There are four things on earth that are small but unusually wise ( Proverbs 3:24 – New Living Translation)

The writer of Proverbs goes on and talks about the ant, the rock badgers, the locusts, and the lizards, but he could have included the beetle as well.  Our Father, the designer and maker of all the wondrous creatures on the earth, shows His care for tiny details in the amazing insects spoken of here.

Have you wondered about all the twigs and small branches that fall to the ground under a hardwood tree this time of year? The ones I am talking about are those that look like they have been cut and not just broken off. An older friend explained this annual event to me several years ago, and I was reminded about it this year – our new home has a large deciduous tree in the backyard with dozens of these cleanly pruned stems lying on the ground under the tree. Here is a photo of some of the twigs that I gathered:

twigs pruned by twig girdlers

I think the scientists call this symbiosis – where one biological species helps another. And, as always, I think it was God’s intent for these arrangements to be made, not, as many think, an accident of the survival of the fittest.

He made at least two insects that prune these trees each year: twig girdlers, and twig pruners. They are both small beetles, but do the pruning in significantly different manners. The girdler adult beetle selects a small limb to crawl out on, goes near the end – typically 1 foot from the end – and girdles the twig by cutting the bark all the way around. Then she lays one or more eggs in incisions made on the rim of the cut on the side away from the trunk of the tree. This is usually in the early fall season. About a month later, the egg will hatch, and the larva will start eating inside the bark.

The larva would die in a healthy limb, but does well in the damaged tip. Eventually the end of the limb will break because of the wind or other weather affects (sometimes the limb will stay attached, but hang down by a “thread” of wood fiber). The larvae  continue eating several months inside the dead twigs and emerge as an adult beetles in the late summer. Then the cycle begins again.

The photo on the left shows an adult twig girdler at work: (from University of Florida) The one on the right is a photo of an adult twig pruner (from Rainbow Treecare).

Twig girdler adult cutting the groove

twig pruner adult

In contrast to the girdler beetle, for the pruning beetle, it is the larva that does the cutting. The adult female cuts a hole in a twig near the end, doing this in the spring. When the larva hatches, it begins eating the wood, and finally tunnels around near the peripheral, making a circular cut around the twig, but from the inside, leaving the outside layer of bark uncut. But, again, the wind will cause the weakened tip to break off later in the year. The only difference in the broken twig’s appearance between the pruner is that the outer bark will have a ragged edge where it broke off compared to the girdler – which leaves a clean cut. The diagram below shows the difference – you can click here for more information, and thanks to University of Missouri for supplying the diagrams and for how to control the infestation when it gets out of hand.

Twig girdler result

Twig pruner result

Again, the mysteries of creation, speak of the wonderful creativity, and may I say, it also tells of the sense of humor for the variety of funny looking creatures by our wonderful Father in heaven, and His Son, Jesus, through Whom the creation was made. “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth” (Colossians 1:16)

Why do stars twinkle while the light from planets looks steady?  The first part of the question is easier to answer than the second. Here’s a hint – the stars do not twinkle when viewed from the space station or from anywhere above the earth’s atmosphere. You guessed it: the twinkle is caused by turbulence in the air as the light beam passes through.

Then why do not planets also twinkle? As an example, if you look at Jupiter (in the western sky in the early months of 2011 after sunset) and compare it to a bright star, like Sirius which is the brightest object high in the eastern sky at the same time, you can tell that Sirius has a beautiful sparkling, wavering appearance that you do not see with Jupiter.

One way to explain this is that Jupiter’s diameter is very large in our view compared to Sirius (in a telescope, you can see that Jupiter is a round ball with surface features, while Sirius stays as a single point of light – even in the most powerful earth-based telescopes). Because of the size of the planet, there are many paths of light between the planet and us on earth. So even though each path of light is wavering because of the atmosphere, the average between all the paths to reach the eye looks steady. The eye blends them together into a sight that looks unwavering; therefore a planet doesn’t appear to twinkle.

