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News:
February 1, 2004
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Religion in the News
Time
Probes Azusa Pacific University as Christian College Archetype
Article is no news but good news for California school. Compiled by Ted
Olsen.
At
the Crossroads
Evangelicals have become major players in American culture, and that may
be their biggest problem. By Martin E. Marty.
My Enemy,
Myself
What brings evangelicals together is also what pulls us apart. By Telford
Work.
Intolerance
spans the religious divide
Lack of religious devotion should not be a basis for a smear. But neither
should religious belief—and the truth is that the intolerance of the
religious right can be fully matched by that of the secular left. (Cathy
Young, The Boston Globe).
School
board reinstates student suspended for saying "God bless"
The top story in St. Louis today is that James Lord has been reinstated
as the closed-circuit television reader of the daily bulletin at Dupo High
School in nearby Dupo, Illinois. Lord's crime? Signing off his December
17 broadcast with "Have a safe and happy holiday, and God bless."
Aramaic,
language of Jesus, lives on in Cyprus
A Maronite village, isolated by the island's division, struggles to carry
on the tongue (The Christian Science Monitor).
Making
Disciples by Sacred Story
Biblical storytelling conveys the realities of our faith better than almost
any other form of communication. By Walter Wangerin Jr.
Books
& Culture's
Book of the Week: A Rose Among Thorns
A new novel by the author of Father Elijah illumines the spiritual consequences
of our simplest decisions.
Reviewed by Albert Louis Zambone.
The
radiant dish
A dish? A chalice? A casket? Or just a flying saucer? Everyone has a theory
about the Holy Grail, and Richard Barber's book explores them all. Nicholas
Shakespeare salutes the "thorough, sane and sceptical" approach
of what Noel Malcolm calls a "valuable and fascinating book" (The
Daily Telegraph, London).
Show
me heaven
As more and more people come forward with accounts of near-death experiences,
new research is about to examine the out of body experience to see whether
mind and body really do separate at the point of death (BBC).
Science in the News
Free Courses offered by Wagner Free Institute of Science:
- Expeditions in Paleontology: January 31 to April 3, 2004 Saturdays from 10 to 11:30 A.M. at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Use 19th Street entrance. Taught by William Gallagher.
- Other courses, Genetic Aspects of Infectious Diseases, Plant Anatomy, Changing Flora of the Philadelphia Area, and Natural History since Aristotle.
Creation/Evolution
Origins
debate deeper than Darby.
Intelligent-design theory part of national push to re-evaluate coursework
in U.S. classrooms (Missoulian, Mont.).
Cox:
'Evolution' a negative buzzword
State schools superintendent defends purge of word from proposed biology
curriculum (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution).
Ignorance
excludes evolution
We do not compromise history education for those who deny the Holocaust;
why should we compromise biology education for those who deny evolution?
(Reed A. Cartwright, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution).
New Study Shows
Neanderthals Were Not Our Ancestors. New York - Jan 29, 2004
In the most recent and mathematically rigorous study to date determining
whether Neanderthals contributed to the evolution of modern humans, a team
of anthropologists examining the skulls of modern humans and Neanderthals
as well as 11 existing species of non-human primates found strong evidence
that Neanderthals differ so greatly from Homo sapiens as to constitute a
different species. See also Neanderthal
Extinction Pieced Together.
Gene May Be
Key To Evolution Of Larger Human Brain. Chevy Chase - Jan 21, 2004
Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers have identified a gene that
appears to have played a role in the expansion of the human brain's cerebral
cortex -- a hallmark of the evolution of humans from other primates.
Oxygen Triggered
The Evolution Of Complex Life Forms. London - Jan 29, 2004
Oxygen played a key role in the evolution of complex organisms, according
to new research published in BMC Evolutionary Biology. The study shows that
the complexity of life forms increased earlier than was thought, and in
parallel with the availability of oxygen as an energy source.
Genomic
Changes Reveal Evolution Of SARS Virus.
Careful study of changes in the genetic make-up of the SARS virus through
the recent epidemic has allowed researchers from China and the University
of Chicago to bolster the evidence for the animal origins of SARS and to
chart three phases of the virus's molecular evolution as it gradually adapted
to human hosts, becoming more infectious over time.
Rare
Ant May Help Solve Some Mysteries Of Social Evolution. COLUMBUS, Ohio
Last fall, ecologists at Ohio State University cracked open an acorn they
had found in an Ohio park and discovered a colony of extremely rare ants.
L. minutissimus is a unique social parasite in that it lives entirely within
the colonies of other ant species. But unlike parasitic slave-maker ants,
which raid and virtually destroy the colonies of unsuspecting hosts, L.
minutissimus appears to move in and live amiably with its host. Such organisms
are called inquilines.
The new website launched
The new website, www.metanexus.net, features dynamic content which will
change every day and a greatly improved navigation system that will allow
you to quickly access selected authors and topics. The Metanexus Institute
advances research, education and outreach on the constructive engagement
of science and religion.
Genesis Proclaimed Association
Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History.
New Book: The
Design Revolution by William Dembski.
Dembski lines up 60 of the toughest questions and objections amassed against
Intelligent Design and mows them down one-by-one in a succinct, readable
style.
