Sunspots 769

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to

someone else:

Christianity: Christianity Today discusses polyamory among professing Christians.


Christianity Today also has a good article on why the Old Testament continues to be important.

CT has also posted information on 20 African-American heroes and heroines of faith.

Computing: (and Politics) Gizmodo reports that Twitter has taken action against some pro-Bloomberg accounts, for publishing pro-Bloomberg spam.
  Humor: (and Computing) A Gizmodo writer has found women's pants with pockets large enough to hold a smartphone.


Politics: (And Christianity) Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, has been an outspoken critic of President Trump. Authorities in the church are apparently going to study the question of whether Moore's positions have hurt the denomination financially, according to Relevant. In a later post, Relevant reports that the ERLC board has instructed Moore not to comply with such an inquiry, at least not at present.

Joel Edmund Anderson asks us to not be hyper-partisan, in any direction.

Science: The Scientist reports on recent discoveries in human anatomy. You would think that we already knew all there is to know about our structure. Not so. For example, there's a bone that I don't think you have heard of.

The Scientist also reports on the use of artificial intelligence to discover new antibiotics.

NPR reports on the terrible locust plague in Africa.

NPR, and other outlets, report that Katherine Johnson, one of the African-American mathematicians who worked on the manned space program, has died. (The movie, Hidden Figures, was based on the critical work of these women.)

Sports: Sabrina Ionescu, who plays basketball for Oregon, had quite a day on February 24th. She was one of the speakers at the memorial service for Kobe Bryant, and also became the only college basketball player, male or female, to score 2000+ career points, give out 1000+ assists, and collect 1000+ rebounds. She got the qualifying rebound on the 24th, against Stanford.

The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, it is free to use like this.

Thanks for looking!

Sunspots 629

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

Christianity: Christianity Today points out, with some examples, that spreading conspiracy theories and other fake news is, well, sin.


Education: Listverse discusses the origins of 10 widely used school supplies (such as backpacks and pencils).

Finance: (or something) Wired comments on the possible changes to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Health: Science reports that a new antibiotic, which may make it impossible for bacteria to develop resistance, has been produced. In tests, it seems to be very effective.



Politics: Scientific American fact-checks President Trump's speech on the Paris climate change accord.

Scientific American says that torture is not effective in extracting information.

Science: The Conversation says that killing coyotes does not make sheep and cattle safer, and explains why.

Scientific American reports on a long-term study of the social lives of wild horses.



Image source (public domain)

On the implementation of penicillin - Howard Florey, Edward Abraham, Ernst Chain, Norman Heatley and others

I recently read The Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat: The story of the Penicillin Miracle, by Eric Lax.

The book was a thorough study of the history of the discovery and implementation of penicillin, with World War II as a significant part of the historical background. The title comes from the idea of some of the scientists involved, that, if Britain were about to be conquered by the Germans, they could rub spores from the mold in their coats, and go to the U. S. to continue their work. It never came to that.

Penicillin is, or was, an important antibiotic. It was the first one used on a systematic basis, to treat infections. Although not used so much now, because bacteria have become resistant to it, and some people have developed allergies to it, derivatives of penicillin are still in use. One of my family members is currently taking amoxicillin.

There are several features of the book, and the story it tells, that are more broadly applicable.

1) Lax points out that many of the most important scientific developments of the 20th century were done on very small budgets, often as a sort of hobby by the person doing the work. That was true of the isolation and production of penicillin. Leeuwenhoek, the builder of the first microscope, was, of course, not a professional microscopist -- there were no such people.

2) The account of scientific discoveries (or other notable events) that is transmitted is often seriously distorted. That is, according to Lax, true of the original discovery of the mold that produced the first usable penicillin, by Alexander Fleming. I have often heard that Fleming discovered the bacteria-killing properties of the mold by accident. Lax indicates that that isn't exactly true. He was investigating. Fleming stopped working on penicillin, and Howard Florey, and others, took it up, but Fleming got much of the credit for the development of the drug. Florey and his group, with little or no help from Fleming, did that.

Eventually, Fleming, Florey, and Ernst Chain were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work on penicillin. Edward Abraham and Norman Heatley also made significant contributions, but they were not so honored. Eventually, they were honored in other ways. There were no female heads of laboratories, and they didn't make any ground-breaking contributions, but there were many women workers, some of whom worked at considerable risk, breathing in dangerous materials, and working long hours.

3) Scientific discoveries are often not made freely available to others. There's a lot in the book about patents, and it is clear that the British scientists involved, and, eventually, others, believed that penicillin should be treated as a military secret, and they would have been horrified if it had been made available to the Germans.

Thanks for reading. I hope you don't need to take an antibiotic.

Sunspots 522

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:
Christianity: A review of Lauren Winner's book, Wearing God, by Relevant. Winner discusses some interesting Biblical metaphors for God in the interview, and the book. Not just Father, or Lord.


Relevant also tells us 5 ways that viewing pornography ruins a marriage.


Computing: National Public Radio reports on how good a job (or not) various traffic and map apps really do.

 
Health: Wired has some suggestions for making the development of effective antibiotics more attractive to drug companies.

Politics: Benjamin L. Corey believes he knows what a truly Bible-based nation would look like. Maybe not like you think.


Science:  Wired tells us about a woman who has deliberately let 200,000 bedbugs bite her.

Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 479

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:
Christianity: Relevant offers some thoughts on following God's will.
Romans Ten Fifteen has a tongue in cheek list of ideas on how to get rid of a pastor.
Science: Wired reports on a squirrel with a really big tail.
National Public Radio reports on a study that indicates that watching too much TV news, especially watching repeating footage of disasters, leads to stress.
NPR reports that we seem to be approaching a crisis -- we don't have enough variety in the antibiotics available to us, because so many bacteria have evolved resistance to them.
NPR reports on the history of ocean waves. They last for a long time, and move long distances.
The Atlantic reports that various kinds of childhood trauma may cause the children involved to be misdiagnosed as ADHD.


Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 449

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to

someone else:
The Arts: (as in Architecture, or Housing): photos of 11 different -- some really different -- tiny houses.
Politics: Apparently, Republicans and Democrats look at the faces of the same candidates differently. Hmmm.
Science: An unusual planet, in another solar system, has recently been discovered, according to the Wikipedia. It seems to violate predictions about the relationships between stars and their planets.
There are scientists who hope that many of us will start searching for new antibiotics, according to a report from National Public Radio.
A video of a fox, hunting for mice under a few feet of snow.
The Washington Post, and other outlets, report that the Food and Drug Administration is suggesting that antibacterial hand soaps (the ones with triclosan, or related material, as the active ingredient) are not effective, and may lead to more dangerous microbes.

Image source (public domain)