Humans

Human life is a special creation that has astounding complexity, precision and order.  Simple life forms have only 1 cell.  Humans have over 100 trillion complex cells that constitute our bodies, and all came from a single cell that grew by dividing.  Each human cell has a double helix library of 3 billion base pairs.  Random chance is not sufficient to explain the extraordinary structures that compose the chemical foundations of life.  Around 500 amino acids have been identified.  20 make up proteins of the human body.  Amino acid molecules are the primary building blocks that ultimately form protein.  Amino acids and proteins are the building blocks of life.  They’re a vital component for proper functioning of the human body.  Amino acids are involved in body tissue growth and repair, breaking down food, making hormones and performing many more important body functions.  Amino acids have to be linked together in precise fashion to permit life.  Each amino acid must align in correct sequence, (in a specific order) or you don’t get an amino acid sequence that folds correctly into a functional protein.  Cambridge University protein researcher Douglas Axe estimated the odds of getting a functional protein is 1 in 10 to the 74th power.  Life evolving over long periods of time by chance alone is unrealistic considering the complexities of biological life.  The sophisticated complex molecular machines now known to exist and work within the cell could not have come about by chance, for if even one part were removed, the entire thing breaks down.  Some lengthy step-by-step processes could not have constructed such complete and complex miniature living mechanisms even over eons.  The chance of a DNA gene coming into being by chance is 10 followed by 155 zeros.  Proteins that comprise living cells are made of incredibly thin, tiny lines of amino acids only 1 millionth as thick as a human hair.  God remains the best explanation for life and the way things are.

He who formed the eye, shall He not see? -Psalm 94: 9b (NKJV).

Thou God seest me.  -Genesis 16: 13b (KJV) 

The highly responsive, sensitive human eye is an extraordinarily unique and amazingly well-designed masterpiece creation of God.  You could say it’s a living camera, but the automatic complex workings and efficiency of the human eye far exceed any camera constructed by humans.  We have over 150 million rod cells on our retina and around 6 million cones.  Rods let us see black and white and cones are how we see color.  The cones contain a light-sensitive chemical called rhodopsin.  This chemical is deactivated in the day when we’re out in light and it’s not needed.  When we’re in the dark again, rhodospin reactivates again.  There are at least 1 million fibers in the optic nerves.  The human retina has about 1 million ganglion cells.  The retina have an astounding 10 billion pixels in all.  The retina has 10 layers but is only as thick as a piece of paper. We have lachrymal glands that hold and release just the right kind and amount of eye-washing fluid and enzymes that have just the right properties in just the right concentrations at just the right pH balance to safely and effectively wash over the cornea via blinking.  Blinking acts like windshield wipers that help to moisten and flush the eye with saltwater, and every day our eyes blink about 30,000 times.  We can quickly change focus.  Certain anatomical eye parts are transparent so as not to obstruct our vision.  There are various sets of muscles inside and attached to the eye that work in coordination for you to see things as you should.  Some open and close to let in different amounts of light.  Some help keep your sight level so when you tilt your head you won’t get dizzy.  Some help the eyeball to rotate so you need not move your head to look in different directions.  Other muscles help to move the eyeball up or down.  The amazing eye translates what you see into electrical signals which are sent quickly to the brain where the signals are quickly adjusted and processed.  In 2006, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine researchers did a study about the human retina.  They estimated that the human retina transmits data at 10 million bits per second., similar to what an Ethernet connection was at that time.

Blood is essential to human life. It is not an end result of something originally simple that through an unplanned process over time transformed into its present complex form.  It is a highly specialized type of tissue composed of over 4,000 various components.  An average adult has around 36 trillion blood cells.  Just 2 or 3 drops of blood can contain a billion red blood cells.  Our blood is alive.  Red blood cells are continuously produced in our bone marrow through a highly regulated process.  The human body makes around 2 to 3 million or more red blood cells every second (but can produce more if needed).  They live for about 4 months and then their components are removed from the blood and recycled in the spleen.  Red blood cells transport oxygen to living body tissues and take away carbon dioxide.  We have an extraordinary abundance of blood vessels within our bodies – over 75,000 miles worth!  NASA reports that each person has enough blood vessels to circle the world over 2 times.  A complex inter-connected system of veins, arteries and capillaries work together to transport blood and nutrients throughout our bodies.  Specialized sensors discern what nutrients are needed and allow the cell to connect with the needed material.  We have over 1 million special kind of white blood cell antibodies formed to battle specific diseases.  When the body senses a virus or germ invader, our blood system goes to work to produce the required antibody needed to fight the incoming disease.  Many types of specialized white blood cells function in a variety of ways in our immune system.

