“He is Allah, the Creator, the Maker, the Fashioner. His are the most beautiful names. All that is in the heavens and the earth glorifies Him, and He is the Mighty, the Wise.” (Al Quran 59:25)

How can our study and appreciation of beauty in nature help us in our personal life?  In the words of Promised Messiah, Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, may blessings of Allah be on him, “Man has, therefore, been reminded that his God is the Lord and Providence of the Universe, so that the horizon of his hopes may be extended and he may believe that God, the Supreme, has immense beneficial powers and that He can bring into being an extensive variety of means for his benefit.”

The Jewish prophets also tried to find the Transcendent God in the beauty of nature.  The Holy Quran says:

“And We (Allah) bestowed on David, Solomon who was an excellent servant. He was always turning to Us. When there were brought before him at eventide steeds of noblest breed and swift of foot. He said, ‘I love the love of horses because they remind me of my Lord.’ So great was his love of them that when they were hidden behind the veil, he said, ‘Bring them back to me.’ Then he began to pass his hand over their legs and their necks.”  (Al Quran 38:31-34)

To read my article about MTA USA series 2006: Attributes of Allah:

Birds can travel the world without any of the gizmos that humans depend on, and a new study suggests how: Our feathered friends might “see” Earth’s magnetic field.

While other mechanisms are thought to help birds navigate, including magnetically sensitive cells within their beaks, their brain regions responsible for vision are in full gear during magnetic navigation, researchers said.

“If you look into the brain of a bird during magnetic compass orientation, only the visual system is highly active,” said study co-author Henrik Mouritsen, a biologist at the University of Oldenburg in Germany, noting that most migratory birds do so at night. “Other regions of the brain are not, so birds could use vision to ‘see’ Earth’s magnetism and orient themselves.”

Mouritsen and his colleagues’ findings are detailed online in a recent issue of the journal PLoS ONE.

The researchers previously discovered molecules called cryptochromes, which change their chemistry in the presence of a magnetic field, in the retinas of migratory birds’ eyes.

“When light hits these molecules, their chemistry changes and magnetism can influence them,” Mouritsen said. The molecules might then affect light-sensing cells in the retina to create images, which would help the brain navigate during flight, he added.

A direct connection between the specialized cells and the region of the bird’s brain active during magnetic orientation, however, had never been shown before.

Mouritsen and his team recently found such connections between the cryptochrome-holding retinal cells and the “cluster N” region of migratory birds’ brains, located in part of the brain responsible for vision.

Read more: