Embodiment’s centrality in the human experience has implications for the Church. Certainly since its earliest days the Church has gathered, whether in secret or public, in catacombs or cathedrals. Perhaps the most frequent rationale for such gathering comes from Hebrews 10:24–25: “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

What is so vital and unique about gathering for church that God commands it? The answer lies in the historic understanding of Christian worship as sacramental; that is, God communes with man through tangible means that deliver God’s work in Christ to humanity. Gospel. If this is what happens in church, streams or downloads just won’t cut it.

Perhaps then, a faulty understanding of worship lies behind why so many churches rapidly turned to online church and consider it a viable option. And, contrary to what seems a logical assumption, it has not just been low-church Protestant traditions embracing online worship. High-church traditions from Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy to Anglicanism and Lutheranism—even with their elevated view of the ministerial office, the sacraments, and liturgical worship—have not been immune to digitalization. In my denominational home, the LCMS, which takes seriously historic orthodoxy, worship practice, and Christ’s bodily presence in the Eucharist, online communion was endorsed in some quarters, though the Synod officially dismissed the practice.

What this reveals is that experiences of digitality in every other life domain have seeped into worship practices and are superseding longstanding theologies of worship and their doctrinal underpinnings. Couple this with the widespread understanding of humans as “thinking things” or “feeling things,” and no matter one’s denominational affiliation, no longer is worship primarily sacramental and theological; it is individual and anthropological.

Read it all.

After Zoom Church: Restoring the Real in Christian Worship https://t.co/7h9HC9tL6K

— Public Discourse (@PublicDiscourse) September 28, 2021

MaryRita Watson says her job as a fourth- and fifth-grade reading specialist is 110% more stressful these days.

As the delta variant continues to spread across the United States and leads to more coronavirus exposure among students, Watson says she has been forced to embrace the hybrid model of teaching, where she simultaneously has to educate students both in-person and virtually.

“It’s difficult. I feel like the students who are at home aren’t getting the best of me, and then at times, the students at school aren’t getting best of me,” says Watson, who teaches at Oakbrook Elementary School in Summerville, S.C. She has switched between in-person and virtual classes over the last year and half due to the pandemic.

Watson is among millions of teachers across the nation who are in their second year of teaching either in-person, online or both – depending on the state, city and district they live in. Like many other professions, teachers’ jobs have become increasingly complex due to the pandemic. This year, many students are back in the classroom, but teachers have to constantly adapt if there is virus exposure. There aren’t specific guidelines on how best to teach students using the many technologies that are available. Teachers are also struggling to keep students engaged while learning new tech tools that are required to make online classes successful.

Read it all.

Millions of teachers across the nation are in their second year of teaching either in-person, online — or both.

Teachers are struggling to keep students engaged while learning new tech tools that are required to make online classes successful. https://t.co/Hwk9E8A8o9

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) October 1, 2021

The parish, spread over 20 miles, now runs ‘hybrid’ worship both online and in person, based in one of its five churches every week, along with morning and evening prayer by Zoom.

Up to 700 people are prayed for by name throughout the week. The parish also runs 24-hour prayer on Zoom, often leading up to Sunday worship. The online prayer and Sunday worship began during the first lockdown last year.

Revd Richard Battersby, who has headed the parish for the past five years as part of a ‘Bishop’s Mission Order’, said the parish was growing before the pandemic but the decision to livestream services has increased participation, making it easier for people to join who might previously have had to travel to services.

Around 20 people tune in to morning and evening prayer regularly, he said, while the parish now has a worshipping community of more than 200 members, compared to around 150 before the pandemic.

Read it all.

'Around 20 people tune in to morning and evening prayer regularly, he said, while the parish now has a worshipping community of more than 200 members, compared to around 150 before the pandemic' https://t.co/LqJPX5tx0C #parishministry #anglican #covid19 #technology #streaming

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) October 1, 2021

A “deep-seated dissatisfaction” with online worship during the Covid-19 pandemic has been identified by new research published this week.

