Painted turtles live farther north than any other North American turtle. The baby turtles hatch in the late summer but stay buried in the ground, safe from predators all winter. However, the turtle's nest is not deep enough to keep from freezing solid during frigid winter weather. So how do the turtles survive?
As the baby turtles freeze, their blood circulation concentrates on preserving the action of the heart and brain. Eventually even these freeze solid. There is no breathing and no heartbeat. Only a tiny bit of electrical activity in the frozen brain reveals that life remains in the body. Normally, when living cells freeze, long sharp ice crystals form, puncturing the cell membrane and killing the cells. This is one reason that cryogenically frozen people cannot be revived. The presence of a special protein, which is made in the turtle's body, prevents the ice cyrstals from becoming large enough to puncture delicate cell walls.
How could random processes have produced this protein? Either it was present the moment the turtle was created, or the turtle would have died during the first hard freeze. Only God could have invented such a unique method of protecting tiny painted turtles.
From A Closer Look at the Evidence by Kleiss, February 11.
