Sunspots 980

 

Some things I have spotted that may be of interest:

Earth.com reports on the estimated number of ants living on earth. Lots and lots of them!

Quanta tells us that mammal (including human) and bird brains are significantly different, but both support intelligence.

You may have heard of the supposed feat of bringing extinct dire wolves back to life from ancient DNA. Todd Wood says that they didn't produce dire wolves.

Popular Mechanics tells us that there is no purple color.

NPR reports on experiments that show that crows can distinguish geometric shapes.

Sunspots 806

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

Christianity: Relevant has a tongue-in-cheek piece on Starbuck's cups, which, again, don't include the word, "Christmas," on them.

A Christianity Today article argues that Phoebe (Romans 16:1) had an important role in the church.

Environment: The US has officially withdrawn (finally) from the Paris Climate Accord. Gizmodo also reports that, if Biden wins, we could re-join the Accord in about a month.

Gizmodo reports that the voters of Colorado have voted to have wolves introduced into the state. (They used to live there).

Health: (or something) Relevant reports that the US divorce rate keeps dropping. However, marriage, especially among those not so well off, is also less likely.

The Panda's Thumb is not totally optimistic about Pfizer's vaccine, for more than one reason. I hope that the optimism is correct.

Politics: Neil Cavuto, Fox News anchor, had his program cut away from a White House press conference, because, he said, it was presenting unsubstantiated assertions about ballots, according to Relevant and other sources.

Nate Silver, head of FiveThirtyEight, discusses what recent polls got right.

Science: Relevant reports on an extra-solar planet that has extreme conditions.

Gizmodo reports on recent observations of a little-known kind of squid.

Sports: FiveThirtyEight reports that the number of punts returned, rather than let fall, or fairly caught, is declining.

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

Thanks for looking!

Sunspots 791

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

Christianity: A sobering essay in Christianity Today, on how the political story we adhere to shapes our actions and attitudes more than our religious background does.

Eugene Cho on why (and how) he prayed for President Obama, and why he prays for President Trump.

Relevant has an article on Bible verses often taken out of context.

Environment: A new report, on Gizmodo, indicates that climate change may be going to be worse than we had thought, which was bad enough.

Health: (and politics) FiveThirtyEight on partisan differences in belief and behavior concerning COVID-19. The differences aren't as wide as they could be.

Science: A Gizmodo writer discusses the intelligence (or not) of dogs.

LifeHacker tells us why we can smell a fart through a mask.

Gizmodo reports that some supposedly inactive ingredients of medications may not be inactive.

Earther discusses the re-introduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park.

NPR reports on how a boy's life is much better than it would have been, because of gene therapy.


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

Thanks for looking!

Sunspots 403

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

 

Science:  National Public Radio reports that sweet potatoes most likely originated in the Americas, and that some of them were taken to Asia by traffic between what is now Latin America and Polynesia, all before Columbus came from Europe.

The Atlantic reports on using DNA to store information, such as the works of Shakespeare.

The Washington Post reports that dogs, who descended from wolves, had a change in diet preference, associated with becoming and remaining domestication.

NPR says that, instead of flu, you may have a Norovirus, which, if anything, is worse.

The Arts:  A James Kibble has recorded all of the organ works of J. S. Bach for free download.

Computing: A social scientist has shown that people are reluctant to wipe the memory of robots, even if they understand that these are not real people.

Image source (public domain)