The key finding of the report British Ritual Innovation under Covid-19, the result of a year-long joint project by the University of Chester and Manchester Metropolitan University, is that, “by almost every metric, the experience of pandemic rituals have been worse than those that came before them. They are perceived as less meaningful, less communal, less spiritual, less effective, and so on.”

The report, published on Wednesday, concludes: “Our research has revealed both considerable innovation in, and deep-seated dissatisfaction with, digital worship during the pandemic. There have been important positive developments and adaptations which will strengthen British religious life in the long term, but for most people, the move to online ritual has been one of loss, not gain.

“Rituals — regular weekly worship, funerals, baptisms, festival celebrations, and the like — have been exceptionally difficult for most participants and leaders during the pandemic.”

Read it all.

“Our research has revealed both considerable innovation in, and deep-seated dissatisfaction with, digital worship during the pandemic." https://t.co/LC0ecTK6PY

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) September 29, 2021

Nick Kneer was excited to go back to the office. After working from home for about a year and a half, Kneer had missed the camaraderie he had with his co-workers at the Ohio-based university library system where he works as a communications coordinator. He was counting down until he could mingle with students and staff again.

But his excitement quickly faded after the reality of in-person work turned out to be far from what he expected.

Instead, to avoid contracting the delta variant, he ended up locked in a “windowless, cinder block room” — his temporary office — attending most of his meetings via Zoom.

“It was definitely a bummer,” he said….

“There’s this weird tension,” said Brian Kropp, chief of HR research for research firm Gartner. “We want everyone back in the office, but we still want everyone to do work by video.

Read it all.

As many workers head back to the office — even as the delta variant spreads across the U.S. — employees are facing a bizarre new reality: They’re still spending most of their time isolated and glued to their computers for Zoom meetings, email and Slack. https://t.co/2U9QFYu9Hd

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 27, 2021

Amid all this, he says, AI was an afterthought, if even that. And then, it was exciting. In 2009, Google X left an AI watching YouTube. All by itself, it started hunting for cat videos. “I’m a geek,” says Mo. “I freaking loved it. I was dying on this. I was, like, imagine what we can create!”

A few years later, Google bought DeepMind, the AI start-up. Now near the top, Mo was at an early confidential briefing by a co-founder, Demis Hassabis, about what his toys could do. Basically, they were learning to play computer games on an Atari. “After four hours [the AI] started to play really well,” he says. “After five hours it started to figure out new strategies. After six hours it was the best player on the planet.”

Still, he was thrilled. “Geek,” he reminds me. “Oh my God,” he thought at the time. “We’re going to build amazing things that are going to change even more people’s lives.” But then came the arm and the yellow ball. “And it completely froze me,” he says. He saw where this was going. The only way it could go. “The reality is,” he says, “we’re creating God.”

Only it’s worse than that. “Because if you think about it,” he says, “every technology we have ever built magnifies human abilities. You can walk at 5mph, or you can get in a car and drive at 200mph. Now, this technology is going to do two things. It’s going to magnify humanity a millionfold. A billionfold. And it’s going to be autonomous.”

Read it all (subscription required).

“Have you ever seen Men in Black?” Mo Gawdat says, when asked to describe his former job as chief business officer of Google X

He tells @hugorifkind how a human tragedy shaped the way he sees the future – and what we need to do nexthttps://t.co/pt8EqP64r3

— The Times (@thetimes) September 29, 2021

The incident in the Balkans, which hasn’t been previously reported, is the latest in what the officials describe as a steady expansion of attacks on American spies and diplomats posted overseas by unknown assailants using what government officials and scientists suspect is some sort of directed-energy source.

Still more suspected attacks have occurred overseas and in the U.S., the current and former officials said, along with recently reported ones in India and Vietnam.

“In the past 60 to 90 days, there have been a number of other reported cases” on U.S. soil and globally, said Dr. James Giordano, a Georgetown University professor of neurology who is advising the U.S. government on the issue. “They are seen as valid reports with verified health indicators.”

The continuing attacks, which may cause dizziness, memory loss and other health issues, have sparked frustration within the U.S. government and sapped morale at the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency, the current and former officials said. Some professional diplomats and spies have become reluctant to take overseas postings for themselves and their families, the officials said.

