****************
http://rss.clipmarks.com/clipper/spherepet/
****************
****************
e=mc2: 103 years later, Einstein’s proven right
Eintein’s celebrated formula e=mc2 has finally been corroborated, thanks to a heroic computational effort by French, German and Hungarian physicists.
A brainpower consortium led by Laurent Lellouch of France’s Centre for Theoretical Physics, using some of the world’s mightiest supercomputers, have set down the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and neutrons, the particles at the nucleus of atoms.
According to the conventional model of particle physics, protons and neutrons comprise smaller particles known as quarks, which in turn are bound by gluons.
The odd thing is this: the mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks is only five percent. Where, therefore, is the missing 95 percent?
The answer, according to the study published in the US journal Science on Thursday, comes from the energy from the movements and interactions of quarks and gluons.
In other words, energy and mass are equivalent, as Einstein proposed in his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905.
The e=mc2 formula shows that mass can be converted into energy, and energy can be converted into mass.
By showing how much energy would be released if a certain amount of mass were to be converted into energy, the equation has been used many times, most famously as the inspirational basis for building atomic weapons.
But resolving e=mc2 at the scale of sub-atomic particles — in equations called quantum chromodynamics — has been fiendishly difficult.
“Until now, this has been a hypothesis,” France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) said proudly in a press release.
“It has now been corroborated for the first time.”
For those keen to know more: the computations involve “envisioning space and time as part of a four-dimensional crystal lattice, with discrete points spaced along columns and rows.”
****************
Two constants to rule us all
Physicists whittle down the number of truly fundamental constants.
How many physical constants does it take to describe the Universe? The answer, according to a team of physicists in Brazil, is just two.
The two can be chosen, according to taste, from a list of three: the speed of light, the strength of gravity, and Planck’s constant, which relates the energy to the frequency of a particle of light, say George Matsas of the São Paulo State University and his colleagues.
****************
Masada, desert fortress
To maintain interior coolness in the hot and dry climate of Masada, the many buildings of various sizes and functions had thick walls constructed of layers of hard dolomite stone, covered with plaster. The higher northern side of Masada was densely built up with structures serving as the administrative center of the fortress and included storehouses, a large bathhouse and comfortable living quarters for officials and their families.
|
|
||
| 1. Small bathhouse 2. Herod’s palace-villa 3. Storerooms 4. Apartment building 5. Snake-path gate 6. Casemate-wall 7. Zealots’ living quarters |
8. Underground cistern 9. Southern bastion 10. western palace 11. Throne room 12. West gate 13. Synagogue 14. Large bathhouse |
|
King Herod’s residential palace. On the northern edge of the steep cliff, with a splendid view, stood the elegant, intimate, private palace-villa of the king. It was separated from the fortress by a wall, affording total privacy and security. This northern palace consists of three terraces, luxuriously built, with a narrow, rock-cut staircase connecting them. On the upper terrace, several rooms served as living quarters; in front of them is a semi-circular balcony with two concentric rows of columns. The rooms were paved with black and white mosaics in geometric patterns.
**************
Tunguska
Early on the morning of June 30, 1908, a massive explosion rocked the Siberian wilderness flattening more than 2,000 square kilometres of forest.
Villagers 100 kilometres away from the Podkamennaya Tunguska river basin reported seeing a fireball in the sky, feeling intense heat, hearing loud thumps and being thrown off their feet.
“The split in the sky grew larger, and the entire Northern side was covered with fire. At that moment I became so hot that I couldn’t bear it, as if my shirt was on fire; from the northern side, where the fire was, came strong heat.
“I wanted to tear off my shirt and throw it down, but then the sky shut closed, and a strong thump sounded, and I was thrown a few yards,” reported one villager.
The explosion lit up the sky as far away as London for several days.
Nearly two decades later, the first expedition into the area led by Russian meteorite specialist Leonid Kulik found a region of scorched trees 50 km in diameter, but no crater.
It’s now believed that the Tunguska event — as it’s now known — was hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima
Tunguska has long fascinated scientists, enthusiasts and sci-fi fans. Over the years, the mystery of the event has prompted a number of theories with varying degrees of scientific plausibility. These have ranged from a meteorite to the crash of an alien spacecraft; an explosion of methane or the result of Nikola Tesla’s experiments with electricity near New York.
Cosmic crash
Taken during the 1927 Leonid Kulik expedition, this photograph shows trees destroyed by the blast nearly 20 years before.
The most commonly accepted scientific theory is that the 10-15 megaton blast was caused by either the impact of a cosmic object or by its explosion 5-10 kilometres above the Earth’s surface.
“The theory was that it was a comet nucleus that looked like a snow drift of loosely bound dusty matter exploded in the atmosphere,” says Australian astronomer, Dr Fred Watson.
However, in 2007 Italian scientists suggested that Lake Cheko, an elliptical lake eight kilometres west of the blast’s epicentre, could be a crater caused by a meteorite thrown from the exploding comet or asteroid.
“Its funnel-like bottom morphology and the structure of its sedimentary deposits, revealed by acoustic imagery and direct sampling, all suggest that the lake fills an impact crater,” the researchers reported in Terra Nova.
“Lake Cheko may have formed due to a secondary impact onto alluvial swampy ground; the size and shape of the crater may have been affected by the nature of the ground and by impact-related melting and degassing of a permafrost layer.”
But some UK scientists say that the lake is “highly unlikely to be an impact crater.”
“Several lines of observational evidence… contradicts the impact hypothesis for the lake’s origin: un-crater-like aspects of the lake morphology, the lack of impactor material in and around the lake, and the presence of apparently unaffected mature trees close to the lake,” they responded in Terra Nova.
Watson says the lake was not at the centre of the blast and could have been created by a fragment coming in sideways, which would explain why there were trees in the area that were older than 100 years.
Another reason Lake Cheko could be an impact crater is the fact it wasn’t documented on maps until after the 1908 event, he says.
The ‘alternativists’
The mystery of the Tunguska event has prompted a number of alternative theories which are not documented in scientific journals or subject to rigorous scientific investigation.
In Russia, a 2008 conference devoted to the “Tunguska Event” nearly came to blows between the “meteoreticians” and the “alternativists,” says Andrei Olkhovatov, an alternatist.
“The meteorite theory is the main one. We’re like the poor relatives,” he says.
This year, the “alternativists” organised a separate conference at which they sketched out outlandish theories for an event they say ordinary physics cannot explain.
Physicist Boris Rodionov believes the explosion was most likely caused by US physicist Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) detonating an underground volcano in Siberia by harnessing electric charges in the air from his laboratory tower outside New York.
Other theories outlined at the conference ranged from the thesis that it was a particularly powerful bolt of lightning to the proposition that it was the result of interaction between yin and yang energy fields in the universe.
As he points to multi-coloured drawings of lightning coming from the Earth’s core, Vladimir Mikhailov, a clairvoyant with an intense stare, proclaims: “My theory explains everything. I just needed a place to express myself.”
Others say the enduring popularity of the meteorite theory was only due to the fact that there is more money for scientists in stressing the danger of meteorites for the Earth.
