...specially shaped protein on the egg. No foreigners are allowed; a wrong species’ sperm would waste an egg. Only if the match is proper can the sperm force its way in, and fertilization occur. A new potential life is under way. Entrance of the sperm stimulates calcium ion channels in the egg’s wall to open. This immediately closes the egg’s membrane to all other invaders. One is company. Two’s a crowd, genetically speaking. The closure is first induced by a change in the electrical charge across the membrane, and then by a release of a chemical hardener that cross-links the gelatinous outer membrane coating.(The Hidden Face of God: Science
The sperm is now within the egg, but it is kept at bay. The egg still has a full set of chromosomes, twenty-three pairs. Half must be discarded. At this stage the egg undergoes meiotic division, division without chromosome replication. Though the egg’s chromosomes are divided equally between the two new cells, as before, almost all the cytoplasm is concentrated in one daughter cell, that which contains the sperm’s nucleus. This done, the sperm and egg each duplicate their respective twenty-three chromatids, motor proteins move the two nuclei together, the nuclear membranes open, and the chromatids mingle, each finding and pairing with its corresponding partner. Spindle fibers and motor proteins then pull one member of each pair to opposite poles, two nuclear membranes form, and mitotic cellular division occurs. Another bio-ballet, a coordinated dance of molecules within the body, has passed. A few days and several further mitotic divisions will go by before this new bit of life reaches the uterus.
At this point, one has to bend over backward to accept that all of these necessary and interwoven steps have evolved randomly. There are only two forms of reproduction, mitosis and meiosis. There are no intermediate forms visible in nature. Yet somehow, according to evolutionists, a batch of lucky mutations allowed meiosis to blossom on the tree of life.
In human reproduction, meiosis gives way to mitosis, but with an amazing twist to the mitotic principle of daughter cells being replicas of the parent. As the cells divide, some of the daughters discover or interpret how and where to become the cells of a heart, and some a nose or toe. How this miracle of structuring occurs remains a speculative mystery. The knowledgeable differentiation among the newly forming cells appears in principle to be orchestrated by concentration gradients of specific molecules within the cluster of cells, but the wonder of it remains. Who or what supplied the scheme? Wisdom is encoded in the very stuff on which it must act, the blueprint and the builder all in one.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fishermen in northern Thailand have caught the biggest catfish on record -- a 646-pound (293-kg) giant the size of a grizzly bear -- and eaten it, the WWF and the National Geographic Society said on Wednesday. (Continue reading)
'Brainstorming', the buzzword used by executives to generate ideas among their staff, has been deemed politically incorrect by civil servants because it is thought to be offensive to people with brain disorders.
Instead staff at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI) in Belfast will use the term 'thought-showers' when they get together to think creatively. A spokeswoman said: 'The DETI does not use the term brainstorming on its training courses on the grounds that it may be deemed pejorative.'
Sources inside the department said there was concern that the term would cause offence to people with epilepsy as well those with brain tumours or brain injuries.
But the Campaign for Plain English complained that the decision had 'reached the point of real ridicule'.
'You do sometimes wonder if some people haven't got anything better to do with their time,' said spokesman John Wild.
Benjamin Franklin wrote a half-serious letter on the subject of flatulation to the Royal Academy of Brussels. The letter, which was never posted, may be found in the Stevens Collection of the Franklin Mss. at the State Department, Washington, D.C. It reads in part: “He that dines on stale Flesh. . shall be able to afford a Stink that no Company can tolerate; while he that has lived for some time on Vegetables only, shall have that Breath so pure as to be insensible to the most delicate Noses and if he can manage so as to avoid the Report, he may anywhere give vent to his Griefs, unnoticed.”
(Adolf Hitler's Guilt Feelings: A Problem in History and Psychology
By R. G. L. Waite
Journal of Interdisciplinary History,
Vol. 1, No. 2. (Winter, 1971), :236)
If only people didn't discriminate against flatulent people then all would be well, but that's discrimination for you. Do you discriminate against stinky people? Is it not bigotry to discriminate against all stinky people based on the smell of a few?
Word of the day: flat·u·lent Etymology: Middle French, from Latin flatus act of blowing, wind, from flare to blow -- more at BLOW1 a : marked by or affected with gas generated in the intestine or stomach b : likely to cause gas2 : pompously or portentously overblown : INFLATED- flat·u·lent·ly adverb
[Three blind brothers] pulled off Mamet-worthy phone cons, employing cell phones, Braille-display computers, ace code-writing skills, and an uncanny ability to impersonate anyone from corporate suits to sex-starved females. [...](Wired)
The phone phreakers' term for this is social engineering: using a combination of brains and guile to obtain codes for trespassing into systems to rejigger them via strings of touch-tone code. Combine this talent with supersensitive hearing - the brothers can dissect an international connection the way wine expert Robert Parker pulls notes from a glass of Bordeaux - and you have what BernieS, a legendary phreaker and contributor to the hacking journal 2600, calls "a formidable skill set."
