This blog has gotten a little heavy recently, especially on the politics front, so thought I’d lighten it up with a snippet from that other great American obsession: health news.

We’ve probably all read stories about how people who attend religious services regularly are healthier than those who don’t, and of course there are multiple studies out there suggesting that praying and being prayed for are good for your physical well-being.

Well, here’s a new twist on why you might be saving more than your soul if you attend church regularly. According to an article on the LiveScience website,

Medieval stained-glass windows colored in gold nanoparticles help purify air when lit by the sun, a new study finds.

Okay, granted, most of us here in St. Louis don’t worship in medieval cathedrals. Still, apparently it’s possible to reproduce this effect with modern materials, and supposedly it’s friendlier to the environment than other forms of air purification currently available.

So maybe the next time your asthma is acting up on one of our “yellow” air-quality days, you can hop a plane to Europe and spend a therapeutic week or two bumming around in medieval churches, enjoying both the visual splendor and the purer air. Okay, I’m just being silly now. But doesn’t it sound great?

The picture, found on Wikipedia, is of a window at Canterbury Cathedral.