“It’s all linked to financing. They are just attracting attention to the danger of meteorites, using the example of Tunguska. It worries people,” says Sergei Sukhonos, who attended another conference in the village of Vanavara, the settlement nearest to the epicentre of the blast.
The truth is out there
In 1991, Italian scientists still found evidence of fallen trees near the blast site. (Source: University of Bologna http://www-th.bo.infn.it/tunguska/)
Every day the Earth is bombarded by space dust and particles, most of it so small it vaporises in the Earth’s atmosphere.
But occasionally larger objects strike Earth. Last September, a meteorite exploded and formed a 13 square metre crater filled with boiling brown water near the Peruvian town of Carancas.
Currently 5,520 thousand near Earth objects (NEOs) have been identified by NASA’s Near Earth Object program, set up in 1998 to track and characterise asteroids and comets that could pose a threat to Earth.
Over 770 of these objects are asteroids of over one kilometre in length and 960 of these objects are classed as “potentially hazardous asteroids”, in other words, asteroids that could come close to Earth.
And cosmic objects can certainly pack a punch.
“The rule of thumb is that a 100 metre asteroid equals a 100 mTon hydrogen bomb”, says Watson.
“A hundred metre long object can do a lot of damage,” he says, adding that the kinetic energy created by the entry speed determines the force of impact.
Events the size of Tunguska happen around once every 200 to 1000 years.
Understanding the Tunguska event could help us prepare for the impact of a similar sized cosmic event striking a populated place on Earth, recently wrote the Italian scientists behind the Lake Cheko theory, in American Scientist.
“The first step in preparing ourselves would be to decide whether the cosmic object that affected Siberia was an asteroid or comet.
“Although the consequences are roughly comparable in either case, the important difference is that objects in the solar system that circle far away from the sun on long-period orbits [longer than 200 years] before returning, such as comets, would hit the Earth at much greater velocities than close-orbiting bodies such as asteroids,” they wrote.
Perhaps the answer to this 100-year-old mystery lies at the bottom of the lake.
The scientists plan to return to Lake Cheko this year to investigate beneath the lake bed, where they say seismic- reflection profiles show a strong acoustic reflector, “probably the echo of a dense, metre-size rocky object.”
Decades ago, nutritionists lobbied the US government to add iodine to salt, because most US residents weren’t getting enough iodine in their diets. Today, most of us here in the US accept that salt comes with iodine (though you can buy it without). Chemists like UC Santa Barbara’s Bruce Lipshutz, who studies CoQ10, hope that in the future we will also accept the idea that CoQ10 comes in drinking water, perhaps along with several other vital vitamins and enzymes. So even if you want to grow old and die in the old-fashioned way, you may not be able to — at least, if you plan to drink water.
What is conflict?
Conflict is a natural disagreement resulting from individuals or groups that differ in attitudes, beliefs, values or needs. It can also originate from past rivalries and personality differences. Other causes of conflict include trying to negotiate before the timing is right or before needed information is available.
The ingredients of conflict.
Needs – Needs are things that are essential to our well-being. Conflicts arise when we ignore others’ needs, our own needs or the group’s needs. Be careful not to confuse needs with desires (things we would like, but are not essential).
Perceptions – People interpret reality differently. They perceive differences in the severity, causes and consequences of problems. Misperceptions or differing perceptions may come from: self-perceptions, others’ perceptions, differing perceptions of situations and perceptions of threat.
Power – How people define and use power is an important influence on the number and types of conflicts that occur. This also influences how conflict is managed. Conflicts can arise when people try to make others change their actions or to gain an unfair advantage.
Values – Values are beliefs or principles we consider to be very important. Serious conflicts arise when people hold incompatible values or when values are not clear. Conflicts also arise when one party refuses to accept the fact that the other party holds something as a value rather than a preference.
Feelings and emotions – Many people let their feelings and emotions become a major influence over how they deal with conflict. Conflicts can also occur because people ignore their own or others’ feelings and emotions. Other conflicts occur when feelings and emotions differ over a particular issue.
Conflict is not always negative. In fact, it can be healthy when effectively managed. Healthy conflict can lead to…
Growth and innovation
New ways of thinking
Additional management options
If the conflict is understood, it can be effectively managed by reaching a consensus that meets both the individual’s and society’s needs. This results in mutual benefits and strengthens the relationship. The goal is for all to “win” by having at least some of their needs met.
How public and private conflicts differ.
Most of us have experience with conflict management and negotiation in private disputes (with a salesman, among family members or with your employer).
Public conflicts, like those that can occur during watershed management efforts and other environmental issues often are rooted in trying to balance environmental protection and economic growth and jobs. Keep in mind, however, that effective watershed management can result in both economic and environmental benefits. Some complicating factors include:
Distribution of costs and benefits. Those who benefit may not be the same as those who pay the costs.
Perceptions of problems. People tend to blame others for causing the problem.
Speed of clean-up or other actions. Some will want changes to take place more quickly than others.
This sounds like a bit of a fantasy and if you are really blunt about it then many would probably shrug their shoulders and say that this is down right lunacy. It would be hard to convince them otherwise by explaining them the ins and outs of this new technology as not much is yet known to us but all one can say is that when man first dreamed of stepping on to the moon, then it was also considered just plain ‘lunacy’. Science has a way of altering our perceptions and blurring the line between the probable and the impossible!
Japanese have created artificial DNA that could one day be part of green computers running on little or even no power. Data-monitor’s Ruchi Mallya suggests the University of Toyama’s research could bring to reality a computer that ditches traditional silicon and works on DNA instead. These new and amazing computers could work without any external power source for a considerable amount of time and that is really cool, if it does translate in to reality.
Mallya says the DNA would work as the software and the enzymes would act as hardware. The green bit comes in from the DNA running on internal energy “produced during cellular reactions.” The result would be a very low PC or even a laptop that didn’t require batteries. Now the added perk in all this is that this could really make solar panels amazingly less costly and that is another brilliant thing for all those who wish to convert to Green-ism! Just don’t hold your breath on this technology though.
Don’t chow, bella! At least not on the steps of Roman monuments.
Read an Excerpt: ‘The Sistine Secrets’
According to the Corriere della Sera daily, three Tunisian men eating and drinking beer on the Spanish Steps were among the first to be fined.
**************
The Story
http://www.firethegrid.com/index.htm
We are now in a time when natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, and tidal waves are dramatically affecting our planet, and our lives on it. We now have the power to destroy this beautiful Earth quickly, with atomic power, or more slowly, with pollution and devastation of our resources, and overpopulation. I have been guided to tell you that we also have the very real power to save this planet, and to make it a loving and healthy place for ourselves and for future generations. Please take a few minutes to read my story. It will hopefully save our Earth.
I have a story to tell you that I know will be hard to believe in parts, but it has happened to me, and I cannot erase or deny any of it (though at times I wish I could). I am a “normal” woman who grew up in simple yet chaotic times. I am much like you in most every way. I always thought I would be the last one to have a miracle occur in her life, much less two miracles, and all that has happened since. Therefore the tale I tell could be of your life, and not mine. But seeing it is mine I guess I was meant to tell it.
