Ants!
It is unlikely you’ve ever spent time wondering about ants. Even if you have, it is even more unlikely that you’ve excogitated about the number of said insects.
But in the long shot hope that you have, your faithful blogger is herewith providing the answer, courtesy of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
20,000,000,000,000,000.
Yup, there are twenty quadrillion of these things crawling about on planet earth. So say researchers from the School of Biological
Fudge?
No, not the kind you eat with bliss, but the fudging one does with truth.
Apparently, that’s pretty common. A recent study showed that, on average, Americans fib four times a day. Respondents also feel someone lies to them about six times daily.
“Hey, that bright red tie looks great on you; and I love its purple polka dots.”
“Lady, that meatloaf of yours was outstanding.”
And my favorite: “That was a great sermon!”
Uh, huh!
(If you want to get away with food-related
Caffeinated?
Finally, I figured it out. It’s been a mystery to me. I did come up with reasons, most of them banal, but now I’ve gotten it. I know why churches serve coffee before the service. Yup, I do.
I was helped in my discovery by a recent article in the Journal of Marketing, “Caffeine’s Effects on Consumer Spending.”
Researchers from the University of Florida reported that shoppers who sip on a complimentary cup of coffee before shopping ended up spending 50% more
Down Under!
Recently, I had the pleasure of visiting Australia, primarily for a Preaching Conference and a Preaching Intensive organized by my friend, Dr. Tim MacBride, at Morling College, in Sydney. He is the Dean of the faculty of Bible and Theology and a preacher and a homiletics scholar (and a musician, and a coffee-connoisseur). We had a lot of good times together, both formal and informal (the latter included visiting the Three Sisters).
More about Tim here.
He recently contributed
Leg!
Storks must be in good shape. They’ll live long.
Because of what researchers from Brazil, Finland, Australia, the UK, and the US reported recently in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
The ability to stand on one leg for at least 10 seconds is, apparently, strongly linked to the risk of death over the next seven years.
Stop right there. Especially if you are middle aged. And go try it out. Now!
(I did. Y’all are doomed to consume my blogs each Sunday for at least
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.