Consider the Prairie Lupines, How They Grow

Today's Creation Moment:

Consider the Prairie Lupines, How They Grow

Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; ~Luke 12:27a

The remarkable recovery of flora and fauna around Mount St Helens, since the devastating eruption of 1980, was aided in large measure by a seemingly insignificant little plant, called the Prairie Lupine. It grows no taller than 24 inches, but is usually much smaller, with tiny blue flowers. Today, it grows in abundance in the areas most affected by the eruption and landslide.

Like all lupines, it is a legume. This means that it makes its own nitrogen compounds – an essential mineral for plants to grow. We say that it fixes nitrogen. The volcanic soil is deficient in this mineral, so the value of the plant is obvious, as it fixes more than enough for itself, and provides extra nitrogen for other, neighboring plants.

To be exact, it is not the plant itself that does the fixing. This is done by soil bacteria, called rhizobia, which reside in nodules in the roots of the lupine. What is even more interesting is that these bacteria cannot fix nitrogen, without attaching themselves to a suitable host plant, such as the lupine. So, the lupine needs the rhizobia, and the rhizobia need the lupine. This interdependency is known as a symbiotic relationship. A problem for the evolutionist is to explain whether the rhizobia evolved before the lupine, or vice versa. A far more scientific explanation is that both were designed by God for just such interdependence. Once again, the area around Mount St Helens, and the plants that live there, reveal the magnificence of God’s creative work.

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Well folks, this is the last day of creation moment month! I hope you all enjoyed reading each article article every day and hope you learned something new about God's wonderful creation. 

Enjoy your weekend!

Sincerely in the Lord,
Ashley

Rare and Hidden Flowers

Today's Creation Moment: 

Rare and Hidden Flowers

No man, when he lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light.

~Luke 11:33

Two strange species of orchids are among the rarest flowers in the world. These unconventional plants live their entire lives underground, even flowering underground. Most often, their 

flowers never break the surface of the ground. One of these species, Cryptanthemus, has been found only three times in this century. Only 150 flowering Rhizanthella plants have ever been found.

Since they live in the dark underground, neither orchid has any need for chlorophyll or leaves. Each looks like nothing more than a white, waxy root. Rhizanthella produces a flower that is initially white, but which turns purplish as it ages. Its fragrance has been described as delicate and sweet. Cryptanthemus produces a candelabra flower stalk that has several white flowers with small red splotches. The flowers remain almost an inch under the soil. Both species begin life in the same way as most orchids. The orchid seeds germinate when threads of a fungus invade the embryo and form coils within the seed. At this point, other orchids grow leaves so they can make their own food. But these underground orchids continue to live in a symbiotic relationship throughout their entire lives, being fed by the fungus.

The wonders of God's creative handiwork never cease to amaze us. But God's greatest creation is a redeemed believer in Jesus Christ, a creation He does not want hidden. That's why He tells us in His Word to let the light of faith and new life He has given us in Christ shine onto those around us..

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The Deception of a Glow in the Dark Shark

Today's Creation Moment:

The Deception of a Glow in the Dark Shark

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?  

~ Jeremiah 17:9

The creation is filled with plants and animals which use deception to survive. The glow in the dark cookie-cutter shark is a master at such deception.

The cookie-cutter shark is only a foot to a foot and a half long. It doesn't have powerful muscles and can't swim very fast. But it doesn't need to. Lunch serves itself. The shark typically lives between 600 and 3,000 feet below the surface of the water. Looking down from above one of these sharks, you would probably not see it because the top of its body is as dark as the deep waters where it lives. Looking up from below, you wouldn't see the dark outline of the shark against the light that filters down from the surface. This is because of the shark's first deception: its underside is completely covered with light emitting cells that match the illumination from above. The deception doesn't stop there, however. A small patch beneath the shark's jaw doesn't glow. From beneath, the cookie-cutter shark looks like a small fish, just the kind of dinner a tuna might like. As the tuna speeds toward what it thinks is a small fish, at the last minute the shark turns and takes a bite out of the tuna. Its open, round jaw takes a plug of flesh out of the tuna – hence, the name cookie-cutter shark. Interestingly, most cookie-cutter shark wounds are not fatal.

