History, Evolution, and the Darwin Debate
Most Efficient Quantum Memory for Light Developed
ScienceDaily (June 28, 2010) — An Australian National University-led team has developed the most efficient quantum memory for light in the world, taking us closer to a future of super-fast computers and communication secured by the laws of physics.
Scientists Grow New Lungs Using ‘Skeletons’ of Old Ones
ScienceDaily (June 28, 2010) — For someone with a severe, incurable lung disorder such as cystic fibrosis or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a lung transplant may be the only chance for survival. Unfortunately, it’s often not a very good chance. Matching donor lungs are rare, and many would-be recipients die waiting for the transplants that could save their lives.
Psychotropic Medications Can Cause Birth Defects, Study Finds
ScienceDaily (June 27, 2010) — A new study shows that use of psychotropic medications during pregnancy increase the probability of birth defects. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have published an article that documents the serious side effects that can be associated with these types of medications.
Published on Monday, June 28, 2010 by Inter Press Service
As Canada’s Democracy Trembles, a New Global Architecture Emerges
by Anthony Fenton
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/06/28-0
TORONTO – Nearly 600 people were arrested as global leaders and elites met behind a fortified perimeter during the G8 and G20 Summits in Huntsville and Toronto this weekend.
Plan Lieberman
Blueprint for a Purely Jewish State
By JONATHAN COOK
http://www.counterpunch.org/cook06282010.html
Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s far-right foreign minister, set out last week what he called a “blueprint for a resolution to the conflict” with the Palestinians that demands most of the country’s large Palestinian minority be stripped of citizenship and relocated outside Israel’s future borders.
gnxp
Doctors could one day use a blood test to predict decades in advance when women will go into menopause, scientists say
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100627/ap_on_he_me/eu_med_predicting_menopause
gnxp
Stretches of DNA known as “jumping” genes are far more common than anyone thought, and almost everyone has a unique pattern of them, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100624/sc_nm/us_genes_jumping
gnxp
A new breed of vaccine is being developed that will make possible immunizations tailored to your genetic profile. But how long will it be until your personalized booster shots are ready?
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=vaccinomics-personal-vaccine
A coalition of scientists and animal rights advocates has found a way to do for victims of animal abuse what the criminal justice system has done for human crime victims
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/science/27dna.html
Brave New Films: Real Story in Rolling Stone Article: Inner Circle Knows Afghanistan War Facts Would Kill Remaining Public Support
http://act.commondreams.org/go/1219?akid=90.96588.BmZuru&t=32
Massive Rally Calls on G20 to Put People Ahead of Banks
http://act.commondreams.org/go/1209?akid=90.96588.BmZuru&t=12
RG mail
http://www.foodconsumer.org/newsite/Safety/gmo/problems_with_genetically_modified_foods_2902100104.html
Biochemist Arpad Pusztai had more than 300 articles and 12 books to his credit and was the world’s top expert in his field. But when he accidentally discovered that genetically modified (GM) foods are dangerous, he became the biotech industry’s bad-boy poster child, setting an example for other scientists thinking about blowing the whistle.
RG mail
Probably the best summation of the G8 I have read so far. A good cohesive
write up. Needs to be read on the site where the materials and little
clips are linked in.
http://www.livableregion.ca/blog/blogs/index.php/2010/06/27/1_billion_g20_brutality_canada_s_shame
RG mail
http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/377.php#continue
The B u l l e t
*Socialist Project • E-Bulletin No. 377
The Mass Arrests, the Security State and
the Toronto G20 SummitSocialist Project
The Darwin Conspiracy
I am surprised at the way that Darwinists repel the attack of Roy Davies in the Darwin Conspiracy.
The answer here is simple: read Davies’ argument carefully, you will see that Darwin in 1855 was out in left field, and that he rapidly converged on his final views as he received letters from Wallace.
You can’t really argue past thsi situation.
This is as much a philosophical as a technological advance. The notion that this is possible means bacterial cells are software-driven biological machines. If you change the software, you build a new machine. I’m still amazed by it.
Consciousness and the End of the War Between Science and Religion
Interesting article by Deepak Chopra. Since the war referred to is an illusion it is not safe to predict its end.
Chopra is right in a way he doesn’t discuss in his article: the issue of consciousness can help to bridge the divide between science and religion.
I will comment later on this article, read it first.
http://history-and-evolution.com/ has been updated: ready to go with more material on the fourth edition. Get the Book!
RG mail
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/movies/26stone.html?src=me&pagewanted=all#
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/books/review/Henig-t.html?ref=books
First it was ‘pleasure’, now it is ‘bliss’, something quite different.
This is still another misleading study from evolutionary psychology, the science that always gets it wrong because its assumptions are Darwinian, and wrong.
The Nature of Existence
By ROGER NYGARD – MOVIE TRAILER
Added: Sunday, 27 June 2010 at 03:50 AM
http://richarddawkins.net/videos/483980-the-nature-of-existenceThe Nature of Existence – Original Trailer from Roger Nygard on Vimeo.
All the Mysteries of Human Existence – Explained in One Movie.