Archaeology/Antropology
Pollen
traces shipwrecks' roots
Serge Muller, of the University of Montpellier II in France, says the range
of pollen found on a shipwreck gives a snapshot of the plant species local
to the boat's birthplace. The sticky resin used to seal a boat's hull can
catch and trap pollen, giving the boat a biological 'birth certificate'.
Mexico
Scientists Find Ancient Settlement. MEXICO CITY
Archaeologists say they have discovered an ancient Teotihuacan settlement
in central Mexico City, 30 miles from the pyramids where the culture flourished
nearly 2,000 years ago.
World's
first bowling alley discovered
The Italian team excavating at Madi city in Fayyoum has unearthed an open
structure dating back to the Ptolemaic age that might be the first bowling
alley.
Astronomy
NASA
scientists awed by new Mars images. Pasadena (AFP) Jan 26, 2004
NASA scientists said they hit a "scientific jackpot" Sunday as
Opportunity, the second of two roving US Mars probes, transmitted astonishing
images from the planet's surface. The 820-million-dollar mission's scientific
director, Steve Squyres, was left gasping for words as Opportunity sent
back to Earth pictures of what he described as an "alien landscape."
Layered
rocks tantalize Mars scientists
New images suggest rocks dead ahead of the rover Opportunity are sedimentary
- that could prove the planet once had lakes or oceans.
SwRI Goes Suborbital
In Search Of Mercury And The "Vulcanoids" Boulder - Jan 27,
2004
A new major scientific payload flew in space last week after launching aboard
a NASA suborbital Black Brant rocket. The payload, consisting of a telescope/spectrometer
combination and an image-intensified imaging system, successfully explored
the ultraviolet spectrum of the planet Mercury and also searched for the
long-sought belt of small bodies called Vulcanoids that may lie even closer
to the Sun than Mercury. Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) provided the
payload and is responsible for data analysis.
A Colorful
Life In The Outer Planets. Baltimore - Jan 27, 2004
Atmospheric features on Uranus and Neptune are revealed in images taken
with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph and the Advanced Camera for
Surveys aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. A wider view of Uranus reveals
the planet's faint rings and several of its satellites. The observations
were taken in August 2003.
Rosetta A
New Target To Solve Planetary Mysteries. Paris - Jan 27, 2004
Rosetta is scheduled to be launched on board an Ariane-5 rocket on 26 February
from Kourou, French Guiana. Originally timed to begin about a year ago,
Rosetta's journey had to be postponed, as a precaution, following the failure
of a different version of Ariane-5 in December 2002.
Four
Keys to Cosmology
In what is widely regarded as the most important scientific discovery of
1998, researchers turned their telescopes to measure the rate at which cosmic
expansion was decelerating and instead saw that it was accelerating. They
have been gripping the steering wheel very tightly ever since. As deeply
mysterious as acceleration is, if you just accept it without trying to fathom
its cause, it solves all kinds of problems. Before 1998, cosmologists had
been troubled by discrepancies in the age, density and clumpiness of the
universe. Acceleration made everything click together. It is one of the
conceptual keys, along with other high-precision observations and innovative
theories, that have unlocked the next level of the big bang theory.
Biology
Self-assembling
scaffold for spinal-cord repair
'Liquid' bridge could help severed nerve cells grow. 23 January 2004
Sleep boosts
lateral thinking
Study shows the value of sleeping on a problem. 22 January 2004
How fluoride firms
up teeth
Computer models show that fluoride locks calcium into your pearly whites.
22 January 2004
Do plants act
like computers?
Leaves appear to regulate their 'breathing' by conducting simple calculations.
21 January 2004
Molecular
Level Discovery Could Play Role In Development Of New Antibiotics. CHAMPAIGN,
Ill.
Chemists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have uncovered
the molecular activity of an enzyme responsible for naturally turning a
small protein into a potent antibiotic known as a lantibiotic.
Earth Science
New NASA Data Release
Invites You To Explore Two Vast Continents. Bethesda - Jan 27, 2004
Marco Polo. Alexander the Great. They were some of history's most prolific
explorers, each trekking across sweeping stretches of Europe and Asia in
their lifetimes. But these greats of world history have nothing on you,
thanks to a new topographic data set from NASA and the National Geospatial-Intelligence
Agency. One interesting picture is of Mount Ararat (Noah's Ark landing site??)
at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03399.
How
to Put the rex into Tyrannosaurus
Indeed, before T. rex hit the scene, tyrannosaurs were relatively
petite. Weighing one to two metric tons and standing several meters tall,
these were not animals to be met in a dark alley or kept as pets. But in
fact, T. rex broke the tyrannosaur mold, nearly tripling in body
mass over its predecessors. A new model aims to explain how.
Earliest
Land Animal Fossil Found. Jan. 26, 2004
A millipede whose fossilized remains were discovered last year in eastern
Scotland is the earth's oldest known land-dwelling creature, according to
scientists quoted in the Scottish press on Sunday. Paleontologists from
the Scottish National Museums and Yale University in the United States have
concluded that the creature is more than 420 million years old, the weekly
Sunday Herald reported.
Why do snowflakes crystallize into such intricate structures?