What I want to establish first, is the fact that miracles do happen and they happen to people like you and me. What we need to make these miracles happen is to open ourselves to the communication that is all around us every day. Communication not from this world but from the world of our creator, the cosmos and the universe. The message comes from a distance, but you find it by going inside and believing. We can all create miracles within our lives, and that is one of the main points in writing this for you. I have no special tricks. Simply open yourself to the possibility that what I tell you is possible and that it is available to every person.
I will refer to God in many ways throughout this story. This is strange for me to refer to God in any sense, as I believed he had abandoned me a very long time ago. But I will refer to a prime creator of the cosmos and the universe, along with this earth that we live on every day. I call God the Prime Creator, because I want all those to understand that this story is completely unbiased and unprejudiced to any affiliation with any religion, and the God of my understanding is not only an earthly God, but a universal God. I will also refer to God as mother earth, Gaia, which I came to learn through this journey is the female piece of God. As in everything that is in our universe, you must balance darkness with light, peace with war, and recognize the two faces of God, the female and the male. We are all pieces of this Prime Creator. We are a part of God.
Two miracles happened in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. My son and I drowned in a flooded marsh and not only lived to tell the tale, but we are better than ever. I was “dead” for fifteen minutes. I was told by beings of light how to save myself, and my small son. And I was given a message on how to heal the Earth.
As you are reading this I ask you with all my heart to open yourself to the possibility of what I say. I feel it is imperative that we unite this world as one planet with one common goal – to establish peace and prosperity for all, not just the select few who were blessed to be in the right place at the right time. We are entering a new phase of humanity and what I will tell you in this website will help us as a race to assimilate the changes that the future will bring.
I have not had God in my life for forty years. I did however, as a child, chase the possibility of God. I felt that those people who had undying faith were the lucky ones, and the fact that I believed in nothing made me the loser. As a child I often spoke to God, but never felt heard or connected. It took life throwing me into a flooded marsh and drowning me, to open my eyes to the reality of how much we are all connected to the Divine power. It is showing up now more than ever. You can go on the internet and find thousands of hits about the next phase of humanity, the era of enlightenment and the time of change. These stories are in our religions and in the stories of the ancient cultures such as the Mayans, the Egyptians and the Native Americans. We have all been waiting for the moment when things would be different, for surely God will do something to save us from ourselves. Well there is something in the works, but God is merely directing it through people like me, and it will take the faith of people like you to create the reality. Once again I am getting ahead of myself but in the messages I am receiving, I am being given a way for us all to participate in a healing of mother earth, and a launching of the human race into a time of health, peace and positive change. But for this to happen, you will need to sit in meditation for just one hour of your life.
I once heard in the star trek series “resistance is futile.” I did not want to be a messenger for God, but when God wishes our awakening, it will happen. So now I will tell you the truth of what happened to me, after a car accident that occurred in Nov. 2002.
My son and I were travelling to a friend’s house for an afternoon of play, when disaster hit. My car was swept into a flooded marsh after hydroplaning. The car landed upside down in this boggy marsh, and sank to the bottom. I tried to open the car’s windows, but the power windows failed and we were trapped inside. I spoke with my tiny son who was four at the time, and assured him that mommy would get him out. The car was filling up quickly with the cold murky water and I held my son’s coat tightly in my hand, while I waited to be fully submerged. I hoped that I could open the door after the car equalized with water and we would swim out. My final words to my little boy as the water came over his head was “hold your breath honey; mommy will have us out soon”. I watched him take a large gulp of the remaining air, and the water took him. When I felt the last air pocket escape the car I tried the door. It wouldn’t budge! The other door was equally stuck. I struggled with the doors several times, to no avail. We were trapped and going to die.
At this point I took Evan’s little body and pushed it over the seat, hoping beyond hope that he would find air. As I struggled to free us from this coffin on wheels, I realized I had to breathe. As I drank the deep breath of water into my lungs, the fiery feeling added panic to the moment. I wanted my baby back and I swung my arms feverously about in an effort to find his body. I couldn’t, and I needed to breathe again. That is when I heard a voice, a calm majestic voice, directing me to relax. This voice cooed in my ear, reassuring me that all would be well. I was infused with the knowledge that if I fought the water, my rescuers would not be able to revive me when they arrived. The voice said that if I fought the water I would drown…no shit I thought, I get a wise ass ghost on my deathbed. The voice continued to give me instructions about what was to happen, and that all would be well if I just followed the instructions. I relinquished myself to this voice from beyond, and passed quietly into the other side.
While on the other side I saw beings of light, who once again assured me that my son and I would not only get out of this car, but we would both be fine. They were definite in explaining that I must follow instructions implicitly and not lose faith in their words. I was told to have faith that I would be divinely directed, and I was.
It took my rescuers fifteen minutes to pull my lifeless body from that car, and another seven minutes of CPR to revive me. As my body bolted upright, I blurted “get my baby out of the car”. Twenty two minutes had passed, the rescuers jumped back into the freezing bog to retrieve my son, knowing against hope, that he was dead. It took rescuers another five minutes or so to get my boy free from that car. His limp body was transported to the IWK Children’s Hospital, where he was immediately hooked to every machine known to mankind.
The team of emergency doctors and neurologists were waiting for me. They assured me that my sweet little boy was indeed brain dead, and in addition to this, his internal organs were full of blood. He was haemorrhaging throughout his body and his organs were non- viable. Things were the most bleak I have ever known. That is when the voice came to me again. “Have faith child.” The doctors advised me to unplug my baby and let him pass peacefully, for even if a miracle happened and he did live, he would be a vegetable. “No quality of life”, is all I remember thinking. Once again I heard the voice, “have faith”. For that moment the doctors agreed to keep Evan on life support, but advised me not to hold out any hope. He had less than one percent chance of living and then he would continue to be hooked to all these machines for the rest of his life. Remember, I had no God, so I could not even call for guidance. It was in the quiet of my first moment alone, that I was given the instructions. “Follow the instructions implicitly”, memories of the visions and the voice in the lake flooded back to me. There was someone there with me, I was sure of it, and I decided to listen carefully. I was instructed to rebuild my son’s aura by infusing his little body with the auras of others. Twenty minutes at a time was one of the first rules; for if it was longer, you would drain the aura of the giver. They instructed me to parade loving people through Evan’s room, each depositing their own energy field into his lifeless body. They were to do this by connecting their flesh to his flesh and allowing their energy to run through his body, and then to give Evan their “gift.” If they sang, they were to sing. If they were story tellers, tell a story, and so on. Infuse him with positive energy and your love and your talents, and this will revive him.
I proceeded against hospital protocol to send loving humans into my son’s room every half hour. They then followed the instructions and gave their gift of love. This procession lasted twenty four hours a day, for three days. Dozens and dozens of people came. They “camped out” everyday and every night; loving trusting souls infusing his lifeless body with fresh energy. The fact that I was able to convince the hospital to allow this unorthodox behaviour to happen was a miracle in itself, but on the third day, after 72 hours of constant vigil, my boy opened his little eyes and recognized me. He was back!!!
