Sunspots 877

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

The Arts: Gizmodo ranks the 10 best original Star Trek episodes, and James T. Kirk's (William Shatner's) role in them.

Christianity: (and politics) Christianity Today asks why there are no evangelicals on the US Supreme Court.

Computing: A Gizmodo post on how big tech (especially Facebook) has not done what's best for most of us.

Environment: NPR reports that Australia's Great Barrier Reef is in grave danger.

NPR also reports on misinformation used to halt installation of wind turbines.

Finances: Gizmodo points out that Western oil companies paid for much of Putin's war.

Food: NPR reports on making pizza without yeast.

Health: (and politics) FiveThirtyEight on the miserable job of COVID testing by most of the states in the US.

Politics: Vladimir Putin has used the Bible to support his recent actions, according to Relevant.

A Christianity Today author points out the difference in how we treat Ukrainian refugees vs. our treatment of Syrian refugees.

Science: Nature has an opinion piece, arguing that testing the genetics of human embryos is questionable or worse.

Gizmodo reports on a study of the "plumbing" of Yellowstone's geysers. Some interesting underground connections and features.

Gizmodo reports on a really fancy (and, apparently, useful) tape measure.

Gizmodo also shows photos of 7 different kinds of animal camouflage.

The Scientist reports on how a man with no muscle control at all was trained, using a brain implant, to respond in computer-generated text.

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

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

Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 640

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

Christianity: Relevant has an article on modesty. It points out that becoming lustful after seeing a woman is a man's choice, that what men are sexually attracted to varies from man to man, and is also different in different cultures, and that the only use of the word, modesty, in the Bible, in 1 Timothy 2:9, refers to ornaments, not to how much leg or whatever may be revealed.

David Drury urges so-called evangelicals to repentance.


Computing: Gizmo's Freeware recommends the Problem Steps Recorder, a free tool, built in to Windows computers, which records exactly what happened, and when.

National Public Radio reports that experts have changed their recommendations on choosing passwords. Their recommendations should make things simpler.

Gizmo's freeware also reports on a web site that will tell you what passwords have been compromised in the past (millions have).

Education: Listverse describes the right and wrong usage of 10 common words.

Food: NPR reports that men may be more attractive to  women if they eat certain foods.

History: Relevant points out that Robert E. Lee, himself, was not in favor of displaying confederate sympathy in statues, and in other ways, after the Civil War.
 
Politics: FiveThirtyEight presents a short, calm primer on the histories of black and white identity politics, and the role of President Trump.

The New York Times presents data on the frequency, by race, of killings by police being ruled justifiable.

Science: Statnews reports on the interesting things that have happened when white nationalists have genetic tests to examine their ancestry.

FiveThirtyEight reports that, with the exception of Saturn, solar eclipses would not be visible on any other planet in our solar system, and eclipses on earth are much better viewing than the possibility from Saturn.



Image source (public domain)

Patents on human genes may be ruled against the law

National Public Radio (and others) recently reported that a judge in a US federal court has ruled that patenting particular human DNA sequences is against the law. (See here and here for NPR reports.)

The company with the patents is Myriad, which holds the patents to the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene sequences. Both of these genes, in their normal state, lead to the production of a tumor suppressor, which prevents many potential breast cancers. Myriad does tests to determine the kind of BRCA genes that an individual has, then, depending on the results, a woman may choose to have a mastectomy.The tests cost over $3,000. Myriad is reported to have "made $222 million on tests that cost $32 million to run" in "a recent year."

The Judge, according to NPR, ruled that a gene sequence is a product of nature, and hence not patentable.

Many scientists, and others, have argued that human gene sequences should not be patentable. The ruling will most likely be appealed, and the case may go to the US Supreme Court. This Wikipedia article says that about 20% of yours and my genes are under patent, and that patents for about 3,000,000 genes, in all have been applied for. (Probably including non-human organisms.)

Thanks for reading.