by Kyle Butt, M.A.The production of different kinds of glue and adhesives has been going on for some time. Glue sticks, wood glue, paper glue, and super glue are just a few of the marketable, beneficial products that have proven useful. But suppose a company were to announce that it had recently employed several top scientists who invented the world’s most powerful adhesive—the world’s strongest glue. Such an announcement would certainly be newsworthy, and the inventors of the glue would most likely make a considerable amount of money from the discovery.
Interestingly, such an announcement has been made—almost. Last week reports detailing the world’s strongest glue began to circulate. Yet, this glue did not originate in the mind of a brilliant human scientist, nor was it the product of years of intense experimental research. The glue is a natural phenomenon produced by a bacterium known as Caulobacter crescentus (Binns, 2006). How strong is this newly discovered stickum? Binns noted: “The adhesive can withstand an enormous amount of stress, equal to the force felt by a quarter with more than three cars piled on top of it. That’s two to three times more force than the best retail glues can handle” (2006).
So we have found glue produced by a single-celled bacterium that outperforms every glue that has ever been designed by human engineers. What conclusion can be drawn from such a discovery? The obvious conclusion is that the Engineer who designed the bacterium with the ability to produce such glue possesses intelligence superior to that of our best human engineers. In fact, Binns noted that, even though the glue has been discovered, “it’s not clear how the glue actually works.”
The more scientists explore the natural world, the more they are confronted with evidence that establishes the fact that God’s thoughts are higher than man’s thoughts (Isaiah 55:8). By the way, the scientists who are attempting to duplicate the glue are having considerable trouble due to the fact that the glue sticks to everything “including the tools used to make it.” Maybe a closer look at the bacterium would help us determine how God equipped it to handle this sticky problem.
Binns, Corey (2006), “World’s Strongest Glue! Available Only From Nature!” [On-line], URL: http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/060410_nature_glue.html.
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