May 2, 2007, 7:43 pm There is a way that seems right to a man,
but in the end it leads to death. Proverbs 14:12
I couldn’t help but think of this verse when I read this Newsweek Health article. Everyone knows that after 5 minutes or so without oxygen you die, because your cells die from oxygen starvation. Because of this, the standard treatment for oxygen deprivation (from heart failure, say) is to rapidly get blood flowing and reoxygenated.
Now comes a study of what really happens to cells that are oxygen starved, and amazingly, cells don’t die after even an hour of lack of oxygen. In fact, it takes several hours for cell death to occur from oxygen deprivation. So why do people die after 5 or 10 minutes without breathing? Because of the treatment of rapidly reintroducing oxygenated blood to the cells. Apparently, the rapid introduction of oxygen triggers something akin to a cell defense mechanism and the cell dies.
How often do we make decisions based on false or inadequate assumptions just because it all seems so logical?
April 29, 2007, 7:41 pm Marilee Jones, the dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (a position she has held since 1997), has resigned because 28 years ago she falsified information on her resume. She had represented herself as having degrees from Albany Medical College, Union College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, but in fact, had never received a degree from any college.
I recall another similar incident when Mike Campbell resigned from his position as associate director for lasers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 1999. The fact that he had never finished his Ph.D. thesis at Princeton had come to light, yet his Lab resume claimed such a degree from Princeton.
The undoing of these individuals was not their lack of ability. In fact, they were high performers and extremely well thought of. What caused them to lose their jobs was the purposeful misrepresentation of their credentials. “The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out.” So says Proverbs 10:9.
April 27, 2007, 8:17 pm  Big tree Karen and I drove to Aptos today for a walk along the beach at Rio del Mar and then some hiking in Nisene Marks. We found a big tree to go along with the four caches we hunted down.
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Consider this:“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34–35 |
