NEWS FROM THE YEAR 2000
by Dave Thomas : nmsrdaveATswcp.com (Help fight SPAM! Please replace the AT with an @ )
MSG Allergies over-rated?
Reuters Health reported on Dec. 29th that "In the largest study to-date looking at potential reactions to monosodium glutamate (MSG)--a flavor enhancer blamed for 'Chinese restaurant syndrome'--researchers could find no consistent or serious problems associated with the additive."
Source: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001229/hl/msg_1.html
The Perfect Storm...on Jupiter
A Dec. 30th report from Reuters shows dramatic Cassini spacecraft pictures of storm evolution on the solar system's largest planet. "The new images of thunderstorms swirling across the solar system's largest planet suggest that the massive storms, which can run for centuries, draw their energy from absorbing smaller systems, Andrew Ingersoll of the California Institute of Technology said."
Source: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001230/sc/space_jupiter_dc_1.html
Big Bend Fireball...NOT!
Spaceweather.com shows a Dec. 29th image of a lens flare in a web-cam of Big Bend State Park, suspiciously similar to previous images from the same camera claimed to be a "fireball."
Source: http://spaceweather.com/meteors/fireballnot.html
Statisticians hand out year's-end awards...
The Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) on 27 Dec. announced its "Dubious Data: The Year's Worst Science Journalism" awards. The First Place Winner: The New York Times Aug. 19th report that "The North Pole is Melting," allegedly something that hasn't happened for 50 million years. It turns out that there is open water over the North Pole about 10% of the time during typical summers. Oops.
Source: http://www.newswise.com/articles/2000/12/BADNEWS.SAS.html
Step Away from your Cell Phone...Here come the Lawyers...
The Times (London) reported on Dec. 28th that "BRITISH mobile phone suppliers are facing a billion-dollar legal action brought by US brain tumour victims. The lawsuits, to be launched by one of America’s most successful lawyers, are the biggest legal assault on the mobile phone industry and will be the most extensive examination yet of claims that radiation from mobile phones causes cancer." The American lawyer is Peter Angelos, who recently won a $3,400,000,000 lawsuit against the tobacco industry.
Source: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2-59164,00.html
Santa Fe Family Sees Jesus' Likeness On Log...
The Albuquerque Journal reported on 24 Dec. that a Santa Fe woman claimed "the image of Jesus seems to have transferred from a 'Last Supper' picture over her fireplace to a piece of firewood...." See the photo for yourself, and then decide.
Source: http://www.abqjournal.com/news/yule12-22-00.htm
Plants thrive on Martian Soil...
New Zealand scientists have successfully grown asparagus and potatoes from soil obtained by scraping dirt from Martian meteorites, as reported in the Dec. 24th Observer (UK).
Source: http://www.observer.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,415321,00.html
No Y2K this year, but this New Year's REALLY BRINGS the New Millennium!
The party was a year ago, but the Real Event - the Dawn of the Third Millennium - begins on Jan. 1, 2001.
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20001223/aponline121658_000.htm
Top Ten Science Stories of 2000...
The editors of Science have announced their picks for the top stories of the year. These include Genome Sequencing, RNA/ribosomes, Out of Africa, Plastic Electronics, Old Cells/New Tricks, Watery Solar System, Cosmic Microwave measurements, Hormone receptors, asteroid Eros flyby, and Quantum Curiosities. The ScienceDaily Dec. 22nd report also notes that "The Meltdown of the Year goes to the federal government's pursuit of Los Alamos physicist Wen Ho Lee. The award for Disappearing Discovery of the Year goes to Archaeoraptor, thought to be a novel combination of bird and dinosaur, but exposed as the combination of two different fossils."
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/12/001222071924.htm
Partial Solar Eclipse on Christmas Day...
Read all about it at http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/eclipse001221.html.
Get a great picture of what the eclipse will look like from your location at Heaven's Above,
Also visit Heaven's Above for International Space Station (ISS) and Iridium satellite sighting information for your area.
Bright passages of the ISS visible from Albuquerque, NM are slated for December 27th (6:20 PM MST), 28th (6:53 PM MST) and 29th (5:50 PM MST). Watch for them!
Rare Species turns out to be a Fraud...
The Age (Australia) reported on Dec. 18th that "An elusive and incredibly rare species of wild steer native to the mist-shrouded highlands of Cambodia and Vietnam is likely to be taken off the list of endangered fauna - never to return. The reason: the creature never existed at all. Like the Piltdown Man and other genuses that never were, Pseudonovibos spiralis should have a classification in the encyclopaedia of scientific hoaxes, according to French research. ... On the red list of the International Conservation Union, a database of imperilled wildlife revised and published just two months ago after four years' work, P. spiralis is categorised as a species with 'a very high risk of extinction in the wild' with a population of fewer than 2500 mature adults. But the linh duong never trod this or any other planet, say naturalist Arnoult Seveau of the Zoological Society of Paris, Herbert Thomas, a palaeontologist and bovid specialist at the College de France, and biochemist Alexandre Hassanin of the Paris-VI University. ... 'Pseudonovibos spiralis is simply a forgery,' the trio conclude in an article to be published next month."
Source: http://www.theage.com.au/news/2000/12/18/FFXRR8ZKTGC.html
Genetically-modified foods found NOT to hurt butterflies...
The Times (UK) reported on Dec. 14 about the "Threat that never was.They say "A laboratory study which suggested that GM crops harmed butterflies provoked protests across Europe. Now environmentalists are having to backtrack. ...In separate experiments conducted in cornfields in Minnesota, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan and Ontario, researchers from different universities found no significant differences between butterfly survival in areas planted with GM maize, and those planted with conventional crops. 'If there are any differences out there, they aren’t very profound,' said Richard Hellmich, an entymologist from the US Department of Agriculture, attached to Iowa State University."
Source: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,74-50894,00.html
New Study finds no link between Cell Phones and Cancer...
ABC News reported on Dec. 20th that "A study of nearly 900 cell phone users, conducted by the American Health Foundation and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, both in Manhattan, found no connection between using the phones and brain cancer. 'The data showed no correlation between the use of cell phones and the development of brain cancer. In addition, there was no association between the amount of cell phone usage and brain cancer,' writes lead author Joshua Muscat, of the American Health Foundation. ... 'I think this rules out a role for cellular phones as a cause of increasing brain cancer rates in the U.S.,' says Tim Byers, an epidemiologist at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver,who was not connected with the research. ... But don’t sign up for the 600-free-minutes-a-month plan quite yet. 'Clearly it’s a piece of good news,' says Louis Slesin of Microwave News, a bi-monthly newsletter covering radiation issues. 'But it’s only a very early snapshot of what’s going on.' "
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/DailyNews/cellphones_braincancer001219.html
Ocean Found on Jupiter Moon?
Yahoo Science News reported on Dec. 17th that "Ganymede, the solar system's largest moon, appears to have a liquid,saltwater ocean deep beneath its cratered and fractured surface of solid ice, researchers said Saturday. With the new findings, Ganymede joins Europa and Callisto as yet another moon of Jupiter suspected to harbor underground water - a key ingredient for life."
source: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20001217/sc/ganymede_ocean.html
Galileo Web site:http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov
"Lost City" of Spires Found in Ocean
ABC News reported on Dec. 15 that "Oceanographers patrolling the mid-Atlantic in a miniature research submarine have stumbled onto a spectacular deep-sea garden of hot springs and towering spires they nicknamed the 'Lost City.' 'If this were on land,' Duke University geologist Jeff Karson said, 'it would be a national park.' ... some of the ghostly white mineral formations soar 180 feet — the tallest undersea spires ever seen. Collectively, they cover an area larger than a football field on the flanks of a 14,000-foot mountain known as the Atlantic massif at 30 degrees north latitude."
source: http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/sea_formations001215.html
Gene named after Monty Python gag..."I'm Not Dead Yet (INDY)"
On Dec. 15th, ABC News reported that "Mutation of a gene whimsically named 'I’m not dead yet' can double the life span of fruit flies, a laboratory discovery that researchers said may lead to drugs to help people live longer and, perhaps, even lose weight....Researchers at the University of Connecticut Health Center have found that the life span of fruit flies was extended from an average of 37 days to 70 days when a gene was modified on a single chromosome. Some flies in the study lived 110 days...The long-life gene was named for a comical line — 'I’m not dead yet' — from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Helfand said. The gene’s name was suggested by co-author Robert A. Reenan and has been shortened to 'Indy.'" Details are at http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/fruitfly001215.html .
Harvard Conference to discuss Healing Power of Prayer
On Dec. 15th, ABC News reported that "This weekend about 700 health professionals, clergy members, social workers and insurance providers will meet in Boston to discuss the power of prayer. Part of a growing merger of spirituality and the sciences, the sixth annual Spirituality and Healing in Medicine conference, sponsored by Harvard Medical School, brings these various groups together to discuss the integration of mind/body medicine into mainstream health care." Details are at http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/DailyNews/prayerpower001214.html.
Scientist who faked data loses funding
The Boston Globe, on Nov. 21st, reported that "Dr. Evan Dreyer, a former Boston vision researcher, has been slapped with a 10-year cutoff of federal research funds for faking data in 1996 at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary." Details are at http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/326/metro/Scientist_who_faked_data_loses_funding+.shtml.
DNA Research Reveals New Bird Species In Colorado
On Dec. 11th, Science Daily and the USGS (United States Geological Survey) reported that "Neither a tree-dweller nor a night bird, and roughly the size of a chicken, the Gunnison sage-grouse is not a particularly secretive bird yet just recently has it been identified as a new species of bird. ... The new species is recognized in the December issue of the Wilson Bulletin, which includes a discussion of the genetics research that conclusively proved the species designation.." Details are at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/12/001211075357.htm.
