Bible and Science

Apoptosis, Wisdom of Emptying

Autumn is a season of tinged leaves. The trees that boasted about their green leaves in midsummer and made dense forests change the color of their leaves one by one. Tinged leaves present the final magnificent view with all their strength and become fallen leaves. The falling leaves may look lonely, but the trees are preparing the cold winter when they cannot get enough water and nutrients by dropping the leaves. It’s also preparation for the upcoming spring because the leaves make space available for new sprouts. An action that is similar to the leaves falling in the autumn is also taking place inside our bodies. It is the programmed death of the cell, called apoptosis. Apoptosis is derived from…

Atomic Combination

The world is filled with matters. Just one quick look around us is enough to see how natural things such as water, air, and rocks, as well as artificial things such as plastic and vinyl are all made of matters. What will happen if we keep breaking matters into smaller pieces? If you divide them to the point that they cannot be divided anymore, it is called atom—the basic unit of matter. A pure substance of one kind of atom is called an element. About 110 elements have been discovered, and about 90 of them are found in nature. On top of that, those that can be commonly found are only about 40. The mystery of chemical bonding In one…

Ecological Balance Maintained by the Invisible Hand

A baby king penguin was under attack by a southern giant petrel. This is a scene from a documentary that brought suspense and broke the hearts of many viewers. When the giant petrel, which had been looking for an opportunity, attacked the baby king penguins, one of the baby king penguins ran up to the cameraman as if it was asking for help. Trembling with fear, it held the camera stand with its wings and begged him. But the camera crew couldn’t do anything but keep watching the situation, because as observers they couldn’t go against the ecosystem, the great law of nature. The giant petrel attacked baby penguins for a reason: they had their young waiting in their nest.…

Metamorphosis, the Beginning of a New Life

“Now you are merely underwater nymphs. When you become adults, you will have beautiful transparent wings so you can fly freely in the sky. With the wings you can freely fly, traveling from flower to flower.” The frog in the story tells the nymphs about the beautiful world that he saw while traveling. However, the nymphs don’t believe what the frog said about the outer world, because they have only lived in the pond ever since they were born. Then one day, one of the nymphs undergoes a transformation. The dragonfly nymph climbs up a plant stem out of the water and splits its skin. Just like the frog said, it has been transformed into a dragonfly that can fly…

What a Strand of Hair Tells Us

Recently, the Center for Quantum Nanoscience of the Institute for Basic Science [IBS] swept the podium in related fields by inventing an atomic-scale storage medium. We are entering the 21st century nano age passing through the 20th century micro age. The tiny and fine storage area, a discovery after a century of research, has already been planted on our heads. It is hair. Hair starts growing even before birth. Seven weeks after conception, hair follicles1 are observed in the skin tissue. Around 10–13 weeks of pregnancy, the hair starts growing from the scalp, and around 20 weeks, eyebrows and eyelashes appear, and the fetus is covered by lanugo, a fine downy hair. Between 33 and 37 weeks, most of the…

Eyes, the Window that Holds the World Within

The novel Blindness written by José Saramago, a Nobel Prize in Literature laureate, begins as a man suddenly goes blind while driving one ordinary afternoon. Soon after, his wife who nursed him, the patients of the clinic where the man came to receive treatment, and the eye doctor who treated him go blind. The unexplained blindness spreads like an epidemic, and society collapses rapidly. It is a novel that realistically depicts the power of vision just like the saying, “In the land of the blind, the one eyed-man is king.” We often forget the importance of vision. However, it doesn’t take much to understand how much we depend on sight—you just need to cover your eyes. Humans receive so much…

Scent Contains Memories: The Mystery of Sense of Smell

Sometimes, the wonderful smell of fermented soybean paste stew summons up the memory of my hometown where the sunset glow spread out over the evening sky, and of my mother who used to cook me dinner in the blink of an eye with her coarse hands. Like this, everyone probably has experienced that a piece of memory suddenly came up due to a certain familiar scent. Moreover, the memories are quite detailed and even bring back the emotions contained in them. Smell acts as an intense medium of memory. What secret is hidden in the sense of smell? How we smell A delicious smell that stimulates the tip of the nose makes the mouth water. The reality of various smells…

