20 MAR 2018 by ideonexus

 How the Civil War Changed Southern Evangelicalism

There is still today a Southern Baptist Church. More than a century and a half after the Civil War, and decades after the Methodists and Presbyterians reunited with their Yankee neighbors, America’s most powerful evangelical denomination remains defined, right down to the name over the door, by an 1845 split over slavery. Southern denominations faced enormous social and political pressure from plantation owners. Public expressions of dissent on the subject of slavery in the South were not me...
Folksonomies: civil war evangelicalism
Folksonomies: civil war evangelicalism
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30 SEP 2011 by ideonexus

 Exercise Increases the Number of Mitochondria in Brain Ti...

Past experiments have shown persuasively that exercise spurs the birth of new mitochondria in muscle cells and improves the vigor of the existing organelles. This upsurge in mitochondria, in turn, has been linked not only to improvements in exercise endurance but to increased longevity in animals and reduced risk for obesity, diabetes and heart disease in people. It is a very potent cellular reaction. [...] Like muscles, many parts of the brain get a robust physiological workout during exer...
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A study on mice finds that exercise increases the production of mitochondria in brain tissue in addition to their production in muscle tissue (I dig the term "mitochondrial biogenesis" as describing the benefit).

19 JUN 2011 by ideonexus

 Accidental Inventions

To begin with, often you just don’t know change is coming. Even if you’re personally involved, you may be looking the wrong way at the time, like young William Perkin of London in 1856. Around then, everybody wits looking for benzene rings and chemistry was the flavor of the month, and Perkin, a chemist, was trying to be the young science hero who would save the great British empire by discovering the way to make artificial quinine chemically. You see, our administration and army chaps were d...
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It is the search that produces revolutionary inventions, not the intention, discovering something useful is like winning the lottery in this passage, but you have to be knowledgeable enough to know that you have won it.

18 MAY 2011 by ideonexus

 A Novel Way to Teach the Constitution

Daniel Kunitz is a friend of mine from college. He's spent his life as an innovative junior and senior high school social sciences teacher. Want the students to understand the Constitution of the United States? You could have them read it, Article by Article, and then discuss it in class but, sadly, this will put most of them to sleep. Or you could try the Kunitz method: you forbid the students to read the Constitution. Instead, you assign them, two for each state, to attend a Constitutional ...
Folksonomies: politics education
Folksonomies: politics education
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Have the children play delegates to the convention and have them produce their own Constitution.