Some insight for leaves

Leaves are in charge of respiration in plants. They consist of the main mechanism producing food for plants, using sunlight via photosynthesis through which food for many more organisms, animals, and humans are provided. Having been assigned to convert solar energy to food, which they’ve been doing for millions, perhaps billions, of years, plants have been a significant instrument for sustaining life on or planet. It is as if plants turn their leaves upward in prayer to ask for food on behalf of all living things.

Morphology of a leaf

Leaves are composed of three sections: the base, blade, and petiole. The blade is the most important part of the leaf; it is wide and flat. The exact shape of leaves vary according to climate, geographical conditions, life span and risk of consumption by other organisms. In tropical climates, the blade is often very wide. In drier climates, it is usually smaller, in order to reduce water loss.

Leaves of some plants undergo a transformation called “metamorphosis” to fulfill different tasks. For example, some leaves have a thorny shape and protect the plant form herbivorous animals. Some leaves are designed to store water, and some are converted into a trap in order to capture insects to nourish the plant.

On the cross section of a leaf, one can observe that four layers constitute the inner part. The first one is the epidermis, which covers the leaf from top to bottom. This layer protects the leaf against external elements and is lined with a waterproof, waxy substance.

The palisade parenchyma is located on the upper side of the inner tissue and it houses chloroplast rich cells, which are lined up densely and carry out photosynthesis. The spongy layer under the palisade tissue forms the intercellular air spaces and this layer is responsible for the respiration of the plant.

For photosynthesis to occur, the leaf needs to receive the maximum amount of sunlight. The sun must hit the leaf at a perpendicular angle; thus, the leaf must be amply wide and must sit level. Because the sun hits different latitudes at different angles, plants have branches of different lengths facing different directions, and leaves have different curvatures. Furthermore, leaves are also lined up in a way so as not to block the sun’s rays. For this to happen, it is required for the leaf base to be thin and the leaves to be lined up in a spiral fashion that enables both lower and higher ones to harvest sunlight in the most efficient way. This type of arrangement exemplifies the golden ratio, which is observed among many structures in nature.

Each leaf sprouts at an angle of either 222.5 or 137.5, derived from division of 360 degrees, from the previous leaf under. This spiral leaf growth provides them with the most suitable place to harvest sunlight maximally. This way the gaps around branches are minimized and a maximum number of leaves is positioned without reducing the light capture capacity of the plant.

Seasons and leaves

Plants work like factories during spring and summer, producing a great deal of food through photosynthesis. Some of these foods help the plant grow and some are stored as starch for winter. With the onset of autumn, a majority of plants outside tropical zones go through hibernation, like many organisms do, and enter a dormant period. In order for plants, like trees and bushes, to survive the cold, their leaves are shed to minimize their surface area and conserve energy. Perennial green plants lose their aerial parts, too, including stems and leaves, and hibernate underground as roots, bulbs, and tubers. They sprout back from their roots once spring brings warmer weather.

Many leaves begin to fade and fall once autumn arrives. The leaves of some hardy plants – like cypress, pine, and spruce trees – continue to function through winter. In some of these trees, like the bay tree and the Indian sandalwood, there are protective layers covering the leaves against the cold. Other leaves, like pine needles, are created in a spiny shape to resist the cold.

Colors of autumn

Leaves seem green during the spring and summer months because the chlorophyll found in them absorbs all wavelengths other than green. The other major pigments found in leaves are carotene (orange) and xanthophylls (yellow). These two pigments are the most common pigments in nature.

As autumn approaches, and photosynthesis begins to end, chlorophyll starts to degrade and the other pigments begin to show. Thus, leaves turn yellow and bright red.

As the weather gets colder, the chloroplasts that are near the leaf’s bottom are broken apart, and sugar levels begin to elevate. The sugars produced during this season accumulate in the leaves day by day due to lower photosynthetic speed and reduced transportation to other parts of the plant. These sugars are converted into anthocyanins. At first, leaves appear yellow. A couple weeks before they fall, most leaves shift from yellow to red. Under abundant sunlight, due to concentrated anthocyanins, leaves seem brighter and more colorful – and thus red. Once the live tissues die completely, all leaves turn brown. This is due to the high concentration of tannin.

Leaf color varies not only because of plant genetics and external factors, but also because of climate. Temperature, humidity, soil composition, and levels of sun exposure all affect color. There is a higher degree of color change in the leaves of trees that grow in lower temperatures.

The composition of soil plays a major role in the color of leaves. Leaves that turn yellow early indicate a nitrogen shortage; on the other hand, the presence of a strong red color indicates very acidic soil. A high alkaline ratio is present in places where leaves are purple.

Walking among fallen leaves and the colorful scenery in a forest in autumn can trigger unique emotions. Depending on the psychological state of a person, the colors of autumn sometimes remind us about the briefness of this world, but they can also hint at the infinite life to come.

The motifs and patterns of leaves

Receiving sufficient sunlight is a significant matter for leaves. Therefore, they are created differently. No two plant leaves are the same.

Some of the leaves are simple and some are compounds. According to their arrangements, opposite, alternate, whorled, and rowed forms exist. Leaf blades can be ovals, kidneys, triangles, or even hearts. Edges can be smooth, serrated, toothed, or lobed. Leaf veins can also have many different motifs.

Each plant species has its own leaf motif. The alfalfa leaf has a triple pattern of specific angles; walnut leaves have an opposite arrangement of eight to ten. A hand-like motif, like the fingers of a praying hand, formed of seven leaves, can be observed on chestnut trees.