Searching for Eternal, Unchanging Standards

One Sunday afternoon, Mrs. Kim went grocery shopping with her family. As the temperature was below 2℃, they brought winter jackets with them and got inside the car. The GPS indicated that it would take about 20 minutes to drive to the supermarket that was about 5 km [3.1 mi] away. First of all, she went to buy shoes for her husband. He tried on shoes (275 ㎜ and 280 ㎜) and chose ones in the larger size. In the grocery store, they bought beef (600 g) for dinner, and two bottles of milk (1 L) on discount, and a box of apples (5 ㎏) as well. Temperature, distance, weight, and all different sizes … We are surrounded by countless…

Mirror Neuron That Reflects “Myself”

Why is it that we often draw when we do rock-paper-scissors? Why do we instantaneously and unconsciously decide to play the same shape? About this matter, the neuroscience research team at University College London in U.K. announced a result of a fun experiment. They asked the participants to do rock-paper-scissors for several rounds, and in every game, either one or both players were blindfolded. When both were blindfolded, the proportion of draws was 33%, which is in accord with the mathematical proportion. However, it went higher to 36% when only one of them was blindfolded; it was because the participant who could see imitated the other who was blindfolded. Such a thing happens in our daily lives, too. When someone…

The Kingdom of Ants Built through Teamwork and Sacrifice

There are insects that we easily see when we look down while walking down the street. They are ants; they are found not only in streets, but also near tree barks, in playgrounds, and unfortunately in houses, too. Some people take them lightly, because they are small insects that are easily spotted all around us, but little do they know that ants have been living on earth from time immemorial—since the Cretaceous, the last period of the Mesozoic era. While callipogon relictus and dung beetles—distant relatives of ants—are endangered1, ants have become so prosperous that the total number of ants on earth is estimated to be ten quadrillion. There are about 15,000 species of ants, with about 5,000 species recorded…

Wind, the Invisible Force

Wind is invisible. However, we can definitely feel the presence of the wind. It is because the movement of the wind can be seen indirectly through swaying leaves, fluttering hair, and a spinning pinwheel. The power of the formless wind has even changed the history of mankind. In the sixteenth century, England, losing in a battle, won an unprecedented victory over Spain called Invincible Armada. The strong winds and currents that blew right at the perfect time worked in favor of the English taking down the Spanish ships. Wind is invisible but has a big impact on our lives, even affecting the rise and fall of a nation. What is wind? Wind, the movement of air Simply put, wind is…

Secrets Contained in Mom’s Voice

A video about a baby, who was born profoundly deaf, hearing her mom’s voice for the first time and being almost moved to tears, went viral. Hearing her mom’s soft voice for the first time with the help of special hearing aids, the baby smiled and also pouted almost in tears. Does she remember her mom’s voice that she heard in the womb? Fetuses can hear Until the end of the 19th century, people thought fetuses don’t have a hearing ability. However, in 1925, it was proven that fetuses cana hear as Albrecht Peiper, a German doctor, discovered that fetuses respond to a car horn. By week 4 of pregnancy, the parts where ears are going to be formed begin…

The Vast Universe, Another World

When we see a view or scenery that we don’t see that often, we cannot help but exclaim. When we see something new and beautiful, we feel like our minds and bodies are recharged. We can blow away stress and boredom from our repeated daily life, seeing a different world. This is why we go on a trip. This must be the reason people climb up the mountain although it is not easy and want to see auroras in the cold polar regions. However, there is something that stirs the hearts of people even more than this scenery of the earth—the universe. The universe where light and darkness coexist is a space of creation where new things are made, and…

