THE MACADAMIA NUT---AUSTRAILIA'S NATIVE DELICACY

  BOTANIST Walter Hill watched his young assistant in horror. The boy had just eaten nuts from a newly discovered species of tree growing in the subtropical rain forests of southeast Queensland, Australia. Hill had heard that the nuts were poisonous. But the lad neither became ill nor dropped dead. Instead, he found the nuts to be delicious. So Hill tried one himself and agreed. Soon thereafter he began distributing macadamia seedlings to friends and botanists around the world.

Today, some 150 years later, macadamia nuts are popular worldwide—and for good reason. The journal Chronica Horticulturae explains: “The macadamia is considered one of the world’s finest gourmet nuts because of its unique, delicate flavour, its fine crunchy texture, and rich creamy colour.” Little wonder that macadamia nuts are Australia’s most successful indigenous food crop!

A Tough Nut to Crack

Evergreen macadamia trees flourish along Australia’s subtropical east coast. Two of the nine species produce edible nuts, which consist of a fibrous outer husk; a tan, spherical shell, and a marble-size, cream-colored kernel.

The tough shell, however, is hard to crack. The Aborigines used rocks. Pioneer orchardist John Waldron used a hammer and anvil. In fact, with these simple tools, he cracked open about eight million nuts over a period of 50 years. Could machines do the job? Early designs were unacceptable because they tended to damage the kernel. In time, however, more effective machines were built.

Another problem involved reproduction. When planted, nuts from good trees often produced poor quality offspring. And efforts at grafting failed. Faced with these difficulties, commercial cultivation stalled—that is, until the Hawaiians tackled the problem. They made the needed breakthroughs. As a result, they were soon supplying 90 percent of the world’s macadamia nuts. Not surprisingly, they came to be called Hawaiian nuts.

Then, in the 1960’s, Australian growers “took on the macadamia as a serious commercial crop,” applying the lessons learned in Hawaii. As a result, the local industry blossomed to the point that Australia now produces about 50 percent of the world’s macadamia nuts. They are also grown in Africa, Asia, and Central America.

A Visit to an Australian Farm

Awake! visited Andrew, who has a macadamia farm near the town of Lismore, New South Wales. “We plant different macadamia varieties every few rows to encourage cross-pollination,” explained Andrew. Awake! learned that about 80 percent of the many millions of trees planted in Australia are proved varieties selected by Hawaiian breeders. However, Australian breeders are now using genetic material from wild macadamias to produce improved local varieties.

Looking at the trees, we see hundreds of nuts dangling like little balls in the thick foliage. The nuts mature over six months and then fall to the ground. We notice that some of the fallen nuts have holes. “Rats can chew through a shell in eight seconds,” said Andrew. “Wild pigs also love macadamia nuts.” Further along the row, Andrew pauses to kick a half-buried nut free from the dirt. “That’s three cents saved,” he says with a grin. Many farmers harvest the nuts by using a specially designed machine with a drum and short plastic fingers that collect fallen nuts. The nuts are then husked and sorted at the farm, after which they are delivered to a factory to be shelled, graded, and shipped to buyers.

Tasty and Healthful!

As we finish our tour, we munch on a handful of kernels—their rich, creamy flavor leaving us smacking our lips. But are macadamia nuts healthful? The oil content of the nut (largely monounsaturated oil, or good oil) “regularly exceeds 72%, which is the highest for any oil-yielding nut,” says a government fact sheet on macadamia-nut culture. According to recent studies, modest consumption can actually reduce harmful low-density cholesterol and triglycerides and lower high blood pressure.

People enjoy macadamia nuts in chocolate candy, gourmet cookies, or premium ice cream. Others prefer them roasted, salted, or simply straight from the shell. Whatever their preference, most people come back for more.

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BATS-MISUNDERSTOOD, MARVELOUS, VALUABLE, ENDANGERED

     ‘BATS! I hate them! They’re vermin infested, can’t see and get tangled up in your hair, spread rabies, suck your blood. Ugh! They make my skin crawl!’ Are those also your sentiments?

Actually, bats are much maligned little creatures. They are victims of bad press. They groom themselves fastidiously. Most have good eyesight; none are blind. They have no desire to get in your hair. They rarely have rabies, and when they do, they are not inclined to bite you—unlike rabid dogs. “More people die annually from bee stings or pet dog attacks,” one researcher says. And only three of the nearly one thousand different species of bats drink blood.

Merlin D. Tuttle, founder of Bat Conservation International of Austin, Texas, is recognized worldwide as an authority on bats. He informs us: “They make up almost a quarter of all mammal species and come in an amazing diversity, ranging from the world’s smallest mammal—the Bumblebee Bat of Thailand, which weighs a third less than a penny—to giant flying foxes in Java with up to six-foot [1.8 m] wingspans. . . . Some 70 percent of bats eat insects. Many feed on fruit or nectar, and a few are carnivores.” He finds them likable, gentle, intelligent, trainable, badly misunderstood, and absolutely

Marvelous!

