Clipmarks | wiccantexan's 'science' clips

HHS Moves to Define Contraception as Abortion

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 04:15:23 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

In a spectacular act of complicity with the religious right, the Department of Health and Human Services Monday released a proposal that allows any federal grant recipient to obstruct a woman's access to contraception. In order to do this, the Department is attempting to redefine many forms of contraception, the birth control 40% of Americans use, as abortion. Doing so protects extremists under the Weldon and Church amendments. Those laws prohibit federal grant recipients from requiring employees to help provide or refer for abortion services. In the "Definitions" section of the HHS proposal it states,

Under these new standards there would be no way for a woman to prove she's not pregnant. Thus, any woman could be denied contraception under HHS' new science.

Tags: abortion, birth control, legal, federal, pregnancy, women, science

Do we have multiple personalities?

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 03:37:02 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

Instead of seeing each person as a single personality, award-winning science journalist Rita Carter argues in "Multiplicity" that we all consist of multiple characters, each one with its own viewpoint, emotions, and ambitions. She writes that they may share the same body, and none is any more "authentic" than another.

Chapter One
The idea of there being two or more selves in a single body sounds crazy. Look carefully, though, and you will see that the evidence for human plurality is all around us and always has been.

We glimpse it wherever people talk to ancestors, get divine wisdom from spirit guides, receive messages from personified gods, consult oracles, get “taken over” by the souls of the dead or tune in to an “inner helper.”

When someone says “I don’t know what got into me,” or “I just wasn’t myself,” they are implicitly acknowledging the existence of a self other than the one who is speaking.

Tags: science, mind, psychology, human, personality

The nose knows: Smell sharpens during danger

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 05:56:28 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

It turns out emotion plays an even bigger role with the nose, and that your sense of smell actually can sharpen when something bad happens.

Northwestern University researchers proved the surprising connection by giving volunteers electric shocks while they sniffed novel odors.

The discovery, reported in Friday's edition of the journal Science, helps explain how our senses can steer us clear of danger. More intriguing, it could shed light on disorders such as post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Scientists long have known of a strong link between the sense of smell and emotion.

Could an emotionally charged situation make that initial cue be perceived more strongly in the first place?

The research team recruited 12 healthy young adults to find out.

Tags: science, study, danger, smell, emotion, medical

Resuscitation Science: Is There a Third State of Being?

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 04:29:02 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: abcnews.go.com

They call it resuscitation science. It's a new area of research at the University of Pennsylvania, where a Center for Resuscitation Science opened less than a year ago, and where the line between life and death is shifting.

Historically, doctors have defined clinical death as the point at which either the heart irreversibly stops beating or the brain shows no signs of activity according to Dr. Benjamin Abella, the center's clinical research director.

"But researchers … now believe there's a third state of being that hovers somewhere between life and death -- a place where most of the body's cells are still alive, but neither of these two classical signs of life are present," Dr. Abella said.

Through a cooperative arrangement with the National Geographic Channel, ABC News has looked into two of the cases featured in the documentary, studying how the lessons learned from them have contributed to the knowledge of how people can be brought back from clinical death.

Tags: medical, science, life, death, brain

Whoa! Sanity from the RCC?

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 21:27:42 GMT

clipped by: AtlLiberal
clipper's remarks: While we are worlds apart in certain respects, Brother Consolmagno seems the type of person that I'd enjoy spending an afternoon with.

Clip Source: news.scotsman.com

Creationism dismissed as 'a kind of paganism' by Vatican's astronomer

BELIEVING that God created the universe in six days is a form of superstitious paganism, the Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno claimed yesterday.

Brother Consolmagno, who works in a Vatican observatory in Arizona and as curator of the Vatican meteorite collection in Italy, said a "destructive myth" had developed in modern society that religion and science were competing ideologies.

He described creationism, whose supporters want it taught in schools alongside evolution, as a "kind of paganism" because it harked back to the days of "nature gods" who were responsible for natural events.

Brother Consolmagno argued that the Christian God was a supernatural one, a belief that had led the clergy in the past to become involved in science to seek natural reasons for phenomena such as thunder and lightning, which had been previously attributed to vengeful gods.

Tags: religion, catholic, science, creationism

How Does It Feel To Die?

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 04:20:26 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan
clipper's remarks: Sensitive Reader Warning

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

IS IT distressing to experience consciousness slipping away or something people can accept with equanimity? Are there any surprises in store as our existence draws to a close? These are questions that have plagued philosophers and scientists for centuries, and chances are you've pondered them too occasionally.

None of us can know the answers for sure until our own time comes, but the few individuals who have their brush with death interrupted by a last-minute reprieve can offer some intriguing insights. Advances in medical science, too, have led to a better understanding of what goes on as the body gives up the ghost.

If you can take the grisly details, read on for a brief guide to the many and varied ways death can suddenly strike.

Tags: death, human, science, medical

Texas Opposes Teaching Intelligent Design in Public Schools

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 05:09:00 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.woai.com

AUSTIN (AP) - A majority of State Board of Education members said the theory of intelligent design should be left out of the science curriculum for public schools.

The board will rewrite the science curriculum next year and some observers expect backers of intelligent design to push for the theory's inclusion.

In interviews with The Dallas Morning News, 10 of the board's 15 members said they wouldn't support requiring the teaching of intelligent design. One board member said she was open to the idea. Four board members didn't respond to the newspaper's phone calls.

Proponents of intelligent design contend that life is too complex to have occurred by chance, requiring instead the guidance of an unnamed supernatural being. Critics say it's a ploy for introducing creationism - the biblical account of the origin of humans - into science classes.