The doctors were baffled. They continued to tell me that he would never walk or talk or be a normal child again. However their words this time had no effect on me. The guidance and direction from my spiritual light beings had proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would be fine; after all, my “friend” in the lake had told me so.
Within the first week Evan had recovered all his body functions, and by the end of the second week, he was running down the halls to the hospital playroom. This was indeed an incredible miracle. What had I done to deserve such reprieve by our Almighty Creator? I didn’t know nor did I care. I wanted to take my son home and be done with the whole nightmare. This is when I realized that I might be done with my light friends, but they were not done with me.
I continued to hear the voices and be directed with both visions and seeing auras. Needless to say, I was more than a little freaked out. As time passed I would ask “What do you want of me?” They would speak of the love for the universe and how things have gone terribly wrong. Humanity has spiralled out of control, and has lost its true connection to God and to this Earth. They want desperately for me to give the humans of this world a message from “beyond,” that we have inside of us the power to unite this planet as one race with peace and prosperity for all. This power lies inside us all, and when combined with the loving energy of other humans, we can do for this planet what we did for my son. We can revive this Earth and catapult it into healing. With this healing will come a new phase of humanity. We will have a time of peace and harmony. All it will take is our intention, as a united group, and one hour of our time.
So as the voices and visions unravelled I was given the guidance of how to make this all happen. However it will take many of us on this planet to see to the success of the project. As they told me to rotate the humans through my son’s room, they have told me to unite humanity from every corner of the globe. Not every human, just representatives from every corner. We can do this. We need to unite enough people to fire the divine energy system of this planet and jump start it like we did with my boy.
This global project of loving intention is completely possible. Your intention to make it happen can change the outcome of this planet. I will discuss the details of the plan in phase three of this website. I will give you the directions to follow, and you will see how little it will take for you to become an ambassador of light to our home, planet Earth. I beseech you to join me when we fire the Earth grid on July 17, 2007 at 11:11 Greenwich Mean Time. — 07:11 (7:11 AM) in your time zone — and add your energy to this project. I promise you, just one hour of your time and you can help heal this planet, and help create peace among all people. My son and I are examples of the power of positive energy, and what humans are truly capable of when they unite with the intention of love. Love is the universal language of our world, and the world beyond.
Light and love be with you and welcome to the next phase of humanity; be part of the excitement and please join us.
Please find links to other near death survivors who have had visions and prophecy for the future:
http://www.near-death.com/experiences/research32.html (Near death experiences and prophecy)
http://www.near-death.com/dougherty.html (another near death experience with prophecy)
http://www.nderf.org/Books_and_Reviews.htm (books about near death experience)
http://www.qsl.net/w5www/brinkley.html (Dannion Brinkley)
http://www.self-full-life.com/ (Peg Abernathy}
****************
Does the Sun look any smaller to you?
Criminy, I almost forgot: today, July 4th, at roughly 08:00 UT, the Earth was at aphelion.
Uh, what? I hear you ask. OK, brief astrolesson for ya, then back to the grill!
The Earth does not orbit the Sun in a perfect circle. The orbit is slightly elliptical. If you were to draw the Earth’s orbit on a piece of paper, you’d need a sharp eye to detect its non-circularity, but deviant it is. What this means in real terms is that the Earth ranges from about 148 to about 152 million kilometers from the Sun over the course of six months (which is how long it takes to get from one side of the orbit to the other, of course).
When the Earth is closest to the Sun it’s at perihelion, and when it’s farthest it’s called aphelion (I usually pronounce that app-helion, if you care, though I’ve heard others say aff-helion). So today we passed aphelion, and slowly but inexorably, over the next six months we’ll draw slightly closer to the Sun, and then the whole thing repeats.
That 4 million km difference sounds like a lot. But over the 150 million average radius of the orbit it’s only a slight difference by eye.The Sun will look about 3% larger at perihelion versus aphelion, and you’d never notice that, especially since the change is slow and takes six months. The amount of sunlight hitting the Earth does increase at perihelion, being about 5% greater than at aphelion. That’s quite a bit! But the effect isn’t as bad as you’d think. Why not?
For us northern hemisphere folks, we are farthest from the Sun in summer, and closest in winter, so that mitigates the temperature extreme. On average, winters are a bit warmer and summers a bit cooler. But wait! In the southern hemisphere, the seasons are reversed! So they should have extra hot summers and extra cold winters.
But they don’t. Why not? Because the southern hemisphere is mostly water. Go ahead, find a globe and take a look; it’s incredible how much of that half the Earth is water bound. Water absorbs and releases heat slowly, so all summer the oceans suck down that extra solar energy, and release it all winter. That helps balance out the temperature extremes.
Oh, one more thing: the Earth precesses, that is, the axis of rotation moves like a wobbling top. It takes a long time for the wobble to make one cycle, well over 20,000 years. But this changes the timing of the seasons compared to the orbit. In a few millennia, we’ll have perihelion at the same time as northern summer, and aphelion at northern winter. It’s hard to say what effect this will have on the environment, since it brings extra-hot summers and extra-cold winters. However, the last time this happened was around the same time the Sahara forest went away and was replaced by, well, guess.
But for today, don’t fret too much about wandering poles and aphelion… except to say, if you’re out sweltering in the Sun today celebrating the holiday in the U.S., you might want to take just a moment and be glad our orbit isn’t more elliptical, or that it isn’t 15,000 AD.
*****************
Leonard David, an observer of one of the largest space exploration websites, space.com, updated his blog with new details about the investigation of a mysterious incident which took place in USA’s Pennsylvania. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has lost the case vs. journalist Leslie Kean about violating the principles of freedom of information.
Leslie Kean had been investigating the mystery of the Kecksburg UFO incident for four years. An unidentified flying object supposedly crashed not far from a small village in Pennsylvania in December 1965. Eyewitnesses of the incident said that they could see a ball of fire in the night sky. Some of them said that the object had performed a controlled landing.
Local newspapers and radio channels reported that military men encircled the area of the incident, conduct the investigation and then left without any explanations. However, rumor has it that spokespeople for local authorities had visited the site of the UFO crash before the military men arrived. They said that the object, which either crashed or landed in Kecksburg, was an acorn-like object the size of a baby car. The body of the object was covered with inscriptions reminiscent of Egyptian hieroglyphs.
NASA provided packs of documents to Leslie Kean prior to the trial, but the documents had nothing to do with the case. It was obvious, which made Judge Emmet Sullivan agree on that. The judge’s refusal to close the case pushed NASA towards looking for more reliable.
The trial took place in October 2007. Leslie Kean received 297 boxes with various data from NASA only last week. The journalist randomly picked some of the documents she found in the box to see what kind of information the boxes contained. Some of those documents describe NASA’s and US Navy’s rescue operations, photographs of the orbit and data about the launches of Soviet rockets from 1963 to 1965. Other documents give detailed specifications of contacts between the US Department of Defense and NASA.
