Sunspots 968

Things I have spotted that may be of interest to others:

CNN tells us a lot about Wordle.

The Visual Capitalist shows us which languages are most widely used. 

A Conversation writer discusses the complicated relationships between orthodox  Jews and the Israeli government.

Another Conversation writer explains why airlines charge bag fees. (There are laws that make this almost absolutely necessary!)

And another Conversation article is about how bad nursing home care can get, and how the goal seems to be making as much money as possible.

Gizmodo reports on a government report that says there are no UFOs (aka UAPs), and mentions some people who are not convinced.

Thanks for looking!

Sunspots 931

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*:

Computing: Gizmodo reports that the Federal Trade Commission is considering making it much easier to unsubscribe from all sorts of subscriptions (To news outlets, anti-malware software, and many more). Companies are not happy about this idea. (Surprise!)

Environment: Gizmo reports that California has adopted rules that protect Joshua trees.

Gizmodo reports that some national insurance companies have pulled out of certain states because of increased flooding, fires, and other problems. Yes, we are affected by global climate change.

Finances: The Hill tells us that China is in default to Americans on many billions of dollars of bonds.

Food: Gizmodo reports on a robot that prepares avocados for use.

Health: A Conversation writer discusses the biology of aging -- we all age differently.

Humor: (or not) Gizmodo reports on a sea otter that's taking over surfboards, from people who are using them.

Politics: An article in The Conversation considers the relationship between patriotism and nationalism.

Science: The Guardian reports on a palm tree that produces flowers underground.

Gizmodo reports on some splendid astronomy photos, submitted to the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.

Gizmodo also reports that ticks are especially efficient at connecting with us.

Science Alert reports that a New Zealand harvestman (aka daddy longlegs) has three different types of males.

A Conversation writer discusses research that indicates that we underestimate how much other people appreciate good deeds.

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view.

Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 697

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Christianity: Christianity Today reports on the shockingly low numbers of refugees, and refugees who have been persecuted for being Christians, that entered the US last year.

A Christianity Today author on the stress of caring for kids at home and for aging parents, at the same time.

Relevant responds to a question about whether giving to Christian charities makes it unnecessary to tithe to one's church.

Relevant also offers an essay on "Five Myths of Christian Political Engagement."


Computing: Gizmo's Freeware on an application that lets you listen to radio stations from all over the world, free.


Health: National Public Radio reports that patients with colds want doctors to prescribe antibiotics, even though such medications aren't effective against viruses, and may contribute to antibiotic resistance.

National Public Radio also reports on using apps to help you go to sleep. Some of them work!
The Scientist reports that abdominal fat can play a role in protecting us. (Too much of it is still bad for us!)

Philosophy: A Scientific American writer argues that science can never solve the mind-body problem. (Here's the Wikipedia article on that problem.)


Science: Listverse tells us about Europa, the most interesting moon of Jupiter.

Earther reports on high-flying (like about 8+ kilometers up) bacteria, and their effect on weather, and maybe on disease transmission.

The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, I believe, it is public domain.
Thanks for looking!

Sunspots 624

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Christianity: Reports on surveys about how much Americans read the Bible, here and here. Not very much, unfortunately.

Christianity Today reports on surveys of scientists, in many countries. Bottom line: many scientists do not believe in God, but most of these are not strongly anti-God.

Benjamin L. Corey argues that the so-called Prosperity Gospel isn't really Christian at all.

An article in Relevant asks "What would Jesus Post?"


Finance: (or something) Listverse tells us about 10 famous people who killed someone, but got off with small penalties.

Health: Relevant says that at least 300,000,000 people have malaria, and over 400,000 people died of it in a recent year. Malaria has not been conquered.

Home-based palliative care is much better for sick elderly people than hospitals, and cheaper, too, according to National Public Radio.

History: Listverse gives examples of nepotism by US Presidents (and, of course, their relatives). John Adams was the first, and Donald Trump probably won't be the last.

