Sunspots 407

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Humor: (or something) The BBC reports that many Swedish babies and toddlers are put outside for their mid-day naps, even in the winter.

Science:  National Public Radio reports that dolphins can, and do, use names to identify each other.

Wired tells us that at least some of the seemingly impossible things that Spider-Man does can be done, or are in development.

Sports: This is going way too far! The University of Alabama has offered an 8th grader a football scholarship, according to Sports Illustrated.

Computing: Gizmo's Freeware has a list of the best apps for Windows 8 (computers or tablets).

Gizmo's also has an article on two web sites designed to help you delete on-line accounts (Facebook, etc.) quickly.

Christianity: A web page on the plant described in the parable of the mustard seed, found in Mark 4:30-32.

Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 404

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science:  NPR reports that sweet potatoes most likely originated in the Americas, and that some of them were taken to Asia by traffic between what is now Latin America and Polynesia, all before Columbus came from Europe.

NPR says that, instead of flu, you may have a Norovirus, which, if anything, is worse.

The Atlantic reports on using DNA to store information, such as the works of Shakespeare.

The Washington Post reports that dogs, who descended from wolves, had a change in diet preference, associated with becoming and remaining domestication.

The Arts:  A musician named James Kibble has recorded all of the organ works of J. S. Bach for free download.

Computing: A social scientist has shown that people are reluctant to wipe the memory of robots, even if they understand that these are not real people.

Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 403

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

 

Science:  National Public Radio reports that sweet potatoes most likely originated in the Americas, and that some of them were taken to Asia by traffic between what is now Latin America and Polynesia, all before Columbus came from Europe.

The Atlantic reports on using DNA to store information, such as the works of Shakespeare.

The Washington Post reports that dogs, who descended from wolves, had a change in diet preference, associated with becoming and remaining domestication.

NPR says that, instead of flu, you may have a Norovirus, which, if anything, is worse.

The Arts:  A James Kibble has recorded all of the organ works of J. S. Bach for free download.

Computing: A social scientist has shown that people are reluctant to wipe the memory of robots, even if they understand that these are not real people.

Image source (public domain)

Deadheading flowers: musings

I'm going to muse about the topic of deadheading. Read on, if you wish.

My wife has a flower garden. She has a number of flowering plants in it. Generally, it's beautiful, especially when there are several flowers of various types showing themselves.

One practice that she has adopted (and I help with, or do) is deadheading. We cut off, or pull off, flowers that are past their peak, in hope that that plant will produce new flowers, more than it would have otherwise produced. My wife also thinks that removing flowers that have withered, or turned into fruits, makes the flower garden more beautiful. Many flower gardeners agree.

Scientists, and gardeners, have discovered that some kinds of plants will, indeed, produce more flowers if deadheaded, but that some won't.

Why does deadheading work? I have done a little searching, and not come up with a clear answer. My guess is that the flowering heads of some plants send chemical signals back to parts of the plant below them, which signals inhibit further flowering. When the flowering head is removed, the plant causes new flowers to develop. This would be similar to the way in which auxin, perhaps the best-understood plant hormone, inhibits the growth of parts of the plant below terminal buds, a phenomenon known as apical dominance. Most small trees have numerous buds along their stems, but only some of them grow into twigs and branches, and, generally, those buds that do have to be some distance from the terminal bud at the tip of the stem. This effect of auxin is a major influence on the way some plants are shaped as they grow. Apparently, such systems are not found in all types of plants, for flowering, but, probably, they are in some plants.

We don't know everything. One reason that we don't know as much as we would like to about flowering is that scientists still have not clearly identified the flowering hormone, or hormones. (Florigen is the name for such hypothesized hormones.) Not for lack of trying. A chemical called Flowering Locus T, or FT, is likely to be one of the flowering hormones, but almost certainly, there are several, with different roles in the flowering process.

