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News:
October 5, 2003
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News Clippings From Around the World
Don't Forget Triassic Park Work Day
We have set aside Saturday October 18, 2003 as a work day at Triassic Park
in St. Peters, PA. Everyone that wants to help out is welcome to come and
lean a hand. We want to put up some fence, put down some gravel, clear some
brush, knock down some blocks, and pick up trash. If it rains, we will postpone
it until October 25, 2003. Bring some work gloves. Come any time between
11 AM and 5 PM. See http://triassicparkofpa.com
for directions. If you might be able to help you can send us an e-mail at
ibss@comcast.net
French Creek Mines
The Institute for Biblical and Scientific Studies, a non-profit, tax-exempt
organization, still has a great opportunity to save the French Creek Mines
in St. Peters, PA from destruction by land developers. The French Creek
Mines are famous for their unusual mineral specimens. We want to preserve
and restore the mines. The mine shaft itself would remain buried. We would
like to restore the old railroad station as a museum with mineral displays
from these mines. The cost of the property is $85,000. We can obtain half
of this money with easement grants, but we still need to raise at least
another $40,000 before the property is sold to others. There may be some
that could give a donation for a tax write off to help us save the mine,
or could loan us some money. If you know anyone that might be interested
in helping us out financially to save the French Creek Mines, please let
me know. You can contact Dr. Meyers by e-mail at ibss@comcast.net.
Pictures of the mines are at http://triassicparkofpa.com/french_creek_mines.htm
Religion in the News
John
Paul II announces 31 new cardinals
The 'princes of the church' are named earlier than expected, raising more
questions about the 83-year-old pope's health (Los Angeles Times).
Holy Marriage
How it ravishes our souls. An exclusive excerpt from Philip Yancey's Rumors
of Another World.
The Dick Staub
Interview: Philip Yancey, the Rumor-Monger
The author's latest is written not for Christians, but for those on the
"borderlands of belief."
The Good
Effects of the Good News
A convert from Islam answers critics hostile to the Christian mission. Jonathan
Bonk reviews Lamin Sanneh's Whose Religion Is Christianity?
The Defender
of the Good News: Questioning Lamin Sanneh
The Yale historian and missiologist talks about his conversion, Muslim-Christian
relations, Anglican troubles, and the future of Christianity. Interviewed
by Jonathan J. Bonk.
Disciples
of Christ leader busted for "borrowing liberally" from Lew Smedes,
Baltimore Sun
Speaking of 9/11 rememberances, The
Washington Post reports that Chalice
Press has withdrawn its book on the tragedy: Shaken
Foundations: Sermons From America's Pulpits After the Terrorist Attacks.
Disciples World, a magazine
of the Disciples of Christ denomination, found that more than half of one
of its chapters was lifted without attribution from How
Can It Be All Right When Everything Is All Wrong?, a 1982 book from
the late Lew Smedes. The rest of it, it turns out, was largely culled from
a Baltimore
Sun article.
Church-and-state
standoffs spread over USA
From Winder, Ga., to Everett, Wash., Americans are squaring off in courthouses,
classrooms and city halls over religious monuments in government buildings
and parks (USA Today).
Campus Collisions
Why InterVarsity Christian Fellowship was "derecognized" at some
of America's leading universities. By Andy Crouch.
Promise
Keepers' VP ascends to presidency
Thomas Fortson, a former General Motors executive who has served as a Promise
Keepers executive vice president through seven tumultuous years, was named
Wednesday as president of the Denver-based Christian men's movement.
A
film of biblical proportions
Controversial evangelical cartoonist Jack Chick makes film debut with "The
Light of the World." (Rancho Cucamonga Voice, Calif.). I use to love
to read Chick tracts, but sadly, much of the information in the tracts is
not true.
Science in the News
Creation/Evolution
The Drake Equation
Revisited: Part I. Moffett Field - Sep 30, 2003
The Drake equation was developed as a means of predicting the likelihood
of detecting other intelligent civilizations in our galaxy. At the NASA
forum, Frank Drake, who formulated the equation 42 years ago, moderated
a debate between paleontologist Peter Ward, co-author of the book Rare Earth,
and astronomer David Grinspoon, author of the forthcoming book Lonely Planets:
The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life.
ICR and Master Books have just announced the publication of a new edition of The Biblical Basis for Modern Science, by Dr. Henry Morris, updated and enlarged from the original edition published in 1984. That first edition proved popular as a textbook and general reference book on Bible-science relations, with approximately 120,000 hardback copies in use. So far as known, it is the only book with comprehensive chapters on the relation of the Bible to each of the major sciences (biology, geology, astronomy, ethnology, etc.—fourteen in all), plus six appendices, nine tables, an extensive bibliography, and three indexes. This edition contains 480 pages and 33 illustrations. In its new paperback format, the price is only $13.99. The book can be purchased through ICR's online store. For my review of his book see //www.bibleandscience.com/science/bibleandscience.htm
How
did freshwater and saltwater fish survive the Flood?