The Honey Bee, the Hidden Keeper of Ecosystem

“If the bees become extinct, humans too will go extinct within four years.” This is a famous quote usually attributed to Albert Einstein. The honey bee is known as a beneficial insect that collects honey. This yellow-and-brown striped insect has a stinger and so it may not be easy for you to come close to it. What is this little creature, that it is closely related to the survival of mankind? Honey bees live in a hexagonal honeycomb. Generally, a colony consists of one queen bee and tens of thousands of other bees, most of which are worker bees that are female. Worker bees do almost all important jobs; they gather food such as honey and pollen, build comb cells,…

Journey to the Center of the Earth

What does it look like under the ground where we are standing? The movie Journey to the Center of the Earth answers this question with an interesting imagination. The world deep inside the earth is depicted as a mysterious place where giant animals run around in a valley, hungry piranhas fill the ocean, and rocks float in the air by a strong magnetic field. Let’s have a journey to the center of the earth, an unknown world where no one has ever visited. Internal structure of the earth, the world under our feet The farthest distance the humans have ever reached is the moon, an average of 384,400 km [238,855 miles] away. Voyager 1, the furthest space probe in space…

Lightning, Regarded as Divine Punishment to People, but as God’s Grace to Plants

When the sky is covered with thick clouds, most people feel scared. What if there are also lightning and thunder? The fear will be doubled. In order to encourage terrifying and scary atmosphere in the visual media, thunder and lightning are not omitted. Also, about those who have committed grave crimes or done something harmful to society, Korean people say, “They are going to be hit by thunderbolt.” Here, thunderbolt means punishment from heaven. Although thunderbolt, lightning, and thunder are common natural phenomena, people have felt dreadful about them. Lightning happens when the electric charge, generated by clouds, flows in the air. Lightning is usually created in a cumulonimbus cloud, a vertically long cloud, on rainy days. Caused by various…

Amniotic Fluid, the Water of Life in Mother’s Body

In an advertisement of a milk powder company, a swimming infant has once appeared. Seeing a newborn baby swimming, who cannot even hold its head up yet, most people thought that the scene must have been created. Surprisingly, however, the scene was real. Under the water, babies are comfortable rather than afraid. Newborn babies are more like that. They can swim very peacefully and open their eyes underwater. If they sink, they even paddle. How can this be possible? It’s because they remember their living in the water called amniotic fluid in their mothers’ wombs for nine months though they forget it three months after birth. Amniotic fluid that surrounds the fetus for nine months is not simple water. It’s…

Seeds, the Time Capsules of Life

A time capsule that keeps things along with memories is opened after a long time. The first time capsule was buried at the New York World’s Fair 1939, and is to be opened 5,000 years later (in 6939). Among living things, there are time capsules that endure long suffering and put forth life: the seeds. Whereas the oldest time capsule is less than 100 years old, a palm sprouted from a 2,000 year-old seed found in Israel. How are solid seeds of plants made? Flowering plants [angiosperms], which are the most diverse species of plants, produce seeds when pollen reaches ovule. Unlike animals, immobile plants are helped by water, wind, insects, and birds to move their mature pollen to the…

Sense of Pain, Evidence of Being Alive

The kingdom of heaven the Bible teaches about is a place without pain. How good will it be to live without feeling pain all our lives? It would be a great thing if we were in heaven where there is no pain at all, but on the earth it is not quite a good thing for a person not to feel pain although he or she is sick. In 2011, a movie with a unique title Pained was released. This film depicts the ironic encounter of a woman, to whom even a little pain is deadly because of her rare disease, with a man who cannot even feel the pain by losing the senses on his body from his guilt…

Earth’s Atmosphere & Magnetic Field

What would it be like if there were no atmosphere and magnetic field on Earth? On Earth’s surface, there would be countless craters from the impact of meteors just like the Moon; and above all, there would be no living organisms on Earth. That is how important Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field are. Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field function as protective fields and shields that are essential for the living organisms on it. Earth’s atmosphere optimized for the survival of living organisms So far as is known, Earth is the only planet where organisms exist in the Solar System. One of the characteristics of Earth is that it is surrounded by the atmosphere that is perfect for living organisms to…