Scientific American magazine agrees: “In these days of technological triumphs it is well to remind ourselves from time to time that living mechanisms are often incomparably more efficient than their artificial imitations. There is no better illustration of this rule than the sonar system of bats. Ounce for ounce and watt for watt, it is billions of times more efficient and more sensitive than the radars and sonars contrived by man.”—July 1958, page 40.

Since the bat’s sonar is far more sophisticated than man’s, many prefer “echolocation” as a more accurate word to describe it. As the insect-hunting bat cruises, it emits pulses of sound, each pulse being about 10 to 15 thousandths of a second long. When the sound strikes an insect and the returning echo is received, the bat closes in on its meal. It shortens the length of the pulses to less than a thousandth of a second and increases their emission rate to 200 sound pulses a second, thereby continuously updating the picture it receives as it approaches its prey. In a room strung with fine wires, bats specialized for echolocation miss them all—they can dodge wires 0.04 inch [1 mm] in diameter!

The bat’s echolocation system is further refined by the changing pitch of each pulse, from about 50,000 to 25,000 cycles per second. As the pitch changes, the wavelength rises, starting at about a quarter inch [6 mm] and reaching a half inch [12 mm]. This helps the bat locate targets of varying size, since this wavelength variation covers the size range of most insects on which it feeds. The bat can also tell from the echo whether the object is an edible insect or not. If it’s a hard pebble, the bat will swerve at the last instant.

Most amazing is the bat’s ability to recognize and pick up its own echoes in spite of the noise pollution from thousands of other bats. Millions of bats roosting in caves are flying about saturating the air with cries and echoes, yet each bat distinguishes the echoes from its own cries and thereby avoids colliding with other bats. Complicating the problem and magnifying the marvels of bat echolocation, it must be realized “that the echoes are very much fainter than the sounds they emit—in fact, fainter by a factor of 2,000. And they must pick out these echoes in a field which is as loud as their emitted sounds. . . . Yet the bat is distinguishing and using these signals, some 2,000 times fainter than the background noise!” Such a sophisticated sonar system is beyond our comprehension.

Long-eared bats, we are told, “can hear their echoes perfectly well if they whisper.” Some species have hearing so sensitive that they can hear a beetle walking on the sand from ten feet [3 m] away. They do not, however, hear their own cries when echolocating. “Each time one is uttered an ear muscle contracts automatically, thus momentarily shutting off the sound itself so that only the echo can be heard. It is possible that each animal has its own individual sound pattern and is guided by its own echoes.”

Bat mothers are commendable. Usually having only one pup a year, some carry it with them when they fly out to feed. Others leave it in a nursery in a cave, packed in a mass, 5,000 [4,000] to a square yard [meter]. When the mother returns, she calls to her baby and baby calls back, and in the pandemonium of millions of squealing babies and calling mothers, she finds her pup and lets it nurse. Some females are very altruistic. Returning from feeding, she will share her meal by regurgitation with other females who were unable to find food.

Valuable

One insect-eating bat, Tuttle says, ‘can capture up to 600 mosquitoes in an hour, eat 3,000 insects in a night.’ One colony of bats in Arizona was found “to devour about 350,000 pounds [160,000 kg] of insects, or about the equivalent weight of 34 elephants, every night!”

Some bats are nectar feeders, rendering valuable service as pollinators. Hovering over blossoms like hummingbirds, their long tongues, tipped with brushlike bristles, mop up nectar and pollen. They are tropical animals and migrate between Mexico and the southwestern United States. Those that eat fruit spread the seeds over wide areas. Tuttle says: “Fruit and nectar-eating bats that disperse seeds and pollinate flowers are vital to the survival of rain forests and to the production of associated crops worth millions of dollars annually.”

New Scientist magazine, September 1988, said: “Farmers who slaughter fruit bats because they consider them to be pests may suffer still greater losses in production because the bats cross-pollinate their fruit trees.” Fruit for shipment is harvested five to seven days before ripening, for local use two to four days early, but bats eat only the unharvested ripe fruit—worthless to farmers. Bat pollination and dispersal of seeds is crucial for more than 500 species of plants and trees. Incidentally, fruit bats do not fly by sonar—they have good eyesight. Often it’s the farmers, not the bats, who are blind.

Endangered

Nevertheless, the invaluable bats have fallen on hard times. Loss of habitat, pesticides, and indiscriminate slaughtering of large numbers are cutting their numbers from millions to thousands and sending some into extinction. Prejudice, misunderstanding, and just plain ignorance are usually responsible. In Latin America the common vampire bat does require control to safeguard modern man’s livestock, but “poorly trained vampire control agents often indiscriminately kill all bats, unaware that the vast majority of the area’s 250 other bat species are highly beneficial.”

