| Site Map | Contacts | Links | Newsletter | |
News:
January 11, 2004
Note: Due to the archiving policies of the various news Websites some links on this page may no longer be valid. All links will take you away from the IBSS Site - use your browser's "back" button to return to this page.
Religion in the News
'Allegory'
Job 'Favorite Book in the New Testament,' Says Howard Dean
Presidential candidate having some trouble talking about religion. Compiled
by Ted Olsen.
Dean Changes
Tack on Religion Comments
Doesn't ask WWJD, he says, but he did think about religion when signing
civil unions bill as governor. Compiled by Ted Olsen
No, Really!
People Actually Believe This Religion Stuff, Says NYT's Kristof. Really!
Plus: A very good NYT piece on the Episcopal Church rift, Orthodox Christmas,
religion in prison, and other stories from online sources around the world.
Compiled by Ted Olsen.
Star Christian
Reporter Quits USA Today After Investigation
and many other stories from online sources around the world. Compiled by
Ted Olsen.
Definition of 'Jew' confronts Israel Thousands of Ethiopian Jews who were pressured to convert to Christianity are waiting to move to Israel (The Christian Science Monitor). See http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0109/p06s01-wome.html
Kidnappers
Release Two Christian Relief Volunteers in Colombia
Ransom demand paid for evangelical lawyer and businessman. By David Miller,
Compass Direct.
Christian
History Corner: Top Ten Stories of 2003 … with a Church History Twist
Here is our review of "the Christian history that made the stories
that made the news." By Chris Armstrong.
The Most-Read
Articles of 2003
Christianity Today's online readers were interested in Buffy the Vampire
Slayer, the best Christian places to work, and Bono's anti-AIDS crusade.
Why
not one Bible for all?
The ESV may have the potential to become the universal choice (Associated
Press).
Science in the News
Creation/Evolution
Religion,
Geology Collide at the Grand Canyon
In the park's stores is a book saying the chasm is due to the biblical flood.
It's a hot seller but a source of controversy among scientists, staff. (Los
Angeles Times). See also http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/7679608.htm
Scientists
seek place for God while embracing reason
Debates about the origins of the physical world and the life on it tend
to generate the most controversy -- and publicity -- in science and religion
debates. But in quiet ways, the search for common ground has moved beyond
haggles over cosmology and evolution into other fields (The Ledger, Lakeland,
Fla.).
The
New Creationism and Its Threat to Science Literacy and Education.
The most publicly contentious issue in science—the teaching of evolution—
illustrates the point: About half of those surveyed by NSF do not believe
humans evolved from earlier species, and two-thirds think that creationism
should be taught alongside evolution in public schools. But there is some
good news: Acceptance of human evolution inched into the majority for the
first time (53 percent). Moreover, according to a poll by People for the
American Way (www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=2095), a substantial
majority (83 percent) think that evolution should be taught and that it
is not incompatible with a belief in God (70 percent).
A Conversation
with Paleontologist Kevin Padian.
Why do so many people find it difficult to reconcile evolution with their
religious beliefs? One thing that scares a lot of people is the notion of
randomness. They fear that if the processes that shape the evolution are
“random,” there’s no purpose or direction to life. Both those
statements are wrong--first of all, because that’s not what “random”
means in science and, second, because I think you can find purpose and direction
in the evolution of life, just not a religious one. This is really the fault
of scientists for using common words in specialized ways and not explaining
them very well to the public. We need to take the rap for this misunderstanding.
Randomness in evolution, or in science in general, is just a statistical
term. It means that we can’t individuate specific cases in advance.
We may know that six out of a thousand fruitflies in every generation will
have a particular mutation, but we can’t say which six. That’s
what we mean when we say that this stuff is random. And mutations themselves
are not random changes. They are changes in the genetic material--the genetic
material does certain things but not other things. We know, for example,
that a duck’s head is not going to suddenly appear on a horse. In fact,
Darwin’s great idea was natural selection, which is the very opposite
of randomness. Think of it this way: Were our students selected to get into
Berkeley, or did they just get in at random?
