Lichens are formed from more than one organism, and they are important

lichens, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, USA

Lichens are inconspicuous entities, usually. They don't stand up high. Most of them aren't colorful. They are interesting, and important.

One interesting aspect of lichens is that they are made up of two or more types of organism, I was taught, and taught, that these were a fungus and an alga. The fungus provided structure and protection for the alga, and the alga provided food, from photosynthesis. That's true, but not true of all lichens. Some of them are a combination of an alga, and a yeast and/or a bacterium. 

Since they are more than one type, they can't reproduce as most organisms do -- by producing a copy of themselves. Lichens increase in numbers when a piece of a lichen breaks off.

Lichens are able to grow where other organisms, or groups of organisms, can't. They are capable of growing on bare rock or concrete, perhaps even on metal. For more about that, see here.

Although lichens are small, there are so many of them in some Arctic regions that they furnish much of the food for reindeer populations.

Thanks for reading!

 

Sunspots 859

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*:

The Arts: (and humor) NPR has posted winners of the Comedy Wildlife Photography Award.

Christianity: (and politics) A Relevant writer makes a good case that "the media" are not massively anti-Christian, and warns against taking one issue (such as abortion) and making that the only issue.

A Christianity Today writer reflects on on-line giving of various sorts, as putting money in an offering plate becomes less common.

Another Christianity Today article describes the results of surveys which indicate that committed Christians are less likely to have sexual relations outside of marriage than was true in the recent past.

A blog post says that the term "evangelical" has been hi-jacked, and has come to mean, in many people's eyes, not a group of beliefs, but a certain kind of politics. The article says that there are people who identify themselves as "evangelical" who do not use the Bible as a guide, don't attend church, or who are actually Muslim or Hindu in belief.

Computing: FiveThirtyEight discusses disparities in exposure to environmental problems, such as toxic waste. Minority groups are more concerned about these matters than "average" persons.

Education: FiveThirtyEight reports that predicted teacher shortages didn't happen much (there have been some places where they did), and that teachers have become more vocal about safety and other issues in schools. (There have been serious shortages in bus drivers and other non-professional education staff.)

Finances: Gizmodo discusses the question of why gas prices are so high. It's complicated.

Health: CNN reports on the loss of smell in some people who have had COVID.

History: (and health) NPR goes over the history of vaccination requirements, all the way back to 1818. There have always been objections.

Politics: NPR discusses yet another book on the last days of the Presidency of Donald Trump. Some scary stuff.

I am not making this up. Gizmodo reports that hundreds of QAnon cultists gathered at the site of the assassination of President J. F. Kennedy. Why? They were expecting Kennedy's son (who died in a plane accident several years ago) to appear and announce that Donald Trump is the legitimate President. It didn't happen.

There's an update to the previous article, here, and it's serious.

Science: An anonymous donor (!) gave a large, poisonous spider, with fangs strong enough to pierce a human fingernail, to an Australian animal park.

There are YouTube videos, such as this one, showing the annual crab migration in Australia, which involves millions of red crabs.

Gizmodo tells us about examples of animals from two different species cooperating for the benefit of both.

The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, it is free to use like this.

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view.

Thanks for reading. 

microrganisms and the Bible

Microorganisms, such as bacteria, yeasts and protozoa are very important. (So are viruses, but they aren't exactly alive, and won't be considered in this post.) Among other things that they do, they make Nitrogen available to other living things. (Nitrogen is an essential part of DNA, RNA, and proteins, so living things have to have it.) They help decompose dead things, so that the material they are made of can be used by other organisms, including humans. They cause diseases, including malaria, perhaps the disease that has killed more people than any other. They assist in various important processes, such as the production of ensilage (aka silage), the production of alcohol, and the manufacture of yogurt. They make it possible for bread to rise. Microorganisms living in our intestines also help us break down material, and some of them help us fight off certain diseases. The germs living in our intestines produce some vitamins for us.

In spite of their critical importance, microorganisms are not mentioned in the Bible at all. This is not surprising, since yeasts weren't discovered until 1680, and weren't believed to be living things until later, and bacteria weren't discovered until 1683. Protozoa were also discovered in the 1680's.