In Australia, thousands of flying foxes, fruit bats, have been wiped out, “despite the fact that some of the area’s most ecologically and economically important trees rely on them” and that “the government’s own investigative findings that crop damage by the bats does not warrant control.” In Israel, “caves suspected of sheltering fruit bats were poisoned—even in nature preserves—inadvertently destroying some 90 percent of the country’s insectivorous bats.”

Old fears concerning bats as carriers of rabies and other diseases are greatly exaggerated: “The odds that a person will die of a bat-borne disease are extremely remote, far less than those of being killed by a dog, a bee sting, or food poisoning at a church picnic.”

Science Year for 1985 sums up its article on bats as follows: “Unfortunately, as the list of the helpful contributions of bats continues to grow, so do the threats to the existence of these creatures. Worldwide, bat populations are declining rapidly. Each year, large bat colonies die out because their habitats are disturbed or destroyed. In Africa and Asia, bats are being hunted in ever-increasing numbers for human food and for use in folk medicines and potions. Fruit-eating bats, which feed chiefly on the fruits of native forests, are often killed by farmers who mistakenly believe that the bats seriously damage their crops. And the myths about bats persist so strongly that millions of the animals are exterminated each year simply because people are afraid of them. Some species of bats are already extinct, and many more are endangered. Until more people come to recognize the value of bats and the need to protect them, the future of these important animals remains uncertain.”

After listing some of the gains made by Bat Conservation International, Merlin Tuttle concludes: “We have only scratched the surface of what must be done if healthy bat populations are to survive. For some, it is already too late and for others, time is running out. The loss of bat populations poses serious, potentially irreversible, consequences for the environment that we all must share.”

Here again, the message is clear: Both ancient and modern history show that man cannot direct his own steps. (Jeremiah 10:23) His love of money, his short-sightedness, and his self-centeredness result in the destruction of the environment—air, water, soil, and plant and animal life—and of people too. Only Jehovah God will stop it. Only he will “bring to ruin those ruining the earth.”—Revelation 11:18.

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"AN APPLE A DAY KEEPS THE DOCTOR AWAY"

 

LOOK at those lovely red apples. Do they not look tempting? They certainly do—and no doubt for good reason. Apples were designed to contribute to your well-being and good health. Among the many kinds of fruit beneficial for food, the apple is one of the foremost. Thus, they tempt you into being good to yourself.

The apple tree belongs to the rose family (Rosaceae), as do the pear, the quince, the whitethorn, and the service tree. The sap of all these trees is rich in sugar. Their very fragrant fruits come in various shades of green, yellow, and red, with flavors ranging from tart to sweet.

Worldwide about two billion bushels of apples are produced each year—between 17 and 18 million tons. In the United States, about half are eaten fresh. The rest go into such items as apple butter, apple juice, applesauce, apple jelly, apple brandy, apple cider, apple pies and other pastries, apple vinegar, and apple wine. In Europe a larger fraction of the crop goes into cider, wine, and brandy. Of the total world production, about one fourth goes into cider.

But long before the fruit becomes pleasant to our palate, the apple tree in full bloom is a delight to our eyes. It is decked with rosy-edged white blossoms in such profusion that if all of them developed into apples, the tree would be incapable of supporting the weight. An early summer storm will usually see to it that some of the blossoms are carried away.

Apple Cultivation

The apple tree grows best in Temperate Zones. And it has been cultivated since time immemorial. Apple trees and apples are mentioned six times in the Bible. The Romans enjoyed them, and in their numerous military conquests, they spread various kinds of apples throughout England and other parts of Europe. The early American colonists brought apple seeds and apple trees with them from England.

By much experimenting, generations of cultivators have improved the quality of apples through breeding. This, however, is not a speedy process. Producing a marketable new brand of apple may take as long as 20 years. But today, thanks to the perseverance of cultivators, we have a great variety of juicy and colorful apples from which to choose.

Harvesting

The apple season starts in July or August in the Northern Hemisphere. But the first varieties to ripen, such as the James Grieve or the Transparent, cannot be stored for long. They should be eaten soon, either raw or stewed. However, they sharpen our appetite for what is to follow: Summerred, Gravenstein, Cox’s Orange, Jonathan, Boskop, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, McIntosh, Granny Smith—to name just a few of the thousands of varieties.

Apples should be harvested in dry weather. They should be picked carefully so that the new shoots and their leaves are not damaged. When apples are really ripe, turning the fruit slightly will easily break it loose from the branch. It is important to watch that the stalk is not broken off the apple, as this would cause a lesion, impairing the life of the fruit.

Late varieties should be left on the tree as long as possible—weather permitting. If because of an early frost the apples freeze on the tree, picking should be postponed until they have thawed. Apples can stand temperatures a few degrees below the freezing point, depending on their level of ripeness and their sugar content, but once frozen and thawed, they cannot be stored. They should soon be processed into juice, stewed fruit, or vinegar; they cannot be dried.

