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News:
October 10, 2004
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Religion in the News
Wind of Terror,
Wind of Glory
We cannot know God's majesty without his terrible holiness. By Daniel Tomberlin
It's Not
About Stem Cells
Why we must clarify the debate over harvesting embryos. A Christianity
Today editorial
The Ecstatic
Heresy
Seeking a superficial unity, some denominational leaders opt for feelings
over facts. By Robert Sanders
Spain Wants to Be Free of Catholic Church
Summarizing the country's mood, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero,
the new Socialist prime minister, said the other day that Spaniards wanted
more freedom, less dogma and a greater separation of church and state. "They
want more sports, less religion,'' he said.
Preacher
Jakes' film tackles abuse
Bishop T.D. Jakes isn't easily intimidated. He is, after all, a best-selling
author of 29 books, a Grammy-winning gospel singer, a nationally renowned
preacher and the subject of a 2001 Time magazine cover story that asked:
``Is This Man The Next Billy Graham?''(Associated Press)
New
Pax show is religion, O'Reilly style
In a program that its creator describes as "O'Reilly meets religion,"
Christians, Muslims, Jews, atheists and even animal rights activists verbally
duke it out over who is right about God and God's intentions. The new Pax
TV show is "Faith Under Fire," created by Lee Strobel. It debuts
Saturday night. (The Hartford Courant, Conn.) Also see www.FaithUnderFire.com.
Da
Vinci Code author is accused of plagiarism
The author of a thriller that has sold more than 12 million copies is being
accused of plagiarising two books published more than 20 years ago. (Times,
London)
Preacher
who produces 'miracle babies' wanted by Kenyan police
An evangelical preacher who claims to help infertile couples in his congregation
have "miracle babies" but is alleged to be at the centre of a
child-trafficking racket could try to claim political asylum in Britain.
(The Guardian, UK)
'Miraculous'
Christ washes up in Texas Rio Grande
A fiberglass statue of Christ that washed up on a sandbar in the Rio Grande
three weeks ago is attracting scores of devout pilgrims to a police department
lost-and-found and being hailed as a miracle. (Reuters)
Living
goddess makes rare outing
A seven-year-old girl revered by Hindus and Buddhists as a living goddess
has had a rare festive excursion from the house where she is usually confined
in the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu. (BBC)
Bible
understood differently in two new Quran translations
English-speaking Muslims, and non-Muslims who want to explore Islam's holy
book, can cheer the arrival of two worthy translations. They differ, however,
on passages about the Bible (Associated Press)
Scientists
Debunk Mediums' Claims to Spirit World. Sept. 24, 2004
For centuries, their seemingly uncanny ability to discern private facts
about strangers have bolstered the claims of spiritualist mediums to be
able to contact the dead. Nonsense, according to a new and rigorous scientific
test in Britain which has concluded that most mediums simply use a series
of relatively simple psychological tricks to fool people.
Life
After Death?
Western religions that believe in the one God traditionally teach that after
the present life, individuals will exist eternally in resurrected bodies.
Eastern religions believe the soul is embodied in either human or animal
forms in numerous past and future lives. Now comes Alan F. Segal of Barnard
College in New York with the latest if not the last word on the Jewish,
Christian and Muslim concepts: Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife
in Western Religion (Associated Press)
Who really wrote
the Bible?
The solid faith of Ashkenaz Hasidim in the 12th and 13th centuries did not
keep them from reaching some bold conclusions on the writing style and authorship
of Judaism's holiest texts (Ha'aretz, Israel)
Science in the News
Archaeology/Anthropology
Bible texts on
silver amulets dated to First Temple period
U.S. and Israeli researchers claim to have discovered proof that the
Five Books of Moses were in existence during the First Temple period. (Ha'aretz,
Israel) In a scholarly report published this month, the research team concluded
that the improved reading of the inscriptions confirmed their greater antiquity.
The script, the team wrote, is indeed from the period just before the destruction
of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. by Nebuchadnezzar and the subsequent exile of Israelites
in Babylon.
Dead
Sea Scrolls coming to Houston
They have been called a window in time. Some of the earliest surviving Biblical
texts will be on exhibit in Houston beginning Friday. (KHOU, Texas)
Incas
Destroyed Own Site Before Leaving. Sept. 21, 2004
Incan pilgrims smashed and burned their own temple, and a tower containing
a golden statue of a king, rather than let them fall into Spanish hands,
says an Australian archaeologist.
Lice tell mankind's
story
Study of head louse suggests that Homo erectus transmitted parasite to Homo
sapiens.
Astronomy
SpaceShipOne
Wins Big Prize, Opens New Frontier Of Private Space Travel. Mojave CA
(AFP) Oct 04, 2004
The world's first private rocketship blasted into space for the second time
in five days Monday, snatching a 10-million-dollar prize and ushering in
a new era of space tourism. It's stubby, made out of fabric and glue and
is powered by laughing gas and tyre rubber, but SpaceShipOne on Monday streaked
into history as the herald of a brave new space age.