The lotus, a radiant and graceful aquatic plant with a magnificent ability to repel dirt, has been the inspiration behind a range of self-cleaning and dirt-repelling technologies. Now a registered trademark, the “Lotus Effect” promises a future filled with objects that rarely, if ever, need washing. Finally, this means owning bathroom mirrors that unfog itself and shirts that shrug off ketchup and coffee.

And the earth, We have spread it out like a couch; and how excellent We are in spreading it. (Adh-Dhariyah, 51:48)

The factory of the universe and the guesthouse of the earth are so pure and clean and so untainted and fresh that … if … the act of cleansing is not attributed to the Creator of the universe, then … [e]ither all the creatures would have a share in the universal act of cleansing… or there would have to be a consultative committee the size of the universe in order to decide and regulate all those acts together… This is impossible not just once, but hundreds and thousands of times over. (4)

Have you ever come across a “stinky forest”? How about a “messy desert”? These questions are primarily posed as rhetoric since various means of sanitation is ubiquitous in nature (Stinky forests and lakes actually exist only thanks to pollution—a modern problem introduced by human intervention via misconduct of technology) where Lotus Effect is only one of the mechanisms contributing to the steady “house-keeping” in nature.

In muddy waters, the lotus plant stands out with its ever-clean leaves making it a symbol of purity in Asian cultures. Moreover, lotus leaves keep dry under even the heaviest monsoon rain. Such seemingly ironical feats are accomplished by capitalizing on a principle named after the plant itself: The Lotus Effect.

The Lotus Effect

At first sight, the cleansing of the leaves by the rainfall seems utterly trivial. However, the cleaning of the lotus plant (Nelumbo nucifera) by the downpour is not something to be taken for granted. Curiously, when raindrops encounter the lotus leaf, they adopt an almost perfectly spherical shape, resembling ball bearings, and start rolling off the surface carrying away all the dirt (Figure 1). Easier said than done, the lotus plant always keeps pristine, even at the microscopic level.

In the early 1970s, soon after the electron microscope (which can yield vivid images of the ultra small details that are at length scales on the order of a billionth of a meter) became commercially available, German botanist Wilhelm Barthlott (of University of Bonn, Germany) started imaging plants using the newly discovered technology. Sample preparations for electron microscopy normally demanded tedious cleaning procedures since even a speckle of dust could ruin the portrayed landscape at such minuscule scales. To Barthlott’s surprise, some plants apparently were “self-cleaning”: They required very little (or sometimes none whatsoever) cleaning for detailed inspection with the microscope and the lotus plant was a prince of these (1). Further intrigued by the fact, Barthlott looked at the lotus leaves through the electron microscope to find out what renders the lotus plant remarkably competent to repel even the tiniest dirt.

Water’s love-hate affair

Before delving into the secrets for lotus plant’s sanitation, let’s look at the interaction of water with other materials. At the molecular level, the electrical charges are unevenly distributed across a water molecule (i.e. water is highly “polar”) which becomes entangled in a love-hate type of relationship with other materials: Some materials “love” water tending to maximize their interaction with it, whereas others “hate” it, trying to avoid their encounter with water as much as possible.1 To put things in perspective, we can immediately tell from everyday experience that oil is “water-hating” since oil and water do not mix, while sugar is “water-loving” because sugar can dissolve in water without much effort.

Macroscopically—that is, one can immediately realize by touching a lotus leaf—the lotus leaf surface feels waxy, and should therefore be water-hating. However, the waxiness is not enough to equip the lotus plant with its unusual capabilities to remain clean since the lotus leaf is not alone among plants in its leaves’ surface waxiness. Indeed, there is more to the lotus leaf’s curious surface properties than that, a property which was first recognized by Barthlott under the electron microscope.

Super water-hating surfaces

When Barthlott looked at the lotus leaf, besides its spotlessness in the microscopic sense, the leaf surface was decorated with numerous bumps a few micron sizes each (a micron is one millionth of a meter). Such bumpiness served to enhance the water-hating aspect of the surface making it “super water-hating,” corresponding to a contact angle that is close to 170 degrees. As a result, water encountering the lotus leaf surface rapidly beads up forming a nearly spherical shape (akin to the scenario when one drips water on a hot cooking pan) and drops roll off the surface even with an ever-so-slight inclination of the leaf. Apparently, a rolling water droplet is much more effective in picking up the surface dirt than one that is merely sliding, and all the surface debris is thus wiped off.

Although discovered first in the lotus plant, the super water-hating surfaces are serving a passive yet effective means of cleaning for animals like butterflies, dragonflies and other insects that are not able to clean all their body parts actively. For plants, preventing the coverage of their leaves by water (or other contaminants) is important to maximize the exposure to sunlight which would otherwise cause reduced photosynthesis. Another great biological relevance of surfaces of such nature for all these creatures is that it provides protection against the growth of pathogens by keeping the surface dry at all times.

Inspirations from biology for technology

There are ever-growing biologically inspired technologies, so-called biomimetics, and the lotus effect provides a nifty example. Unfolding the mystery behind lotus’ exceptional competence in self-cleaning, Barthlott patented the idea of artificially manufacturing microscopically-raised, water-repelling surfaces to mimic the lotus leaf. “Lotus Effect” is now a registered trademark which underlies commercial products such as self-cleaning windows and fabrics, as well as a dirt-repelling paint. Other applications that are waiting around the corner are: swimsuits that stay dry for days allowing prolonged underwater excursions, coatings on metals to avoid the deposits of marine bioorganisms which would enable up to 40% reduction on fuel consumption by decreasing friction (2). Metal coatings will also find applications to prevent ice formation on plane engines alleviating their wear-and-tear (3).