Storage

An interesting feature of apples is that they breathe. They absorb oxygen from the air and exhale carbon dioxide as well as water. Therefore, the warmer the environment, the sooner they dehydrate and shrivel. Through breathing they also absorb odors from their environment. Therefore, it is best to store them by themselves at a temperature of about 40 degrees Fahrenheit [5°C].

Storing apples in a cellar together with potatoes will cause the apples to lose some of their fresh flavor. Moreover, the different varieties should be kept separate. And it is best if apples are individually wrapped in paper. This slows down dehydration and reduces the danger of contamination by rotting neighbors.

Health Value

It has been said that “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.” While that is not always the case, the apple does have this favorable reputation. Why? Because of the things it contains that can affect one’s health for the good.

Each single apple is a small storehouse of important nutrients. When ripe, it contains vitamins B₁, B₂, B₆, C, and E. It also offers a variety of sugars, such as dextrose, fructose, and sucrose. The combination of acids in it is responsible for the flavor. In addition, it contains a number of mineral substances, such as calcium, magnesium, potassium, and others, as well as pectin and fiber. About 85 percent of the apple is water.

Another substance found in apples is ethylene, which functions especially as a natural growth regulator that promotes the ripening of the fruit. This gaseous substance can be put to good use if you have green tomatoes or hard avocados. Put them in a paper bag with a few ripe apples, and they will ripen more quickly.

Since apples have health value, it is important to know when and how to eat them. First of all, they should be ripe. And it is better not to eat cold apples; let them sit at room temperature for a while. It is also important to chew them well.

Interestingly, apples have properties that are said to be beneficial for cleansing the digestive system. These same properties aid in curing both constipation and diarrhea.

A Word of Caution

Apples, as well as other fruits, are susceptible to mold. Because of this, a measure of caution is appropriate. Resulting toxins can cause discomfort and nausea. Therefore, watch out for mold, and cut out not just the moldy portion but a section around the spoiled area as well, for the toxin tends to spread out.

Nevertheless, apples contribute to your good health. So if you want to “keep the doctor away,” then try eating an apple each day!

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THE TAIL OF THE AGAMA LIZARD

THE agama jumps from a horizontal surface onto a vertical wall with ease. But if that surface is slippery, the lizard loses its footing, yet it still makes a successful landing on the wall. How? The secret is in the lizard’s tail.

Consider: When agamas jump from a coarse surface—which provides grip—they first stabilize their body and keep their tail downward. This helps them to jump at the correct angle. When on a slippery surface, though, the lizards tend to stumble and jump at the wrong angle. However, in midair, they correct the angle of their body by flicking their tail upward. The process is intricate. “Lizards must actively adjust the angle of their tails just right to remain upright,” says a report released by the University of California, Berkeley. The more slippery the platform, the more the lizard must raise its tail to ensure a safe landing.

The agama’s tail may help engineers design more-agile robotic vehicles that can be used to search for survivors in the aftermath of an earthquake or other catastrophe. “Robots are not nearly as agile as animals,” says researcher Thomas Libby, “so anything that can make a robot more stable is an advancement.”

What do you think? Did the agama’s tail come about by evolution? Or was it designed?

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A DESIGNER OF ROBOTS EXPLAINS HIS FAITH

INTERVIEW | MASSIMO TISTARELLI

                 Taken from AWAKE magazine February 2013

Professor Massimo Tistarelli is a scientist at the University of Sassari in Italy. He is an associate editor of three international science magazines and has coauthored more than a hundred scientific papers. He studies how humans recognize faces and do such seemingly simple things as catching a ball. He then designs visual systems for robots—systems that imitate what we do. Awake! asked him about his faith and his work as a scientist.

What is your religious background?

My parents were nonpracticing Catholics. As a young man, I leaned toward atheism. I was taught that life originated by means of evolution, and I accepted that as fact. Yet, even though I did not believe in a personal Creator, I felt that there must be something higher than us. In order to find out what, I explored Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism, but I found their teachings to be unsatisfactory.

What led to your interest in science?

From childhood, I was fascinated with machines. I even used to take my electric toys apart and reassemble them. And I would ply my father, a telecommunications engineer, with endless questions about how radios and telephones work.

What has your career as a scientist involved?

I studied electronic engineering at the University of Genoa, and then I did doctoral research in robot design. I specialized in studying the human visual system and in devising ways to imitate it for the design of robots.

Why did our visual system interest you?

It is incredibly sophisticated, encompassing much more than the eyes—it even includes the means to interpret what we see. For example, consider what happens when you catch a ball. As you run to make the catch, the lens of your eye focuses an image of the ball onto your retina. That image will move across your retina in a way that depends on the movement of both the ball and your eye. Normally, of course, you keep your eye fixed on the ball. Its image then becomes stationary on your retina while the background “moves.”

At the same time, your visual system calculates the speed of the ball and its trajectory. Amazingly, the calculations start right there in the retina as your eye estimates the movement of the ball in relation to its background. Your optic nerve then transmits the impulses formed by the retina to your brain, which further analyzes the information and directs you to intercept the ball. The whole process is breathtaking in its complexity.