At one point during my visit with the Badirs, I pull out my cell phone and make a call. Before it even connects, Shadde, who is sitting across the room, recites all 12 digits perfectly.
Ramy smiles at the parlor trick. "It used to be disgusting to be blind," he says. "Today, you scare people. You possess skills that those with sight cannot possibly understand."
The most popular hack, which works on most models, is the "Instant Walk." Three short clicks, followed by two long, one short, two long, and three short; turn [virtually] any crosswalk signal from "don't walk" to "walk" with a matching change in the traffic signals.(Hackerz)
[...]The jaw-dropping performance of a teenage sprinter from South Africa named Oscar Pistorius is raising a question once barely imaginable: can a double-leg amputee run fast enough to qualify for the able-bodied Olympic Games?
And if he did, would he be allowed to compete?
Oddly enough, the first question may be easier to answer: "I have no doubt that Oscar will eventually run fast enough to compete in an able-bodied world championship," says U.S. sprinter Brian Frasure. "He could be ready to qualify for South Africa in time for the 2008 Olympics," Frasure adds, pointing out that Oscar, barely 18, is at least 10 years away from his physical peak. [...]
Expect more stories like this in the future.
...The animals had no heartbeat or brain activity and were classed as being clinically dead.
The saline solution was then replaced with fresh blood and electric shocks were used to restart the heart. The dogs appeared unharmed by their suspension and had suffered no brain damage.
Scientists...hope to use the technique on humans within a year and are in talks with hospitals about trials on trauma patients.
It befell an adventurous businessman, Heinrich Schliemann,
to dispel the myth and prove that Troy in fact existed. Born in Germany in 1822, he took a job in Amsterdam, mastered several languages, became a wealthy merchant in Russia, and took up archaeology as a serious hobby in Paris. After a divorce he married a Greek girl and moved to Athens; there Greek legends and myths began to guide his archaeological interests. Traveling extensively in the Hellenic zone, he accepted suggestions made by others that a site named Hissarlik at the tip of Asia Minor, on the eastern shores of the Straits of Dardanelles, was the location of ancient Troy.
Financing excavations with his own funds, he oversaw archaeological work at the site for almost two decades, beginning in 1870 until his death in 1890, when the work was continued by his assistant Wilhelm Dorpfeld. Schliemann’s own excavations unearthed several successive levels of occupation at Troy, evidence of the city’s fall at a time correlating with Homer’s tale, and artifacts testifying to the city’s opulence and period. A necklace, tiara, and other royal jewelry named King Priam’s Treasure by Schliemann were gifted by him to his wife to wear in public.
Schliemann’s discoveries at Troy, which he carefully documented and artfully publicized, did not result in the immediate appreciation that he expected. The scholarly establishment resented the intrusion into their realm by a self-appointed archaeologist. Few were ready to part with the notion that Homer’s tale was just a myth. Accusations were made that Schliemann faked evidence, that some artifacts were really from other places. Even when, digging in Greece proper, he proved Homer right by uncovering ancient Mycenae and a royal tomb which he claimed was that of Agamemnon, he was still derided. A golden mask that he suggested was the death mask ofAgamemnon was dismissed as a modern fake. [....]
In spite of all that, many now consider Schliemann the Father of modern archaeology. Archaeologists now retain no doubt whatsoever that the site of Hissarlik is indeed the site of ancient Troy, and that in that respect Homer’s tale was no myth. That Troy was destroyed, in the thirteenth century B.C. by siege and war, is also undisputed, though no one can say nowadays whether it was really about the beautiful Helen—or due to the wish of the god Zeus to lessen Earth’s burden by getting some tribes of Mankind done away with.
Yet that is precisely why I chose to start the Expedition to Turkey with a visit to Troy; for, if Homer was right about there having been a city of Troy, and if Troy was in fact destroyed in a war, and if its treasures matched the Bronze Age period indicated by Homer, why doubt the rest of his tale—that not only men but also gods were involved in the conflict?
