Psalm 91:3 "Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence."
The Peruvian Andes gave the world the potato,
which is one of the largest crops in the world today. The problem is,
the modern potato is plagued by potato beetles and aphids, which also
carry some viral diseases to the plant. Now a wild potato found in the
Bolivian Andes is being studied because it seems to be quite resistant
to these pests.
The
Bolivian potato defends itself using tiny hairs on its leaves called
trichomes. There are roughly the same number of tall and short trichomes
on the leaves, and they work together to provide a complete defense
system for the plant. The hairs are so closely spaced that even a tiny
aphid cannot avoid them. The end of each hair has a sack filled with
defense chemicals. The short trichomes release their chemicals only when
disturbed. The longer trichomes continuously release their chemicals.
When an aphid gets on a leaf, its legs cannot avoid coming in contact
with the sticky fluid the short trichomes release. To make certain that
the aphid collects enough of the sticky stuff, the plant also releases a
chemical that agitates the aphid. This gooey liquid finally sets up
into a hard mass, leaving the aphid to starve. It also appears that a
scent emitted by one of the trichomes makes the leaves completely
distasteful to potato beetles.
A potato may someday be developed that can
save itself from the pestilence of aphids and beetles. But we cannot
save ourselves from the pestilence of our sin. That's why God sent His
Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for our sins.
Dr.
Brigitte Howarth, the fly specialist at Zayed University in the UAE who
first discovered G tridens, said that the image on the wing is
absolutely perfect. A closer examination of the transparent wings of
Goniurellia tridens reveals a piece of evolutionary art. Each wing
carries a precisely detailed image of an ant-like insect, complete with
six legs, two antennae, a head, thorax and tapered abdomen. When
threatened, the fly flashes its wings to give the appearance of ants
walking back and forth. This confuses the predator, allowing the fly to
escape.
That
is a true statement, a scientific statement describing why such
striking colors come from wings that do not use pigments. Unfortunately,
the writer quickly turns from science to science fiction when she
states that the first color-building life forms probably date back to
the Cambrian explosion over 500 million years ago – a time that, quote,
"was a period of rapid evolutionary advancement, during which eyes
evolved from simple light sensors to neurologically sophisticated organs
that could detect color, shade and contrast."
The fact is – the cube-shaped boxfish slips through water with unparalleled efficiency. As the journal Science put
it, "One look at the aptly named boxfish, and you might expect it to
swim as well as a barn would fly." Creationist Donald DeYoung points out
in his book Discovery of Design, "Observations show that the
boxfish swims easily and safely, even in turbulent water.
Self-correcting vortices of current develop around its body and
effectively cancel out the buffeting forces of surging water."
Not
only does the bird dung spider have a body covered with unattractive
warts, the spider often produces a white thread and sits on it, looking
almost exactly like bird poop that has fallen on a leaf.
carry
the vibrations. Disturb a carpenter ant nest, and the vibrations will
begin. An individual ant will send out as many as seven vibrations in 50
millisecond intervals. Other ants in the nest will hear these
vibrations as they travel through the material that makes up the nest.
As
we mentioned on an earlier program, the shape and coloring of bird eggs
are no accident. God designed them that way for a specific purpose.
Today we're going to mention two other design features seen in some bird
eggs.
Before
a honeybee can go out looking for food for the first time, it needs at
least one training flight. Researchers cleverly attached tiny wires to
bees to keep track of the bees' flight paths. They used radar tracking
to make maps of the honeybees' flight paths. They found that after the
trainee hovers in front of the hive, it makes a straight line away from
the hive for a short distance, then returns. As training progresses, the
trainee flies faster and farther, demonstrating progressive learning.
Just
before the frog jumped out of your reach, it puffed up its shiny red
body because it regarded you as a threat. Fortunately for you, the frog
came nowhere near your lips. You see, when a predator bites down on a
tomato frog, the frog's skin secretes a thick substance that gums up the
predator's mouth and eyes – a superb defense mechanism that reminds us
of the mucus secreted by hagfishes.