But, you might point out, surely Sirius, the brightest star in our night sky, is much, much larger than Jupiter. In fact, its diameter, estimated to be 90 billion miles is more than a million times Jupiter’s diameter of 83 thousand miles.  One the other hand, because Jupiter is so much closer, the apparent diameter (as it looks to an earth based observer) of Jupiter is about 8000 times that of SIrius.

This, in turn, means that the apparent size in area of Jupiter is about 64 million times as big. So if we think of Sirius as having only one path of light hitting our eye, then Jupiter would have about 64 million paths to send its light rays to our eye. And the result is an averaging of all those paths to our eye to give the appearance of a steady light from the planet.  In other words, the wavering is smoothed out.

Whew! That’s a lot of words to explain a simple idea, but I hope it helps you understand what is happening when you see the steady light of  Venus, Mars, Jupiter, or Saturn  compared to the surrounding stars. Note: you rarely see Mercury since it stays very close to the Sun, and the other planets, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are too faint to be seen easily.

The other lesson learned here is how very far away are even the nearest stars  (Sirius is in the family of  about a dozen nearest stars – those that are less than 10 light years away.   The closest, Proxima Centauri, is about 4 light years away). Most of space is empty of stars and planets.

The universe unimaginably immense, and yet our God who is its creator and sustainer is much greater.   The bible says that it was created through Jesus Christ, and that is sustained by the word of His power. (Hebrews 1:1-3)  God is incomprehensively powerful. majestic, and glorious, and yet He loves each one of His creatures.  Our names are written on His hand (Isaiah 49:16). Do you know that He loves you and me with His whole heart?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/12/101213-geminids-meteor-shower-peak-december-science-space/

It seems like hours; she has been gone four minutes.  Flying to a nearby limb, hopping to the brim of the nest, she peers down at open mouths on wobbly necks.

Motionless, she checks the surroundings, then starts to nourish each baby out of her innate maternal provisions.  She pokes her beak into eager mouths. After each is fed, she nudges the nestlings deeper into the cradle of straw. She fluffs her feathers, spreads her wings, and they nestle under her to get warm and dry.

Ten minutes pass before there is a stirring in the nest.  A head pokes up, again with open beak, then another appears.  The mother slowly moves upward, and from her resources feeds them a bit more.  They settle anew, this time a bare two minutes.

As the babies assert themselves again, she stirs herself. After carefully checking the environs, off she flies.  The Creator rejoices as the life-sustaining choreography continues.

The eyes of all wait upon Thee; and Thou givest them their meat in due season. Thou openest Thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing. (Psalm 145:15-16)

Thanks to Tony Northrup for permission to use photo. http://www.northrup.org/

Click Link to hear wonderful rendition of The eyes of all wait upon thee by Jean Berger

And then it has all the other delicate parts that make up a flower’s ability to make a seed.  It must be tiny insects that fly into them to collect the pollen.  The “wonder of it all” as the song goes, is beyond my ability to describe.

I truly believe with my whole heart -and with vastly increasing portion of my head- that God created each tiny detail of this flower on the third day in which He spoke the creation into being. And ever since, faithfully and untiringly, basil has reproduced its own kind.

The photo of the periwinkle flower also from our sunny deck displays a glory all of its own.  The rose family has 5 regular petals in the single form of those flowers, so this may be of that family.  Notice how it is unfurling (I have been watching this one – this photo is about 6 hours since it first started opening.  Again “I see such beauty there, none other can compare” as another poem says, although the poem is about the one through whom the flowers came into being: the Lord Jesus,  Blessed be His name.

I looked at an open periwinkle bloom and wondered where the pollenating parts were.  Could they be in that tiny center hole?  I carefully opened up the stem of the flower, and there were those tiny parts.  They were not really clearly visible until I put the stem under a microscope – there were the parts and some particles of pollen as well.  What complexity on such a small scale that is replicated millions of times each day!