Positive
Mitochondrial Mutations?
The genetic adaptation to cold is still carried by many Northern Europeans,
East Asians and American Indians, most of whose ancestors once lived in
Siberia. But it is absent from peoples native to Africa, a difference that
the California team, led by Dr. Douglas C. Wallace of the University of
California, Irvine, suggest could contribute to the greater burden of certain
diseases in the African-American population.
Archaeology/Anthropology
Raising the anchor.
A wooden anchor from Roman times that may have belonged to King Herod's
royal yacht was discovered three weeks ago in the Dead Sea by archaeologist
Gideon Hadas of Kibbutz Ein Gedi.
Tourists
flock to the historical Latin America sites that some LDS scholars say are
described in The Book of Mormon.
In 1979, a group of researchers established the Foundation for Ancient Religion
and Mormon Studies, known as FARMS. In 1997, FARMS became an official part
of LDS Church-owned Brigham Young University, with one of its mandates being
to study the cultural, linguistic and archaeological milieu of Mesoamerica.
Until the past few decades, many Latter-day Saints thought
Book of Mormon peoples roamed from one end of the Americas to the other,
winding up in an apocalyptic battle in New York state near where Smith lived.
Now FARMS scholars seem convinced most of the events were limited to Central
America, primarily Guatemala and Mexico.
Archeologists
find ancient cemetery in Egypt. Cairo
Polish and Egyptian archeologists have unearthed an ancient cemetery containing
the 4,000-year-old tomb of a royal official, Egypt's antiquities officials
announced Wednesday. Culture Minister Farouk Hosni said the necropolis near
the pyramids of Saqqara, about 25 kilometres south of Cairo, contained the
tomb of Ny-Ankh-Nefetem, identified in hieroglyphic writing as the god's
servant of the pyramids of kings Unas and Teti, who ruled successively from
2375 to 2291 B.C.
Subway
excavations in Naples turn up ancient Roman ship, amphorae. NAPLES (AP)
Italian archeologists have discovered a Roman ship and hundreds of amphorae
dating to the second century during excavation works for a new subway in
the southern city of Naples.
'Viking
Village' Hopes Cruelly Dashed. LONDON (Reuters)
Archaeologists were excited to find what they thought was the first evidence
of ninth century Viking settlement in Scotland. Only when the area was completely
excavated and materials analyzed did the horrible truth dawn -- the stones
were nothing more significant than a 1940s sunken patio.
Astronomy
Mars Rover Spirit. See the latest photos at www.nasa.gov
NASA Spacecraft
Makes Great Catch..Heads for Touchdown. Pasadena - Jan 05, 2004
Team Stardust, NASA's first dedicated sample return mission to a comet,
passed a huge milestone Friday by successfully navigating through the particle
and gas-laden coma around comet Wild 2 (pronounced "Vilt-2").
Movie Offers
Insights In To Workings of Mysterious Microquasars. Socorro - Jan 07,
2004
Astronomers have made a 42-day movie showing unprecedented detail of the
inner workings of a strange star system that has puzzled scientists for
more than two decades. Their work is providing new insights that are changing
scientists' understanding of the enigmatic stellar pairs known as microquasars.
Suns Of All
Ages Possess Comets, Maybe Planets. Atlanta - Jan 07, 2004
In early 2003, Comet Kudo-Fujikawa (C/2002 X5) zipped past the Sun at a
distance half that of Mercury's orbit. Astronomers Matthew Povich and John
Raymond (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) and colleagues studied
Kudo-Fujikawa during its close passage. Today at the 203rd meeting of the
American Astronomical Society in Atlanta, they announced that they observed
the comet puffing out huge amounts of carbon, one of the key elements for
life. The comet also emitted large amounts of water vapor as the Sun's heat
baked its outer surface.
