Sunspots 830

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

Environment: An environmental activist, writing in Gizmodo, says that it's time to "kill Earth Day."

Food: (and drink) The Scientist reports that a different species of coffee may be useful as a substitute for the species now commonly grown, which is susceptible to global warming. So susceptible that there's a coffee shortage coming.

Science: NPR reports on an experiment that has been going on for over 140 years.

Gizmodo reports on an Oxygen-generating device that NASA included in a recent Mars landing. The device, or something like it, may make it possible to return to earth from Mars (plus giving Mars scientists Oxygen to breathe.)

Gizmodo also reports that sponges can move.

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

Thanks for looking!

Sunspots 769

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to

someone else:

Christianity: Christianity Today discusses polyamory among professing Christians.


Christianity Today also has a good article on why the Old Testament continues to be important.

CT has also posted information on 20 African-American heroes and heroines of faith.

Computing: (and Politics) Gizmodo reports that Twitter has taken action against some pro-Bloomberg accounts, for publishing pro-Bloomberg spam.
  Humor: (and Computing) A Gizmodo writer has found women's pants with pockets large enough to hold a smartphone.


Politics: (And Christianity) Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, has been an outspoken critic of President Trump. Authorities in the church are apparently going to study the question of whether Moore's positions have hurt the denomination financially, according to Relevant. In a later post, Relevant reports that the ERLC board has instructed Moore not to comply with such an inquiry, at least not at present.

Joel Edmund Anderson asks us to not be hyper-partisan, in any direction.

Science: The Scientist reports on recent discoveries in human anatomy. You would think that we already knew all there is to know about our structure. Not so. For example, there's a bone that I don't think you have heard of.

The Scientist also reports on the use of artificial intelligence to discover new antibiotics.

NPR reports on the terrible locust plague in Africa.

NPR, and other outlets, report that Katherine Johnson, one of the African-American mathematicians who worked on the manned space program, has died. (The movie, Hidden Figures, was based on the critical work of these women.)

Sports: Sabrina Ionescu, who plays basketball for Oregon, had quite a day on February 24th. She was one of the speakers at the memorial service for Kobe Bryant, and also became the only college basketball player, male or female, to score 2000+ career points, give out 1000+ assists, and collect 1000+ rebounds. She got the qualifying rebound on the 24th, against Stanford.

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

Thanks for looking!

Sunspots 739

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

The Arts: Gizmodo shows us some amazing photos of flowers and insects.

(And Science) NASA's entire media library is now free for public use.
Relevant displays some amazing mobiles. Really amazing.
Christianity: FiveThirtyEight analyzes a recent poll on what Americans know about religion (not just Christianity). Not as much as they should. 

He Lives discusses the chronology of creation.

Computing: Several experts don't believe that a recent ruling by the government will have any affect on Facebook's use of our private information for its own purposes.

Relevant reports on a study that says that 88% of us are looking at some screen while we eat.

Politics: Catherine Rampell on the severe anti-immigration actions of the Trump administration.

Catherine Rampell also points out that President Trump and other Republicans have been acting as socialists a lot lately.

Michael Gerson on Mueller's appearance before Congressional committees.

Politico on how environmental concerns are being set aside, and the Trump administration is pushing for fossil fuel development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I thank one of my brothers, who pointed me to this article.

Relevant on what the Christian community should be doing about gun violence. 

Science: An article on the largest organism on earth, which seems to be dying.

Listverse tells us some interesting things about tears and crying.

Sports: FiveThirtyEight suggests that really tall players will be featured more often in the National Basketball Association, as they used to be.

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

A source of interesting, and beautiful, photos from NASA

What does the photo show? It shows a small part of the sky out there, and about 5,500 galaxies, some nearer and/or larger, some smaller and/or further away. The Wikipedia article on galaxies indicates that the smallest ones have about ten million stars apiece, and the largest ones have about ten million times ten million stars each, which is about 10 times as many stars in each one as the dollar amount of the national debt. Clearly, there are a lot of stars out there! How many of these have planets? Obviously, we don't know, but, most likely, many millions of planets, some of them suitable for earth-type living things, are out there. The furthest galaxies in the picture are said to be over 13 billion light years away, which means that it took over 13 billion years for light from them to reach NASA's instruments.