Read it all.

The CIA evacuated an intelligence officer from Serbia in what officials say is part of ongoing Havana Syndrome neurological attacks https://t.co/DBYbimdp6Y

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) September 28, 2021

Pedro García Hernández, 48, is a carpenter in the southeastern Mexican state of Tabasco, a rainforest-shrouded region of the country where about half of the residents live below the poverty line.

He ekes out a living making about 2,500 pesos ($125.17) a month from a tiny workspace inside the home he shares with his wife, Patrona, and their daughter, Yareli. The home has dirt floors, and during Tabasco’s long rainy season, it’s prone to flooding. Dust from his construction projects coats nearly everything in the home, clinging to the bedroom walls, the pump toilet and the counters of his makeshift kitchen.

But that will soon change. In a matter of months, Mr. Hernández and his family are moving to a new home on the outskirts of Nacajuca, Mexico: a sleek, 500-square-foot building with two bedrooms, a finished kitchen and bath, and indoor plumbing. What’s most unusual about the home is that it was made with an 11-foot-tall three-dimensional printer.

Read it all.

Nearly any object can be printed in 3-D; in construction, concrete, foam and polymers can produce full-scale buildings. Only now, the real estate industry is warming to the trend. https://t.co/YJEKHqGacT

— NYT Business (@nytimesbusiness) September 28, 2021

Children born in high-income countries will experience twice as many extreme climate events as their grandparents, new research suggests.

But for children in low-income countries, it will be worse. They will see three times as many, say researchers at the University of Brussels.

Watch it all (a little over 4 1/2 minutes).

How climate change is making inequality worse, especially for children

Children born in high-income countries will experience twice as many extreme climate events as their grandparents
But children in low-income countries will see three times as many https://t.co/uEi0zyy3is

— Svein T veitdal (@tveitdal) September 27, 2021

The US Army Corps of Engineers can now print concrete barracks, bunkers and other structures in challenging environments. Its Automated Construction of Expeditionary Structures (ACES) programme has also drawn up plans to create the world’s first 3D-printed vehicle bridge, and prototype printers should be in the field next year….

“Our priority was to develop a capability utilizing 3D printing technology for use in an expeditionary environment, specifically suited for military purposes,” says Megan Kreiger, program manager for additive construction at the US Army’s Engineer Research and Development Center in Vicksburg, Mississippi. “That means it has to ship in a container, it has to use local materials, it has to work in a dirty environment and it needs to be able to take a beating while still remaining reliable.”

Read it all.

US army to 3D print concrete buildings and bridges in disaster areas https://t.co/VXbxSrLVZ5

— New Scientist (@newscientist) September 27, 2021

Defeat an army without a fight and without casualties? Quite possible, if a new type of hypersonic weapon proposed by a team of rocket scientists in China becomes reality.

Designed to generate intense electromagnetic pulse capable of wiping out communication and power supply lines, the weapon would have a range of 3,000km – about the distance from China’s east coast to Guam. Cruising at six times the speed of sound, it would cover this distance in 25 minutes.

Unlike ballistic missiles, it would stay within the earth’s atmosphere to dodge space-based early warning systems, while using active stealth technology to avoid detection by radars on the ground, according to the team of researchers at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology in Beijing.

Read it all.

Feeling hypersonic: “Chinese scientists eye #hypersonic weapon able to ‘fry’ #telecoms systems in 10 seconds.” https://t.co/AVQm0q3U98

— David South (@DSChallenges) September 26, 2021

Laboratories around the globe increasingly are experimenting with emerging viruses, sometimes giving them new capabilities, as they seek to identify dangerous ones and find ways to combat them.

While the goal is to protect health, some of the projects carry the chance of a misstep that could unleash an epidemic, some scientists say.

Experiments in the U.S. are reviewed in advance by researchers’ institutions or government funders, but risky projects can go forward without being subjected to the highest level of scrutiny, especially in some other countries.