As the Expedition took the group to other exciting sites in Turkey, such as those of the Hittites or of Assyrian trading colonies, or to museums where artifacts from those past civilizations are kept, the reference to “gods” in inscribed texts and their depictions in countless monuments were omnipresent. As often as not, the depictions showed the gods as towering over their favored human kings. The gods are distinguished by their horned helmets or other garments or footwear, or by the hieroglyph for “divine” or by the title “god” preceding their personal inscribed names.
To the ancient peoples, the “gods” were real, physically present. Without accepting that, traveling from one archaeological site or museum to another was, I felt, an exercise in futility. Having read my books, my group already knew that all the tales of gods hark back to the millennia-old Sumerian tales of the Anunnaki, "Those who from Heaven to Earth came."
(The Earth Chronicles Expeditions: Journeys to the Mythical Past
By Zecharia Sitchin :7-8)
Ruins of Troy:
Depictions of the gods:
(The Nephilim and the Pyramid of the Apocalypse
By Patrick Heron :92)
Interesting fossils:
The head of a normal size person seems to come to just above the knee of what ancients depicted as "the gods" or perhaps "the giants" that the Israelites were called to kill. David vs. Goliath, etc. But anyway, it seems to me that having an ancient philosopher, historian or other type of scholar write of "the gods" as if they had an impact on their national history and so on would be like a modern historian writing, "Then Superman came down from the sky and decided who would be president..." It is possible that a scholar would write such things if they were taking artistic license. But typically, art goes with art and is easily refuted as a matter of fact instead of being mixed throughout otherwise sound scholarship and history.
Jesus, on a god like lightning:
The seventy-two returned with joy and said, "Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name."
He replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."
Note how he says, "...do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you..." although he just mentioned real creatures such as snakes and scorpions, literal/physical things. There are those lacking in spiritual discernment who therefore lack any discernment of metaphors who focus on literal/physical snakes and scorpions. That's not what Jesus was saying.
Although biblically, are metaphors literalized sometimes? Of course, as the Word became flesh, it is just that even people who have studied literature, words, writ and law all of their lives may not understand the way in which a line between the Platonic world of the Forms and the literal world may be crossed.
Perhaps those who can transfigure into the "Heaven between heavens..." know more. It would figure that you cannot figure some things out. But it is interesting to think about.
It seems that when it comes to investigating natural phenomena there is a line that some scientists, for some reason, are unwilling to cross. Equally, it seems that there are some individuals, including very distinguished scientists, who are willing to risk the censure and ridicule of their colleagues by stepping over that mark. This book is about those scientists. But, more importantly, it is about the curious social and intellectual forces that seek to prohibit such research; about those areas of scientific research that are taboo subjects: subjects whose discussion is forbidden under pain of ridicule and ostracism.(Alternative Science: Challenging
It is also about what I believe to be a worrying but well-documented social trend; a trend towards a normalised world view based on a singular model that is derived entirely from the reductionist western scientific viewpoint, and the marginalisation and suppression of any form of scientific dissent or alternative world view.
From the examples given earlier you might imagine that I am speaking historically and that, while the ill-informed people of previous centuries fell into the error of rejecting major discoveries from the worlds of electricity and astronomy, no scientist today would react in such an intemperate, unreflecting way about a matter that must be purely a question of fact. Actually, Faraday and Reichenbach would almost certainly have experienced more difficulty not less in making their voices heard in today’s climate of intolerance.
In March 1989, Professor Martin Fleischmann of Southampton University and Professor Stanley Pons of the University of Utah put a new phrase into the scientific lexicon when they jointly announced the discovery of ‘cold fusion’ — the production of usable amounts of energy by what seemed to be a nuclear process occurring in a jar of water at room temperature.
The reaction to the announcement was almost universally hostile. The two were ridiculed by both the popular and the scientific press, especially Nature magazine. Major institutions who had already spent several billion dollars in pursuit of ‘hot’ fusion — notably Harwell and MIT — announced that Fleischmann and Pons’s results could not be reproduced. When it was discovered that MIT had fudged their experimental results (as described in Chapter 3) they merely amended their conclusion from ‘failure to reproduce’ to ‘too insensitive to confirm’. But by that time the damage had been done: cold fusion had been discredited. No more significant research money was to be granted for cold fusion research and the United States patent office still relies on the MIT findings to reject all patent applications involving cold fusion.
This official position remains despite the fact that, at the time of writing, cold fusion reactions have been reproduced by ninety-two major universities and commercial corporations in ten countries around the world including Stanford Research Institute, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Naval Research Laboratory, Naval Weapons Centre at China Lake, Naval Ocean Systems Centre, Texas A & M University, California Polytechnic Institute and Japan’s Hokkaido and Osaka Universities.