Apparently, lotus does not collect dirt, but only patents.

Note

1 Contact angle is a metric for the water propensity of a surface. Water drop displays a higher contact angle (hence lower contact area) on a water-hating surface when compared to a lower contact angle (hence higher contact area) on a water-loving one.

References

1. Forbes, Peter. August, 2008. “Self Cleaning Materials,” Scientific American.

2. http://www.basf.com/group/

corporate/en/innovations/events-presentations/nanotechnology/basf

3. “Water-Repelling Metals,” Prachi Patel, MIT Technology Review, 2008, http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/21530/

4. “The Thirtieth Gleam,” Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Risale-i Nur Collection.

It is springtime, and soon I will expand and open up to see the bright face of the sun. Sunlight is a source of my food and the service I do. The more sunrays that hit my surface, the faster I grow, and will generate a great need of life on Earth: oxygen. To the unappreciative eye, I am just a leaf, but the complexity of my reactions are still a great puzzle to scientists who work in large institutions trying to understand the processes going on inside me. It takes them many years to fully comprehend a single step in the process of oxygen generation that takes place within me.

Although I am very simple, thin, and fragile, I have been charged with a great service. During the entire summer, I endure the heat of the sun without drying up or wilting. This is because I am constantly fed with a flow of water and minerals from my branch, which was soaked up from the tree’s roots embedded deep in the Earth. This constant flow of water enables me to keep upright, sturdy, and open. Most of the water is evaporated through my thin surface, but a small part of it is broken up to provide you with the oxygen that you need to survive. Although this sounds very simple, it requires a great deal of energy. This energy is provided to me through the sun and the sugars that are made in me during this process.

When no water falls from the clouds, I suffer. I cannot keep upright to provide you with the oxygen that you need. When it is too hot and there is no rain, I suffer again. Were it not for the babies, the old, and the weak among you, I would dry out completely. When human beings oppress each other, I suffer, because under these conditions water does not fall to Earth despite the clouds in the sky. These clouds also block the sunshine that I need to serve you with oxygen.

Right now it is autumn in many places and although I did not dry up in the hot months of the summer, I am now ordered to wither and fall. My color changes from green to yellow, orange, red, and finally brown. As I drop to the ground, people step on me. I get crushed and grinded to pieces as I return back to Earth. The matter used to create me mixes with the soil, until next spring, when I will be high up on the branch looking at you one more time, reminding you of a new beginning after death.

Imagine: I have just been cooked, and I am now waiting on a dish. Oh, what’s that? A metal thing with four prongs has just stuck itself into my chest, and it threw me into a shaking room with a gate moving up and down. There are, in this room, 32 flat and occluding rocks, some of which are sharp, while some are like millstones, all being lined up in a U-shape row. The frontal rocks have divided me into large pieces by squeezing and cutting. My pieces are pushed backwards by a soft shovel underneath. The rear rocks have made me almost like a paste, thoroughly mashing my pieces. Meanwhile, many taps on the right and left sides and in bottom of the room began flushing water upon me, and the carbohydrates within me have began dissolving by the pityalin enzyme (alpha amilaz) in this water. The flushing water contains substances such as lyzozym and antichore to eliminate any probable microbes within me.

I was fully softened and turned into something almost like gruel, when suddenly I was impelled by the actions of that soft shovel to an extremely tight tube inside of which movements continuously push me downward. A gate opened while I was being brought down and, as I was hoping to enter into a more spacious room and be saved from the compressive movements, I suddenly flopped into a well containing a light-colored liquid. I have come to know, while I was expecting to have some refreshment, that the liquid I flopped into was an acid capable of eroding marble (pH=0,8). I cried ‘Oh My God!’, but it was too late. This acid began to break my proteins down. The pepsinogen which was simultaneously being secreted by some cells over the walls of this large room and which were ineffective within an acid-free environment, became instantly activated by this acid and began to thoroughly break me up. Most of my proteins were broken. While I was wondering and asking ‘how come the liquid I flopped into is capable of eroding the marble but not capable of breaking up this well?’, I have come to notice that walls of the well were coated with a thin layer of mucous substance (membrane) which is unbreakable by acids.

I said ‘Oh My God! As long as you do not permit, these acids, which can erod marble, are not capable of damaging a soft tissue!’. Together with other foodstuff, I have been both blended and broken in this well-like room for about an hour. Later, the outer walls have again squeezed us, and we have been ejected yet again, this time into a new tube at an opposite direction to the one we were just pushed out of, by a sudden loosening and opening of a valve. This tube (called duodenum in Latin) has a length of about 15-18 cm and, appears as if lined up side by side. Here too, we felt wretched and were faced by a basic secretion (sodium bicarbonate) being ejaculated from a tap. This liquid was inactivating (neutralizing) the acids mixed with us, i.e., preventing them from damaging the unprotected walls of the tube which we were in.