Why is flowering important? Why should taxpayer dollars be spent on research on flowering? There are good answers. Flowers are beautiful. We should preserve and honor beauty for its own sake, and because it is part of the way God's goodness is expressed in the world. Also, flowers are a commercial product, so people make their living from them. A great deal of the food we eat would not exist without flowers. Think of the citrus fruits, of the Rose family (apples, strawberries, pears, peaches, almonds, and many more) of melons of all kinds, of squashes, of beans, peas, peanuts and their relatives, of tomatoes and peppers, to name a few.* Most of us can recognize some of these plants by their flowers, which are often quite prominent. We eat the fruit of these plants, which wouldn't exist without their flowers. (To botanist, a fruit is a ripened flower part, so that we eat bean fruit, even though it's commonly called a vegetable.) The more we can learn about flowering, the more likely we are to be able to continue to feed ourselves well.

Two lessons from deadheading
While deadheading recently, it occurred to me that I often forget the beauty of the flowers around me, in full bloom, while I look for the withered and less beautiful ones. That's a mistake! Similarly, I should concentrate on the good in my life, and put the bad, what little there is, in its proper place.

Jesus didn't speak of deadheading, but He did mention pruning, in a passage in John 15. I need to have the rotten, messy stuff taken out of me -- the parts that are unlike Christ. Why? So that, as my life resembles His more and more, I can bring help in the conversion and discipling of new Christ-followers, and so I can manifest the fruit of the Spirit.

Thanks for reading. Go and deadhead some plants, or seek pruning from God.


*The most important food plants are members of the grass family, corn or maize, rice and wheat. I'm not sure if the same flowering hormones that work on, say, roses, work on grasses, or not. I've never heard of deadheading such plants!

Sunspots 356

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: Carl Zimmer tells us that mammals have a gene that's absolutely needed for embryonic development, that came to us from a virus.

From Fox News, a report, with a picture, on a flower grown from seed frozen into the ice, thousands of years ago.

Wired reports that dolphins do the equivalent of saying "Hello, I'm Jane Smith."

Image source (public domain)

How do you understand a tree?

How to you understand a tree? There are many ways of doing so.


The above photo, of Bradford pear trees in morning sunlight, is from my Flickr photostream. The photo is a link to the original, which is posted there.

Back when I was a college biology professor, I would occasionally say something like this:

One way to understand a tree is to stand under it. You can listen to the wind blowing through the branches. You can feel the bark, and you can look at the leaves. You can watch for insects and spiders climbing up and down it, and look for birds and squirrels nesting in it. You can try to imagine the life of the tree, through years of growth, in various conditions. You can thank the tree for making shade, which can make life more comfortable, and for giving off Oxygen, which we can breathe. For many trees, you can also thank the tree for its fruit. You can thank it for its beauty during the various seasons of the year.


The picture above is, in part, of cells. It is from a public domain drawing of a microscopic view of part of the bark of a cork oak tree, by Robert Hooke, who named cells because of what he saw -- a resemblance to prison cells.

There's another way to understand a tree. You can take a core sample, and count the rings of annual growth, and make guesses about why some years' growth was larger than others. You can examine sample cells under a microscope, study its biochemistry with various analytic devices, measure the light absorption of the leaves, and count the root branches -- and, if you like, you can take the square root of that number!

Which of the two ways is better? That depends on what you are trying to accomplish, or what you need. Both ways have validity, with a legitimate purpose behind them. The first way can be called holistic, or wholistic. (See Wikipedia on holism.) It may help us to appreciate a tree in ways that the second sort of methods does not. An artist or poet, or a landscape architect, an ecologist, or a property owner, should use the first method.

But the second method is also legitimate. That way can be called reductionistic. As the Wikipedia article referred to above says, "Reductionism in science says that a complex system can be explained by reduction to its fundamental parts. For example, the processes of biology are reducible to chemistry and the laws of chemistry are explained by physics." (See also the Wikipedia article on reductionism, which is a complex subject!)

