Sunspots 636

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


The Arts: Speculative Faith complains about the sex in Game of Thrones. (This is one of the reasons, but not the only one, I've never watched it, and that I long ago stopped reading the books.) Relevant also has an article seriously questioning whether Christians should watch Game of Thrones.

Christianity: An article in Relevant, about purity. It also explains why the Jewish Law existed.



Computing: Wired on how to stop receiving notifications of long, and irrelevant, Gmail threads.

Health: FiveThirtyEight tells us that many of us eat too often.

National Public Radio tells us that many drugs are still effective, long after their given expiration dates.

Scientific American argues that increasing taxes on alcohol would reduce violence, including suicide.

Humor: (sort of) Listverse reports on 10 famous entertainers who were told that they had no talent.

(or Science) A video of a song, about the elements of the periodic table.

Politics: Wired tells us that climate change denial threatens our defense capability.

Wired also reports on the Trump for President in 2020 campaign, which has paid (probably legally) over half a million dollars to Trump properties and businesses.

Politifact has a list of fake news sources. It's not all of them!

Christianity Today reports on a survey studying religious practice and belief against gun ownership.

Relevant reports on an evangelical pastor who has been arrested by ICE, for deportation. His wife and two small children are US citizens. Not exactly a "bad hombre."

Science: Listverse describes 10 recently discovered, but unexpected, phenomena in space.



Image source (public domain)

Mole Day today!

I just found out that today is Mole Day, which, according to the Wikipedia, is "celebrated among chemists on October 23, between 6:02 AM and 6:02 PM,^[1][2][3] making the date 6:02 10/23 in the American style of writing dates. The time and date are derived from Avogadro's number, which is approximately 6.02×10²³, defining the number of particles (atoms or molecules) in one mole of substance . . ."

In other words, strictly a holiday for nerds, and has nothing to do with the mammal that lives mostly underground, including under the surface of our lawn, at times, except that it's OK to use mole, in any sense, in puns.

Here's a web page on the history of National Mole Day.

There's a National Mole Day Foundation. You can join it, by paying moledues.

There's at least one page of Mole Day jokes. Sample: "molearchy - government in which moles are in complete control; under this government Mole Day is celebrated three times a year and chemistry is the only scientific subject taught in school"

Happy Mole Day!

Sunspots 215

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

Humor:
"The little editor in your mind is no longer returning your calls, is he, Nona?" Sally Forth, syndicated comic strip, June 11, 2009.

Science:
Wired has a video on cleaning skulls, using flesh-eating beetles.

Slate on the long time for validation of the discovery of element 112 (which has not yet received its final name).

Politics:
William Saletan, of Slate, has some suggestions for pro-life and pro-choice advocates that might help them to come to agreement, on some topics related to abortion.

Sports:
With the NBA finals over, men's basketball on TV is on hiatus until November or so. I note that, of the ten normal starters of the Los Angeles Lakers and the Orlando Magic, only four are products of college basketball. The others were drafted out of high school, or from Europe. I also note that, in spite of the preponderance of African-Americans among the players, and quite a few among the coaches (an African-American was coach of last year's champions) both the coaches were white. (Both had African-Americans among their assistants.) The Women's NBA schedule is here. They will continue to play during the summer.

Computing:
CNet has an article on identity theft, including a link to a web site that assesses the likelihood that your identity is at risk.

Christianity:
Weekend Fisher has some fresh insight into Matthew 24:13 (which says that those who endure to the end will be saved.)

Image source (public domain)

"The Inner Life of the Cell" video

"The Inner Life of the Cell" video, which, as I understand it, was created at Harvard, is available freely on the Internet, here, lasts perhaps 3 minutes, and is certainly well worth watching. It shows various animations of life processes involving molecules and cells, with no narration at all. Even if you don't know what process is being shown, it is an awesome piece of work, and gives some idea of the tremendous complexity and beauty of molecular and cellular structure. According to my sources, some people have used in devotional presentations. The sponsor, the Howard Hughes Medical Foundation, is not a religious organization.

Thanks for reading. Enjoy watching.

I'm thankful for Carbon

In previous posts (see here for a link to them) I have mentioned various things that I am grateful for. I listed some chemical elements, including Carbon, but I want to devote a whole post to this subject.

Carbon is one of the approximately 100 types of matter -- the elements -- that make up the material world.

Why emphasize Carbon specially? Well, that's a good question. Life as we know of would not be possible without many, maybe even most, of all the elements, not just Carbon. But Carbon is special to life.

Suppose you had to invent life from scratch. You would need building blocks that would be readily available to living things, or life would have been too difficult. You would need building blocks that can be assembled into many complex structures, or the complexity of information that is necessary for life would not have been possible. Consider language and the alphabet -- to have the complexity of language information that we have, we must have the capacity to make complex structures, like words, sentences, and paragraphs, from assemblies of simple structures -- letters. Carbon is the basis of the complex molecules that make life possible. I know, they are also made of other things, such as Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Sulfur, and other chemical elements, but Carbon is the key. Why is that? It is because Carbon has two properties. One of these is that Carbon is readily available to living things. Carbon's atoms are light, compared to, say, those of Iron. Carbon Dioxide, therefore, is a light substance, which is gaseous under common conditions, thus readily available to the green plants that turn it into food in photosynthesis. If Carbon were heavier, this could not happen.

The other property is that Carbon, with its six electrons, will readily form covalent bonds with four other atoms, including other atoms of Carbon, all at the same time. Huh? What does that mean? Consider our hands. Most of us have two. We could hold hands with two other people at the same time (or with one person, holding both hands). This makes it theoretically possible to make straight chains of people holding hands. Such chains could be very long, but they wouldn't be especially complex. They would be one-dimensional. Now, suppose we had four hands. We could make two-dimensional structures (or three-dimensional, if some of us would stand on ladders or get down in holes) much more complicated than straight chains of people. We could make complicated structures, indeed, in this way. If molecules could only be long, straight, chains, the complexity of the molecules we depend on, such as proteins and DNA, would be impossible. Both proteins and DNA have many Carbon atoms which are attached to three or four other atoms, making molecules with complex three-dimensional structures possible. The basic building blocks of proteins are amino acids. The heart of each amino acid is a Carbon atom, which is attached to four different groups of atoms at the same time.

I have inherited characteristics from my ancestors. I have had the privilege of passing on some of these characteristics to my daughters and my grandson. The information that makes this possible is carried in DNA molecules. The complexity of DNA makes this possible. DNA, too, has many Carbon atoms that are attached to four different groups of atoms at the same time.

It isn't just DNA and proteins. All the basic foods -- the substances we take in to give us energy -- are based on Carbon. Their smells and tastes are largely because of the Carbon-based molecules in their substance. So is their color. There are also human-made molecules that we have come to depend on, such as plastics, and man made fibers. Fuels are possible because of Carbon-based molecules. So are wood, paper, and many other things. We are, truly, Carbon-based life forms.

So, in this Thanksgiving season, I'm thankful to God for Carbon. Without it, I wouldn't be here, and you wouldn't be, either. I also thank Rebecca for suggesting that November be a month of blogger gratitude emphasis. I have also used this emphasis as an excuse to be thankful for the electromagnetic spectrum, and for cell division.

Thank you for reading.