The human heart is amazing!  The average heart beats (expands and contracts) over 4,500 times an hour, over 100,000 times a day, almost 40 million times in a year.  If you live to be 80, it could have beat over 3 billion times without interruption.  Your blood flows continuously through 96,000 miles of blood vessels.  Your heart pumps 5 to 6 quarts of blood a minute, around 1,800 to 2,000 gallons of blood each day.  In your lifetime, your blood vessels will carry about 1 million barrels of blood throughout your body.  Few complicated inventions or machines constructed by man that required no installation, no lubrication, no attention, no repair or replacement are likely still in operation, running autonomously and continually, uninterrupted, full-time, day in and day out, every second, 24 hours every day, without fault or fail, 100% maintenance-free, decade after decade for up to a century or more.  2 relatives who passed recently enjoyed long lives – 1 lived to 99 and another lived to 100.  Neither had heart bypass surgery or needed a heart transplant.  Think of our several complex organs meant to last a lifetime without medical intervention.  Consider how the powerful human heart comes fully equipped, housed within an ultra-complex, inter-connected system, and optimally it can work reliably, continually and carefree for 100 years or more.  Our physiological equipment necessary for survival involves vital components designed to work hard throughout our lives.  Thankfully, we have access to great advances in medicine, surgery, pharmacology, genetics and other interventions which offer modern techniques and therapies to aid man in his pursuit of living a long, healthy life.  Our bodies were created to be durable and dependable.  The brain, heart, lungs and all the other organs and systems that keep us alive should optimally run smoothly without extensive repairs or replacement for a lifetime.

Our vision seems practically effortless on our part.  We live unaware of the multiple highly coordinated processes automatically taking place continuously that bring us sight so we can examine a tiny object or see a star-filled night sky.  Human eyes have 1 million nerve endings that have to align to enable sight.  Our eyes are capable of transmitting in excess of 1.5 million messages  (simultaneously!) to the brain.  About 130 to 300 million photoreceptor rod cells enable us to see black and white and are involved in our peripheral vision.  About 6-7 million cone-shaped cells enable us to see color.  Our retinas have in excess of 137 million nerve connections to interpret what we are looking at.  The image received as upside-down is reversed  by the eye to being right-side up and is transported to the brain at an astonishing 300 mph.

The cilium (cilium = singular; cilia = plual) is very complex.  Every cell has around 200 antenna-like structures called cilia.  Located on the surface of the cell, cilia perform like extraordinarily sophisticated molecular machines executing coordinated  movements in exact sequence.  Cilia use elaborate transport systems.  As viewed under older-style microscopes of the past, cilia appeared to look like simple thin swaying hairlike projections able to move like oars in a rowing, sweeping motion to facilitate clearing of debris from the airways and elsewhere.  But modern advances in electron microscopy have allowed far more in-depth examination of cilia which reveal fascinating new discoveries about the activities of their ingenious operation.  It is now known that cilia are remarkably sophisticated, highly complicated apparatuses featuring multiple critically necessary components which function with amazing accuracy, synchronicity and machine-like precision.  A cilium is made of approximately 200 protein pieces.  Essential parts required for cilium motion to work properly include these 3 components: microtubules, nexin and dynein.  9 pairs of long flexible rods called microtubules are connected by what are called nexin linkers.  These outer microtubules encircle 2 inner microtubules.  Each microtubule has a molecular protein motor called dynein which attaches to one microtubule and has an arm that reaches over and grabs the other one and pushes it down.  The 2 rods begin sliding lengthwise, and the nexin linkers become stretched and taut as the process of creating the wave-like movement continues.  As the dynein pushes further, the apparatus bends; then it pushes the other way causing it to bend back.  So the bending of cilia is driven by dynein molecular motors.  The cilia components aligning to slide and bend in harmonious coordinated movement create the resulting swaying motion.  Cilia are located in various areas of the body such as the nose, trachea, kidney and other areas.  They serve as an essential defense mechanism for the body.  Their wavelike movements clear the airways.  They move bacteria and contaminants from the body and help keep lungs clear by propelling excess mucous from the lungs up to the mouth where it can be expelled. If cilia become damaged, toxins can come into the lungs.

