Diagnosis?
That is the African Giant Pouched Rat (aka Cricetomys gambianus). An incredible rodent: it has been trained to smell out land mines in some parts of Africa. But here’s a new one: it is now capable of smelling out tuberculosis, too. We have, in short, a better diagnostician. Take that, doctors! A lab rat has done us better!
Every weekday, this trained rodent, named Tariq, and eight of his brethren take turns in a cage at Eduardo Mondlane University’s College of Veterinary
Swallowed?
A TikToker in Mexico thought her cough that wouldn’t go away was just a reaction to the changing weather. It wasn’t.
Instead, it was her own nose ring, lodged deep within her lungs.
The 26-year-old, Monica Deyanira Cabrera Barajas, recently went viral on TikTok, amassing 4.7 million views after revealing the freak medical accident.
Deyanira, who has a large number of piercings, didn’t initially notice the jewelry was missing. It wasn’t until she developed a chronic
Bixonimania?
Sounds like a disease, right? It is.
But it is not!
If you consulted “Dr. Google” (or any other chatbot) and entered “sore, itch, red eyes”, this is the answer you’d get: “Diagnosis: bixonimania.”
This condition doesn’t show up in medical literature. Because it doesn’t exist.
The prestigious science journal, Nature, did a news feature on this oddity.
Bixonimania was invented by a team led by Almira Osmanovic Thunström, a researcher at the University of Gothenburg,
Psalm 4:1–8
God’s people in distress, when facing detractors who malign their faith, continue to trust God without wavering, seeking to redirect those carpers towards God, and looking only for the joy God provides, not for material abundance, for with that attitude of heart, they rest in peace and safety.
What exactly the psalmist wants God to do is to relieve him from his “distress” (4:1). The psalmist is in “distress” (literally, “narrowness”) and needs “relieving”
Risen!
He is risen! He is risen, indeed!
And Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) thinks so, too. There has been, since 2006, an X account for “Jesus Christ.” @Jesus, describing him as:
Carpenter, Healer, God”
Nope, he ain’t dead. He’s on X.
And what’s more, his is a “verified” X account—with the characteristic blue check mark validating that it was no bogus bot who created it.
The profile picture, however, seems to be AI generated: a broadly smiling and winking “Jesus”
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.