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News:
January 4, 2004
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Religion in the News
Top Ten
News Stories, 2003
The events, people, and ideas of the past year that CT's news editors believe
have shaped, or will significantly shape, evangelical life, thought, or
mission.
The
year in religion: Combat & conflict
Opposition to war, and fight over Ten Commandments are among top stories
(Religion News Service).
Books
& Culture Corner: A Few Coming Attractions from 2004
Plus: What to buy with those gift cards, and some of the books in my to-read
stacks. By John Wilson.
Putting
God back in politics
As the Democratic candidates for president attend religious services for
the holidays, their celebrations may be tempered by an uncomfortable fact:
churchgoing Americans tend to vote Republican (Jim Wallis, The New York
Times).
Vietnam's
'Appalling' Persecution
Activists want Washington to confront Communist leaders for torturing and
killing Christians.
By Timothy R. Callahan in Washington.
Finding their
purpose
They've come by planes, buses and caravans from every direction in the United
States and abroad to find their particular place in God's mission for the
world (The News-Gazette, Champaign, Ill.).
Mission work
on display
In a scene resembling a college job fair, about 300 mission agencies and
seminars have taken over facilities at the Intramural Physical Education
Building, the Armory and Huff Hall on the University of Illinois campus
(The News-Gazette, Champaign, Ill.)
The rise
of the American megachurch
In an era when small and medium-sized churches of almost every faith are
losing members, megachurches continue to grow - last year by 4 percent.
Their success is due in part to the ushering in of a new business-savvy
approach to religion. But more important, experts say, these churches are
thriving because of what's being ushered out (The Christian Science Monitor).
Flocks
growing at religious colleges
While many religion-oriented universities are respected, some of the more
conservative schools or their founders have unorthodox, controversial reputations
(Palm Beach Post).
Quest
for spirituality has many looking within
In a world where pagers and cell phones keep people on call and the laptop
extends the workplace even into the bedroom, the quest for inner peace has
rarely been so difficult or so critical, observers say (The Plain Dealer,
Cleveland).
Christian
History Corner: Resolutions Worth Keeping
The origins of new years' resolutions, and one famous list.
Film Forum:
Christian Critics Recommend Year's Most Overlooked Films
Christian critics highlight this year's unseen treasures.
Science in the News
The
Top Science Stories of 2003
For some, this year in science may be remembered more for its disasters
than its successes. On January 16 the space shuttle Columbia launched to
great fanfare, only to fail tragically on reentry 16 days later. Then came
news of the mysterious and lethal disease known as SARS, which sparked worldwide
panic. And a midsummer blackout stretching from Ontario to New York served
as a vivid reminder of how dependent we are on a fragile power grid. Amid
these calamities, however, a number of noteworthy achievements unfolded.
China became the third nation to send people into space; paleontologists
working in Ethiopia unearthed the oldest known members of our species; researchers
applied virtual reality to colonoscopies and autopsies with stunning results.
In addition, the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the structure of DNA
and the centennial of powered flight served as springboards for reflection
on the bigger picture of scientific progress.
National
Geographic: Our Top Ten News Stories of 2003
"Flying" sharks and Bigfoot lead our year-end roundup of the top
National Geographic News stories.
Creation/Evolution
WAS
CHARLES DARWIN PSYCHOTIC? A STUDY OF HIS MENTAL HEALTH
Dozens of scholarly articles and at least three books have been penned on
the question of Darwin's illness. The current conclusion is that Darwin
suffered from several serious and incapacitating psychiatric disorders,
including agoraphobia. Agoraphobia is characterized by fear of panic attacks
(or actual panic attacks) when not in a psychologically safe environment,
such as at home.
Chuck
Colson’s Breakpoint features physicist Stephen Barr
“While the Big Bang doesn’t necessarily prove the Christian doctrine
of creation, it is undoubtedly ‘a blow to the materialist view’”
The
Date of Creation
Bible-Compatible Evidences for Great Age. By Daniel E. Wonderly.
The Vestigiality
of the Human Vermiform Appendix: A Modern Reappraisal.