Motion Of
Primordial Universe Unveiled. Chicago IL (SPX) Oct 08, 2004
New results from an instrument located high in the Chilean Andes are giving
Canadian, American and Chilean researchers a clearer view of what the universe
looked like in the first moments following the Big Bang.
Sopping
Salts Could Reveal History Of Water On Mars Bloomington IN (SPX) Oct
07, 2004
Epsom-like salts believed to be common on Mars may be a major source of
water there, say geologists at Indiana University Bloomington and Los Alamos
National Laboratory. In their report in this week's Nature, the scientists
also speculate that the salts will provide a chemical record of water on
the Red Planet.
The Forensics
of Genesis Houston TX (SPX) Oct 07, 2004
Eileen Stansbery, assistant director of astromaterials research and exploration
science at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, has been working
on the Genesis collector materials since September 8, when the space capsule
crash-landed to Earth.
Massive Merger
Of Galaxies Is Most Powerful On Record. Baltimore MD (SPX) Sep 24, 2004
Scientists have now officially witnessed the perfect cosmic storm. Thanks
to the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton observatory, they watched a nearby
head-on collision between two galaxy clusters. The clusters smashed together
thousands of galaxies and trillions of stars in one of the most powerful
events ever witnessed.
Hubble Approaches
The Final Frontier: The Dawn Of Galaxies. Baltimore MD (SPX) Sep 24,
2004
Detailed analyses of mankind's deepest optical view of the universe, the
Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), by several expert teams, have at last identified
what may turn out to be some of the earliest star-forming galaxies.
New Star-Type
Stillborn. Tucson AZ (SPX) Oct 05, 2004
Astronomers using the Gemini North and Keck II telescopes have peered inside
a violent binary star system to find that one of the interacting stars has
lost so much mass to its partner that it has regressed to a strange, inert
body resembling no known star type.
A
PICTURE OF YOUNG MARS.
Reconstruction of the red planet's past reveals acid rain and briny seas.
Saturn's
Moon And Its Flock. Pasadena CA (JPL) Oct 01, 2004
In its own way, the shepherd moon Prometheus (102 kilometers, 63 miles across)
is one of the lords of Saturn's rings. The little moon maintains the inner
edge of Saturn's thin, knotted F ring, while its slightly smaller cohort,
Pandora, (84 kilometers, or 52 miles across) guards the ring's outer edge.
Great Observatories
May Unravel 400-Year-Old Supernova Mystery Baltimore MD (SPX) Oct 07,
2004
Four hundred years ago, sky watchers, including the famous astronomer Johannes
Kepler, best known as the discoverer of the laws of planetary motion, were
startled by the sudden appearance of a "new star" in the western
sky, rivaling the brilliance of the nearby planets.
Radio Astronomers
Remove The Blindfold Manchester, UK (SPX) Oct 08, 2004
UK radio astronomers at the Jodrell Bank Observatory, working with colleagues
from Europe and the USA, have demonstrated a new technique that will revolutionise
the way they observe. To create the very best quality images of the sky,
they routinely combine data from multiple telescopes from around the world
– a technique called Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI).
Colorado
Proposal For Imaging Distant Planets Funded Further. Boulder CO (SPX)
Oct 01, 2004
A NASA institute has selected a new University of Colorado at Boulder proposal
for further study that describes how existing technologies can be used to
study planets around distant stars with the help of an orbiting "starshade."
New Horizons
For Planetary Exploration. Boulder CO (SPX) Oct 05, 2004
In late September, the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee added funding
to study a new Kuiper Belt mission to its NASA 2005 budget—New Horizons
II. The Senate's move, and the strong support it implies for the kind of
frontier planetary exploration that only the United States can perform,
is welcome news.
Biology
New
Drug Treatments Offer Hope to Leukemia Patients. TUESDAY, Sept. 28 (HealthDayNews)
Scientists call them "molecularly targeted" drugs, and they represent
a remarkable gain in the war against blood cancers.
Plea
to clone human embryos
The scientist who created Dolly the sheep applied yesterday for a licence
to clone human embryos to try to find a cure for motor neurone disease.
(Times, London)
Scientists Sequence
Genome Of Organism Central To Biosphere's Carbon Cycle. Berkeley CA
(SPX) Oct 04, 2004
The first ever genomic map of a diatom, part of a family of microscopic
ocean algae that are among the Earth's most important inhabitants, has yielded
surprising insights about the way they may be using nitrogen, fats and silica
in order to thrive.
Olfactory research
wins Nobel
Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded to Axel and Buck for research into
the sense of smell.
Creation/Evolution
Young Earth PowerPoint presentation online by Christopher Sharp.
