Sunspots 877

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

The Arts: Gizmodo ranks the 10 best original Star Trek episodes, and James T. Kirk's (William Shatner's) role in them.

Christianity: (and politics) Christianity Today asks why there are no evangelicals on the US Supreme Court.

Computing: A Gizmodo post on how big tech (especially Facebook) has not done what's best for most of us.

Environment: NPR reports that Australia's Great Barrier Reef is in grave danger.

NPR also reports on misinformation used to halt installation of wind turbines.

Finances: Gizmodo points out that Western oil companies paid for much of Putin's war.

Food: NPR reports on making pizza without yeast.

Health: (and politics) FiveThirtyEight on the miserable job of COVID testing by most of the states in the US.

Politics: Vladimir Putin has used the Bible to support his recent actions, according to Relevant.

A Christianity Today author points out the difference in how we treat Ukrainian refugees vs. our treatment of Syrian refugees.

Science: Nature has an opinion piece, arguing that testing the genetics of human embryos is questionable or worse.

Gizmodo reports on a study of the "plumbing" of Yellowstone's geysers. Some interesting underground connections and features.

Gizmodo reports on a really fancy (and, apparently, useful) tape measure.

Gizmodo also shows photos of 7 different kinds of animal camouflage.

The Scientist reports on how a man with no muscle control at all was trained, using a brain implant, to respond in computer-generated text.

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 635

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

The Arts: Listverse tells us about the original Star Trek characters, 10 of them.

Christianity: Perry Noble, fired from the pastorate of what is probably the largest church in South Carolina, because of his alcohol use, almost committed suicide.

Christianity Today on why racially uniform congregations are unfortunate, and why we integrated worship is a good thing.

(Sort of) Relevant reports that a human chain rescued some people from drowning, caused by a riptide, on a beach in Florida.


Education: Scientific American reports that college students would do better if they didn't bring laptop computers to class.

Food: (and religion) Relevant reports that the Catholic church refuses to use gluten-free wafers as part of communion.

Health: (sort of) Listverse tells 10 true horror stories of medical malpractice.

Scientific American reports that most people have at least one episode of mental illness some time in their life, and most of us recover from such episodes.

Listverse discusses some interesting facts about breast implants.

Politics: (or something) The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group is composed of 90 large cities, from around the globe, who are attempting to mitigate climate change. It was interesting to discover, in the list of members, huge cities that I had not heard of.

Christianity Today reports that there will be a lot less Christians immigrating to the US in 2017 than did in 2016, because of the Trump administration's policies on admission.

National Public Radio reports that six Afghan girls, formerly refused visas by the US State Department, have been allowed to participate in a robotics competition in the US. President Trump evidently intervened on their behalf.

I didn't choose the title of this post, in the Village Voice, but it's a sane and sobering corrective to the political strife that most of us engage in.

Michael Gerson, Washington Post: "A faith that makes losing a sin will make cheating a sacrament."


Science: Scientific American on how babies perceive and distinguish colors.

Nature reports that scientists have figured out how to store a brief, low-resolution movie in bacterial DNA.




Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 367

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

Science: (or something) Internet information about a very large crocodile, recently killed in Africa, has most likely been exaggerated. However, there was a very large crocodile killed there. This link includes a photo.

National Geographic reports on the successful launch of a commercial spaceflight, which apparently contained cremated remains of James Doohan (Montgomery Scott, aka "Scotty" of the original Star Trek) and Astronaut Gordon Cooper.

National Geographic also reports on recovery of ink from the ink sacs of a fossil squid-like creature, said to be 160 million years old. The ink is similar to that of the modern cuttlefish.

The Arts: (or manufacturing) Wired reports (including a video of just over 2 minutes) on a machine designed to bend wire in most any way, resulting in 2 or 3 dimensional objects.

E. Stephen Burnett tells us what stories should be all about.

Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 242

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

Science: The Panda's Thumb presents some photos of skulls, and asks us if they are of apes, or humans.

The New York Times has an article on "How to Train the Aging Brain."

Music:
(The arts, really) heard, by way of CNN, that Patrick Stewart, who played Star Trek Captain Jean-Luc Picard, among many other roles, was to have been knighted on January 1st.


Image source (public domain)