Among the most dangerous snakes for human beings that can still be found in Israel are the following: the black desert cobra, the Palestine viper, the Palestine ladder snake, the horned desert viper.

The Hebrew word zera, which means “seed”, both vegetal and animal, was translated into Greek as sperma, meaning “that which has been sown”.

Certain species of leech are capable of sucking an amount of blood equivalent to ten times their weight.

The Jews of biblical times used it as a condiment for their meals, and also as an antiseptic and disinfectant. It is a bush which can reach a height of 60 to 90 cm.

It has very large green leaves, scattered throughout the plant, with a rib system that resembles the fingers of the human hand. That is how it got the name “Palma Christi”.

After other predators have consumed the soft parts of their prey, the bonebreakers arrive to feast on the skeleton. They are capable of swallowing and digesting 20 cm long pieces of bone.

Only those who know they are completely powerless before God, and accept what God did for them, can be saved.

The colour purple appears in more than 50 verses, both in the Old and New Testaments, where it refers to this reddish-purple to deep-purple dye.

The heads of cloth moths (Tinea pellionella) are usually covered with hairs, they have a short proboscis, long antennae and maxillary palps.

The gnats, the third of the plagues, are described in Exodus as annoying parasites which attacked both humans and livestock.

Miguel Wickham analyses the IPCC climate experts' report, which warns of serious consequences for habitability if temperatures continue to rise as a result of human action.

The Armenian cucumber is not a true cucumber, but is most likely the fruit referred to in Num. 11:5 and Is. 1:8.

At the end of the summer and in winter there was not enough pasture to feed the livestock, so the animals had to be taken up into the mountains and food provided for them manually. Green branches of trees and bushes were cut for this purpose.

In the Bible, this vegetation appears as a symbol of human inconsistency, as the wicked are described as “straw which the wind drives away”.

‘My Octopus Teacher’ has won the Oscar for best documentary feature film. What can the relationship between a diver and a common octopus show us about God’s grace?

Normally bears avoid contact with humans but, if they are disturbed, or hungry, or robbed of their cubs, they are extremely dangerous (Isaiah 11:7; Amos 5:19; 2 Samuel 17:8; Prov. 17:12; 28:15; Hosea 13:8).

The Olea europea is one of the most emblematic trees in the regions bordering the Mediterranean, and abundant in the Holy Land since remote antiquity. The Bible refers to it, and to the products that are obtained from it, on many occasions.

Black mustard seed, as tiny as the head of a needle, is one of the smallest seeds that can be perceived by the naked human eye.

To date some 160,000 different species have been recorded, although it is speculated that millions more remain to be identified.

The mulberry tree appears in 2 Samuel 5:23-24 and 1 Chronicles 14:14-15.

Victor Glover, one of the crew of the International Space Station, published two images of the sun shining just over the Earth’s horizon.

Its excellent sense of hearing enables it to detect small rodents, large insects, birds and worms, whereas its small size (25 cm from beak to tail) prevents it from hunting for larger prey.

Myrrh is a resinous, aromatic substance which is obtained from the trunk of a bush or small tree known scientifically as Commiphora myrrha. It is native to Northeast Africa, Arabia and Turkey.

The EU speaks of improved air quality, but “with every passing year the difficulty of mitigating the impacts escalates”, experts say. Christian environmentalists are convinced that “churches can play their part”.

Why have artists and writers, from Albert Dürer in 1504 to John Milton, in his 17^th century narrative poem “Paradise Lost” insisted so strongly on the “apple of discord”?