What if you asked the spiritual leaders, gurus, scientists, artists, and everyday people of the world why we exist, and what are we supposed to do about it? What started the Universe, and was it a mistake? Does God exist, and why does he seem so interested in our sex lives?
After exploring the phenomenon of STAR TREK fans in the acclaimed documentary TREKKIES, filmmaker Roger Nygard is taking on THE NATURE OF EXISTENCE, traveling the globe to the source of the world’s philosophies, religions, and belief systems, interviewing spiritual leaders, scholars, scientists, artists and others who have influenced, inspired, or freaked out humanity, such as: Indian holy man Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (The Art of Living), evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), 24th generation Chinese Taoist Master Zhang Chengda, Stanford physicist Leonard Susskind (co-discoverer of string theory), wrestler Rob Adonis (founder of Ultimate Christian Wrestling), confrontational evangelist Brother Jed Smock, novelist Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game), director Irvin Kershner (Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back), Stonehenge Druids Rollo Maughfling & King Arthur Pendragon and many more…
How would YOU answer the questions? What journey is more important than one that takes us closer to finding meaning in our existence?
The separation of Neardenthal and Homo sapiens might have occurred at least one million years ago
The separation of Neardenthal and Homo sapiens might have occurred at least one million years ago, more than 500.000 years earlier than previously believed after DNA-based analyses. A doctoral thesis conducted at the National Center for Research on Human Evolution (Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana) -associated with the University of Granada-, analysed the teeth of almost all species of hominids that have existed during the past 4 million years. Quantitative methods were employed and they managed to identify Neanderthal features in ancient European populations.
The main purpose of this research –whose author is Aida Gómez Robles- was to reconstruct the history of evolution of Human species using the information provided by the teeth, which are the most numerous and best preserved remains of the fossil record. To this purpose, a large sample of dental fossils from different sites in Africa, Asia and Europe was analysed. The morphological differences of each dental class was assessed and the ability of each tooth to identify the species to which its owner belonged was analysed.
The researcher concluded that it is possible to correctly determine the species to which an isolated tooth belonged with a success rate ranging from 60% to 80%. Although these values are not very high, they increase as different dental classes from the same individual are added. That means that if several teeth from the same individual are analysed, the probability of correctly identifying the species can reach 100%.
Aida Gómez Robles explains that, from all the species of hominids currently known “none of them has a probability higher than 5% to be the common ancestor of Neardenthals and Homo sapiens. Therefore, the common ancestor of this lineage is likely to have not been discovered yet”.
What Darwin Got Wrong
By Jerry Fodor
and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini
Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
264 pp. $26.
Read more: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/entertainment/books/20100627_A_murky_critique_of_Darwin.html#ixzz0s4e3Edvw
Watch sports videos you won’t find anywhere else
Aliens ‘R Us: The Ten Errors of Science Fiction
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. – 6/27/2010
In all works of science fiction, there are ten hidden assumptions regarding alien races. None of these assumptions is a necessity. None of them makes immanent or inevitable sense. Yet, when we read a sci-fi novel or watch a sci-fi movie we tend to accept all of them as inescapable. They amount to a frame of reference and to a language without which we seem to be unable to relate to all manner of exobiology. We evidently believe that life on Earth is a representative sample and that we can extrapolate its properties and mechanisms of action wide and far across the Universe. The principles of symmetry, isotropy, and homogeneity apply to the physical cosmos: Hydrogen behaves identically in our local galactic neighbourhood as it does in the furthest reaches of the Cosmos. Why shouldn’t life be the same?
Neandertals ‘Hardly Differed at All’ from Modern Humans
ScienceDaily (May 6, 2010) — How much do we, who are alive today, differ from our most recent evolutionary ancestors, the cave-dwelling Neandertals, hominids who lived in Europe and parts of Asia and went extinct about 30,000 years ago? And how much do Neandertals, in turn, have in common with the ape-ancestors from which we are both descended, the chimpanzees?
A Cooler Pacific May Have Severely Affected Medieval Europe, North America
ScienceDaily (June 10, 2010) — In the time before Columbus sailed the ocean blue, a cooler central Pacific Ocean has been connected with drought conditions in Europe and North America that may be responsible for famines and the disappearance of cliff dwelling people in the American West.
Global Wind Shifts May Have Ushered in Warmer Climate at End of Last Ice Age
ScienceDaily (June 27, 2010) — Scientists still puzzle over how Earth emerged from its last ice age, an event that ushered in a warmer climate and the birth of human civilization. In the geological blink of an eye, ice sheets in the northern hemisphere began to collapse and warming spread quickly to the south. Most scientists say that the trigger, at least initially, was an orbital shift that caused more sunlight to fall across Earth’s northern half. But how did the south catch up so fast?
gnxp
How is the Internet affecting us, socially and individually? And is it helping? Two authors survey the situation
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-carr-shirky-20100627,0,194367.story
gnxp
Saying, “Don’t worry,” to reassure an injured or fearful child could do more harm than good
http://news.discovery.com/human/children-parents-pain.html
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