Sunspots 768

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

Christianity: Christianity Today discusses the matter of celibacy in priests, in an article with links to several related articles, some from quite some time back.

(and Politics) Relevant has an article which attempts to explain white evangelicals' support for President Trump. The author rejects anti-abortion as being too simple an explanation. For one thing, there were several candidates for President in 2016 who were anti-abortion. For another, recent polls show that terrorism, immigration and health care, not abortion, are the current top 3 issues for white evangelicals. There are other reasons given, that indicate that abortion isn't the main issue. The author concludes that "white evangelicals are ready for someone who punches back on their behalf," and that they feel marginalized by society.


Computing: (and more, including medical ethics) BioLogos has a fine, and thoughtful, article on transhumanism, from the viewpoint of a Christian thinker. Transhumanism is, for example, making our eyes more able to focus at long distances than they naturally can.

Environment: Numerous outlets report that Antarctica has recently had its highest temperature ever recorded.
Health: (and Politics) In the Trump budget proposal, funds to help other countries detect new outbreaks of infectious diseases has been drastically cut.

Politics: Relevant, and other outlets, report on past racist and sexist comments, and probably attitudes, of Michael Bloomberg.

Gizmodo/Earther criticizes a plan to plant a trillion trees. There are other, more effective, things we should do, like cutting back on fossil fuel consumption.

Science: National Public Radio reports on findings that suggest that long-ago humans must have mated with a hitherto unknown human-like species, in Africa. There is already good evidence that many of us have some Neanderthal DNA, and people from Oceania may have DNA from Denisovans, another group, also long extinct. More on this story, from The Scientist, which has links to related material.

From Listverse: 10 amazing scientific phenomena caught on video.

The Scientist reports on composting human remains.


Sports: (and Health) Gizmodo reports on a study showing brain impairment (perhaps temporary) in soccer players who hit the ball with their heads.

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

Thanks for looking!

Sunspots 593

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

Christianity: A Relevant contributor, who used to be sexually active, has been celibate for three years.

Another Relevant contributor has written an essay on how to cope with lust after you are married.


Computing: (and Politics) Donald Trump, Jr., is not the only politician (or helper of one) accused of violating copyright, but he is one who has done so recently, according to National Public Radio. He used a Flickr photo, which is here, and is labelled "all rights reserved." I am a member of Flickr, but have not reserved all rights to my photos.

Health: National Public Radio reports on a doctor who confessed, years after the fact, to lying to protect another doctor in a malpractice case. The report suggests that such happenings are not rare, or not rare enough.

NPR also reports that life spans are no longer continuing to lengthen, and why.

History: You've probably seen, heard, and read about the National Museum of African American History and Culture. If you haven't, you should have.


Politics: National Public Radio has posted a transcript of the first Presidential debate, interspersed with fact checking.

The New York Times reports that, even after Mr. Trump's announcement affirming it, a significant number of citizens don't believe that President Obama was born in the U. S. (The number has gone down.)

Listverse has posted 10 dark secrets of Hillary Clinton, and 10 dark secrets of Donald Trump. God help us!

Science: An article on how archaeologists can study what dead people ate, from Listverse.

For all the uproar (sometimes) about genetic engineering of food crops, there have been few examples used commercially. One of these, making corn resistant to rootworms, is starting to fail -- the rootworms are evolving into having resistance. (Scientists predicted this would happen, but the seed companies didn't listen to them.) Another source of a resistance gene has been found.


Image source (public domain)