By Ken
Ham, Jonathan
Sarfati, and
Carl Wieland, Ed. Don
Batten. "This suggests that the ability to tolerate large changes
in salinity was present in most fish at the time of the Flood. Specialization,
through natural selection, may have resulted in the loss of this ability
in many species since then."
An Index to Creationist
Claims.
A collection of creationist claims which aims to be comprehensive. It
includes brief rebuttals and, in many cases, pointers to more information.
The
Quote Mine Project: Or, Lies, and Quote Mines.
The collecting of quotes to attack evolution is often called "quote
mining" and is a very common tactic used by those who wish to deny
evolution or modern evolutionary biology. A creationist on the talk.origins
newsgroup posted a large collection of such quotes which he copied from
a creationist website. This resulted in other participants looking up those
quotes. The results, gathered in the Quote Mine Project, show that many
of the quotes are blatantly out-of-context.
Unintelligent
designs on academic freedom
The academic freedom that so incensed Bill Buckley as a student at Yale
decades ago is now acting to protect a conservative scholar under fire at
Baylor U. (The American Spectator).
Yellowstone Microbes Tapped To Settle Species Question (September 29, 2003) — Whether microbes--the little guys of the planet--belong to one big gene pool or to numerous smaller, discrete ones doesn't sound like the stuff of controversy. But among the microbiologists of the world, the issue is big enough that the National Science Foundation has put up $5-million to try to settle the question using microbes in Yellowstone National Park.
What
Are The Chances? Mathematician Solves Evolutionary Mystery (September
29, 2003)
For the last two years, Iosif Pinelis, a professor of mathematical sciences
at Michigan Technological University, has been working on a mathematical
solution to a challenging biological puzzle first posed in the journal "Statistical
Science"*: Why is the typical evolutionary tree so lopsided?
Archaeology/Anthropology
Date of
the Exodus:
Recent research has identified Kadesh-Barnea with Tel Masos in
the Northern Negev. This CONFIRMS the Exodus' Kadesh Barnea is a Late 13th
or early 12th Century BCE settlement.
On
The Antiquity Of Pots: New Method Developed For Dating Archaeological Pottery
(September 30, 2003)
The contents of ancient pottery could help archaeologists resolve some longstanding
disputes in the world of antiquities, thanks to scientists at Britain's
University of Bristol. The researchers have developed the first direct method
for dating pottery by examining animal fats preserved inside the ceramic
walls.
Spy Tales
Rose Mary Sheldon
Meet the James Bonds of the biblical world, the secret agents who scouted
out the Holy Land, sought breaches in Canannite defenses, and single-handedly
brought down evil enemy empires.
Who Wrote Second
Isaiah?
William H.C. Propp
Scholars have long suspected that two different authors, living 200 years
apart, produced the Book of Isaiah. The first tells us his name is Isaiah.
Might the second author have embedded his name in his his text, too?
The Meaning
of the Dead Sea Scrolls
by James C. VanderKam and Peter Flint review by Sidnie White Crawford.
National Geographic: Treasures of Egypt.
Early
Andean Cultures Part Of Intensive Silver Industry; New Evidence Suggests
Major Metallurgy Took Place Earlier Than Originally Believed (September
29, 2003)
The examination of sediments from the Bolivian Andes suggests that ores
were actively smelted earlier than originally thought--providing evidence
for a major pre-Incan silver industry, says a University of Alberta professor,
part of a team which conducted the research.
Astronomy
Light
shed on dark matter
The outstanding mystery of modern astronomy may finally have been solved.
Researchers believe they may have discovered the identity of the Universe's
mysterious dark matter - the matter which cannot be seen as it emits no
electromagnetic radiation but must outweigh visible matter by at least a
factor of seven. The researchers believe that gamma rays coming from the
centre of our galaxy carry the hall marks of these ghostly particles.
What's the
Moon Made Of? Oct. 1, 2003
Space researchers have used invisible X-rays, reflecting off the surface
of the moon, to find out what our nearest solar neighbor is made of and
how it was formed. The research, done at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center
for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., found oxygen, magnesium, aluminum
and silicon present over a large area of the Moon's surface.
MSSS Adds Another 10,000 Surveyor Images To Database. San Diego - Oct 01, 2003 - Thousands of newly released portraits of Martian landscapes from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft testify to the diversity of ways geological processes have sculpted the surface of our neighboring planet.
