Highways In the Sky

Another example of design in God’s glorious creation has been discovered. Newspapers reported this month that scientific research now understands how the monarch butterfly migrates.
Monarch butterflies making their annual migration from the eastern United States to winter residences in Mexico’s Sierra Madre mountain range find their way by following a three-dimensional map made of rays of polarized ultraviolet light, according to a new study.
Though UV light is invisible to humans, to butterflies it appears as a grid or highway in the sky that emanates from the sun, the researchers reported in the journal Neuron.
But as the sun travels across the sky, so does the highway. To compensate, the butterflies use an internal clock that recalibrates the highway throughout the day so they can travel in a straight line.
Scientists had long thought that the butterflies used polarized light to navigate, but they weren’t sure it was from the ultraviolet portion of the spectrum. Their suspicions were confirmed when they put the insects in a barrel-sized flight simulator and used a plastic filter to block UV light. The butterflies could still see but they just flew around in circles. Without UV, they get very confused and lose their sense of direction.
The scientists discovered that the part of the butterfly visual system that detects polarized light is dominated by photoreceptors for UV. They also found that those receptors are linked to neural fibers that contain a key protein used to regulate the butterfly’s internal clock.
Why did God design the migration process? Unlike most other insects in temperate climates, monarch butterflies cannot survive a long cold winter. Instead, they spend the winter in roosting spots. Monarchs west of the Rocky Mountains travel to small groves of trees along the California coast. Those east of the Rocky Mountains fly farther south to the forests high in the mountains of Mexico. The monarch’s migration is driven by seasonal changes of day length and temperature.
In all the world, no butterflies migrate like the Monarchs of North America. They travel much farther than all other tropical butterflies, up to three thousand miles. They are the only butterflies to make such a long, two way migration every year. Amazingly, they fly in masses to the same winter roosts, often to the exact same trees. Their migration is more the type we expect from whales or birds. However, unlike birds and whales, individuals only make the round-trip once. It is their children’s grandchildren that return south the following fall.
Let’s face it folks, this has to be a God thing! This UV highway grid system in the sky and the constant recalibration by the means of an internal clock is just too far-fetched a design to have developed “randomly through natural selection”.
We have here just another great example of why Romans chapter one states in substance that there are no true atheists. The Message Bible states in verses 18-20: “People try to put a shroud over truth. But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of His divine being. SO NOBODY HAS A GOOD EXCUSE!”

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