A note from Brian Lowery, managing editor: "News That Illustrates" is a new feature that we're adding to our weekly illustrations. Each week I'm going to offer links to ten, up-to-the-minute news articles that I feel have some real illustrative potential for you as a preacher. Enjoy!

July 20 was the 40th anniversary of man walking on the moon. The special occasion led to a spate of space-related stories, ...

Psychologists have found an intriguing way to study what it is that we really like and dislike. It's called "affective priming." They print a word over a bouncing dot on a computer screen. If people's response is positive, they push any key with their left hand; if negative—any key with their right.

Too discover our deeper responses, researchers will use subliminal stimulation. They'll print ...

In an article for Today's Christian about the rapid growth of the church in China (now 70 million strong), Rob Moll tells the story of a missionary and businessman called Uncle Daniel, offering a glimpse into God's work in a seemingly closed society:

Uncle Daniel spent years as a missionary to China's rural villages. There, he said, it was like the Book of Acts, complete with miracles, exorcisms, ...

The percentage of disposable personal income Americans spent on food in 1935: 24.2 percent

The percentage of disposable personal income Americans spent on food in 2005: 9.9 percent

A Harvard economics professor has been accused of neglecting the standard market practice of paying for goods and services by trying to steal a truckload of manure from a nearby farmer.

Phillip Casey says Martin Weitzman, a Harvard University professor of economics, has been stealing manure from the farm for years.

Casey found Weitzman on the property, blocked in Weitzman's pickup truck, and called ...

Big Fish is a fanciful story about a man from a rural town in Alabama who loves to tell stories as a way of entertaining his young son at bedtime. The movie dramatizes both Edward Bloom's yarn spinning as well as the dizzying effect his "fish stories" have on his relationship with a son unable to separate fact from fiction.

One of Edward's stories concerns the way he met his wife and pursued her in ...

It was eight o'clock on a Friday night and Crystal City, Missouri, was blanketed in snow. Most of the seventh graders in town were out at the movies or in front of the tube, but not William Warren. Earlier that day, Bill had shoveled off the driveway beneath the basketball hoop on the family garage. Beneath the glow of a floodlight, with thin gloves on his hands, Bill was pursuing the prize.

He began ...

A Beautiful Mind tells the story of John Nash, a brilliant mathematician whose career and life were crippled by schizophrenia. Nash taught at MIT until schizophrenia and delusions took over his life. After years of struggle, he began teaching at Princeton and went on to win the Nobel Prize for his theory of the dynamics of human conflict as it relates to economics.

Toward the end of the movie, Nash ...

The movie A Beautiful Mind traces the life of genius mathematician and Nobel Prize winner John Forbes Nash, Jr. (played by Russell Crowe), who is tortured by paranoid schizophrenia.

Nash was a genius mathematician studying at Princeton, seeking to discover a truly original idea. He explained his concept of equilibrium in his 1950 dissertation, Noncooperative Games, which eventually earned him the ...

The movie A Beautiful Mind tells the story of John Nash, a brilliant mathematician whose career and life were crippled by schizophrenia. Nash taught at MIT and went on to win the Nobel Prize for his theory of the dynamics of human conflict as it relates to economics.

WLRN Public Radio and Television wrote in a press release:

At the height of his career, after a decade of remarkable mathematical accomplishments, ...