A wholistic examination of a tree would never discover an explanation for certain processes, such as how water gets to the leaves from the roots, or how photosynthesis works. It would probably not discover that certain medicines could be derived from parts of a tree. Science mostly uses reductionistic methods, so much so that some biologists may be accused of not knowing what the organism they are studying looks like -- they only study cell cultures, or enzymes, or DNA sequences.

The Psalmist said, about a righteous person:
He will be like a tree planted by the streams of water,

that produces its fruit in its season,

whose leaf also does not wither.

Whatever he does shall prosper. (Psalm 1:3, World English Bible, public domain.)

Both methods of looking at trees, or tarantulas, or trout, have their value, and neither method should be ignored or despised at the expense of the other. God presumably looks at trees in both ways, better than we could possibly do so. He has given us the ability to look at trees in both ways. Some of us have talent as photographers, or poets, and some as molecular biologists or geochemists.

One of my daughters gave me a book for Christmas. Soon after starting it, I came across a passage entitled
"I CONSIDER A TREE," and found that the author had thought many of the same thoughts that I had, and more deeply. Martin Buber said this (and more):

I can perceive it as movement: flowing veins on clinging, pressing pith, suck of the roots, breathing of the leaves, ceaseless commerce with the earth and air -- and the obscure growth itself.

I can classify it as a species and study it as a type in its structure and mode of life.

I can subdue its actual presence and form so sternly that I recognise it only as an expression of law -- of the laws in accordance with which a constant opposition of forces is continually adjusted, or of those in accordance with which the component substances mingle and separate.

. . .
It can, however, also come about, if I have both will and grace, that in considering the tree I become bound up in relation to it.  I and Thou, translated by Ronald Gregor Smith. New York: Scribner Classics, 2000. pp. 22-23.

I have posted on trees before, here. Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 300

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: The DNA of the water flea, Daphnia, has been sequenced, according to a report on NPR.

That marcescence is the term applied to deciduous trees that do not shed their leaves in the fall, such as the beech.

Politics: Wired discusses attempts to count large gatherings, like those in Cairo. They say that Tahrir Square will only hold about 225,000 people.

(or something) A newly discovered Brazilian tribe has probably had no contact with "civilized" people, ever. Wired shows photos, taken from the air. There are perhaps 100 such tribes around the world.

Computing:  Gizmo's Freeware reports on Prey, a free program, running on Windows, Mac, and Android, that allows you to order a missing smart phone to send you a map of where it is, and/or take photos showing its surroundings.

Image source (public domain)

Photosynthesis: What it does

The above is a graphical depiction of two equations for photosynthesis, which, arguably, is the most important chemical process on earth. The importance has to do with the production of food. It is true that photosynthesis also releases Oxygen, but there's plenty of Oxygen already available in the atmosphere -- if photosynthesis stopped today, we would starve soon. We wouldn't run out of Oxygen for hundreds of years.

The second equation is balanced. (In case you are wondering why there is water on both sides, it's because radioactive tracing has shown that this is what actually happens. The six waters on the right are newly made in the process.)

As you can discover, if you don't already know it, photosynthesis is a complex process. Check the link. I just wanted to produce a chart of the basics. You should be able to access larger sizes of the chart by using it as a link.

Thank God for photosynthesis!

Plant growth: consider the lilies

"Consider the lilies how they grow: . . ." (Luke 12:27a, KJV)

Jesus apparently was teaching a lesson on trusting God for what we need. (See entire chapter.) So I am wresting scripture, or at least using it as it probably wasn't meant, but I have an excuse, namely that I'm not expounding on that Bible passage, but musing about a natural phenomenon. OK, sorry. Two more Bible references: Psalm 19 and Romans 1:20, where the Bible tells us that we can learn about God by observing nature.