The Kecksburg UFO incident of Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, USA occurred on December 9, 1965. A large, brilliant fireball was seen by thousands in at least six states and Ontario, Canada. It streaked over the Detroit, Michigan/Windsor, Ontario area, dropped reported metal debris over Michigan and northern Ohio, and caused sonic booms in western Pennsylvania. It was generally assumed and reported by the press to be a meteor.
However, eyewitnesses in the small village of Kecksburg, about 30 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, claimed something crashed in the woods. A boy said he saw the object land; his mother saw a wisp of blue smoke arising from the woods and alerted authorities. Others from Kecksburg, including local volunteer fire department members, reported finding an object in the shape of an acorn and about as large as a Volkswagen Beetle. Writing resembling Egyptian hieroglyphics was also said to be in a band around the base of the object. Witnesses further reported that intense military presence, most notably Army, secured the area, ordered civilians out, and then removed the object on a flatbed truck. At the time, however, the military claimed they searched the woods and found “absolutely nothing.”
The nearby Greensburg Tribune-Review had a reporter at the scene; the headline in the newspaper the next day was “Unidentified Flying Object Falls near Kecksburg — Army Ropes off Area.”
The official explanation of the widely-seen fireball was a mid-sized meteor, however, speculation as to what the Kecksburg object had been (if there was one — reports vary) also range from it being an alien craft to the remains of an unmanned Soviet Venera 4 atmospheric probe, also known as Kosmos-96, originally destined for Venus. (However, see below where this was recently ruled out by NASA’s chief in charge of tracking orbital debris.)
In December 2005, just before the Kecksburg crash 40th anniversary, NASA released a statement to the effect that they had examined metallic fragments from the object and now claimed it was from a re-entering “Russian satellite.” The spokesman further claimed that the related records had been misplaced. According to an Associated Press story:
The object appeared to be a Russian satellite that re-entered the atmosphere and broke up. NASA experts studied fragments from the object, but records of what they found were lost in the 1990s.
The claim contradicts what journalist Leslie Kean was told in 2003 by Nicholas L. Johnson, NASA’s chief scientist for orbital debris. As part of the new Sci Fi investigation, Kean had Johnson recheck orbital paths of all known satellites and other records from the period in 1965. Johnson told Kean that orbital mechanics made it absolutely impossible for any part of the Cosmos 96 Venus probe to account for either the fireball or any object at Kecksburg. Johnson also stated there were no other manmade satellites or other objects that re-entered the atmosphere on that day.
Thus, this raises the question as to what “Russian satellite” could account for the debris that NASA now admits they examined. Furthermore, Kean and others deem it highly questionable that NASA could actually lose such records. In December 2005, a lawsuit was filed to get NASA to search more diligently for the alleged lost records.
On October 26, 2007, NASA agreed to search for those records after being ordered by the court. The judge, who had tried to move NASA along for more than 3 years, angrily referred to NASA’s previous search efforts as a “ball of yarn” that never fully answered the request, adding, “I can sense the plaintiff’s frustration because I’m frustrated.”
During the hearing, Steve McConnell, NASA’s public liaison officer, admitted two boxes of papers from the time of the Kecksburg incident were missing. Stan Gordon, principle investigator of the Kecksburg incident for several decades, stated “I have no doubt the government knows a lot more about this than it has revealed to the public.”
*********************
Bill Gates bids a teary farewell to Microsoft
Fri Jun 27, 2008 6:17pm EDT
Microsoft after Gates
REDMOND, Washington (Reuters) – Bill Gates said a teary goodbye on Friday to Microsoft Corp, the software maker he built into the world’s most valuable technology company based on the ambitious goal of placing a computer on every desk and in every home.
He leaves his full-time executive role at Microsoft, which he co-founded with childhood friend Paul Allen in 1975, to focus on his philanthropic organization, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest charity, funded in part by his vast fortune.
At an event at Microsoft’s headquarters campus here, Gates, who will become a non-executive chairman and work part-time, joined Chief Executive Steve Ballmer on stage to deliver a short speech and field questions from employees.
“There won’t be a day in my life that I’m not thinking about Microsoft and the great things that it’s doing and wanting to help,” said Gates, who wiped away tears as the group of employees rose to give him a standing ovation.
Ballmer, a Harvard University classmate who joined Microsoft at Gates’ behest, got choked up as he tried to describe Gates’ impact on the company and society at large.
“There’s no way to say thanks to Bill. Bill’s the founder. Bill’s the leader,” said Ballmer. “We’ve been given an enormous, enormous opportunity and it was Bill that gave us this opportunity.”
Gates will leave behind a life’s work developing software to devote energy to finding new vaccines or to microfinance projects in the developing world. He will still work on special technology projects at the company.
Once the world’s richest man, Gates’ personal fortune has been estimated at about $58 billion, according to Forbes Magazine. He has slipped to third place, behind investor and good friend Warren Buffett and Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim.
********************
Essay
Darwin Still Rules, but Some Biologists Dream of a Paradigm Shift
Jimmy Turrell
Article Tools Sponsored By
By DOUGLAS H. ERWIN
Published: June 26, 2007
Corrections Appended
Is Darwin due for an upgrade? There are growing calls among some evolutionary biologists for just such a revision, although they differ about what form this might take. But those calls could also be exaggerated. There is nothing scientists enjoy more than the prospect of a good paradigm shift.
Skip to next paragraph
Related
Evolution Is … (June 25, 2007)
Life as We Know It (June 25, 2007)
Paradigm shifts are the stuff of scientific revolutions. They change how we view the world, the sorts of questions that scientists consider worth asking, and even how we do science. The discovery of DNA marked one such shift, the theory of plate tectonics another.
Many scientists suffer from a kind of split personality. We believe that this is the most exciting time to be working while yearning for the excitement of a revolution. What ambitious scientist would not want to be part of a paradigm shift? Not surprisingly, this yearning occasionally manifests itself in proclamations that a revolution is at hand.
To understand the current tumult it helps to understand how our evolutionary framework developed. It was constructed from the 1930s to 1950s by early geneticists, paleontologists and others, who disagreed about the efficacy of natural selection in driving evolutionary change (Darwin’s big idea) and about the nature of the underlying genetic variation upon which natural selection could act. What they came to agree on was called the modern synthesis, and it established an intellectual zeitgeist that continues today, and has been continually adapted, in the best evolutionary fashion, to encompass new discoveries.
That synthesis holds that mutations to DNA create new variants of existing genes within a species. Natural selection, driven by competition for resources, allows the best-adapted individuals to produce the most surviving offspring. So adaptive variants of genes become more common. Although selection is often seen, even by biologists who should know better, as primarily negative, removing poorly adapted individuals, Charles Darwin understood that it was a powerful creative tool.
It is the primary agent in shaping new adaptations. Analytical studies have shown how selection can produce a complex eye from a simple eyespot in just a few hundred thousand years.
In the past few years every element of this paradigm has been attacked. Concerns about the sources of evolutionary innovation and discoveries about how DNA evolves have led some to propose that mutations, not selection, drive much of evolution, or at least the main episodes of innovation, like the origin of major animal groups, including vertebrates.
