The Cheetah

Usain Bolt is unbelievably fast.  In 2008, he ran the 100 meter dash in a world record 9.58 seconds.  For a cheetah, that’s a light jog.  At the Cincinnati Zoo, they regularly set up a test to give their cheetah’s exercise and to see how fast they can run.   The slowest cheetah distractedly jogged the 100 meters in 9.97 seconds (National Geographic).  The fastest?  A cheetah named Sarah ran the 100 meters at a blazing 5.95 seconds at 61 mph (ibid).  Wild cheetahs are even faster, hitting speeds of 70 mph and chasing swift prey like the springbok antelope which can reach speeds over 60 mph (Wikipedia).  A closer look at the cheetah reveals that it is perfectly designed for speed from head to tail.

1. Head.  A cheetah’s head is the smallest of all big cats.  It has a small snout and great eyesight to scope out their prey.  Despite how fast they are moving and changing direction, their head remains incredibly still, which helps them to retain clear vision and focus.

2. Skeleton Structure.  A cheetah’s skeleton structure acts like a bow which propels the cheetah at awesome speeds. A cheetah’s hips and clavicles are extremely flexible.  It also has an unusually bendable spine.  As a cheetah runs, it’s hind legs will come forward past their front legs.  All of these features allow them to have extremely long strides and make pinpoint turns.  In fact, every stride a cheetah’s makes at top speed is around 25 feet long (HowStuffWorks.com).

3. Respiratory System.  In order to run as fast as they do, cheetahs need oxygen and a lot of it.  Their nostrils, sinuses, and lungs are all enlarged for this very purpose.  It’s respiratory rate will climb from 60 to 150 breathes per minute (Cheetah.org).  All of these features work together just so their bodies have enough oxygen to move quickly.

3. Internal Organs.  In a similar way, the cheetah’s heart and liver are enlarged.  The heart is especially powerful to make sure enough blood gets to the muscles.  Its arteries are very large and strong to withstand the pressure.

4. Feet.  A cheetah’s claws do not retract, giving it constant traction.  Similar to our shoes, it also has tough and ridged footpads for increased grip.

5. Tail.  A cheetah’s tail is like the rudder.  The tail stabilizes the cheetah’s body and helps it change direction.  If a cheetah needs to change direction, it will swing its tail over to help make the turn.  This is especially important since their prey rarely run straight.

When every single one of these attributes work together, it propels the cheetah at 70 mph.  Probably most amazing of all is its acceleration .  In three strides, the cheetah can reach 40 mph.  It can accelerate from 0-60 in less than 3 seconds. This is faster than most supercars!

No other animal is like the cheetah.  It is one of a kind.  Every part of the cheetah shows brilliant design and order.  Such an animal as this can only be the product of an intelligent God.  As was said in Job 35:11, “Who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth and makes us wiser than the birds of the heavens?”  Animals like the cheetah certainly teach us about the superiority of the Creator!

(Check Out This Video of the Cheetah) 

Other Source:

• http://www.sciences360.com/index.php/the-cheetah-anatomy-built-for-speed-23464/

The Homing Pigeon

Most of us have gotten lost before.  Maybe we took a wrong turn or tried to navigate through an unfamiliar place.  Until the GPS was invented, getting lost was a pretty common occurrence.  The fact that we, the most intelligent beings on this earth, can get lost so easily makes one animal just that much more amazing.

The homing pigeon has astonishing navigation abilities.  Over and over again the homing pigeon has been taken far away to a place it has never been.  Once it is released the pigeon will find its bearings and fly straight back to its nest.  Some of these birds have been recorded traveling as long as 1,100 miles back to the exact spot where home is (Walcott, Charles. "Pigeon Homing: Observations, Experiments and Confusions," 1996).

This ability has stumped scientist for years.  There are many different theories about how the homing pigeon can do this.  Some think it detects the earth’s magnetic field through some sensitive particles on top of its beak.  Others think it uses distinct smells in the atmosphere to find its way home.  The most recent theory suggests this pigeon is able to hear sound waves from the earth (which are at an incredibly low 0.1 Hz) and somehow use this to help guide them home (Popular Science).  No matter the theory, scientists are still looking for the facts.

So let’s get this straight.  For generations scientists have been trying to figure out how the homing pigeon is able to go directly back to its nest from an unknown location over a thousand miles away (ibid), and yet they claim evolution as an undeniable fact?  What a completely and utterly outrageous claim!  In addition, why would the pigeon develop such an ability in the first place?  What “survival of the fittest” situation would cause a pigeon to know how to make the enormous 1,100 miles journey back to its nest?

If we are willing to accept the truth, we will see that evolution doesn’t offer us the answers, God does.  These animals clearly show design and intelligent handiwork.  God created animals like the homing pigeon to show His magnificence.  He has made these animals so that we will marvel at His power and intelligence (Isaiah 55:9; Psalm 147:5; Isaiah 40:21-31).

