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News:
July 18, 2004


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Religion in the News

Former Labor Secretary Predicts Religious War in America.

Federal Marriage Amendment Doesn't Even Make It to a Senate Vote
Religious activist groups respond. Plus: Clive Calver resigns as World Relief president, and other stories from online sources around the world. Compiled by Ted Olsen.

Separation of Ministry and Politics
In order to influence public policy successfully, Focus on the Family must quickly learn how to remove politicking from its ministry core. By Rob Moll.

'New' faith comes a'knocking
Terryl Givens says Mormonism is poised to become the first new-world religion since Islam (The Age, Melbourne, Australia).

Student, university settle f-word case
The University of Utah agreed Wednesday to let students opt out of activities that conflict with their religious beliefs, settling a lawsuit brought by a Mormon drama student who refused to recite lines that contained the f-word and took the Lord's name in vain (Associated Press).

Sick Cambodians Healed by 'Miracle' Cow? July 8, 2004
Thousands of ill Cambodians are flocking to the northern village of Phum Trapeang Chum to be licked by a mystical cow named Preah, who — according to its owner — is curing their complaints.

Pledging to Fight
Atheist says battle over 'under God' has just begun. By John W. Kennedy.

Turning the tables on Nigeria's e-mail conmen
Scambaiter fights back against those who send out the notorious 419 e-mails (BBC).

Caped crusader
He's written Spider-Man and Superman, but Mark Millar's own heroes are Tony Benn and Jesus Christ (Sunday Herald, Glasgow, Scotland).

Now New Zealand becomes Narnia
First it was Middle Earth, now New Zealand is turning into Narnia (PA, U.K.)

Liberals join conservatives' scholarly attacks on the best-selling `Da Vinci Code'
Even the Jesus Seminar says Dan Brown's claims are all fiction (Associated Press).

Library of Date Setters of The End of the World!!!

Science in the News

Archaeology/Anthropology

Three Debates about Bible and Archaeology See
The Spanish translation is at: Tres Debates sobre Biblia y Arqueología.

Ice Age 'Sistine Chapel' Found. July 13, 2004
An elaborately decorated cave ceiling with artwork dating to 13,000 years ago has been found in Nottinghamshire, England, according to a press release issued today by the University of Sheffield.

Growth Study Of Wild Chimpanzees Challenges Assumptions About Early Humans.

Astronomy

Mature Galaxies in Young Universe At Odds with Theory
The discovery of massive galaxies in the infant universe has astrophysicists puzzling over how such objects could have formed so early on. The leading model of galaxy evolution assumes that the first galaxies were relatively tiny--only through the merging of these smaller entities did larger galaxies slowly develop. The new find may force scientists to reexamine how stars arise.

How To Fail At Being A Star Hamburg (SPX) July 08, 2004
At the 13th Cambridge Workshop on "Cool Stars, Stellar Systems, and the Sun," Dr. Kevin L. Luhman (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) announced the discovery of a unique pair of newborn brown dwarfs in orbit around each other.

Cassini lifts Titan's hazy veil 
Moon gives hints of hydrocarbons in hot spots.

Cassini Exposes Saturn's Two-Face Moon Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 16, 2004
The moon with the split personality, Iapetus, presents a perplexing appearance in the latest images snapped by the Cassini spacecraft.

Freeze-Dried Water, Magnetic Dust Moffet Field CA (SPX) Jul 12, 2004
Mars is a dusty place and some of that dust is highly magnetic. Magnetic minerals carried in dust grains may be freeze-dried remnants of the planet´s watery past.

Los Alamos Computers Probe How Giant Planets Formed Los Alamos NM (SPX) Jul 14, 2004 - Nearly five billion years ago, the giant gaseous planets Jupiter and Saturn formed, apparently in radically different ways. So says a scientist at the Laboratory who created exhaustive computer models based on experiments in which the element hydrogen was shocked to pressures nearly as great as those found inside the two planets.

Texas Giant Scope Finds First Planet. Austin TX (SPX) July 12, 2004
McDonald Observatory astronomers Bill Cochran, Michael Endl, and Barbara McArthur have exploited the Hobby-Eberly Telescope's (HET's) capabilities to rapidly find and confirm, with great precision, the giant telescope's first planet outside our solar system.