What persuaded you to believe in a Creator?

In 1990, I spent a few months in Dublin, Ireland, doing research at Trinity College. As I was traveling home with my wife, Barbara, we considered the future of our children. We also decided to visit my sister who was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. My sister gave me a copy of the book Life—How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or by Creation? published by the Witnesses. The careful research that had gone into this work impressed me. It then dawned on me that I had accepted evolution without really questioning it. For example, I had assumed that evolution was well supported by the fossil record. But it is not. Indeed, the more I examined evolution, the more I became convinced that the theory is more bluster than fact.

I thought about my work with robots. Whose designs was I imitating?

Then I thought about my work with robots. Whose designs was I imitating? I could never design a robot capable of catching a ball as we can. A robot can be programmed to catch a ball, but only in precisely controlled conditions. It cannot do so in circumstances for which it has not been programmed. Our ability to learn is vastly superior to that of a machine—and mere machines have makers! This fact is just one of many that led me to conclude that we must have had a Designer.

Why did you become one of Jehovah’s Witnesses?

In part, it was because Barbara and I liked their thorough study methods. I was especially impressed with the research that goes into their publications. Solid research appeals to people like me, who want to probe into the details of things. For example, I became deeply interested in the many prophecies, or predictions, in the Bible. My study of those convinced me that the Bible really is from God. In 1992, Barbara and I were baptized as Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Has your study of science weakened your faith?

 On the contrary, science has strengthened my faith. For example, consider how we recognize faces. A baby can do this within hours after birth. You and I can instantly recognize someone we know, even if he is in a crowd. We may even discern his emotional state. Yet, we may be completely unaware that this recognition involves the processing of a phenomenal amount of information at an incredible speed.

Yes, I am fully convinced that our visual system is a precious gift from Jehovah God. His gifts, which include the Bible, move me to thank him and to talk about him to others. After all, my sense of justice tells me that he should get the credit for his productions

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SANITARY INSPECTORS OF THE SKIES

If asked to name the bird they would least like to meet, many would say the vulture.

Few birds have been so vilified as the vulture. It is the accursed bird whose sinister silhouette wheels over the dead and the dying. Its appearance is said to herald carnage, desolation, and despair. But such is the stuff of fiction.

As for the facts: Many have been enthralled by the vulture’s grace in flight and the tender way it cares for its young. They have also discerned its important ecological role. To such ones the vulture is both magnificent and indispensable.

Admittedly, vultures have a few things against them, apart from their unsavory feeding habits. They would certainly not win any beauty contests, and their calls have been variously described as squeals, cackles, grunts, croaks, and hisses. They do, however, have some endearing qualities.

The vulture is a bird that takes parenthood very seriously. Every year an “only child” receives the undivided attention of both parents until it can fend for itself. A young vulture chick perched helplessly for several months on an inaccessible ledge certainly needs the compassionate care of both parents. In fact, a young Andean condor has to be fed for six months before it can leave the nest, by which time the “chick” is nearly full-grown.

And vultures have the virtue of being eminently useful. Although many birds benefit mankind in one way or another, vultures perform a unique service. They are sanitary inspectors of the skies.

Sanitary Inspection

Cleaning up carcasses is not everybody’s idea of a favorite daily chore, but it is an important job. Proper sanitation requires the prompt removal of dead bodies, which can be dangerous sources of infectious diseases for both man and beast.

Here the vultures come into their own. Even meat contaminated with anthrax or botulin is gobbled up with impunity, until nothing remains but the bones.

Some vultures even specialize in eating bones. The lammergeier vulture of Eurasia and Africa drops bones from a height onto a rocky surface. When the bones split open, the lammergeier eats the marrow and the smaller pieces of bone.

Fortunately, unlike their human counterparts, these sanitary inspectors have never gone on strike. If the vultures’ work was left undone, tropical plains littered with disease-ridden carcasses would be a familiar sight.

But let us follow a team of vultures on a typical workday.

Skyway Patrol

Soon after sunrise, they take to the skies, each one to cover a certain area. Throughout the day our squadron of vultures tirelessly patrols the skies in search of dead animals. When a carcass is finally spotted by one of their number, he goes into a steep dive. This attracts the attention of the other birds, who also hasten to the spoil. Within minutes, dozens of birds arrive at the scene.

Before eating, the birds hop around the carcass hesitantly. Despite their reputation, they are extremely shy creatures. Finally, one of them starts tearing at the carcass, and this is the signal for the whole group to attack the meal. There is a lot of squabbling and hissing, pushing and pulling, which looks uncannily like a rugby football scrum. The hungriest, who protest the most energetically, usually get fed first. If it is a large carcass, there will be enough food for all.

In a matter of minutes, the meal is over, and leaving only the bones, the flock takes to the sky to continue the search. A vulture’s life is not an easy one. It may be two or three days before they have another meal.