The fact that the cookie-cutter shark's form, deceptions and habits all match each other perfectly is not a result of chance, mindless evolution but of God's careful design.

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The First Xerographer

Today's Creation Moment:

The First Xerographer

2 Chronicles 26:15

And he made in Jerusalem engines, invented by cunning men, to be on the towers and upon the bulwarks, to shoot arrows and great stones withal. And his name spread far abroad; for he was marvellously helped, till he was strong.

Xerography is the process used in most copying machines today. The page you want copied is exposed to the bright light in the machine. That light enables the machine to make an image of your original, using electrostatic charges to record the light and dark spots on your original. The toner – that fine black powder – is then drawn to those spots on the copier paper in exactly the same spots that were dark on your original. After the powder is fixed in place, your copy – perfect in every detail – pops out.

Most of us consider xerography to be a modern work-saving wonder. However, xerography may not be such a modern invention. Researchers at Stanford Research Institute now believe that xerography was invented and first used almost 150 years ago!

That’s when Louis Daguerre introduced the photographic process named after him. The earliest photographs we have are daguerreotypes. These sharp, crisp pictures used silver and iodine vapor to fix an image on a plate. The process used the xerographic principle of setting up electrostatic charges on a plate wherever light struck it. It was the sharpness in the detail of the daguerreotypes that convinced researchers that Daguerre’s process was xerographic.

Unfortunately, his process was cumbersome and dangerous. Nor did Daguerre understand how the process worked. If he had, Abraham Lincoln might have had a copier in the White House!

That humans are ever inventive and creative arises from the fact that they are the creation of an unlimited and wonderful Creator.

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Saliva Is Nothing To Spit At

Saliva Is Nothing To Spit At

Malachi 4:2

But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. 

Someday, instead of having to give a blood sample during your physical exam, the doctor might just ask you for a saliva sample. Saliva is an amazing fluid. Besides helping us moisten and digest 

food, saliva is able to speed healing and fight bacteria, fungi and viruses. Saliva is chemically almost identical to the clear part of your blood. It even has, in lesser concentrations, the infectious organisms found in your blood.

Let's say, for example that you suddenly find yourself in a stressful situation. The level of the hormone cortisol will increase in your blood in response to the stress. Within 20 minutes, that increase will be evident in your saliva. This means that someday saliva tests may replace blood samples. In the United States, saliva tests have been approved to diagnose AIDS, illegal drugs, periodontal disease, alcohol and premature labor. If the hormone estriol rises in a woman's blood before 36 weeks of gestation, doctors know that the woman may go into labor prematurely. Saliva testing is also used to check hormone levels in women who are having a difficult time conceiving a child. Other countries have approved a saliva test for hepatitis B.

Saliva's remarkable abilities are a witness to a loving Creator. He knew that we would sin and thus bring disease into the world. So He gave us saliva that not only defends us against infection but also helps us heal. But the greatest love He has shown us is in sending His Son to give us spiritual healing.

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How Small Can Life Be?

Today's Creation Moment:

How Small Can Life Be? 

Which doeth great things past finding out; yea, and wonders without number. 

~Job 9:10

How small can a living thing be and still be considered alive? Viruses are not considered living things because they cannot reproduce on their own. But now scientists have confirmed the existence of bacterai that are smaller than the largest viruses and yet can reproduce on their own. They call this amazing class of bacteria nanobacteria. They are less that 20 percent the size of normal bacteria.

The unusual nanobacteria have some unusual abilities. Normally, cells in the immune system detect a bacterium in the bloodstream, engulf it, and destroy it. But nanobacteria are able to trick immune cells into committing suicide. Luckily, nanobacteria reproduce very slowly. While the average bacteria reproduces once an hour, nanobacteria take three days to double their numbers. But they still do a lot of damage. Researchers have found that nanobacteria are apparently able to build a calcium shell around themselves. It appears that when they enter the bloodstream, they quickly migrate to the kidneys, where they begin building their shells. Researchers investigating whether nanobacteria cause painful kidney stones have reported testing 30 stones so far. Each stone showed antibodies that bind to nanobacteria. The good news is that if nanobacteria are a cause of kidney stones, they can be eradicated with antibiotics.

While scientists are unsure of how something so small can be alive, our wonderful Creator is able to fashion even these tiny, amazing creatures.

