NewsWatch

How to Freeze a Turtle

CreationMoments.com, 8/27/24, “How to Freeze a Turtle” [Excerpts]: After mid-June, painted turtles begin to lay their eggs. Each nest holds from seven to nine eggs. Some females will make two nests. The eggs are buried, safely out of sight of predators, and the mother turtle returns to her normal habitat. The young hatch in ten or eleven weeks. However, they remain buried in the ground, and therefore safe from predators, all winter. The problem is that turtles freeze solid at the temperatures found at nest depth in the winter. When living cells freeze, the long, sharp ice crystals that form in them puncture the cell membrane, killing the cell.

As the baby turtles freeze, even the heart and brain eventually freeze. There is no breathing and no heartbeat. Only a tiny bit of electrical activity in the frozen brain reveals that life remains in the body. Why don’t ice crystals rupture the cells? The young turtle’s liver makes special proteins that are circulated to every cell in the body. These proteins ensure the formation of very small ice crystals that cannot become large enough to puncture delicate cell walls.

Only God could have invented such a unique method of protecting tiny painted turtles. Even scientists marvel at this.

https://bit.ly/3O0RXkQ

Columbia students ‘take out’ Jewish professor 

TheCollegeFix.com, 8/27/24, “Imam tells Columbia students to ‘take out’ Jewish professor” [Excerpts]: An imam told Columbia University students to “take out” a Jewish professor during an event last week hosted by a pro-Palestinian group, according to a video on X.

A few days later, the Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine said Instagram “permanently” banned it from the platform. It is not clear if the two incidents are related.

Shai Davidai, a Jewish professor at the Columbia Business School, posted the video. He wrote on X that Students for Justice in Palestine is a “pro-terror organization” and should be permanently banned from campus.

Davidai said the comments targeting him occurred during a public webinar titled “Islamic Political Activism” on Aug. 20 with Imam Tom Facchine. He posted a screenshot of a poster advertising the event on the Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine’s Instagram page.

According to the professor’s post, Facchine mentioned Davidai by name during the event and told students to “create a situation” to get him “in trouble.” Davidai is Israeli and calls himself a Zionist on his X profile.

“How do we create a situation in which [his professorship is] in jeopardy?” Facchine said in the video.

https://bit.ly/4fEmD7g

The Endless Pursuit

InTruthSheDelights.com, 5/28/24, “The Endless Pursuit of God’s Presence in the Hyper-charismatic Movement” [Excerpts]: If you know anything about the hyper-charismatic movement, then you know one of the things it stands out for, is its fervent pursuit of God’s presence…. Yet, beneath the surface of this passionate quest lies a subtle danger. The danger of it becomes an all-consuming obsession that leads believers into a relentless cycle of seeking more and more spiritual highs and emotional experiences.

An experience-driven faith can indeed lead believers into a labyrinth of pitfalls. The first of which is the creation of a dependency on emotional highs for spiritual validation. Having a relationship with God becomes synonymous with the intensity of emotional fervor or the frequency of spiritual encounters.

However, when believers come to equate God’s presence solely with intense emotional or supernatural experiences, they inadvertently set themselves up for a shallow and unsustainable faith.

This experience is profoundly wearisome and stands in stark contrast to the rest that Christ promises. In Matthew:11:28-30 [28] Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. [29] Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. [30] For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
See All..., Jesus extends the following invitation, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Here, Jesus offers a different kind of relationship. A relationship characterized by rest rather than striving and exhaustion.

https://bit.ly/40DPKDM