The Science of Snow
Lee Dye of ABC News reported on Dec. 13th that "...Temperature Is What Makes Each Flake Different." Details are at http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DyeHard/dyehard.html. Astrophysicist Ken Libbrecht's fascinating web site on snow crystals is at http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/ .
Another Bird/Dino FLAP
On Dec. 8th, ABC News reported that "One of the earliest birds ever found used its feathers to fly, Chinese scientists reported Thursday in a paper that other experts said laid to rest any ideas that modern birds evolved from dinosaurs. But scientists will probably continue to ruffle feathers over the origin-of-birds debate, which heats up every few months as reports come out on fossils of what look like birds." Details are at athttp://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/dinosaur_bird001207.html.
"Out of Africa" theory gets Mitochondrial Boost
On Dec. 6th, ABC News reported that "The 'Out of Africa' theory that modern man evolved there and spread across the world got a boost today with new research tracing humans from diverse ethnic and geographical backgrounds back to that continent. Swedish scientists used mitochondrial DNA — genetic material in a cell that is passed unchanged from mother to child — from 53 people to show that the human evolutionary tree is firmly rooted in Africa." Details are at http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/human_evolution001206.html.
Oldest Ancestor Yet for Mankind?
On Dec. 4, ABC News reported that "French and Kenyan scientists have unearthed fossilized remains of mankind’s earliest known ancestor that predate previous discoveries by more than 1.5 million years, the team announced today." Details are at http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/hominid_kenya001204.html.
Ancient Lakes on Mars?
NASA and Malins Space Systems have released stunning images of what appear to be sedimentary lake deposits on the Red Planet. Details can be found at http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/mars_lakes001204.html and http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/dec00_seds/ .
A Dozen NM School Districts Using "Alternative" Eye Therapy
by Dave Thomas
In a hearing at the October 13th/14th meeting of the Legislative Education Study Committee (LESC), a presentation defending the use of "Irlen Screening" was made by Rick Harbaugh of Scotopic Sensitivity Screeners, along with a 5th grade student, a teacher, and a Professor of Education. The presenters described "Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome," also called "Irlen Syndrome," which is alleged to make some people have trouble reading (dyslexia) unless they use special colored filters. The fifth grader helped demonstrate the technique, saying "he was able to focus on the written materials presented with the aid of the colored filter, but not without."
The presenters were very concerned with criticism the therapy received in a June 9th letter from the New Mexico Department of Health, and the State Department of Education. They were also upset with the New Mexico Medical Society. Harbaugh pointed out that Arizona and Massachusetts had each appropriated $100,000 to study the therapy. There were no questions from the LESC members.
Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome is only one of many questionable eye therapies examined at Stephen Barrett's Quackwatch website,
<http://www.quackwatch.com/>. In an article entitled "Eye-Related Quackery," Russell S. Worrall, O.D., Jacob Nevyas, Ph.D., and Stephen Barrett, M.D., write:
"Another approach involving color has been popularized by Helen Irlen, a marriage, family and child counselor, who has appeared on CBS-TV's "60 Minutes" and franchised more than 2,000 individuals and clinics nationwide since 1983. She claims that "scotopic sensitivity syndrome" is a leading cause of learning problems and affects 65% of those with reading problems (dyslexia), and can be remedied with colored eyeglasses. Her recommended diagnosis and treatment can cost more than $500. I do not believe that Irlen's theory or claimed success rates have been scientifically substantiated. Although more than 50 studies of her methods have been reported, many have methodologic flaws such as lack of a control group and the results do not give a clear consensus [18,19]. One study finds that "lens color was not a critical diagnostic factor" just a reduction in contrast was important [20]. Poor test-retest reliability has been reported raising questions about diagnostic methods [21]. Another study reports an increase in rate of reading but not comprehension [22], while another reports improved comprehension but not rate [23]. Several studies suggest that inexpensive blue tinted plastic overlays work the best [22,24]. Overall, studies indicate that fewer than 5% of readers who experience discomfort benefit from a change in contrast, brightness, or color on the page beyond what would be expected from a placebo treatment alone. Remember that even if a treatment makes the print more comfortable to look at, proper reading instruction is still needed to improve reading skills."
Cited References
18. Robinson GL. Coloured Lenses and Reading: A Review of Research into Reading Achievement, Reading Strategies and Causal Mechanisms. Australian Journal of Special Education 18(1):3-14, 1994.
19. Cardinal DN, Griffin JR, Christenson,GN. Do Tinted Lenses Really Help Students with Reading Disabilities? Intervention in School and Clinic 28:275-279, 1993.
20. Spafford CS and others. Contrast sensitivity differences between proficient and disabled readers using colored filters. Journal of Learning Disabilities 28:240-252, 1995.
21. Woerz M, Maples, WC. Test-retest reliability of colored filter testing. Journal of Learning Disabilities 30:214-221, 1997.
22. Robinson GL, Foreman, PJ. Scotopic Sensitivity/Irlen Syndrome and the use of coloured filters: A long-term placebo controlled and masked study of reading achievement and perception ability. Perceptual Motor Skills, 89:83-113, 1999.
23. Solan HA and others. Eye movement efficiency in normal and reading disabled elementary school children: effects of varying luminance and wavelength. Journal of the American Optometric Association 69:455-464, 1998.
24. Williams MC, LeCluyse K, Rock-Faucheux A. Effective intervention for reading disability. Journal of the American Optometric Association 63:411-417, 1992.
NMSR to Test Claim of Telepathy
In cooperation with the Randi Educational Foundation, NMSR is preparing to test a resident of Albuquerque who claims he can send messages with his mind alone. The Sender will choose a compatible Receiver, and also a list of 20 words or songs. Sender and Receiver will be separated geographically, and NMSR observers will videotape the test at both sites. NMSR will randomly select one of the 20 items, and the Sender will transmit this item at a specified time (such as every minute). When 20 such items have been sent, the Receiver will call in his list of 20 items. The items must be in the same order to match; so, if a given item was 3rd on the Sender's list, but 4th on the Receiver's list, it won't count. A total of five or more correct matches out of 20 will be considered indicative of possible telepathic ability, and a second test will be performed. Negotiations are complete, and testing should commence soon. Stay tuned for further details.
News from November 2000
Prince Charles Goes Alternative (Medicine, that is)
Britain's future monarch has renewed his plea for "New Age" medicine. In the Nov. 29 article from The Times, author Andrew Pierce says "The Prince of Wales has secretly challenged the Government to commit millions of pounds more to research into the effects of alternative medicine. As the House of Lords published its first critical examination into complementary medical treatments yesterday, it emerged that the Prince — a longstanding advocate of alternative medicine — had had a 90-minute meeting on the subject with Alan Milburn, the Health Secretary. He pressed for at least £10 million to be allocated to research the effectiveness of the treatments. The year-long investigation by the Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology concluded there was not enough evidence to prove that alternative remedies worked. But it supported the Prince’s call for more government funding into research."
BankRate site names "10 most creative swindles from today's clever cons"
The Nov. 21 article can be found here.
A New Mexico winner:
"I was Hopi-ng it was Zuni. Authentic Native American artwork, a booming business in New Mexico, is also a favorite of con artists. The state recently threw the book at a Santa Fe jewelry dealer for selling necklaces made by 'Allen' Quandelacy. The last name is a famous Zuni family, but nobody knew an Allen. Or perhaps he was banished for working in that exciting new medium -- plastic."
And this mention can only refer to "Free Electricity" mogul Dennis Lee:
"How does that machine work again? Oregon officials pulled the plug on a New Jersey entrepreneur who sought to sell a "free electricity" device and $275 shares in his revolutionary technology. Quoting Attorney General Hardy Myers, 'Not only did this energy-generating device sound suspiciously like a perpetual motion machine but the investment certificates were illegal securities.' OK, but did it work?"
Wells - "Can't Get No Respect"
"Intelligent Design" creationist Jonathan Wells didn't convince Canadians to vote for young-earth creationist Stockwell Day. And he hasn't gotten very far in convincing the scientific community of the need to include "Intelligent Design" as a working scientific hypothesis. But, he HAS convinced the Hare Krishna society that there are problems with evolution. Get the scoop from the Krishna folks at http://science.krishna.org/Articles/2000/10/00169.html.
Oldest LandLubbers Yet?
A Nov. 29th story at ABC News states "Life on land began more than 1.4 billion years earlier than scientists had thought, geologists said today. Scientists have known that microorganisms have lived in oceans for about 3.8 billion years, but they weren’t sure when early life forms made the transition to land. The oldest proof of terrestrial life had been found in 1.2 billion-year-old fossils from Arizona, but scientists in South Africa and the United States have now discovered organic matter in 2.6 billion-year-old South African rocks. ... 'This places the development of terrestrial biomass more than 1.4 billion years earlier than previously reported,' Yumiko Watanabe, of the Pennsylvania State University, said in a study in the science journal Nature."
Scientists discover possible extraterrestrial microbe?
In a Nov. 24th story by Richard Stenger of CNN, Stenger writes "An international team of scientists has recovered microorganisms in the upper reaches of the atmosphere that could have originated from outer space, a participant in the study said Friday. The living bacteria, plucked from an altitude of 10 miles (16 km) or higher by a scientific balloon, could have been deposited in terrestrial airspace by a passing comet, according to the researchers. The microorganisms are unlike any known on Earth, but the astrobiologists 'want to keep the details under wraps until they are absolutely convinced that these are extraterrestrial,' said study participant Chandra Wickramasinghe, a noted scientist at Cardiff University in Wales. NASA's Ames Research Center posted a cautious reaction to the report on its Astrobiology Web site. NASA said the finding is likely to meet considerable skepticism in the scientific community. 'Aerobiologists might argue that 10 miles is not too high for Earth life to reside, a possibility that Wickramasinghe appears to accept,' the statement said. However, NASA said, a compelling case can be made for the transport of microorganisms through space aboard comets and meteors."