Bacterial flagellum (flagellum = singular; flagella = plural) are a phenomenally efficient biological machine wonder propulsion device – a  complicated molecular system resembling a small outboard motor that self-assembles from the inside out using around 40 different proteins. It can rotate at over 1000 times a second.  It is liquid-cooled.  It has gears that operate at various speeds.  It has a clutch, which basically allows the motor to idle in neutral.  Flagellum is primarily an organelle of locomotion, (i.e. used by cells or microorganisms for movement).  Bacteria can have one or several flagellum.  Purposeful arrangement is evident in the flagellum’s construction, such that if even one piece was missing, it wouldn’t work; one missing part would render the whole system useless.  It is not likely this little ingenious whip-like tail invention could have come about through successive gradual modifications over time, because right from the start it requires multiple, specifically-matched integrated parts present at its beginning in order to function right. It acts like a rotary propeller.  The propeller propels the bacterium (forward or backward / clockwise or counter-clockwise) through liquid, and is able to spin at an impressive 10,000 rpms – more than a speedy car.  But this amazingly fast micro-miniature propeller can stop extremely quickly as needed to spin in the opposite direction.  Out-of-control movement isn’t a problem because it has information-feeding sensors that control the steering.  It has a whip-like tail that spins about in a motion that resembles the outboard motor (except it’s faster and more efficient) as it moves about through liquid performing its various necessary functions.  But considering its miniature size (it cannot be seen with the naked eye), it is far more sophisticated than an outboard motor made by human hands.  Though a flagellum is but a few microns in size (1 micron being around 1/20,000 of an inch), the motor part is much smaller (being around 1/100,000 of an inch). 

The regulation of the human blood-clotting system is another outstanding biomolecular marvel that requires multiple integrated components to be present from the beginning for the system to function.  The whole system has to be in place or it doesn’t work.  The blood-clotting cascade is a complicated, choreographed affair requiring 10 steps and using around 20 separate components that must work correctly at the right time, in the right place, in the right amount, in the right way or you could bleed to death.  Imagine if the clot proceeded to form in your brain and kept growing instead of limiting its job to mending the new small cut on your finger.  Or imagine if the clot stopped too soon and only slightly partially covered a large area of injured gaping open broken skin.  You could still bleed to death.  Or what if the clotting just continued without stopping, causing your entire blood system to fail due to overly excessive systemic clotting. Blood-clotting is a big important thing that requires over a dozen different proteins, most of them specific enzymes that cut the next protein in the chain to activate it.  This blood-clotting cascade works only if you have all the proteins present.  The cluster of protein components must be inserted all at once for the system to work.  The complex blood-clotting steps present as a meaningful fully-operating detailed system initially requiring intelligent intervention or it doesn’t work at all.  It is not something that could have developed piece by piece from scratch over time.

How great are your works, O Lord!  Your plans are very intricate.  -Psalm 92: 5 (NET).

The human brain is a stupendous marvel of complexity.  It is both fragile and durable.  Every waking moment the brain processes by the millions.  With ultra-fast speed, precision and efficiency, your brain works to coordinate a multitude of signals that allow you to move at will wiggling your toes, turning your head and moving your muscles as you desire.  Weighing 3 pounds or less, it houses a wondrously intricate network of 1 billion up to 100 billion or more specialized brain cells called neurons which help transmit signals.  The communication network between these cells is extraordinarily complex.  Each neuron makes about 1,000 links, so there could be up to 100 trillion brain interconnections.  These intricate connections allow for immediate lightning-speed transference across your brain.  The brain calculates incredibly detailed information with split second accuracy.  Neurons send electrical impulses along channels called axons.  The axon is a transmitter that carries the nerve’s message.  The axon goes to branches.  Nerve signals are sent from neuron to neuron at junctions called synapses.  Shorter branches called dendrites receive the axon’s message and collect information.  Thousands of dendritic compartments communicate with each other to determine which signals will be sent along the axon to trigger the next neuron.  Much internal cell conversation takes place among dendrites that influence decisions for the entire dendrite complex.  The full spectrum involving dendritic subcompartment communication processes is very complicated and not fully understood.  The process of nerve impulse information is very extremely complex and involves signals being converted from electrical to chemical form. The 2 lobes of the brain communicate via the corpus collosum.  The corpus collosum is a thick cable having more than 300 million nerve fibers.  Such a complicated, organized biological system could not have just come about via random, unplanned, undirected, spontaneous processes.  The impressively complex operations of the brain are a fine example of how components of living organisms evidence they were developed with care and planned foresight, not chance.

