Consensus!
On cold winter mornings, right around sunrise, a crescendo of calls from hundreds of noisy jackdaws can often be heard right before they take to the sky all at once. How do they all know to do that? What kind of “democratic” decision-making is happening.
“Birdocracy,” one reporter called it.
But there is something to it. Say researchers from the University of Exeter and University of Cambridge in “Vocally Mediated Consensus Decisions Govern Mass Departures from
Progeny!
In other news, here’s an item from ye olde land of India.
Sadhana and Sanjeev Prasad have had it! They are a couple living in Haridwar, a city in North India. They’ve had it. With their son and his wife.
The reason?
Said son+wife refuse to give them grandchildren. Son+wife have been married for six years, but apparently without progeny. So the Prasads are unhappy. Deeply. Grieved. And aggrieved.
Aggrieved enough to file a suit against said son+wife. Yup, they’re taking
Kinder?
Getting old, say most old folks, ain’t fun. But did y’all know, old folks (and that includes me), that we are kinder than most? It’s a proven fact.
So saith a new study, from researchers in Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA, and USC, Los Angeles, CA, in “Oxytocin Release Increases With Age and Is Associated With Life Satisfaction and Prosocial Behaviors,” published in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience.
Oxytocin is a neurochemical widely known for
Attention!
“What is happening to kids’ brains?” asked a Wall Street Journal article recently. Most kids apparently can’t sit through feature-length films and have trouble focusing on homework or reading a book.
Dr. Carl Marci, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston:
Judges 1:1–2:5
Faithfulness to God manifest in uncompromising godliness and reliance on God brings blessing.
Joshua, the one who had begun to lead the Israelites so successfully against the Canaanites, and who was God’s agent for assigning land to the various tribes, was now gone. An era had concluded with the death of Joshua. A new beginning was at hand, and with it the challenge of finding godly leaders. Who would be the next godly servant to lead Israel? The Israelites do not ask
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.