An Oct. 30th article on panspermia in general appears at the Space.com website.
Election Science
An interesting take on the razor-thin results by mathematician John Allen Paulos appears at http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/closevote_paulos001120.html, and another by Paulos, on Buchanan and outliers in the Palm Beach County vote, at
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/science/WhosCounting/whoscounting.html.
A Nov. 30 article at ABC News mentions a "Canadian study to be published in the journal Nature finds that 7.5 percent of people using the two- column design of the butterfly ballot make mistakes."
Final results on the Kansas Board of Education appear at http://www.kssos.org/elect.html#620. Pro-science candidate Bill Wagnon defeated Patrick Hill. Only one pro-creationist, Steve Abrams, won election. Abrams will only have two other creationist colleagues in the Kansas State Board, leaving a 7-3 pro-science majority to clean up last year's mess.
Finally, although young-earth creationist Stockwell Day won re-election to his seat in the Canadian parliament, his conservative Canadian Alliance was demolished by the Liberal Party and Jean Chretien.
"Face on Mars" Guru Richard Hoagland Analyzes the Election! (?)
From http://www.enterprisemission.com/millenn.htm : "... So why, given this well-known political history, are both current candidates apparently so desperate to achieve the Presidency of the United States in this 'Turn of the Millennium' election? Both are certainly still young enough to attempt another run for the White House in four years. Bush especially, with virtually half the Country expressing a desire to have him be the next President, is in an extraordinarily strong position to come back in 2004 and revisit the closest U.S. election in history. What could motivate them both to potentially throw it all away in a desperate power play right now -- at the probable expense of their place in history and their standing with the people who elected them (and who could elect them again!)? And what of the serious, looming national crisis of 'illegitimacy' overhanging any attempt -- by either man -- to govern after this bitterly contested election? The answer, strangely enough, lies not in present day America but in the vast ancient sands of post-diluvial Egypt and Sumer. What we are seeing here is not merely the use of 'any and all means' to obtain the powers of the day, but rather a playing out of an ancient symbolic conflict that will inevitably consume all the rest of us ... whether we know of it or not! ..."
Gary Posner investigated Hoagland's history in the Nov./Dec. 2000 Skeptical Inquirer. Hoagland has blasted this article at http://www.enterprisemission.com/skeptik.htm. You can read Posner's reply at http://members.aol.com/garypos2/Hoagland.html#rebuttal .
Candidate and Leader of Canadian Alliance Reveals Creationist Beliefs
The Globe and Mail had a Nov. 17th article on the upcoming Nov. 27th elections in Canada, with the following: "Ottawa and Edmonton — Stockwell Day's creationist beliefs sparked a rare mixing of religion and Canadian politics yesterday, with some opponents saying the Canadian Alliance Leader's religious views should be an issue for voters. While Liberal Leader Jean Chrétien touched only lightly on the question, NDP Leader Alexa McDonough suggested Mr. Day's politics don't match the values he claims to hold dear. After a CBC documentary reported that Mr. Day had said he believes in creationism, that the world is 6,000 years old, and that humans and dinosaurs had once co-existed, Mr. Day issued a statement saying there is scientific evidence to support both the creation and evolution theories of the origins of man."
Stockwell Day's anti-evolution beliefs were defended in this Nov. 17th essay in the Globe and Mail by the Discovery Institute's very own Jonathan Wells. Wells writes "There has been a predictable knee-jerk public and media backlash, but instead of rushing to condemn Mr. Day, Canadians should be having an open discussion about alternatives to Darwinism."
Astronomy is used to date Pyramids - for real!!
We've all heard of various fringe archaeologists who claim that the Pyramids and the Sphinx are much older than is accepted, perhaps 12 to 14 thousand years old. Some of these claimants use elaborate astronomical alignments to make their case. But here comes an Egyptologistwith a serious analysis, appearing in the Nov. 16th Nature. In a Nov. 15th article at ABC News, Alex Dominguez writes "Just how old are the pyramids? The answer may lie in the stars. Current estimates for the construction of the pyramids, based on surviving lists of the pharaohs, are believed to be accurate to within about 100 years. But Cambridge University Egyptologist Kate Spence says that by analyzing the relative position of Earth and two stars, she has dated the construction of the Great Pyramid at Giza — one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World — to within five years of 2478 B.C. That means the Great Pyramid is 4,478 years old — or 75 years older than one commonly accepted estimate....Her estimate comes from her proposed solution to another mystery: How did the ancient Egyptians align their pyramids so that two sides ran so precisely north-south? She suggests that they used a pair of stars found in the Little and Big Dippers. But because Earth wobbles on its axis, those two stars would have given different indications for 'north' over the centuries. So by calculating when that pair of stars would have been in a northern alignment, Spence says she can figure out when the pyramids were built. In Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature, Spence says the two-star method could explain the various degrees of inaccuracy in the orientation of pyramids built at different times."
More Dirt on the "Y" Guy
This Nov. 14th article from ABC News has more details on the recent announcement of an "Adam," a male ancestor of all men alive today, that has been derived from analyses of the Y chromosome. The article has a readable and informative explanation on why the Y-chromosome "Adam" is so much younger (at a mere 59,000 years old) than "Mitochondrial Eve," who dates back 143,000 years. Author Maggie Fox writes : "What could explain them? Real-life scenarios from recorded history provide plenty of explanations. 'One tribe conquers another tribe. The dominant tribe, the successful tribe, gets to mate with all the women — its own women plus the women they conquered,' Underhill [Peter Underhill of Stanford University] said. Polygamy, a common practice, would also explain it. A few dominant males get to marry and have children and the rest see their genes consigned to the rubbish heap of posterity. Even nature itself can play a role. 'I’m a man and if I get married and just by chance, a flip of the coin, I only have daughters, that is a random chance event. It has nothing to do with my being inferior or superior,' Underhill said. But such a man would not pass on his Y chromosome and so would chalk up a big zero in the 'Adam' and 'Eve' genetic stakes — although of course his other genes would live on."
Second Mexican 'faith healer' arrested in California
KERRI GINIS of the Scripps-McClatchy Western Service writes on November 14, 2000 the following: "FRESNO, Calif. -Kings County sheriff's deputies arrested another self-proclaimed Mexican faith healer late Tuesday night on suspicion of having sex with a 17-year-old girl so he could remove evil spirits from her body. Jose Angel Carranza Ojeda, 46, of Coalinga is being held in the Kings County Jail on two counts of unlawful sexual intercourse through fear and fraudulent means and one count of conspiracy. His bail is set at $40,000. Ojeda's arrest stemmed from an investigation into Fernando Magdalano Flores, who was arrested Nov. 1 on suspicion of sexually assaulting two teen-age sisters. Flores also called himself a Mexican faith healer. Ojeda allegedy had sex with one of Flores' victims, said Patrick Hart, Kings County chief deputy district attorney. "
More on Baylor and Polanyi Center
This Web Site is apparently not "official," but perhaps it should be!! Enjoy!
Molecular Clocks are a Hot Topic
In this Nov. 13th article from The Scientist 14[22]:17, Steve Bunk writes about a paper by S. Kumar, S. Blair Hedges, "A molecular timescale for vertebrate evolution," Nature, 392:917-20, April 30, 1998. (Cited in more than 170 papers since publication). This seminal paper looked at molecular analyses of evolutionary branchings. Bunk writes "In analyzing sequence substitutions, more genes tell better evolutionary time...Thirty-five years ago, researchers proffered the remarkable hypothesis that substitution of amino acids in proteins, and of nucleotides in genes, occurs in a more or less clocklike fashion throughout the evolution of organisms.1 But the use of these molecular evolutionary clocks often has yielded differing estimates of when any two given lineages diverged from a common ancestor. A major reason for such inconsistency is that divergence times have been based on sequence differences in a single protein or gene common to the two lineages being studied. This paper helped to break that pattern, by analyzing 658 nuclear genes representing 207 vertebrate species. It showed that the ancestors of most contemporary mammals arose more than 80-110 million years ago, well before the extinction of dinosaurs. ...Blair Hedges, an evolutionary biologist at Pennsylvania State University, has little doubt about why the paper by he and coauthor Sudhir Kumar (now at Arizona State University) has been cited in so many other papers: 'Biologists in general really seek out this type of information. They want to know why and when organisms originated, evolved, and differentiated from each other.'... 'When thousands of genes are used, the amount of data is staggering,' [Hedges] notes. 'So people should realize that molecular clocks can only get better.' "
Watson (of DNA fame) Makes Stir over Skin Color and Sex
As reported in this Nov. 13th article by the San Franscisco Chronicle, "Nobel laureate James Watson, whose co-discovery of DNA revolutionized the field of genetics, has provoked a scientific controversy by suggesting there are biochemical links between skin color and sexual activity and between thinness and ambition. Watson advanced his thesis during a guest lecture at the University of California at Berkeley last month, prompting several faculty members to brand his remarks as racist, sexist and unsupported by any scientific data. Witnesses were flabbergasted when the 72-year-old discoverer of the double helix suggested there was a biochemical link between exposure to sunlight and sexual urges. 'That's why you have Latin lovers,' Watson said. 'You've never heard of an English lover. Only an English patient.' ''
Quantum States - Determined by the Media?
Check out this toon for all the details!
"10 Commandments" Judge elected to Alabama's Top Court
The "10 Commandments" judge, Roy Moore of Alabama, has won election to that state's supreme court.
