- Golgi tendon organs - these are really cool little 'safety switches', if you will, we have in our muscles right near where the tendon ties the muscle to the bone. GTOs measure the tension in each of your muscles. If the tension ever gets too great, such as when you're about to cause damage to your muscle, the GTOs send out a signal that causes the muscle at risk to relax, and the antagonist muscle (the muscle that controls the reverse movement) to contract, thereby protecting you from injury.
- The healing process - the number of different things that happen when you accidentally cut your hand is crazy. All kinds of different chemical messengers are released when the body senses there is an injury, that causes to body to respond immediately. One of the coolest things to me involves your thrombocytes (platelets). These are the little guys that cause your blood to clot. What's crazy is how these guys don't start to clot until they are activated by the chemicals released by tissue damage. If they did just randomly clot, we'd end up with random blood clots and die.
- Elements - that's a link to the periodic table, every element known to man. These elements are the building blocks of our world. Our world is made of these elements. Thinking about how there is life, intelligence, humor, art, etc. in our world, while simultaneously thinking about how everything is made of these elements blows my mind.
- Cellular machinery - there's so many examples I could give here. Bacterial flagellum, DNA transcription, viruses, the list goes on. One of my favorites (and to be honest, I don't know a ton) is kinesin. Kinesin is a little protein that's involved in a couple of different processes, including cellular transport. Take a look at this, and judge for yourself if this should make the list or not. That little thing is cool!
- Water - this stuff is crazy. Not only is it essential for pretty much all life on our planet, but compared to other liquids, it's pretty unique. Typically, liquids shrink when they freeze. Not so with water. When water freezes it expands. This makes ice less dense, causing ice to float on top of water. Because ice floats, it covers the top of the water when a lake, pond, river, etc. freezes. This insulates the water underneath. If ice were more dense than water, ice forming at the top would sink, and the lake would freeze solid, killing almost all aquatic life.
- Reflexes - not only is it awesome how these crazy reactions actually protect us (think accidentally putting your hand on the stove), but we're designed so that are reflexes are as fast as possible. Reflexes are actually 'stored' in the spine, causing them to be much faster than if they were stored in the brain.
- Snowflakes - each one is unique. Just look at that thing! How is every single snowflake in Antartica unique, how are they so artistic, and how did they get that way!?
- The electrical conduction system of the heart - a little series of nerves goes through the heart, providing the source of electricity that it needs to keep beating day after day, year after year. The impulse begins up in the top right of the heart at an area known as the sinoatrial (SA) node. If for some reason the SA node gives out another node farther down in the system called the atrioventricular (AV) node can take over and act as a temporary pacemaker for the heart. Isn't it awesome to see how our hearts have a temporary backup system should something go wrong?
- Valves - the veins in our bodies have valves in them that keep blood from backflowing. Why is this important? Well, just think about the veins in our legs. We spend a lot of time each day on our feet. What if we didn't have these veins? There'd be a lot of excess stress being put on the heart in order to maintain a pressure that could continually pump blood throughout the body. Varicose veins are one example of when these valves malfunction.
- Cells self-destruct mechanism - we only covered this briefly, so I don't understand a lot here, but this is what I understand. Cells have a self-destruct mechanism that they'll activate if they realize that their replication would be dangerous to the body. How this pertains to cancer I'm not really sure. I might need to do a little more studying on this one.
- How chemical imbalances can actually change our thoughts - take a look at the chemical imbalances in people with schizophrenia, other mental illnesses, and certain types of parasites. It's weird.
- Buffered blood - our blood has a pH of 7.35 to 7.45. Any deviation from this range can cause serious sickness or death. Fortunately, we have a series of buffering systems for our blood throughout our body, the major one being the carbonic acid-bicarbonate buffer system. If the blood gets too basic, it makes it more acidic, returning it to normal levels, and vice versa.
- Physics - I'm not a huge fan of physics (I hate the classes, actually), but I have to admit, I can understand why some people are such huge fans of it. Seeing all of the different principles, laws, and equations that govern the world around us can be a little overwhelming, particularly around exam time, but are signs of beauty, thought, and order nonetheless.
I've been wanting to make this post for a while. The level of design, organization, and beauty in our world is astounding. I hope that this post causes you to think about how thorough God was with our world. He thought of everything when He made our universe, and seeing that makes me stand back in awe.
