Weekly Meanderings, 25 August 2018

Last updated on: August 25, 2018 at 12:01 am by Scot McKnight

Weekly Meanderings, 25 August 2018 2018-08-24T21:29:57-05:00 Scot McKnight

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Wonderful wonderful wonderful week with my MA in New Testament Context cohort. Ah, the church is in good hands.

Under the careful gaze of Morton Arboretum’s trolls.

Cool

Farmers in a small area of southern Mexico knew that a variety of corn grown in the area was special.

But a group of researchers believe the corn could ultimately transform the way the largest crop in America and the world is grown.

The potential improvements in water and air quality – not to mention financial savings – are staggering. In fact, the lead researcher acknowledged he and his colleagues spent a decade studying the corn before going public this month because the conclusions were “almost outrageous.”

And, like so much research in its early stages, there are still a lot of “ifs.”

But scientists at University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of California-Davis and Mars Inc. (yes, the candymaker) have determined that farmers in Oaxaca, Mexico, have been growing corn that creates its own fertilizer for centuries, if not millennia.

Understanding the process requires a short course in biology.

The plants in Mexico have bizarre fingerlike roots sticking out of their stalks. The roots secrete a goopy mucus, in which bacteria live. The bacteria take nitrogen from the air – which plants can’t use – and convert it to a different form of nitrogen that they can use. The plants soak up the fixed nitrogen in the gel through the fingerlike roots.

The nitrogen is a critical nutrient for all plants; it’s the primary ingredient in chemical fertilizers.

The process is part of a cycle. The bacteria live on carbon, which the plant supplies in the form of sugar. The sugar is produced through photosynthesis. Through this odd trade agreement, the plant gets usable nitrogen, the bacteria get necessary carbon and both parties are happy.

Nitrogen fixation is best known for occurring in legumes like soybeans. The bacteria live in their roots and the surrounding soil. But this had not been demonstrated in grasses like corn.

This is so Uncool:

A mother faced a visit from police and an Illinois Department of Children and Family Services investigation after she allowed her 8-year-old daughter to walk the family’s dog around the block alone on Aug. 2.

Corey Widen was cleared in that investigation, “Good Morning America” reported Friday, and she is now speaking out about her experience.

The incident happened as Widen’s daughter walked the family dog, Marshmallow, around the block. A stranger saw the girl walking the dog alone and called police, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Widen told the publication that she can see most of the block from her home’s windows. Walking the Maltese dog is the only time her daughter is unsupervised, she said.

The family lives in a safe area in the Chicago suburbs, she told “Good Morning America.”

But a concerned neighbor contacted police, believing the girl was under the age of 5, the show reported.

Like many states, Illinois law is not clear on the subject of child supervision, the Tribune reports. The law says a child less than the age of 14 is neglected if he or she is left “without supervision for an unreasonable period of time without regard for the mental or physical health, safety or welfare of that minor.”

Cool 2:

LONDON (Reuters) – Jess Searle has a type of cerebral palsy that means she has always struggled with handheld devices or game consoles.

“It made me not really bother about technology, because I struggled so much,” the 25-year-old told Reuters.

“I found other ways of communicating because that was just easier for me,” she said at her home in Bromley, South London.

With his sister Jess in mind, Billy Searle, in his final year of Loughborough Design School, created a controller, shaped like an orb, to help people with disabilities improve their dexterity.

He named the device ‘Mylo’ – a reference to the mile-long distance that Jess walked for charity in 2016.

Alister Doyle:

VAXJO, Sweden (Reuters) – Ringed by forests in southern Sweden, the city of Vaxjo is thriving even as it cuts greenhouse gas emissions at rates more typical of economic crashes in recessions or wars.

It is a radical example of tackling climate change by cutting the use of fossil fuels, offering a glimpse of how the world could stay within warming limits which U.N. scientists say are needed to avoid significant environmental damage.

Vaxjo’s power plant runs on biomass from timber. In winter, snow plows clear bicycle paths before roads to discourage cars, and political parties all back a target of making the city fossil-fuel free by 2030 to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions from oil, natural gas and coal.

Around the world, governments are struggling to meet their various pledges to cut emissions under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, amid unease about heat waves, droughts, and wildfires that have raged this summer from Greece to California.

Leading climate scientists are set to warn governments in October that global carbon emissions from energy use will have to plunge by up to seven percent a year to meet Paris’ toughest goals – unless they develop technologies to suck carbon from the air, according to a draft U.N. report obtained by Reuters.

Extreme falls are usually known only from World Wars, the 1930s Great Depression or in Russia, where emissions plunged 16 percent in the year after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

Coal-dependent emerging economies led by China and India are all raising energy use to end poverty and developed countries are wary of sacrificing growth for the environment.

What works in a city in a rich, stable Nordic democracy is not an easy blueprint.

Is coconut oil pure poison?