Eyesight and Teamwork

Vultures are admirably equipped for aerial surveillance. Their massive wings are perfectly designed for gliding and soaring, enabling them to fly for hours with barely a wing beat. They are adept at taking advantage of thermals, or rising hot-air currents, which serve to keep them aloft with minimal effort. Dean Amadon, prominent American ornithologist, described them as one of “nature’s most eloquent expressions of flight.”

A question that intrigued ornithologists for many years was, How do vultures find carcasses so quickly?

The answer turned out to be a combination of sharp eyesight and teamwork. It has been calculated that a vulture circling overhead at a height of about 2,500 feet [750 m] can spot an object on the ground that is less than five inches [13 cm] long. But even with such penetrating vision, a lone vulture would be hard-pressed to find food.

Hence, teamwork is essential. It has been observed that vultures divide up to patrol different areas. If one vulture descends toward a carcass, his distinctive swoop is the signal to nearby birds that food is in the offing, and they immediately fly in that direction. Their change of course is likewise spotted by more distant birds, who also hasten to the scene. This aerial telegraph system is surprisingly efficient, so much so that it may appear to an observer that all the birds arrive almost simultaneously.

Sadly, such efficiency and undeniable usefulness have not sufficed to guarantee the vultures’ protection and survival.

The Return of the Condor

Despite being counted among the largest and most impressive birds of prey, vultures are facing extinction in many parts of the world. Their traditional food has disappeared from the plains, and not infrequently the carcasses they do find have been poisoned. Their slow breeding rate also makes it difficult for their decimated populations to recover.

Nevertheless, there are some heartening success stories. A program for the artificial breeding of California condors seems to be proving successful, and it is hoped that more birds can soon be returned to the wild. Thanks to the efforts of French conservationists, the griffon vulture has reestablished itself in the Massif Central, France, after an absence of many years.

Thus, the bird that people once loved to hate has become a symbol of man’s efforts to save those species that he has endangered. Undoubtedly, the majestic flight of the condor over the sierras of North and South America is a sight too precious to squander.

Meanwhile, in Africa and Asia, the vultures still unassumingly perform their thankless task, that of sanitary inspectors of the skies.

 

Vultures on Record

  VULTURES are counted among the rarest and largest birds of the world. And they hold the avian altitude record as well.

  The California condor is one of the most endangered species in the world. To save this vulture from extinction, strenuous efforts are being made through a breeding program among the two dozen birds in captivity. In 1986 only three California condors were left in the wild.

  The Andean condor, along with the marabou stork of Africa, has the greatest wingspan of all land birds, over ten feet [3 m]. It is also the heaviest bird of prey, sometimes weighing in at over 30 pounds [14 kg].

  Vultures are high fliers as well. In 1973 an African vulture (Gyps rueppellii) collided with an aircraft that was flying over Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa, at an altitude of 37,000 feet [11,300 m].

 

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THE HUMAN MIRACLE

     OF ALL the marvelous things on earth, none is more astounding than the human brain. For example, every second some 100 million bits of information pour into the brain from the various senses. But how can it avoid being hopelessly buried by this avalanche? If we can think about only one thing at a time, how does the mind cope with these millions of simultaneous messages? Obviously, the mind not only survives the barrage but handles it with ease.

 How it does so is only one of the many wonders of the human brain. Two factors are involved. First, in the brain stem there is a network of nerves the size of your little finger. This network is called the reticular formation. It acts as a kind of traffic control center, monitoring the millions of messages coming into the brain, sifting out the trivial and selecting the essential for attention by the cerebral cortex. Each second this little network of nerves permits only a few hundred, at most, to enter the conscious mind.

 Second, a further pinpointing of our attention seems to come about by waves that sweep the brain 8 to 12 times per second. These waves cause periods of high sensitivity, during which the brain notes the stronger signals and acts upon them. It is believed that by means of these waves the brain scans itself, in this way focusing on the essentials. Thus an amazing flurry of activity is going on in our heads every second!

Something “to Wonder At”

  In recent years scientists have made tremendous strides in studies of the brain. Even so, what they have learned is nothing compared to what remains unknown. One researcher said that, after thousands of years of speculation and recent decades of intensive scientific research, our brains, along with the universe, remain “essentially mysterious.”  Certainly the human brain is easily the most mysterious part of the human miracle—“miracle” meaning something “to wonder at.”

 The wonder begins in the womb. Three weeks after conception brain cells start forming. They grow in spurts, at times up to 250,000 cells a minute. After birth the brain continues growing and forming its network of connections. The gulf separating the human brain from that of any animal quickly manifests itself: “The brain of the human infant, unlike that of any other animal, triples in size during its first year,” states the book The Universe Within.  In time, about 100 billion nerve cells, called neurons, as well as other types of cells, are packed into a human brain, although it makes up only 2 percent of the body’s weight.