Here again the amylaz, lipaz, trypsin, kymotrypsin and carbocsypolypeptidas attacked me, all of which break up, in a respective order, carbohydrates, fats and proteins of my ingredients, along with a lot many other enzymes, and they broke me up to my smallest constituents. Meanwhile, I started pondering the reasons why these enzymes, which are making mincemeat of me, are not damaging the tap (pancreas), which are composed of the same proteins, fats and carbohydrates that they come from. Then, I have come to realize that these enzymes could not become activated in pancreas tissue, since it does not have any activating factors, but they gained shredder features only after we arrived in the tube we are in, and only with the help of such factors which are being secreted from the intestinal walls.

After having been fully shredded within this narrow tube, a green liquid (bile), was poured on us as we were approaching its end. This detergent-like liquid was particularly responsible for shredding the fats in my ingredients. I understood, after all of this, that I was passing through a very excellent factory. As I and my fellow meatballs proceeded inside this narrow tube of approximately three meters long, no part of us remained un-shredded, except the cellulose fibers of plants such as parsley and onion which accompanied us. They continued their journey until arriving at a very thick and short tube. I have found out that their sap have been absorbed and their leftovers, after being amassed for some time, have been thrown into a cesspool called a toilet.

In the meantime, we have noticed that the walls of this tube are plicate and protuberant. These walls are apparently the places where our particles penetrate into another realm through two different ways. We understood that, via rather thin capillary channels situated inside these protuberances, we were being transferred into narrower tubes which contained two different (red and white) types of liquids (blood and lymph vessels). Now, there isn’t ‘me’ anymore, instead, there is only an ‘us’ which is composed of very smaller particles. While glucoses, the simplest forms of carbohydrates and aminoacids, the simplest forms of proteins are being transferred into the red liquid, our fat acid siblings are transferred into the white liquid of lymph vessels. Our glucose and aminoacid siblings have been carried by the red liquid to a factory called a liver. They are being returned to the red liquid after having passed through certain processes and being equipped with some useful characteristics here. But, the fats (lymphs) of the white liquid are, for some reason or another, being separately transferred into the red liquid, bypassing this factory. I learned the reason later: if the fat acids came to the liver together with glucoses and aminoacids, they would spoil this factory and kill its workers.

Finally, the red liquid carried us to tiny cell chambers numbering almost 100 trillion. Each of our tiny particles were sent to separate cells. Here, water, carbondioxide and energy were being produced by primarily coupling of our sibling glucose with oxygen. I learned that energy was needed for the functioning of these cells. Our fat siblings were also being utilized (consumed) for producing energy if glucoses were found insufficient for that purpose. Our amino acid siblings were being utilized (consumed) in the production of sound (strong) proteins and glucoses, and of energy in cases of the unavailability of fat sources for use in the cells’ structures. Excessive amounts of fat and glucose were being stored in these tiny cells. That is to say, I, who was a meatball at the beginning, was converted into water, carbondioxide and energy at the end of this painstaking journey. I was promoted (exalted) to the degree of humanness and rewarded a great deal of honor, as some parts of me became constituent of and some other parts of me assumed responsibility in vital cell functions of the human body.

After all these disintegrations and absorptions, some parts of us took their share in the structure of the body, while some others which were used in energy production including me were converted into a choky and dirty gaseous state called carbondioxide. We have been thrown back into the red liquid again since we would perhaps choke the cells we are within should our density increase very much. We have been brought to a marvellous and sponge-like factory named a lung, and composed of millions of vesicles, by being placed onto a molecule called hemoglobin, which is being pushed by a big pump. We have replaced the oxygen of the fresh air arriving to the lung vesicles. Now is the time for bidding farewell the human body. I thanked God, for I regained my freedom as a carbondioxide passing through and escaping from very dark and narrow places.

However, I was placed upon the leaf of a green plant after aimlessly roaming in the air for some time. After being filtered through the little windows (stoma) over the leaf, I was brought inside by the chlorophyll factory marvelously functioning inside these cells. Here, they forced me to unite with the water brought by tubules from the soil. Upon telling them that I cannot afford to do that, they instantly changed my true nature with solar rays and turned met into a chemical energy depot. I was no more a simple carbon atom; thus, I found a place for myself within an energy-emiting glucose molecule. I was in a position suitably convertible to starch, protein or fats in accordance with the true nature and genetic program of the plant I was within. Something incredible happened while I was swinging around on a green clover leaf. The leaf I was in has been eaten by a cow with real pleasure.

A new chapter has now opened inside the cow’s body. I was assigned with certain duties within the muscle proteins of my new host after having passed through a number of chemical processes. And I really enjoyed them. I was feeling myself more as an animal protein than a simple grass. By leaving the grass for a cow’s body, I was promoted (exalted) one more degree on the way to becoming manifestations of the divine attributes of God.

This blessed animal in whom I was assigned has been sacrificed during a Muslim feast of sacrifice, its meat ground into a meat grinder, and I have been served to you once again as a meatball.

Ali Uguz is a teacher of biology. He lives in Turkey.

In order to answer these questions, let’s first take a closer look at the nature of leaves and how they function. Simply put, leaves are nature’s food factories. During spring and summer the leaves serve as factories where most of the food necessary for tree growth is manufactured. The process of transforming water and carbon dioxide into sugar is called photosynthesis, which means literally “putting together with light” (Figure 1). This food-making process is performed by the chlorophyll molecules that are present in the leaf cells. Chlorophyll absorbs energy from sunlight. While the water is sucked in from the soil by the roots and carbon dioxide is inhaled through the pores of the leaves, chlorophyll synthesizes carbohydrates, such as sugars and starch. During winter, when this process cannot continue due to lack of light or water, the trees rest and live off the food they stored during the summer.

