Interesting Posts and Articles #3

1. Article about Orthomom's win. And also, Orthomom's Op-Ed on the topic.

2. Lasers to blast viruses. At Wired:

A physicist and his biologist son destroyed a common virus using a superfast pulsing laser, without harming healthy cells. The discovery could lead to new treatments for viruses like HIV that have no cure.
"We have demonstrated a technique of using a laser to excite vibrations on the shield of a virus and damage it, so that it's no longer functional," said Kong-Thon Tsen, a professor of physics at Arizona State University. "We're testing it on HIV and hepatitis right now."

3. Robotic sofer:

A group in Germany, however, has created an industrial robot that has been programmed to write the entire Bible,on a scroll, using calligraphic lines similar to a font common in the 15th century.

It would be interesting to see teshuvot on the subject. This is not printing, but rather moving a pen. And perhaps pressing the button can take care of lishma aspects. Not that I am paskening here, but it should be interesting to see the discussions. The post there has a picture, as well.

4. DAG disagrees with Rebbetzin Jungreis' advice to a single girl.

5. On The Main Line discusses the origin of this midrash:

And they did as they had thought. The next day, each of the brothers went to the field, and was very much surprised to see that the two heaps were still equal : neither one nor the other could account to himself for this prodigy. They did the same for several successive nights,but as each had carried to his brother's heap the same number of sheaves, the heaps still remained equal; until one night both stood sentinels to search out the reason of this miracle, and they met one another carrying the sheaves they had mutually designed for each other. " Now the place where so good a thought came at the same time and recurred so continually to two men, must be a spot pleasing to the Deity ; and men blessed it, and chose it to build on it a house for God."

He does not address the origin of the parallel midrash:

Once there were two brothers, each with a farm on the opposite side of the same hill. The first had a family - wife, sons, daughters. The second lived by himself.
It came to be that, during the harvest, the first brother said to himself, "We have so many mouths to feed whereas my brother has only but himself." So late at night, he would sneak over the hill to his brother's farm and take bags of grain.
Now, at about the same time, the second brother said to himself, "My brother has a wife, sons, and daughters to help during the harvest while I have no one to help." So late at night, he would sneak over the hill to his brother's farm and take bags of grain.
One night, they happened to run into each other and each saw what the other was doing. They instantly realized what was happening, and yelled at each other and beat each other up. And it is on that hill that the Knesset was built.

6. The Weekly Parsha Comic -- The First Shidduch

Heh.

7. MysticalPaths continues the series of posts about yoga.