For a long time, scientists have puzzled over fossil evidence that dragonflies once grew two-foot wingspans and millipedes were 5 feet long. Now they have discovered a possible reason: more oxygen. Insects do not have lungs to process oxygen but have holes in their exoskeletons to allow air to circulate through hollow tubes called tracheae.

Air passes through the tracheae directly to the cells that process oxygen into energy. The amount of oxygen available determines how far oxygen can travel down the tube, according to the scientist doing the study. Thus, with more oxygen in the air, the tubes could be longer and allow the insect to grow larger.

Experiments with insects in oxygenenriched chambers made them grow larger. The present oxygen content of air is about 21 percent. A level of 31-35% may have been enough to grow the larger insects.

This is exactly the range that other scientists have found in the air bubbles in fossilized tree sap (amber). This oxygen-rich atmosphere, and its reduction, also can explain what happened to the dinosaurs. As illustrated in a recent Chick tract, There Go The Dinosaurs, a drop in the oxygen level in the atmosphere would put these huge animals in jeopardy. Their nostrils and air passages were not large enough to supply sufficient oxygen to their lungs if the oxygen in the air was at present levels. They would soon die or be limited to a much smaller size.

Dr. Kent Hovind in his Creation Seminar Series (available at www.drdino.com) presents extensive evidence that the oxygen level before Noah`s flood was much higher and so was the air pressure. He explains how this not only created conditions where insects would grow much larger but so would the other animals. He shows pictures of fossils of huge sharks, birds, turtles, cockroaches and lizards. He goes on to describe in detail the atmospheric conditions before the flood, the catastrophic nature of the flood and the aftermath where we live today.

The question of where we came from, created by God or evolved from primordial soup, is central to faith in Jesus and the Bible. Our culture increasingly pushes evolution as truly scientific and poohpoohs the Bible as a collection of myths.

The godless media and government school curricula are saturated with this propaganda. Christian parents are having to work overtime to counter these lies and teach their children the truth. The Hovind seminar series on DVD gives parents powerful ammunition in this fight. Hovind spent 15 years as a high school science teacher and knows how to hold your interest. He effectively communicates an entirely different, biblical worldview than what students absorb from the modern culture.

Chick Publications has a variety of books, tracts and a poster to support the biblical and scientific proof that the earth was made by a loving Creator who died for the sins of mankind.