Polar bear design features enable them to live in a region of incredible cold. Previously, we reported that polar bear fur is hollow, providing insulation and creating an optical effect that looks white. New research by Norwegian nanophysicist Bodil Holst has shown how a polar bear can climb out of freezing water and then walk around in temperatures as low as minus 40. It has nothing to do with its fur, but because the polar bear has glands in its skin that secrete a grease resistant to freezing called sebum.
The skin of mammals, including humans, secretes sebum that makes hair greasy. Tests of other forms of sebum have shown that only polar dear sebum has the properties that keep the fur from freezing. At the same time, it lacks squalene that makes ice stick. There is great interest in this discovery not only from scientists but also from industries. It can potentially replace toxic de-icing chemicals used in ski wax and for plane de-icing.
Humans have benefited frommany things copied from animals and plants. Common examples include Velcro (thistles), airplane design (bird wings), and synthetic fibers (spider webs). Polar bear design features are among the unique designs we see in the living world. They are not accidents but deliberate designs by a Creator, allowing life to thrive everywhere on planet Earth. As with polar bears, animals and plants usually have more than one specialized design feature.
The giant moai statues of Easter Island have been a great mystery since their discovery. Easter Island is part of the Pacific triangle called Polynesia, which stretches between Hawaii, New Zealand, and Easter Island. Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen arrived on the island on Easter Sunday in 1722 and named it Easter Island. The average moai statue on Easter Island was 13 feet tall and weighed 14 tons. The largest statue stands 32 feet tall and weighs about 80 tons. The mystery of Easter Island moai has been how the locals moved some 300 giant statues over several miles.
Some finished and unfinished statues remain in the Rano Raraku quarry on Easter Island. The Rapanui people who created the moai had no metal machinery, draft animals, or wheeled carts. Tabloids claimed the mystery of Easter Island moai could only be explained by space aliens carving and transporting them. In his book Chariots of the Gods, Erich von Daniken suggested extraterrestrial beings as the source of the statues.
Researchers have proposed various theories of how the statues were moved from the quarry to their locations. Some suggested they were dragged to the sea and floated to the final locations. Archaeologist Jo Anne Van Tilburg and the Easter Island Statue Project have studied the moai and other Easter Island structures since 1983. Van Tilburg favors the theory that they were placed on sleds and pulled by large teams of workers on a trackway of tree trunks. When the first European explorers arrived on Easter Island, it was almost barren of trees and had a population perhaps in the hundreds. However, botanical studies have shown that palm forests once covered the island, and archaeological studies show that it may have had as many as 15,000 inhabitants at its peak. That would supply an ample workforce and trees to accomplish the task.
The bottom line is that the mystery of Easter Island moai does not involve extraterrestrials. Like humans throughout history, the ancient Rapanui people saw evidence of a higher power and tried to honor what they understood through elaborate works. The moai statues are another demonstration of human attempts to reach God. When Paul spoke to the scholars in Athens (Acts 17), he talked about the fallacy of trying to reach God through human intelligence and artistic ability. So, today, we see the evidence for God in the things He has made (Romans 1:20). We don’t need to impress Him with our intelligence and creativity. He is reaching out to us with His love.
Young professionals with a church background often reject the Bible teaching they received, realizing it can’t be correct. Denominational dispensationalism teaches that the books of Daniel and Revelation predict Christ returning with His followers, defeating Russia and China in a war, and establishing a worldwide political system in Jerusalem for 1000 years. This dispensational teaching has several variations and is not only bad theology but also bad geology.
Christ’s return and establishment of a kingdom on Earth are not the whole story. This doctrine also teaches that creation took place only 6,000 to 10,000 years ago. That means all the geological events have happened in a few thousand, not billions, of years. Various video presentations by dispensationalists attempt to explain folded rock layers by saying they were laid down during the biblical flood when the rocks were soft and pliable. When the waters receded, those soft layers were folded and hardened as they dried.
Any young person with an earth science course or any college student with an introductory geology course can see the problems with this bad geology. There are different types of rocks, and they fall into three categories.
The first category is igneous rocks, molten material that can either be on Earth’s surface as lava or deep underground as an intrusive rock like granite. Erosion has exposed many layers of intrusive rocks, but they cool very slowly, allowing the formation of mineral crystals. You never see crystals in lava. The folded rock layers dispensationalists use in their presentations are granite or other intrusive rocks such as diorite or gabbro. They are not flood deposits and were never soft.
The second category is sedimentary rocks. They are usually produced by water. Chemical precipitates, like limestone, are produced by quiet water or sediment carried by moving water or wind. The size of the particles can vary depending on the violence of the water or wind. Sedimentary rocks can also be conglomerates made of cobble-sized particles or shale made of very fine grains, too small to be seen by the naked eye. Flood deposits are easy to identify and are not made up of a chemical precipitate or igneous rock.
The third rock type is metamorphic, in which the material has been changed. Marble is limestone morphed under heavy pressure. This brief summary of petrology shows that it is bad geology to suggest that folded rock layers, especially intrusive igneous rocks, were produced by a flood.