The Sunday, November 5, 2000 LA Times featured a piece by Jeffrey Gettleman on Moore's unconventional and interesting background (the article WAS at http://www.latimes.com/living/20001104/t000105820.html; getting to it now will require registration and a possible fee). Gettleman wrote "This week, [Moore is] up for election to chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. Despite the drubbing he has taken in the media and serious concerns many have voiced about his blend of church and state, polls put Moore, a Republican, ahead of Democratic Judge Sharon Yates by five to 15 percentage points. It seems that his moral crusade has tapped into two arteries in Alabama: religion and defiance. 'We call it the Bubba vote,' said Brad Owen, an Alabama lobbyist. (Bubba is Southern speak for 'the average Joe.') 'No matter how much Bubba likes to drink and cuss and get in trouble, he still prays before he eats and puts God first. And he likes a man who makes a stand. There's no doubt which way Bubba's going on this one.' In Alabama it's not unusual to see a pickup truck rumble past with both a gun rack and a "Real Men Love Jesus" bumper sticker. While fundamentalists in Kansas lost their battle against evolution, and school prayer supporters were defeated in Texas, evangelical Christians still set the agenda here. Alabama law calls for all public school science books to be labeled with a sticker that says evolution is only a theory."
Judge Moore's website:http://www.judgemoore.org/
Final election results:http://www.yourvotealabama.org/results_surpreme_court.htm
Chief Justice
2,609 of 2,619 Precincts - 99% Reporting
Roy Moore (R) 878,668 votes 55%
Sharon Yates (D) 727,653 votes 45%
Lenard Loses County Commission Bid
Locally, Roger Lenard lost his bid for election to the Santa Fe County Commission district 5.
From the Secretary of State's site http://web.state.nm.us/election/conty000.htm :
SANTA FE County
Unofficial 2000 General Election Results for COUNTY COMMISSIONER - DISTRICT (OR DIVISION) 05
XUBI WILSON GREEN 2,825 23%
JACK SULLIVAN DEMOCRAT 6,032 49%
ROGER X. LENARD REPUBLICAN 3,387 28%
Read Roger Lenard's essays on creation/evolution at http://www.nmsr.org/DEBATE.HTM.
Livermore Lab takes on the "Perfect Burger"
This was reported by ABC News on November 6th: "With nuclear weapons research slowing down, scientists at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory are taking on a new challenge — how to make the perfect burger. In research published this week, lab researchers say that turning hamburger patties once every minute cuts down on the formation of cancer-causing agents while ensuring the demise of harmful bacteria like E. coli. Researcher Mark Knize said well-done meat is generally linked to cancer-causing chemicals. But meat has to be cooked through to make sure that harmful bacteria are dead. ...The study was handled by a team at the lab that focuses on finding mutation-causing agents in food. They found that the ideal temperature for cooking ground beef is 320 degrees. That temperature and the constant flipping kills off harmful germs while minimizing the formation of cancer-causing chemicals."
Japanese Archaeologist Caught Cheating!
In this November 5th story from ABC News, the AP's Eric Prideaux reported that "A leading Japanese archaeologist admitted today he lied about finding stone tools at an archaeological site believed to be among the world's oldest human habitations. At an emotional news conference, Shinichi Fujimura confessed to staging the discovery. He spoke after a major newspaper ran three photographs on its front page today, showing him digging holes at the site and burying the implements, which were rocks modified by humans for cutting or scraping. 'I did something I shouldn’t have done,' said Fujimura, the vice chairman of the Tohoku Paleolithic Institute. In a traditional sign of humility, he remained in a deep bow throughout the news conference."
Mystery Goo from Sky - it's BEE POOP!
Find the details in this Nov. 8th story from ABC News. "M I D D L E T O N, Idaho, Nov. 8 — The mystery substance that fell from the skies over Meridian, Middleton and Caldwell during the summer has been positively identified as bee waste. The brown and odorless substance splattered homes, cars, flowers and plants for about four months, leaving a mark on everything it touched. Officials from the Department of Environmental Quality suspected that the material was coming from an insect. ..."
Old Meat-eater Discovered!
In this Nov. 10th report, ABC News writes that "Italian paleontogists said Thursday they have identified a new species of dinosaur which lived 200 million years ago — one of the oldest meat-eating reptiles ever discovered. According to fossil fragments found in a quarry in northern Italy, the dinosaur was eight meters (26.4 feet) long, weighed over a ton, and had a long neck and sharp teeth 7 centimeters (2.8 inches) long, Giorgio Teruzzi, supervisor of paleontology at Milan's Museum of Natural History, told The Associated Press. ... “It is the world’s oldest three-fingered dinosaur, and one of the oldest overall,” one of the researchers, Cristiano Dal Sasso, said in an interview. The dinosaur, tentatively dubbed Saltriosaur after the name of the quarry where the fossils were found, is very similar to another predator, the American Allosaur, but is believed to be 20 million years older."
Looking for Global Warming? Look Right Here in New Mexico!
In a story titled "Encroaching Desert - Study: Southwestern Desert Will Creep Northward", ABC News reported on Nov. 2nd that "Vegetation from New Mexico's southern deserts will spread northward into the Albuquerque area over the next century and perhaps extend even farther, climbing local mountain slopes, a team of Nevada researchers says. The research, reported in the British journal Nature this week by a team led by Stanley Smith, suggests the creosote and mesquite bushes of the southern deserts are likely to benefit more from increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide than are Albuquerque-area native plants like sagebrush and juniper."
News from October 2000
Noted Entertainer/Skeptic Steve Allen dead at 78
Well-known entertainer/skeptic Steve Allen has died at age 78.
Details can be found in this Oct. 31 2000 article by ABC News.
On April 11th, 1997, comedian/skeptic/philosopher Steve Allen spoke for about an hour at the UNM Law Building in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His appearance, open to the public, was sponsored by the Humanist Society of New Mexico. Several NMSR members were in attendance.
I asked Mr. Allen about his work on the Council for Media Integrity, and how we could encourage networks like ABC, which has put on some really decent science shows like John Stossel's "Junk Science" and Nightline's "Machines Like Us" (about genetic algorithms). He suggested sending letters - they have more influence than one might think. Allen said the threshold of attention for the typical network can be as low as 18 to 27 letters.
Allen spoke of the importance of education, and of the need for a 4th "R" : reading, writing, 'rithmetic, and Reasoning. Of course, you wouldn't subject kindergarteners to a course in formal logic - but you can encourage them to engage in critical thinking.
He spoke of cults, and how his own son joined a cult. He noted that children who join cults are not necessarily the "dumbest" kids, but that they can get caught up in some really dumb things. Allen mentioned the surviving Heaven's Gate cult member appearance with Dianne Sawyer, and how pleased he was with his own very dumb answers. (This is probably the same cultist who recently killed himself in an attempt to join up with his group on the mother ship.)
Mr. Allen went on to discuss prisons as schools for criminals, slavery, morality and religion, racial issues, senior citizens, Hong Kong, the generation gap, population control, and some of his heroes (Robert Hutchins of the Univ. of Chicago, and Norman Cousins). Steve Allen's support of reason, wisdom, and compassion made him one of the brightest lights in the dazzling world of celebrities and stars.
NM State Board of Education vice-president and NMSR member Marshall Berman noted in March of 1998, "I've always been greatly worried that most of our best skeptics are getting very old. I'm not very optimistic about the scientific and skeptical abilities of most of the younger (under 60?) generation. Having lost Carl Sagan, I expect to grieve uncontrollably when we lose the likes of Martin Gardner or Steve Allen."
Marshall was right. Steve Allen will be missed.
The Times reports that the Bible is Wrong... WOMAN Was FIRST!
In an Oct. 31st article by Nigel Hawkes, the Times (London) reports that "WOMEN were the complete article long before men, a new study has shown. Geneticists have found that female genes acquired their modern form 143,000 years ago but the male version was not up and running for another 84,000 years. The result overturns the Biblical description of women being created from a spare rib left over from a man, and suggests that if Eve ever did meet Adam she was slumming it, genetically speaking. ... Apart from being a blow to the Genesis theory of one man, one woman, a garden, an apple and a snake, the research might also help studies into male fertility. The team has developed 'markers' on the Y chromosome that could prove valuable in tracing the genetic basis of variations in male fertility."
NY Times Reports on G.W. Bush's Opinions on Evolution (Brief)
Nicholas D. Kristof reported in the October 29th, 2000 New York Times on details behind Gov. Bush's decision to run for president.. Kristof writes of Bush that "He has an astonishing memory for faces and names, the quickest of wits, an astute talent for judging people and a tremendous recall for starting line-ups of 1950's baseball teams. If he muddles Slovenia with Slovakia and for now has trouble naming foreign leaders, it is not because he lacks the capacity but because he lacks the interest. The fairer question about Mr. Bush is not whether he has the intelligence to be president but whether he has the intellectual curiosity. He seems exceptionally unreflective, impatient with the world of ideas, uninterested in some of the nation's key political debates. Characteristically, he does not believe in evolution — he says the jury is still out — but he does not actively disbelieve in it either; as a friend puts it,'he doesn't really care about that kind of thing.'"