Comparative studies of development have illuminated how genes operate, and evolve, and this places less emphasis on the gradual accumulation of small genetic changes emphasized by the modern synthesis. Work in ecology has emphasized the role organisms play in building their own environments, and studies of the fossil record raise questions about the role of competition. The last major challenge to the modern synthesis came in the 1970s and 1980s as my paleontological colleagues, including the late Stephen Jay Gould, argued for a hierarchical view of evolution, with selection occurring at many levels, including between species.
Transitions between species documented by the fossil record seemed to be abrupt, perhaps too abrupt to be explained by the modern synthesis. If this were generally true, it could render irrelevant much of natural selection occurring within species, because just as mutations are produced randomly with respect to the needs of a species, with selection shaping these into new adaptations, new species might evolve randomly with species selection shaping them into evolutionary trends. This challenge was greeted with less than fulsome praise by evolutionary biologists studying changes within species. The resulting hubbub has yet to fully die down. But the newer work cuts closer to the core of the modern synthesis, and is potentially more revolutionary, because it addresses the fundamental question of how really new things happen in the history of life. What brought about the origin of animals, or the invasion of land?
The Achilles’ heel of the modern synthesis, as noted by the philosopher Ron Amundson, is that it deals primarily with the transmission of genes from one generation to the next, but not how genes produce bodies. The recent discoveries in the new field of evolutionary developmental biology, or evo-devo, that the gene Pax-6 controls the formation of eyes in mice and humans, Nkx2.5 heart formation, and a suite of other genes the formation of the nervous system, has provided a means to investigate the genetic and developmental mechanisms influencing how the form of organisms has evolved, not just their genes. Perhaps the most exciting area in evolution is in exploring how rewiring the circuitry of genes produces different arthropod appendages, or wingspots on butterflies.
Douglas H. Erwin is a senior scientist at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution and a research professor at the Santa Fe Institute.
Correction: September 12, 2007
An essay in Science Times on June 26, about a potential shift in the scientific approach to understanding evolution, misstated the source of the statement that selection has been shown to produce a complex eye in just a few hundred years. That work was shown in analytical studies, not computer simulations. A reader pointed out the error in an e-mail message in early August; the correction was further delayed when an editor did not follow up on the writer’s response.
Correction: September 18, 2007
An essay in Science Times on June 26, about a potential shift in the scientific approach to understanding evolution, misstated the source of a statement about the development of a complex eye through selection. And a correction in this space on Wednesday misstated the number of years it takes for the eye to develop. The statement came from analytical studies; it was not shown in computer simulations. The eye develops over a few hundred thousand years — not a few hundred.
Darwin Still Rules, but Some Biologists Dream of a Paradigm Shift
Article Tools Sponsored By
Published: June 26, 2007
Corrections Appended
(Page 2 of 2)
Eric H. Davidson, a colleague of mine at CalTech, has dissected the network of interactions between the genes that build the gut of sea urchins and starfish during development. When he compares these gene networks, there is a core of about five genes whose interactions are essential to forming the gut, and which have been preserved for some 500 million years.
Skip to next paragraph
Related
Evolution Is … (June 25, 2007)
Life as We Know It (June 25, 2007)
One advantage developmental biologists have over paleontologists is that they can experiment on the development of these animals. Most of the genes in this network can be removed, and the developing embryo finds a way to compensate. But these five core genes, which form what Davidson calls a kernel, cannot be modified: change any one of them and no embryo forms at all. There is no reason to think that there was anything unusual about how this kernel first evolved some 500 million years ago (before sea urchins and starfish split into different groups), but once the kernel formed it locked development onto a certain path. These events, small and large, limit the range of possibilities on which natural selection can act. These questions about mechanism were not even being asked under the modern synthesis.
The failure to consider how biodiversity grows reflects an even more troubling flaw in the modern synthesis: it lacks any real sense of history. This may sound odd, as evolution is about history. A geologist would describe evolutionary theory as uniformitarian: “The present is the key to the past.” This is the principle we use that by understanding how processes operate today we can understand past events. Evolutionary theory assumes that the processes we can study among fruit flies disporting themselves in a laboratory capture the broad sweep of evolutionary change.
But just as the erosive power of a river changes the future options for the course of the river, so evolution itself changes future evolutionary possibilities. This can happen in simple ways, as termites construct their own environment by building termite mounds. These mounds may last for dozens or hundreds of years and provide a sort of ecological inheritance for generations of termites.
The first cyanobacteria turned carbon dioxide into oxygen and set off a revolution that completely changed the chemistry of the oceans and atmosphere. Most species modify their environment and this often changes how selection affects them: they construct, at least in part, their own environment. As evolutionary biologists we have little understanding of what these processes mean for evolution.
Does all this add up to a new modern synthesis? There is certainly no consensus among evolutionary biologists, but development, ecology, genetics and paleontology all provide new perspectives on how evolution operates, and how we should study it. None of these concerns provide a scintilla of hope for creationists, as scientific investigations are already providing new insights into these issues. The foundations for a paradigm shift may be in place, but it may be some time before we see whether a truly novel perspective develops or these tensions are accommodated within an expanded modern synthesis.
Douglas H. Erwin is a senior scientist at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution and a research professor at the Santa Fe Institute.
Correction: September 12, 2007
An essay in Science Times on June 26, about a potential shift in the scientific approach to understanding evolution, misstated the source of the statement that selection has been shown to produce a complex eye in just a few hundred years. That work was shown in analytical studies, not computer simulations. A reader pointed out the error in an e-mail message in early August; the correction was further delayed when an editor did not follow up on the writer’s response.
Correction: September 18, 2007
An essay in Science Times on June 26, about a potential shift in the scientific approach to understanding evolution, misstated the source of a statement about the development of a complex eye through selection. And a correction in this space on Wednesday misstated the number of years it takes for the eye to develop. The statement came from analytical studies; it was not shown in computer simulations. The eye develops over a few hundred thousand years — not a few hundred.
***********************
080623 Gangs out of control
Police say it is sheer luck they are not dealing with a multiple homicide after Mongrel Mob members rampaged through a 21st birthday party, swinging knives, baseball bats and a machete.
Five people were admitted to Hawke’s Bay Hospital with serious injuries after 100 partygoers were set upon just before midnight on Saturday.
The Hawke’s Bay gang violence comes as Southland police work to quell a feud between rival Mongrel Mob and Road Knights gangs in Invercargill. The Southland tension has led to two properties being torched.
Meanwhile, the attack at the birthday party is the fifth gang-related attack in Hastings in three weeks, and Mayor Lawrence Yule says the violence against innocent people is of great concern.
Three men were arrested at the scene of the latest incident and a fourth, who police believe was the principal offender, was arrested yesterday afternoon at a Hastings address. The men are charged with five counts of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
Detective Sergeant Mike Foster said it appeared a “reasonably senior” gang member was known to the people throwing the party, but he was not invited. When he was refused entry, he returned with a car-load of armed gang members.
The sight of these patched men slashing their way through the crowd must have been “absolutely horrific”, Mr Foster said. “They basically stabbed and slashed and beat anybody who stepped in their way.”
He praised the first police on the scene, who had to deal with “pandemonium” and managed to stabilise the bleeding victims and still arrest three fleeing gang members.