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Sense and Smell

Today's Creation Moment: 
Sense and Smell

Leviticus 3:5

 And Aaron's sons shall burn it on the altar upon the burnt sacrifice, which is upon the wood that is on the fire: it is an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.

What determines the sort of smells that we like and dislike? Is it nature or nurture? Do we like the smells of the environment, in which we were brought up, or are our likes and dislikes inherited from previous generations?

Scientists at the University of Campinas in Brazil have done some interesting work on the subject. The olfactory sense is by far the most complex of our senses. Our eyes basically work with three kinds of sensors, arranged around the three primary colors. Taste involves 49 different receptors, but can be approximated by five primary tastes. However, the number of different olfactory sensors numbers into the thousands, with at least ten primary scents—though there could be more.

Brazilian scientists showed, as expected, that the construction of the olfactory sensors in the noses of laboratory mice was mostly determined by genetics. However, they placed genetically different mice in similar olfactory environments, and genetically similar mice in differently smelling environments, to see if environmental characteristics had any influence on these receptors. They did. The genetic factor was the most important, but there was a significant difference between receptors in genetically similar mice placed in different environments.

It is interesting that, in the Bible prayer is likened to an aroma ascending to the Lord. This is the reason for much of the symbolism of aromatic sacrifices, both from the smell of cooking, and from the scent produced by skilled perfumers. God desires an environment of sweet-smelling prayer for us, and this is clearly the best environment for us to be in.

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Scuba Gear for Bacteria

Scuba Gear for Bacteria

Shall any teach God knowledge? seeing he judgeth those that are high.

~Job 21:22

Biotechnology may be a new word to you. It’s a relatively new science. Biotechnology is the science of engineering custom-made life forms. For example, biotechnologists can add to a bacterium the gene that makes fireflies glow. This procedure gives the bacterium the ability to glow.

Today, many engineered bacteria have been designed. They make medicines, hormones, enzymes and even food products. As biotechnologists are learning more about how to custom-design bacteria, they are able to make bacteria that are better able to do their assigned jobs. The efficiency of bacteria in doing their jobs can be affected by how efficiently they use their food and how much  oxygen they need. Getting enough oxygen to bacteria growing in  vats is often a challenge.

Biotechnologists have now discovered a bacterium that does well in low-oxygen situations. It can get by with periods of lower oxygen because it makes hemoglobin, the same molecule that carries oxygen in our blood. The bacterium uses the hemoglobin much like scuba gear to help it breathe. Biotechnologists have successfully added the hemoglobin gene to bacteria to make an enzyme used in the commercial production of high-fructose corn syrup. As a result of their increased efficiency, these bacteria are now able to make twice as much enzyme.

Even so-called “simple” living things are a symphony of carefully designed abilities. Modern science is revealing that they are intelligently designed by our Creator.

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The Amphipod's Unique Escape

The Amphipod's Unique Escape

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 

~James 4:7

The hunted are smart to stay downwind of the hunter. Many predators hunt using scent, at least in part. The same principle works in water. Many predators smell chemicals given off by their prey and use that scent to help them locate their prey. If you were a predator in a stream you would be smart to stay downstream from your prey. The prey won't smell you. In addition, you might be able to smell him if he gets too close.

Amazingly, the little shrimp-like amphipod seems to be able to smell predators even downstream. Researchers from Lund University in Sweden have discovered that amphipods can even smell a brown trout downstream and try to avoid it. Scientists designed an artificial stream that divided into two branches. Down one branch was a brown trout, while no predator waited down the other branch. Then amphipods were placed upstream of the branch and allowed to go downstream. When the amphipods came to the branch, they avoided the branch with the trout. To check whether the amphipods were actually smelling scents from downstream, researchers put trout scents in the downstream water. This was enough to cause the amphipods to avoid that branch. Yet, when trout were placed in one of the downstream branches in glass tubes, keeping their scent from entering the water, the amphipods did not respond to the sight of the trout.

We, too, are being hunted as prey by the devil and his forces. We would do well to learn how to sense where the devil lies in wait for us, and like the amphipods, flee from him.

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Human Speech Itself Glorifies God

Human Speech Itself Glorifies God

Excellent speech becometh not a fool: much less do lying lips a prince.

