The number of lung cancer cases in people who have never smoked is increasing. The disease is different from lung cancer caused by smoking, so what causes it?
Air pollution is the second leading cause of all lung cancer cases after smoking. Studies have revealed that people who live in highly polluted areas are more likely to die of lung cancer than those who do not. Particulate matter (PM) less than 2.5 microns in diameter (about a thirtieth of the width of a human hair), typically found in vehicle exhaust and fossil fuel smoke, seems to play an important role. And research has shown a strong link between high levels of PM2.5 and lung cancer in individuals who have never smoked.
“With the increasing risk of wildfires, air pollution and PM2.5 levels are rising again in certain regions of the US,” says Christine Berg, a retired oncologist from the National Cancer Institute in Maryland. “At least one study has shown an association between wildfire exposure and increased incidence of lung cancer.”
In 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) halved the annual mean air quality guideline for PM2.5, meaning it has adopted a more stringent approach to particulate matter. “But 99% of the world population lives in areas where air pollution levels exceed [these updated] WHO guideline limits,” says Ganfeng Luo of the International Agency for Research on Cancer in France. In Delhi, for example, the average PM2.5 levels are 20 times above the WHO air quality guidelines.
Exposure to radon gas is another leading cause of lung cancer worldwide. In 2015 it was estimated that 3–20% of global lung cancer deaths could be attributed to radon exposure, and this percentage reached 30% in never-smokers.
We’re certainly seeing the “earth [growing] old like a garment, and those who dwell in it [dying] in like manner” (Isa. 51:6)—another sign that it’s time for Christ to return.
“The mystery rise of lung cancer in non-smokers,” BBC, June 6, 2025.
“Radon and lung cancer: Current status and future prospects,” Science Direct, June 2024.
Over a third of US students believe it is acceptable to use violence to stop a speech on a college campus, according to a new survey.
The Foundation of Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has published its 2026 College Free Speech Rankings, an annual review of American universities’ speech protections and climate of open inquiry.
When asked whether using violence to stop a public speaker on campus is acceptable, only 66% of students responded that the tactic is “never acceptable.” 15% responded that violence is always or sometimes acceptable, with a further 19% saying that it was “rarely acceptable.” The combined 34% is a record figure. In 2022, that figure was 20%.
“Fewer students believe that controversial ideas should be heard on campus, and more are willing to allow others to suppress speech through disruption—or even violence—than ever before,” FIRE’s chief research advisor, Sean Stevens, says of this year’s data. “These aren’t isolated findings; they represent a troubling, accelerating shift on campuses across the country.”
Speculating on the reason for this, he says, “Intolerance can rise with increases in political polarization, something that has been happening among the general public for a while. I do think the features offered by social media, the ability to curate a feed with things one likes while filtering out things they don’t like, play into the rise in intolerance among today’s undergraduates.”
The book of Revelation prophesies a situation of extreme intolerance and removal of freedoms in the last days, even in the United States. This report is evidence of widespread movement in that direction already.
“Third of US students say violence is acceptable response to speech,” Unherd.com, Sept. 9, 2025.
“Map Shows Colleges Ranked Best—and Worst—for Free Speech,” Newsweek, Sept. 13, 2025.
In July 2025, Dr. Robert Endres of the Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College, London, published a paper revisiting the question of how life on Earth began. Endres’s contributions are new formulas for examining the likelihood of a spontaneous beginning of life on Earth.
Summarizing his work scientifically, he says, “Using estimates grounded in modern computational models, we evaluate the difficulty of assembling structured biological information under plausible prebiotic conditions. Our results highlight the formidable entropic and informational barriers to forming a viable protocell within the available window of Earth’s early history.” That is to say that despite help from AI, it’s clear that life on Earth is extremely unlikely to have come into being by itself.
Faced with the same dilemma back in 1973, Francis Crick (codiscoverer of DNA’s structure) and Leslie Orgel proposed the idea of “directed panspermia.” Endres explains, “In their scenario, an advanced extraterrestrial civilization, facing extinction or perhaps scientific curiosity, dispatched microbial ‘starter kits’ to habitable planets like ours.” He then comments, “While Crick and Orgel attempted to formulate this idea more like a testable hypothesis, it deftly relocates the explanatory burden to someone else’s biochemistry.” Endres recognizes that at best, it only accounts for how life got to Earth, not how it began. But he has no other suggestions.
Although Endres’s paper caused a momentary flurry in the popular media (people love articles about space aliens), there’s nothing new here. Scientists are still sidestepping the possibility that there’s a Creator, even if they have to turn to science fiction to do it! Meanwhile, the mounting scientific evidences of design in biology and fine-tuning in chemistry and physics unerringly point us back to the Bible.
“The unreasonable likelihood of being,” ResearchGate, July 25, 2025.
Does ChatGPT harm critical thinking abilities? A new study from researchers at MIT’s Media Lab has returned some concerning results.
The study divided 54 subjects—18- to 39-year-olds from the Boston area—into three groups, and asked them to write several SAT essays using OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s search engine, and nothing at all, respectively. Researchers used an EEG to record the writers’ brain activity across 32 regions.
They found that of the three groups, ChatGPT users had the lowest brain engagement and “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.” Over the course of several months, ChatGPT users got lazier with each subsequent essay, often resorting to copy-and-paste by the end of the study.
Psychiatrist Dr. Zishan Kha says that he sees many kids who rely heavily on AI for their schoolwork. “From a psychiatric standpoint, I see that overreliance on these LLMs can have unintended psychological and cognitive consequences, especially for young people whose brains are still developing,” he says. “These neural connections that help you in accessing information, the memory of facts, and the ability to be resilient: all that is going to weaken.”
The deceptions and pressures of the last days require stronger rather than weaker thinking skills. We need to do all we can to encourage and help young people to develop them. Let’s guard ours, too.
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