Some scientists and officials in the Biden administration are pushing for more oversight, globally, of risky bioresearch. One focus is laboratory work that enhances a pathogen or endows it with new properties—sometimes called “gain-of-function” research—which is often done to assess its potential to infect humans.

The administration, looking for ways to better weigh the potential benefits of such research against the risks, is considering ideas that include forming a new entity to address global biosecurity.

Read it all.

The pandemic has led scientists around the world to dive into research on deadly viruses. How safe is it? https://t.co/B8PsaW7pfE via @WSJ

— WSJ Science (@WSJscience) September 24, 2021

An ecological epic about deforestation, “The Overstory” brought Richard Powers a wider readership when it won a Pulitzer in 2019. His new novel, shortlisted for this year’s Booker prize, may make him even better known. It is a shorter, more intimate tale that still wrestles with the scientific themes that are his hallmark..

The story is set in Wisconsin and narrated by Theo, a widowed astrobiologist. He is struggling to bring up his son, Robin, whose diagnosis of autism he resists, and whom the novel follows from the age of eight to ten. Robin’s mother, Alyssa, recently died in a car crash; he is disruptive at school. Distressed about global warming and the ruin of the natural world, he is consoled by playing a game in which he and his father imagine life on other planets….

Read it all.

“Bewilderment”, a science-tinged home-schooling drama, takes place against a dystopian backdrop of extreme weather, crop failures and rampaging militias https://t.co/g4s5bjQVVV

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) September 25, 2021

Governments must take urgent action at the forthcoming COP26 climate summit “to avert the loss, damage, and forced migration threatened by climate change”, a new declaration signed by religious leaders in the UK says.

The Glasgow Multi-Faith Declaration for COP26, released on Monday, says: “We remind governments of their commitments made in Paris in 2015 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, and of Article 17 of the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights to protect the environment, the biosphere and biodiversity. We call upon them to take the urgent action needed to avert the loss, damage, and forced migration threatened by climate change.

The declaration is signed by 52 faith leaders from Scotland and across the rest of the UK. Anglican signatories include the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Most Revd Mark Strange; the Bishop of Bangor and senior bishop in the Church in Wales, the Rt Revd Andy John; and the Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Revd Graham Usher, who is the C of E’s lead bishop on the environment.

The summit is due to take place in November in the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre (SECC) in Glasgow. Some campaigners have called for it to be delayed until the spring of 2022 (News, 10 September).

Read it all.

“To offer hope in the world we need to have confidence that those in power understand the vital role they have to play at the Glasgow COP26.” https://t.co/PsPPByaIYg

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) September 24, 2021

The Daily Prayer podcast, which is also integrated into the free Daily Prayer app, brings listeners together twice a day for short traditional services of Morning and Evening, usually led by the Revd Catherine Williams from Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire.

The podcast, available both via the Daily Prayer app as well as all major podcasting platforms, has had just under a quarter of a million unique listeners since launching.

The atmospheric services follow the pattern set out in the Church of England’s Common Worship services, with readings recorded by people around the country and music from St Martin’s Voices, one of the choirs of St Martin-in-the-Fields in London.

The podcast, which was launched in March 2021, has now registered more than 1,000,000 downloads, with around 8,000 people listening a day.

Read it all.

Our Daily Prayer podcast has had more than a million downloads in just six months. 🎧 🙏🏼

The podcast brings listeners together for traditional services of Morning and Evening prayer, with music from @stmartins_music.

Read the full story at https://t.co/gKHewRajtP.

— The Church of England (@churchofengland) September 23, 2021

The whitest paint in the world has been created in a lab at Purdue University, a paint so white that it could eventually reduce or even eliminate the need for air conditioning, scientists say.

The paint has now made it into the Guinness World Records book as the whitest ever made.

So why did the scientists create such a paint? It turns out that breaking a world record wasn’t the goal of the researchers: Curbing global warming was.

“When we started this project about seven years ago, we had saving energy and fighting climate change in mind,” said Xiulin Ruan, a professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue, in a statement.

Read it all.