Tags: texas, public, school, education, intelligent design, science

Eco-Friendly Competition: Who Can Go Greener?

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 04:01:26 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: abcnews.go.com

Actor Ed Begley and 'Science Guy' Bill Nye Vie for Lowest Carbon Footprint

That's right. Call it enviro-smackdown, or battle of the nerds, but Nye is taking on his neighbor.

Nye is a Boeing engineer turned television personality who made science cool in his popular PBS program in the 1990s.

He moved onto Begley's street a year ago, started looking over the fence and built his own solar power system. Nye is not just trying to match Begley -- he's raised the stakes by putting in a state-of-the-art system.

"Without Ed down the street pushing all of us to live a more environmentally-responsible lifestyle, I wouldn't be so motivated to crush him like a bug," says Nye.

Tags: ecology, actor, science, environment, contest, friends

40-Yr-Old Teacher Marries 16-Yr-Old Student

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 03:44:28 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.foxnews.com

WILMINGTON, N.C. — The school district that employed a 40-year-old high-school science teacher and cross-country coach who married a 16-year-old student could find no reason to fire him, school officials said.

Brenton Wuchae coached Windy Hager at South Brunswick High School, where she recently completed her sophomore year as one of the school's top runners.

Wuchae resigned his position and, according to a marriage license, married Hager after the girl's parents begrudgingly gave their consent.

Tags: school, student, teacher, marriage, public, science

Near-Perfect Symmetry Revealed in Red Cosmic Square

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:10:59 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: www.boingboing.net

Red Square nebula

This is an image of the newly-discovered Red Square nebula, detailed in last week's issue of the journal Science. A nebula is an interstellar cloud of gas, plasma, and dust. At the heart of the Red Square nebula is a dying star identified as MWC 922. This infrared image was taken at Palomar and Keck Observatories (Credit: Peter Tuthill). Apparently, the Red Square is one of the most symmetrical objects ever spotted by astronomers. From Space.com:

“If you fold things across the principle diagonal axis, you get an almost perfect reflection symmetry,” said study leader Peter Tuthill from the University of Sydney in Australia. “This makes the Red Square nebula the most symmetrical object of comparable complexity ever imaged.” The Red Square’s extreme symmetry suggests the star’s surroundings are extremely still and not buffeted by external stellar winds or other turbulence...

Tags: cosmology, science, astronomy, nebula, symmetry

Baby Monitor Picks Up Live NASA Video

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 04:36:19 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.cbsnews.com

(AP) An elementary school science teacher in this Chicago suburb doesn't have to turn on the news for an update on NASA's space mission. She just turns on her video baby monitor.

Since Sunday, one of the two channels on Natalie Meilinger's baby monitor has been picking up black-and-white video from inside the space shuttle Atlantis. The other still lets her keep an eye on her baby.

Live video of the mission is available on NASA's Web site, so it's possible the monitor is picking up a signal from somewhere.

Tags: baby, video, nasa, space, science, strange

Yabba-dabba science

Thu, 24 May 2007 20:42:52 GMT

clipped by: laceym
clipper's remarks: Note to would-be Creation Museum visitors: the Earth is round.

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

THE CREATION MUSEUM, a $27-million tourist attraction promoting earth science theories that were popular when Columbus set sail, opens near Cincinnati on Memorial Day. So before the first visitor risks succumbing to the museum's animatronic balderdash — dinosaurs and humans actually coexisted! the Grand Canyon was carved by the great flood described in Genesis! — we'd like to clear up a few things: "The Flintstones" is a cartoon, not a documentary. Fred and Wilma? Those woolly mammoth vacuum cleaners? All make-believe.

This would be risible if anti-evolution forces were confined to a lunatic fringe, but they are not. Witness the recent revelation that three of the Republican candidates for president do not believe in evolution. Three men seeking to lead the last superpower on Earth reject the scientific consensus on cosmology, thermonuclear dynamics, geology and biology, believing instead that Bamm-Bamm and Dino played together.

Tags: science, religion, creationism, evolution

Weird science: ten unexplained phenomena

Sun, 27 May 2007 06:07:41 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

Scientists may never know exactly how the universe began, or help to settle matters of faith. The same is true for the paranormal world. Though science can explain many strange phenomena, some mysteries remain to be solved -- often because there is simply not enough information to reach a definitive conclusion.

From hairy beasts to humming deserts, these mysteries go unexplained

Tags: science, weird, paranormal, phenomena, mystery, unexplained

Scientists Cast Doubt on JFK Bullet Analysis

Fri, 18 May 2007 00:56:10 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

In a collision of 21st-century science and decades-old conspiracy theories, a research team that includes a former top FBI scientist is challenging the bullet analysis used by the government to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald alone shot the two bullets that struck and killed President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

The "evidence used to rule out a second assassin is fundamentally flawed," concludes a new article in the Annals of Applied Statistics written by former FBI lab metallurgist William A. Tobin and Texas A&M University researchers Cliff Spiegelman and William D. James.

Tags: conspiracy, president, science, assassination, kennedy, history, politics

Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming

Wed, 16 May 2007 22:58:04 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: epw.senate.gov

Growing Number of Scientists Convert to Skeptics After Reviewing New Research

Following the U.S. Senate's vote today on a global warming measure (see today's AP article: Senate Defeats Climate Change Measure,) it is an opportune time to examine the recent and quite remarkable momentum shift taking place in climate science. Many former believers in catastrophic man-made global warming have recently reversed themselves and are now climate skeptics. The names included below are just a sampling of the prominent scientists who have spoken out recently to oppose former Vice President Al Gore, the United Nations, and the media driven “consensus” on man-made global warming.

Tags: science, global warming, skeptics, climate, manmade