In many ways cold fusion is the perfect paradigm of scientific taboo in action. The high priests of hot fusion were quick to ostracise those whom they saw as profaning the sacred wisdom. And empirical fact counted for nothing in the face of their concerted derision.
[...]The ancient Hebrews called the date palm the "tree of life" because of the protein in its fruit and the shade given by its long leafy branches. The Arabs said there were as many uses for the date palm as there were days in the year. Greek architects modeled their Ionic columns on the tree's tall, thin trunk and curling, bushy top. The Romans called it Phoenix dactylifera -- "the date-bearing phoenix" -- because it never died and appeared to be reborn in the desert where all other plant life perished.
Now Solowey and her colleagues have brought this phoenix of the desert back to life after 2,000 years. [...])
This is a struggle between good and evil and we're the good.(Dean, February 2005)
Dean's latest remarks -- made as he trolled California this week, stoking his party's coffers and meeting with grassroots activists as part of a nationwide trip -- could ignite more controversy and reaction from his own party. "You know, the Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people. They're a pretty monolithic party. Pretty much, they all behave the same, and they all look the same. ... It's pretty much a white Christian party," [Isn't Dean a white self defined Christian? Sheesh...] the former Vermont governor told a San Francisco roundtable Monday in reaction to a question about the lack of outreach to minority communities by political parties. "Our folks have got to spend time in the communities," he said. "We want a very diverse group of people running for office -- African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos." After the story of Dean's comments broke on SFGate.com, The Chronicle Web site, on Tuesday and was picked up by the Drudge Report, DNC spokesman Josh Earnest scrambled to soften the impact of Dean's comments. While acknowledging that Dean was quoted accurately, Earnest insisted that once again Dean meant to say "Republican leadership." ...For small donors, hearing 'George Bush is bad' is enough," [a key party fundraiser] said. "What I'm hearing very clearly from big donors is: 'Tell me how we'll win.' We need a Democratic National Committee that is convincing white Republican Christians that they should be voting for us -- not vilifying them," said Randlett, who supported Dean for the chairmanship. ...
With that kind of increasing criticism from inside the Democratic Party in recent weeks...Republicans say they couldn't be happier.
...
According to...FEC filings, the DNC has raised $18.6 million in the first four months of the year -- less than half of the $42.6 million raised by the RNC in the same period.
Dean, whose schedule in San Francisco Monday included the roundtable, a visit to a gay and lesbian house party and a fund-raiser, called the report "total hooey." ...
I hate Republicans and everything they stand for.
The measure would prohibit corporal punishment including whipping, spanking and pinching. Also forbidden would be washing a child's mouth out with soap and administering electric shocks.Those who seek a lack of judgment tend to make associative arguments that blur things in an indiscriminate way. So they lump everything together.
....students as young as 11 were asked: 'How many oral sex partners have you had.'
...Three boys were charged this week with statutory rape for allegedly asking and receiving oral sex from a 15-year-old girl. Two juveniles boys were also involved. ...(TownOnline)
Said one student about the incident: "I think this is something that's typical of high school. We just don't know about it."
I've seen far too many anti-spanking parents who, under a thin veneer of civility, spend the whole day hissing and seething at their children, and end up rearing passive-aggressive basket cases.(The Times (London)
Anti-spanking parents like to think of themselves as the child-rearing equivalents of horse whisperers -taming their charges without ever laying a finger on them.
But the horse-whispering method is to tie the horse to a long rope and make it run in circles for hours at an end until the horse, in its confusion and exhaustion, puts itself at the mercy of the whisperer. To me, the idea of psychologically wearing your child out on the end of some conceptual rope seems a far crueller-and, in a queue for "same-day travel" at Victoria Station, unrealistically time-consuming-option than a quick, punitive "one-handed clap".
This meta-analysis investigates differences between the effect sizes of physical punishment and alternative disciplinary tactics for child outcomes in 26 qualifying studies. Analyzing differences in effect sizes reduces systematic biases and emphasizes direct comparisons between the disciplinary tactics that parents have to select among. The results indicated that effect sizes significantly favored conditional spanking over 10 of 13 alternative disciplinary tactics for reducing child noncompliance or antisocial behavior. Customary physical punishment yielded effect sizes equal to alternative tactics, except for one large study favoring physical punishment. Only overly severe or predominant use of physical punishment compared unfavorably with alternative disciplinary tactics.(Comparing Child Outcomes of Physical Punishment
