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Australian researchers have developed a new way to enrich uranium, the fuel used in nuclear power plants.  The method uses lasers to separate rare uranium 235 from its comparably plentiful counterpart, uranium 238--a necessary initial step in the production of nuclear power.  Most nuclear power plants today use an expensive series of centrifuges that use G-force to separate the two isotopes.

Michael Goldsworthy, the leader of the laser enrichment project, is hopeful that one-third of the world's power plant uranium will be enriched using the new process.  General Electric has bought the right to commercialize the technology.

Up until now, the benefits of nuclear power have been stifled by high production costs and concerns over environmental and health risks. 

The University of Alabama has announced the finding of a “crucial missing link in the search for the origin of HIV-1, the virus responsible for human AIDS.” It was discovered in chimp feces in Cameroon. Since the announcement, Science Daily and National Geographic have published articles on the findings. The international community has been seeking to make headway against a pandemic that affected five million people last year. The origin of AIDS is an important find, and is one step closer to the discovery of how HIV first affected humans. Study team member Beatrice Hahn, a professor of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham stated, "Based on what we know about the biology of these viruses, you need to be exposed to infectious blood or body fluids," she said. "You don't get it by petting a chimp." NG suggests the possibility of humans eating chimps, which is common. However, it would have to include the consumption of raw infected blood which could have occurred through eating undercooked or raw meat.

Could it have been an act of bestiality that caused the virus to jump to humans?  Considering the fact that it is widely believed and taught that chimps are a close relative to humans, together with the sexual revolution of the 60s and 70s, when AIDS first emerged…

Somehow, it happened. Hahn said, "We think it's likely that the cross-species transmission took place locally" in the Cameroon. After it first infected humanity it quickly spread to metropolitan areas and throughout the world.

It is interesting to note that the spread of HIV has notoriously involved sexual promiscuity. If biblical guidelines of faithful monogamous heterosexual relationships were followed, AIDS would not be the ever growing problem that it is today.

Yet many "authorities," such as the American Psychological Association, reject “abstinence only” programs as an effective way of preventing HIV/AIDs. It is alleged that “there is little scientific evidence that these programs work.” In reality, abstinence till marriage and faithfulness in marriage is the only 100% guarantee against contracting HIV/AIDs! But it is assumed by the APA that the majority of youth in our society would not follow abstinence and that other “precautions” need to be taught. They fail to recognize however, that “safe sex education” totally undermines the effectiveness of teaching abstinence. Why train and equip students to practice illicit sexuality and then “encourage” them not too? It is like giving a child a loaded gun, showing them exactly how it works and how to fire it and then encouraging them not to fire it.

When will the world realize that God was right all along?

It's high time for some spring color on these pages. The following photos are courtesy of the Devine Front Yard. Enjoy. (Geographical location: Northwest Indiana)

Click to read more ...

Three patients all thought to be in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) have been temporarily roused to consciousness with the use of sleeping pills.  The discovery came by chance when the drug zolpidem (sold under brand name Ambien) was given to a restless PVS patient.  British and South African doctors made the discovery and reported on the findings in the journal NeuroRehabilitation.

PVS is state in which brain-damaged patients are awake, but are evidently unconscious of their environment.

From BBC News:

Each of the three patients studied was given the drug every morning.

An improvement was seen within 20 minutes of taking the drug and wore off after four hours, when the patients restored to their permanent vegetative state.

Patient L had been in a vegetative state for three years, showing no response to touch and no reaction to his family.

After he was given Zolpidem, he was able to talk to them, answering simple questions.

Patient G was also able to answer simple questions and catch a basketball.

Patient N had been "constantly screaming", but stopped after being given the drug when he started watching TV and responding to his family.

Dr Ralf Clauss, now in the nuclear medicine department at the Royal Surrey Hospital was one of the researchers who carried out the study.

He told the BBC: "For every damaged area of the brain, there is a dormant area, which seems to be a sort of protective mechanism.

"The damaged tissue is dead, there's nothing you can do.

"But it's the dormant areas which 'wake up'."

 At least one neuroscientist questioned the findings.  He said that many patients who are diagnosed with PVS may have some other brain condition that allows them to become conscious.  But apparently PVS is diagnosed, by definition, when a patient is wakeful but unresponsive.  Either PVS is often misdiagnosed, or the term itself (persistent vegetative state) is a scientific misnomer. [Correction: Medically speaking, the term "persistent" is not synonymous with "permanent," as I implied here. However, many physicians have insisted that the condition is irreversible. Neuroscientist Mike Barnes, quoted in the BBC story, said, "A diagnosis of PVS means the patient should not wake up and respond."]

