Meanderings, 30 October 2021

I don’t know about you but October has passed me by rather quickly. Still, good morning to you!

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Elvis is back (where he belongs)!

WEST PEORIA, Ill. (AP) — The King of Rock n’ Roll is back in the building.

An Elvis Presley bust that was swiped from a central Illinois bar has been returned after the story of its theft attracted international attention.

Employees at Jimmy’s Bar found the missing bust Thursday night sitting on a porch outside the West Peoria saloon, the Peoria Journal Star reported. The theft had been discovered Sunday morning.

“He’s back!” pub owner Jimmy Spears said early Friday, attributing the bust’s return to the widespread attention its theft had attracted. On Wednesday, the bar’s Facebook page had made an appeal for its return: “No questions asked.”

Spears said he was considering ways to improve security for the bust, but for now it’s back in its familiar position overlooking the saloon and greeting customers from atop the center of its long bar.

Spears, the bar’s owner for 39 years, said his niece bought the bust about 15 years ago at a garage sale for $20, and it soon became the business’ bar-top mascot.

The bees may be back!

Feeding bees an antidote packaged inside pollen-like particles can rescue them from pesticide poisoning, according to research by scientists in the US.

The pesticides sprayed on crops to control harmful insects are high on the list of the many challenges facing pollinators like honeybees and bumblebees. One particular group of insecticides, the organophosphates, are a major threat – they account for more than a third of insecticide sales worldwide and are highly toxic to bees.

‘We wanted to develop a strategy to detoxify managed pollinators and found we can do it by incorporating it into their food,’ says Minglin Ma, a biomaterials engineer at Cornell University, US, who led the study.

Phosphotriesterases are enzymes that can break down organophosphates and render them harmless. But they don’t work well in the acidic digestive tract of bees. Ma’s team developed a way to package the enzyme inside particles that mimic pollen in their size and shape, and can survive in the bee’s gut to counteract the insecticide.

The 8μm-diameter particles are made of calcium carbonate – chalk – and a gelatin additive, which helps control their size. Calcium carbonate is both easy for the bees to consume, and easy and inexpensive to produce in large quantities. The salt’s acid-scavenging capability protects the enzyme against acidic conditions. When pesticides are released from ingested pollen, they pass through the microparticles’ pores and are removed by the phosphotriesterase within.

Catechesis failure?

At the end of July a friend who is much wiser and far better known (I make bold to call him my friend, and I don’t think he’d mind, but it’s not like we’re close buddies) wrote to me and quite a few others to invite us to share our perspectives on the current state of evangelicalism in the USA. How did we get here? It didn’t take me long to come up with my answer: Over the last five decades or so the evangelical church in the US failed to form its adherents into disciples. As a result, US evangelicalism became hollow. All that was needed to cause it to implode was a sufficiently provocative stimulus. And that stimulus came.

The discipleship failure is owing to catechesis failure. “Catechesis” is the latinized spelling of a Greek word that refers to teaching. The church is not in the business of just getting a lot of “followers” in the shallow sense of that word that is so prevalent today, as in so-and-so has so many “followers” on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. The mission of the church (read the end of the Gospel of Matthew again) is to “make disciples, teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you.” That teaching is catechesis. It is indoctrination, though we are wary of that word because we often see it used in negative ways. New Christians have to be taught to observe, which means not just to be aware of what Christ did for them according to some particular doctrinal slogan, but to become observant in the sense of putting Christ first, ahead of every other loyalty. Key elements in catechesis would include knowing scripture and doctrine and practicing the sacraments and prayer—all in a way that purges away all contradictory and competing gods and spirits and loyalties and enables an integrated life of faith.

This life of faith is not one of several parallel and nonintersecting lives that the believer lives, along with family life, work life, neighborhood life, political life, etc. It is the believer’s whole life. Family, work, community, and politics are to fit within the life of faith and be formed by it. Any element, aim, tendency, or style in your family life, work life, or political life that is discordant with or insubordinate to the gospel of Jesus are not allowed to override or redirect the influence of the gospel on your life. Elements that cannot brought into submission to Christ have to go.