~Proverbs 17:7

Several different animals communicate on a limited basis with one another. But human speech is unique, leaving those who believe in evolution perplexed. The very oldest human fossils show the bony structures needed to support speech. Evolutionists will admit, in a candid moment, that they have no idea how speech 

could have evolved. One modern researcher said they have only "inferences based on hunches."

Some scientists have observed that human beings come with the built-in ability to learn and speak. While this idea is not popular among evolutionists, it is supported by the unique structure of the human vocal tract. No other creature has anything like it. The human larynx is placed low in the throat. That placement creates a sound chamber that allows us to make language expressive. Moreover, the placement prevents us from breathing and eating or drinking at the same time. But we are not born that way. A newborn's larynx is placed higher up in the throat, allowing a baby to breathe and suckle at the same time. By the time a child is six,and has no need to suckle and breathe at the same time, but is learning language, the larynx has moved to its adult position.

This obviously designed arrangement in support of human speech presents only more problems for the evolutionist. But for those who believe in our Creator God, it is one more testimony of His wise handiwork.

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Not Every Gift Has Value

Not Every Gift Has Value

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

~Romans 6:23

Human bridegrooms are not the only males who give gifts to their intended. The birds and the flies do it, too. On a previous program we talked about how the bower bird woos his potential mate by building a hut for her and decorating it with bright objects.

The dance fly presents its intended with a gift, the gift is essentially worthless. The courtship takes place early in the morning as the males swarm. Each courting male carries what looks like a balloon in its back legs. These shiny balloons are only a few millimeters in diameter. As far as we know they are of no value to the female, being made of nothing more than the male's saliva. That may be why the females do not necessarily select the males with the largest balloon. Why did God build this behavior into the dance fly? Perhaps it reflects nothing more than the incredible creativity and variety that God built into His creation. 

Or perhaps it was to remind us that not every gift has value so that we would be doubly thankful for His good gifts to us. And His greatest gift to us was the life, death and Resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ.

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Learn of God's Loving Provision

Learn of God's Loving Provision

But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee: Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. 

A number of species of fish live, apparently comfortably, in Antarctic waters as cold as the freezing temperature of sea water, which is a couple of degrees colder than fresh water. This presents us with several mysteries. First, cold slows down the chemistry necessary for life. At these temperatures, life's 

chemistry all but stops. Second, from a creation perspective, how could fish created to live in a perfect, warm, comfortable world be able to live in an environment that makes life seemingly impossible? A team of biologists from Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station have found some remarkable answers to these questions.

The biologists studied an enzyme found in many creatures that changes a compound called pyruvate into lactate within the muscles. In the Antarctic fish this enzyme appears to help this conversion take place at speeds usually only found in warmer creatures. It seems that the cold-water fish have a slight modification of this common enzyme that allows the enzyme to work more quickly, despite the cold. And yes, researchers have also found the same modified version of the enzyme in a South American warm water species. It appears that God's foreknowledge of what would become of His once perfect world, and His desire to provide for His creatures, led Him to give this special version of this enzyme to creatures of His choosing. If God provides so wisely for fish, will He not provide for you and me, for whom His only Son died?

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Species Confusion May Kill Ape-Man

Species Confusion May Kill Ape-Man

Genesis 1:26

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 

Traditional evolutionists theorize that Homo habilis evolved into Homo erectus, who evolved into Homo sapiens. Some evolutionists now want to reclassify Homo erectus as a primitive form of Homo sapiens. A debate about the definition of "species" may remove Homo erectus from the human evolutionary tree.

Those who don't want to abolish the Homo erectus classification have been supporting their position by emphasizing the differences between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens. Homo erectus has a considerably smaller brain than Homo sapiens. These creatures also had larger teeth and heavier limb bones. Scientists who want to keep the classification conclude that Homo erectus' characteristics are quite distinct from Homo sapiens'. Those who want to reclassify Homo erectus as Homo sapiens want to blur the differences that we generally use to discern between humans and apes. We need to ask, if evolutionists cannot define a species, how do they know when a new one evolves?

How different is Homo erectus? Dubois, who discovered the first fossils that are today recognized as Homo erectus, finally concluded that the fossils were only the remains of a large gibbon. Dubois had promoted the fossils as those of "ape men" for decades, before reversing his position.