We are going to need 100’s of ideas like this. Government and private industry have to start cranking away on development right now. https://t.co/9F2voS5wLQ

— Adam McKay (@GhostPanther) September 20, 2021

All this melting ice raised sea levels across the globe, just as dropping ice cubes into a whisky drink eventually makes a mess. Except some ice cubes in Greenland can be half the size of Manhattan.

There’s more: The Greenland ice sheet is so massive that it generates its own gravity. It pulls the Atlantic Ocean toward it like someone tugging a blanket. South Carolina is at the other end of this blanket, which means that Greenland pulls water away from our coast, lowering our sea level. But as the ice melts, its gravity disperses and its grip loosens. Seas at the far end of the ice’s power slosh back.

That’s one reason sea levels in South Carolina have risen faster than many other places around the globe.

Greenland is 3,000 miles north of Charleston, but this distant land of ice, polar bears and reindeer already has reshaped our coastline. It has made Charleston’s tides higher, our flooding worse. And what happens in Greenland in the future will largely determine the Lowcountry’s fate.

Read it all.

Our new project, The Greenland Connection, began a few years ago after I did a story about the Gulf Stream slowing down. I half-joked to @SCMitchP that we needed to go to Greenland. He said something like, “yeah right.”#longreads #longform #SUndayLRhttps://t.co/u7XvRYLScs

— Tony Bartelme (@tbartelme) September 19, 2021

The first results from the highly anticipated trial studying the effectiveness and safety of the Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11 showed promising results.

The pharmaceutical companies said early results of their trial indicate the vaccine is safe for children and establishes a strong antibody response against the virus.

Giving a two-dose regimen of 10 μg (micrograms) administered 21 days apart for children between 5 and 11 years old was well tolerated, according to Pfizer and BioNTech. Side effects were also generally comparable to those of people between the ages of 16 and 25 years old who received the vaccine.

This trial used a smaller vaccine dosage, 10 micrograms, rather than the 30 microgram dose used for people 12 and older. The dosage was selected as the preferred dose for safety and effectiveness in young children.

Read it all.

NEW: Pfizer says early results of its trials show that its COVID vaccine is safe and effective for children ages 5 to 11.https://t.co/BSyj9TY9VP

— NPR (@NPR) September 20, 2021

An estimated 2.1 million Kenyans face starvation due to a drought in half the country, which is affecting harvests.

The National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) said people living in 23 counties across the arid north, northeastern and coastal parts of the country will be in “urgent need” of food aid over the next six months, after poor rains between March and May this year.

The crisis has been compounded by Covid-19 and previous poor rains, it said, predicting the situation will get worse by the end of the year, as October to December rains are expected to be below normal levels.

The affected regions are usually the most food-insecure in Kenya due to high levels of poverty.

Read it all.

Production of maize, Kenya’s staple food, is projected to decline by 50% in the affected regions

Drought puts 2.1 million Kenyans at risk of starvation https://t.co/co1YMwVcjI

— Teresa Anderson (@1TeresaAnderson) September 15, 2021

The UN released a report on Thursday warning that the COVID-19 pandemic has not slowed the pace of climate change.

Virus-related economic slowdown and lockdowns caused only a temporary downturn in CO2 emissions last year, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said.

“There was some thinking that the COVID lockdowns would have had a positive impact on the atmosphere, which is not the case,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said at a news briefing.

The United in Science 2021 report, which gathers the latest scientific data and findings related to climate change, said global fossil-fuel CO2 emissions between January and July in the power and industry sectors were already back to the same level or higher than in the same period in 2019, before the pandemic.

Read it all.

UN: Pandemic did not slow advance of climate change.

So it seems there has been no silver lining to that particular cloud.https://t.co/RJwgt7emAK

— Michael de Podesta (@Protons4B) September 16, 2021

When Scott Morrison became Australia’s prime minister three years ago, he insisted that the country could maintain close ties with China, its largest trading partner, while working with the United States, its main security ally.

“Australia doesn’t have to choose,” he said in one of his first foreign policy speeches.

On Thursday, Australia effectively chose. Following years of sharply deteriorating relations with Beijing, Australia announced a new defense agreement in which the United States and Britain would help it deploy nuclear-powered submarines, a major advance in Australian military strength.

