Seeing That Seafood

 As I was reading my daily Bible plan (in the Message version, forgive my shallowness) I had to chuckle at Psalms 27:1. Here’s what it says,  "Light, space, zest—that’s God!”.  Pretty over simplified perhaps. That’s why I often open my Daddy’s bible, here on my desk, to find out what  the King James might be saying. Here it is.  You all know it from your earliest memory verse days.   "The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?  The Lord is my strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

But thinking of the " Light, space and Zest” idea, my thoughts naturally turned to ………..Shrimp.

Or “Prawns” as the British/Australians of this world call them.  

If you’re like me and love shrimp, you know them as a tasty tail, a bunch of legs and antennae and some disgusting big buggy eyes. Most places outside of Western culture serve them WHOLE so all of that grossness and  bugginess is on your plate ‘lookin’ at you’.  I have to struggle with disgust and my kind husband is often the one who fixes them up for me so that I can enjoy those delicious few bites.  I won’t even tell you about the time we were served (and ate) LIVE shrimp in Japan……..

But DID YOU KNOW that the shrimp, and most other decapods (10-legged crustaceans such as lobsters, crayfish etc) have the most sophisticated eye systems known to man?

According to scientists, our eyes use lenses to focus light by the use of refraction.  That means the bending of light to a focal point. As we age, our eyeballs get out of shape and the bending of the light isn’t as accurate and that’s why we hope for longer arms or stronger lenses in our glasses.

Ah, but the shrimp and their cousins actually ’see’ using eye mirrors that are of such intricate design, involving photon, crystals, and nanostructure that they can manipulate light at the wavelength level.  

You may notice I’m quoting Creation Magazine directly, and that’s why I’m using scientist-speak.  Believe me, I have to read it out loud to even try to understand.  

Carrying on …….. the mirrors comprise an array of nano spheres with an average diameter of 330nm (that’s smaller than a wavelength of visible light).  These receptors are arranged in regular arrays and wrapped around the bottom half of the light receptor. (have I lost you?) ………. The description goes on and all I can think of is “I regularly chop off and throw away this magnificent creation, so far superior to our own eyes, without a single thought more than a big ‘euww’.  

The bottom line of all this amazing development is that a shrimp can see with the highest refractive indices of any biological creature, able to see blue light, which happens to be the only color of sunlight that can penetrate appreciably 70 meters down to where the shrimp live. But make no mistake:  It didn’t ‘evolve' to this high tech; it was designed and created in one Breath.  AND it has eluded being replicated.  No one has come close to creating even the building blocks necessary to arrive at the finished product.

The rest of the article eludes me, except to say that ‘seeing light’ is crucial to every creature, and God has made it possible.

We are created to SEE the light. God gave shrimp the ability to find the light they need where there seems to be none, on the bottom of a very deep ocean.  I think he made us a little simpler because He KNOWS we can see His Light when we just open our eyes.    

We continue to enjoy walking with Nicki and Chris thru their pregnancy.  Her baby is now ‘seeing’ even though it’ll be sometime until the eyelid skin cells in one swift movement ‘zip’ open to allow that eye to open.  Isn’t it just amazing?   One more of the miracles of life. 

“See” you next time!

Marsha