The Bible leaves no room for so-called ape-men. Today's human beings are not improved ape-men, nor was Jesus Christ, Who became a man to carry our sins so that we might be forgiven and restored to God.

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Birds Do Mental Time Travel

Birds Do Mental Time Travel

"And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:     ~Matthew 13:4

Episodic memory, the ability to remember something that happened in the past is called mental time travel. It has long been thought that only humans are capable of episodic memory. New research suggests that some birds are also capable of mental time travel.

Researchers gave captive Western scrub jays wax worms, one of their favorite foods. As they usually do, the jays made their selections and hid the worms in the trays of sand provided. Five days later, the birds were allowed to recover their treats. The jays discovered that after the five days, the worms had begun to decay. The researchers fooled a second batch of jays by replacing their decayed worms with fresh worms just before the birds were allowed to find their treats. Then both batches of birds were again allowed to take and hide a choice of worms. Those birds that had had experience with the decayed worms, would no longer take new worms to hide. But the birds that had been fooled took the worms and buried them, still expecting them to be good later. In other words, the birds remembered what happened in the past and adjusted their behavior. Other tests offered similar results.

God has given all His creatures the abilities they need to make a living without regard to where those creatures are on the manmade evolutionary ladder.

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Relax

Relax

Genesis 6:3

And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

Before the Flood, people were living hundreds of years. As man grew more evil, God declared that man's lifespan would be reduced to 120 years. Modern biology has learned that we do indeed have built-in timers in each of our cells that limit the number of times they can divide. When enough cells can no longer divide, 

we die. We can even do things to speed up the timers.

The timers are called telomeres. However, every time a cell divides, a small part of each telomere is lost. When these telomeres are worn down to nothing, the cell no longer divides and soon dies. Researchers studied 58 healthy women between the ages of 20 and 50. All the women had children, but 39 of them had a child that was seriously chronically ill. Stress levels were measured through questionnaires while blood samples provided information about their cell health. Among other things, scientists checked for levels of an enzyme that maintains the health of telomeres. The mothers who saw their stress levels as high proved to have much shorter telomeres than those who reported little stress. They reported that cells from stressed women had telomeres that were as short as unstressed women ten years older.

Scripture tells us to cast all our cares on the Lord. Among the many blessings of doing so are healthy telomeres.

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GECKOS DON’T NEED FLASHLIGHTS

Geckos Don't Need Flashlights

Psalm 146:8

The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind: the Lord raiseth them that are bowed down: the Lord loveth the righteous:

You get up early. The illumination isn't very good, you put on your socks anyway, only to find out, in the light of day, that you have one blue and one gray sock on. That's because our eyes have cone cells to detect color, as well as rod cells that are sensitive to light, but cannot see color. So, as the light level 

becomes lower, we have a decreasing ability to detect colors.

Not so with the hooded gecko. Based on their study of gecko eyes, some scientists wondered whether they could see in the dark. To test this, they made cards with a checkerboard pattern of blues and grays. Geckos were then trained to take crickets labeled with one of the cards. Then, when they offered the geckos crickets labeled with a blue card, they rewarded with the expected cricket. Crickets labeled with gray cards were made bad-tasting by being placed in salt water. During these tests the light level was so low that researchers could not tell the difference between colors. However, the geckos took the crickets labeled with blue cards more than twice as often, proving that they could see the color differences.

While we marvel at God's unlimited creativity in providing for His creatures needs, we see this truth by faith. Faith also shows us that God redeemed us through His Son.

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Those Gifted Red Knots

Those Gifted Red Knots

"The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season."

~Psalm 145:15

Shore birds like the oystercatcher search for buried mollusks by touch. They poke around in the sand, hoping to find a hard-shelled mollusk. But if you have ever tried to find something that was hiding where you couldn't see it, you know that this method of looking for something is not very efficient. But another shore bird, the red knot, seems to know just where to find its hidden food.