The news of the medical breakthrough comes on the heels of the release of Michael Schiavo's book, "Terri: The Truth," in which he defends his effort to have his late wife's feeding tube removed.  Terri Schiavo, who was diagnosed with PVS, died from dehydration on March 31, 2005.  She would have remained on life support had she consciously expressed a desire to live.

Yesterday Chuck Colson addressed the cloning scandal surrounding Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk, who was indicted for embezzlement, fraud, and the violation of bioethic laws.  Was Hwang's behavior simply an unusual case of a zealous scientist gone bad--or does it reflect a greater trend in the developed world toward utilitarianism, the sacrifice of the weak for the greater good?

I've republished Colson's BreakPoint commentary, "The Devil's Calculus," here. 

ID proponate William Dembski has posted online a research paper titled "Christian Theodicy in Light of Genesis and Modern Science." (Theodicy is a defense of God's goodness in the face of evil and suffering.)  While Dembski accepts an old age for the earth and universe (4.5 and 12 billion years, respectively) and believes the Genesis flood account must be interpreted as local, he nevertheless understands the young-earth creationist position as being theologically sound (see page 15 of the paper).  But most importantly, the focus of his paper--the goodness of God and man's role in the "creation" of evil--provides excellent food for thought.  The following allegory from pages 28 and 29 of the paper helps summarize Dembski's points:

It is vital here to have a correct picture of Christ’s redemption and our role in it. In allowing evil and then redeeming us from it, God is not an arsonist who starts a fire, let’s things heat up for us, and then, at the last moment, steps in so that he can be the big hero. Nor is God a casual bystander, who sees a fire start spontaneously and then lets it get out of control so that he can be the big hero to rescue us. We are the arsonists. We started the fire. God wants to rescue us not only from the fire we started but also, and more importantly, from our disposition to start fires, that is, from our life of arson. But to rescue us from a life of arson requires that we know the seriousness of what arson can do. Fires always start out small. If God always instantly put out the fires we start, we would never appreciate the damage fires can do. God therefore allows the fire that we have started in consenting to evil to rage, but not so that he can be a big hero when he rescues us from it but so that we can rightly understand the human condition and come to our senses. In rescuing us, God does end up being a hero. But that is not the point. The point is to fix a broken relationship between God and humanity.

I recognize that this subject is controversial and complex, and no one illustration is going to tidy everything up.  But Dembski emphasizes many of the right things, it seems to me, such as man's personal responsibility for evil by rebelling against God.  (And some might argue that God being the hero is the main point).  I especially liked his closing words:

Let us always bear in mind that the problem of evil is part of a much larger problem, namely, the problem of a benevolent God restoring a prodigal humanity to himself. This is the problem of good, and it subsumes the problem of evil.

 

According to National Geographic News, DNA tests have proven that the animal shot in the Arctic by American hunters last month is indeed a rare polar and grizzly bear hybrid.  The bear was found on Banks Island of Canada's Northwest Territories, and is the offspring of a male grizzly and female polar.  BBC News says that polars and grizzlies have been interbred in captivity before, but differences in mating seasons--and very limited interaction--make it unusual to find a hybrid in the wild.  Tentative names for the animal include "grolar bear," "pizzly" and "nanulak," an Inuit coinage.

The hybrid demonstrates that animals which look very distinct may not be very distinct genetically.  Many creationists believe that polars and grizzlies are descendants of a common bear ancestor.

Meanwhile, scientists studying primates in Tanzania have identified not just a new species, but a new genus of monkey.  The baboon-like Rungwecebus kipunji was isolated from other genera using DNA analysis.  It lives on Tanzania's Mt. Rungwe.

The Mufti, Egypt's "most senior religious scholar," has issued a fatwa condemning the display of statues.  What could this mean in a country where one of the world's most ancient and famous civilizations is marked by carvings of the pharaohs?

According to BBC News, the ruling is reflective of a more significant trend in Muslim-dominated Egypt. 

"These days Egyptians are increasingly seeking religious rulings on all aspects of life."

"There's been really a big retreat to the distant past," says Mohamed al-Sayed Said from the al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.  "What we are having at this point is an increasing gulf between secular and religious cultures."