Sunspots 885

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

Christianity: Relevant has an article that discusses the harmful effects of watching pornography -- it leads to a decline in desire for sex with real people. The article mentions the effects on Christian young people.

Computing: Gizmodo tells us that Chicago (and other) police, with help from the FBI, are using fake social media accounts to trap criminals (or innocent people).

Environment: Gizmodo reports that legislators in Utah are considering piping ocean water into the Great Salt Lake, which is at record low levels, with no natural fix in sight.

Health: (and politics) NPR reports that the death rate from COVID has been significantly higher in counties that voted for Trump.

Politics: NPR reports that American right-wingers are praising the autocratic leader of Hungary.

Science: The Scientist reports that significant malaria transmission occurs, due to daytime mosquito bites.

Gizmodo reports that dolphins in the Red Sea apparently rub their bodies, or parts thereof, on corals, for medicinal reasons.

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 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)

Malaria vaccine?

The World Health Organization says that malaria is one of the six most important infectious diseases, killing about a million people a year, mostly children in third world countries. The Wikipedia says that the disease is not only more likely among poor people, but that it causes poverty.

Michael Gerson, a columnist for the Washington Post, has written a recent column on the successful development of an anti-malaria vaccine. He points out some of the amazing difficulties that had to be overcome, and those that will have to be overcome in the future, to make this a practical medical treatment. One such difficulty is that it was necessary to do surgery on individual mosquitoes to obtain cells for use in developing the vaccine. Malaria parasites are transmitted by mosquitoes, and some stages of the microbe live in human blood cells.

Thanks for reading! Thanks to God for this step toward eradicating this terrible scourge.

Sunspots 422

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

Computing: I'm not a Pinterest member -- I spend enough time on-line as it is. But Wired reports on a study of what makes a Pinterest photo popular. It's been scientifically analyzed.

Health: The New York Times warns us that taking more vitamins than we need can be dangerous, reminds us that this is unnatural, and also reminds us why the Food and Drug Administration can't take action to prevent over-use. Industry lobbying -- what else would be the reason?

Politics: A recent poll says that a great majority of blacks (aka African-Americans) are satisfied with their lives. Other findings from the poll indicate that substantially more black men are looking for a long-term relationship than such women are.

Science: Who knew? Mosquitoes carrying malaria are more likely to be attracted to the smell of dirty socks than mosquitoes that aren't carrying malaria. (From the Associated Press)

Fox News describes the oarfish, probably the largest bony fish (sharks don't have bones) which may be up to 50 feet in length. There's a link to a video of the animal, swimming.



Image source (public domain)