First, what is a plant? Well, that's a good question. The Wikipedia says that, in the strict sense, plants are green organisms that carry out photosynthesis, and are multicellular. Unlike animal cells, which are generally flexible, plant cells have cell walls. As a result, the total plant is relatively inflexible, and cannot catch their food. They must make it, because they can't go after it. Plants have cellulose in their cell walls. There are some exceptions. A few plants can't carry on photosynthesis. This one can't:




(You can learn more about this plant by clicking on the photo as a link.) This plant is a close relative of plants that can carry out photosynthesis. It is multicellular. It even has flowers. But it has no chlorophyll, and doesn't carry on photosynthesis.

Fungi, and non-green algae, and bacteria, are not plants, to biologists of the 21st century. They used to be classified as such, but things have changed.

What is growth? Let's say that it means getting larger, and/or becoming more mature.

When animals grow, they basically add more cells. The cells do get larger, of course. If they didn't, every generation of cells would be half as large as the previous one, and soon the cells would be too small to function. But I grew by adding more cells, more or less all over my body, until I reached adult size. Plants do the same thing. They add more cells. But many plants do so in a somewhat different way. There are specialized tissues, called meristematic tissues, or meristem, where new plant cells are made, by cell division. For example, there is a cylinder of meristematic cells, between the bark and the wood of most trees, which is responsible for production of a new layer of wood each year. It is also responsible for production of a new layer of bark. That cylinder is called the vascular cambium. It divides, leaving new wood cells just inside the cylinder, and new bark cells just outside it. The vascular cambium makes its own new cells, too, and the cylinder expands, staying just outside the wood.

Buds have meristematic tissue in them. Some buds develop into flowers, some into leaves and twigs. Both types do so as their meristematic tissue produces more cells, which, after they have been split off, differentiate to take up their adult functions.

Animals have stem cells, of which plant meristematic cells are one type, but, generally, animals are more complex than plants, and animal cells, which lack a rigid cell wall, are more able to move and stretch out than plant cells, so it is more difficult to recognize animal stem cells.

We need to grow, too, as individuals and personalities. We don't do so in tiny compartments -- cells. We do so as a whole.

Oliver Wendell Holmes put it this way:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!

- from "The Chambered Nautilus," Chapter four of The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (public domain).

Thanks for reading!

Leprosy in a house?

Leviticus 14 has some amazing statements, including this one:
33 The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, 34 “When you come into the land of Canaan, which I give you for a possession, and I put a case of leprous disease in a house in the land of your possession, 35 then he who owns the house shall come and tell the priest, ‘There seems to me to be some case of disease in my house.’ (emphasis added) (ESV)


Robert Jamieson put it like this:

34-48. leprosy in a house--This law was prospective, not to come into operation till the settlement of the Israelites in Canaan. The words, "I put the leprosy," has led many to think that this plague was a judicial infliction from heaven for the sins of the owner; while others do not regard it in this light, it being common in Scripture to represent God as doing that which He only permits in His providence to be done. Assuming it to have been a natural disease, a new difficulty arises as to whether we are to consider that the house had become infected by the contagion of leprous occupiers; or that the leprosy was in the house itself. It is evident that the latter was the true state of the case, from the furniture being removed out of it on the first suspicion of disease on the walls. Some have supposed that the name of leprosy was analogically applied to it by the Hebrews, as we speak of cancer in trees when they exhibit corrosive effects similar to what the disease so named produces on the human body; while others have pronounced it a mural efflorescence or species of mildew on the wall apt to be produced in very damp situations, and which was followed by effects so injurious to health as well as to the stability of a house, particularly in warm countries, as to demand the attention of a legislator. Moses enjoined the priests to follow the same course and during the same period of time for ascertaining the true character of this disease as in human leprosy. If found leprous, the infected parts were to be removed. If afterwards there appeared a risk of the contagion spreading, the house was to be destroyed altogether and the materials removed to a distance. The stones were probably rough, unhewn stones, built up without cement in the manner now frequently used in fences and plastered over, or else laid in mortar. The oldest examples of architecture are of this character. The very same thing has to be done still with houses infected with mural salt. The stones covered with the nitrous incrustation must be removed, and if the infected wall is suffered to remain, it must be plastered all over anew.
48-57. the priest shall pronounce the house clean, because the plague is healed--The precautions here described show that there is great danger in warm countries from the house leprosy, which was likely to be increased by the smallness and rude architecture of the houses in the early ages of the Israelitish history. As a house could not contract any impurity in the sight of God, the "atonement" which the priest was to make for it must either have a reference to the sins of its occupants or to the ceremonial process appointed for its purification, the very same as that observed for a leprous person. This solemn declaration that it was "clean," as well as the offering made on the occasion, was admirably calculated to make known the fact, to remove apprehension from the public mind, as well as relieve the owner from the aching suspicion of dwelling in an infected house. (1871, public domain)