An Animal That Can’t Feel the Burn

At one time or another we have all experienced some type of burning feeling.  Maybe it was when we touched a hot stove, sipped a scalding drink, stayed out in the sun too long, or played with fire.  Sometimes we even feel burning sensations when we eat spicy food.  Whatever the cause, the burning feeling is no fun at all.  For this reason, scientists were especially curious when they discovered an animal that doesn’t feel certain burning sensations.  This animal is the naked mole rat.

Several years ago, researchers accidentally discovered naked mole rats didn’t have something called “substance P.”  To put it simply, substance P is a compound that sends signals of burning pain in our nerves.  Since naked mole rats don’t have substance P, they don’t feel pain from burns but will from other injuries.  For example, they feel pain from pinching, prodding, and other physical injuries, but can’t feel pain from acid or the burning sensation from chili peppers (BioEdOnline.org).

What makes this ability especially interesting is the fact that naked mole rats live in underground boroughs with high levels of carbon dioxide.  Living in places with high levels of carbon dioxide (as high as 10%) causes acid to build up inside the body tissue and is painful for most animals.  If the air we breathed comprised of just 5% carbon dioxide, we would feel a “sharp, burning, stinging sensation in our eyes and nose” (LiveScience.com, “Immune”).  In other words, the naked mole rat is designed specifically to live in places with high carbon dioxide without feeling any pain. 

Not only are there high levels of carbon dioxide inside the boroughs, but often very low levels of oxygen as well.  If we breathed the same oxygen levels as the naked mole rat we would quickly sustain brain damage (LiveScience.com, “Oxygen”).  The reason they are able to live in such terrible air conditions is because they breathe less frequently and use about a third less oxygen than other small animals like mice.  This gives the naked mole rat the ability to function more than six times longer with low levels of oxygen than mice and other animals (ibid).

Even though they aren’t much to look at, naked mole rats are some of the most incredible animals on earth.  It’s clear that these little rodents were perfectly made to survive in some of the worst air conditions.  With so many complex and unique characteristics, we have to ask how they could have evolved these abilities?  Evolution simply does not offer specific answers and clear facts.  Naked mole rats, like many other animals on the earth, prove that God planned, designed, molded, and created everything.

Not only do the words of Nehemiah 9:5-6 speak the truth about creation, but they also tell us what our response should be: “Arise, bless the Lord your God forever and ever!  O may Your glorious name be blessed
 and exalted above all blessing and praise!  You alone are the Lord.  You have made the heavens, the heaven of heavens with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them.  You give life to all of them 
and the heavenly host bows down before You.”

May we always praise and glorify God, the Designer and Lord of all creation!

The Archerfish: A Living Squirt Gun

On the surface, the archerfish looks just like your average aquarium fish.  It doesn’t look flashy or even all that interesting.  However, this fish has some astounding abilities.  As its name indicates, this fish is able to hunt with the accuracy and precision of an archer.  It does this by shooting a jet of water toward a bug or small animal, knocking it off of a tree or plant into the water, and then gobbling it up.  This ability is only possible because of some unique qualities.  Let’s examine these qualities:

Mouth: Instead of being flat and smooth, the archerfish has a little channel that runs from the back of the throat to the front top lip.  When it presses its tongue to the top of its mouth, it forms a little waterway to shoot through.  Once this channel is formed, it will swim up to the surface of the water and snap its gills shut.  Quickly shutting their gills will propel water through the mouth and out.  The result is a water pistol.  This little 8-inch fish can shoot with pinpoint accuracy from 4 feet away.  However, they can squirt as far as 12 feet and up to 7 times in quick succession.  This incredible ability is only possible because of its special mouth.

Abilities of Adjustment: Sniping a bug from underwater is not easy by any means.  The reason is because of a problem called “refraction.”  Since water and air have different qualities, it causes what we see to look different when looking from air into water or vice versa.  Sometimes it makes an object look bent or makes it look like it is in one location when it is actually in another (See Picture Below).  So, when the archerfish tries to hit a target from underwater, it will miss it unless it accounts for refraction.  Incredibly, a baby archerfish quickly figures out the problem of refraction and adjusts its aim!  Soon, it becomes a master calculator of angels and refraction.  Even though refraction changes with the angle the archerfish shoots from, it is able hit a target with sniper like precision from angles between 45 and 110 degrees (Temple).  This is hard enough for intelligent humans to do, which is why it is even more amazing that a fish is able to pull these shots off.

Looking at all of these astounding qualities makes one wonder how this fish could have evolved and why it would have done it in the first place?  See, there is no shortage of bugs in this world.  It’s not like it needed to develop this water pistol ability to survive.  In fact, it gathers most of its food by eating floating insects, jumping for bugs, or eating things in the water, not by sniping bugs from the trees (Encyclopedia).  If evolution were really a fact, then why would the archerfish evolve these amazing, yet unnecessary, abilities?  Why haven’t other fish evolved the same ability?  Beyond all of this, how did the archerfish develop the channel at the roof of its mouth and know to put its tongue at the top to make a water pistol?  How did an unintelligent animal figure out and master the problem of refraction?  Evolution does not give clear and believable answers to these questions.  Incredible features like these do not “just happen by time and chance.”

