Sunspots 607

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

Christianity: Relevant reports that a Christian is martyred for his/her faith about every six minutes.


Food: Listverse reports on 10 strange ways to make, and/or serve, ice cream.

Health: National Public Radio reports on a study that found that being the mother of a middle-schooler is more stressful than being the mother of a newborn or a teenager.

NPR also has a report on the state of knowledge of Alzheimer's.

NPR on how poor eating habits can impair your ability to think.

History: Listverse posts on 10 beautiful ancient maps.

Politics: Relevant reports that nearly 30,000 people have been the victims of violence in Venezuela this year.

Science: A simple, almost free solution to defrosting a car window quickly.

Listverse reports on 10 amazing inventions, inspired by structures and processes in living things.
Sports:


Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 478

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:
Computing: Gizmo's Freeware on how to search Twitter feeds without having a Twitter account.
Health: National Public Radio reports that prescriptions of strong painkillers vary widely from state to state, indicating that they are being seriously over-prescribed in some areas. The report also indicates that overdoses of prescription drugs kill more people than traffic accidents.

This is not to belittle stress -- it can be all too real. But it turns out that two of the most widely known areas of research into stress were funded by tobacco interests, which, way back in the 1930s, hoped to show that stress, not smoking, caused cancer and heart troubles, NPR reports.

Politics: NPR reports that the, er, Ethics Committee of the U. S. Congress has made it more difficult to find out how many trips members, or their staff, take, which are paid for by lobbyists or special interests.
A Christian commentator, in Relevant, points out that Hobby Lobby is selective in acting out the Christian beliefs of the owners, and, perhaps, even hypocritical.
Science: Wired tells us why the earphone/mouse/power/whatever cords get tangled so often.
My wife and I saw our first monkey puzzle tree. It looks weird, and that's a great name.


Image source (public domain)