With its move to acquire heavy weaponry and top-secret technology, Australia has thrown in its lot with the United States for generations to come — a “forever partnership,” in Mr. Morrison’s words. The agreement will open the way to deeper military ties and higher expectations that Australia would join any military conflict with Beijing.

It’s a big strategic bet that America will prevail in its great-power competition with China and continue to be a dominant and stabilizing force in the Pacific even as the costs increase.

Read it all.

A real shift. https://t.co/OKMth66g0w

— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) September 16, 2021

Eva Behrens, a 17-year-old student at Redwood High School in Marin County, Calif., said she estimates half the girls in her grade struggle with body-image concerns tied to Instagram. “Every time I feel good about myself, I go over to Instagram, and then it all goes away,” she said.

When her classmate Molly Pitts, 17, arrived at high school, she found her peers using Instagram as a tool to measure their relative popularity. Students referred to the number of followers their peers had as if the number was stamped on their foreheads, she said.

Now, she said, when she looks at her number of followers on Instagram, it is most often a “kick in the gut.”

For years, there has been little debate among medical doctors that for some patients, Instagram and other social media exacerbate their conditions. Angela Guarda, director for the eating-disorders program at Johns Hopkins Hospital and an associate professor of psychiatry in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, said it is common for her patients to say they learned from social media tips for how to restrict food intake or purge. She estimates that Instagram and other social-media apps play a role in the disorders of about half her patients.

“It’s the ones who are most vulnerable or are already developing a problem—the use of Instagram and other social media can escalate it,” she said.

Read it all.

So much of Big Tech is parasitical-in every sense of that word pic.twitter.com/EnQ74dwV7n

— Brad Wilcox (@BradWilcoxIFS) September 15, 2021

Four in 10 young people around the world are hesitant to have children as a result of the climate crisis, and fear that governments are doing too little to prevent climate catastrophe, a poll in 10 countries has found.

Nearly six in 10 young people, aged 16 to 25, were very or extremely worried about climate change, according to the biggest scientific study yet on climate anxiety and young people, published on Tuesday. A similar number said governments were not protecting them, the planet, or future generations, and felt betrayed by the older generation and governments.

Three-quarters agreed with the statement “the future is frightening”, and more than half felt they would have fewer opportunities than their parents. Nearly half reported feeling distressed or anxious about the climate in a way that was affecting their daily lives and functioning.

The poll of about 10,000 young people covered Australia, Brazil, Finland, France, India, Nigeria, the Philippines, Portugal, the UK and the US. It was paid for by the campaigning organisation Avaaz.

Read it all.

International survey of 10,000 young people. 🌍

🛑59% very or extremely worried about climate change
🛑Over 45% have feelings on climate change that negatively affect their daily lives and functioning
‼️Links between anxiety and government (in)action. https://t.co/jS3Ab8hV4w

— Green Health Wales (@GreenHWales) September 14, 2021

For humans, we need to begin to create policies that open up our borders to climate refugees, to come up with new technologies that can grow more food on less land, and to help populations migrate away from coastal cities at risk of permanent flooding. For other life, we need to have frank discussions about human population levels (given expected lifestyles and lifespans) and ask what can be done to reduce human impact without imposing unrealistic or draconian measures. More generally, we need to change our views of environmental action from conserving what was to adapting to what is to be. If we instead continue with life as usual, the results will be devastating, especially for those who are already the poorest and most marginal in our world.

If we do give up thinking of ourselves as the masters over crea­tion and climate and see ourselves instead as part of God’s community of creatures on Earth, we again encounter the question of how we should understand our role and our responsibilities toward other life. A thoroughly Christian position might maintain that it is our duty to take up a self-sacrificial stance toward other life—like Jesus, who laid down his life for others, or like John the Baptist, who said of Jesus, “He must increase, I must decrease.” The central importance of humans in the Bible does not mean that humans should live like kings on the back of the rest of creation, looking always and only toward their own flourishing. The Christian model of rulership is just the opposite: the greatest is the one who serves and gives themself up for others.