Used by permission from WikiPedia

However, the event that inspired me to write this happened in the preparation of dinner last night.  I stepped outside to shuck some fresh ears of corn bought from our local fruit stand.  And I was struck by that very different form of procreation.  Each kernel of corn has attached to it a delicate strand of the silk which extends inside the shuck protection up to the end of the ear to the outside elemnts.

When the wind blows, that strand of silk catches a tiny bit of the pollen which is then somehow propagated down the strand to the kernel area to germinate and form the seed of sweetness that is so pleasing to us.  And this happens hundreds of times within each ear of corn on each stalk.  Such a wonderful, fantastic design!  Who could have imagined it?  I know who: our Father and His Son and His Holy Spirit – they very much enjoyed producing such infinite variety.  Cannot you sense the humor in much of it as well as the beauty?

To the old question,  ”What is the chief end of man?”, the ancients declared,”To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever”.

Amen.

I didn’t want to wait that long this time, so I went outside, and managed to lower the top section of the double-hung window (for the first time in 10 years). I could see the bird still flying around, and not seeing the escape route. So I carried our hummingbird feeder to hang it in front of the window.

While adjusting the length of the hanger to give it the correct height, the bird flew out the window directly to the feeder and started drinking from my hand. It was so wonderful. It drank and drank while I talked soothingly to it – thirsty it was from that hot garage! He then hovered up near my hand, went down for a final sip, and flitted away.

I praised the Lord that I was able to help a fellow member of His wonderful creation. The experience really blessed my heart and that of others to which I have related the tale.

O Lord, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom have you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures…
The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season.
Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing.
(Psalm 104:24, 145:15-16)

Then I will swish it around in the pan with the water, hoping it will attract iron particles strong enough so that when I remove the wrapped plastic from the water, those particles will adhere to the surface.

I will next, place the wrapped magnet into a shallow plate of water, carefully unfold the plastic wrap so I can lift the magnet away, and leave the particles, if any, behind in the plate.  Then I will remove the plastic wrap off of the water surface, hoping that the particles will fall off into the water.

[added later:]  Finally, I will place the plate of water under a clip-on light as a heat source to evaporate the water.  Using some “sticky notes” I will collect the particles left on the plate and examine them under a microscope.

I will let you know if this technique works.  I got the idea from one of the references in my original article.

[ Note:  the results were "null" - see my last comment below.]

P.S. We are busy getting our house ready to sell and find a new home in Richmond, VA.  So my writing has dwindled considerably.  I hope it will become regular again after this huge adjustment in life.  :-)

Boyd

Since that time, I have probably attempted more than 10 times to find a magnetic micrometeorite in snow, rain, and dust, to no avail. [Actually, I just re-read the previous article and remember I did find one potential particle which I accidentally lost in the search.]

I have looked at 1000′s of potential particles under a microscope with a strong magnet moving under the slide in close proximity, and have yet seen one such micrometeorite. There have been 2-3 flat looking magnetic particles which I imagine came from industrial polution, but they did not at all look like photographs of micrometeorites.

On the other hand, I have found probably 100 non-magnetic particles that look like photographs of the micrometeorites – they are black, rounded, and shiny, and in the average diameter I would say was about 1/10 mm.

So, I am wanting to know if others have had better luck in finding them, and what techniques did they use? I am suspicious that some of the “how to’s” I have read were not performed by the writers of those documents.

If you have a reference or an experience to share with me, please respond below or write e-mail to BrightMysteries@verizon.net

Thank you very much.

Boyd

On our trip to the YMCA today, I asked my grandson why the sky is blue. He said, “Maybe it’s because of the water in the atmosphere.” I replied, “Well that could be part of the reason, but then why is the sky red around the sun at sunset?” He puzzled over that. After a little pause, I gave an explanation and his questions about it helped me clarify the description.