He did not know what had caused the latest spate of gang violence in Hastings. The attacks did not appear to be directly linked.
“We need to sit on this very quickly, and I believe we have done that. We’re putting them away, we’re seeking the cooperation of the [Mob] hierarchy. That’s really all we can do.”
Mr Yule said gangs had been present in Hawke’s Bay for many years, but violence had worsened dramatically in the past few months. While Wanganui suffered inter-gang violence, “what they are doing here is causing mayhem on innocent people”.
“It’s completely unacceptable. We’re going to have to get tough and deal with it.”
Canterbury University gang researcher Jarrod Gilbert said it was “enormously rare” for the public to get caught in gang violence. Gangs were usually well-controlled, but Mob leaders seemed to have less control because the gang was so large and violence, known as “Mongrelism”, was almost endorsed.
FIVE ATTACKS IN THREE WEEKS
Police have arrested nine people, including five Mongrel Mob members, in connection with five attacks in Hawke’s Bay in the past three weeks.
June 21: More than 100 people set upon by six Mongrel Mob members who, armed with knives, baseball bats, and a machete, gatecrashed a Hastings 21st birthday party. Five people taken to hospital. Four arrests so far.
June 8: A 21-year- old man was beaten after he opened his front door to four men in Flaxmere, Hastings. His terrified partner hid her newborn baby then confronted the men. They were wearing red and black and and yelled out youth gang slang during the beating. A 15-year-old has been arrested in connection with the attack. A 34-year-old man was seriously injured in an assault at Hastings’ Mongrel Mob headquarters. Four people have been arrested.
June 6: A 27-year- old Hastings man was beaten in the suburb of Camberley by several suspected Mongrel Mob members. The man had no gang links and police say the attack appeared to have been unprovoked.
June 1: Gang members walked into a 21st birthday party and assaulted three people in Camberley.
***************************
Gender-bending: the original spirit of Pride
June 25, 2008 at 12:18 AM EDT
AIDAN JOHNSON
Special to Globe and Mail Update
Downtown Toronto will shut down Sunday as people gather to celebrate homosexuality and gender-bending. The occasion is Pride Day, one of Canada’s largest cultural events.
Some complain that the event’s mainstream acceptance has left Pride without soul, a massive corporate-sponsored opium-farm. Where, the radicals ask, is the deep iconoclastic spirit of the very first Pride marches, before it was safe to be gay?
More than ever, the answer is in the second part of what the Pride revellers gather to be proud of: not homosexuality, but gender-bending. Today, in most parts of Canada, almost anyone can be gay. But to be transgender takes a particular courage.
Canadians are steadily approaching the new cultural battleground of transsexual rights mindful of ethical lessons from previous debates about minorities. There is also a more personal connection. Everyone is realizing that their gender identity is complex, and we feel natural empathy where that complexity is most intense. An extraordinary transgender “pride” is still necessary, however.
Canada’s youngest MP, Pierre Poilievre, spoke out against covering sex changes under the public health budget a few weeks ago. Inventing a term that conjures images, Mr. Poilievre said Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty favours a “sex-change program” because he wants the funding for his province. Mr. Poilievre also said surgery for diagnosed transsexuals is meantime “medically unnecessary,” which is news to medical scientists.
The Supreme Court of Canada had the chance to read transgender rights into the Charter last year. But it refused to hear a transsexual rights case — Kimberley Nixon v. Vancouver Rape Relief Society — on appeal from Vancouver. Writing about that case, Michelle Landsberg of the Toronto Star argued that transgender people are “a walking testament to the craziness of our cultural rigidity,” the typical transsexual a misogynist “vamp with a feather boa and sequins.” (Female-to-male transsexuals go unmentioned.)
The most progressive country in the world in terms of transgender rights is arguably Colombia. In 1999, that country’s Constitutional Court ruled that transgender people are “a source of invaluable social wealth.”
“It is our duty,” the court said, “to listen to these people, to learn to live with them and to learn from them.”
In the part about learning, the Colombian statement gets at exactly why the transgender rights debate matters. In an obvious way, transsexual rights are important simply because “trans” people are human. Discrimination and medical access are only the first thorn branches to sprout with this acknowledgment. In male prisons, rape of male-to-female transsexuals is widely documented and broadly ignored. Old-fashioned feminist organizations and all-female colleges continue to exclude “transwomen” as “not really female.”
Should public washrooms “segregate” by gender? Should birth certificates record sex? The questions nettle. But transgender sympathy blunts the bite simply by demanding that all answers respect trans dignity in some real way. A minority will thus offend what is hopefully another minority by the sex identification of its members. Then, in keeping with mainstream Canadian tradition, the latter minority shrinks.
More deeply — and this is the heart of the Colombian ruling — the emergence of transsexual rights means that gender identity is now something about which we can all now more collectively chill out. In seeing gender as part biology but also part artifice, one can worry less about one’s own conformity to whatever a woman or man is supposed to be. One can get on with being an individual.
A sign of evolution is the emergence of a new word in the public idiom, “cisgender.” From the Latin cis-, meaning “on the same side,” it means identified with one’s birth sex — literally “not transgender,” as heterosexual is to homosexual. As a cisgender person who is also gay, I revere the ironic twist of history by which the first Pride marches were frequently led not by gays but by transsexuals, who often had no choice but to be visible. Those demonstrations happened before I was born. They exist for me in relic photographs, as snapshots from then-recent world wars mattered to the imaginations of my grandparents and parents.
At its best, the coming together of transsexuals with gays and straights at the modern Pride Day represents the true promise of sexual liberation: a common humanity based on real joy in the features that make us human. We see more and more that sexual activity is key among these with food, drink and physical movement itself.
Transsexual rights stand to add personal expression to the list. In society beyond the gay movement, we can be grateful that the push is to include everyone in one big Pride celebration that transcends labels.
This is a step toward figuring out what it means to see occasional brave deviations from dumb gender roles, and thus most people, as “invaluable social wealth.”
Aidan Johnson is a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago and a student at McGill Law School.
****************
080617 Scans see ‘gay brain differences’
BBC News 23:28 GMT, Monday, 16 June 2008
The brains of gay men and women look like those found in heterosexual people of the opposite sex, research suggests.
The Swedish study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, compared the size of the brain’s halves in 90 adults.
Gay men and heterosexual women had halves of a similar size, while the right side was bigger in lesbian women and heterosexual men.
A UK scientist said this was evidence sexual preference was set in the womb.
As far as I’m concerned there is no argument any more – if you are gay, you are born gay
Dr Qazi Rahman
Queen Mary, University of London
Scientists have noticed for some time that homosexual people of both sexes have differences in certain cognitive abilities, suggesting there may be subtle differences in their brain structure.
This is the first time, however, that scientists have used brain scanners to try to look for the source of those differences.
A group of 90 healthy gay and heterosexual adults, men and women, were scanned by the Karolinska Institute scientists to measure the volume of both sides, or hemispheres, of their brain.
When these results were collected, it was found that lesbian women and heterosexual men shared a particular “asymmetry” in their hemisphere size, while heterosexual women and gay men had no difference between the size of the different halves of their brain.