Pakistani Skeptic Faces Death Penalty
As reported in Bulletin # 52 (20 October, 2000) of the Rationalist International organization (India), Sanal Edamaruku has reported the following alarming news: "Dr. Younus Shaikh, founder-President of the Pakistan based organization "Enlightenment", is accused of blasphemy under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code and faces death penalty, if found guilty. ...Dr. Shaikh was arrested on 4 October 2000.... On 19 October 2000, he was presented before the court. He has no lawyer, since most of the lawyers in Pakistan don’t dare to appear in blasphemy cases for fear of becoming target of fundamentalists themselves. In the court room, an aggressive group of about 20 clerics of the Islamic fundamentalist organization Majlis-I-Khatam-I-Nabuwat were present and tried to exert pressure. Dr. Shaikh faces death penalty, if found guilty. But even without a verdict, he is in permanent danger to be killed by the fanatic mob, as it has happened to many blasphemy accused earlier. ... Dr. Shaikh is a 45 years old medical doctor and teacher in a medical college in Islamabad. Through his organization "Enlightenment" he tries to promote Human Rights. The blasphemy accusation against him is based on his statement that the Prophet Mohammed did not become a Muslim till the age of 40 (i.e. until he received the first message from God) and the Prophet’s parents were non-Muslims because they died before Islam existed." The Rationalist International site has information on where letters can be sent in support of Dr. Shaikh.
Okie High School Expels "Witch" For Casting Spells
In an Oct. 28th story, Reuters and ABC report that "An Oklahoma high school suspended a 15-year-old student after accusing her of casting a magic spell that caused a teacher to become sick, lawyers for the student said on Friday. The American Civil Liberties Union said it had filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on behalf of student Brandi Blackbear, charging that the assistant principal of Union Intermediate High School in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, suspended her for 15 days last December for supposedly casting a spell. The suit also charged the Tulsa-area Union Public Schools with repeatedly violating Blackbear's civil rights by seizing notebooks she used to write horror stories and barring her from drawing or wearing signs of the pagan religion Wicca. 'It's hard for me to believe that in the year 2000 I am walking into court to defend my daughter against charges of witchcraft brought by her own school,' said Timothy Blackbear, Brandi's father. ... Joann Bell,executive director of the ACLU's Oklahoma chapter, said the "outlandish accusations" had made Blackbear's life at school unbearable. 'I, for one, would like to see the so-called evidence this school has that a 15-year-old girl made a grown man sick by casting a magic spell,' Bell said. A lawyer for the school district declined to comment. ..."
Kennewick Man is Dead - but the Lawsuit is Revived!
Aviva Brandt of the Associated Press writes in the October 26, 2000 Seattle Post-Intelligencer that "After being on hold for four years, a lawsuit over the 9,300-year-old "Kennewick Man" skeleton has been reactivated by a federal judge who challenged a Justice Department argument that any ancient skeleton by definition is 'Native American.' During a status conference yesterday, U.S. Magistrate John Jelderks questioned the department's position that any human remains or artifacts that predate Christopher Columbus' arrival in the New World in 1492 automatically is considered 'Native American.' Under that theory, for instance, any Viking remains from their five or more voyages to North America around 1000 would be considered 'Native American' and given to modern-day tribes for reburial. After government lawyers confirmed their definition, Jelderks told lawyers for five tribes who claim the ancient remains known as 'Kennewick Man' as their ancestor to consider whether they agree with the government's definition because it 'might have implications beyond this case.' ... Yesterday, Jelderks reactivated the case, which had been on hold while the Interior Department looked into the tribes' claims. Jelderks set oral arguments in the case for June 19, with a series of dates before then when parties on both sides will file their written arguments. The first deadline is Dec. 1, when the Justice Department must file its administrative record supporting the Interior Department's decisions in the case."
Tabloids say "SO LONG" to Elvis, Aliens, UFO's, Bigfoot!
This is Big. Really Big! Edward Helmore writes in the Guardian of October 9, 2000 that "It could be the most shocking tabloid story in America - and one that they can't print. Splashed across newspaper delivery lorries making their rounds in the northeastern states of America are the words, 'No Elvis. No Aliens. No UFOs.' It's not, of course, that aliens have stopped abducting, or that Elvis no longer eats at Burger King, it's just that the new management at American Media, publisher of the National Enquirer, the Globe and the Star, has decreed that readers will no longer be hearing of it. America's tabloids are undergoing a reinvention under the leadership of David Pecker, a 48-year-old alumnus of the French company that publishes glossy magazines such as Elle and George. He believes that the way to halt the precipitous drop in readership that all the supermarket tabloids have suffered over the past decade is to take them upmarket. ... The National Enquirer's circulation has dropped from 3.1m in 1994 to 2.1m last year. Over the same period, the Star's figures slid from 2.8m to 1.8m and the Globe's from 1m to just over 800,000. ... Under Pecker, American Media is attempting to re-brand, re-position or tweak its seven major titles to cover the spectrum from country music (Country Weekly) to the sensational to the super-weird: the National Examiner will focus on strange human interest stories; the Star on celebrity; the National Enquirer on credible, news-driven tales; the Globe will still dish the dirt on celebs; the Sun will focus on a more mature readership, with health-orientated and religious articles, and Weekly World News on nonsense such as the wedding of the world's fattest man. ... After banning adverts for psychic healers and miracle remedies, the titles have begun to attract new advertisers." The Guardian article can also be found at the Alien Zoo site.
Evolution - can it Sprint?
Tim Friend writes in the Oct. 23rd USA Today that "Nature wastes no time at turning one species into two when a species is exposed to a new environment, according to research that examined wild sockeye salmon stocked in a Washington lake in the 1930s. The finding, reported in the current issue of Science, adds important insights into the laws that govern nature and its species-making machinery, experts say. The most valuable contribution of the study, led by Andrew Hendry of the University of Massachusetts' Amherst campus, is the first conclusive evidence that animals of the same species:
* Can quickly develop new traits under the pressures of a new environment.
* Become less likely to interbreed in a short period of time as they fill different ecological niches.
* Rapidly begin diverging into different species as a direct result of the ecological pressures.
'This process is called ecological speciation,' Hendry says. 'People had recognized this in the longer-standing classic examples such as Darwin's finches, but no one has shown how much time is needed for this to occur.' "
Institute for Creation Research (ICR) Falls Victim to Old April Fool's Prank!!
Colleague Jim Foley writes, on Oct. 23rd, 2000:
"In April 1997, Discover magazine ran a short article about the discovery of a number of Neandertal musical instruments. These included a tuba made from a mammoth tusk, a bagpipe which the Neandertals might have played through their noses, a xylophone, a cave painting of marching musicians, and a skull.
Needless to say, it was all an April Fool's joke. At least, it should have been needless to say it, but on September 9 2000, what do we hear but the very same finds being touted by the ICR as 'overwhelming evidence' of musical talent by Neandertals! (You can find the broadcast at http://www.icr.org/radio/rad-0009.htm)
The finds were made by a Dr. Oscar Todkopf of Hindenburg University. 'Todkopf' is a concatenation of the German words for 'dead' and 'head' (maybe the Neandertals were Grateful Dead fans!), and the Hindenburg was the hydrogen-filled airship which burnt catastropically in 1937 (maybe there's a connection between flaming gasbags and the ICR ...)
For more details, and a copy of the original article from Discover, check out http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/aprilfool.html. "
Wm. Dembski Wins Intelligent Design Battle, Then Shoots Self in Foot, Loses the War
On October 17, a committee at Baylor University released its report on the controversial Michael Polanyi Center, headed by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute's Senior Fellow William Dembski, author of the pro-Intelligent Design book The Design Inference. The Oct. 17th news release from Baylor's Larry Brumley said "The report further stated that 'the committee wishes to make it clear that it considers research on the logical structure of mathematical arguments for intelligent design to have a legitimate claim to a place in current discussions of the relations of religion and the sciences.' ... The report also said that the linking of the name of Michael Polanyi to programs related to intelligent design is, on the whole, inappropriate, given the late scientist's views as expressed in his book Personal Knowledge. The committee recommended that the University discontinue the use of the name while continuing the Center's work within the Institute for Faith and Learning. The Polanyi Center has resided administratively within Baylor's three-year-old Institute for Faith and Learning since it was established in 1999."
Although the Polanyi Center name was to be changed, this announcement was a clear victory for Dembski, who managed to keep his post at the center, and keep the center open, in spite of strong opposition from academic departments.
William Dembski responded with this October 17th open letter to METANews:
Date: 10/17/00 5:03 PM
From: A. Dembski
The Michael Polanyi Center Peer Review Committee has now released its official report (http://pr.baylor.edu/pdf/001017polanyi.pdf) and the Baylor University administration has responded to the report (http://pr.baylor.edu/feat.fcgi?2000.10.17.polanyi). As director of the Center, I wish to offer the following comment: The report marks the triumph of intelligent design as a legitimate form of academic inquiry. This is a great day for academic freedom. I'm deeply grateful to President Sloan and Baylor University for making this possible, as well as to the peer review committee for its unqualified affirmation of my own work on intelligent design. The scope of the Center will be expanded to embrace a broader set of conceptual issues at the intersection of science and religion, and the Center will therefore receive a new name to reflect this expanded vision. My work on intelligent design will continue unabated. Dogmatic opponents of design who demanded the Center be shut down have met their Waterloo. Baylor University is to be commended for remaining strong
Sincerely, Bill Dembski
Dembski's public comments created a strong backlash at Baylor. After his "Waterloo" comments were made known to Baylor officials, the following was announced on Oct. 19th by Baylor's Larry Brumley:
DEMBSKI RELIEVED OF DUTIES AS POLANYI CENTER DIRECTOR
William Dembski was relieved of his duties as director of Baylor University's Michael Polanyi Center today. He will remain associate professor in conceptual foundations of science within the university's Institute for Faith and Learning.
The action follows by two days the release of a peer review committee's report on the Polanyi Center that affirmed the academic work of the center while calling for the appointment of a faculty advisory committee and the dropping of the Polanyi name.