Age
of the Universe:
"Astronomers have just developed and applied another independent
tool for measuring the cosmic expansion rate and age of the universe, and
it yields the same results as all the previously employed methods: a cosmic
age of 13.7 billion years. This finding adds further confirmation to the
idea that the expansion rate of the universe is controlled by multiple factors,
and corroborates the “big bang” model, which is consistent with
the biblical account that a transcendent Creator is responsible for the
creation of the universe." (Reasons
to Believe) Raul Jimenez, et al., “Constraints on the Equation
of State of Dark Energy and the Hubble Constant from Stellar Ages and the
Cosmic Microwave Background,” Astrophysical Journal 593 (August 20,
2003), 622-29.
Biology
Drug
produces faster healing and fewer scars
If clinical trials are successful, the drug could routinely be used to prevent
scarring after surgery or following serious accidents.
SARS
Virus Can Change Quickly And Unpredictably, Analysis Indicates
The SARS virus is capable of changing rapidly and unpredictably, which could
present serious challenges for managing the disease.
Purdue
Biologists' Spotlight Solves Mysteries Of Photosynthesis, Metabolism
A complete molecular-scale picture of how plants convert sunlight to chemical
energy has been obtained at Purdue University.
New
Insight Into Heart Failure Suggests Novel Drug Target (October 2, 2003)
By disrupting the activity of a single heart protein, Duke University Medical
Center researchers eased heart failure significantly in mice with chronic
high blood pressure. The finding provides new insight into the root causes
of the progressive decline in cardiac function that is heart failure and
suggests a novel method to prevent the deterioration.
White
Blood Cell Plays Key Role In Body's Excessive Repair Response To Asthma
(October 2, 2003)
Researchers in London and Montreal report that they have discovered an important
link in the development of the body's response to allergic asthma. They
have found that one type of white blood cell, an eosinophil, which was known
to cause inflammation of lung airways, is also responsible for driving the
process which leads to an excessive 'repair response' by the body.
Study
Shows Link Between Antibiotics And Allergies, Asthma (October 1, 2003)
Children who receive antibiotics within their first six months of birth
increase their risk of developing by age 7 allergies to pets, ragweed, grass
and dust mites and asthma, according to study conducted at Henry Ford Hospital
in Detroit.
Salk
Researcher Provides New View On How The Brain Functions (October 2,
2003)
Scientists are developing a new paradigm for how the brain functions. They
propose that the brain is not a huge fixed network, as had been previously
thought, but a dynamic, changing network that adapts continuously to meet
the demands of communication and computational needs.
Earth Science
Prehistoric
Sea Creature Discovered. Sept. 29, 2003
British and Canadian scientists have discovered the unique fossil of a prehistoric
sea creature with eyes raised like "twin towers," they reported
in the latest issue of the journal Science. Living on the sea floor some
400 million years ago in what is now Morocco, the hard shelled, many legged
animal is the only known complete specimen of the phacopoid trilobite Erbenochile.
North vs. Northwest:
Lewis and Clark diaries provide directional clue:
Observations from the Lewis and Clark expedition may offer insight into
Earth's magnetic field.
Ecosystem Changes
In Polar Regions Linked To Solar Variability. Livermore - Sep 29, 2003
A Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist, in collaboration with
an international team of colleagues, has reported that noticeable changes
in the sub-polar climate and ecosystems appear to be linked to variations
in the sun's intensity during the past 12,000 years.
Plants detonated
Cambrian explosion
Global cooling may have allowed complex animals to flourish.
Psychology
Biological
Basis For Creativity Linked To Mental Illness (October 1, 2003)
Psychologists from the University of Toronto and Harvard University have
identified one of the biological bases of creativity. The study in the September
issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology says the brains
of creative people appear to be more open to incoming stimuli from the surrounding
environment.
Stanford
Research Finds Gene Variations That Alter Antidepressant Side Effects
(September 30, 2003)
Researchers at Stanford University Medical Center have identified a genetic
marker that can explain why some people experience side effects to common
antidepressants while others do not. They also found that a key liver enzyme
involved in breaking down these antidepressants surprisingly played no role
in the development of side effects nor in how well the drugs worked.
Technology
Advanced
chip opens door to software choice
A computer chip designed to run more than one operating system at a time
could break Microsoft's stranglehold on PC software.
Lasers
Create New Possibilities For Biological Technology
A team of researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder has taken
another step in the quest to build a compact, tabletop x-ray microscope
that could be used for biological imaging at super-high resolution.
Hot Crystal: Lightbulbs
and a radiation law may never be the same.
In seeming violation of one of the laws of physics, a new type of metal
microstructure promises to lead to far more efficient incandescent light
bulbs and also to boost the development of light-based microcircuits and
heat-to-electricity generators.