Magnetars,
The Most Magnetic Stars Known, More Common Than Previously Thought.
Observations of explosions from an ultra-powerful magnetic neutron star
playing hide-and-seek with astronomers suggest that these exotic objects
called magnetars -- capable of stripping a credit card clean 100,000 miles
away -- are far more common than previously thought.
Astronomers
See Era Of Rapid Galaxy Formation; New Findings Pose A Challenge For Cold
Dark Matter Theory.
"The universe is always more complicated than our cosmological theories
would have it," says Nigel Sharp, program officer for extra-galactic
astronomy and cosmology at the National Science Foundation (NSF). Witness
a collection of new and recently announced discoveries that, taken together,
suggest a considerably more active and fastmoving epoch of galaxy formation
in the early universe than prevailing theories had called for.
Chandra
Locates Mother Lode Of Planetary Ore In Colliding Galaxies.
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has discovered rich deposits of neon, magnesium,
and silicon in a pair of colliding galaxies known as The Antennae. When
the clouds in which these elements are present cool, an exceptionally high
number of stars with planets should form. These results may foreshadow the
fate of the Milky Way and its future collision with the Andromeda Galaxy.
Old
Equation May Shed New Light On Planet Formation.
New work with an old equation may help scientists calculate the thickness
of ice covering the oceans on Jupiter's moon Europa and ultimately provide
insight into planet formation. Planetary bodies, such as the Earth and its
moon, exert such gravitational force on one another that tides occur, not
just in the oceans, but also in bodies of the planets themselves. The surfaces
of planets actually rise and fall slightly as they orbit one another.
Bush Could Announce
New Manned Space Missions To Moon And Mars. Washington (AFP) Jan 09,
2004
President George W. Bush is ready to announce new goals for the US space
program next week, that could include manned missions to the Moon and beyond,
US government officials said late Thursday.
Biology
Stem-cell 'secret
of youth' found
A humble marine snail has helped scientists to unravel the signals that
keep stem cells young.
Prion proteins
may store memories
Study hints at vital job for two-faced proteins.
'Drugs
don't work' admission triggers news response
A newspaper report in which Allen Roses, Senior VP, Genetics Research at
GlaxoSmithKline, admitted that most prescription drugs do not work for most
people, triggered an incredible response worldwide.
Drug Discovery News Review of 2003.
Herbal
medicine boom threatens plants
Natural remedies have become so popular that many wild plants are now being
harvested to the point of extinction, say botanists.
Systematic
genome-wide screens of gene function
High-throughput genome-wide screens offer many advantages over traditional
approaches, not least of which is speed. Such systematic functional screens
have been successfully carried out in yeast, but are becoming feasible in
higher organisms, including human cells. Anne E. Carpenter & David M.
Sabatini
Earth Science
Endurance Of Plants
Under Quartz Rocks Possible Model For Life On Early Earth. Durham -
Jan 06, 2004
Microscopic Mojave Desert plants growing on the underside of translucent
quartz pebbles can endure both chilly and near-boiling temperatures, scavenge
nitrogen from the air, and utilize the equivalent of nighttime moonlight
levels for photosynthesis, a new study reports. The plants, which receive
enough light through the pebbles to support photosynthesis, could offer
a model for how plants first colonized land, as well as how they might have
evolved on Mars, said the scientists who performed the study.
Psychology
War
- genetics (7 Jan)
Research into the aggressive behaviour of male chimpanzees, our closest
biological ally, suggests that the urge to go to war is in our DNA and that
only women can stop it, says Sanjida O'Connell.
Research
Reveals Brain Has Biological Mechanism To Block Unwanted Memories.
For the first time, researchers at Stanford University and the University
of Oregon have shown that a biological mechanism exists in the human brain
to block unwanted memories. The findings, to be published Jan. 9 in the
journal Science, reinforce Sigmund Freud's controversial century-old thesis
about the existence of voluntary memory suppression.