What is most astonishing is that it is again chlorophyll that gives the leaves their green color. Along with the chlorophylls (green pigment), spectrums of pigments, such as carotenoid, anthocyanin, and xanthophyll, give different colors to the leaves (Figure 2). When chlorophyll is abundant in the leaf cells, as it is during the growing season, the green color of chlorophyll dominates and masks the colors of any other coloring pigments that may be present in the leaf. Thus, the leaves of summer are characteristically green. When for some reason the number of chlorophylls decreases significantly, the color of other pigments paint the leaves, such as in the fall. For example, maple and acer leaves turn to bright red because of the carotenoid and anthocyanin pigments while sugar maple leaves turn yellow due to xanthophyll pigments.

Time to change colors

At the end of summer and the beginning of autumn, the length of days and the average temperature begin to decrease. Then the trees “know” that it is time to get ready for winter, their sleep-time, and the leaves stop making food. Since there is no longer a need for them, the chlorophyll molecules break down, and so the green color begins to fade. As we, the grieving viewers of this process, say farewell to the color of life, we are surprised by the splendor demonstrated by vibrant colors ranging from yellow to orange.

All these colors are due to the mixing of varying amounts of the chlorophyll residue and other pigments in the leaf becoming visible during the fall season. For the realization of this beauty, mixtures of pigments give rise to the reddish and purplish fall colors of trees such as dogwoods and sumacs, while others offer the sugar maple its brilliant orange or yellow. In some trees, like the maple, a red pigment will be formed in the fall if the days are warm and the nights cold. These trees produce sugar in the leaves during the day, but this sugar cannot move out when the nights are cold, and the leaf’s connections to the tree begin to break down. After that the high sugar concentration favors the formation of a class of pigments called anthocyanin, which is red. Thus, the leaves left out in the sunlight turn red through this process. The brown color of trees (like oaks) that appears after chlorophyll breaks down comes from plant wastes left in the leaves. The autumn foliage of some trees is only yellow, so it is the combination of all these things that makes the beautiful colors we enjoy in the fall.

Thanks to scientific research, today we know the details of leaf color change. The approximate size of these pigments is so small that hundreds of millions of them, put edge to edge, could measure only 1 meter. Isn’t it amazing how the beauty of autumn is exhibited through the hands of such small and blind painters?

Abdullah Akpinar is a graduate student in Planning and Landscape Architecture at Clemson University, Southern Carolina.

The name of God is different in different languages of the world and in the minds of those who accept the Creator as the only God; the Christians, Muslims, Jews and other believers, around 60-70% of the global population. Yet this name corresponds for them with the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Qur’an. In all these instances, there is a Holy Word, in one form or another. The task of every believer is to recognize the very form that the Creator uses to call His Creation. This is a personal issue that originates from the religion that one worships.

So, what is the problem that faces genetics at the beginning of the 3rd millennium and how does it correspond with the Creator’s expressed will and His call to us?

It is here where there is a prospect for a remarkable breakthrough in knowledge, if only… This “if only” can be connected to academic achievements and issues.

In fact, over the last three or four years scientists have discovered by very sophisticated means and through careful research that the genetic code that governs the human body-and, in a broader sense, everything that is alive in Nature-accounts for no more than 1% of the DNA molecular length of the structure that determines the development of all living species. This discovery was as shocking for scientists as the deciphering of the genetic code had been. They concluded that the genetic programming occurred in the DNA molecular “free zone.” Here, scientists-among them the Russian naturalists A.G. Gurevitch and V.I. Vernadskiy, who some 50-70 years ago claimed that a purely materialistic understanding of the gene was the limit to which non-believing science could go-were proven to be right.

The new discoveries are most certainly related to the emergence of such sophisticated physical instruments as the laser, holography, sol tonics and even powerful computers. Modern technology has proved, without a doubt that the program in space and time for the creation of the human organism is not based on random accident, but rather is predetermined from “above.” The protein molecules and the amino acids that comprise the gene (to date, more than twenty different types of amino acids have been discovered) are placed in a particular order. A single fitting lock-and-key relation exists in the composition of the genetic code components. In addition, it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the genetic code of species that live on the Earth has not changed in three billion years, i.e., there is no room to talk about evolution, the principal postulate of materialists. Then, who or what has created the origin for everything that exists today on our planet several billion years after the creation of the Earth?

Then there is another puzzle: Why does the genetic code have such a small place, only taking up 1% of the DNA?

Scientists in Russia have learned that 99% of DNA-which was previously considered to be useless-hides within itself the so-called “genetic computer” that comprises the programs needed to make living organisms into a variety of species and these mask the genetic features that are unique to a particular species. It is not completely clear how the mechanism of this so-called genetic computer works, but it does work. The concept of a holographic mechanism for the storage, transference, and recovery of information was developed as the result of an experiment.

Scientists took a freshly cut leaf, chopped off part of it, and put this between two slides and two photo plates. As the picture developed, it became clear that the leaf was depicted whole. In short, an idea or a phantom had been photographed. These first experiments were conducted in Russia in the 1960s.

Russian, American, and British genetic scientists continuously repeated the experiment, taking phantom photographs of different objects, and came to the conclusion that science was dealing with a multidimensional picture of the leaf, or its hologram.

Based on this, some other puzzles were solved. The “genetic computer” manages the development of holograms by means of special static waves, called sol tones (the name sol tonics, a special scientific branch, is derived from this term) that function in the DNA embryo cells.