Humor: (Sort of. Not funny at all to some people) Wired tells us that Amazon will sell you a device that will assess the clothing you have on, and help you figure out what to wear. (And what to buy from Amazon, I guess.)
 

Politics: FiveThirtyEight says that a border wall won't stop drugs from coming into the US.

Sojourners says that the proposed border wall "would be a 2,200-mile-long monument to racism," and documents this claim. The article also says that it would be ineffective.

Science: Scientific American discusses shopping cart behavior -- leaving a shopping cart in a place other than the designated spot.


Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 608

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

The Arts: From "The Writer's Almanac," a fine poem on fish.

Christianity: Benjamin L. Corey wishes that atheists would stop talking about Christians in some ways that aren't really valid.


Computing: Gizmo's Freeware evaluates some free video editing software.

Christianity Today warns against using "Jesus," "john316," and the like as passwords. They're too easy to guess.

And Christianity Today reports that Amazon's Alexa will read the Bible, or from a variety of daily devotionals, on command.

Food: Scientific American reports that eating certain foods makes men more attractive to women.

Health: Scientific American, and many more outlets, report that scientists are now recommending that all babies be exposed to peanuts.

History: Listverse reports on 10 interesting things found below present-day cities.

Science: Listverse reports on "10 fascinating wonders of Antarctica."

The BBC reports on research which may lead to growing our own dental fillings, rather than having them made of foreign materials, and put in by dentists.

Sports: Relevant reports on a 105-year-old cyclist.


Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 503

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

The Arts: A man with cerebral palsy creates artwork with a typewriter. Amazing. The Mind Unleashed includes a video, less than 5 minutes, of the man and his work.
Christianity: From The Daily Beast: Rap artists using their music for Christianity.
Computing: (and maybe Politics) The National Security Agency released a report on December 24th -- the release date, by itself, suggests that there were things to try to hide -- on how data collected on US citizens has been misused, and how it hasn't helped catch terrorists, according to a report by Bloomberg News.
Science:  Wired has an article on the most amazing discoveries about microbes, in 2014. There were a lot of them.
National Public Radio reports that scientists are making progress on producing artificial organs (which include cultured human cells) as a way of looking for cures for various disease conditions, where mice are not a good model of human physiology.
Sports: Michael Jordan, arguably the best basketball player ever, turned 50 last year, not too happily.

 Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 476

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:
Christianity: The BioLogos Forum has a post on "Christ, Trinity, and Creation."

Computing: Relevant reports that Google is trying to discourage Internet pornography. I'm glad they are, but good luck with that.

Gizmo's Freeware has information on anti-ransomware tools for Android information appliances.

Wired discusses the new Amazon phone.

Humor: Columnist Leonard Pitts is getting older, and forgetting things.

Science: Space.com tells us about Ceres, a dwarf planet that may have quite a bit of water.

Sports: The ball used in this year's World Cup is not the same as the one used in 2010.

Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 247

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science:NPR reports on the difficulty of seeing some things against some backgrounds, such as cancers in breast X-rays, or weapons in luggage screens at airports.

NPR also reports on why events, like Christmas and our birthday, seem to get closer together as we age.

NPR says that blue whale songs are lower-pitched now than they used to be. You can hear audio from this link.



Image source (public domain)

You aren't the same as you were yesterday . . .

. . . but you think you are.

Cells are dying all the time in your body -- and most of them are being replaced at a tremendous clip. (Even brain cells turn out to regenerate themselves far into adulthood.) And yet somehow, despite that enormous cellular turnover, you still feel like yourself week to week and year to year. How is this possible? (Steven Johnson, Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software. New York: Scribner, 2001, p. 83)

I don't really know the answer to that one. Sorry. But part, maybe all, of the answer, may be that our self, whatever that is, is not wholly material. It depends on something besides our neurons.

Thanks for reading.