In other words, structurally, at least, gay men were more like heterosexual women, and gay women more like heterosexual men.
A further experiment found that in one particular area of the brain, the amygdala, there were other significant differences.
In heterosexual men and lesbian women, there were more nerve “connections” in the right side of the amygdala, compared with the left.
The reverse, with more neural connections in the left amygdala, was the case in homosexual men and heterosexual women.
The Karolinska team said that these differences could not be mainly explained by “learned” effects, but needed another mechanism to set them, either before or after birth.
‘Fight, flight or mate’
Dr Qazi Rahman, a lecturer in cognitive biology at Queen Mary, University of London, said that he believed that these brain differences were laid down early in foetal development.
“As far as I’m concerned there is no argument any more – if you are gay, you are born gay,” he said.
The amygdala, he said, was important because of its role in “orientating”, or directing, the rest of the brain in response to an emotional stimulus – be it during the “fight or flight” response, or the presence of a potential mate.
“In other words, the brain network which determines what sexual orientation actually ‘orients’ towards is similar between gay men and straight women, and between lesbian women and straight men.
“This makes sense given that gay men have a sexual preference which is like that of women in general, that is, preferring men, and vice versa for lesbian women.”
************************
080608 Israel article
By Andrew Roberts, The Daily Express — May 8, 2008
The State of Israel has packed more history into her sixty years on the planet – which she celebrates this week – than many other nations have in six hundred. There are many surprising things about this tiny, feisty, brave nation the size of Wales, but the most astonishing is that she has lived to see this birthday at all. The very day after the new state was established, she was invaded by the armies of no fewer than five Arab countries, and she has been struggling for her right to life ever since.
From Morocco to Afghanistan, from the Caspian Sea to Aden, the 5.25 million square miles of territory belonging to members of the Arab League is home to over 330 million people, whereas Israel covers only eight thousand square miles, and is home to seven million citizens, one-fifth of whom are Arabs. The Jews of the Holy Land are thus surrounded by hostile states 650 times their size in territory and sixty times their population, yet their last, best hope of ending two millennia of international persecution – the State of Israel – has somehow survived.
When during the Second World War, the island of Malta came through three terrible years of bombardment and destruction, it was rightly awarded the George Medal for bravery: today Israel should be awarded a similar decoration for defending democracy, tolerance and Western values against a murderous onslaught that has lasted twenty times as long.
Jerusalem is the site of the Temple of Solomon and Herod. The stones of a palace erected by King David himself are even now being unearthed just outside the walls of Jerusalem. Everything that makes a nation state legitimate – blood shed, soil tilled, two millennia of continuous residence, international agreements – argues for Israel’s right to exist, yet that is still denied by the Arab League. For many of their governments, which are rich enough to have solved the Palestinian refugee problem decades ago, it is useful to have Israel as a scapegoat to divert attention from the tyranny, failure and corruption of their own regimes.
The tragic truth is that it suits Arab states very well to have the Palestinians endure permanent refugee status, and whenever Israel puts forward workable solutions they have been stymied by those who interests put the destruction of Israel before the genuine well-being of the Palestinians. Both King Abdullah I of Jordan and Anwar Sadat of Egypt were assassinated when they attempted to come to some kind of sane accommodation with a country that most sane people now accept is not going away.
The process of creating a Jewish homeland in an area where other peoples were already living – though far fewer of them than anti-Israel propagandists claim – was always going to be a complicated and delicate business, and one for which Britain as the Mandated power had a profound responsibility, and about which since the Balfour Declaration of 1917 she had made solemn promises.
Yet instead of keeping a large number of troops on the ground throughout the birth pangs of the State of Israel, Britain hurriedly withdrew all her forces virtually overnight on 14 May 1948, thus facilitating the Arab invasions the very day, one of which was actually commanded by a former British Army officer, John Glubb (known as Glubb Pasha). Less than four years earlier, Britain had landed division after victorious division in Normandy, now “Partition and flee” was the Attlee government’s ignominious policy, whose consequences are still plaguing the world half a century later in Kashmir and the Middle East.
“We owe to the Jews,” wrote Winston Churchill in 1920, “a system of ethics which, even if it were entirely separated from the supernatural, would be incomparably the most precious possession of mankind, worth in fact the fruits of all wisdom and learning put together.”
The Jewish contribution to finance, science, the arts, academia, commerce and industry, literature, philanthropy and politics has been astonishing relative to their tiny numbers. Although they make up less than half of one per-cent of the world’s population, between 1901 and 1950 Jews won 14% of all the Nobel Prizes awarded for Literature and Science, and between 1951 and 2000 Jews won 32% of the Nobel Prizes for Medicine, 32% for Physics, 39% for Economics and 29% for Science. This, despite so many of their greatest intellects dying in the gas chambers.
Civilization owes Judaism a debt it can never repay, and support for the right of a Jewish homeland to exist is the bare minimum we can provide. Yet we tend to treat Israel like a leper on the international scene, merely for defending herself, and threatening her with academic boycotts if she builds a separation wall that has so far reduced suicide bombings by 95% over three years. It is a disgrace that no senior member of the Royal Family has ever visited Israel, as though the country is still in quarantine after sixty years.
After the Holocaust, the Jewish people recognised that they had to have their own state, a homeland where they could forever be safe from a repetition of such horrors. Putting their trust in Western Civilisation was never again going to be enough. Since then, Israel has had to fight no fewer than five major wars for her very existence. She has been on the front line in the War against Terror and has been fighting the West’s battles for it, decades before 9/11 or 7/7 ever happened. Radical Islam is never going to accept the concept of an Israeli State, so the struggle is likely to continue for another sixty years, but the Jews know that that is less dangerous than entrusting their security to anyone else.
Very often in Britain, especially when faced with the overwhelmingly anti-Israeli bias that is endemic in our liberal media and the BBC, we fail to ask ourselves what we would have done placed in their position? The population of the United Kingdom of 63 million is nine times that of Israel. In July 2006, to take one example at random, Hizbullah crossed the border of Lebanon into Israel and killed eight patrolmen and kidnapped two others, and that summer fired four thousand Katyusha rockets into Israel which killed a further forty-three civilians.
Now, if we multiply those numbers by nine to get the British equivalent, just imagine what WE would do if a terrorist organization based as close as Calais were to fire thirty-six thousand rockets into Sussex and Kent, killing 387 British civilians, after killing seventy-two British servicemen in an ambush and capturing eighteen. There is absolutely no lengths to which our Government would not go to protect British subjects under those circumstances, and quite right too. Why should Israel be expected to behave any differently?
Last month I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, researching a book about the Second World War. Walking along a line of huts and the railway siding where their forebears had been worked and starved and beaten and gassed to death, were a group of Jewish schoolchildren, one of whom was carrying over his shoulder the Israeli flag, a blue star of David on white background. It was a profoundly moving sight, for it was the sovereign independence represented by that flag which guarantees that the obscenity of genocide – which killed six million people in Auschwitz and camps like it – will never again befall the Jewish people. Happy birthday, Israel and Shalom.
