text: Saturn was called "the god of seeds" or "of sowing," (1) also "the lord of the fieldfruits." (2)
  A Deluge destroying much faunal life must have caused a dissemination of plants: in many places new forms of vegetation must have sprouted from the rich soil fertilized by lava and mud; seeds were carried from all parts of the globe and in many instances, because of the change in climate, they were able to grow in new surroundings. The axis of the earth was displaced, the orbit changed, the speed of rotation altered, the conditions of irrigation became different, the composition of the atmosphere was not the same—entirely new conditions of growth prevailed.
  Ovid thus describes the exuberant growth of vegetation following the Flood. "After the old moisture remaining from the Flood had grown warm from the rays of the sun, the slime of the wet marshes swelled with heat, and the fertile seeds of life, nourished in that life-giving soil, as in a mother's womb, grew, and in time took on some special form." "When, therefore, the earth, covered with mud from the recent Flood, became heated up by the hot and genial rays of the sun, she brought forth innumerable forms of life, in part of ancient shapes, and in part creatures new and strange." (3)
  The scholarly world in recent years has occupied itself with the idea that microorganisms—living cells or spores—can reach the Earth from interstellar spaces, carried along by the pressure of light rays.(5) The explosion of a planet is a more likely method of carrying seeds and spores through interplanetary spaces.
  Augustine, De Civitate Dei VII. 13f. [Augustine wrote: "Saturnus . . . unus de principibus deus, penes quem sationum omnium dominatus est." Cf. Arnobius 4.9; Macrobius, Saturnalia I. 7. 25; Servius, On Vergil's Georgics I. 21; Saturn was credited with the introduction of agriculture in Italy (Macrobius, Saturnalia VII. 21). In Greece Kronos was closely associated with the harvest of grain (H. W. Parke, The Festivals of the Athenians (London, 1977), p. 29. Among the Egyptians it was said that "Osiris is seed." (Firmicus Maternus, The Error of the Pagan Religions, II. 6; cf. A. Erman, Die Religion der Aegypter (Berlin, 1934), p. 40; Gressman, Tod und Auferstehung des Osiris, p. 8ff. In Babylonia during the festival marking the drowning of Tammuz, grains and plants were thrown upon the waves. (Langdon, Tammuz and Ishtar, p. 13.]
  [The effects of nearby supernovae on the biosphere have been the object of intensive study be geologists in recent years, in the attempt to account for abrupt changes in the history of life on this planet. Cf. D. Russel and W. Tucker, "Supernovae and the Extinction of the Dinosaurs," Nature 229 (Feb. 19, 1971), pp. 553-554. Sudden extinctions were followed by the appearance of new species, quite different from those preceding them in the stratigraphic record. In a relatively brief interval whole genera were annihilated, giving way to new creatures of radically different aspect, having little in common with the forms they replaced. See N. D. Newell, "Revolutions in the History of Life," Geological Society of America Special Papers 89, pp. 68-91; Cf. S. J. Gould and N. Eldredge, "Punctuated equilibria: the tempo and mode of evolution reconsidered," Paleobiology 1977, Vol. III, pp. 115-151. Thus over the past two or three decades many geologists and paleontologists have found themselves increasingly drawn to the view that the observed abrupt changes in the biosphere, such as that which marked the end of the Mesozoic and is thought to have brought with it the extinction of the dinosaurs, among other animal groups, could best be explained by the exposure of the then living organisms to massive doses of radiation coming from a nearby supernova. The radiation would annihilate many species, especially those whose representatives, whether because of their large size or for other reasons, were unable to shield themselves from the powerful rays; at the same time new organisms would be created through mutations or "macro-evolution." See Velikovsky's comments in "The Pitfalls of Radiocarbon Dating," Pensée IV (1973), p. 13: ". . . in the catastrophe of the Deluge, which I ascribe to Saturn exploding as a nova, the cosmic rays must have been very abundant to cause massive mutations among all species of life. . . ." Animals would suffer much more severely than plants—on plants the principle effect would be mutagenic. See K. D. Terry and W. H. Tucker, "Biologic Effects of Supernovae," Science 159 (1968), pp. 421-423.].
  E.g, F. Hoyle and Ch. Wickramasinghe, "Does Epidemic Disease Come from Outer Space?" New Scientist, 17th November, 1977, pp. 402-404.