 The key brain cells—the neurons—do not actually touch one another. They are separated by synapses, tiny spaces less than one millionth of an inch across. These gaps are bridged by chemicals called neurotransmitters, 30 of which are known, but the brain may possess many more. These chemical signals are received at one end of the neuron by a maze of tiny filaments called dendrites. The signals are then transmitted at the other end of the neuron by a nerve fiber called an axon. In the neurons the signals are electrical, but across the gaps they are chemical. Thus the transmission of nerve signals is electrochemical in nature. Each impulse is of the same strength, but the intensity of the signal depends upon the frequency of the impulses, which may be as high as one thousand a second.

  It is not certain just what physiological changes take place in the brain when we learn. But experimental evidence suggests that as we learn, especially in early life, better connections are formed, and more of the chemicals bridging the gaps between neurons are released. Continued use strengthens the connections, and thus learning is reinforced. “Pathways that are often activated together are strengthened in some way,” reports Scientific American.  Interesting on this point is the Bible’s comment that deeper matters are more easily understood by mature people “who through use have their perceptive powers trained.” (Hebrews 5:14) Research has revealed that unused mental powers fade away. Thus the brain, like a muscle, is strengthened by use and weakened by disuse.

  The vast numbers of microscopic nerve fibers making these connections within the brain are often referred to as its “wiring.” They are precisely placed within a maze of staggering complexity. But how they are placed in the exact spots called for by the “wiring diagrams” is a mystery. “Undoubtedly the most important unresolved issue in the development of the brain,” one scientist said, “is the question of how neurons make specific patterns of connections. . . . Most of the connections seem to be precisely established at an early stage of development.”  Another researcher adds that these specifically mapped-out areas of the brain “are common throughout the nervous system, and how this precise wiring is laid down remains one of the great unsolved problems.”

  The number of these connections is astronomical! Each neuron may have thousands of connections with other neurons. Not only are there connections between neurons, but there are also microcircuits that are set up directly between the dendrites themselves. “These ‘microcircuits,’” says one neurologist, “add a totally new dimension to our already mind-boggling conception of how the brain works.”  Some researchers believe that the “billions upon billions of nerve cells in the human brain make perhaps as many as a quadrillion connections.”  With what capacity? Carl Sagan states that the brain could hold information that “would fill some twenty million volumes, as many as in the world’s largest libraries.”

  It is the cerebral cortex of the brain that sets man far apart from any animal. It is less than a quarter of an inch thick, and it forms a fissured mold snug against the skull. If laid out, the cortex would measure about two and a half square feet, with some ten thousand miles of connecting fibers per cubic inch. The human cortex not only is far bigger than that of any animal, but it also has a much larger uncommitted area. That is to say, it is not committed to handling the physical functions of the body but is free for the higher mental processes that separate people from animals. “We are not just smarter apes,” one researcher said. Our minds “make us qualitatively different from all other forms of life.”

Our Far Greater Capability

  “What distinguishes the human brain,” a scientist said, “is the variety of more specialized activities it is capable of learning.” Computer science uses the term “hardwired” to refer to built-in characteristics based on fixed circuitry, in contrast to functions put into a computer by a programmer. “Applied to human beings,” one authority writes, “hard wiring refers to innate abilities or, at least, predispositions.”  In people there are many built-in capacities for learning, but not the learning itself. Animals, by contrast, have hardwired instinctive wisdom, but limited capacities to learn new things.

  The Universe Within notes that the most intelligent animal “never develops a mind like that of a human being. For it lacks what we have: preprogramming of our neural equipment that enables us to form concepts out of what we see, language out of what we hear, and thoughts out of our experiences.” But we must, by input from our surroundings, program the brain, otherwise, as the book states, “nothing resembling the human mind would develop . . . Without that immense infusion of experience, scarcely a trace of intellect would appear.”  So the capability that is built into the human brain enables us to construct the human intellect. And, unlike animals, we have the free will to program our intellects as we choose, based on our own knowledge, values, opportunities and goals.

Language Unique to Humans

 An outstanding example of hardwired capabilities with great flexibility for programming by us is language. Specialists agree that “the human brain is genetically programmed for language development,” and that speech “can be explained only on the basis of an innate language-processing capacity within our brain.”   Unlike the rigidity that is displayed in the instinctive behavior of animals, however, there is tremendous flexibility in a human’s use of this hardwired capacity for language.

  A specific language is not hardwired into our brains, but we are preprogrammed with the capacity for learning languages. If two languages are spoken in the home, a child can learn both. If exposed to a third language, the child can learn it also. One girl was exposed to a number of languages from babyhood. By the time she was five she spoke eight fluently. In view of such innate abilities it is no surprise that a linguist said that chimpanzee experiments with sign language “actually prove that chimps are incapable of even the most rudimentary forms of human language.”

  Could such an amazing ability have evolved from the grunts and growls of animals? Studies of the most ancient languages rule out any such evolution of language. One specialist said that “there are no primitive languages.” Anthropologist Ashley Montagu agreed that so-called primitive languages “are often a great deal more complex and more efficient than the languages of the so-called higher civilizations.”