Our bodies are a living, bustling, synchronous wonderland of magnificent chemistry and extraordinary 3-dimensional structure.  Your brain has an amazing 100 trillion neural connections.  Your cells are not simple, sloppy, misshapen little blob-bags holding still, odd-looking objects.  Cells are far more intriguing than pictured in old, flat 1-dimensional illustrated charts hanging in biology classrooms and depicting the cell as having some loose, alien-like things we are to imagine as floating inside the blob-bag.  Your cells are fully alive, active, dynamic, whirling hubs containing internal, separate, sophisticated, highly-functioning, hard-working components performing important detailed functions. Cells display innately intelligent responses, messaging, coordination and regulating activity.  Organelles (tiny parts in the cell) communicate with one another, sending signals and collecting information.  Cell communication is fast and involves complex decision-making that keep our bodies healthy.  Small cell components send signals and collect information using a variety of signals to relay information via chemicals, launched sacs carrying information, electrical currents, physical contact between cells and via other means.  Cells have built-in clock machinery.  How fascinating that every cell has its own clock mechanism to sync physiological activity and rhythms with other cells.  Cells keep track of their location in the body which enables them to make appropriate decisions supporting the health of our bodies.  It is now known cells have separate compartments (like little rooms) that house a variety of assorted specialized cell component organelles busily going about their jobs. A mighty, efficient, highly active microscopic transportation system exists to get cargo (things such as proteins) where they need to go.  Cells are continually building new components and getting rid of what’s not needed.  Not all things will work in just any compartment (those little rooms), so new components have to end up in the room where they need to be so they can operate.  Cell transportation is an amazing, awesome complicated system involving signals, instructions, hauling, and very sophisticated activities and interactions.  Not just any material can be let in.  The body’s  intra-cellular transport system is constantly in operation getting cargo to its proper destination.  Cells measure distances and provide travel direction signals necessary for specific cell travel (e.g. relay instructions to traveling white blood cells who need information to reach an infection site destination where they’re needed).  White blood cells can change their shape to accommodate their moving more quickly. Various scavenger cells ingest unwanted microbes. Scout cells send alarm signals out to alert other cells to show up to a newly damaged wound area.  Neutrophils (a type of white blood cell first line of immune system defense) can make within themselves a defensive brew consisting of over 300 toxic chemicals to launch at an invading target.  They can lay special netlike traps made of DNA fragments to capture and eliminate invading microbes.  Cells are intricate compact powerhouses.  They have 100’s of 1,000’s of molecules.  They have self-organizing.  They perform self-assembly.  They have organization.  They have storehouses, factories, transportation networks and more.  Certain “teacher” cells instruct, train, and sort out specialized tasks and functions (e.g. thymus “teacher” cells train T-cells [“T” stands for thymus] how and where to travel to enter the  thymus.  Only 2% of T-cells make the cut.  98% of T-cells produced do not qualify to become well-performing mature T-cells, so they’re rerouted or eliminated.  T-cells must differentiate and not attack healthy human self-cells as the T-cells wander tissue, blood and lymph in search of disease-causing microbes or infections.  T-cells are the masters of the immune system.  Formidable Killer T-cells are the big guns who use skillful strategies to hunt and flush out infectious invaders.  Killer T-cell have the significant task of fighting disease in the body.  They can change shape to crawl between cells to find infected cells.  Cells are a full-house center of activity and interaction holding a collection of different interal components filling the cell.  From the inside-the-cell material transport expert, protein processing endoplasmic reticulum to the multi-tasking, energy-producing mitochondria (cells may have hundreds of these) and the protein way station/protein-sorting-packing-and-transporting Golgi apparatus, plus many more hardworking cell parts such as the amazing ribosome which can make any protein it is instructed to and the lysosome, which digests and recycles foreign bodies and waste (including dead cells), each unit does important detailed functions.  Even cell sizes are dynamic. They can change to meet new altered body requirements.  How remarkable to consider that cells can determine their own their individual aging process (e.g. induce rapid aging process to stop making too many specific organ cells).  Cells have a necessary cell kill operation – mitochondria is involved in this aspect, as a compromised cell (e.g. invaded by viruses) could render the cell to be dangerous to the whole of the organism.  Your body is busy renewing itself daily.  Every day it discards and replaces from 50 to 70 million cells.  The cell is such an enormous biological complexity, it could not have emerged piecemeal over time but had to be complete from the beginning. 

