Sunspots 958

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

Health: (and Politics, to some extent) Gizmodo reports that the Centers for Disease Control tell us that more  parents are finding excuses for not having their kids vaccinated.

Science: Gizmodo reports that some viruses enter host cells, with the (unwitting) help of other kinds of viruses.

Quanta Magazine reports on how we perceive small numbers of objects (1-4), and it's not the same way we perceive greater numbers of objects.

IFLScience reports that a yeast organism with artificial DNA is functional and alive.

A Conversation writer discusses treatment for concussions and other brain injury.

Sports: (and Finance, and Education) The Guardian complains about our priorities -- Texas A&M's football coach has been fired, but is to get 77 million dollars for not coaching. Education in Texas (and elsewhere) is seriously underfunded.

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view

Thanks for reading.

Geography (and economics and arithmetic) lesson: In case you didn't know it, Louisville, KY is on the Atlantic Coast, and Oklahoma is in the East.

(Image from Pixabay) So. The Pac-12 athletic conference is going to shrink to 10 members. Texas and Oklahoma, which aren't exactly in the east, will be joining the Southeast conference. The Big 10 is already up to 14 members, and will apparently be adding 2 more, making it the Big 16, maybe. The Big 12 currently has 13 members, and will shrink to 8. The Atlantic Coast Conference includes Notre Dame (sort of) and Louisville, which are both about 600 miles away from the nearest ocean. Have you got all that? It doesn't really matter very much if you do, because there will be more changes, barring the Second Coming. By the way, there are more sports than football, but that's the big one.

Why is all this happening? Money, money, money. Major college sports is an industry, more than a sport. It reflects our values pretty well.

See here for Wikipedia's reporting on this phenomenon, without my editorializing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Five_conferences

Sunspots 763

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


Christianity: (and Politics) Relevant discusses the reaction to a recent Christianity Today editorial calling for the removal of President Trump.

Health: The Scientist reports that there has been a large increase in alcohol-related deaths, in the US.

The Scientist also reports that exposure to soil may help our immune systems.

Humor: (and romance) Relevant reports on a dating site that requires agreement with a doctrinal statement. (A Calvinist one)

Politics: NPR reports on a Pew poll that indicates that most people in other countries don't trust President Trump.

Christianity Today reports that 41 governors have certified that their states want to continue to accept refugees.

FiveThirtyEight reports on polling - we are ambiguous about what's been happening with Iran.

Science: Gizmodo reports on a new species of mantis, which impales its prey on spikes on its legs.

Gizmodo also reports on 5 newly discovered species of birds. This report has a couple of photos. The Scientist also reports on Indonesian birds, but mentions 10 new species.

Gizmodo also reports on the development of "robots" made from living frog embryo cells. These things can do various tasks, and, eventually, might be used to clear clogged blood vessels, and do other  medical jobs.

NPR reports on frigate birds, which can use clouds (!) to stay aloft for weeks at a time.

Sports: Congratulations to Vince Carter, who began playing in the NBA in the 1990s, and is still playing in the 2020s, as reported by FiveThirtyEight. 

(and race) FiveThirtyEight reports on the scarcity of non-white pro football coaches.

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

Listverse tells us some popular and interesting misconceptions about colors.

Thanks for looking!

Sunspots 711

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

Christianity: (and Sports) Relevant on whether God cares about who wins a football game.

He Lives assesses Christian's reactions to the Command to "remember the Sabbath."

Education: NPR reports that school bullying has increased in areas in Virginia that voted for President Trump.

Politics: Yes, it's early, but that didn't stop FiveThirtyEight from analyzing the chances of the top ten or so potential Democratic candidates for President, to actually be the Democratic nominee.

From The Daily Beast: Shepard Smith, of Fox News fact-checked President Trump's speech from the Oval Office. There were "facts" that weren't facts.

Michael Gerson on a crisis that isn't really one, about a wall that really isn't a wall, paid for by Mexican pesos that are really US tax dollars, and he goes on.

Catherine Rampell on trading with China -- we need to be careful!

Earther reports that President Trump is still blaming the wrong people and practices for the increase in forest fires in California and elsewhere.

