Thanks once again for the hot tip from some astute subscribers.
University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana recently discovered that a
molecule known as superoxide, interacts with the photoreceptors in bird
eyes, and that allows birds to "see" the earth's magnetic field:
http://news.illinois.edu/news/09/0622birds.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090709-birds-magnetic-field.html
It's been known for quite some time that birds can "see" the earth's
electromagnetic field - essentially a built in compass the birds follow
on their long migrations. It's just that nobody knew exactly how
some birds "see" the magnetic field. A serendipitous experiment
carried out at CU, discovered that the superoxide appears to be
interacting with cryptochrome - the photoreceptor in the eyes of birds
which detects blue light. Interestingly, humans also have this
chemical, and the same
photoreceptors, but because we have a much lower amount of superoxide,
we cannot "see" earth's magnetic field.
The problem is that superoxide is a toxic substance - at least in
today's environment. In the articles, the authors wax eloquently
on how somehow birds "evolved" this system of using small amounts of a
toxic chemical that causes minor cellular damage in the eye, but
enables the bird to see the earth's electromagnetic field.
How this
creationist "sees" the situation:
Of course, considering that all things were
designed, this raises some
interesting questions. First, you'll notice that this is an
incredible system - incredibly compact, energy efficient, and extremely
sensitive to magnetic fields. One must remember that when we mark
out the past measurements of earth's geomagnetic field, we observe that
it has been
declining in strength.
So as you go back in time, the earth's geomagnetic field would have
been
stronger. So would
this have enabled
humans to
"see" the earth's geomagnetic field? Quite possibly.
Figure 1 - copperhead snake venom, as seen
via an electron microscope
Figure 2 - venom from a copperhead after
living in biosphere
Images courtesy of Creation Evidence Museum
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Secondly, while superoxide is currently toxic and apparently causes
some cellular damage, the present
cannot
be the key to the past. As I have discussed elsewhere in my
videos and newsletters, something radical has changed in the past,
presumably around the time of Noah's flood. Insects, animals and
plants lost considerable size. There was some kind of dramatic
change in the environment, and experiments carried out by the
Creation Evidence
Museum in their hyperbaric biosphere attempted to simulate the
hypothesized pre-flood world conditions. Under these conditions,
the lifespan of fruit flies was tripled, and they grew much larger in
size.
Copperhead snake venom is normally disordered, and very toxic (see
figure 1, on right). But after a couple of weeks of living in the
hyperbaric biosphere (which also simulated a higher geomagnetic field),
the snake venom became more ordered. (figure 2, on right)
In fact, now that some more analysis has been completed on the venom,
we can now say that under these conditions, the snake produced a
radically different protein assemblage in their venom: Some proteins
were inhibited, others were completely removed. Other proteins
were produced in greater quantities, while other proteins were
expressed which were
not normally
produced at all before.
This has led to speculation as to the purpose of the snake's fangs and
venom in the pre-flood world, as it appears the venom may very well be
non-toxic in these
conditions! So what were the snake's fangs and venom originally
used for then? We do not know - that is a matter of further research,
which will hopefully be carried out when the main, 80' long hyperbaric
biosphere gets on line at CEM.
The point is this: Our present creation is broken. We cannot
judge the past by the present. When we carry out even short-run
experiments simulating what the past world may have been like, we see
radical changes in organisms, and even simulate many things we see in
the fossil record, like giant organisms.
