Sunspots 842

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

Education: Grammarphobia discusses the origin of the phrase "tossing and turning."

Environment: NPR on recycling plastic -- what really helps, and what doesn't.

Gizmodo on why TV news does such a bad job at reporting on climate change.

Gizmodo also reports that poor neighborhoods, all over the USA, suffer more from heat waves.

And Gizmodo reports on how wild hogs are having a serious effect on climate.

Gizmodo also reports on the environmental costs of shipping goods into North America.

Ethics: (and Science) Gizmodo reports on guidelines for human genetic engineering, produced by a World Health Organization group. In summary, the group is not ready to approve such procedures.

Science: (or something) Relevant reports on a survey that indicates that most couples become romantically involved after months or years as friends, rather than falling in love the first time they see each other.

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 759

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

Christianity: FiveThirtyEight on the decline in connection with religion among millennials.

Christianity Today reports on a study of sermon length in various Christian churches.
 
Education: (and Humor) Listverse on ten silly English words.

You should look at these maps, in a post from Listverse. They will probably change the way you think about the world.

Environment: (And Christianity) Christianity Today reports on efforts, by the World Evangelical Alliance, to use solar power for churches.

Health: NPR reports that exposure to green light may be a treatment for pain, such as that from migraine headaches.

Politics: According to Relevant, President Trump, in yet another attempt to stop immigration, has issued an executive order prohibiting resettlement, unless local government agrees. An evangelical group has petitioned governors to allow such resettlement. Some governors have agreed.

FiveThirtyEight has a great essay on what's what with the two major political parties. Democrats, it says, are less about identity groups, more about ideology, than they used to be, and Republicans are more about identity groups and less about ideology, than they used to be.

Science: (or something) WHNS-TV reports that a recent flurry of attacks on horses, in the field, were due to wild hogs. Here's an earlier report on the attacks.

The Scientist reports on feather-eating lice -- they've been around a long time, like on dinosaurs.

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

Wild hogs, aka wild boars, aka wild pigs

My wife and I recently saw, for the first time for either of us, a wild hog. It was road kill, on Georgia 181, just across the Georgia-South Carolina border, near Hartwell Dam. That got me to searching for information about these animals. I have linked to four such sources, below. In one sentence, their numbers are expanding rapidly, there doesn't seem to be any way to stop this, and they can do a lot of damage to property and the environment. Some of the problems are because hunters want hogs brought in so they can be hunted.

A Fox News local TV station in Alabama has an article about a boy who killed a giant hog, weighing over a thousand pounds, and was over nine feet from nose to the base of the tail. There's a photo.

The State newspaper (Columbia, SC) has an article on what the animals are doing in South Carolina, and how hard they are to control.

The Charleston, SC Post and Courier has a similar article.

There's a fascinating article, in the Atlantic, about the history of the animals, hunting them, a wild hog festival in Georgia, wild hogs and Republican domination in local politics, and many other things.

None of the above articles are current, (one was from 2013, the others somewhat older) but all were of considerable interest.