Sunspots 568

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

The Arts: (Sort of) Listverse describes 10 bizarre musical instruments, and the people who play them (and usually invented them).

Computing: Gizmo's Freeware evaluates PDF file readers/annotators.

Wired reports that the Associated Press now (finally!) agrees that it's OK to not capitalize "internet," and "web."

Gizmo's also picks a new candidate for best free anti-virus program.

Education: FiveThirtyEight tells us why media presentations of various aspects of college, including competition for admission, are unrealistic.

Politics: The New York Times reports that people in the USA like members of the other political party considerably less than they used to.

Science: Wired reports that the connections to about 50 neurons in a mouse brain have been mapped. This sounds easy, but it wasn't -- it took several people a few years.

Wired also reports on the scientific basis for itching and scratching.

Wired also tells us how to make a bottle rocket.

An under-30 female Ukrainian mathematician has solved a problem that has been worked on for a long time.

(Sort of science) Listverse reports on how 10 different chemical elements have been used to kill people. (They didn't include lead.)

FiveThirtyEight tells us why the sun hurts our eyes.

Note: This post originally linked to a Christianity Today article on the religion of one of the major candidates for President of the US. A few days later, the same periodical published an article rebutting the first one, so I removed the link to the first article.


Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 520

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


Christianity: (and politics) Christianity Today has an essay on the Indiana so-called religious freedom law, The essay points out some serious exaggerations by at least two sides in the argument over the law, and gives some good advice to Christians on the future of same-sex relationships in the US.

The 22 questions that John Wesley wanted Christians to ask themselves every day. (Public domain, and available from several other sites.)
Computing: Gizmo's Freeware recommends a web site that compares anti-virus software.
Ethics: A New York Times columnist writes about a "Moral Bucket List." He says that there are two kinds of virtues, "the résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues," and we reward the first kind, but they really don't matter as much as the "eulogy virtues."
Politics: An essay on "taking the county back." The author says that Jesus didn't, and Israel, at that time, had really been taken from the Jews, in many senses.
Science: Wired tells us that honeybees aren't going to go away, but about 4,000 other species of bees are in danger.
Wired also reports on a creature known as the disco clam -- it produces flashes of light. The report has a couple of brief videos.
Sports: FiveThirtyEight presents an argument that Women's NCAA basketball is better than men's basketball.

Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 492

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:
Christianity: A post in Relevant magazine, on how many Christians do not accept the End Times view that the Left Behind movie is based on.
Also in Relevant, a post on why Christians should have Muslim friends, real ones.
And, also from Relevant, a great post on the uses and misuses of anger.
In Christianity Today, an article about the first Protestant missionary to India (you've never heard of him).
Computing: Gizmo's Freeware has a free anti-virus utility that they rate highly.
Science:  In Wired, video of an Icelandic volcano, erupting, taken with a drone.
From the BBC, a good article on keeping very accurate time. (A second is no longer a fraction of a day, by the way.) Thanks to one of my brothers for the link.
NPR interviews an expert on teenage brain development, who has some radical suggestions for high school (and later) education.


Image source (public domain)