Vitamins, explained from A to K
We all know that vitamins are good for us. Many of us take supplements to boost the supply of vitamins in our bodies. However, it wasn’t until 1912 that Polish biochemist Casimir Funk actually came up with the concept of vitamins, which he called "vital amines."
The Mayflower odyssey
From the ship’s hold, 102 passengers poured eagerly onto the deck, pale after 65 days of confinement, longing to see the sky and dry land again. Their arrival in the New World might have gone entirely unnoticed had these immigrants not marked history with a first act that would come to define modern democracy.
Is the Bible history?
The Bible is the best-selling book of all time. But while people are aware that the Bible exists, these days relatively few know much about it or have taken the time to actually read it.
COVID-19: What have we learned about ourselves?
Courage is not the opposite of fear, nor of caution. True courage is what you do right in the midst of fear.
Gluten under the microscope
Only people with specific gluten-related conditions—such as celiac disease, wheat allergy, or non-celiac gluten sensitivity—experience adverse reactions to gluten consumption.
Did Martin Luther really believe in Sola Scriptura?
For ten years Luther read the Bible twice a year. His first Bible was so thoroughly read that he "knew what was on every page and where every passage was found." Martin Luther is the most prominent name among those who brought about the Reformation and took Bible study to a new level.
What is the link between religion and conspiracy?
In the famous realist novel A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel Defoe blends the factual with the imaginary, describing the social context just before the great plague struck London in 1665. Among the reactions described, two straddle the line between religion and conspiracy.
When parents die
I never cease to marvel at those who help, in an organized manner, troubled children, abandoned elderly or victims of violence. However, the general need for such heroic saviours reveals the failure of the social group that is apt to address these situations: the family.
COVID-19: How can we transform the crisis?
Tens of thousands of articles about the new coronavirus crisis are filling news outlets around the world these days. What is the crisis, how we go through it, what to do, how to do, when to do it etc. Only one thing seems certain these days: our uncertainty about the future. We would prefer an authority to go out in public and tell...
From the religion of lack to the lack of religion
A group of atheists in Sacramento, California, have prepared 55 billboards for the Christmas season, featuring images of local people and slogans such as "Good without God", "Doing good is my religion" or "Believe in yourself".
Religion is good for you—really?
Religion has often been maligned in both the press and popular culture. But could believing give you an edge in life?
The future is best seen with your eyes closed
When I watch chicks hatch in a nest and begin to perform the instinctive behaviours of their species, I think about what we might understand about ourselves, the human species, if we had the perspective of such a privileged observer.
The best interest of the eternal child
Some time ago, an older friend, now a parent, was telling me how the way his father treated him in childhood caused him unnecessary suffering. Now, as an adult struggling with anxiety, he has spent much time in a psychologist’s office.
From fearing loneliness to embracing it as a gift
"Loneliness irritates me like a broken nail," says a line in a Romanian poem. The truth is, loneliness stings, pulls apart, and resembles the coffee dregs left at the bottom of the pot in which joy and love once brewed. Although the fear of loneliness is natural, we can choose to see solitude as something more than a "flowering wilderness" and embrace it...
Compassion, empathy and bullying
Raising children with the ability to empathise is key in creating a kinder, more compassionate and loving world.


