Starburst Eye Of A Galaxy Produces A Cosmic Shower Madison (SPX) Jul 12, 2004
Combining images from orbiting and ground-based telescopes, an international team of astronomers has located the eye of a cosmic hurricane: the source of the 1 million mile-per-hour winds that shower intergalactic space from the galaxy M82.

Biology

Cell Study Leap Forward For Tissue Engineering, Diseases
University of Toronto researchers have discovered a key mechanism in tissue formation that could have implications for tissue engineering, as well as for diseases such as spina bifida and cancer.

Could we defeat the menopause?
Mouse ovaries offer up secret of new egg cells.

Cinnamon Oil Kills Mosquitoes More Effectively Than DEET
Cinnamon oil shows promise as a great-smelling, environmentally friendly pesticide, with the ability to kill mosquito larvae.

Compound Underlying Smoke's Positive Effect on Plants Identified
After viewing the damage that forest fires can wreak, it might seem counterintuitive that some plants fare better after being exposed to smoke. This phenomenon has been observed in a number of species, but it was unclear just what bestowed these benefits. New research reveals the active ingredient in smoke that improves plant germination.

Creation/Evolution

Life Born Left-Handed. Moffet Field CA (SPX) Jul 12, 2004
A chemical reaction that demonstrates how key molecules in the biological world might have come to be predominately left or right handed has been reported by scientists at Imperial College London.

Background on Comparative Genomic Analysis.

Exobiology: It's life...isn't it? 
Scientists find it hard enough to pin down evidence of early life on our own planet. How on Earth do we plan to determine whether life exists elsewhere? John Whitfield finds out.

Immune systems evolved more than once 
Primitive fish has advanced protective mechanism.

Ploidy predicts lifestyle
Study explores how host-parasite interactions select for genome number.

Geology Before Darwin: The Struggle to Find and Defend the Truth about the Earth’s Past.

Tidal Slowdown, Coral Growth, and the Age of the Earth.

Creationist Misuse of the Green River Formation. by Glenn Morton.

The ICA Stones: Man & Dinosaur together?

Earth Science

Ninety Million Year Old Dino Tracks Found On Resort Island. Hvar Croatia (SPX) Jul 16, 2004
During fieldwork conducted throughout the month of June, an international team of Canadian and Croatian paleontologists and geologists, led by Dr. Michael Caldwell of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and Mr. Jakov Radovcic of the Croatian Museum of Natural History in Zagreb, found 90 million year old dinosaur tracks and trackways on the island of Hvar, Croatia.

New Dino May Be Europe's Largest. July 8, 2004
The bones of a vast animal that may have munched on trees in what is now a semi-desert region of eastern Spain have turned up in a paleontological dig there. Researchers have unearthed a humerus bone from the upper foreleg measuring 1.85 meters (six feet) and weighing 150 kilograms (330 pounds), indicating that it came from an animal more than 30 meters (100 feet) in length and weighing 50 tons — the equivalent of up to seven male elephants.

When Sun's Too Strong, Plankton Make Clouds Greenbelt (SPX) July 05, 2004
People say size doesn't matter, and that may be true for tiny plankton, those free-floating ocean plants that make up the bottom of the marine food-chain. Little plankton may be able to change the weather, and longer term climate, in ways that serve them better.

Lake Vostok map forces exploration rethink 
Untouched Antarctic lake has two basins - and maybe two ecosystems.

Revolutionary New Paradigm For Fishery Management. Miami FL (SPX) Jul 16, 2004
Seventeen of the world's top marine scientists today unveiled a plan that seeks to avert the collapse of fish populations by focusing on managing the entire ecosystem rather than one species at a time.

Physics

Scientists Successfully Observe Elusive Neutrino Oscillation. Irvine CA (SPX) Jul 08, 2004
A new analysis of atmospheric neutrino data by a team of international scientists has shown for the first time the distinctive pattern of neutrino oscillation that has eluded researchers until now.