For now, there is some good news: for the most part, we don’t have to fight over what we should do. The activities we should pursue if we are going to adapt well to climate change are largely the same as what we would do if we were trying to prevent climate change. The urgency of cutting down on carbon emissions remains. We should still plant more trees, use less stuff, eat less meat, and create less carbon dioxide. These actions will slow the rate of climate change, giving all creatures a chance to migrate and adapt to a new normal—and giving us time to invent new technologies that can help all other creatures live well in a new climate.

Read it all.

The world now sees twice as many days with temperatures over 50C, BBC analysis finds

Climate change presents an increasing challenge for how we livehttps://t.co/XXeUTnDAka

— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) September 13, 2021

The world is underestimating the geological consequences of global warming, which could trigger catastrophic earthquakes and tsunamis as the melting of ice sheets reduces the weight on the crust below and unleashes intense seismic activity, a leading earth scientist has warned.

The biggest threat in the north Atlantic comes from the thinning of Greenland’s ice cap, Bill McGuire, professor of earth sciences at University College London, told the British Science Festival in the UK town of Chelmsford on Thursday. Within decades, that could spark huge submarine earthquakes off the coast of Greenland, causing tsunamis with disastrous consequences for North America and probably Europe, he said.

A possible precedent was the “great Storegga tsunami” that devastated the coasts of Scandinavia and the British Isles 8,200 years ago. An offshore earthquake, triggered by the release of pressure after northern Europe’s ice sheets had melted, set off a vast landslide of submarine sediments under the Norwegian Sea. Geological evidence shows the resulting tsunami wave reached 15 to 20 metres high in the Shetland islands and 3 to 6 metres high further down the North Sea.

“As the Greenland ice cap melts, the uplift in the crust is going to trigger earthquakes,” said McGuire. “We don’t know enough about the sediments off the Greenland coast to predict confidently what might happen there, but it is certainly possible that within decades there could be a tsunami right across the north Atlantic.”

Read it all.

#ClimateChange risks triggering catastrophic tsunamis

“When global temperatures may be rising at the fastest rate in the history of our planet, I’m proud to be raising the alarm. Almost every climate change forecast so far has been an underestimate.”https://t.co/3QXsqYq5rE

— Peter Strachan (@ProfStrachan) September 9, 2021

Death was once — potentially, at least — an expression of some ultimate triumph. Now it is the bitter failure of our technology. And whatever we spend on it, no amount of money will overcome this gap.

Death, then, is the political issue we are not talking about. Even after the pandemic, when the daily death figures were broadcast on every news broadcast, we continue to say little about death other than making the uncritical assumption it is always to be avoided.

And so we are sleepwalking into a state of affairs in which the young will resent the elderly for the burden they place upon them. Of course, we should support the generous funding for social care. What we ought to be challenging is whether the medical technologies that are keeping us alive for ever longer complement our understanding of what human existence is for.

But I see little appetite for that. In a secular society, we have few intellectual or cultural resources to challenge the pervasiveness of more-ism. And to live deeper, more meaningful lives is not the same as living longer ones.

Read it all.

We're obsessed with living for longer — but what's the point? | @giles_fraser https://t.co/DjEvkMqgqx

— UnHerd (@unherd) September 9, 2021

Researchers from Kaunas universities, Lithuania developed a deep learning-based method that can predict the possible onset of Alzheimer’s disease from brain images with an accuracy of over 99 per cent. The method was developed while analysing functional MRI images obtained from 138 subjects and performed better in terms of accuracy, sensitivity and specificity than previously developed methods.

According to World Health Organisation, Alzheimer’s disease is the most frequent cause of dementia, contributing to up to 70 per cent of dementia cases. Worldwide, approximately 24 million people are affected, and this number is expected to double every 20 years. Owing to societal ageing, the disease will become a costly public health burden in the years to come.

“Medical professionals all over the world attempt to raise awareness of an early Alzheimer’s diagnosis, which provides the affected with a better chance of benefiting from treatment. This was one of the most important issues for choosing a topic for Modupe Odusami, a PhD student from Nigeria,” says Rytis Maskelinas, a researcher at the Department of Multimedia Engineering, Faculty of Informatics, Kaunas University of Technology (KTU), Odusami’s PhD supervisor.

