Sunspots 920

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

Christianity: A Christianity Today writer says that the American church should celebrate diversity, not shun it.

Computing: The US State Department is changing fonts/typefaces, and not everyone is happy about it.

Gizmodo gives us a primer on ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence tool.

Education: (and computing) a Gizmodo author argues that teachers should adapt to writing generated by artificial intelligence, rather than trying to stamp that out.

Finances: NPR tells us why the price of eggs has gone up so much.

Politics: A writer for The Conversation analyzes Florida Governor DeSantis's injustice denial.

Science: Gizmodo reports that the amount of artificial light at night is rapidly making it more difficult to see stars.

NPR reports that we may be choosing the wrong kinds of stones to skip across water.

According to the MIT Technology Review, an alligator gene has been added to catfish, making them more resistant to infections. (Lots of catfish are eaten in the US).

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

Thanks for reading.

Using your DNA to explore your ancestry -- beware

I've recently read a great book entitled A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes, by Adam Rutherford. It's about using DNA for anthropological purposes, such as finding the relationship between humans and Neanderthals. (You and I have Neanderthal DNA.) Rutherford says that the companies who tell people that they are 24% Cherokee, or whatever, are on a par with the horoscopes in the newspaper.

There are many reasons for this. One of them is that humans are all related. One evidence for that is  that many pieces of DNA are shared between various ethnic groups.

Another lesson, repeatedly told, is that the concept of race has no genetic basis. Again, we are all related. By this, Rutherford means that two people from different locations in Africa are likely to have less common DNA than either one of them and someone from, say, Belgium, have in common.

It's impossible to do justice to the book in this brief post. It is readable by people without strong backgrounds in science.

Note this passage from the Bible: Acts 17:26 He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons, and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

Thanks for reading.