I am not sure what mural salt is, but suppose that it is a deposit of crystals, caused by a fluid containing a crystallizable substance, which fluid seeps out of a wall, and evaporates, leaving a crystalline residue.


Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 231

Maybe some of you don't want to know, but Wired has an article on the chemicals found in a cup of coffee, and their significance to the human body.

I'm having a blogging hiatus, God willing.

Kudzu

Kudzu has been discovered growing in Canada, according to the Toronto Globe and Mail. As you can see from the photo above, kudzu is a vining plant. It happens to be a member of the pea, or Fabaceae family of flowering plants. That means that it has structures in the roots, nodules, which Nitrogen-fixing bacteria can live in. These bacteria take Nitrogen out of the air in the soil, and begin the process of making it available to the kudzu plant, and, thence, to anything that will eat that plant. Nitrogen is found in proteins, and in DNA and RNA, and elsewhere. Living things absolutely must have it in order to exist.

Which brings up a question. How many signs of insect damage (or damage from plant-eating vertebrates, for that matter) do you see in the photo? The answer is none. In spite of kudzu's remarkably rapid growth -- the vines can grow up to a foot a day in good weather -- and that it is a source of protein, it is not eaten readily by many animals. Goats will eat it. I once tried to feed some captive mice some kudzu leaves. Apparently they would gladly have starved to death rather than eating the stuff, so I relented, and put them back on a more normal diet.

Why won't the animals of the Southeastern part of North America, where kudzu grows, eat the plant? Most likely, the answer is that kudzu is not native to that area. It is native to Japan, and parts of China. Presumably, in these areas there are various kinds of insects, and other animals, that eat it. But not in the Southeastern US. When kudzu was brought here, to stop erosion, the animals that eat it were left behind. As a result, kudzu grows almost unchecked. But it is checked. How? by frost. The first common green plant to perish when the weather gets cooler seems to be kudzu. The last plant to start growing in the summer is kudzu. It covers many a hill or field during the time between the first autumn freeze, and the last freeze of the next Spring.

This photo:



Shows how kudzu is anything but green in the winter.

It is not good stewardship to bring non-native living things into an area. They often tend to mess up ths organisms that are already there.

Norman Borlaug, Nobel prize winning botanist, dies

Norman Borlaug, architect of the Green Revolution, has passed away, at age 95.

The categories for the Nobel Prizes were mostly determined by the will of Alfred Nobel. A number of geneticists, such as Watson and Crick, have won or shared in the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, but there is no prize in genetics. There is no prize in zoology, or botany. A few zoologists have won the Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Borlaug, a botanist, made scientific and agricultural contributions of such importance that he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970.

What did Borlaug do? What is the Green Revolution? Put simply, Borlaug worked, for many years, on improving crop yields in third world countries. Much of his work was in the field in those countries. There is a chart included in the Wikipedia article on the man that dramatically shows the effect of the work of Borlaug and his colleagues. Wheat yields in Mexico, according to the chart, increased by more than four-fold since 1950. Borlaug's techniques involved increased fertilizer and other agricultural techniques which had not been used very much in third world countries, and breeding crops that could take advantage of these techniques. It seems clear that Borlaug's work kept many people, probably many millions, from starvation.

