the wiring

There is an episode of BBC America that my husband can watch (and has) repeatedly. The main character is a baby iguana that manages to escape dozens of hungry snakes within minutes of birth. (It's a rather fast-paced chase scene that may have you jumping up from the couch urging on the fleet footed fellow, getting one's adrenaline pumping as much as your favorite action film.)

Can you imagine within moments of taking your first breath, having the wherewithal to run for your life, to know instinctively that being still is a good first thought (if I remember correcrly, the snakes cannot see, but they sense motion), but running is the absolute and necessary follow up to the failure of stillness? Running fast and far and prefarably high up the side of a nearby hill?

They are wired that way.

Nature's wiring is mind-blowing.

Every living thing on the planet is wired. Or programmed. And although some species are more complex than others, the whole of it, from the single cell amoeba to human beings and everything in between, above and below, is intricate, interconnected and mostly still a mystery to us.

Ever wonder if stars have DNA?