Sunspots 901

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

Christianity: Christianity Today tells us about the faith of the late Queen Elizabeth.

Computing: NPR explains why social media is likely to polarize our opinions more and more.

Finances: A Conversation writer gives some tips on evaluating charities before contributing to them.

Science: A Conversation writer discusses the ability of ants to walk straight up a wall.

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

Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 804

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

Christianity: (and Politics) John Piper, an important evangelical, explains, without mentioning names, why he won't be voting for Donald Trump.

The editor of Christianity Today, on white male evangelical supremacy, and the history that led us to this point.

Computing: (And Christianity) Christianity Today reports on young TikTok evangelists.

Education: Listverse tells us some interesting facts about mountains.

Environment: Gizmodo reports that a feasible method to break down polyethylene plastic has been found.

Philosophy:  The Society of Catholic Scientists argues that human minds cannot be completely explained by physics and chemistry.

Science: Gizmodo reports on a beetle that can withstand being run over by an automobile.

The Scientist reports that previously unknown salivary glands have been found in us humans.

The Scientist also reports that water (frozen) has been found on the moon.

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

Thanks for looking!

Sunspots 764

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

Christianity: Christianity Today reports that evangelicals are receptive to prison reform, but that most of them haven't done anything to help prisoners.

Relevant reports on a letter from black church leaders, thanking Christianity Today for publishing a recent letter, calling for the removal of President Trump from office. The article says that his support among African-Americans is very low.

Computing: (and Christianity) A plea to pastors and theologians to be careful of what they say on social media -- check sources, and don't merely repeat what others who share your particular prejudices have posted, for example.

Humor: (and romance) Relevant reports on a dating site that requires agreement with a doctrinal statement. (A Calvinist one)


Politics: FiveThirtyEight has done a survey, which indicates that President Trump is less popular than Mike Pence, and almost as unpopular as Sarah Palin.

Pete Enns says that the word, or the country, America, is not in the Bible.

NPR says that there are a lot of border walls in the world, but Trump's wall is most expensive, and indicates why that is so.

Science: Gizmodo reports that a tiny parasite can affect the behavior of mice that are infected, including making them more likely to be caught by cats.

Gizmodo also reports on a flying robot, with wings from those of dead pigeons.

Listverse discusses 10 conspiracy theories put forth by President Donald Trump.

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

Thanks for looking!

Sunspots 680

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

The Arts: (Including pornography -- never mind whether it's art or not!) An article in Speculative Faith warns that thinking you are oblivious to pornography and questionable visual stimuli is not a sign of Christian maturity. For part 1 of this series, see here.

Computing: A primer on typography, for those not expert in the selection and use of typefaces.

UnDark debunks the idea of "technology addiction."

Gizmo's Freeware tells us how to delete the conversations we have with digital assistants, such as Alexa.

Gizmodo considers the question of how many social media users are real, and how many are not.


Education: Scientific American debunks the value of so-called "learning styles."

Health: Gizmodo reports on studies of the effect of dietary supplements on heart health, which found that such supplements did not have a positive effect.

Gizmodo also reports that one-fifth of 20-30's deaths in the US are now caused by opioids.

Politics: (or something) Relevant reports that some Liberty University students and staff are working with a producer who is filming something called The Trump Prophecy. It is claimed that this film won't be political, which is hard to imagine.


Sports: FiveThirtyEight analyzed the loss of the Houston Rockets to the Golden State Warriors in the National Basketball Association's western conference final series, seventh game, where the Rockets, usually a good 3-point shooting team, missed 26 3's in a row.

FiveThirtyEight also discusses Kevin Durant's propensity to lose a shoe during an NBA game.

Thanks for looking!

Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 668

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

The Arts: (And Christianity) A Christianity Today author, an expert on Madeleine L'Engle, discusses what she hopes is not lost in the film version of L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. (She had not seen the film, which opened on March 9.)

Christianity: A Relevant writer says that God takes happiness seriously, and that we should, too.

(and Computing) A blog post documents that some Christian (?) leaders are deliberately inflating their social media follower numbers.

(and politics) Relevant reports that officials of the National Association of Evangelicals, and of the Southern Baptist Convention, are urging Congress to adopt some solution for the so-called Dreamers.

Relevant also reported that Wayne State University has refused to allow Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship on campus, because IVCF requires its leaders to be Christian. IVCF sued, and, two days later, Christianity Today reported that the ban was dropped.

Christianity Today reports that a Christian Canadian couple had their foster children removed because they wouldn't teach them about the Easter Bunny. But that decision was overturned.

Ken Schenck makes his annual Biblical argument for women in ministry.

"We truly ought to give thanks to God that we are not more gorgeous than we are—or more intelligent, or more creative, or more rich, or more influential, or more wise, or more whatever ..." from an article in Christianity Today.



He Lives discusses the history of sola scriptura, as part of a series on biblical inerrancy, what it is and what it means.


Politics: The New Scientist reports that fake news travels much faster than real news.

Science: Gizmodo reports that older termites are placed in more risky situations, including in battles.

Thanks for looking!

Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 549

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

 
Christianity: (and politics) Benjamin L. Corey tells us that the Governor of Texas has ordered Christian ministries to cease giving aid to any Syrian refugees. (Other news outlets, including CBS News, on December 1, 2015, have dealt with this.)

Christianity Today lists, and explains, five errors pastors might make (some have) regarding social media.

Computing: Wired reports that the Wikipedia is incorporating some artificial intelligence into the editing process.

Finance: National Public Radio considers whether pennies make sense any more. (Groan . . . I didn't put this in humor, in spite of that pun -- which is NPR's -- because the post is about finance, not fun.)

Health: NPR reports that your relationships with your adult siblings may have an important influence on your well-being.

Humor: (and other items not easy to classify) The Difference between a pamphlet and a brochure.

Science: (Math, in this case) Christianity Today's Behemoth considers why fractals are so beautiful, and muses a little about a God who sometimes creates using fractal geometry.

Sports:


Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 484

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to

someone else:

Computing: A Wired reporter liked everything he saw on Facebook, and tells what happened, as a result. Scary.




Thanks to Commenter FancyHorse, I'm adding a link to another article, from an author who stopped liking anything on Facebook, and recommends that habit to us Facebook users.
 
Wired also reports on why we don't catch our own typos.

Education: National Public Radio reports on college rapes. 5-10% of men seem to believe that it's OK to get a girl drunk and rape her, and have done so, with approval from a peer group. Here's a related story.

Humor: Wired reports on the fantastic creatures that North American lumberjacks imagined (with pictures).

Science: Relevant has an article on a two-headed dolphin, washed up on a beach.


Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 441

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to

someone else:
Christianity: Ken Schenck has a short post on different ways the New Testament authors used the Old Testament.
Computing: (or maybe politics) Leonard Pitts on how connecting with people on-line can make us not see what's around us.
Gizmo's Freeware on a site that lets you make a free web page.
Health: WebMD says that having a flu shot lowers the risk of heart disease.
Science: National Geographic reports that Eucalyptus trees in Australia deposit minute amounts of gold in their leaves, and that this might be useful in pointing miners to gold deposits underground.
Wired reports that it is possible to predict a child's ability in math by observing how well they can estimate quantities when so young that they can't yet use words.


Image source (public domain)