Scientists have long since established that out of one single fertilized ovule other ovules start to instantly develop, as if on command; these are responsible, for instance, for making bone, muscle, nerve and other systems within the human body. And over this totally material process there floats a totally immaterial phantom that dictates and shows the embryo the way to develop.

In other words, there is a certain image according to which development proceeds. The DNA is the text that controls this creation, with its inherent rules of composition; it is possible to perceive the DNA as being made up of letters, i.e. a word. At first there was the Word! This is a quote from the Bible. In Islam, Almighty Allah gave the Word by means of the Qur’an (reading) to Muhammad. A phrase from the Qur’an describes the above process in an amazingly simple and pertinent way:

It is He Who fashions you in the wombs as He will. There is no deity but He, the All-Glorious (with irresistible might), the All-Wise. (Al Imran, 3:6)

The Word of the Creator, according to which the genome “works,” is registered with greater security in the bio-system apparatus. It will only disappear in conjunction with the last of the human beings. This may be the very idea behind what is called the Day of Judgment, or Doomsday in Islam and other religions.

In the context of Einstein’s principles of a single field theory, as well as in Shipov’s physical vacuum theory, it may be possible to find clarification of the phenomenon, when in one case a wave matrix (copy) remains “clean,” but distorted in another.

It is worth discussing here those things that have already been proven. The programs written in the DNA cannot have emerged as a result of simple evolution, in the very least as, due to the huge volume of information contained here, the time required would have exceeded the time that the Universe has existed, that is around 15 billion years. We have established an approximate time that would be required for the genetic transformations that determine the essence of human beings to occur. It is substantially less…

Another study has been carried out that does not fit into the traditional materialistic frames. It seems that the internal structural information of DNA alone is not enough to develop an accurate replica of the image organism from the composition of the protein elements. Numerous experiments carried out by Russian scientists (in particular, from the Moscow Scientific and Cardiology Center) have proved that a frog embryo that has been purposefully protected to a great degree from external influences, distorts, suffering from malformation and finally dying. This means that a DNA has to be connected-maybe by means of sol tones waves or other contacts still unknown to us-with an “external source” that guides the genome-bio-computer work from somewhere in Space. One cannot but recall Muhammad here, the last of the Greatest Prophets, who categorically rejected the possibility of not only seeing, but even imagining the Almighty.

There are few people who still argue about the existence of the soul. The time when the soul departs from the body has been well-documented by scientists, doctors, and naturalists. As a matter of fact, the soul emerges when the heart cells die, that is, when the organism as a whole dies. It is at this time that a certain phantom of the genetic apparatus is formed, similar to the one described above in the phenomenon of the phantom leaf. It is interesting to contemplate the idea that the phantom of a human genetic apparatus that has lost their life by force would possess a high biological reaction and would therefore be in a position to distort and destroy any healthy molecules that may be close by. One cannot but recall the imperative ban on killing the innocent that is contained both in the Old Testament and the Qur’an, a call to leave retaliation to Him and to Him only.

In conclusion to my brief essay on the necessity of belief in today’s science, the common scientific way tries to explain “how,” but it fails to answer the question of “why” that lies behind the mystery of existence. Any scientific approach rejecting faith is doomed to fail; for faith is an inherent need for us. The belief in Him, the Single and Almighty, is genetically programmed. In a hadith reported in Sahih al-Bukhari, God’s Messenger states that every person is born in the primordial nature (fitra) of Islam.

Here, at the beginning of the 3rd millennium, at the height of our scientific achievements, we have come to understand God as a natural phenomenon. We must follow His guidance and not distort the Word or the Image of love that has been implanted by the Creator in our genetic code with mindless acts and evil speeches.

Dr. Vitaliy Sheremet is a professor at the Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences.

The appeal of the Golden Ratio to the human eye and brain has been scientifically tested. When subjects are presented with a range of rectangles, people invariably pick out as most pleasing ones those whose sides are of the Golden Ratio. This golden number is the basic number at work in aesthetics; there are even claims that the Golden Ratio was used by Leonardo da Vinci when painting the Mona Lisa, and by the Greeks in building the Parthenon. But the surprising thing is that a number deemed aesthetically pleasing by human beings also crops up in nature and science. In a newly published article in Physical Review B, it is stated that the Golden Ratio appears in the structures of some metals. The Golden Ratio is seen in the arrangement of seeds on flower heads, in the spirals of sea shells and galaxies, even in black holes. This ratio can be found almost everywhere in the universe.

Although the Greek mathematician Euclid first defined the Golden Ratio in around 300 BC, the followers of Pythagoras probably knew of it two centuries earlier. Euclid defined it as a line that can be divided into two unequal parts (Figure 1), where the ratio of the smaller part of the line to the longer part is the same as the ratio of the longer part to the whole. This ratio is 1.6180339887…, the Golden Number.

What makes the Golden Ratio special is the number of mathematical properties it possesses. The Golden Ratio is the only number whose square can be produced simply by adding 1 and the reciprocal of which can be arrived at by subtracting 1. If you take a Golden Rectangle – that is a rectangle where the length-to-breadth ratio is equal to the Golden Ratio, and take out a square, what remains is another, smaller Golden Rectangle. Also, think of any two numbers. Make a third by adding the first and second, a fourth by adding the second and third, and so on. If you start with 7 and 11, then what you have is:

7, 11, 18, 29, 47, 76… When you have written down approximately 20 numbers, calculate the ratio of the last to the penultimate: the answer should approximate the Golden Number.