Scientists observed that the red knot, a type of sandpiper, was seven to eight times more efficient at finding buried food than it would be if it were randomly searching. Red knots, who also search for food by pushing their bills into the sand, did better than those birds who search by touch. The answer didn't come until scientists looked at the red knot's bill under the microscope. On the top of the bill they found tiny pits. Inside the pits they found cells called Herbst corpuscles. Scientists knew that other shorebirds have organs similar to these corpuscles that are used to feel vibrations from wriggling prey. They theorized that the red knot's Herbst corpuscles sense pressure changes in the displaced water under the sand when a mollusk obstructs the water's flow. Next they tested captive birds who were trained to find mollusks in pails of sand. Scientists found that if the sand was dry, the red knots did not do very well. But when the sand was wet, the red knots could indeed find the hidden mollusks.

God's creative nature and divine wisdom has provided His living creatures with a beautiful variety of ways of making their living.

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Just to let you all know, there are a couple new items in my etsy shop, so hop on over there and take a look. :) Feel free to share with your friends as well. Hope you all have a wonderful day! 

What Value Is Music?

What Value Is Music? 

And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.

~Genesis 4:21

The Bible tells us that the earliest generations of human beings were making music. By the time the eighth generation of man came along, Jubal, a member of that generation was able to make his living providing musical instruments. On the evolutionary side of things, however, musical ability would seem to provide no survival advantage. Yet, the human brain devotes considerable resources to the processing of music. Our love of music is wired into our brain. Each of our sense organs is important to our enjoyment of music. And each of these organs is linked to its own part of the brain which is responsible for how we experience the music.

Parts of the brain are reserved for memory which stores the music. Other parts of the brain are dedicated to trying to understand the entire piece of music, referencing back to parts of the music stored in the memory. Even more interesting is that one need not hear music to activate the various parts of the brain devoted to music. Positron-emission tomography reveals that a person only needs to imagine music for these portions of the brain to become active. The ability to make or appreciate music offers us no apparent survival value, and therefore, according to evolutionary theory, should not have developed. Yet, our brains, and indeed, all our senses, are designed to make and appreciate music.

The obvious message here is that evolution had nothing to do with the formation of human beings. Rather, we were created by God Who loves music, and wants us to praise Him with music.

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Life on Ocean Worlds?

Life on Ocean Worlds?

"The moon and stars to rule by night: for his mercy endureth for ever."
~Psalm 136:9

I recently talked about ideas concerning a possible planet-covering ocean on Enceladus – one of the moons of Saturn. There are other moons of Saturn and Jupiter thought to be covered by similar ice-crusted oceans. The reason why such findings excite evolutionists, is that they think these oceans might contain hydro-thermal vents, like those found on Earth.

At the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, and other places, such hydro-thermal vents spew extremely hot material into the cold ocean. This material contains organic sulfur compounds, and there are bacteria which can feed off these minerals, at the right temperature.

The correct chemicals, and the correct medium – that is water – are assumed to combine, to enable evolution to take place. However, it is not inevitable that the existence of such vents, if found on these Jovian and Saturnian worlds, means that bacteria will be present. And, even if they are, this does not provide evidence that such bacteria have evolved. It is a mark of the strong bias that evolutionists have, that they assume a false logical syllogism. Their assumption is that:

1.            Organism A requires chemicals B to survive.

2.            Chemicals B exist on Enceladus.

3.            Therefore organisms A must have evolved on the  planet in question.

The syllogism appears logically sound, until we realize that it is actually an error known as Affirmation of the Consequent. The existence of chemicals B on Enceladus does not imply the existence of the organisms. God has reminded us that His purposes for us are focused on the Earth, which He caused to be inhabited.

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Because of the coming hurricane, there may not be a Sunday or Monday post. I hope you all have a fantastic weekend! 

The Ocean of Enceladus

The Ocean of Enceladus 

"He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names."

~Psalms 147:4

Could the stuff of science fiction be a reality in the outer reaches of our Solar System? As a boy, I read two sci-fi novels, which proposed that the planet Venus was covered in ocean: Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus, by atheist writer Isaac Asimov (published in 1954 under the pseudonym Paul French) and Perelandra (1943), by Christian writer C.S. Lewis.