If there were six days of creation activity by God, on which day were the microorganisms created? The Bible doesn't say, of course, but the best guess for bacteria and yeasts is the third day, when the dry land, and land plants, appeared. (Genesis 1 doesn't mention plants living under water at all, and, if there were six days of creation, we don't know when they appeared, either.) As for protozoa, perhaps they were created on the fifth day, with water animals and birds.

Note -- Genesis 1 does not mention flying insects. Perhaps they were lumped in with the birds.

Were bacteria, and other microorganisms, important before the Fall? Again, we don't know. It is possible that decomposition took place before the Fall, and it is possible that bacteria helped the first humans digest their food. But maybe, before the Fall, decomposition didn't take place, and/or humans were able to digest their food without assistance. My guess is that defecation did take place before the Fall, and that decomposition bacteria would have been important then, but that's just a guess. Some scholars believe that animal death occurred before the Fall. (See here.)

I have posted on a related topic, mentioning most of the ideas above, a few years ago, here.

Thanks for reading.

I'm glad I'm not an aphid

In some ways, aphids have it made. They just sit there and suck plant juices until they die. They don't move much, although some of them have wings, and fly, and they usually seem to live in a place that has abundant food available. They have endosymbiotic bacteria in their guts, which make the essential amino acids that are in scant supply in the juice flowing in the plant's vessels. (Which is mostly water and carbohydrates.)

But, on the other hand, they are exposed to predators, with their main defense seeming to be their ability to produce little aphids, so many that they can't all be eaten. They don't live a long time. They don't see much, except whatever plant stem they are on, and a little of their surroundings. Presumably, they don't have any education, any arts, any sports, any politics, any religion. Many of them don't even have any sex life -- they produce new aphids mostly by parthenogenesis, that is, having little ones without a sexual process. (Sexual processes generally reshuffle the genetic material. They may accomplish other things, too!) Some aphid species produce up to 40 generations, all female, and all genetically identical to a first ancestor, in a single summer. (There is usually a sexual phase just before anticipated cold weather, which, instead of giving "birth" to little aphids, mates, and the females lay eggs.)

These insects are amazingly successful, if being numerous, and having lots of offspring, is success. But I'd rather be a human, a fallen human, with more of the image of God in me than aphids, and with a path to redemption.

Thanks for reading. To see more photos of aphids, giving birth, being eaten, and in other activities, see here.

Sunspots 309

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Humor: (or The Arts) Wired reports, with video, on a woman's project to build a Lego ship in a bottle.

Science: Wired reports on a report that algae and some salamanders have a mutualistic relationship, something like that in lichens, with algae cells living in salamander embryos. There are photos.

Computing: Gizmo's Freeware discusses free on-line storage. (I use one of the two services mentioned, free, and it's great.)

Gizmo also links to a web site that has posted the noises made by various kinds of hard disks, as they are about to expire permanently.

Image source (public domain)

Figs

Figs on a tree

The Wikipedia says that there are about 850 species of figs. However, in another article, it also says that the plant that we use is the common fig, Ficus carica. Most of my knowledge of this plant comes from that article.

Figs have been cultivated by humans since about 9,000 B. C., and may have been the earliest cultivated plants. The first evidence for this comes from the Gilgal archaeological site, which is near Jericho.

Figs may be eaten as they are, or made into jam or preserves, or dried. They don't keep well for transport, so are often sold as dried figs. One form of dried figs is fig newtons.

The fruit is sweet, all right. Nearly 48% of a fig's weight is carbohydrate. The good news is that less than 1% is fat. The fruit is almost 10% fiber, by weight. They are a good source of Calcium and flavonols. As some of you probably know, they have a laxative effect.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of fig life is the way in which fig flowers are fertilized. In the first place, what we think of as a fig fruit hides the flowers, which were, presumably, inside the green fig shown above in the photo. So how are they fertilized? There are wasps, fig wasps, which live inside these fruit/flowers, and move from one to another, pollinating as they goes. In fact, the Wikipedia on fig wasps says that we may be eating wasps when we eat figs. Apparently the wasps are very small. For more on this topic, including photos, see here.

There are videos, from PBS, available here, and here (several segments of an originally longer video). I am not clear as to whether the fig shown in these videos are the figs we grow and eat.

This post is on many of the times figs are mentioned in the Bible.

Thanks for reading!