Many anti-evolutionists, and even some medical texts, claim that modern
evidence has shown that the human vermiform appendix should no longer be
considered a vestigial structure. This article re-examines the case of the
appendix in light of recent scientific developments and explains why the
appendix is still a valid example of a human vestige.
The
four Rs of RNA-directed evolution.
By A HERBERT.
Reductive
evolution suggested from the complete genome sequence of a plant-pathogenic
phytoplasma.
By K OSHIMA, S KAKIZAWA, H NISHIGAWA, H -Y JUNG, W WEI, S SUZUKI, R ARASHIDA,
D NAKATA, S -I MIYATA, M UGAKI & S NAMBA.
Archaeology/Anthropology
2,000-year-old
leper found in Jerusalem
"This is the oldest archaeological finding of leprosy in the Middle
East," says archaeologist Shimon Gibson. "Leprosy is mentioned
in the Bible, but until now, we could not be sure whether these biblical
references are to the disease we know as leprosy, or to something else."
(Ha'aretz, Tel Aviv).
Recreating
the silver trumpets in the Old Testament
A SCOTTISH musicologist is bringing a little harmony to the Middle East
by recreating an instrument that has not been heard since the days of the
Old Testament. Among the instruments that could be recreated are the hazerot,
which consists of a pair of joined silver trumpets and is mentioned in the
Old Testament. Although no surviving instruments have ever been found, a
representation can be found on the Arch of Titus, which portrays how they
were used by defending forces when Roman Emperor Titus sacked of Jerusalem
in 70AD. The instrument was used in conjunction with the shofar - which
is carved from a ram’s horn - to gather people to tribal meetings,
to alert camps of danger and to signal in warfare.
'Jesus
ossuary' analysis flawed, says geologist.
An Israeli analysis - dismissing as a forgery an inscription naming Jesus
on an ancient burial box - was flawed, American geologist James Harrell
wrote in an article published Friday in the Biblical Archaeology Review.
What Jesus
Learned from the Essenes
Magen Broshi - Jesus absorbed two key teachings from the ascetic Jewish
sect. What are they and how did he learn them?
The Context
of Scripture
Archival Documents from the Biblical World, volume 3 Edited by William W.
Hallo and K. Lawson Younger. (I highly recommend all three volumes).
On
the path of the ancient pathogen: DNA research laboratory.
Try unravelling forensic mysteries from 3,000-year-old bits of bone or an
ancient tooth. How about finding the cause of death in a mummified man from
the 18th century? Such challenges face the scientists at Lakehead University's
Paleo-DNA Laboratory, one of Canada's most unusual contributions to international
science. Nowhere in the country do history and high technology meet in more
intriguing circumstances. The lab is headed by Mr. Matheson, a molecular
biologist, and El Molto, the bio-anthropologist who founded the centre in
1996. Together, they have carved an important niche in the blossoming business
of historical genetics, a rapidly emerging field of inquiry that is shedding
light on the origins, evolution and migrations of the human race.
Astronomy
NASA
rover lands safely on red planet.
See Spirit's
first images | Panorama
An
Odyssey of Mars Science: Part 2. Sacramento - Dec 30, 2003
The discovery by Mars Odyssey which has most captured the public's imagination
by far is the finding by its "GRS" experiment -- which includes
both gamma-ray and neutron spectrometers -- that Mars does indeed have a
massive reservoir of water ice near its surface in the polar regions writes
Bruce Moomaw.
Visual "Mirages"
Probe Distribution Of Dark Matter. Princeton - Dec 22, 2003
Sloan Digital Sky Survey scientists have discovered a gravitationally lensed
quasar with the largest separation ever recorded, and, contrary to expectations,
found that four of the most distant, most luminous quasars known are not
gravitationally lensed.
The
Milky Way's New Nearest Neighbor
The Milky Way is colliding with and swallowing up a newly identified galaxy
— which is now our galaxy's new nearest neighbor.
Ancient
Astronomy
Science radio programs.