"The theme of the report emphasized the need for the individuals associated with the center to work in a collegial manner with other members of the Baylor faculty," said Dr. Michael Beaty, director of the Institute for Faith and Learning, which houses the center. "Dr. Dembski's actions after the release of the report compromised his ability to serve as director."
LINKS:
Home page of the Discovery Institute
Discovery Institute article on Dembski's Dismissal : "...the decision to dismiss Dembski as director of the center appears to be a terrible blot on Baylor's record."
Discovery Institute page on senior fellow William Dembski
Wesley R. Elsberry's page on William A. Dembski.
Some Like It Hot
No, this isn't about Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon. It's about bacteria that can thrive in extremely hot environments. The Oct. 18th story by Ned Potter of ABC News discusses the organisms, found at Yellowstone National Park, and writes " The discovery of extremophiles has turned biology upside down. ... The fact that life can thrive in a boiling pool brings up all sorts of ideas about the origins of life. It may be that the first life on Earth was in a place more like the hot pools at Yellowstone than in the places humans might consider hospitable."
Quote of the Month
Scot Norvell of Fox News reported on Oct. 2, 2000 that "After 25 years in the sociology department at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, Richard Zeller has retired in protest. His beef? The department wouldn't let him teach a course on political correctness with a reading list including books like Two Steps Ahead of the Thought Police, A Nation of Victims and Civil Wrongs: What Went Wrong With Affirmative Action. Columnist Larry Elder reports that Zeller's colleagues in the department said, "nyet." And so did those in other departments. Kathleen Dixon, the director of the women's studies department, told a local newspaper 'We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech.' "
250-million-year-old New Mexican Bacterium Brought Back to Life
The Albuquerque Journal's John Fleck writes on Oct. 19th that "Scientists say they have brought a 250-million-year-old bacterium back to life. Trapped in rock salt since an ancient inland sea dried up, the New Mexico bacterial spore was revived in a Pennsylvania biology lab. The scientists used salt dug from 2,000 feet for construction of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant nuclear waste repository, hunting bacteria in little bubbles of ancient water trapped in the rock." More on the story can be found at ABC News and CBS News.
Salon reviews Martin Gardner's new book
Tom DiEgidio reviews Martin Gardner's new book, "Did Adam and Eve Have Navels?", in an Oct. 17th Salon column . DiEgidio writes "A witty, world-class debunker cuts through centuries of pseudoscience crap, from earthbound asteroids to balancing eggs. ... Schools could do well to interest children in science through Gardner's entertaining volume -- if they don't ban it first. "
More Polygraphs Ordered by Congress
Walter Pincus of the Washington Post writes on October 14, 2000 that "Rejecting pleas from Energy Department officials, Congress has approved a provision that will require polygraphs for 5,000 additional employees of the department's nuclear weapons complex, raising to near 20,000 the overall number that will be tested. ... Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), who chairs the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that handles the Energy Department budget and whose state contains two of the nuclear labs, criticized the new polygraph program. 'I am dismayed that the conferees took it upon themselves to adopt additional provisions on polygraphs,' Domenici said. ... In an apparent reference to the case of former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee, who pleaded guilty to one felony count of mishandling classified information by downloading secret nuclear data, Congress added a new question for Energy Department personnel. By law they are to be asked whether they caused 'deliberate damage to or malicious misuse of a United States government information or defense system.' ... Earlier this year, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and his head of counterintelligence, former FBI official Edward Curran, tried to have last year's congressional directive eased by limiting tests to scientists and others with access to special nuclear programs. Richardson had said he hoped that only 800 lab employees would face immediate polygraphing, with 2,200 others to be done later. Congress granted Richardson the right to waive polygraphs for individuals, but only for 120 days and only after submitting his criteria to House and Senate committees."
More on Polygraphs, including a web site for scientists' protests, can be found at NMSR's "Lie Detector" page.
Doug Williams offers a manual for sale that teaches you how to beat polygraphs. Williams claims that "The polygraph test has a built-in bias against a truthful person. It is certainly not capable of determining truth or deception. It can be beaten rather easily." Click on http://www.polygraph.com/ for more details.
The Office of Technology Assessment, in report OTA-TM-H-15 (November 1983), entitled "Scientific Validity of Polygraph Testing: A Research Review and Evaluation," noted in the conclusion that "The instrument cannot itself detect deception. ... The conclusion of previous congressional inquiries has been that there is little or no scientific basis for the use of polygraph testing. Prior scientific reviews, on the other hand, have contradicted each other, some concluding that polygraph testing is almost 100 percent accurate, others that it is little better than chance. ... Also, previous scientific reviews have not been conducted systematically. ... OTA concluded, therefore, that no overall measure or single statistic of polygraph validity can be established based on available scientific evidence. ... OTA concluded that there is at present only limited scientific evidence for establishing the validity of polygraph testing. Even where the evidence seems to indicate that polygraph testing detects deceptive subjects better than chance (when using the control question technique in specific-incident criminal investigations), significant error rates are possible, and examiner and examinee differences and the use of countermeasures may further affect validity."
Shroud of Turin used for Vegetarian Appeal
PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) introduced a new vegetarian ad campaign on October 2nd based on their assertion that Jesus Christ was a vegetarian. The new ad displays the Shroud of Turin and includes the words: “Make a Lasting Impression — Go Vegetarian.” See this Oct. 2nd ABC News report for more details.
FOX News taken in by "Clone Jesus" Hoax?
First, see the Oct. 11th story at Fox News, describing a group of people looking for historic relics (like the Shroud of Turin) so that they can get Christ's actual DNA, and clone the man Christians call their Saviour. Then, check out the Clone Jesus website itself, at http://www.clonejesus.com/, and decide for yourself!
Meteorite with clues to origin of life?
In an Oct. 12th story at USA Today, it is reported that "A bus-sized meteorite that blazed to Earth in a spectacular fireball last January may have delivered to scientists the most pristine primordial matter ever recovered from space and could carry important new clues about the origin of life. The meteorite, estimated to weigh 220 tons when it smashed into the atmosphere, shattered and sprayed bits of space rock over a frozen lake in Canada's Yukon Territory. More than 70 eyewitness saw the fireball and a week later Canadian Jim Brook went out in minus-20-degree temperatures and found bits of the meteorite on the frozen surface of Tagish Lake. He collected the black, charcoal-like fragments in a plastic bag and stored them in a freezer, preserving them in a pure state... Brook's careful handling will allow scientists to study matter that is virtually unchanged since the solar system formed some 4.6 billion years ago...."
Crop Circle Creators have a Web Site...
An Oct. 12th report from USA Today describes a web site, CircleMakers.org , that has made public information on how to create alien-looking "crop circles" since 1995. The report notes that "Site creator John Lundberg of London considers crop-circle making an art form. Lundberg, who has spent the past 10 years making circles in the Wiltshire countryside, started the site in 1995 to bring crop circles, man-made and otherwise, to a wider audience. ... Over the years, UFO hunters say they've learned to differentiate between 'hoax' circles and those of truly unknown origin, says Walter Andrus Jr., international director of the Littleton, Colo.-based Mutual UFO Network. ... Lundberg has heard this before, but he's skeptical of ''expert'' opinions since his first clumsy attempts at circlemaking in 1990. 'It was an absolute mess,' he says, laughing. 'But even though what I made was unimpressive, what spurred me on was that researchers came along and proclaimed it to be genuine.' "
Did Viruses Wipe Out Mammoths?
Scientist Ross MacPhee discusses his research on woolly mammoth bone marrow in an Oct. 9th piece at ABC News. MacPhee, curator of mammalogy at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, thinks the large beasts could have survived climate changes, and that these did not cause their extinction. And he dosn't think the mammoths were hunted to extinction either. But people might be the culprits, even if they didn't hunt the mammoths till they were gone. MacPhee is looking for traces of ancient viruses in the frozen mammoth DNA. Malcom Ritter writes that "MacPhee cheerfully admits he doesn’t have a whit of direct evidence yet for his idea. Nor is it clear what diseases are vicious enough to have done the job."
Ramtha was Slated to Testify in Court, BUT...
The SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER reported on Oct. 4th that medium J.Z. Knight, the "purported channeler of a 35,000-year-old warrior spirit could be called to testify in a Lewis County child-abuse case that revolves around Ramtha's School of Enlightenment, a prominent singing instructor and one of his students. Authorities say voice instructor [redacted by request] and his common-law wife, [redacted by request], confessed to raping the 15-year-old girl after being questioned by Ramtha, the warrior spirit whom medium J.Z. Knight claims to channel."
But in a followup story on Oct. 10th, Knight claimed "she doesn't remember the confession of voice instructor [redacted by request] and his partner, [redacted by request]; the confession is said to have occurred about a year ago in front of about 800 stunned students at Ramtha's School of Enlightenment on Knight's Yelm estate. Knight said she was in a trance at the time --that it was Ramtha who questioned the couple and elicited the confession."
The Deputy Prosecutor doesn't think Knight will be called to testify.
Dinosaur "Heart"topic of debate...
Click here for the Oct. 3 story from USA Today. Tim Friend writes that "A study on the first discovery of a fossilized dinosaur heart, widely reported last spring in newspapers and on television, is under attack over the heart's true identity and a scientific journal's acceptance of the disputed fossil evidence. Critics are charging that the study published in Science did not meet standards normally applied to scientific manuscripts, that the heart is most likely fossilized mud and that the study was published more for its sensational appeal than its academic merit. Some of the critics also charge that the study was given a less rigorous review than normal before its publication because it supports a theory held by a majority of dinosaur paleontologists: that birds descended from dinosaurs. Science won't disclose details of the confidential review process, but journal officials vehemently deny the accusations. They insist the study was handled properly and question the critics' evidence that the fossil is not a heart."