Two articles on -- gasp -- sex

Two articles about sex have appeared recently in Slate.

One of these is strictly biological, and little directly to do with humans. It's an examination of why there are only two sexes (almost always). Why, indeed? Read the article. Among other things, it tells about a couple of cases of (sort of) more than two sexes, among animals.

Although the relation to biology required that the article be written for reasonably intelligent adults, I don't think there's anything particularly offensive.

Warning: some of the links in the article require membership in certain sites providing scientific journal content.

The second article may be somewhat more offensive to some readers. It explores the question of why most special homes for the aged prohibit sexual activity. (It indicates some of the answers, without mentioning any moral prohibitions.) Lest you wonder why anyone would even consider allowing any such, there's at least one good reason. Some inhabitants of such homes are long-time marriage partners.

As I say, this doesn't explore all the sides of this subject, but it does a good job with some of them.

Thanks for reading.

On growing old

Growing old isn't always so great. Even in a society that, unlike ours, honored the aged, the psalmist said this:
Psalm 71:1 In you, O Lord, do I take refuge;
let me never be put to shame!

9 Do not cast me off in the time of old age;
forsake me not when my strength is spent. (ESV)

Apparently he saw that his "time of old age" might be a time of trouble, when he would need God more and more.

As one of Ursula K. Le Guin's fictional characters put it:
But now I have my own question. I never asked questions, I was so busy answering them, but am sixty years old this winter and think I should have time for a question. But it's hard to ask. Here it is. It's like all the time I was working keeping house and raising the kids and making love and earning our keep I thought there was going to come a time or there would be some place where all of it came together. Like it was words I was saying, all my life, all the kinds of work, just a word here and a word there, but finally all the words would make a sentence, and I could read the sentence. I would have made my soul and know what it was for.
But I have made my soul and I don't know what to do with it. Who wants it? I have lived sixty years. All I'll do from now on is the same as what I have done only less of it, while I get weaker and sicker and smaller all the time, shrinking and shrinking around myself, and die. No matter what I did, or made, or know. "Ether, OR," pp. 95-123, in Unlocking the Air and Other Stories (New York: Harper Perennial, 1997). Quote is from p. 108. Originally published in Asimov's, 1995.

To put it more succinctly, but less elegantly, "What has my life been worth?"

James tells us that our lives will be short, and the effect of our life will be temporary:
James 4:13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. (ESV)

No one, no matter what her age, is guaranteed tomorrow. So how shall we live? James tells us, at least partly, in the above passage: Do what is right. That's the best way to live a life worth living, a life that will make a difference, a life that doesn't get smaller and smaller all the time.

* * * * *

(Added after original post) C. S. Lewis wrote, in The Silver Chair, that there are no accidents. My on-line Bible reading for today, June 10, 2006, included the following:

Proverbs 16:31 Gray hair is a crown of glory;
it is gained in a righteous life. (ESV)

What do you want to do before you die?

Genesis 45:25 So they went up out of Egypt and came to the land of Canaan to their father Jacob. 26 And they told him, “Joseph is still alive, and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt.” And his heart became numb, for he did not believe them. 27 But when they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said to them, and when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of their father Jacob revived. 28 And Israel said, “It is enough; Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.” (ESV)

One of my son-in-laws has a book about places you should see before you die. It's a good book, and I'm being influenced by it. But there are larger questions than where we want to go on a trip.

We don't know what Jacob wanted to do before his death prior to receiving this news. But we know what it was after the news. He wanted to see his long-missing son, whom he thought dead, even if it meant going on a long trip and leaving what he had known behind him. And he went. Going, of course, was part of God's plan for Jacob and his descendants.

So, what do you want to do before you die? What do I? Do I have desires for my descendants? Things I want to do for God's glory?

I'm going to think about it. It may not be too long, in my case, or yours.

Thanks for reading. This is one of an occasional series, based on my daily reading from the ESV Bible. The last one of these is here.