Sensual & Superyoung

Harnessing the Good Factor in Nicotine

Discovery may pave way to quitting smoking without gaining weight Science Daily

It’s an unfortunate fact that smokers tend to die young, but they do die thinner than non-smokers. Yale researchers are closer to understanding how nicotine suppresses appetite in a section of the hypothalamus.

Yann Mineur, an associate research scientist in her lab, was investigating a potential drug for depression that acts upon these receptors when he noticed that mice given the drug ate less than those not on the medication. With the help of researchers at Carleton University in Ottawa and the University of Hawaii, they decided to investigate why.

On the Contrary

Non-Smokers Put on Less Weight, Study Suggests Science Daily

Nature Buffs

Hike Naked: Germany Opens New Nude-Friendly Nature Trails TIME

More folks are reading the article about hiking naked in Germany than What Recovery? The Five Myths About the US Economy. You know the drill: sex sells, not that there’s any wild frolicking going on in beautiful Wippertal.

“We are careful,” Puistola Grottenpösch explains, citing by way of example an outing he took near Toggenburg (Appenzell, Switzerland), where he came across a group of people celebrating a religious service in a field. Grottenpösch conscientiously hid his privates with a scarf, something he carries for just such occasions. “You quickly wrap it around yourself and all conflict is avoided.”

Green Beings

Germany’s ‘make-or-break’ energy experiment The Washington Post

Environmentalists in Germany are energized over announced plans to eliminate nuclear power over the next decade. The strong German economy gets about a quarter of its electricity from nuclear power. Unfortunately, nuclear energy doesn’t release carbon emissions.

In building more coal plans than originally intended, investment firms are betting that Merkle can’t meet her carbon reduction targets. The German Chancellor says ‘yes she can’.

Redtracker

Gwyneth Paltrow Talks Religion

Homosexuality in the Bible Goop

Paltrow receives thoughtful replies to her post on homosexuality and the Bible.

From Cynthia Bourgeault:

“How you answer this question depends hugely on what you take the bible to be. IF you believe that the bible is a single, timeless, internally consistent teaching on matters of human morality dictated by God himself, then yes, the Old Testament book of Leviticus is definitely uncomfortable with homosexuality. But it is also uncomfortable with menstruating women, shellfish and pigskin. (And for the record, it has some very harsh words to say about lending money at interest, a prohibition that even Biblical literalists seem to find it perfectly permissible to disregard!)

From Father Vincent C. Schwahn:

As to Homosexuality, there is also a shift in thinking amongst many Christians in the world, based not so much on what the Bible teaches, for remember that the bible condones, and does not condemn, Human Slavery. It also says that Women are to be seen and not heard in Church … and we know that that no longer holds true, even less in the Anglican Communion where we have women Bishops, and in the United States even a Woman Archbishop! So what has changed? What has changed is our understanding of the Human Person, as with the case of Slavery. Most ‘modern thinkers,’ even if they are Christian, believe that Homosexuality is not a choice, but a condition, some say environmentally given, and others that it is genetically inherited. Whatever the case, being a Homosexual is not about choice, but about accepting a part of who you are, who God has created, and made in the same image as God. This is the basic change in thought. If men and women are Homosexual by nature and everything that God makes is good, including sexual expression as God has created it, then of course we are able to share our sexuality out of Love and Responsibility.

Excerpt from Dr. John Stott’s book, “Issues Facing Christians Today:”

“There are four main biblical passages which refer (or appear to refer) to the homosexual question negatively: (1) the story of Sodom (Genesis 19:1 – 13), with which it is natural to associate the very similar story of Gibeah (Judges 19); (2) the Levitical texts (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13) which explicitly prohibit ‘lying with a man as on lies with a woman’; (3) the apostle Paul’s portrayal of decadent pagan society in his day (Romans 1:18 – 32); and (4) two Pauline lists of sinners, each of which includes a reference to homosexual practices of some kind (1 Corinthians 6:9 – 10; 1 Timothy 1:8 – 11).

We highly recommend reading the entirety of these thoughtful, excerpted responses on Joop.