Borlaug's work has not been without controversy. Critics have claimed that Borlaug's techniques have worked to the advantage of agribusiness companies, made third world farmers too dependent on seed that they may not always be able to afford, and harmed the environment. There is some truth in all these claims, but Borlaug believed that producing more food was more important. He has also put forward the Borlaug Hypothesis, which states that improving crop yields makes deforestation less likely. He has stated that population growth is one of the important reasons why people don't have enough food.

Science is sometimes accused of being too divorced from people's real needs. Maybe so. What, if any, is the practical value of string theory? But discoveries that, at first, seem only interesting to specialists, or irrelevant to human physical or economic needs, often turn out to be of immense practical use. One example is Mendel's work in studying how some characteristics of peas were inherited. I doubt if Mendel, or Mendel's contemporaries, had any idea that his discoveries would make tremendous advances in agriculture and medicine possible. Without Mendel, no Borlaug. Science is also a way of learning about God. Psalm 19:1-4 and Romans 1:20 tell us that how nature works is one of the ways God is revealed to us.

I'm not sure Borlaug's work has helped us to know God better, but it has helped lots of people stay alive, so that they have a chance of learning about Him. We should be grateful for his work.

Thanks for reading.

Why women use makeup, maybe?

Tropical biologist Dr. Daniel Janzen offers a provocative theory that I find irresistible. Humans, he suggests, descend from a long line of primate ancestors that relished fruit. The pigments and essential oils that plants employ in their flowers also cue the ripening of berries. In particular, the esters and alcohols in the aromas of soft fruits are often identical to floral scents. Janzen argues that flower appreciation is just a happy by-product of evolution, a refinement of the senses we need to find and select a ripe banana.
. . . Janzen sees tremendous irony in some of the fads in human fashion and courtship. The woman who wears perfume and brightens her face with cosmetics, he suggests, is not emulating a blooming rose bursting with sexual allure. She is mimicking a plump, juicy rose hip bursting with vitamin C. From The Rose's Kiss: A Natural History of Flowers by Peter Bernhardt (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1999, pp. 120-121)

Well, that's one theory.

Close-up or red lily, showing reproductive parts

This is an unretouched close-up of a lily flower. The six weiner-shaped objects are the anthers. As you can see, they were producing pollen when the photo was taken. They are, of course, held up by filaments. Together, the two parts make up stamens. The three-lobed object on the right, about halfway up, is a stigma. It is held up by a style, which connects the stigma to the ovary. (You can't see that in this photo.) The stigma is where pollen lands, and, if all goes well, fertilization will take place, resulting in an embryo in a seed, in the ovary.

The background consists of three petals, with three sepals, which look just like the petals in this flower, being outside the petals. You can see a sepal or two showing through. Isn't God a great artist? (Larger sizes should be available by clicking on the photo, if you wish to see more detail.)

I expect to be doing some family travel. I've got some posts scheduled to go out on the next two Sundays, and will probably be able to do a Sunspots on Wednesday, but, otherwise, I'm out of the blogging business for over a week.

Thanks for reading and/or looking. God's best to all of you.

Phlox, aka thrift, with morning dew

This is a photo of Phlox, known locally as thrift, growing in our lawn, with dew on the flower parts. The actual flowers are about an inch, or 3 cm, across. They grow close to the ground, and come also in white, and in a darker purple color.

Isn't God a great artist?

We will be having some family doings for the next few days, so I don't expect to be blogging, or reading your posts.

Thanks for looking.

Figs

Figs on a tree

The Wikipedia says that there are about 850 species of figs. However, in another article, it also says that the plant that we use is the common fig, Ficus carica. Most of my knowledge of this plant comes from that article.