Light, as we described in some articles last year, is made up of small energy bundles called photons. There are red, green, blue photons, and all the other pure colors as well. And sunlight has a mixture of all these colored photons, giving an average to our eyes of white light, or at least it is white in outer space. But our atmosphere affects it in interesting ways.

As the collection of photons of white light passes through the air, the blue photons have about 10 times more chance of being scattered (bouncing off air molecules) than do the red photons. (Today in my research for writing this I found out that Einstein explained this scattering phenomena in 1911 – his contribution to science is amazing, isn’t it?)

Thus the red photons are more likely to pass through the air unimpeded while more of the blue ones bounce off in all directions. Thus when looking at the sky away from the sun, a person will see a mixture of light with more blue photons than red ones, and hence it looks blue – sometimes very blue depending on the sun’s position and the clearness of the air.

On the other hand, as people enjoy a sunrise or sunset, they are looking at the light passing through much more air than when the sun is overhead, so the effect of the blue photons being scattered out is greater, and hence, the direct light from the sun to their eyes or reflecting off the clouds looks red to them.

Why does the moon look larger on the horizon? In fact, it is not larger but is the so-called moon illusion. In fact the width of the moon is exactly the same as it is when it is overhead. On the other hand, the height of the moon on the horizon is actually a little reduced than when overhead, caused by the distortion of the light rays passing through the thicker atmosphere.

There are various theories for the cause of this illusion. The one I like best is that when the moon is near the horizon, our visual system is comparing it to the surrounding scenery, and knowing it is much further away, it seems larger. One article says to “trick your mind out of the moon illusion is to bend over at the waist and look at the moon upside down through your legs” (http://www.howstuffworks.com/question941.htm).

I have read lots of theories about what the star of Bethlehem might have been. The proposals range from a comet, an unusual conjunction of planets, or a new star, to an angel glorifying God with enough effulgence to lead the wise men to the house with the Christ child.  I admit I like that last possibility – the angel – the best.  But if it was not a supernatural event, I would propose another way it could have been.

There are old legends and ancient beliefs that have led to a scenario that seems to fit the story in Matthew 2:1-12.  It goes like this. First of all, astronomers certainly knew the difference between stars, planets, and comets, so I think the word here, “aster” in Greek, points to a star, not the other type objects.

The “star rising in the east” fits the belief at that time that when a person was born, a star would rise at that moment on the eastern horizon, and that star would pass directly over the place of birth when it reached the highest point in the sky (about 6 hours later), in other words, would have the same latitude as your birthplace. [ Please note the references for this: many astrology books and web sites - I don't like astrology at all, so I won't recommend a particular one, but a google search on "birth star same latitude as birthplace" will give you a list of them, if you are interested.]

In this miraculous birth of our Savior, I think maybe “His star” suddenly flared brightly – a nova or even a supernova.  There are about 10 novae discovered each year in the Milky Way galaxy, while a supernova in a galaxy our size only occurs once every 50 years or so. Either way, the flaring of this star caught the attention of these wise men.

I think it took more than a year from the “discovery” of this star for the wise men to arrive in Judea, based on Herod’s order to massacre all baby boys in Bethlehem who were under the age of two. By the time they got to Judea, the nova or supernova had gotten dimmer and was hard to see, especially around a city with its smoke-producing cooking and heating fires.  Once they left the city, they “rejoiced to see the star” in the clearer skies.

The star went ahead of them till it “stood over the place where the child was.”  This fits the motion of the star as it crept across the sky that night from east to west, and by “standing” over the house, I think that means when it reached its highest point it was directly over Bethlehem.

One legend has it that the wise men looked down an open well where they could see the star pass directly over their heads, with the star lined up exactly with their own reflections upon the water – proof of the exact latitude of the location of birth.

That is the story of how Bethlehem’s Star could have been “born” (nova = new star) at the time of the birth of Jesus, leading the wise men to Him.  We can join with the heavenly host in rejoicing over the good news that our Savior has come!