News from September 2000
Area 51 and Gordon Cooper's 'Confiscated Camera'...
In a 29 September story by Jim Oberg, at the space.com site, Oberg writes that "Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper, in his new book Leap of Faith presents a tale of government cover-ups related to spy cameras, to Area 51, and to similar top-secret subjects, based on his own personal experiences on a NASA space mission. As a certified 'American hero,' his credibility with the public is impeccable. But several space veterans who SPACE.com consulted about one of Cooper's spaceflight stories had very different versions of the original events. And some of them showed me hard evidence to back up their skepticism." The story - that Cooper accidently got a high-resolution photograph of Area 51 in Nevada, and that this film was confiscated - has problems, according to Oberg. While Oberg states Cooper's "sincerity and self-confidence remain unquestioned," and he notes that the film was indeed collected by the Pentagon, he found that it can still be examined. The high resolution claimed by Cooper was impossible at the time, and, says Oberg, discussing one of the actual images, ".... the picture, like most of the others, was another disappointment. Splotchy desert sands, covered by scattered clouds, showed only a few faint lines that might have been roads. There were no runways, no mystery buildings, no UFOs."
Prions may play crucial role in evolution...
The University of Chicago Hospitals & Health System reported on Sept. 27th that "Prions, abnormally folded proteins associated with several bizarre human diseases, may hold the key to a major mystery in evolution—how survival skills that require multiple genetic changes arise all at once when each genetic change by itself would be unsuccessful and even harmful. In a study in the September 28, 2000, issue of Nature researchers at the Howard Hughes Institute at the University of Chicago describe a prion-dependent mechanism that seems perfectly suited to solving this dilemma, at least for yeast. It allows yeast to stockpile an arsenal of genetic variation and then release it to express a host of novel characteristics, including the ability to grow well in altered environments." The full report can be found here.
Can we make Toxic Waste Sites Self-Cleaning? Bacteria say "YES!"
The Sept. 28th story from ABC News says that "Researchers at Southern Illinois University say they’ve found a way to turn nearly 40 kinds of common bacteria into toxin eaters that would make hazardous waste sites self-cleaning. The researchers say the natural bacteria can be nudged into turning a toxic chemical into harmless table salt. And the bacteria can do it all without the sun or the air to give it energy. 'This is huge,' said Laurie Achenbach, a molecular biologist at SIU. 'Think of where most of the toxic waste is — in environments where there is no sunlight, like underground or underwater.' The bugs target a toxic chemical called perchlorate, a dry powder used in munitions manufacturing that has seeped into groundwater across the United States. But what is perhaps most important, scientists say, is that these bugs do something that no other organism been known to do. While transforming perchlorate to table salt, the bacteria suck out oxygen, generating that precious energy source without the help of sunlight. Since the bacteria are found everywhere, they could be put to work at sites by simply stimulating them with the 'food' they need, Achenbach said, including acetic acid — another word for vinegar. Professor Brendlyn Faison of Hampton University in Virginia, a member of the American Society for Microbiology, says the practical implications are far-reaching. 'An oxygen source from a waste product in the absence of light suggests a closed system to produce oxygen for humans,' Faison said. 'Think of a mine or the space shuttle.' "
Fordham Foundation releases Major Report on Evolution Teaching.
The conservative foundation released the long-expected report, by professor Lawrence Lerner, on Sept. 27th 2000. The full text of the report is online. Here's a strong sentiment from the executive summary: "That evolution is the central organizing principle of all the historical sciences is not a controversial issue among scientists, nor among most of the world's educated persons. Consequently, the teaching of science worldwide stresses evolution as a routine matter. The United States is exceptional in this regard. In much of this country, the teaching to K-12 students of evolution as scientists see it -- particularly biological evolution -- evokes bitter controversy. Specifically, many persons object to the teaching of part or all of the facts and theory of evolution in the public schools at the primary and secondary level. This controversy is not really about science but about religion and politics."
The report included grades for how well the American states teach evolution. An "A" means the state does a good job teaching evoilution; an "F-" (the rating received by Kansas) indicates a very poor job. Here is a breakdown on how the states fared:
A: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Indiana, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and South Carolina. (10)
B: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, and Washington. (13)
C: Louisiana ,Maryland, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, and Texas. (7)
D: Alaska, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Virginia, and Wisconsin . (6)
F: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wyoming. (12)
F-: Kansas (1)
Not graded : Iowa (1)
More comment on the report can be found in this Sept. 27th article from ABC News.
Greatest Blunders in Science Awards...
A list of "Twenty of the Greatest Blunders in Science in the Last Twenty Years" was announced by Discover.com in the October 2000 issue of Discover magazine. The list is also on-line. Among the blunders in Judith Newman's list are these: the Challenger explosion, Carl Sagan's over-estimates of the severity of Nuclear Winter, Piltdown Chicken (National Geographic's 1999 dinosaur-bird embarassment ), Cold Fusion, Chernobyl, the fictitious cancer threat of electric power lines , the Martian mission failures, the now-shaky evidence of "Martian bacteria" from 1996, Colorado and Kansas opposition to teaching evolution, Fen-phen, the now-bankrupt Iridium satellites, the flap about silicone breast implants, and, of course, "Y2K."
Kennewick Man is returned to Tribes...but is he "Home" ?
After years of limbo, the 9,000-year-old remains of Kennewick Man will be returned to five American Indian tribes, according to a Sept. 26th report from ABC News. The report states that "Bruce Babbitt, the secretary of the interior, said that two years of study by his department have persuaded him that the bones should be returned to the five American Indian tribes." But ABC also notes that Babbitt said "if the remains had been 3,000 years old, 'there would be little debate over whether Kennewick Man was the ancestor of the Upper Plateau Tribes.' But 'the line back to 9,000 years … made the cultural affiliation determination difficult,' he said." ABC also notes that "eight prominent anthropologists, including one from the Smithsonian Institution, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Portland for the right to study the bones. Their lawsuit was temporarily put on hold while the Interior Department looked into the five tribes’ claims on the bones. Now that Babbitt has issued his determination, the scientists say they will ask the judge to let their lawsuit go forward."
Congress gets bipartisan team of 'Science Guys.'
Democratic congressman Rush Holt of New Jersey and Republican congressman Vernon Ehlers of Michigan are collaborating on science and education issues. Both happen to be physicists. A Sept. 25th story from ABC News says that "Holt and Ehlers have become the Science Guys of Congress, joining forces across party lines to support research and science education. Working together, they added language to an education funding flexibility act to prevent schools from spending less on math and science. They opposed legislation jeered by many scientists that would require most taxpayer-funded research to be made public upon request. They fought for an amendment giving science equal billing with reading and math in federal Title I programs for disadvantaged students...."
Fraudulent Psychics? Say it isn't so!
The Sept. 25th story from ABC News says, "The attorney general’s economic crimes unit is investigating the Psychic Readers Network and its sister company, Access Resources Inc., after former employees testified that many of the telephone psychics were actually homeless people from the local Salvation Army shelter. They told investigators no employees were ever tested for psychic ability, that they were given scripts to work from and that the only skill that mattered was their ability to keep callers on the line. The network charges callers $4.99 a minute to have their fortunes told. 'They didn’t care if you were talking to Jesus — talk to him for 20 minutes at least,' said former employee Barbara Weil in a sworn interview with investigators. Barbara Melit, another former telephone psychic, said her colleagues 'came in off the street. They were alcoholics. They had no experience whatsoever as being a psychic. ... They had hit bottom and they basically needed a job to keep them supplied with alcohol and drugs.' " The company calls the allegations “completely and utterly false.”
Nature surveys evolution education in the United States...
You can find the September 20th story by Discovery.com here. They write : "Anti-evolutionists are crippling the teaching of science in more than a third of U.S. states, according to a survey of American schools published Thursday. In 19 of the 50 U.S. states, public schools fudge, ignore or underplay the mountain of scientific data about evolution, says the study, conducted by California State University academic Lawrence Lerner. This is the result of pressure by fundamentalist Christians, especially Protestant evangelicals, he says. Creationists follow a strict interpretation of the Old Testament's Book of Genesis. They hold that the universe and man were created by God a few thousand years ago, and contend that living beings are too complicated to exist without divine help. The theory of evolution holds that life on Earth evolved over billions of years. Lerner, writing in the journal Nature, says he graded 49 states on their treatment of evolution and how their students performed in science. The exception was Iowa, which does not publish statewide academic standards in any form. The 19 poorly-graded states, which Lerner will identify next week when Nature publishes his full study, either sedulously avoided use of the 'E-word,' used Creationist jargon, skimmed over or ignored evidence for evolution. Other tactics were to delete scientific data that says the universe is billions of years old and even add a sticker to textbooks that describes evolution as a 'theory' or 'controversial' in order to diminish its credibility, he says. The U.S. Supreme Court has already struck down several attempts by anti-evolutionists to get Creationism equal billing with evolution in science teaching. The court says that such teaching would be religious and thus have no place in the U.S. public-school system, which is secular. Despite these rulings, vocal Creationists at local level have succeeded in diminishing or diffusing the teaching of evolution, with a hugely destructive effect, says Lerner. This approach can 'seriously damage or even erase the possibility of teaching science to young people as more than a confusing collection of facts,' he says. Six of the poorly-graded states were deemed 'unsatisfactory' in presenting evolution; 12 were 'useless or absent,' and one was 'disgraceful.' In contrast, 10 states were found to do a 'very good to excellent job,' while 21 did 'a good or satisfactory job.' "
Kansas Standards Author Tom Willis Speaks...