Figs have been cultivated by humans since about 9,000 B. C., and may have been the earliest cultivated plants. The first evidence for this comes from the Gilgal archaeological site, which is near Jericho.

Figs may be eaten as they are, or made into jam or preserves, or dried. They don't keep well for transport, so are often sold as dried figs. One form of dried figs is fig newtons.

The fruit is sweet, all right. Nearly 48% of a fig's weight is carbohydrate. The good news is that less than 1% is fat. The fruit is almost 10% fiber, by weight. They are a good source of Calcium and flavonols. As some of you probably know, they have a laxative effect.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of fig life is the way in which fig flowers are fertilized. In the first place, what we think of as a fig fruit hides the flowers, which were, presumably, inside the green fig shown above in the photo. So how are they fertilized? There are wasps, fig wasps, which live inside these fruit/flowers, and move from one to another, pollinating as they goes. In fact, the Wikipedia on fig wasps says that we may be eating wasps when we eat figs. Apparently the wasps are very small. For more on this topic, including photos, see here.

There are videos, from PBS, available here, and here (several segments of an originally longer video). I am not clear as to whether the fig shown in these videos are the figs we grow and eat.

This post is on many of the times figs are mentioned in the Bible.

Thanks for reading!

Pomegranates in the Bible

The photo above is of a pomegranate flower bud, about to open, taken in Southern California. The color is natural. The largest bud in the photo was about 2 inches/7 cm long. The photo is a live link to our Flickr photos.

Based on the Bible, pomegranates must have been important in the culture of the Middle East.

Exodus 28 and 39 say that the garment worn by the priest was to be decorated with blue, purple and scarlet pomegranates, made of yarn.

When the spies came back from Israel to Moses and the people, they brought samples of the fruit of the land, including pomegranates.

To the ancient Israelites, and to God, one of the signs that a land was good was that it was able to grow pomegranates. (Deuteronomy 8) In the desert, they complained to Moses that they would rather have stayed in Egypt, because there were no pomegranates in the desert. (Numbers 20)

Solomon's temple had bronze pillars, decorated with pomegranates. (I Kings 7)

The Song of Solomon, that great poem to erotic love, describes a beautiful woman's cheeks as being like the halves of a pomegranate.

Here's a photo of a more mature pomegranate fruit. Here's the Wikipedia article on pomegranates.

Thanks for reading!

Buds: a promise of new things, part 2

The photo above is of buds on a blueberry bush, in our back yard. The photo, itself, should serve as a link to larger versions of the same photo, if you care to look.

In the first part, I quoted all the scripture passages that mention buds. In this one, I shall muse a little about the botany of buds. Here's the Wikipedia article on buds, which probably tells you more about buds than you want to know.

A bud is growth tissue that hasn't grown yet, so it is a promise of new things. Woody plants, especially, do not grow like we do. A human (and vertebrate animals in general) more or less just expands in size as it grows. (The proportions aren't quite exact -- babies have bigger heads, and smaller legs and feet, than an adult, proportionally speaking.) But a tree or a bush doesn't do that. There is a special type of tissue, called meristematic tissue, which accomplishes the creation of new cells for such a plant. Meristematic tissue is localized, not distributed evenly. As a result, most of the growth of a twig is in length, as the meristematic tissue in the terminal bud keeps making new cells, and moving on out as it does. There is some growth in thickness, due to other sets of meristematic cells, but most of the growth is upwards. If you pound a nail in a tree in 2007, and come back in 2010, the nail will be the same distance from the ground, because the tree grows in length at its extremities, rather than simply expanding.

Buds have meristematic tissue in them. When they add new cells, and these cells enlarge and mature, they can become more twig, a leaf, or a flower. The buds in the photo produced blueberry flowers, which reproduced and developed into blueberries. They were good! But they weren't there when the photo was taken.