The Bible does not tell us Earth’s age. Jesus said that His kingdom was not of this world (Matthew 22:21), and Christ does not endorse war of any kind. The biblical message is spiritual, and the Kingdom Christ came to establish is His Church. The false teaching of dispensationalism drives many young people away from faith. Ignorance of what the Bible says makes a person vulnerable to false religious teachings. We offer free postage-paid Bible studies. Send your name and address to jncdge@aol.com, and we will mail you a course listing so you can choose a course to expand your Bible knowledge.
In 1988, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer first classified alcoholic beverages as carcinogenic. Since then, cancer research has shown that they are a significant cause of cancer of the mouth, throat, voice box, esophagus, breast, liver, and colon. A 2024 report in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians indicated that in 2019, alcohol contributed to 54,000 cancer cases in women and 42,000 cases in men. Lancet Oncology researchers reported that about 4% of all cancer cases worldwide were attributable to alcohol in 2020. The British Journal of Cancer reported that female breast cancer was as much as 1.6 times more prevalent in women who drank.
The companies marketing alcoholic beverages will fight all these studies, but some are now selling beverages with the same taste but no alcohol. Alcohol is the most destructive recreational drug in existence. If you drink, you are inviting cancer. The fact that the entertainment industry pushes alcohol in music shows the entertainment value of alcohol.
Our bodies are where God’s Spirit dwells (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). Alcoholic beverages destroy our bodies and will cause us to die, a fact that science is now confirming. Christians must educate their children and the world in general about the damage caused by drinking, both in this life and in eternity.
One of the great engineering accomplishments of NASA was the OsirisREx spacecraft landing on asteroid Bennu asteroid in October 2020. Not only did it land, but it also took surface samples of the asteroid and returned them samples to Earth. The samples arrived in September of 2023 and examinations of the asteroid material showed that 14 of the 20 known amino acids, the building blocks of life, were present in the asteroid material. The media jumped on that fact and proclaimed that it was now certain that life originated in outer space. The tabloids proclaimed that aliens had clearly seeded space with life forms, explaining the origin of life on Earth.
It is true that we know amino acids are produced in astronomical processes. In fact, scientists have known that for a very long time. They have shown up in certain types of meteorites found on Earth. What the mainstream media has not reported is that amino acids have a shape orientation to them. The molecule arrangement in amino acids causes them to be either right-handed or left-handed. Life as we know it is made up of 100% left-handed amino acids. Science is still looking for the reason, but the amino acids on Bennu are 50% right-handed and 50% left-handed. In other words, They could not explain the origin of life on Earth.
Every discovery made by science raises more questions. An analogy that may be applied is what happens when you put an ordinary key into a lock. If you try to insert the key upside down, it will not work. The wisdom of having only left-handed amino acids doubles life’s food supply, and that may be the answer to why. But one thing is sure: there is a reason for what Bennu teaches us and for the design of life.
A fascinating science story involves the mysterious neutrino. The famous Italian physicist Enrico Fermi gave it that name, which means “little neutral one.” When I was a graduate student at Indiana University, we were told that neutrinos are the binding energy holding neutrons together. A neutron consists of an electron and a proton held together, making a neutral particle. When a neutron decays, it releases an electron and a proton. Measuring the energy of these two particles leaves a tiny amount of energy unaccounted for. Neutrinos explain that missing energy.
Scientists later discovered that the mysterious neutrino is present anytime there is a change in a nucleus. Neutrinos are so tiny they can go through virtually anything, making them extremely difficult to detect or measure. Researchers obtained neutrino measurements by putting detectors made of glass spheres on the Mediterranean Sea floor and reported their findings in February of 2023. Now, we know that some neutrinos are 30 times more energetic than any previously known neutrinos. They are vastly more energetic than photons that make up visible light, X-rays, and ultraviolet rays.
The media has named the mysterious neutrinos “ghost particles” because of their properties. The truth is that neutrinos tell us that what holds matter together is not the physical material we can sense. Science does not fully understand matter and the particles of which it is made—electrons, protons, and neutrons. Those particles are made of energy in a form different from what we learned in chemistry class. What message about God can we see in the mysterious neutrinos?
The Bible tells us that God is not a man. Isaiah 55:8-9 finds God saying “…my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” In Acts 17:28, Paul described the nature of God by saying, “…in Him we live and move and have our being.” John 1:14 tells us that the God of Israel BECAME flesh and lived for a while among us.” In Exodus 33:18-23, Moses asks God to show himself, but God tells Moses no human can see Him and live (verse 20). These passages tell us that God is not a physical being, and what He does is not by the processes that humans can use.
The more we know about what holds matter together, the more we realize that God’s methods and design are not by physical processes we know, understand, or can duplicate. It reminds us of the words of David in Psalms 8:3-4: “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him. You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.”
Humanity’s war with pollution has a surprising helper in freshwater mussels. They are susceptible to any change in the water in which they live. When anything disturbs the quality of the water, these mussels close their shells. In Poland, fifty water processing plants use these mussels to monitor any contamination of their drinking water. Technicians attach sensors to the mussel’s shells with hot glue. When four of the eight mussels close their shells, they trip a sensor alerting control computers to shut off the water supply. After three months, the mussels are removed from service and returned to the wild because they adapt to water quality and become less sensitive.
When Joe Kramarz sent this information, I thought it was a joke, but it’s true, as the National Institutes of Health reported. Our thanks to those who send us information we might miss. In this case, we find it interesting that mussels are designed to avoid pollution in their environment. Freshwater mussels are just one example of many animals that monitor their environment, including bats, whales, corals, moles, and even groundhogs. Some of these may not directly benefit humans, but they help us understand that God has designed animals for a complex and changing world.
When God challenges Job’s understanding in Job 38-41, He refers to many things in the creation that show wisdom and design. We are still learning about many of those examples, but all of them are beyond human capacity to duplicate.
One of the tragic aspects of marijuana use is that scientific evidence and demographic evidence of damage have not yet been assembled. The National Center for Drug Use Statistics reports that there is a high cardiovascular risk in marijuana use, and the more it is used, the greater the risk. There is also a higher risk of stroke. More than ever, we are seeing evidence against marijuana and alcohol.
On the social level, Elton John, Time magazine’s “Icon of the Year,” told the magazine, “Legalizing marijuana in America and Canada is one of the greatest mistakes of all time.” John says that marijuana is addictive and leads to other drugs. He speaks from experience with a past of marijuana use. John’s personal experiences with drugs are explored in a new Disney documentary, “Elton John: Never Too Late.”
Taking care of the body God has given you is essential. It affects not only you but also your descendants. It is too soon to tell if marijuana contributes to babies born with physical or mental problems, but those of us who lived through the days of LSD have seen huge suffering among children and grandchildren of LSD users.
Alcohol, which is the most destructive drug available today, has been responsible for more suffering than all the wars put together in terms of the number of people affected. Proverbs 31:4-6 tells us, “It is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes strong drink: Lest they drink, and forget the law and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted.”
Proverbs 20:1 says, “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.” That was written before distillation, and it is even more true today. The evidence against marijuana and alcohol is growing.
One aspect of design in the natural world is that virtually no food goes to waste. To that point, researchers have discovered many instances of animal coprophagy, poop eating. A study published in the journal Animal Behaviour documents 150 species of animals ranging from adult black bears to baby koalas recycling poop.
Many of the animals could not survive if they didn’t eat the feces of other animals. One example is pikas, small mountain-dwelling mammals on the Tibetan Plateau. They could not survive the harsh winters if they didn’t eat the droppings of Yaks. Blind cave fish can’t leave the cave to forage for food, so they survive by eating the guano of bats that inhabit the caves. Cows have multiple compartments for processing food, but rabbits do not. Rabbits and other small animals survive by eating the droppings of larger animals that have eaten harsh foods, breaking them down to a form the rabbit’s gut can easily absorb.
You might think that animal coprophagy would lead to diseases and parasites, but the nutrition gained vastly exceeds the possible infection for many animals. Capybaras eat their own feces, so you can’t call it waste. An interesting fact is that lab rats eat up to 40% of the poop from other rats and even themselves. If lab workers prevent them from doing that, they become sick from vitamin B12 deficiencies. Insects such as dung beetles survive on animal dung.
Recycling poop gives evidence that God designed the animal world so food is not wasted. Meanwhile, humans are guilty of wasting food, leaving many people to starve. That is why Jesus Christ, in Matthew 25:35-46, told His disciples to give food and drink to those who are hungry and thirsty.
A stable ecosystem needs all forms of life to benefit other life forms. When two living things mutually benefit each other, we call it symbiosis. A simple example I see from my window is squirrels gathering acorns that make up a large percentage of their diet. The squirrels bury acorns in various places around the neighborhood and either forget where they buried them or don’t need all the acorns they buried. The result is that oak trees are planted all over the neighborhood. If there were no acorns, the squirrels would starve. If squirrels didn’t plant the acorns over a wide area, the oak trees would be crowded and unable to grow successfully. Squirrels and oak trees are one example of symbiotic relationships.
In the insect world, there are many symbiotic relationships, and some insects have multiple such relationships. The red wood ant is an example. The ants have a symbiotic relationship with aphids, which excrete energy-rich honeydew, which supplies food for the ants. In return, the ants protect the aphids from their enemies.
Another symbiotic relationship is with Eurasian jays. The birds land on an ant mound and allow the ants to crawl on them, spraying their feathers with formic acid. The acid is low enough concentration that it doesn’t harm the birds but is strong enough to kill parasites, including mites, that hide in their feathers. In this way, the jays find protection from mites.
A third symbiotic relationship of red wood ants protects spruce forests by controlling the wood-boring beetles that destroy them. The ants bite the beetles and spray formic acid into their wounds. Killing the beetles protects the spruce trees and provides a home for the aphids that live in them. That takes us back to the ant-aphid symbiosis.
The multiple symbiotic relationships of red wood ants remind us that removing one species may affect many symbiotic relationships. Symbiotic relationships show design. Proverbs 6:6-8 tells us, “Go to the ant, you slacker! Observe its ways and become wise. Without leader, administrator, or ruler, it prepares its provisions in summer; it gathers its food during harvest.”