A lecture by a Harvard professor calling coconut oil “pure poison” has gone viral on YouTube, nearing 1 million views on Wednesday.

In a talk titled “Coconut oil and other nutritional errors,” Karin Michels, who is an adjunct professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, says coconut oil is not healthy, calling it “poison” at least three times in the widely-circulated video.

“I can only warn you urgently about coconut oil,” she says. “This is one of the worst foods you can eat.”

Michels is also the director of the Institute for Prevention and Tumor Epidemiology at the University of Freiburg in Germany.

Comments for the video, which posted in July, have been disabled.

While coconut oil has been advertised as a health food of sorts, nutrition experts say there is little evidence to back that claim. Alice Lichtenstein, a Tufts University professor of nutrition science and policy who is vice chair of the federal government’s dietary guidelines advisory committee, recently told The New York Times “there’s virtually no data to support the hype.”

It’s not “poison,” but American Heart Association data has shown more than 80 percent of the fat in coconut oil is saturated — far beyond butter (63 percent), beef fat (50 percent) and pork lard (39 percent).

Donald Hensrud, medical director of the Mayo Clinic Healthy Living Program, told USA TODAY last year that “there’s a disconnect between people’s general beliefs and what the data actually show.” He recommends instead using oils high in monounsaturated fats (including olive oil and avocado oil) and those high in polyunsaturated fats (such as canola oil).

Very sad to read this about Urban Meyer and Ohio State University:

The saddest part of watching Urban Meyer’s Hall of Fame coaching career devolve into a 23-page report that depicts him as a serial liar, aspiring cover-up artist and reckless personnel manager who protected a risky employee is that human beings actually read what was on paper and concluded that he should remain as the coach at Ohio State.

At least now it makes sense why it took 11 hours of deliberations Wednesday before the Board of Trustees settled on a three-game suspension for Meyer: A group of serious, successful people had to come to terms with a decision that was decidedly unserious in the name of King Football.

What’s remarkable, however, about Ohio State’s decision to retain Meyer despite a rather overwhelming narrative in the investigative findings that would have brought down practically anyone else is the utter lack of self-confidence displayed by one of the top five college football programs of all time.

In other words, the conclusion Wednesday was that Ohio State University needed Meyer more than Meyer needed Ohio State University, which isn’t just an embarrassment for one of the top public institutions in the country but a failure to understand their own history and a lack of faith in their brand.

Balloons be gone!

As part of a service for an infant last year, the Sproles Family Funeral Home in New Castle, Indiana, attached a card with information about the deceased child to balloons and unleashed them – asking those who found the remembrances to post comments on the company’s website.

Some of the responses came from strangers hundreds of miles away, offering comforting thoughts to the grieving family.

Balloon releases are a fairly common practice at funerals, especially when they’re conducted for children, funeral director Tom Sproles said.

“It’s obviously symbolic that as we’re releasing balloons to the sky, we’re also releasing our loved one as well to heaven,’’ he said.

But where some see a touching tribute, others spot a danger to birds and marine life.

Ted Siegler, who studies the amount of plastic waste that reaches marine settings as a partner at DSM Environmental Services in Windsor, Vermont, believes helium-filled balloons should be banned because they so often escape and end up in the ocean.

“It drives me nuts when I see them,’’ he said, “because inevitably they’ll bring them to children’s birthday parties, and it doesn’t take very long until someone loses the grasp and it winds up into the atmosphere and it disappears and you don’t know where it’s headed.’’

Latex balloons, typically synonymous with festive occasions such as birthday parties and graduations, have landed in the cross hairs of the environmental movement because of their potential to harm wildlife.

Is Christianity sensual? David Moore says yes. (Video Shorts)

That guy is awesome!

CHICAGO — This weekend, over 9,000 athletes will converge on Chicago’s lakefront for the Chicago Triathlon. It is not only the biggest triathlon in the country, but also hosts one of the oldest competitors.

Bob Scott is the triathlon’s dark horse.

His toned legs and lean build…a stark contrast to what you’d expect from someone who’s lived nearly nine decades.

“As you age to a certain level, you’re supposed to go to Florida to play shuffle board. That’s not my style,” Scott said.

Scott has competed in over 140 triathlons. The craziest part is he didn’t get into them until he tried his first triathlon in his late 40s.

“The whole idea of three sports in one … I was really hooked and enjoyed it,” he said.

So hooked that he went on to do 14 Ironmans in Kona, the mother of all triathlons.

Last year, he completed two international distance triathlons and three half Ironmans, distances that would make even the young guys weary. He doesn’t believe age should dictate what your body is capable of.

“Some of my best races was in my 50s,” he said.

Over the years, Scott has inspired hundreds as he continues to defy age. And while he is the oldest competitor at the Chicago triathlon this year, he is not the only one in his 80s. There are three others who will be out there on Sunday giving it their all.

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