All of the Biblical references to buds refer, in some way, to new growth. I hope that I am still growing, spiritually and emotionally, if not physically. Perhaps I am a soul in bud.

Buds: a promise of new things, part 1

The word, bud, including variations, occurs 11 times in the King James Version of the Bible. In the English Standard Version, it occurs in 8 verses, but the search I used returned only bud, not budded, or other variants.

Here are all of these passages, combined, as they are in the ESV:
Genesis 40:9 So the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph and said to him, “In my dream there was a vine before me, 10 and on the vine there were three branches. As soon as it budded, its blossoms shot forth, and the clusters ripened into grapes. 11 Pharaoh's cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup and placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand.”

Exodus 9:29 Moses said to him, “As soon as I have gone out of the city, I will stretch out my hands to the Lord. The thunder will cease, and there will be no more hail, so that you may know that the earth is the Lord's. 30 But as for you and your servants, I know that you do not yet fear the Lord God.” 31 (The flax and the barley were struck down, for the barley was in the ear and the flax was in bud.

Numbers 17:6 Moses spoke to the people of Israel. And all their chiefs gave him staffs, one for each chief, according to their fathers' houses, twelve staffs. And the staff of Aaron was among their staffs. 7 And Moses deposited the staffs before the Lord in the tent of the testimony.
8 On the next day Moses went into the tent of the testimony, and behold, the staff of Aaron for the house of Levi had sprouted and put forth buds and produced blossoms, and it bore ripe almonds.

Job 14:7 “For there is hope for a tree,
if it be cut down, that it will sprout again,
and that its shoots will not cease.
8 Though its root grow old in the earth,
and its stump die in the soil,
9 yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put out branches like a young plant.

Job 38:25 “Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain
and a way for the thunderbolt,
26 to bring rain on a land where no man is,
on the desert in which there is no man,
27 to satisfy the waste and desolate land,
and to make the ground sprout with grass? [The NIV also uses sprout. The KJV uses bud. Where the ESV and the KJV use the same word, I didn't check the NIV.]

Psalm 132:13 For the Lord has chosen Zion;
he has desired it for his dwelling place:
14 “This is my resting place forever;
here I will dwell, for I have desired it.
15 I will abundantly bless her provisions;
I will satisfy her poor with bread.
16 Her priests I will clothe with salvation,
and her saints will shout for joy.
17 There I will make a horn to sprout for David;
I have prepared a lamp for my anointed. [The NIV uses grow. The KJV uses bud.]

Song of Solomon 6:11 I went down to the nut orchard
to look at the blossoms of the valley,
to see whether the vines had budded,
whether the pomegranates were in bloom.

Song of Solomon 7:12 let us go out early to the vineyards
and see whether the vines have budded,
whether the grape blossoms have opened
and the pomegranates are in bloom.
There I will give you my love.

Isaiah 55:10 “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. [The NIV uses bud, as does the KJV.]

Isaiah 61:11 For as the earth brings forth its sprouts,
and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up,
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
to sprout up before all the nations. [The NIV uses bud, as does the KJV.]

Ezekiel 7:10 “Behold, the day! Behold, it comes! Your doom has come; the rod has blossomed; pride has budded.

Ezekiel 16:7 I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare. [The NIV also uses plant. The KJV uses bud.]

Ezekiel 29:21 “On that day I will cause a horn to spring up for the house of Israel, and I will open your lips among them. Then they will know that I am the Lord.” [The NIV also uses horn. The KJV uses bud.]

Hosea 8:7 For they sow the wind,
and they shall reap the whirlwind.
The standing grain has no heads;
it shall yield no flour;
if it were to yield,
strangers would devour it. [The NIV uses head. The KJV uses buds.]

Hebrews 9:3 Behind the second curtain was a second section called the Most Holy Place, 4 having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron's staff that budded, and the tablets of the covenant. 5 Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.

There are, thus, at least 15 such passages.

A later post deals with the botany of buds.

Thanks for reading.