Evolution
defenders anticipate new fight
For supporters of teaching evolution in Kansas public schools, the best
defense is a good offense. In January, the balance of power on the state
Board of Education is expected to shift to social conservatives who want
to include creation science and intelligent design among the theories taught
in science classes, or remove evolution from the classroom. (Lawrence
Journal World, Kansas)
The
star man
'Nova' host has always had his eyes on the skies. Though he works in an
area of science that often comes into conflict with fundamentalist Christianity,
at least those branches that insist on a literal interpretation of the Bible
regarding Creation, he's found at the Hayden that "people who are religious
look at [the stars] as the handiwork of God and come out more religious.
(Philadelphia Inquirer)
"The crusade against evolution," The cover story in the October 2004 issue of Wired magazine is Evan Ratliff's "The crusade against evolution," with the tag line: "In the beginning there was Darwin. And then there was intelligent design.
Professors
wrestle question: creation, evolution
More than 200 people crammed themselves into a classroom to hear a discussion
on one of the oldest but still hottest philosophical debates -- creationism
versus evolution. (Red and Black, University of Georgia)
Volcano gas, amino
acids make life
Study in Science is important in understanding transformation of monomers
into polymers.
Volcanic
Gas May Have Played A Significant Role In Life's Beginning San Diego
CA (SPX) Oct 08, 2004
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute and the Salk Institute for
Biological Studies are reporting a possible answer to a longstanding question
in research on the origins of life on Earth - how did the first amino acids
form the first peptides?
"The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories". by Stephen Meyer.
Taxonomy
isn't black and white
DNA barcoding method put to the test reveals new cryptic bird and butterfly
species Modelling the recent common ancestry of all living humans. DOUGLAS
L. T. ROHDE, STEVE OLSON & JOSEPH T. CHANG.
3.4-billion-year-old
controversy
Evidence for life 3400 million years ago, but hydrothermal proponents still
don't agree.
Giant
Ape May Be New Species
An elusive giant ape has been spotted in remote forests in central Africa,
sparking theories that it could be a new species of primate, a finding that
would be the most astonishing wildlife discovery in decades, New Scientist
says.
Earth Science
Mt. St.
Helens Lets Off More Steam. Oct. 5, 2004
Restive Mount St. Helens let off more steam on Tuesday as hot rock pushing
toward the surface melted the peak's glaciers, scientists monitoring the
mountain said.
New Structure
Found Deep Within West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Bristol, UK (SPX) Sep 24,
2004
Scientists have found a remarkable new structure deep within the West Antarctic
Ice Sheet which suggests that the whole ice sheet is more susceptible to
future change than previously thought.
Ice
Shelf Loss Sped Up Glacier Movement
Two years ago, Antarctica's Larsen B ice shelf collapsed over the course
of 35 days; 3,250 square kilometers of shelf area--an area larger than that
of Rhode Island--disintegrated. Two new reports have traced the effects
of the collapse on the continent's remaining glaciers and found that they
are flowing ever faster into the surrounding Weddell Sea.
New Hydrothermal
Vents Discovered As "South Pacific Odyssey" Research Begins.
University Park PA (SPX) Sep 24, 2004
A team of 27 U.S. marine scientists beginning an intensive program of exploration
at the Lau Basin, in the South Pacific, has discovered a new cluster of
hydrothermal vents along a volcanically active crack in the seafloor.
Ancient
Long-Necked Reptile Was Stealthy Suction Feeder
Scientists have unearthed the fossil of an ancient aquatic reptile that
sported a neck almost twice as long as its meter-long body. The 1.7-meter-long
neck appears to have been too rigid to twist around in search of prey, however,
so its function was at first uncertain.
Climate Change Plus Human Pressure Caused Large Mammal Extinctions.
Fallout from fraud
Plagiarism rattles the paleontology world; researcher has suffered a fatal
heart attack.
Physics
Researchers
Use Semiconductors To Set Speed Limit On Light. San Francisco CA (SPX)
Sep 28, 2004
In a nod to scientific paradox, researchers at the University of California,
Berkeley, have slowed light down in an effort to speed up network communication.
Table Top Particle
Accelerators One Step Closer. Washington DC (SPX) Sep 29, 2004
Scientists from the UK and the USA have successfully demonstrated a new
technique that could help to shrink the size and cost of future particle
accelerators for fundamental physics experiments and applications in materials
and biomedicine.
Nobel
Physics Winners Explain Tiny Matter
U.S. scientists David J Gross, H. David Politzer and Frank Wilczek on Tuesday
won the 2004 Nobel Physics Prize for developing a theory that explains quarks,
nature's tiniest building blocks, the Nobel jury said.
Psychology
PERSONALITY
PREDICTS POLITICS
Pollsters may be aided by test of how judgmental voters are.
Technology
VIDEO
DISKS DITCH BINARY STORAGE
Next-generation disks could hold hundreds of hours of footage.