Now that we know that Venus is actually a super-hot forbidding world, with a runaway Greenhouse of an atmosphere, attention for such worlds is placed farther away. The Cassini spacecraft, launched in 1997, and nearing the end of its life, is studying Enceladus, a moon of Saturn. Studies have suggested the presence of hydrogen, pouring into the floor of an ocean, which is believed to exist below a crust of ice. This is exciting to evolutionary scientists. The Science Daily website enthuses thus:

Life as we know it requires three primary ingredients: liquid water; a source of energy for metabolism; and the right chemical ingredients, primarily carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. With this finding, Cassini has shown that Enceladus – a small, icy moon a billion miles farther from the sun than Earth – has nearly all of these ingredients for habitability.

There are bacteria, which can manufacture methane from hydrogen and carbon dioxide, but there is no mechanism by which these bacteria could have appeared on Enceladus. Whether or not God has placed such bacteria on Enceladus – and I suspect not – the discovery of this mix of chemicals provides no evidence for the non-existent process of evolution.

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Cherry Blossom

Cherry Blossom

For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. 

~Isaiah 55:12

What can be more appealing, than the sight of a cherry tree in full bloom? Cherry blossom seems to enhance every environment, of which it is a part. Even urban areas can play host to cherry trees, and concrete city can be made attractive for a while, when the blossoms appear.

Cherry blossom is often fleeting. Many varieties are in bloom for no more than 2 weeks of the year. But for those two weeks, they burst into an explosion of pink, followed by a ground covering of pink snow.

It is often forgotten how much energy a plant uses, in producing flowers and blossoms. Though cherry blossoms are small, there are a lot of them. The colors they reflect, and the aromas released, are attractive to the insects necessary for pollination. But what an awkward method of reproduction pollination sometimes seems to be. The male pollen cells need to travel from the anthers of the flowers on one cherry tree, to the stigma of another. To attract the right pollinator, the blossoms must be the right color, and the right size. But why would they have evolved this way, if the insects were not originally pollinating these flowers?

Whichever way you cut it, the burst of energy needed to produce the annual cherry blossoms is not explicable without presupposing the truth of God’s word. But God made everything in six days so the inexplicable becomes logical. Like the stars of the heavens, bright flowers tell forth the glory of God.

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Dusty Stars

Dusty Stars

Genesis 1:16

"And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also."

The news has again been filled with stories about the search for planets orbiting nearby stars. All these stories assume that our Earth was not formed by God. They perpetuate the idea that the Earth and other planets in the solar system formed when dust around the young sun began to collect into lumps.

 The search for planets orbiting other stars concentrates on stars that have dust around them. Scientists who believe in evolution think that if they find evidence of planets forming around those stars, evolution will have a stronger case against the Bible.

 Research papers delivered at the American Astronomical Society discussed the dust around the star Beta Pictoris. They say that this star, visible from Earth’s southern hemisphere, has chemical elements in its surrounding dust that are similar to the chemical elements they think were in the original dust cloud around our sun. Another paper said that the gaps in the dust surrounding eight other stars are due to the formation of planets around those stars. The distance of all these stars is too great to allow actual sightings of any orbiting planets. As David Black, director of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, correctly pointed out, “The landscape of previous efforts to detect planets is littered with the corpses of claims that haven’t been substantiated.”

Are there planets around other stars? We don’t know. But we do know that the Bible’s account of how the Earth was created by God is perfectly accurate.

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Airplane Fingers

Airplane Fingers

Genesis 1:20

"And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven."

Aerodynamics, the science of flight, is a highly complex science. This is because many complex forces are acting on anything in flight. These forces include the power available for flight and drag produced by the flying object. Each of these categories include many additional forces that depend on the shape of the flying object, the shape and length of the wings, the speed and the altitude. This is why, for example, high altitude planes have very long wings.

One critical force that has been under recent study is the turbulence that forms at the tips of the wings. The shorter the wing, the more energy consuming turbulence forms at the tip of the wing. Different wing designs have been tried to decrease this turbulence. Engineers have had some success reducing this turbulence with winglets. You may have seen these small vertical wings on the wingtips of some airplanes. Swiss researchers have been studying vultures with the hope of finding a better solution to this problem because vultures have a relatively short wing span that has proven to be surprisingly efficient. They discovered that this is because the feathers at the vultures' wing tips spread out. They then tested a wing with a finger-like cascade of blades at the end. Their new wing was more than four times more efficient than the average wing design in use today! It takes a great deal of faith in evolution to think that natural selection possesses such knowledge of aerodynamics. Clearly the vulture was designed by an intelligent Creator Who understands aerodynamics even better than we do!