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https://t.co/RIND7DrWRE Predicting possible Alzheimer’s with nearly 100 percent accuracy. The method was developed while analyzing functional MRI images obtained from 138 subjects and performed better in terms of accuracy, sensitivity and specificity than previously developed m… pic.twitter.com/uI1UeItWdF

— Science news (@UpdateonScience) September 8, 2021

In a joint statement, the Christian leaders have called on people to pray, in this Christian season of Creation, for world leaders ahead of COP26 this November. The statement reads: ‘We call on everyone, whatever their belief or worldview, to endeavour to listen to the cry of the earth and of people who are poor, examining their behaviour and pledging meaningful sacrifices for the sake of the earth which God has given us.’

The joint declaration strikes a clear warning – ‘Today, we are paying the price…Tomorrow could be worse’ and concludes that: ‘This is a critical moment. Our children’s future and the future of our common home depend on it.’

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Wow!! Joint statement on climate change by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch | The Archbishop of Canterbury https://t.co/NkDjhd6aEI

— Stephen Schneck – ταυ (@StephenSchneck) September 7, 2021

Last October, a large group of scientists made their way to Yuri Milner’s super-mansion in the Los Altos Hills above Palo Alto. They were tested for covid-19 and wore masks as they assembled in a theater on the property for a two-day scientific conference. Others joined by teleconference. The topic: how biotechnology might be used to make people younger.

Milner is a Russian-born billionaire who made a fortune on Facebook and Mail.ru and previously started the glitzy black-tie Breakthrough Prizes, $3 million awards given each year to outstanding physicists, biologists, and mathematicians. But Milner’s enthusiasm for science was taking a provocative and specific new direction. As the scientific sessions progressed, experts took the stage to describe radical attempts at “rejuvenating” animals.

That meeting has now led to the formation of an ambitious new anti-aging company called Altos Labs, according to people familiar with the plans. Altos is pursuing biological reprogramming technology, a way to rejuvenate cells in the lab that some scientists think could be extended to revitalize entire animal bodies, ultimately prolonging human life.

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SCOOP: An insanely well-funded company called Altos Labs is going after "rejuvenation" technology.

Yamanaka factors. Epigenetic clocks. CRISPR.

Offering academics $1 million salaries and more.

Investor rumor mill: Milner, Bezos, ARCH. Musk?https://t.co/VMxxtA0fMO

— Antonio Regalado (@antonioregalado) September 4, 2021

His concerns about greenhouse gases, rising temperature averages, dying coral reefs, blistering heat waves, and increasingly extreme weather were informed by his training at as atmospheric physicist and his commitment to science. They also come out of his evangelical understanding of God, the biblical accounts of humanity’s relationship to creation, and what it means for a Christian to follow Christ.

“We haven’t lived up to the call to holiness,” Houghton’s granddaughter Hannah Malcolm explained to CT. “We’ve been conformed to the patterns of this world, with the desire for wealth accumulation and the desire to increase our comforts, and that’s not the demand that is placed upon us as followers of Christ.”

Houghton was born in a Baptist family in Wales in 1931. As a young man he realized he needed to make a personal decision for Christ, and he did. To the end of his life, Houghton described it as the most important choice he’d ever made.

His love for God fueled his love for science. He saw it as a way to worship.

“The biggest thing that can ever happen to anybody is to get a relationship with the one who has created the universe,” Houghton told a Welsh newspaper in 2007. “We discover the laws of nature when we do our science. So we discover what’s behind the universe and if there’s an intelligence and a creator behind it. What we’re doing as Christians is exploring our relationship with the person who is the creator of the universe. Now that’s something that is absolutely wonderful.”

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"I’ve heard people say he had the urgency of a prophet.”

This Nobel prize-winning evangelical climate scientist saw sin at the heart of our ecological crisis: https://t.co/wPB1CPyLXn

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) September 2, 2021