The Interior Department isn't picking up trash, but it is holding meetings for the purpose of granting oil leases in Alaska.

Trudy Rubin argues that border security is not one of our main security problems. President Trump's inflated opinion of himself is.

Science: NPR reports that religious fundamentalism has led to some really strange claims, at the annual Indian Science Congress.

The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, I believe, it is public domain. 

Thanks for looking!

Sunspots supplement - Paul Samuelson's top 10 statistics, from Ben Beach

Paul Samuelson, columnist on economic issues, has posted the top 10 statistics of 2017, which he has taken from someone named Ben Beach. They make fascinating and interesting reading.

Sunspots 642

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

The Arts: (Sort of) SmokyMountans.com has a fall foliage prediction map, for the entire United States. As of September 1, there are only a few regions which are expected to have even minimal color, namely, a part of New England, some of the Rockies, and Michigan's northern Upper Peninsula, and Northern Minnesota.

Christianity: (or, at least, good behavior) A CNN crew stopped what they were doing to rescue some people during the Houston flood.

An article on burdens pastors face, and which they often can't tell anyone about.

Listverse has an article on the excruciating types of suffering induced by crucifixion.


Food: (and hurricanes) FEMA uses the Waffle House Index to measure the impact of large storms. How Waffle House (almost always) keeps open.

Health: Listverse suggests that 10 different types of parasite could be infected me (or you) right now.

Humor: (Or geography!) Relevant reports on a couple who have visited all 645 Cracker Barrel restaurants in the US.
 

Politics: Scientific American details how the Trump administration is acting in ways that damage our National Park System, and National Monuments.

A statement from a retired official of my own church, The Wesleyan Church, on ending DACA, in The Huffington Post.

Science: Listverse reports on 10 strange planets (all outside the solar system).

Wired reports that fire ants have been clumping together and floating around, in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. Scientific American on the same subject.

Listverse reports on strange caterpillars, including one that jumps (video included) and one with hair that looks like that of the current US President.

Scientific American on the many possible "sexes," that is, people with more or less sex chromosomes than most of us, or with various anatomical aberrations, such as indeterminate sex organs, and more.

Sports: (And Christianity) A Southern Baptist minister and denominational official, who is a football fan, warns that football can take the place of God, in Relevant.


Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 590

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

Christianity: A Florida State football player ate lunch with an autistic boy who was eating alone in his school cafeteria, says Relevant.

A blogger has posted some stupid phrases, or good phrases used stupidly, for people in crisis.

Benjamin L. Corey says that Christian parents should be celebrating Colin Kaepernick's refusal to stand during the National Anthem.


Computing: Bloomberg warns us that our new refrigerators may be watching us (and sending information to others.)

Education: National Public Radio reports on a study that indicates that when a child in school is exposed to violence in the home, it affects the entire class.

Health: Wired says that too many of us still aren't wearing seat belts.

Scientific American, and many other news outlets, on why the ingredients in many antibacterial soaps have been banned. (Regular soap is just as good!)

History: ListVerse on 10 people who rescued others, who were on the other side, during World War II.

Politics: FiveThirtyEight discusses facts about immigration, based on real data. (Example: Hispanic immigrants learn English as well as, or better than, German immigrants did in the past.)

Science: Wired has posted a graphic, showing how rapidly climate has changed over the past 160 years or so.

FiveThirtyEight discusses what starlight tells us about the universe. As the post says, pretty much everything we know.

Scientific American discusses the matter of calling family members by some other family member's name.

Scientific American also discusses the subject of communicating with aliens -- how could we learn their language (or the reverse)? (There's a movie about that coming out soon.)

NPR reports that some lizards are starving to death, because it is too hot for them to forage during most of the day.



Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 499

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:
Christianity: Ben Watson, professional football player, and black man, has written a thoughtful piece on the events in Ferguson, Missouri.

Computing: (or something) National Public Radio on the Supreme Court hearing a case about a man who threatened to kill his wife on Facebook, and continued to do so, in spite of a restraining order and a visit from an FBI agent. He claims that this is free speech.
 
