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!
Fat!
You grow old, you decline. It’s a fact of life. “Senior moments” increase in frequency, and serious memory issues and thinking problems abound.
Well, there might now be an unexpected solution. OK, maybe not a solution, but at least a better understanding of how we might conceive of trying to attempt to endeavor to struggle to slow it all down.
The unexpected “solution”? Belly fat.
Thus saith “Adipose Chemokine Ligand CX3CL1 Contributes to Maintaining the Hippocampal
Souls?
Dr. Stuart Hameroff, anesthesiologist and professor at the University of Arizona, recently discussed a study that captured the brain activity of clinically dead patients. Researchers placed small sensors on the brains of seven chronically ill patients (two females and five males, ranging in age from 34 to 74) minutes before they were taken off life support, allowing them to capture activity after each patient’s blood pressure and heartrate dropped to zero.
After the
Incomplete!
Are you sure? Really? That the guy speeding in the other lane is a maniac and doesn’t know how to drive and has no regard for others’ safety? Or that the reptilian-paced driver is an idiot and also doesn’t know how to drive and has no respect for others behind? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ve all done that: we’ve come to conclusions, we’re absolutely sure of them, and we’re unwilling to think otherwise.
Well, we may have to. Say scientists from Johns Hopkins University,
Slain!
A most unfortunate thing happened to Rosalind Walker, 80, some time ago.
In a lawsuit filed by her daughter, Angela Moan, it is stated that Ms. Walker’s Sleep Number bed suddenly moved without warning, and “lowered with such force” that it trapped the poor lady against a wall of her bedroom in Godfrey, Illinois. For two days! She died a month later from the injuries suffered, after being transferred from hospital to rehab center to hospice care.
Says the petition:
She
False!
Smart shoppers do their research. Mostly by searching online for others’ recommendations. But, says The Washington Post, you can’t trust those. Reason: AI (and paid content creators).
Many ‘best-of lists … are filled with sponsored content, affiliate links and generic ‘reviews’ generated by bots or unqualified writers.”
Added Nilay Patel, editor in chief of the Verge, a technology and culture website:
With the growth of search-engine optimization content farms
Value?
The Wall Street Journal reported recently about thieves who are after cattle gallstones—those hard substances formed inside the gall bladder from precipitated components of the gland’s secretion, bile. Most humans try hard to stay away from gallstones. Not these days.
You see, these things are some of the most prized ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM—a $60 billion-per-year industry), so much so, that traders in cattle gallstones are willing to pay as
Heat!
You feeling the heat? You should be. Especially if you are moving into the grandparenting phase of life. (No, this is nothing to do with grandkids, more to do with the phase of life, or, to put it bluntly, as you get old.)
“Home Ambient Temperature and Self-reported Attention in Community-Dwelling Older Adults” published recently in the Journal of Gerontology by scientists from the Marcus Institute for Aging Research affiliated with Harvard Medical School,
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.