The building of a human cell requires an amazing amount of specific information. Even before the cell could have arisen, ATP had to already have been in place.  So many complex components, pieces of meticulous rich information, special materials, specified chemicals, small molecules (e.g. sugar, phosphates, lipids, vitamins, etc.) already need be in supply for the architecture of the first functioning living cell to have come into being.  So what is the statistical chance that some unidentified random “natural” process in earth’s early remote past laid the foundation to produce a functional protein?  Cambridge University biochemist and protein researcher Douglas Axe addressed that question in a scientific paper and determined such a feat would be a great difficulty.  His experiments concluded that the possibility that a protein could have developed by chance is about 1 in 10 to the 74th power.  Even a minimally complex cell requires many proteins beyond 1 protein.  Intelligence is inferred in the design and workings of DNA.  The unseen may be inferred from the seen.  Such complexity and specification do not favor the direction of random chance.  Understanding mechanisms and laws of physics help explain the operation of  but not the origin of  living systems.  Pondering such expansive and dense information about the material of life points to a Creator God as the best ultimate explanation for the origin of life.

Human cells are continually humming with activity that we take for granted.  Each part of the living cell, even the smallest part, is extraordinarily complex and all are needed for its proper functioning and survival.  If it does not all work, then none of it works.  Alone in isolation it cannot replicate itself.  Every second every cell in your body is making about 2,000 proteins.  Every second every cell is selecting a half million amino acids.  Proteins are folded into exact protein packages and sent to specific sites in the body where needed.  Special cargo cells recognize their cargo and its destination.  The number of cells in our bodies is estimated at 37.2 trillion human cells and 39 trillion bacteria cells.  The gut lining is important.  It must contend with all we consume. Harvard Medical School estimated that a healthy human gut has about 100 trillion bacteria living inside the digestive system, collectively called the gut microbiota.  But such numbers can only be considered best guesses.  The makeup of the gut microbiome is always changing.

Humans account for only 0.01% of the earth’s biomass.  In all, humans represent but a small share of life on earth.

The human hand is a marvel of rich design.  Modern science has still not been able to reproduce a robotic hand that matches the excellent dexterous precision of a human hand.  The bones of the human hand are very versatile and move in complex coordinated ways.  The biomechanical finger dexterity of the hand is remarkable.  Complicated integrated tendon networks perform a switch-like function involving information processing and computations to produce movement of finger joints.  Finger movements can control and exert much pressure.  The human hand  has very powerful strength abilities especially when it comes to crushing, pinching and gripping, yet the hand is also pliable and highly sensitive.  Hand muscles are strong yet compliant.  The hand can grasp a hammer and fat cells underlying the skin tissue of the palm change their shape to accommodate the shape of the item.  These fat cells can become almost fluid as needed so as to allow the right pressure to match the movement and object in the hand.  The sensitive human hand is very refined at detecting the most minimal of tactile changes in surface texture.  Our patterned fingerprints operate via sensing vibrations, which give us the ability to discern even very fine changes in the various textures we touch. 