Seeing so many unanswered questions about evolution further points to the true reason the archerfish is so amazing.  The archerfish and all of its remarkable features were intricately designed to show there is a God!  Romans 1:20 says, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”  The archerfish is one more proof of God’s creation that is “clearly seen.”

Sources:

• Temple, S. E. "Effect of salinity on the refractive index of water: considerations for archer fish aerial vision" 'Journal of Fish Biology' Vol. 70, 1626–1629 2007.
• http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/archerfish.aspx
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archerfish
• http://www.naturia.per.sg/buloh/verts/archer_fish.htm

Why Giraffes Don’t Have Brain Damage

 

If you have ever done a handstand or hung upside-down, you know the feeling of the blood rushing to your head.  This is not a big deal for people, but it should be a problem for giraffes.  Think about it.  The giraffe is the tallest animal in the world (up to 20 feet) and has a neck about 7 feet long.  Your heart pumps blood up about a foot.  A giraffe’s heart has to pump blood up 7 feet!  A normal person’s blood pressure is 120/80.  A giraffe’s normal blood pressure is around 240/180, which is the highest of all animals (Jakhariya).  If our blood pressure gets up to just 180, it is called a hypertensive emergency and must be lowered immediately or it can result in permanent organ damage and death.  The question is, why doesn’t a giraffe damage its brain or kill itself when it bends down?  The answer is found in a number of uniquely designed parts.

1. An Enlarged Heart.  To get the blood to its head in the first place, the giraffe needs a large and powerful heart.  Your heart is about the size of your fist.  A giraffe’s heart is about 2 feet long and can weigh over 25 pounds (Prothero).  Its heart is also very powerful.  “For blood to reach the head, the heart must beat strongly enough to overcome the significant downward pressure caused by gravity” (Bourton).  Its heart also pumps 16 gallons of blood per minute.  The giraffe certainly has the right heart for the job.

2. Valves.  When a giraffe bends down, there are two problems.  (1) The increased blood pressure from the heart, and (2) blood that has already passed through the brain being pulled back by gravity.  To correct the issues caused by gravity, the giraffe has special valves in the main veins of the neck (jugular veins) which automatically close when the giraffe bends down and open when it lifts back up.  This significantly reduces the pressure in its head when it bends down.

3. Blood Vessels.  The walls of these vessels are extra thick and grow thicker as the giraffe’s neck grows and the blood pressure increases (Bourton).  The thick walls keep the vessels from rupturing under all the pressure.  Besides this, the giraffe’s blood vessels have elastic qualities.  So, the giraffe’s vessels will expand and contract to change the volume of blood flowing to the brain when it bends down.  Doing so decreases the pressure in the brain.

4. The Sponge.  At the base of the giraffe’s brain is a complex maze of small blood vessels (called the rete mirabile).  When the giraffe bends down, the rete mirabile acts like a sponge by expanding the blood vessels and containing the extra blood coming to the head (Jakhariya).  Doing so lowers the blood pressure and controls the amount of blood entering the brain.  When the giraffe brings its head back up, the rete mirabile pushes out the blood it was holding into the giraffe’s brain so it doesn’t get light headed on the way up.

It takes all of these features just for a giraffe to bend down to get a drink of water and raise back up!  This puts evolution in a difficult position.  If the giraffe did not have a strong enough heart, it could not get blood to its brain and would not survive.  If the valves in the blood vessels did not contract and close off, too much blood would rush to the giraffe’s brain and it would not survive.  If the giraffe did not have the sponge like maze of blood vessels and did not have special vessels that could expand and contract and control blood pressure, the brain would be damaged and it would not survive.  So, which evolved first?  Every one of these parts has to works together flawlessly in order for the giraffe to survive.  Taking any one of these qualities out would drive giraffes to extinction.

Giraffes are proof of intelligent design and of a God who has the knowledge and power to make every single part work flawlessly.  David was right when he said that all of our creation declares God’s glory (Psalm 19:1-6).  Certainly the giraffe is one of the many parts of creation announcing God as Creator and Lord!

 Sources:

• Bourton, Jody. “Supercharged Heart Pumps Blood Up A Giraffe’s Neck.” < http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8368000/8368915.stm>
• Jakhariya. “The Amazing Giraffe” <http://www.komindia.com/komkids/the-amazing-giraffe>
• Prothero, D. R.; Schoch, R. M. (2003). Horns, Tusks, and Flippers: The Evolution of Hoofed Mammals. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 67–72
• Sharp, Douglas B. “The Revolution Against Evolution.” <http://www.rae.org/revev5.html>
• http://terranaturals.com/giraffe-facts-a-23.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giraffe