely tuned, information-rich system, which we call life. We suggest that the agent is the God of the Bible. Tomorrow, we will examine more fine-tuning within our DNA.
“Don’t shoot till you see the whites of their eyes!” That was an order given by Colonel William Prescott to the Colonial soldiers at the Battle of Bunker Hill during the American Revolution. The reason for the order was not to get close to the British soldiers to get to know them, but because the Colonial Army was low on ammunition and Prescott wanted to make sure it wasn’t wasted. Seeing the whites of the eyes may be dangerous in warfare, but it’s valuable for communication.
Human eyes come in various colors, such as blue, brown, or green, but that refers to the iris. The area surrounding the iris is called the sclera. In humans, the sclera is white, or at least close to white. That makes us different from other animals, since most mammals have dark eyes. The question is, why are the whites of the eyes the way they are?
In 1997, Shiro Kohshima, a Japanese biologist at Kyoto University, compared the eyes of primates and found that only humans had white in their eyes. He proposed that the white sclera helps us communicate because the contrast between the white and the dark pupils makes it easier to tell where someone is looking. Parents can often tell if their child is telling the truth by whether the child is looking at the parent. When someone looks away, it may mean they are hiding something. The whites of the eyes tend to draw our attention away. When someone looks us directly in the eye, it helps us to bond with that person. Thus, the white sclera helps us communicate or avoid communicating.
In 2007, Michael Tomasello, a psychologist at Duke University, expanded on Kohshima’s theory, developing a cooperative eye hypothesis. He said that the whites of the eyes help us determine what someone is focused on because we are sensitive to where a person is looking. Tomasello conducted experiments on human infants, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos. He did this by looking at the ceiling with only his eyes, only his head, or both, to see how humans and primates would react.
Tomasello found that human infants followed the researcher’s eye direction three times more often when he glanced toward the ceiling with his eyes only than when he tilted his head upward with his eyes closed. He found that the primates did the opposite. For them, following the head movement was more important than following eye movement.
From an early age, humans are very sensitive to eye contact. Within the first few days, babies looked longer at faces that were directed at them. In two to four months, babies learn to follow where others are looking. You can hold the attention of babies by looking directly at them. When the parent looks at an object and names it, this helps the infant connect the name to the object, improving language skills.
Even though some people’s eyes are not as white as others’ due to age, health, or race, humans do show more of the sclera than other animals do. Experiments with humans and chimpanzees indicate that the whites of the eyes enable both humans and chimpanzees to better determine the gaze direction of humans than that of chimpanzees.
The bottom line is that humans have more white in their eyes, giving our eyes greater contrast that draws attention to where we are looking, helps us communicate, helps infants learn language terms, helps us determine the status of someone’s health, and helps us to bond with someone we care about. We can be thankful that God has given humans this exceptional gift, but it may not have been an important factor in helping the Americans win the Revolutionary War.
Many scientific and technological advances are inspired by the study of animals and plants. Spiders have long inspired innovations, especially related to their silk and web-making. A new development, however, is based on the design of jumping spider eyes.
Jumping spiders (family Salticidae) leap quickly to avoid predators, capture prey, or simply move around. They need good 3D vision to judge distances when they jump. Unlike human eyes, which have only one retina, jumping spider eyes can’t move, but they have multiple retinal layers. These layers capture the image with slightly different focus. Their poppy seed-sized brains then process the images, comparing differences in sharpness to compute the distance to an object.
A computer scientist at Northwestern University, Emma Alexander, and her colleagues have created an extremely efficient 3D camera dubbed a “SpiderCam.” They presented their project on June 7, 2026, at the Computer Vision Foundations Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition in Denver, Colorado. The SpiderCam perceives depth the same way that jumping spider eyes do, by capturing images on two layers of “retinas” with very slight differences in focus. A computer algorithm embedded in a custom chip processes and compares the images to calculate depth and distance. This SpiderCam uses less than a Watt of power to create real-time 3-dimensional images.
Possible uses for the SpiderCam include field recording, where capturing a 3D image with minimal power is essential. It could also be used in augmented reality applications where a person interfaces with the physical world and needs precise location information about surrounding objects.
The advantage of the camera based on jumping spider eyes is that it uses less energy and less expensive hardware than other 3D cameras. Humans continue to learn from animals, and as we discover God’s designs in nature, we can apply them in biomimicry to solve problems in technology and everyday life.
Prairie (Red) Trillium Seeds with Elaiosomes Attached
Myrmecochory is the term for seed dispersal by ants. Scientists estimate that as many as 11,000 to 23,000 plant species worldwide use myrmecochory to disperse their seeds. Most of the plants that use myrmecochory attach food bodies rich in lipids, amino acids, and other nutrients to their seeds. These food bodies are called elaiosomes, and they exist only to entice ants to take the seeds.
The seed with an elaiosome attached is called a diaspore. When ant workers forage for food, they collect diaspores and carry them back to the colony, where they remove the elaiosome and feed it to their larvae. Then the ants dispose of the seed underground. In this way, the ants move the seeds some distance away from the original plant and leave them where they can germinate and grow into new plants.
This is a mutual arrangement, a symbiosis, between the plants and the ants. The plants gain greater seed dispersal distance. They also get directed dispersal, with seeds underground, where they can germinate and grow, safe from seed predators. The ants get nutritious food as their part of the deal. The plant gives up some vital nutrients in exchange for seed dispersal by ants.
Thousands of different plant species are willing to sacrifice some of their nutrition to entice ants to disperse their seeds to places where they are likely to grow. Evolutionary scientists suggest that these plants independently evolved this trait for survival. The term they use for unrelated species independently evolving similar characteristics is “convergent evolution.” The living system involves many cases of so-called convergent evolution.
We could believe that thousands of unrelated species independently evolved the same technique for seed dispersal by ants. We could also see this as evidence that the Designer of all living things designed this system. Which explanation seems more reasonable?
