According to tradition, when the apostle John was overseer in Ephesus, his hobby was raising pigeons. It is said that on one occasion another elder passed his house as he returned from hunting and saw John playing with one of the birds. The man gently chided him for spending his time so frivolously. John looked at…

Exodus 17:12 : When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. In 1989, paraplegic Mark Wellman climbed the sheer granite face of Yosemite’s…

A certain preacher understood why he had never been asked to join a choir or sing a solo. Musical talent was not one of his gifts. He had discovered this at the age of 9 when he was outside one day singing loudly. His mother opened the door and asked, “Is one of the calves…

The bighorn sheep in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park will often allow visitors to approach them from below and take close-up photos. But don’t try to get above them or the entire herd will run away. The bighorns’ escape route from predators is always upward. On level ground a bobcat or cougar can easily overtake the…

Secrecy, lawsuits, and technological advances are part of a news item some have called “the greatest achievement of the past 1,000 years.” This isn’t a recent story of spy satellites or computer programmes. It’s the story behind Johannes Guttenberg’s first ever printing press—in 1455.   Guttenberg had tried to keep his invention top secret until it…

When the great ocean liner Titanic sank in 1912 it was rumoured to have gone down with a fortune in jewels and gold. That longstanding myth was dispelled, however, by the discovery of the ship’s manifest, which showed that the ship was carrying raw feathers, linen, straw, hatter’s fur, tissue, auto parts, leather, rabbit hair,…

In an article for the San Francisco Chronicle, Herb Caen wrote, “Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every day a lion wakes up. It knows it has to run faster than the slowest gazelle or it will starve…

The honeybee has one of the most highly developed social structures in the animal kingdom.At the heart of the hive, which may house as many as 80,000 bees, is the queen. Without her the colony has no future. But the 80,000 don’t just sit around watching their queen. Each bee has a specialized duty to…

All America waited anxiously. Many people prayed. Captain Scott O’Grady’s F-16 had been shot down as he was flying over Serbia. Had he been killed or captured? Was he seriously injured? The hours ticked by. Five days passed. On the 6th day another pilot picked up a faint message from O’Grady’s radio. He was alive,…

Years ago a tourist was being shown through one of the oldest castles in England. He admired the rich furnishings, the valuable art treasures and the ornate carvings. Then he noticed a strange tapestry that had a wild, irregular pattern of colour and knotted threads. The guide, seeing the man’s quizzical look said, “That’s actually…