As diabetes rates rise worldwide, so does the illegal trade in human kidneys.The World Health Organization estimates that 10,000 black-market operations a year are being performed in places like China, Pakistan, and India, as doctors transplant kidneys purchased from poor donors for as little as $5,000 into richer patients paying up to $200,000.
Read more
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
Read more
“Talk with Jesus in prayer while listening to the Word; experience the joy of reconciliation in the sacrament of Penance; receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist; welcome and serve him in your brothers and sisters.” – Pope Francis
Read more
It turns out that there’s strong evidence to suggest that at least one kind of dolphin sound, studied extensively over the past decade, does function as a kind of referential symbol. Dolphins use distinct “signature whistles” to identify and call to one another. Each dolphin is thought to invent a unique name for itself as a calf and to keep […]
Read more
Mike Carmichael simply wanted to do something weird when he and his 3-year-old son slapped a coat of blue paint on a baseball in 1977. The central Indiana resident stuck with painting the ball, which grew large enough to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records in 2004. At that time, it was 9 feet (2.7 meters) across, […]
Read more
“Men are undoubtedly more in danger from prosperity than from adversity. For when matters go smoothly, they flatter themselves, and are intoxicated by their success.” – John Calvin
Read more
The amount of CO2 is increasing all the time – we just passed a landmark 400 parts per million concentration of atmospheric CO2, up from around 280ppm before the industrial revolution. That’s a 42.8% increase. A tiny amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, like methane and water vapor, keep the Earth’s surface 30°Celsius (54°F) warmer than it would be […]
Read more
“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love each other.” – Jonathan Swift
Read more
“When I was young, I was amazed at Plutarch’s statement that the elder Cato began at the age of eighty to learn Greek. I am amazed no longer. Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.” – W. Somerset Maugham
Read more