The average adult body is made of approximately 7 octillion atoms.  That’s 7 billion billion billion.  That’s 7 followed by 9 sets of 000’s.  That’s 7 followed by 27 zeros.  Written out, it looks like this:  7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.  Of course when you’re talking such large numbers, they’re estimates.  98% of the atoms in the human body are replaced annually.  The average adult body is made of approximately 37.2 trillion cells (that’s over 30,000,000,000 cells).  Again, when youre talking such large numbers about such small things, they’re estimates.  Scientists estimate the average cell has 100 trillion atoms.  There are around 200 different types of cells in the body (e.g. red blood cells, white blood cells, bone cells, muscle cells, fat cells, nerve cells, etc.), and they all work together.  Each cell in the body performs a specialized function.  Each cell is unique and has a different size, weight, shape, structure and set of organelles.  Each adult has about 25 trillion red blood cells.  There are around 147   million platelets and 45 million lymphocytes (a kind of white blood cell).  The average adult male has about 171 billion brain cells.  All of these are such amazingly large numbers.  The Bible says every day of your life has a number as well, and God started numbering them before you were born.  Before you were born, God knew the number of days, hours and seconds you would have on earth.  -Psalm 139: 16.  He made you.  He knows everything about you.  He knows your thoughts.  He knows the words you’ll say before you speak them.  -Psalm 139: 1-4.  He knows the number of hairs on your head.  Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.  -Luke 12: 7 (NIV).  Knowing Jesus, we can say with the psalmist, “My times are in your hands….”  -Psalm 31: 15 (NIV). 

We have 10 million nerve endings for smell.  The nose and brain work in unison when we smell something, but no 2 people smell the same thing the same way.  Humans can perceive around 10,000 various odors.  Smell is our most direct sense.  There are several hundred different kinds of odorant receptors.  Each one has a binding site shaped to accomodate a certain odorant.  Inhale through your nose and the air travels over millions of olfactory receptor neurons. The signal is sent to your olfactory bulb and then to the brain.  Your brain will identify the smell.

God’s creative hand of divine engineering is seen repeatedly in molecular biology.  Living organisms depend on protein, which are strings or series of amino acid molecules.  Proteins are the molecules of structure and function.  Precise sequences of  amino acids are the building blocks of proteins.  Proteins do not have the ability to reproduce themselves.  Proteins are ordered chains of amino acids coded by the information contained in DNA, and DNA itself is made using proteins.  (By the way, as a powerful information carrier, God-designed  DNA is 45 trillion times more efficient than a silicon megachip).   After being made, proteins form into specific 3-dimensional conformations or structures.  Each protein must contain a precise sequence of amino acids to function as it should.  This is vital to protein folding into its 3-dimensional shape.  The average protein is made up of a string of 500 amino acids.  Some 500 amino acids that compose the average size protein can assemble in different (virtually unlimited) arrangements.  They can be arranged in over 1 times 10 to the 600th power in different ways, which is 1 followed by 600 zeros.  Random chance seems unlikely  to be in play.  Our bodies have the feat of organizing and assembling amino acids in just the right sequence for each protein.  Key parts of proteins are tightly designed and don’t tolerate change well.  Some individual proteins are subunits of more complicated complexes that have other materials integrated into their structure and must assemble in a certain way.  They are not isolated parts but are an important part of larger systems having many layers of interwoven networks.

The human skeleton is a truly amazing growing organ structure.  Bones are alive.  Bone possesses the great property of being able to heal itself if it breaks.  The collagen in your bones is continually replenishing itself.  About 10% of your skeleton is replaced every year, and you’ll have a new skeleton every 10 years.  We have 206 bones and every one of them is an important part of the mechanical functioning of our body for a lifetime.  God designed us so structurally there is durability for long life.

Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. -Luke 12: 7 (NIV) 

Hair reveals information about everything that’s been in your bloodstream including drugs.  As soon as a hair is pulled out of your scalp, a new hair starts to grow.  10% of hair is at rest while 90% is growing.  Only bone marrow grows faster than hair.  A strand of hair can live up to 7 years.  The average human has about 100,000 to 150,000 strands of hair, and the Bible tells us the very hairs on your head are numbered.

Each person is born with around 10,000 taste buds.  Babies in the womb even have taste buds as soon as 2 and a half months into their development. Taste buds are invisible to the naked eye and are replaced every 10 days to 2 weeks.