New Scientist interviewed creationist Tom Willis on April 22. Click here for the complete interview. A snippet: "Q Do you think Christians who believe in evolution are evil? A I didn't say that. Q I know you didn't say that, I'm asking you do you believe that? A I believe that Christians or anybody who teaches evolution as science is likely to be causing harm. I'd have to say yes, some of them are evil. I would have no way of estimating what percentage are evil and what percentage are mistaken. I'm not God and I'm incapable of looking in the heart of man. ... Q Just for the record, do you believe the Sun goes around the Earth or the Earth goes around the Sun? A I'm sure your readers will love this, but I don't know. Every physicist who's looked at it seriously has realised that we don't know for sure."
Going Up... Way Up...22,000 miles Up?
Here is the September 14th story from ABC News: "This August, NASA scientists put the [space elevator] concept on paper for the first time in a report designed to assess if building an elevator to space is possible and what technologies would be needed to make it possible. The verdict? In a little over 50 years, with a little bit of luck and a lot of research, people could be paying the future equivalent of $5 a pound to take the longest, most exciting elevator ride of their lives. Scientists estimate the journey to literally the beyond would take just over 24 hours. 'The idea is to work on intermediate concepts and then in 50 years we’ll hopefully start working on building this thing,' says David Smitherman, a scientist working in the Advanced Projects office of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. Smitherman admits his 50-year prediction is a little optimistic. The scope of the proposal is unprecedented and daunting. Construction would entail extending a 22,000-mile-long cable from a 20-mile-high or higher tower at the Earth’s equator to a level in space known as geosynchronous orbit. Objects at geosynchronous orbit travel at a speed that matches the spin rate of the Earth. That means the orbital station astronauts would construct at the far end of the space elevator would hover in a straight line over its base on Earth."
Wen Ho Lee pleads guilty to felony, is sentenced to time served, and is free ...
You have been hiding in a bomb shelter if you missed this story. Click here for details from ABC News, including President Clinton's comments: " 'I think that it’s very difficult to reconcile the two positions, that one day he’s a terrible risk to the national security and the next day [prosecutors are] making a plea agreement for an offense far more modest than what had been alleged,' the president said. 'I don’t think that you can justify, in retrospect, keeping a person in jail without bail when you’re prepared to make that kind of agreement. It just can’t be justified,' Clinton said, adding that he’s been troubled by the case for some time."
Is the Face on Mars Artifical? FOX News is still thinking about it...
This is from the FOX News story of Sept. 8th. "The answer appeared to be a clear 'no' two years ago when NASA's Mars Global Surveyor transmitted a new close-up shot of the mysterious outcropping that looked distinctly unfacelike. But various researchers insist a closer look reveals evidence of a non-natural structure; and that some past civilization on the fourth rock from the sun must be giving us the eye....Thomas Van Flandern, an astronomer known for his alternative space science theories, recently released a modified version of NASA's picture on his Web site, MetaResearch.org. Van Flandern says the new image, which is credited to graphic artist Mark Kelly, was an effort 'to use objective computer techniques by image processing experts to restore the image to what it would have looked like if it had been viewed from overhead and with proper lighting."
Ancient Ruins at bottom of Black Sea...do they "explain" Noah's Flood, or do they "prove" it?
Here's a clip from the ABC News story which appeared on September 13th, 2000. "Noah’s Flood? ...The first evidence that humans lived in an area now covered by the Black Sea — perhaps inundated by the biblical flood — has been discovered by a team of explorers. 'Artifacts at the site are clearly well preserved, with carved wooden beams, wooden branches and stone tools,' lead researcher Robert Ballard said. 'We realize the broad significance the discovery has and we’re going to do our best to learn more,' Ballard said in a telephone interview Tuesday from his ship off the northern coast of Turkey, west of the community of Sinop."
Subliminal Advertising? RATS? Yeah, right.
From the Sept. 12th story by ABC News: "At least one psychologist, Wildon Bryan Key, claims they [subliminal advertising messages] are there. But if you see them, their supposed subliminal message is not working. 'The name of the game is don’t get caught,' says Key, who has authored several books about subliminal advertising including The Age of Manipulation. Subliminal messages are only subliminal if people don’t realize what they’ve seen. They are intended to work by tapping the unconscious mind of viewers or listeners and influencing them to think or feel a certain way. That’s why Key and other psychologists argue the G.O.P ad that clearly flashes the word “RATS” as a narrator criticizes democratic health care programs is either a botched attempt at subliminal messaging or a coincidence."
Bob Park suffers Freak Accident..
On Friday, 8 September 2000, the What's New newsletter of the American Physical Society's resident skeptic, Bob Park , made the following announcement. "What's New will not appear this week. Bob Park has been hospitalized after suffering serious injuries in a freak accident. He has undergone extensive surgery and is now battling infections. No doubt he'll fight them with the same intensity he fights the Philistines."
NMSR sends Bob best wishes for a speedy recovery.
Wen Ho Lee still in jail...
Wen Ho Lee's planned release on bail on Friday, Sept. 1st was cancelled that day. After some of the testimony originally responsible for the no-bail measures was recently retracted by agents, it appeared that Lee would be free (but heavily monitored), and would get to go home. But Lee's move was blocked Friday. Details can be found at ABC News . Several science groups are protesting the unusual treatment accorded to Lee. ABC reports that "In an open letter on Thursday to Attorney General Janet Reno, the leaders of three scientific organizations also protested Lee's treatment. 'Although we make no claim as to his innocence or guilt, he appears to be a victim of unjust treatment,' said the letter, signed by Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences; William A. Wulf, president of the National Academy of Engineering and Kenneth I. Shine, president of the Institute of Medicine. The three organizations are independent research groups chartered by Congress to provide scientific advice to government."
Magnetic Shoe Scandal!
Bob Park reports in the 1 September 2000 What's New that "FLORSHEIM PULLS ITS HEALTH CLAIMS. Faced with a consumer lawsuit in California, and ridicule from the scientific community, Florsheim has yanked the brochures that described the "science" behind its MagneForce shoes (WN 18 Aug 00). Its web page, which once claimed that its magnetic insole, "increases circulation: reduces foot, leg and back fatigue; provides natural pain relief and increased energy level," now simply says it's, "the first shoe with its own power supply."
News from August 2000
Robot evolution ?
Click here for the story straight from Brandeis University (August 30, 2000). "They look like toys from outer space - motorized, white plastic gizmos crawling blindly on a table - and are hardly what most people would imagine when they think of the future of robots. But the experimental machines now being born at the Brandeis University DEMO Laboratory may well be to robotics what Kitty Hawk was to aviation. The Wright Brothers in this case are Hod Lipson, a mechanical engineer, and Jordan B. Pollack, a computer scientist. In a paper in the Aug. 31, 2000 issue of Nature, they say their results represent the first time that robots have designed and constructed other robots - a new step towards the autonomy of artificial life. 'Most robotics research is about adding brains to animatronic puppets, which is a lost cause,' says Pollack. 'In nature the body and brain co-evolve together, like the chicken and the egg. There never is one without the other.' In essence, this new work vividly demonstrates the significance of co-evolutionary robotics, a field that stresses the coordinated adaptation of bodies (the hardware) and brains (the software). Electro-mechanical systems driven by neural networks are evolved inside simulations to yield robotic blueprints that are then automatically manufactured and work in the real world. "
EEOC Backs 'Cold Fusion' Devotee
Click here for the story by Curt Suplee of the Washington Post (August 23, 2000). Suplee says that "Belief in radically unconventional scientific notions, such as "cold fusion" or cryptic messages from extraterrestrials, may merit the same workplace protections as freedom of religion, according to a ruling by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in a job-discrimination case. The July 7 EEOC decision came in response to a complaint by maverick Alexandria astronomer and erstwhile patent examiner Paul A. LaViolette, who was fired in April 1999 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. LaViolette, 52, claimed the action was taken because he believes in the validity of a highly controversial energy-generation idea called "cold fusion," along with other unorthodox matters, and protested the decision to the PTO."
APS Skeptic Bob Park profiled in the Sun
Click here for the August 22nd piece by Michael Hill of the Maryland Sun on the American Physical Society's resident skeptic, Bob Park. Hill says "The battles seem to never cease. Park says both of the hockey teams in the Stanley Cup final had coolers of what is purported to be some sort of super-oxygenated water on their benches. 'It is supposed to contain four times the oxygen of normal water,' he says. 'Let's grant them that miracle. That would mean that instead of eight milliliters of oxygen per liter of water, it would have 32 milliliters in a liter. But it turns out a trained athlete uses 130 milliliters of oxygen a second,' he says. 'So even if you drank gallons of this stuff, it would still be nothing.' Nevertheless, he understands how people can be fooled by such claims. 'Science is advancing so rapidly, no one can keep up with it. I didn't know what the solubility of oxygen in water is. I had to look it up.' "
Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis profiled in Alternet...
Click here for Christopher Kemp's August 22nd story. The piece gives some real insight into Ham's motivation. Some quotes: " 'The Bible is not an exhaustive truth on anything,' Ken says. 'It doesn't tell you how to build a motor car, it doesn't tell you how to build a computer.' But the Bible touches on biology, geology and astronomy not only on morality and salvation, he says. 'In other words, if you can't trust the Bible on biology, geology and astronomy, how can you trust it on morality and salvation? We're saying you can trust the Bible where it talks on biology, geology and astronomy so you can trust it where it talks about morality and salvation.'...The Answers in Genesis organization has no interest in politics, says Ken Ham. 'Our aim is not to change the culture; it's to change people because people change cultures anyway,' he says. 'Our main reason for doing things is because we want to see people saved. We want to see people go to Heaven.' "
Forbes: The Answer to Global Warming is not Carbon Budgeting, it's Sunlight Blocking!
Click here for the August 2
