More and more churches — "hundreds," according to a Christianity Today report — offer hesitant parishioners a "money-back guarantee" if they tithe 10 percent (or more) of their income for 90 days, but then feel that God blesses them insufficiently in return. The South Carolina megachurch NewSpring instituted such a program in the 1990s and claims that, of 7,000 recent pledgers, "fewer than 20" expressed dissatisfaction with the Lord. Advocates cite the Bible's Book of Malachi, quoting God himself, according to Christianity Today: "Test me in this." "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse" and "see if I will not pour out so much blessing" that "there will not be room enough to store it."

'Full-body' transplant

A leading Chinese orthopedic surgeon continues to believe that "full-body" transplants are the next big thing in medicine, despite worldwide skepticism about the science and the ethics. The plan for Dr. Ren Xiaoping of Harbin Medical University calls for removing both heads (the deceased donor's and the live recipient's), connecting the blood vessels, stabilizing the new neck, and "bath[ing]" spinal-cord nerve endings chemically so they will connect. Critics say it is impossible to "connect" spinal-cord nerves. According to a recent New York Times dispatch, doctors regularly denounce China's ethical laxities — though Chinese officials term such denunciations "envy" over China's achievements.

Litigious societies

• Insurance agent John Wright filed a lawsuit in Will County, Ill., in June over teenagers playing "ding dong ditch," in which kids ring a doorbell but run away before the resident answers. The lawsuit claims that bell-ringer Brennan Papp, 14, caused Wright "severe emotional distress, anxiety and weight loss," resulting in at least $30,000 of lost income. … The ex-boyfriend of Nina Zgurskaya filed a lawsuit in Siberia after she broke up with him for his reluctance to "pop the question" after a two-year courtship. The man, not named in a dispatch from Moscow, demanded compensation for his dating expenses. The trial court ruled against him, but he is appealing.

The job of the researcher

A team of researchers is following about 30 tabbies, calicoes and others, recording their moves and sounds, to somehow learn whether house cats have dialects in their meows and alter other patterns of stress and intonation when they "speak" to other cats or to humans. In explaining the project, linguist Robert Eklund of Sweden's Linköping University personally sounded out "a pretty wide range of meows to illustrate his points," wrote a New York magazine interviewer. Eklund is already an expert on feline purring (at Purring.org) — although from a distance, as he admits to being allergic to cats.

Thirst for knowledge

Brigham Young University professor Jason Hansen apologized in May after coaxing a student — for extra credit — to drink a small vial of his urine in class. The physiology session was on kidney function, and Hansen thought the stunt would call attention to urine's unique properties. He confessed later that the "urine" was just food coloring with vinegar added, that he had used the stunt in previous classes and that he usually admits the ruse at the next class session. Nonetheless, Hansen's department chair suggested he retire the concept.

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