Life and Death in God's Good Creation

God created a world in which one creature consumes another to survive. We may wish it was otherwise; we may think it would have been a better world if God had made it so that we humans could synthesize energy from the sun, but that is not the world God created. Besides which, even grass which does photosynthesize its energy relies upon nutrients in soil. Many such nutrients are provided by the decay of dead creatures. Whether or not one sees life as created by God, we must admit that our planet can be a harsh and competitive place. For Christians, such observations must be part of how we understand ultimate questions about the manner in which God created life and death in the Garden of Eden. Our theology has not yet fully wrestled with some of the implications of the lion and lamb created prior to humans.

Recently it has been discovered that some species of Praying Mantis can kill and eat hummingbirds. They have been known to lie in wait at hummingbird feeders and grasp the unsuspecting bird out of the air. It is an ugly picture of life and death in God’s creation and yet it is perfectly natural and the way God intended the lifecycle of his creation. God also created parasitic wasps that lay their eggs in the living bodies of caterpillars. The lifecycle of these baby wasps is the stuff of movies like Alien in which the immature offspring of one creature bursts out of the living body of another. Our world can be a cruel place.

Such is the struggle of life and death in the good world God created. Did God create all of this before the Fall of Humans? How much of life and death is a result of the Fall?

In case you are still worried about hummingbirds, there is a built-in system for the control of the mantis population. Parasitic worms, that live mostly in water, are known to place their larvae in the gut of the mantis and other arthropods. These parasites affect the brain of the mantis in such a way that, at the right time, the mantis drowns itself in water, thus returning the parasitic worm to another familiar environment.

George MacDonald on Reflections

Why are all reflections lovelier than what we call the reality? — not so grand or so strong, it may be, but always lovelier?...There is no cheating in nature and the simple unsought feelings of the soul. There must be a truth involved in it, though we may but in part lay hold of the meaning.

George MacDonald, Phantastes, 1858, 1981 printing, p. 66, 67.

Thermophilic Bacteria as Great Wonders of the World

Lewis Thomas[1] was an award winning author and physician who had a way of explaining complex science in simple ways. In his essay, “Seven Wonders[2],” Lewis relates how he was once asked for his list of contemporary “Wonders of the World.” He is careful to say that he thinks it would be impossible to create a new list of the seven wonders of the world before giving a qualified list of naturally occurring wonders.

The “second” of his list (if you read the entire essay[3] you will understand why I put “second” in quotations) is a particular species of bacteria which thrives at extremely high temperatures. Prior to their discovery in the 1980s, many would have suggested that life as we knew it would not be possible in the severe environment of deep sea vents where temperatures exceed 250 degrees centigrade. Yet, these bacteria were found to be living and contributing to the ecosystem in just such a place. As Thomas says, it was thought that “Proteins and DNA would fall apart, enzymes would melt away, anything alive would die instantaneously.” On this basis, “the possibility of life on Venus . . .” and many other places was long ago ruled out.

Then came the discovery by B. J. A. Baross and J. W. Deming “of thriving colonies of bacteria in water fished directly from these deep-sea vents. . . . [that], when brought to the surface, encased in titanium syringes and sealed in pressurized chambers heated to 250 degrees centigrade, the bacteria not only survived” but reproduced themselves enthusiastically. They [could] be killed only by “chilling them down in boiling water. And yet they look just like ordinary bacteria. Under the electron microscope they have the same essential structure—cell walls, ribosomes, and all.”

I was later to learn of the great value of these bacteria in the work I would do in the Molecular Diagnostic Lab at the Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary. After this discovery by Baross and Deming, other researchers went on to isolate particular strains of bacteria from thermal vents. One species, Thermus aquaticus (abbreviated Taq), contained a DNA polymerase (an enzyme which makes more copies of a strand of DNA) that could be isolated and used in certain biochemical reactions to amplify regions of DNA. By the time I joined the lab in 1990, it was possible to use Taq DNA Polymerase for routine scientific investigation and molecular genetic testing of clinical disorders. The use of PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) greatly accelerated laboratory practices and led to the rapid development of clinical testing for molecular DNA mutations. I would echo Lewis Thomas in his recognition of these bacteria as one of the great wonders of the world.

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[1] “Lewis Thomas,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Thomas, accessed 2016-09-12.

[2] Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler’s Ninth; Lewis Thomas, Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 1983.

[3] http://hermiene.net/essays-trans/seven_wonders.html

Avian Rodeo

 

The wonders of God’s creation will never cease to amaze me. On three different occasions in two geographically distinct areas I have witnessed Red-winged Blackbirds riding on the backs of hawks. You have likely seen the phenomenon where smaller blackbirds are seen harassing larger hawks. Red-winged Blackbirds can be quite territorial and will work to protect their nests. Hawks, being carnivorous, are not opposed to eating smaller birds and particularly, young ones in the nest. The blackbirds will chase hawks away from their nesting area by flying at the large bird from above, thus avoiding the lethal talons and beak. They will peck at the hawk and generally cause enough disturbance to chase away the large predator.

A few of the little blackbirds get quite bold. They will actually land on the back of the large hawk and peck at his neck while riding at a position just in front of the hawk’s wings. It is the equivalent of an avian rodeo. The hawk will begin to fly more erratically in hopes of shaking the tiny bird off of her back but the blackbird can hang on for quite a while. It is also slightly reminiscent of scenes in the movie Avatar, where the residents of Pandora manage to ride on the backs of large winged beasts.

How did this behaviour develop? Did one little bird do this by accident and then realize he could impress his friends? “Watch this fellas! I'm gonna ride a killer!” Did the behaviour get passed around blackbird circles when they all went to their wintering grounds in California?
 

Watch for this behaviour the next time you are out in a marshy area with lots of blackbirds and hawks. You might just be rewarded by a glimpse of this comical looking performance.

Tools and Tool Management

Those who regularly read this blog will know that I have a fascination with crows. I have repeatedly sung their praises as one of the most intelligent animals on the planet (see here; here; and here). So, when I read another paper about crows and tool use, I naturally wanted to write about it here.

The results of a study published in the journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B1, show that not only do New Caledonian Crows use tools, but they also store them for future use. Crows who use sticks to extract food out of holes in the ground or holes in trees will sometimes set the stick aside in a safe place to ensure that the tool is available for the next time it is needed. The authors suggest that the birds are being protective of their tools. We might compare this to the way some humans protect and organize tools in their garage.

While reading this paper I followed some of their references and was surprised to find another paper that referred to a number of aquatic species that use tools. I did not know that there were so many animals capable of tool usage. There are species of dolphins that “wear sponges for protection during foraging;” sea otters that use kelp as a net to trap prey; other sea otters that use rocks as hammers to open shells; and hermit crabs that “carry anemones for protection from predators.”2 It seems that tool usage is a well-documented phenomenon in a number of species. I look forward to better understanding this behavior in the future as we continue to be surprised by the world in which we live.

1 Context-dependent ‘safekeeping’ of foraging tools in New Caledonian crows
Barbara C. Klump, Jessica E. M. van der Wal, James J. H. St Clair, Christian Rutz; Proceedings of the Royal Society B; June 2015; Volume: 282 Issue: 1808; DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2015.0278 Published 20 May 2015
2 Tool use by aquatic animals; Janet Mann, Eric M. Patterson; Proceedings of the Royal Society B; November 2013 Volume: 368 Issue: 1630; DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2012.0424 Published 7 October 2013