Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 947

A murmuration of starlings

    This is one of nature’s most astonishing spectacles.  And nature offers a lot of spectacles.   Here are two interesting pieces, with video:   “The Startling Science of a Starling Murmuration”   “The Incredible Science Behind Starling Murmurations”   Watch and be amazed.    

“Restaurants du Coeur: LDS Charities is assisting work in Lebanon to preserve dignity”

    Gysler is a very familiar name from my missionary days in Switzerland, and Karim Assouad is a pillar of the Church in Lebanon and the Middle East.  Those are only two of the minor reasons that I like this story:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86...   I suppose that this effort is simply another redundant example [Read More...]

“Clinton, Sanders battle over ‘gods’ and ‘devils’”

    An interesting link kindly brought to my attention by Nathaniel Hancock:   http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/05/opinion...   My friend and colleague Ralph Hancock comments on it as follows:   “Interesting.  Weird, actually, and a sign of the underhandedness of the left:  ‘Liberal’ was a term stolen in order to mask the more radical ‘progressive’ (anti-individual freedom) [Read More...]

BOM 2 Nephi 18

    I actually discussed an important aspect of today’s reading (2 Nephi 18 = Isaiah 8) yesterday, so I won’t revisit that topic in this post.  But the focus today is related to yesterday’s, and it concerns the international political situation of Isaiah’s time — probably in the period 735-731 BC.     The great empire [Read More...]

“‘Let a Hundred Flowers Blossom’: Some Observations on Mormon Studies”

    I was invited by its new editor to write this little item for the first issue of the Mormon Studies Review that appeared after I was purged from the Maxwell Institute.  It wasn’t available online for the first year or so, and I forgot about it.   I just remembered, though.  And it [Read More...]

We must learn.

    “No one knows anything about Christ’s work simply by being born a member of the Church, and often he knows little about it after years of unmotivated exposure in meetings or classes. He must learn. And learning involves self-investment and effort. The Gospel should be studied ‘as carefully as any science.’ The ‘literature [Read More...]

“The Yoke of Christ: A Light Burden Heavy with Meaning”

    It being Friday, there’s a new article up in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/the-...    

“National Universities Where Students are Eager to Enroll”

    http://www.usnews.com/education/best-...    

“President Obama denounces anti-Muslim bias, mentions anti-Mormon history”

    A few of you, at least, might have missed this aspect of President Obama’s much-discussed visit to a mosque a couple of days ago:   http://www.sltrib.com/news/3495925-15...   As usual, by the way, the comments following this Tribune article don’t manage to rise to the level of “utterly worthless.”    

“From exile to eminence: How the alien hunters conquered astronomy”

    An interesting and readable short article on the rise to respectability of the search for life — notice that I say “life,” and not merely “extraterrestrial intelligence” — on other worlds:   http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/0...