The human eye is a fantastically sophisticated anatomical system composed of many complicated parts.  Seeing involves an extremely complex process.  All required components must be present for the eye to operate correctly.  We have a precise automatic focusing system that permits us to see objects that are far away or close.  The brain controls eye muscles that change the shape of the eye lens.  Pupil size constricts or dilates to adjust to light intensity.  The human eye contains over 100 million light-sensitive rod cells.  Rods and cone cells send information to the brain through 1 million nerve fibers.  The brain arranges these messages into various components (e.g. form, depth, color) and analyzes it so it becomes a recognizable picture.  All the detailed interactive parts and workings involved in the many varied functions that enable us to see requires an extraordinarily complex process and intricate components, such that the whole operation is not even completely understood yet.

The human vascular system (also called the circulatory system) is comprised of vessels which carry blood and lymph throughout the body.  And what an extensive system it is! If laid out end to end, the blood vessels (arteries, capillaries and veins) of one adult would stretch over 60,000 miles, long enough to go around the world more than twice.  Your heart is about the size of your palm and pumps 2,500 gallons of blood throughout your body per day.

The lymphatic system is our body’s transportation and defense system.  The powerful river of health and life that flows throughout our bodies is like a workhorse maintenance, clean-up and defense department, related to and optimizing all our other systems.  A watery liquid (lymph) is moved through the body via small pipes that carry out cellular waste.  Lymph flows and entraps particles and invaders (e.g. viruses and bacteria that pose potential health threats) and moves them to lymph nodes that filter and destroy them.  The body has 500 to 600 lymph nodes which store important immune cells that are at-the-ready to defend against harmful substances and remove undesirable damaged cells.  Fast-flowing lymph provides a means to clear out toxins.  Exercise goes far as an essential strategy towards disease prevention because exercise can increase lymph flow up to 7 times more than not exercising.

If the human small intestine were unfolded, it would cover an area the size of a tennis court.

You are the one who put me together inside my mother’s body (13), and I praise you because of the wonderful way you created me.  Everything you do is marvelous!  Of this I have no doubt (14). Nothing about me is hidden from you!  I was secretly woven together out of human sight (15).  But with your own eyes you saw my body being formed.  Even before I was born, you had written in your book everything about me (16).  -Psalm 139: 13–16 (CEV). 

The intriguing process of the genesis of human life is a breathtaking marvel of elaborate interdependent actions.  Your body is made of roughly 30 trillion (30,000,000,000,000) cells specially adapted to do a variety of functions.  200 different kinds of specialized cells of various sizes, shapes and functions work in harmony to perform many necessary functions in your body.  Your body also contains some 38 trillion or more  bacteria.  The forming of the human body is a cleverly synchronized wonder of spectacular, enormous complexity.  A miraculously-cued orchestration of built-in wisdom is seen in the multiple amazing intricacies that interact and unfold in profoundly organized sequence.  The process of a new and different human being coming into existence is a profoundly wondrous, remarkable, miraculous event.  At the beginning stage of development, several million traits are possible in the full set of traits comprising the human genome, so individual variety is expected.  It is no surprise we are all unique.  A mature oocyte and a mature sperm have 23 chromosomes each, but 46 are required to produce a new human being.  The fusion of the oocyte with the sperm results in the single cell beginning of a new live separate human being that will divide and continue to grow bigger and bigger throughout its various stages of development.  The newly-formed zygote cell that forms as a result of the union of the oocyte and sperm is a new human being, a biologically separate different individual having its own unique 46 chromosomes.  The product of fertilization is a new, living human being.  There is a fact of continuum in biological development that affirms a claim to life, where held within even as a teeny fertilized dot of a cell is the genetic groundwork of the adult person he or she will biologically eventually become.  Following fertilization, the single-cell human being does not proceed to develop and grow to become another type of thing.  It just gets larger but remains a human being.  Packed and programmed within are directions to correctly produce every organ, nerve, tooth and inherited physical structure.  It is scientifically categorically not a potential or possible human being, not a pre-embryo, not a piece of the mother’s tissue.  During all of this, the blood of the mother is separate from the baby.  This single cell is a new little life – a fully distinct human being right from its earliest beginning, and it directs its own development and growth – genetic growth and development which scholarly research concurred is not regulated by the mother. The developing human embryo is very small, vulnerable and defenseless and needs protection.

