Sunspots 774

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else: (No April Fools' jokes

here)

Christianity: Christianity Today discusses the impact of Corrie ten Boom.

Some churches are meeting during various varieties of shutting down, according to Christianity Today.
 
Computing: Gizmo's freeware recommends a note-taking application, which has several interesting features, and is, of course, free.

NPR discusses attempts to prevent false information on Facebook and other platforms. 

Education: A National Emergency Library will lend you over a million digitized books.

Health: (and politics) FiveThirtyEight on why we shouldn't "just try" drugs in the hope that some such will  be an effective treatment for COVID-19.

Humor: (and Engineering) Gizmodo put up videos of 11 really cool Lego creations, which, among other things, will vacuum up Legos, and sort them.

Philosophy: (And Science, and Christianity) Christianity Today has a fine article examining the possibility of a multiverse (or multiverses) and the implications thereof. Part of the impetus for the article was the Spider-verse movie.


Politics: FiveThirtyEight discusses remote voting by members of Congress.

Science: Gizmodo reports that some squid, living in darkness, deep in the ocean, apparently communicate by glowing.

Gizmodo also reports that seismic activity levels are down, because many of us are staying home.

Earther reports on a bacterium that consumes polyurethane, a plastic that is, otherwise, almost impossible to break down.

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

Sunspots 743

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to

someone else:

Christianity: A Relevant writer asks if Christians should participate in partisan politics.
(and Computing) A Christianity Today writer believes that reading the Bible digitally is not as good for us as reading a physical Bible.


Computing: (and Christianity) E. Stephen Burnett warns that reading a pirated e-book is stealing.

Education: Grammarphobia tells us how to punctuate a question, or a series of questions within a sentence. (Example: Do you think it will rain? snow? be windy? today? -- that example needs fixing.)

Finance: FiveThirtyEight says that economists are bad at predicting recessions.

History: NPR examines President Truman's attempt to purchase Greenland.

Politics: (And Christianity) A Relevant writer tries to explain recent tweets by President Trump, in which he probably didn't (but who knows) call himself the chosen king, and imply that he is related to the Second Coming, or something.

FiveThirtyEight finds that red flag laws might actually cut down on mass shootings.

Science: The Scientist reports that bacteria have been found, living over 2 kilometers below the surface.

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

Thanks for looking!

Sunspots 489

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:
Christianity: It's not out yet, but here's a blog post warning Christians not to take the Left Behind movie too seriously.
A splendid lecture on how God is seen through nature.
Computing: Be careful of pirated e-books. Apparently, some of them can hack your Amazon account.
Relevant has posted a map showing all the web-connected devices on the planet. Interesting, but perhaps not terribly surprising -- web use is concentrated in a few places.

Science: One of the advantages of being sexual is that the offspring have new and unique combinations of the genes of their parents. But Wired reports on a microscopic organism that takes such recombination much further than any other known living thing.
Wired also reports on a parasitic worm that invades the eyestalks of snails, so it can be eaten. Really. There's a short video.
Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 486

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to

someone else:
Computing: Slate reports on what happens to the e-books, music, and other digital assets you have paid for, when you die. It is entirely possible that your relatives would have no rights to them, it turns out.
Fox News reports that we may have microchips implanted in us, in the near future.
If you have several thousand dollars to spend, Wired says that a new generation of TVs is about to be released.
Science:  Wired reports on beautiful blue bees, which make their living by stealing from other bees.
Wired also reports on our fingernails, which grow much faster than our toenails.


Image source (public domain)