RaMbLeS
Welcome to RaMbLeS, a collection of weekly musings on life and Scripture. It all began in 2005 on Google’s blogspot as the aBeLOG (a name now recycled), a semi-autobiographical devotional that attempted to keep well-wishers abreast of my activities as I relocated to Scotland for a few years. Since my return, I’ve continued my RaMbLeS, and here’s its most recent incarnation on Homiletix, as random reflections usually based on current news articles and travel experiences and whatever else takes my fancy!
Nicknames?
There was an interesting piece by Mark Oppenheimer in The Wall Street Journal the other day: “Where Have All the Nicknames Gone?”
Nicknames used to abound, reflecting belongingness in a family, echoing a bond between the caller and the named, expressing the warmth of informality. For the longest time, I was “AK,” which then turned to “Abe” when I got to the shores of this nation (that had a famous “Abe” in its history).
Generally such appellations are affirming,
Deliver?
Monash IVF (in vitro fertilization), that operates across Australia, ran into big trouble the other day—its branch in Brisbane.
A couple (that had had an IVF baby earlier) requested their remaining embryos to be transferred to another IVF provider. That’s when the big trouble began. Monash IVF acknowledged in a statement that:
Instead of finding the expected number of embryos, an additional embryo remained in storage for the birth parents.”
Or, in other words, the woman
Healing!
Swiss doctors are doing something unprecedented. Writing prescriptions for strolls in public gardens, art galleries, and museums. Yes, so saith reporters for Reuters.
You got a chronic disease or mental health condition? Yup, take a stroll in a place of art or beauty.
The city of Neuchatel, in western Switzerland, recently launched this pilot project with doctors to help struggling residents and to promote physical activity.
Said Dr. Patricia Lehmann, a Neuchatel doctor taking
Fall?
Falling out of love, you say? And you think it is all happening rather unpredictably? Betrayal, fight, drift, distancing, breakup?
You may be wrong, assert social scientists from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz the University of Bern in “Terminal Decline of Satisfaction in Romantic Relationships: Evidence from Four Longitudinal Studies,” published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology recently.
Researchers analyzed data from four major longitudinal
Fresh!
Fruits are perishable. They turn soft. They turn brown. They become moldy. Yup, fruits are perishable. Especially bananas.
But no more, said Gilad Gershon, chief executive of Tropic, a Norwich (UK)-based biotech company, thanks to whom we might be getting bananas that stay fresh for several hours post-peeling. Declared Gershon triumphantly:
No more slimy, brown bananas!”
Enzymic browning is the main culprit behind those “slimy, brown bananas.” Fresh fruit and vegetables
Happiness!
The right to happiness is hardwired in us (and enshrined in the US constitution as an “unalienable right” of humans “endowed by their Creator”). It is an obsession stoked by promises from the gurus of bliss, the influencers of Instagram, and the campaigns of corporations, all seeking to empty our bank accounts as we go all out to be happy.
Not a good idea, declare researchers at the University of Toronto Scarborough and the University of Sydney Business School in
Sure?
Nope, we are not. But we trust in … AI.
Or so proclaimeth a study recently published in Scientific Reports: “Overtrust in AI Recommendations About Whether or Not to Kill: Evidence from Two Human-Robot Interaction Studies” by researchers from University of California, Merced, and from The Pennsylvania State University.
To create a sense of gravity around their simulated decisions, researchers first showed participants images of innocent civilians, including children,
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.