Sunspots 730

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

Christianity: Relevant reports that a church has a standing offer to pay (at about $8000) for weddings of couples, in the church, who are living together without being married. About 60 couples have done this.

A pastor of a white congregation explains why ministering to African-Americans and whites at the same time is hard.

Computing: Gizmodo discusses some reasons for checking our smart phones a lot.

Education: Grammarphobia tells us that the meanings of  "emerge" and "emergency" are related.

Health: If you're a woman, you probably won't be surprised. NPR reports on a study indicating that women do better at clerical tasks when the room temperature is not so cold.

Humor: (or something) A Gizmodo article explains how some magic tricks are done.

(or something) Relevant reports that the Ark Encounter is suing because of rain damage.


Politics: Catherine Rampell on how the Trump Administration has tinkered with government statistics in various ways.

NPR reports that a lot of so-called American soil is actually owned by foreign entities.

FiveThirtyEight discusses the laws that state governments are seeking to have adopted, in states where the legislature and the governor are both from the same party.

Michael Gerson is not happy with the Trump Administration's decision to slow down the replacement of Andrew Jackson's picture, on $20 bills, by that of Harriet Tubman, and says that Tubman, even after death, makes her enemies look foolish.

Science: There's a lot of water on Mars, according to Gizmodo.

A Christianity Today writer discusses the question of whether non-human animals appreciate beauty.

Gizmodo discusses attempts to control monkey populations in India, where the animals have been responsible for several human deaths.

Listverse describes 10 organisms that don't seem to have any limits on their lifespan.

The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, I believe, it is public domain. 

Thanks for looking!

Sunspots supplement - Paul Samuelson's top 10 statistics, from Ben Beach

Paul Samuelson, columnist on economic issues, has posted the top 10 statistics of 2017, which he has taken from someone named Ben Beach. They make fascinating and interesting reading.

Sunspots 561

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

The Arts: Gizmo's Freeware lets us know that the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra offers about 250 orchestral works for free streaming.

Christianity: Relevant tells us what the Bible says about dating. (Nothing direct, but there are some important principles.)

Computing: Gizmo's Freeware discusses an easy, and free, method of sharing information across computers. You can create, and/or share, code, sketches, lists, and other types of information.

Gizmo's also reviews free Windows firewall programs.

A Wired post argues that you should never delete a Facebook account upon the death of the owner of the account.

Humor: (or something) Listverse tells us the strange stories of the names of some candies, and also gives information on the "candy desk" in the U. S. Senate. Who knew?

Listverse also lists 10 common words, and gives their history -- they used to mean something quite different. The list includes "artificial," "nice," and "silly."

Politics: Sojourners discusses evidence that our political, and other, strongly held beliefs influence our perceptions of the facts. Surprise.

National Public Radio reports that the head of the government's interrogation program says that waterboarding, and similar strategies, do not work.

Listverse reports on 10 controversial statistics often used by advocates of one side or another in the culture wars -- on rape, suicide, and gun violence.

Science: Wired discusses some electric fish, some new to science. They can communicate electrically with each other.

NPR, and many other news outlets, report on the discovery of gravitational waves, predicted by Einstein, and giving more evidence that black holes really exist. Nature also has a report on this.


Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 517

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:
Christianity: A blogger from Relevant warns Christians against being known for what they are against -- and there's a lot of that going around.
Why a Christianity Today blogger likes the mainstream media.
Another article on Relevant has an annotated list of things that many Christians think the Bible says, but it doesn't, such as "cleanliness is next to godliness."
And Relevant also has a post on the value (and extreme rarity) of silence in the Christian life.
Politics: FiveThirtyEight, the statistical site, says that Rand Paul, Republican Presidential candidate, will have serious problems winning the nomination.
Sports: FiveThirtyEight also says that Kentucky men's basketball coach, John Calipari, lost because he used the wrong strategy at the end of his team's Final Four match with Wisconsin, on April 4th. (Kentucky had not lost a game all season, up to that point.)
FiveThirtyEight also posted on the amazing efficiency of the Connecticut women's basketball team, compared to all other women's college basketball teams -- no wonder they won. (This was posted before the Huskies beat Notre Dame on April 7th.)

Image source (public domain