I am a member of Flickr, a sort of hybrid between photography, a blog, and a social network. Members post photos, and other members can subscribe to those photos, which means that they can see, if they choose, all the photos published by such other members. I have been a subscriber to NASA's photostream for a few years, and there are often interesting, beautiful, or spectacular shots posted from current work. (See here for NASA's policy on use of their photographs, which allows use such as this.) Non-members, including you, can see Flickr photos without needing a password. The graphic above is also a link to the photo on Flickr, with description. Larger sizes are available, at least to other Flickr members. See here for a fuller explanation of the picture.

In addition to the above photo, which was assembled from years of data collection by orbiting telescopes,  recent photos have included various weather phenomena, as seen by satellites, shots of equipment used, or soon to be used, by NASA, and a satellite photo of the result of the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

I have previously posted on related topics, including "extraterrestrial religion," "numbering the stars," and "God's complexity." I don't know whether there are other intelligent beings in the universe, and, if there are, whether they need salvation from sin or not. I believe that, should there be or have been such, God's plan includes their salvation, in ways we might, or might not, understand. It is likely, it seems to me, that Christ's death on the cross, on earth, and His subsequent resurrection, was sufficient atonement for all the intelligent beings that have ever sinned, whatever they might have looked like, or look like now, and whatever planet they lived on, or live on now, including me and you.

Thanks for reading.

Life on Mars? So what?

Congratulations to NASA on landing the Curiosity on Mars.

Suppose life is discovered on Mars? I see nothing in the Bible that would rule out that possibility, or that predicts it, and no threat to my faith, whether life is discovered on Mars (or anywhere else but Earth) or not.

Some additional musings:

It is impossible to absolutely prove that there has never been (or, for that matter is not now) life on Mars. It can always be argued that the Curiosity, and any additional exploratory apparatuses or people, have not looked everywhere, under every circumstance. There could be life deep within Mars, or only under rocks in a few places that have been overlooked, or the life might not have been Carbon-based, so the wrong procedure was used to find it. However, I think that we may decide that there is reasonable doubt that life now exists, or ever has existed, on Mars, at some point, if there is no evidence for it.

Who cares if there is life on Mars? Well, curious people ought to care, just to find out. Also, it is possible that, if Martian life forms are found, we might be able to study them, and learn something of value, such as a cure for cancer, or how to establish life on the moon. The discovery of the Americas by Europeans is not an exact parallel, of course, but that discovery certainly changed life in Europe (and the Americas!), in ways that would have been impossible to predict. Do I anticipate important benefits to humans, if life is discovered on Mars? No, but it can't be ruled out.

If there is reasonable doubt that life has ever existed on Mars, then we will probably be more inclined to go there ourselves. The argument that we have messed up the biology of earth, and, therefore, shouldn't be allowed to mess up the biology of Mars, will be weak, or non-existent. Why should we go to Mars? Because it is there, as someone said about why we should climb Mt. Everest, however strong or weak that argument is. It is possible that there may be commercial and scientific value from various phenomena, geological, meteorological, or astronomical, discovered going to Mars.

We certainly have enough to do on earth. Poverty, disease and sin are a long way from being eliminated. But perhaps, as the pictures of the earth from the moon changed our way of thinking about ourselves, probably for the good, looking at earth from another planet, with an atmosphere, might also change our way of thinking about ourselves, for the good, enough and more to offset the expense and effort of going to Mars. But don't hold your breath.

Thanks for reading. I have previously mused about the possibility of religious activity among living things on other planets.

NASA's Phoenix Lander

NASA has announced that the Phoenix Lander has stopped communication with earth, at least for the time being, and perhaps for good. The mission, near a pole, took the lander to a position where there is little sunlight for part of the year, and the lander's batteries re-charge, using solar energy.

The mission was, as I understand it, principally to explore the possibility of life on Mars. So far, results are inconclusive.

Suppose life was discovered on Mars? I see nothing in the Bible that would rule out that possibility, or that predicts it, and no threat to my faith, whether life is discovered on Mars (or anywhere else but Earth) or not.

Thanks for reading.