Socializing?
“Motivational Shifts in Aging Monkeys and the Origins of Social Selectivity” was published recently in Current Biology, by researchers from the German Primate Center in Göttingen, Germany.
They studied non-social and social behavior of 118 Barbary macaques—a small monkey living in Europe and Northern Africa.
Non-social behavior was assessed by looking at the monkeys’ curiosity to explore new things like animal toys and such. Animals in their early adulthood and
Oracle!
I was in Greece last month, and got to visit the remains of the ancient Temple at Delphi, now recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Delphi (DEL-FEE in Greek) is located on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, supposedly sacred to the gods Dionysius and Apollo, and home to the Muses.
The site of the Temple was said to have been determined by Zeus, who located the edifice at the center of the earth (which, as Gaia, was Zeus’s grandmother). There the “navel” of the
Jimmy Draper: How I Preach
Jimmy Draper: And this is How I Preach …
[Jimmy Draper is a well known figure in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). He has served as its president in the past, and has led its publishing arm, LifeWay Christian Resources. Hailing from a pedigreed family of ministers and seminary graduates, Jimmy was prominent in the conservative resurgence of the SBC. He has pastored churches in Texas, Missouri, and Oklahoma since the late 50s (and he is still interim-pastoring!),
Dislike!
For years Facebook users have clamored for a “dislike” button to be paired with its “like” counterpart. Finally, it seemed, Zuckerberg and Co. had listened to their 1,650,000,000 active monthly users.
Announced CEO Mark Z. last September:
I think people have asked about the dislike button for many years. Today is a special day because today is the day I can say we’re working on it and shipping it.”
While up and down voting scheme is a fixture of the online news
Media!
According to a report by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization to help families and educators navigate the complex world of media and technology, on any given day, U.S. teens spend nine hours on media. Watching videos, playing games, reading, listening to media, checking social media, etc. On laptops, smartphones, tablets, TV …. Nine hours, every day!
That is more than what teens usually spend on sleep, more than what they spend with their parents and teachers!
Commons
Genesis 29:31−30:24
Highhandedness precludes God’s blessing, but faithful submission to God brings it about.
Jacob now has two wives, Leah, the unloved, and Rachel, the loved (29:31). Though unloved, Leah is the one producing children, one in almost every verse in 29:31–35. The naming of each son is poignant, as she hopes against hope that her husband’s unloving attitude to her will change. But what is significant is that Leah then stopped bearing (29:35; also 30:9). We have to wait
Friends?
Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at Oxford, Robert Ian MacDonald Dunbar, has made a pronouncement you won’t like. Most of your Facebook friends aren’t your friends.
In a recent issue of Royal Society: Open Science, Dunbar contributed “Do Online Social Media Cut Through the Constraints that Limit the Size of Offline Social Networks?”
Our man was also the dude who came up with the Dunbar Number in the 1990s, correlating primate brain size and average social group
Abe Kuruvilla is the Carl E. Bates Professor of Christian Preaching at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY), and a dermatologist in private practice. His passion is to explore, explain, and exemplify preaching.