But Christians do not automatically become faithful disciples. It is a difficult process, powered by the Holy Spirit and deliberately fostered, cultivated, by teachers and pastors, older sisters and brothers in the faith, according to inherited patterns. This is the meaning of catechesis. No catechesis, or inadequate catechesis, means that people are not formed into disciples, or that their formation is defective.

For athletes: three traits of successful athletes:

One of the most common questions I get from my days as a scout is, "What are the traits of elite hitters?" I got a look at so many elite-level baseball players and athletes. I always enjoyed learning their backstories and seeing where they came from as they grew into elite baseball players. While some of them were just genetic freaks, if they hadn’t picked baseball they likely would have been pro-level prospects in any other athletic endeavor they’d have picked. As I saw more top players and followed them throughout their playing careers, I realized that many shared some traits allowing them to perform at such a level.

Halloween candy, state-by-state:

(NEXSTAR) — Which kinds of Halloween candy can you expect to get stuck in your molars this year? Well, it may depend on where you live.

A recent study from Candystore.com, an online candy retailer specializing in bulk shipments, is giving new insight into the most popular Halloween treats in each state, from the chocolate-covered coasts of California and Florida to the sweet-and-sour plains of Nebraska and South Dakota. As expected, most major candy brands are well represented, but at least a few surprising contenders appeared to perform “much better” than anticipated, according to the online retailer.

To come to this year’s findings, the analysts at Candystore.com drew on 14 years of sales data, focusing primarily on bulk candy sales in the months leading up to Halloween. This data, supplemented with statistics from major manufacturers and distributors, was then utilized to determine the most popular Halloween candies in America, as well as the three most popular candies in each state.

The country as a whole, according to the study, appears to prefer Reese’s Cups over all other brands. Skittles, M&M’s, Starburst and (perhaps surprisingly) Hot Tamales rounded out the top five.

Speaking of candy, how about black licorice?

(The Conversation) – Black licorice may look and taste like an innocent treat, but this candy has a dark side. On Sept. 23, 2020, it was reported that black licorice was the culprit in the death of a 54-year-old man in Massachusetts. How could this be? Overdosing on licorice sounds more like a twisted tale than a plausible fact.

I have a longstanding interest in how chemicals in our food and the environment affect our body and mind. When something seemingly harmless like licorice is implicated in a death, we are reminded of the famous proclamation by Swiss physician Paracelsus, the father of toxicology: “All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison.”

I am a professor in the department of pharmacology and toxicology and author of the book “Pleased to Meet Me: Genes, Germs, and the Curious Forces That Make Us Who We Are.”

The unfortunate man who recently succumbed to excessive black licorice consumption is not alone. There are a smattering of similar case reports in medical journals, in which patients experience hypertension crisis, muscle breakdown or even death. Adverse reactions are most frequently seen in people over the age of 40 who are eating far more black licorice than the average person. In addition, they are usually consuming the product for prolonged periods of time. In the most recent case, the Massachusetts man had been eating a bag and a half of black licorice every day for three weeks.

Licorice is a flowering plant native to parts of Europe and Asia. Its scientific name, Glycyrrhiza, is derived from the Greek words “glykos” (sweet) and “rhiza” (root). The aromatic and sweet extract from its root has long been used as an herbal remedy for a wide variety of health maladies, from heartburn and stomach issues to sore throats and cough. However, there is insufficient evidence to support that licorice is effective in treating any medical condition.

Glycyrrhizin (also called glycyrrhizic acid) is the chemical in black licorice that gives the candy its signature flavor, but it also leads to its toxic effects.

Glycyrrhizin mimics the hormone aldosterone, which is made by the adrenal glands when the body needs to retain sodium and excrete potassium. Sodium and potassium work together as a kind of cellular battery that drives communication between nerves and the contraction of muscles. Too much glycyrrhizin upsets the balance of these electrolytes, which can raise blood pressure and disturb the heart’s rhythm. Other symptoms of excessive licorice intake include swelling, muscle pain, numbness and headache. Examination of the man who died from consuming too much licorice revealed that he had dangerously low levels of potassium, consistent with glycyrrhizin toxicity.