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A Fishy Story for You: The Mola Mola

A Fisherman's Dream

"Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights." ~ Jonah 1:17

For me, catching a fish of any size is a great accomplishment … but can you imagine what it would be like to find a gigantic Mola mola at the end of your fishing line? Also known as the ocean sunray, the Mola mola is the world's largest bony fish, weighing as much as 5,000 pounds and measuring up to 14 feet from top to bottom!

Scientists aboard Exploration Vessel Nautilus recently spotted and photographed one of these gigantic fish in the eastern Pacific ocean. One researcher told Live Science, "They fascinate me because there is so little known about them despite their large size."
  
Another researcher agrees. Rich Bell, a fisheries scientist aboard the research vessel, said: "Their actual biology is relatively little known. Mating, their growth, migration patterns, are not particularly well-known."

And yet, Live Science wasted no time in saying that the fish – which scientists know so little about – "is considered to be evolutionarily advanced as they are thought to be one of the most recent fish families."

Now, as I'm sure you recognize, this isn't a scientific statement at all. It is a statement of faith. By their faith in Darwinism, they simply assume that evolution gave rise to this enormous fish. Creationists, too, exercise faith but it is faith in the never-failing Word of God. And that's why we say with full assurance that the Mola mola comes from the hand of our Creator.

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The Giraffe's Wonder Net

The Giraffe's Wonder Net

Which doeth great things past finding out; yea, and wonders  without number.

~Job 9:10

Did you ever stand up a little too quickly and get dizzy? That happens because by standing you may have temporarily lowered the blood pressure in your brain. Can you imagine what can happen when the giraffe swings his head from the ground to the treetop?

The giraffe's heart and the rest of his cardiovascular system are very different from ours – and from most other creatures. If it weren't different, there wouldn't be any giraffes! In order to get his blood all the way from his heart up that long neck to his brain, the giraffe's heart must produce twice as much blood pressure as would be expected in an animal his height.

But the giraffe's brain is very sensitive to high blood pressure. So giraffes have been given a special structure that's been called the "wonder net", where the blood supply enters his brain. This wonder net keeps the blood pressure in the giraffe's brain just where it should be. Even if the giraffe drops his head quickly – say, from nibbling a treetop to take a drink of water – the blood pressure in his head remains safe. The wonder net can quickly control such rapid changes. And to prevent used blood from draining back into his brain when he lowers his head, the giraffe has a special set of one way check valves in his neck.

When we talk about our Creator, we need not be afraid that some people will think we are talking about worthless things. Truly, the wonders the Creator has made are great and worthy to be told to people far and wide!

Copyright © 2017 by Creation Moments, Inc.

The Beginning of Creation Moment Month // The Beginning of Wisdom

Hey ya'll!

Today is day one of Creation Moment month. I think this article is a fitting one to start off the series: The Beginning of Wisdom

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. ~Proverbs 9:10

 What arrogance to tell someone that he is a fool! How much more arrogant, if that man is a highly educated, highly qualified scientist, with a strong of degrees and doctorates to his name. Such a man might think that he has the right to comment on the existence, or rather the non-existence, of God, and that his intellectual superiority will be sufficient to convince his hearers.

We know of quite a few such scientists—both men and women—who would fit the description just given. And yet the Bible’s definition of foolishness does not place this negative quality in opposition to intelligence. Instead, foolishness is the opposite of wisdom.

Wisdom is demonstrably not the same as intelligence. It is possible—and, I would submit, common—for a highly intelligent scientist to be foolish. The Bible tells us, in Romans 1:20, that God’s invisible attributes have been clearly seen since the creation of the world. That verse goes on to state that those who reject God are, therefore, without excuse.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding”, says the proverb. Notice that the fear of the Lord is not the end of wisdom. There is much still for us to find out, and a wise man will become wiser, as he studies God’s word and finds out more about Him. Notice also that insight is not gained by knowing about the Holy One. Insight and wisdom is gained by knowing God personally. Intelligence is good. Intellectual development is good. But knowing God is of supreme importance.

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Remember, if you have a certain subject you would like to read more about, just post a comment and I'll see if I can find an article on that topic. 

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