In mathematical terminology it is (an/an-1) equals to the Golden Ratio.

Another example of the Golden Ratio is the Fibonacci Numbers, that is a number series where each number is simply the sum of the previous two numbers. These numbers are 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55… The ratio between any two successive Fibonacci numbers approaches the Golden Ratio as the numbers get larger. We can find the Fibonacci series particularly in the spirals of sea shells and in the arrangement of seeds on sunflower heads.

It was the elusive nature of the Golden Ratio that led the Italian friar and mathematician Luca Pacioli to equate it with the incomprehensibility of God. In the 15th century, he wrote a three-volume treatise, Divina Proportione (Divine Proportion), that was crucial in the dissemination of the Golden Ratio beyond the world of mathematics. After him, many artists, architects, and musicians used the Golden Ratio in their works; for example, musicians such as Debussy and Bartok and the architect Le Corbusier.

Let’s examine the arrangement of leaves on the stem of the plant Phyllotaxis. As each new leaf grows, it does so at an angle offset from the leaf below. The most common angle between successive leaves is 137.5 degrees – the Golden Angle; 137.5=3d 360-360/G, where G is the Golden Ratio. Why does the Golden Ratio play a role in the arrangement of leaves? It is all down to the irrationality of the number. A new leaf must collect sunlight without throwing too much of a shadow on the leaves below. A plant must arrange its leaves in such a way that the greatest number can spiral around the stem before a new leaf can sprout immediately above a lower one – that is at 360 degrees. If the leaves were arranged at an angle of 120 degrees, then the leaves would grow as 3 separate columns with large gaps between them. This would effectively block out the sunlight to the lower leaves. If the angle were 50 degrees, then there would be spaces between the leaves. But, with an angle of 137.5, the maximum amount of leaves can be arranged with a minimum of space being left between the leaves.

The Golden Ratio also crops up in hard sciences. Let’s take a look at the growth of “quasi-crystals.” These maintain a five-fold symmetry, which means that they make a pattern that looks the same when rotated by multiples of one-fifth of 360 degrees. Since the time when these crystals were discovered in 1984, many physicists have been researching their properties. In Brookhaven National Lab in New York State, Tanhong Cai imaged the microscopic terrain of the surface of such crystals made from alloys of aluminum-copper-iron and aluminum-palladium-manganese. It is found that flat terraces are punctuated by abrupt vertical steps. The steps come in two predominant sizes, with the ratio of the heights of these two steps being the Golden Ratio. This fact was discovered in 2002.

The most surprising place where the Golden Ratio appears is in black holes, a discovery made by Paul Davies of the University of Adelaide in 1989. Black holes and other self-gravitating bodies, such as the sun, have a negative specific heat. This means that they get hotter as they lose heat. In a spinning black hole there is an outward centrifugal force acting to prevent any shrinkage of the hole. The force depends on how fast the black hole is spinning. It turns out that at a critical value of the spin (when the ratio between the square root of the mass value and the square root of the spinning parameter is equal to the golden ratio), a black hole flips from having negative to positive specific heat. In other words, the Golden Ratio determines the character of the black hole.

Figure 2 shows the finger bones of a hand. The ratio of each bone at the top of the hand to the bones at the bottom of the fingers is the Golden Ratio. Pine-cones show the Golden Ratio spiral clearly (Figure 3). If one looks carefully at an ordinary cauliflower, one can see a center point where the florets are smallest, and the florets are organized in spirals around this center in both directions (Figure 4). The flower, Echinacea Purpura, has the same spirals (Figure 5).

With the help of developing science, new examples of the Golden Ratio are waiting to be discovered in the universe. The latest discoveries demonstrate that by using this ratio in technology, new products which make our lives easier will soon be available to all. This mystery that is spread throughout the universe may be an opportunity to renew and change our points of view on life.

Reference

• Chown, Marcus, “Why Should Nature Have a Favorite Number,” New Scientist, 21-28 December 2002, 55-56.

Photosynthesis

To fully gain an insight into these interactions’ complexity, we must conduct an in-depth study and observation of the processes taking place. Initially, the sun’s released energy must be made useful to our body’s cells, for direct sunlight on its own is not useful. Energy from the sun, along with water from the soil and carbon dioxide released from all living organisms, synthesizes oxygen and sugars (including glucose) within the leaves of green plants. This seemingly simple but very complex process is called photosynthesis. Without the oxygen and glucose required to generate usable energy (in the form of ATP* molecules), no human or plant cells could survive, although some exceptions are known.(2) Hence, all photosynthetic organisms on Earth an indispensable sources of oxygen for all life-forms.

The two main sources of oxygen are rain forests and oceans, where green algae and photosynthetic bacteria live.(3) In fact, algae lying 120 meters beneath the Antarctic ice is fully equipped to serve life. These algae have been found in sponges with a system of fiber optics that allows them to gather the minute amount of light reaches the Antarctic Ocean’s murky depths and direct it to photosynthetic algae.(4) Given this, we must say that photosynthetic life-forms are in complete submission to and serve other life-forms, among them humanity.

Plant and tree leaves are optimally designed, both physically and biochemically, to generate vital oxygen and sugars. A leaf’s large surface area is required for the optimal interception of solar energy, while the thin cross-section is essential for the fast transport of oxygen and carbon dioxide in and out of the leaf.

