Posts by Troy Albers
Our Specialized Armor
The Amazonian piranha is an extremely vicious fish with a powerful bite. The three-striped cory is a slow, passive catfish, which only grows 1 to 2 inches long. At first glance, one would assume that the little cory would be an easy meal for a piranha. That would be a false assumption. The three-striped cory is equipped with a very specialized armor, in the form of scales made of collagen and mineral. Rather than being brittle, the scales are flexible,…
Inconceivable!
In James 1:14-15, James explained the process that leads to the birth of sin. “Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.Then,when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin.” It’s interesting to note that temptation isn’t something that enters into people; rather, people enter into temptation. Jesus instructed His disciples to ask God to not lead them “into temptation” (Luke 11:4; Matthew 6:13). As Jesus entered the garden to pray, He warned…
Home, Sweet Home
The headline reads, “Archaeologists Believe They’ve Unearthed Jesus’s Childhood Home (Popular Mechanics, December 1, 2020).” Professor Ken Dark has been credited with making what has been described as “an astonishing find.” It seems that after 14 years of examining a particular dwelling in modern-day Nazareth, Professor Dark has become convinced that it is the house in which Jesus was raised. It’s interesting to note that a convent of nuns carried out excavations at the site from 1888 until the 1930’s,…
What We Do at the Elder/Preacher Retreat
Ever wonder what goes on at the annual elder/preacher retreat such as the one we had last weekend? First, after all of us arrive at our retreat destination, we have a manly meal together (lots of meat). Then, we’ll get down to the very serious business of praying through the directory. We mention each member and their family members by name, and ask God’s blessing on them. In other words, every one of you is mentioned in our prayers. We’ll…
Solving the Puzzle
It’s a six-sided, enigmatic conundrum of a puzzle. The Rubik’s Cube was invented in 1974 and has been frustrating millions of people throughout the following 46 years. When Erno Rubik created the Rubik’s Cube, he had no idea how to solve it. The creator didn’t understand how to solve the problem that his creation posed. It took Rubik over a month of continually trying before he found the solution. Mathematicians have done the calculations and have concluded that there are…
“AI Jesus”
The headline reads, “Engineer’s ‘AI Jesus’ goes on to make terrifying apocalyptic prophecy.” That’ll get someone’s attention. “AI” stands for “artificial intelligence.” While the “artificial” part of the title makes sense, the “intelligence” aspect is silliness. An engineer and quantum researcher wrote an artificially intelligent algorithm which “learned” language by only reading the Bible. From there, the program was tasked with making “prophecies” based on the information it had acquired from “reading” the King James Version of the Bible. The…
Cutting Each Other Off
Talk about going to extremes! A man in Maine took a Sawzall and cut his neighbor’s garage in half. Since part of the structure was on his property, Gabriel Brawn had a legal right to do it. The overlapping garage hadn’t been a problem for years, as his relationship with the previous neighbor was amiable. After the neighbor died, and the new residents moved in, the conflicts began over a boundary dispute, and the animosity between the two parties escalated. …
Don’t Pull That Lever!
Flying through the air in an ejected, fighter-jet seat wasn’t on the man’s agenda for the day. Employees from his firm thought it would be a great idea to surprise the unnamed, 64-year-old French man with a jet ride. As soon as he realized what was taking place, he started to panic. After being talked into getting into one of the three jets which would be participating in the training exercise, his pulse rate began to accelerate, based on the…
Venomous Spiders
Spiderman is a fictional character. That seems like a statement which one would read and think to themselves, “Duh.” Three Bolivian brothers, ages 12, 10, and 8, didn’t quite understand the concept of Spiderman not being real…until recently. The boys found a black widow spider and decided that, since Peter Parker became Spiderman after being bitten by a spider, they, too, would develop superpowers if they let their spider bite them. So, each boy prodded the black widow with a…
Mimicking a Viper
What looks like a Gaboon viper, sounds like a Gaboon viper, and acts like a Gaboon viper? A Gaboon viper, of course. Also, the Congolese giant toad. With its two-inch fangs, the Gaboon viper is one of the largest vipers in Africa. The Congolese giant toad can be found only in the same habitat as the Gaboon viper. With a body that resembles the head of the viper, in that it is the same color and size, the toad can…
The Gathering
The phenomenon is called “shikadamari“ in Japanese. A loose translation would be, “deer gathering spot.” A large population of free-roaming deer live in and around the Japanese city of Nara, spending most of their time in the city park. Every summer evening at around 6:30, over 600 deer gather in the same spot for the same amount of time. The deer quietly come together, sit down for about an hour, then stand back up and disperse to different parts of…