Humor: Relevant examines some Christmas songs carefully, and wonders why we listen to them.
 
Politics: Surprise! NPR reports on a study that says that making campaign contributions to candidates leads to lower taxes for companies that do so.
 
Science: (or something) Wired reports that ants efficiently clean food off the streets of New York City. (about one-fourth of the trash in that city is food.)
 
Wired also reports on treehoppers, some really strangely shaped, and sounding, insects.

Sports: A Clemson University football player, Artavis Scott, did an amazing ballet for the last few yards of a touchdown run, running sideways, and staying in bounds.

 Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 498

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:
Christianity: Relevant on redefining gratitude. (On being grateful for things we usually aren't grateful for.)
Computing: National Public Radio reports that major retailers have done little or nothing to prevent massive data misuse, as in the Target and Home Depot incidents. Why not? Because the credit card companies are picking up the tab. (So, of course, are consumers.)
NPR also reports on the potential (and actual) power of tech giants to control the news that we see and hear.
Health: National Public Radio tells us that our adult siblings may be quite important to our health.
Politics: (and Science) Fox News reports that some Google engineers claim that so-called green energy sources, by themselves, won't stop climate change. The article also mentions that Google is heavily invested in alternative energy sources.
Science: Capital OTC reports that a fossil ancestor of rhinos, hippos and horses has been found in India. Geologists believe that most of India was once a separate island.
Sports: You've probably seen it five times, but, just in case, here's the three-finger catch of a football, for a touchdown, by one Odell Beckham, of the New York Giants.

 Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 490

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to

someone else:

The Arts: (And Christianity) A fascinating discussion of so-called "white magic," which is illustrated thus:
Many Christians, including many parents, are practicing “white magic” whenever they fear and shun objects, symbols, and Things more than they fear Jesus Christ and hate inner sin.
Health: National Public Radio reports on how many days dying patients spend in hospitals, and what causes the variation. It varies widely, almost three times as much in New York and New Jersey as in Utah and Idaho.
Science: NPR reports on a portion of the brain that may be a main cause of unselfish behavior.
The BBC asks if all the ants on earth weigh more than all the people. I thank one of my brothers for this link.
Wired reports on a spider that lives its entire life underwater.
(And politics) Some right-wing news outlets are trumpeting a recent study, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as showing that global climate change is not caused by human activity. Not exactly. Here's a report on the study, from the Associated Press. To quote the AP: "The study ... does not question global warming but argues that there is evidence that in at least one place, local winds are a more important factor explaining ocean warming than greenhouse gases." Critics of the study have pointed out that local winds, themselves, are probably influenced by human activity. And, of course, even if human activity has no effect on winds, the report is not global, and it does not question that human activity effects ocean warming. Here's a press release, from NOAA, on the report.
Sports: The scoring summary of the September 21, 2014 NFL game between the New England Patriots and the Oakland Raiders. All of the scoring (a touchdown, an extra point, and six field goals) was done by three players, Sebastian Janikowski, Rob Gronkowski and Stephen Gostkowski. That must be some sort of record . . .

Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 446

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

Computing: Gizmo's Freeware tells us that there is a free Merriam-Webster Dictionary app. I tried it on my Android tablet, and it works. It can even look up spoken words, so you don't have to know how to spell it to find it.
Philosophy: The BioLogos Forum has a two-part post on "Questions on Time and Eternity." A subject with lasting interest. Here's Part 1, and Part 2.
Politics (and Sports): An article on Dean Smith, super-successful coach of the University of North Carolina men's basketball team for many years, who was also a pioneer in race relations, and against the death penalty. Unfortunately, Smith is a victim of dementia.
Science: The sun is losing about 5,000,000 tons of mass to Hydrogen every second. But fear not. At that rate, it won't stop emitting significant amounts of energy for about 5 billion years, and by that time, it will have lost only a tiny fraction of its mass.
From the Greenville (SC) News, an article on a dog which is said to have an amazing vocabulary, and can understand parts of speech.
Sports: (And Christianity!) An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, no less, about the evangelical Christianity that is part of the Clemson University football team.


Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 442

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

Christianity: Fancy horse on teaching a two year old about sacrificial giving.
Health: National Public Radio reports on a scientific study of whether adding bacon to recipes really makes them more appealing.
Politics: NPR also reports on whether just giving money to poor people helps them or not.
Science: I am not making this up. There is an animal, known as the demon mole rat, which, unlike the naked mole rat, which is highly social, is solitary. They bang their heads against their tunnels to tell nearby animals to stay away. (reported in Wired.)
Sports: Various outlets, including ESPN, report that a football game last weekend was to have been officiated by a crew which included four females.


Image source (public domain)

Jesus and football

Jesus would have probably gone to football games. He seemed to enjoy being with lots of people, except when He needed to get away to be with God, and rest.

He probably couldn’t have afforded a ticket, so someone else would have had to pay for His. He probably wouldn’t have been able to afford clothing in special colors. He would have sympathized with other people, too poor or too sick to go to games.

He probably wouldn’t have cared who won, but would have been more concerned for the needs of the people around him in the stands than for who scored what, or who was headed for a college scholarship, or an NFL position, or who was ranked where, or who was going to what bowl.

He wouldn’t have hated the other team, or the referees. Perhaps He would have been disturbed by the lack of clothing of the cheerleaders, or the drunkenness of some of the fans, or the attempts by some players to injure those on the other team. He probably would have been careful to not let attendance, or watching, at a late hour, interfere with His alertness in worship, or His ability to minister effectively.

He wouldn’t have been identified by a team, or its colors, or its nickname, or its mascot. He would have been identified as the founder and Lord of the Kingdom of Heaven. Football is transitory. Eternity is not.

Sunspots 379

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

Science: Wired reports on a study that shows that social connectedness as a teenager is much more important than academic achievement in adult happiness.

Sports: Syndicated columnist George F. Will says that football has gotten too big and too dangerous for the players.

The Arts: Rebecca Luella Miller, of Speculative Faith, tells us why fantasy is so appealing to so-called young adults.

Politics: (or something) National Public Radio reports that a book on Thomas Jefferson, by David Barton, has been pulled from their offerings, because of errors of fact.

Computing: Fox News reports that the bad guys use suddenly popular searches (related to some scandal, for example) as a way to mess up our computers.

Christianity: From the BioLogos Foundation, a brief summary of the history of how Darwin was received by Christians, in his own time. By no means all Christians were hostile. (Some were.)

Image source (public domain)

It's all about winning

Clemson University, which is the big-time sports school closest to where I live, fired its head football coach, Tommy Bowden, today. (Or, possibly, he resigned.)

Why do most major colleges have a football program? There are several possible benefits. A football program can attract students, including non-athletes. A football program can provide a way to experience higher education for students who might not have such a privilege otherwise. It provides visibility with the public. It enhances alumni and community interest and loyalty. It generates revenue.

All of these, however, are usually subservient to winning. Clemson was ranked in the top ten in the country before the season started. Whatever that means! One thing it means is that there are high expectations. The expectations were not meant. If you, by chance, are a Clemson football fan, you know all about the current record. If you aren't, you probably don't care about this topic at all, or at least you don't care about the details. Suffice it to say that Clemson is 3-3 on the season, with two of those victories against much weaker opponents. That wasn't enough winning. Bowden announced, a couple of days ago, that his starting quarterback would not start the next game. That wasn't enough change, apparently.

Tommy Bowden is said to be a Christian, and there is good evidence that he is, even though he made at least one decision that Christians might question. (See under Sports, in this previous post.) Can a Christian participate, as a player, trainer, cheerleader, coach, or official, in big-time sports? Of course. But, as in all endeavors, even church, we must be careful to put the first things first. Winning isn't everything. Following Christ is. Sometimes that means games won, sometimes not. Sometimes it means more people in church, bigger buildings, fancier worship programs, sometimes not.

Tommy Bowden couldn't go out there and block for his team. He couldn't catch some of the balls that were dropped. He has now been dropped himself. God's best, whatever it is, to him and his team. I have never attended a game he coached, but have watched several of them. (Having at least $4,000,000 in severance pay will help to cushion the blow, I'm sure.)

Thanks for reading.