Specific photosynthetic cells are arranged in between the leaf’s two protective epidermal layers. Carbon dioxide and oxygen molecules, under specific guidance, leave the leaf through specific pores flanked by cellular gates or guard cells situated underneath each leaf, as the leaf’s upper layer is covered with a protective waxy layer. This waxy layer is essential, for without it the leaf would dry up. For example, on hot days 100 gallons of water are lost from cottonwood trees.(5)

All evaporated water is collected as clouds (water vapor near the condensation point), from which pure, condensed water falls as rain. Likewise, all animals’ breath contains water vapor (released during the breakdown of glucose for energy release), which is also created as clouds and recruited as a moving source of potential water for all needy plants and living organisms.

Water’s continual recycling between the land and oceans to the clouds prevents wastage and provides a continually renewed source of fresh water to synthesize oxygen during photosynthesis. It also serves as a medium in which all biochemical reactions must take place in living cells.

Moreover, a leaf has no knowledge or power to generate oxygen and sugars, which are vital for all living cells, for it has never seen or experienced any direct contact. For carbon synthesis to occur, oxygen atoms must be torn from water and carbon dioxide molecules. This requires knowledge and power, since neither solar energy nor a leaf possess these. Also sugars, an indispensable food source for all life-forms, cannot be synthesized by coincidence in a weak and powerless leaf.

This complementary relationship indicates that all these simultaneous interconnections could only take place according to a program dictated through an all-pervading knowledge, willpower, and mercy. Likewise, only One with such attributes could subject, direct, and allowing these processes to continue.

Breathing

Moving at extremely high speeds (around 346m per second),(6) oxygen molecules released from such photosynthetic life-forms as plant and tree leaves, and bacteria and algae in the oceans, must reach the lungs of all living organisms. They also must be dissolved in water so that fish and other marine organisms can breathe. In fact, all of these processes must take place continuously so that each organism can live until its appointed time. This means that the oxygen molecules must be guided through the atmosphere and into each living organism so that each molecule’s optimal and perfect function may be carried out. Thus, although moving at extremely high speeds, each molecule’s function remains in the best and optimal manner.

Each lung is a highly delicate organ composed of millions of microscopic tunnels ending in tiny sacs (alveoli) encapsulated with a dense capillary (thin artery) network.(7) Oxygen molecules in the atmosphere are inhaled and brought to the sacs, which send oxygen (from within the sac) into the bloodstream, and carbon dioxide is diffused from the bloodstream into the sacs. Although the air we breathe contains a large proportion of nitrogen, it is mainly oxygen that is pulled through the sac’s wall, across the thin arterioles’ microscopic walls, and into the bloodstream’s red blood cells. Each oxygen molecule is then complexed and surrounded by a huge molecule of hemoglobin (the oxygen-carrying protein in red blood cells). Although these processes take place very quickly, every step occurs with exceptional precision and accuracy.

To reach the trillions of functionally different cells, the red blood cells must be pumped there with a great force. Therefore, all oxygenated red blood cells coming from the lungs are directed immediately to the heart. This masterpiece works continuously from birth until death, pumping fresh blood from the lungs to the tissues, and simultaneously pumps oxygen-deprived blood from the tissues to the lungs.(8)

Red blood cells flow through the arteries with great force. When they reach the thinnest arteries (capillaries) at tissues that are only one-cell thick, they almost align in a single queue within the capillaries and move carefully until the oxygen they carry is diffused to the surrounding needy tissue cells. At the same time, the waste gas of carbon dioxide is diffused quickly from the tissue cells into the blood plasma. The red blood cells then are directed into the veins, loaded with waste gas, and sent back to the heart (this requires great energy, as the blood returns to the heart at a very low pressure). From here, the oxygen-deprived red blood cells are pumped back to the lungs to be oxygenated. In the lungs, carbon dioxide is directed out to the sacs and exhaled into the atmosphere.

As creation contains no waste and every existence is useful, this waste gas is recaptured during photosynthesis to create vital oxygen, thereby displaying an unprecedented example of complementarity. Thus solar energy is harnessed to generate oxygen and provides a means of generating energy beneficial to cells (chemical energy). The oxygen created in this process is taken through multiple steps and stages until it is made available to the cells.

Conclusion

Here, we see a clear manifestation of perfect bounty and grace, for the cells needs are brought to them from afar and with extreme care after going through multiple ordered steps that easily could be disturbed. One insight we acquire is that each step takes place rapidly yet accurately, and so must require an infinite power and knowledge to occur.

We, Earth’s most intelligent creatures must admit our relative inability and impotence to understand fully or even to control any of these perfect processes. Rather than behave according to our vested interests and suppose Earth to be under our control, we should seek to understand our responsibility to know that all of these processes are somehow connected with us and subjected for our benefit in so many ways that conscious gratitude and faithfulness are required.

Footnotes

1. http://www.seds.org/nineplanets/nineplanets/sol.html.
2. Richard Monastersky, Deep Dwellers: Microbes Thrive far below Ground, Science News 151 (29 Mar. 1997):192-93.
3. http://gened.emc.maricopa.edu/bio/bio181/BIOBK/.
4. http://www.sciam.com/0297issuehttp://0297scicit3.html.
5. http://gened.emc.maricopa.edu/bio/bio181/BIOBK/.
6. http://fermi.bgsu.edu/~stoner/p201/idealg/tsld009.html.
7. http://biology/01.ux.com/MiraCosta/HumanResp.html.
8. http://www.atlcard.com/pump.html.