Page 189 - Once Upon a Time There Was Darwinism

Harun Yahya
(Adnan Oktar)

of the hoof reveals that it is a storehouse of coaptations and
of organic novelties. The horny wall, by its vertical keratophyl
laminae, is fused with the podophyl laminae of the keratogenous
layer. The respective lengths of the bones, their mode of articulation,
the curves and shapes of the articular surfaces, the structure of bones
(orientation, arrangement of the bony layers), the presence of liga-
ments, tendons sliding with sheaths, buffer cushions, navicular bone,
synovial membranes with their serous lubricating liquid, all imply a
continuity in the construction which random events, necessarily
chaotic and incomplete, could not have produced and maintained.
This description does not go into the detail of the ultrastructure where
the adaptations are even more remarkable; they provide solutions to
the problems of mechanics involved in rapid locomotion on mon-
odactyl limbs. 139
Grassé's statements clearly show the perfect structure of a
horse's leg. Even more is known today about it, as a recent study re-
veals.

In a 2002 study, researchers from the University of Florida dis-
covered that one particular bone in a horse's leg (the third metacar-
pus bone) had unique properties. As revealed by this study, there
was a hole, the size of a pea through which blood vessels could enter,
on one side of the bone. Naturally holes cause weaknessess. In labo-
ratory stress tests, however, contrary to ordinary expectations, the
bone didn't break near the hole. Further analysis showed that the
bone was arranged in such a way as to push stress into a stronger re-
gion, preventing the horse's leg from breaking at that point. This

structure attracted so many admirers that NASA financed
Andrew Rapoff, an assistant professor of aerospace and
mechanical engineering, to imitate it in the aircrafts
near the holes for wiring. 140

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