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More monarch magic

Several times in the past, we have discussed the monarch butterfly as an example of the incredible design that has been built into living things. The migratory pattern of monarchs is an incredible thing to study as they travel thousands of miles from their summering areas to their wintering areas in Mexico or in central California. The mechanisms of flight which allow them to take advantage of wind is another area of study that is fascinating. How these butterflies know to fly high in the air when the wind is behind them and close to the ground when the wind is against them, giving them optimum use of wind currents, is a mystery.

A new discovery has added to our appreciation of this incredible creature. Monarchs have a built-in protective device to avoid being eaten. The protective device is a noxious chemical that accumulates in their body due to their diet. The main food of the monarch caterpillar is milkweed which contains cardenolide, a toxin that tastes bad and prevents animals from eating the monarch. When the monarch migrates, there is no milkweed on their migratory journey and thus no cardenolide.

The monarch avoids becoming a food for animals by sipping the nectar of a variety of plants which contain pyrrolizidine alkaloids. This material is also toxic and simply picks up where the cardenolides leave off. For this butterfly to have a diet which builds one toxin in their body in the summer and builds a different toxin which accomplishes the same purpose in the winter is hard to explain by chance. We would suggest that the monarch works its magic by the design of its Creator.

—Source: Discover, March 1991, page 14

—John Clayton, Dandy Designs, Jan/Feb, 1996

www.doesgodexist.com

jncdge@aol.com

Cora Gail Trent
www.cgtrent.com
cgtrent@att.net

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The Design of Food Chains

Recently I was visiting in a home in which a teen-ager had received a computer game based on ecology. The idea of the game was to design a planet in which different kinds of animals and plants could be placed. As you created your planet’s ecosystem, you could add grasses, trees, bushes, and decomposers. You could also add animals that were meat eaters, animals that were plant eaters, insects, and insect eaters. The object of the game was to see how long your “earth” could exist. If you put all plant eaters on your planet, for example, your planet would very quickly die because all the plants would get eaten up and the animals would starve to death. If you put too many meat eaters on your planet, it would be a short time before the plant eaters would all be gone, the meat eaters would starve to death and the plants would choke themselves out. It was very difficult to get a balance that would allow the planet to survive for more than a few thousand years.

The more science learns of the balance of food chains in all environments found in the world, the more the complexity of the situation stands out. Recent studies in Alaska and Isle Royale, Michigan, for example, have shown a huge correlation between the wolf population and the normal vegetative pattern. It turns out that moose in Alaska do enormous damage to the plants essential to sustain the environment—especially some of the evergreens that support the ecology during the winter months. When the wolves are killed off by disease or hunters, the moose population explodes and the vegetation is wiped out. The correlation between the wolf population and the abundance of plants has now been well documented.

The ability of the natural world to survive over a long period of time is clue to the incredibly complex and interwoven system of food chains that sustain it. Playing the computer game where you have to play God, even on a limited human scale, is a powerful testimony that our world has been designed by a master intelligence.

—John Clayton, Dandy Designs, January/February, 1996

# posted by cgtrent @ 10:03 AM 0 comments

The Incredible Immune System

A War Machine Ready to Fight!

Just 20 years ago, scientists had only fragments of information about how the many cells that make up your immune system interact to protect you against disease. Through advances in cancer research, scientists now believe more than 100 million immune cells exist. For every virus or bacterium, there seems to be an immune cell specifically designed to hunt down and destroy it.—Mayo Clinic Health Letter Medical Essay, February, 1995, page 1.

The world in which we live is ruled by microscopic organisms. These small particles of life are the real workhorses of all life. They help our bodies digest food; they aid our reproductive systems; they decompose our wastes, prepare our soil, purify our water, and supply nutrients to our animals. Sometimes, due to mutations or other changes, they attack our bodies, making us ill. As the quote from the Mayo Clinic above says, we have a carefully designed system in our bodies which eliminates the microscopic organisms that would do us harm.

The complexity of this system is astounding. It begins with the cells that actually do the fighting. There are three basic types:

B and T Cells. These are white blood cells which recognize and coordinate an attack on specific invading microorganisms.

Phagocytes. These white blood cells eat up anything that is not wanted. One kind of phagocyte called a macrophage gets rid of worn out cells and debris.

Chemical Killers. These white blood cells release powerful chemicals that destroy microorganisms.

Each of these cells carries the same chemical identification card with a unique molecular pattern on it so that your immune system does not attack itself.

Your body has an elaborate defense system designed to stop microorganisms at all places where they might enter your body. These include:

Tonsils and Adenoids—which contain immune cells that protect your respiratory system.

Spleen—which has immune cells that destroy organisms that have entered your blood stream.

Appendix and Peyer’s Patches—which contain immune cells that enter your digestive system.

Lymph Nodes—which house B and T cells.

Lymph Vessels—which transport immune cells to your blood and immune organs.

Bone Marrow—which makes immune cells.

Thymus—where white blood cells mature into T cells.

Even in our simplified explanation, it is obvious how sophisticated and elaborate this system is. An undamaged immune system can keep us healthy and free of disease, especially when cared for properly. David’s statement takes on a special meaning with this knowledge of God’s marvelous design. “I will praise the Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”—Psalms 139:14.

—John Clayton, Dandy Designs, November/December, 1995

Cora Gail Trent
www.cgtrent.com
cgtrent@att.net

# posted by cgtrent @ 8:35 AM 0 comments

Some Other Way?

When I present scientific evidence that God designed the creation and that it is not a product of chance, one response that frequently comes from skeptics is that perhaps there is some other way that life and the conditions to support it could exist. “Maybe there is life totally different than our kind of life so that the odds diminish because there are different ways and forms that life can take” is a common response.

In a statement like this one, we have to assume that a scientific proposal is being made—not a religious one. If a person wishes to argue for rock people or fire people, they can do so, but not on a scientific base. Life is generally defined as having the characteristics of moving, breathing, reproducing, and responding to outside stimuli. Things like viruses and anaerobic bacteria are hard to fit into any definition, but fire people would be even more of a problem.

The reason that there is no other way is because of the chemical restraints on all of life’s processes. In order for an animal to breathe, for example, it is necessary that a gas be used that supports combustion. Some gases burn—like methane, hydrogen, propane, and the like. Some gases smother—like carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, helium, and the like. Only a very few gases support combustion. When a piece of coal burns, the carbon combines with oxygen, producing heat and light. The process is unique because energy is given off in large amounts quickly, and we call it burning. The design of the oxygen molecule enables it to do this with many materials—many of them giving off heat and light. When we breathe, the same thing happens, but not as rapidly. The heat given off maintains our body temperature of 98.6°F, and the energy released powers our bodies.

Are there other gases which support combustion in the same way that oxygen does? The answer is yes! Materials like chlorine, fluorine, and bromine do exactly the same thing. It is difficult from a chemical standpoint, however, to believe that these materials could ever be involved in a living organism as an oxidizing agent. These elements are among the most active in the periodic chart, and the compounds they form are extremely heavy. Only oxygen has the density, mass, electron configuration, and chemical activity to allow life to exist.

There is no other way! The unique designs of oxygen and also of carbon are the result of a beautifully engineered chemical system that allow us to breathe and give us the capacity to move, reproduce, and respond to outside stimuli. Truly, we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:42) and each breath we take testifies that the plan designed to allow our survival works in an incredible way.

—John Clayton, Dandy Designs, September/October, 1995

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