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!
Soak?
What? Soaking in a hot tub has some of the same benefits as going for a 30-minute jog?
Well, apparently that’s a fact. Or so claimeth researchers from Coventry University and Cardiff Metropolitan University in “The Health Benefits of Passive Heating and Aerobic Exercise: To What Extent Do the Mechanisms Overlap?” published in the Journal of Applied Physiology.
These folks studied 20 healthy participants ranging in age from 26–60 years and measured their heart rate,
Died?
The other day, People magazine reported on the frustrating efforts of Madeline-Michelle Carthen. For the last 15 years, this poor lady, a Missouri native, has been fighting to prove that she is alive!
She had been anticipating taking part in Webster University’s international intern exchange program in the summer of 2007. But she was never able to attend—or even graduate from college, for that matter—after she was denied financial aid when her Social Security number
Tongue?
Engineers from Middle Technical University (Baghdad) and the University of South Australia (Adelaide) used a USB web camera and computer to capture images of patients’ tongues, focusing on 50 individuals afflicted with conditions like diabetes, renal failure, and anemia. They then compared the captured tongue colors with a comprehensive database of 9,000 tongue images and sought to diagnose those same conditions among those 9.000 patients.
Believe it or not, leveraging
Squalor!
Recently, journalist Pauline Allione reported in VICE Belgium about filth hoarders.
A decade ago, Bastien, 43 (not his real name), was the type of guy who would meticulously clean his windowsills with a cotton bud. But after experiencing a triple whammy of unemployment, a tough break-up and severe depression, his dedication to cleanliness collapsed.”
Said Bastien himself:
I couldn’t throw anything away; I started piling up rubbish left, right and center. Trash quickly
Clown!
Teddy Amenabar of the Washington Post recently reported on coulrophobia—the extreme and irrational fear of clowns!
Philip John Tyson, associate professor of psychology at the University of South Wales, has been researching phobias, particularly among his students.
At the start of every semester, I ask my students the same question: What are you afraid of?
Students routinely cite spiders, snakes and claustrophobic spaces, but a consistent minority would say they were
Eyes!
Last week it was announced that surgeons in New York had performed the first-ever whole-eye transplant in a human, an accomplishment being hailed as a breakthrough.
The patient was Aaron James, a 46-year-old military veteran from Arkansas who survived a work-related high-voltage electrical accident that destroyed the left side of his face, his nose, his mouth and his left eye.
Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, who headed the team at NYU Langone Health said:
The mere fact that we transplanted
Ear!
An interesting case was presented in the New England Journal of Medicine the other day: “A Spider and Its Exoskeleton in the Ear Canal,” by physicians in Tainan Municipal Hospital, Tainan City, Taiwan.
A 64-year-old woman with hypertension presented to an ENT clinic in Taiwan with a 4-day history of abnormal sounds in her left ear that caused her trouble sleeping. On the day of symptom onset, she had awoken to the feeling of a creature moving inside her left ear. Subsequent
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.