YEC

The world's rarest gem, the coconut pearl! Coconut pearls are found in one in a million coconuts. The picture you see above is the famous Maharaja coconut pearl still attached to the coconut shell. It's price? Because of it's size, it is priceless. But before you buy a bunch of coconuts to try and find one. It would take 80 years to break open one million coconuts, if you took 15 minutes for each one in an 8 hour work day.

It takes 9 months for a coconut tree to filter one liter (35oz) of water. But the results are 100% purified water that's inside of the coconut shell.

Coconut water is identical to human blood plasma and can be used as such during surgery if needed. How can a plant make something as complicated as human blood plasma and still fit into evolution theory?

Information above obtained from "Ripley's Believe it or not".

  Besides being highly nutritious, young coconuts have also been exceedingly revered as having medicinal qualities for heart, liver and kidney disorders. Plasma makes up 55% of human blood, and coconut water is identical to human blood plasma, which makes it the universal donor. By drinking coconuts we give ourselves an instant blood transfusion. In fact, during the Pacific War of 1941-45, both sides in the conflict regularly used coconut water - siphoned directly from the nut - to give emergency plasma transfusions to wounded soldiers.

 Coconut water is one of the highest sources of electrolytes known to man. It's a natural isotonic beverage, with the same level of electrolytic balance as we have in our blood. However, coconut water contains less sodium, more potassium, more magnesium and has added medicinal benefits.

There are more than 200 species of fireflies around the world. Almost everyone has seen these small insects flying about or sitting in the grass. On dark summer nights they can be seen flashing their lights like ships far out at sea. As they flash, they are communicating very specific messages to one another.

The light created by fireflies is called cold light because it is produced without creating any heat. To make a flash, the firefly must make and mix a chemical called luciferin with oxygen and an enzyme called luciferase. This mixture is combined with a catalyst to create the flashes of light. The result is a method of producing light that is far more efficient than any source of light in your home. A relatively tiny amount of energy creates a generous amount of light.

Fireflies do not make light so they can read a book. Their flashes are used for finding a mate. Fireflies are able to read the light signals of other fireflies. These signals may contain several messages. Some flashes can tell a firefly whether the sender is one of his species. Light flashes are used to identify whether the sender is a male or female. If it's a female, the flashes can identify whether she has already mated.

This is another example of the unlimited creativity and extravagance of our Creator God. The same beauty of the firefly that creates wonder in the child should also fill us with wonder at the limitless imagination of God.

Fireflies may help light the way to new medical break-throughs. The gentle glow of a firefly on a summer evening is produced by the chemical luciferase. The firefly has a gene with the code that makes this chemical. When that gene is added to the genetic information of other plants or animals, the cells begin to glow harmlessly. Researchers have been using the firefly gene to test their ability to add genetic information to a cell.

When human heart arteries become clogged, a medicine called TPA is among the treatments doctors use. TPA is a natural clot-dissolving protein that helps prevent heart attacks. The problem is, without a continuous supply of TPA, the artery may reclog. It would help if the artery could make its own TPA 24 hours a day.

Since TPA is a natural protein for which there is a genetic code, researchers wanted to know if genetic information could be added to artery cells. To find out, they injected dogs with the genetic code for luciferase. If genetic information could be added to the cells through this method, they would actually see the results in the glowing tissue. Tissue samples taken three days later did, in fact, have the distinctive glow of the firefly proving that the method works. They warn that several years of research lie ahead before artery cells may be able to dissolve their own clots.

This gene splicing is also being added to other things. Such as tobacco leafs which glow in the dark after the firefly genes are added.

There are also certain species of fireflies that can flash in unison! Until this was observed, only humans had this ability to do something in unison. It takes about an hour of flashing then they become in unison, flashing their light once per second.