Rotundus.com

BPA officially labelled 'toxic'

In related news, BPA appears to "adversely affect sperm in men"

Prostate Cancer Advocates Circulate Petition to the NFL: As Stadiums and Players Turn Pink This Month, Cancer Advocates Say Great, But Ask Where’s the Blue?

Personally I'd put both the pinkness of October, and this plan as a little silly. What does it actually accomplish?

In Quest for 'Legal High,' Chemists Outfox Law

The legal system versus new drugs

Second World War cartridge in firewood injures elderly Germans

Yeesh... "The live round must have been absorbed inside a growing tree."

In a Wall Street Journal article entitled 'Stranger Danger' and the Decline of Halloween the following paragraph is to be found:

That was a wacky idea, but we bought it. We still buy it, even though Joel Best, a sociologist at the University of Delaware, has researched the topic and spends every October telling the press that there has never been a single case of any child being killed by a stranger's Halloween candy. (Oh, yes, he concedes, there was once a Texas boy poisoned by a Pixie Stix. But his dad did it for the insurance money. He was executed.)

Even if the March to Keep Fear Alive is over I guess we can still fear things. Did that mean it succeeded? (And why is shipping for the March to Keep Fear Alive merchandise restricted to the US?)

Welcome to the 50s Housewife Experiment

It's a bit of an amusing read... the 17 posts at the bottom of the page talk about how it went.

Computational science: ...Error

This article in Nature mades a case for more computer training for scientists. How to code, how to test, etc. Hopefully that's good news for me.

Transgender golfer sues LPGA in bid to join tour

If you want to make the case that gender is basically just a social construct, can you really argue against this?

Patients suffer from NHS rationing

Probably about as close as you'll get to the "death panels" remark that arose in the U.S. healthcare debate. It notes that "[m]ore than 5% of GPs surveyed also said they knew of patients who had died as a result of being denied treatment on the NHS."

Here's what John Piper had to say (When I don't desire God, p. 103):

Some Christians take the path of stoicism in the fight against sensuality. It doesn't work. It's not biblical. It is hopelessly weak and ineffective. And the reason it fails is that the power of sin comes from its promise of pleasure and is meant to be defeated by the blood-bought promise of superior pleasure in God, not by raw human intelligence. Willpower religion, when it succeeds, gets glory for the will. It produces legalists, not lovers.

Ed Welch in another book, Running Scared: Fear, Worry & the God of Rest (p. 182), had something similar to say:

A Buddhist approach has some appeal. If we could only neutralize passion and get to the point where we needed nothing! Many Christians have walked this path, especially after being deeply hurt in a relationship. "I will never let myself be vulnerable in a relationship ever again." They try to kill desire and passion. There are times when we wish we didn't have to feel. This approach, however, is just another way to try to make life work apart from God. It is another variation on trusting in ourselves, and it is doomed to failure.