Biology
Researchers make
breakthrough with adult stem cells
The battle over stem-cell research is fraught with spin and counterspin,
and it's not just limited to embryonic stem cell issues. As others have
noted, research into adult stem-cells has been ignored or grossly misrepresented
as partisans attempt to convince the public that scientists must create
and destroy human life for research purposes. Predictably, major news that
researchers at The Scripps Research Institute have made a breakthrough in
turning adult cells into "precursor cells" has gone almost completely
unmentioned by the mainstream media (it may have as much to do with its
Christmas announcement as with media bias). But the discovery may make the
debate over embryonic stem cell research wholly obsolete.
Placebo
Effect: Harnessing Your Mind's Power To Heal.
It’s true that some people who participate in research studies and
take inactive medications called placebos do see health improvements. People
taking placebos have experienced reduced pain, healed ulcers, eased nausea
and even warts disappeared. Stimulus response: People may have a trained
positive response to taking a pill or receiving treatment, whether it’s
real or not. Beliefs or expectations, including the meaning you attach to
a treatment: A person with positive expectations of the treatment may experience
the placebo effect more than someone with lower expectations. Relationship
with your doctor: A person whose doctor is supportive and positive may experience
more benefit from a placebo -- or the standard treatment -- than someone
who doesn’t have that relationship.
Earth Science
Earth's Inconstant
Magnetic Field. Huntsville - Dec 30, 2003
Every few years, scientist Larry Newitt of the Geological Survey of Canada
goes hunting. He grabs his gloves, parka, a fancy compass, hops on a plane
and flies out over the Canadian arctic. Not much stirs among the scattered
islands and sea ice, but Newitt's prey is there--always moving, shifting,
elusive.
Palaeontology:
Prime primate
A fossil skull from China, dating to 55 million years ago, provides much-needed
substantial evidence of early primates in Asia. Interpretation of the creatures
eye size and activity pattern will spark debate.
Bacteria Discovered
In 4,000 Feet Of Rock Fuels Mars Comparison. Corvallis - Jan 01, 2004
A team of scientists has discovered bacteria in a hole drilled more than
4,000 feet deep in volcanic rock on the island of Hawaii near Hilo, in an
environment they say could be analogous to conditions on Mars and other
planets.
Working
On The 'Porsche Of Its Time': New Model For Species Determination Offered.
Using the fact that the skeleton of a dinosaur generally contains approximately
338 different bones, she catalogued the number of differences as well as
where the differences were found on the skeleton. Calculations indicated
that, on average, two species of dinosaur that are members of the same genera
varied from each other by just 2.2 percent. Translation of the percentage
into an actual number results in an average of just three skeletal differences
out of the total 338 bones in the body. Amazingly, 58 percent of these differences
occurred in the skull alone.
Physics
Topsy Turvy: In
neutrons and protons, quarks take wrong turns.
Revved-up particles, namely quarks, spinning inside neutrons in the opposite
direction to that of the neutrons themselves, challenge the prevailing model
of how quarks behave.
Nucleons
Go Two-by-Two.
Just as people behave differently as couples than as individuals, protons
and neutrons (also known as nucleons) inside the nucleus of the atom behave
differently in pairs.
Psychology
Decoding
Schizophrenia
For decades, theories of schizophrenia have focused on a single neurotransmitter:
dopamine. In the past few years, though, it has become clear that a disturbance
in dopamine levels is just a part of the story and that, for many, the main
abnormalities lie elsewhere. In particular, suspicion has fallen on deficiencies
in the neurotransmitter glutamate. Scientists now realize that schizophrenia
affects virtually all parts of the brain and that, unlike dopamine, which
plays an important role only in isolated regions, glutamate is critical
virtually everywhere. As a result, investigators are searching for treatments
that can reverse the underlying glutamate deficit.
How
to Keep Your New Year's Resolutions.
Making life changes that last.
How
Are The Genders Different?
Georgetown Center Unearthing Core Biological Differences Between Men And
Women. Georgetown University Medical Center has officially launched the
Center for the Study of Gender Differences in Health, Aging, and more.
Unmaking
Memories: Interview with James McGaugh
In the sci-fi thriller Paycheck, an engineer has his memory erased after
completing a sensitive job. Scientific American.com spoke with a leading
neurobiologist to find out just how close scientists are to controlling
recall.