The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.  -Genesis 2: 7 (NIV). 

The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.  -Job 33: 4 (NIV).

In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.  -Job 12: 10 (NIV). 

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.  Praise the Lord.  -Psalm 150: 6 (ESV). 

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heavens and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.  (24)  And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.  (25)  -Acts 17: 24-25 (NIV). 

God Himself breathed the first breath of life into man and man became a living creation (Genesis 2: 7).  That first breath gives us life.  Without oxygen for between 4 to 5 minutes, the brain will likely suffer irreparable damage.  Each day we move around 438 cubic feet of air.  You breathe 13 pints of air every minute.  Over your lifetime, you’ll breathe 13 million cubit feet of air.  Your breathing rate is 12 to 20 breaths per minute.  You breathe around 960 breaths an hour, 22,000 to 23,040 breaths a day.  If you live to 75 years of age, that’s 630,720,000 breaths (well over 600 million breaths!) in your lifetime.  Bronchiole tubes are as thin as a strand of hair, and each lung has 30,000 of them.  Your branching respiratory airways transport 5,000 gallons of air every day.  Alveoli are part of the lungs.  They are tiny air sacs at the end of each bronchiole.  Your body has about 300-600 million alveoli. The alveoli expand and contract some 15,000 times each day.  If the various lung structures were to be flattened and stretched out, the mass would cover an area the size of a tennis court.  The combined length of the airways of your lungs reaches a length of 14,900 miles.  Before air reaches your lungs, your respiratory system warms or cools the air you breathe if needed, it moistens it to right humidity, and antimicrobial agents clean and filter it.  Our lives literally depend on God’s perfect design of our respiratory system for every breath that keeps us alive for the span of our entire lives.  God designed our human respiratory system to be very durable and to last long.

A vast hidden microbial world resides on earth and on and in each of us.  We are unaware hosts to unseen invaluable organisms who share our physiological space.  Microbes matter a lot.  They are everywhere and always have been.  Lastest estimates report that we have around 30 trillion human cells and 39 trillion microbial cells.  These are best guesses of course.  Almost all bacteria cannot be seen with the naked eye.  Trillions of these things are separate from us, and yet they are an indispensible part of us.  We eat; they eat.  So we need to eat a good, well-balanced, health-supportive diet.  Our resident microbes somehow help to build and shape our immune systems.  Vital microbes help to digest a certain nutrient (i.e. help to digest our food) and produce vitamins and minerals.  Bacteria enrich our soil and break down pollutants and eat decaying matter.  We are all different, microbially speaking.  It takes 1 to 3 years for a little baby’s immature gut microbiome to grow in diversity and reach an adult state.  From there on out, our gut microbiome has ebbs and flows and can vary greatly from day to day and even meal to meal.  The human microbiome looks different from an animal’s microbiome and from each person’s microbiome.  Even the microbes on our right hand look different from the ones on our left hand.  Each body part has its own distinct fauna of microbes.  The skin microbiome is different than the gut or the mouth or the forearm or nose or the armpit or other body regions.  Many microbes in the body aren’t even identified yet, let alone how they affect our overall health.  Some deep questions are not yet answered.  Studying the microbiome is a relatively new area of science that is changing fast.

The hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord has made them both.  -Proverbs 20: 12 (NKJV).

The architecture and operation of the human ear reveals a marvelous organ of profoundly extreme complexity.  The anatomically unique auditory components that enable us to hear are characterized by extraordinary delicate, finely detailed structures and complex interactions and operation.  The ear is composed of a thin membrane (the ear drum), middle ear and outer ear canal.  A chain of small sensitive bones (such as hammer, anvil, stirrup), tiny hair cells, inner basilar membrane, and many more intricate, beautifully-shaped parts and pieces (e.g. the cochlea, which resembles a coiled shell) engage in highly sophisticated transmissions and interactive ways to register the glorious auditory sense we call hearing.  The stirrup, a middle ear bone, is the smallest and lightest bone in the body.  It is involved in conducting sound vibrasions to the inner ear.  Together the anvil (or incus) and stirrup (or stapes) form a chain that transmits sound waves to the inner ear liquid.  Our ability to hear ranges of sound intensities and frequencies is a dramatically amazing wondrous feat designed by our Creator.