  One neurologist concludes: “The more we attempt to investigate the mechanism of language, the more mysterious the process becomes.” Another researcher says: “At present the origin of syntactic speech remains a mystery.”  And a third states: “The power of speech, moving men and nations as no other force, uniquely sets humans apart from animals. Yet, the origins of language remain one of the brain’s most baffling mysteries.”  It is no mystery, however, to those who see in it the hand of a Creator who “hardwired” areas in the brain for language capabilities.

Things Only Creation Can Explain

  The Encyclopædia Britannica states that man’s brain “is endowed with considerably more potential than is realizable in the course of one person’s lifetime. “ It also has been stated that the human brain could take any load of learning and memory put on it now, and a billion times that! But why would evolution produce such an excess? “This is, in fact, the only example in existence where a species was provided with an organ that it still has not learned how to use,” admitted one scientist. He then asked: “How can this be reconciled with evolution’s most fundamental thesis: Natural selection proceeds in small steps, each of which must confer on its bearer a minimal, but nonetheless measurable, advantage?” He added that the human brain’s development “remains the most inexplicable aspect of evolution.” Since the evolutionary process would not produce and pass on such excessive never-to-be-used brain capacity, is it not more reasonable to conclude that man, with the capacity for endless learning, was designed to live forever?

  Carl Sagan, amazed that the human brain could hold information that “would fill some twenty million volumes,” stated: “The brain is a very big place in a very small space.”  And what happens in this small space defies human understanding. For example, imagine what must be going on in the brain of a pianist playing a difficult musical composition, with all fingers flying over the keys. What an astonishing sense of movement his brain must have, to order the fingers to strike the right keys at the right time with the right force to match the notes in his head! And if he hits a wrong note, the brain immediately lets him know about it! All this incredibly complex operation has been programmed into his brain by years of practice. But it is made possible only because musical capability was preprogrammed into the human brain from birth.

  No animal brain ever conceived such things, much less is able to do them. Nor does any evolutionary theory provide an explanation. Is it not evident that man’s intellectual qualities mirror those of a Supreme Intellect? This harmonizes with Genesis 1:27, which states: “God proceeded to create the man in his image.” The animals were not created in God’s image. That is why they do not have the capabilities man has. Though animals do amazing things by predetermined, rigid instincts, they are no match at all for humans with their flexibility in thinking and acting and their ability to continually build on previous knowledge.

  The human capacity for altruism—unselfish giving—creates another problem for evolution. As one evolutionist noted: “Anything that has evolved by natural selection should be selfish.” And many humans are selfish, of course. But as he later acknowledged: “It is possible that yet another unique quality of man is a capacity for genuine, disinterested, true altruism.”  Another scientist added: “Altruism is built into us.”  Only in humans is it practiced with an awareness of the cost, or sacrifice, that may be involved.

Appreciating the Human Miracle

  Just consider: Man originates abstract thinking, consciously sets goals, makes plans to reach them, initiates work to carry them out and finds satisfaction in their accomplishment. Created with an eye for beauty, an ear for music, a flair for art, an urge to learn, an insatiable curiosity, and an imagination that invents and creates—man finds joy and fulfillment in exercising these gifts. He is challenged by problems, and delights in using his mental and physical powers to solve them. A moral sense to determine right and wrong and a conscience to prick him when he strays—these too man has. He finds happiness in giving, and joy in loving and being loved. All such activities enhance his pleasure in living and give purpose and meaning to his life.

  A human can contemplate the plants and animals, the grandeur of the mountains and oceans around him, the vastness of the starry heavens above him, and feel his smallness. He is aware of time and eternity, wonders how he got here and where he is going, and gropes to understand what is behind it all. No animal entertains such thoughts. But a human seeks the whys and wherefores of things. All of this results from his being endowed with an awesome brain and his bearing the “image” of the One who made him.

  With amazing insight, the ancient psalmist David gave credit to the One who designed the brain and whom he considered to be responsible for the miracle of human birth. He said: “I shall laud you because in a fear-inspiring way I am wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, as my soul is very well aware. My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret, when I was woven in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw even the embryo of me, and in your book all its parts were down in writing.”—Psalm 139:14-16.

  Truly, it can be said that the fertilized egg in the mother’s womb contains all the parts of the emerging human body “down in writing.” The heart, the lungs, the kidneys, the eyes and ears, the arms and legs, and the awesome brain—these and all the other parts of the body were ‘written down’ in the genetic code of the fertilized egg in the mother’s womb. Contained in this code are internal timetables for the appearance of these parts, each one in its proper order. This fact was recorded in the Bible nearly three thousand years before modern science ever discovered the genetic code!

  Is not the existence of man with his amazing brain truly a miracle, a cause for wonderment? Is it not also evident that such a miracle can be accounted for only by creation, not evolution?

 

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