Posts Tagged ‘Aliens’

News & Submissions 4/5/2011

Thursday, May 5th, 2011

Art’s and Entertainment:

“THE WICKER TREE” grows in the U.S.
Fango has learned that writer/director Robin Hardy’s THE WICKER TREE—the British helmer’s semi-sequel to his 1973 classic THE WICKER MAN—has been picked up for distribution in North America and the UK, as early as this fall. The film’s international sales agent, High Point Media Group, will screen THE WICKER TREE at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival on May 14 and 16. Read full story from fangoria.com

Art exhibition offers a psychedelic experience
Visitors are invited to take a trip through hallucinogenic patterns, optical illusions and cosmic landscapes when the latest exhibition at The University of Queensland opens this weekend.

New Psychedelia takes over the entire ground floor of the UQ Art Museum from Saturday, May 7 with pieces by 43 contemporary Australian artists, including one that requires 3D glasses.

“A new psychedelia has undoubtedly emerged in the past decade as an off-spring of the rave party, but also out of the décor of virtual reality and what William Gibson dubbed the ‘consensual hallucination’ of cyberspace,” Dr Edward Colless writes in the exhibition catalogue.

Curator Sebastian Moody said it was debatable whether recent explorations of psychedelia are in fact a countermovement to the “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out” mentality of the 1960s. Read full story from ug.edu.au

Environment:

Deadly weather in US could become the norm
It’s been a severe start to the spring season in the United States. Tornadoes have ravaged the southeastern US, flooding threatens much of the Midwest, and wildfires are scorching Texas. But according to researchers, a confluence of seasonal oscillations in weather patterns, rather than climate change, is to blame. And growing populations mean that grim casualty figures from such events may become the norm.

“I don’t think there’s any way of proving climate change is responsible for the weather patterns this week and week before,” says meteorologist Howard Bluestein, of the University of Oklahoma in Norman. Read full story from newscientist.com

Native American:

Apache Leader Jeff Houser on Use of Geronimo’s Name
The day after the news spread that the operation to kill Osama bin Laden, or bin Laden himself, was code-named Geronimo, Fort Sill Apache Tribe Chairman Jeff Houser asked President Obama to issue a formal apology for associating one of the most enduring and heroic figures in Indian country with the name of the man who epitomized global terrorism. Read full story from indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com

News:

Barack Obama pays 9/11 respects at Ground Zero
Barack Obama spoke no words as he laid a red, white and blue wreath at the centre of Ground Zero. But then he didn’t need to: the location and the identity of the individuals gathered round him spoke for him.

The location was in the shade cast by the Survivor Tree, an oak that was recently planted at the World Trade Centre for a second time. The first time was in the 1970s, but the tree was later engulfed in rubble on 11 September 2001. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

Bin Laden killing left ‘uncomfortable feeling’ – Rowan Williams
The archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, said the killing of Osama bin Laden had left a ‘very uncomfortable feeling’. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA

The archbishop of Canterbury has said the killing of Osama bin Laden left a “very uncomfortable feeling” because it appeared as if justice had not been done.

Bin Laden was shot dead in his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on Sunday. It has since emerged that he was unarmed when US Navy Seals fired at him.

Lambeth Palace had previously refused to comment on the death of Bin Laden but, when asked at a press conference what he thought of the killing, Dr Rowan Williams replied: “I think the killing of an unarmed man is always going to leave a very uncomfortable feeling; it doesn’t look as if justice is seen to be done. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

Paranormal:

How Many Intelligent Aliens are Out There?
OK, I’ve had enough. I’ve been looking up at the night sky for 20 years and not once have I ever seen anything that has aroused my suspicion that an alien visitor has popped by Earth to take a look.

The thing is, I am contacted far too often by people saying they have seen an unidentified flying object, or UFO. Being terribly literal, they probably have seen something “unidentified,” and it may look like it’s flying; whatever it is, it certainly is an “object,” but it doesn’t mean it’s aliens. Read full story from discovery.com

UFO, zombie, ghost and witch sightings revealed
DYFED Powys Police has revealed how many sightings of UFOs, zombies, ghosts, witches and vampires occurred in the county in the past five years.

The figures, made public because of a Freedom of Information Request Act, reveal 14 recorded UFO sightings in the past five years, along with 26 reports of ghosts, 11 witches and two of zombies and vampires respectively. Read full story from countrytimes.co.uk

Religion:

The US evangelicals who believe environmentalism is a ‘native evil’
Watching from afar how the environmental debate plays out in the US can be perplexing for many onlookers. Arguably, nowhere is the so-called “culture war” between left and right so heavily fought.

What is often not fully absorbed by onlookers, though, is the underlying role that religious doctrine – or “pulpit power” – plays in the environmental debate in the US. On the one hand, you have the “Creation Care” movement which is prevalent in some quarters of the Christian Church. On the other, particularly among evangelicals, you often see a vitriolic reaction aimed towards environmentalism. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

South Korean man found crucified, police say
(CNN) – A South Korean man was found crucified, local police told CNN on Thursday.

Police in Munkyuong said they were overwhelmed with the investigation and declined to provide further details.

But local media depicted an elaborate reconstruction of the crucifixion of Jesus, with the victim wearing a crown of thorns and dressed only in his underwear. He put nails into the cross first, then drilled holes in his hands and hung himself on the cross, reports said. Read full story from cnn.com

Contaminated Zam Zam holy water from Mecca sold in UK
Holy drinking water contaminated with arsenic is being sold illegally to Muslims by UK shops, the BBC has found.

Zam Zam water is taken from a well in Mecca and is considered sacred to Muslims, but samples from the source suggested it held dangerous chemicals.

Tourists can bring back small amounts from Saudi Arabia, but it cannot be exported for commercial use.

An undercover researcher found large quantities of bottles being sold in east and south London, and in Luton.

The president of the Association of Public Analysts said he would “certainly would not recommend” drinking it. Read full story from bbc.co.uk

World:

Nigerian kids ‘slain as witches’
HUNDREDS of Nigerian children have been severely beaten, burnt or killed after being accused of witchcraft, a British charity was to tell an inquiry overnight.

Stepping Stones Nigeria has compiled a dossier of more than 250 cases of severe violence against children accused of being witches in Akwa Ibom state. Children as young as two have been burnt, poisoned, buried alive or chained up because their families believed they were witches, according to the report. Read full story from australian.com

Media:

Is bin Laden pure evil? (Source: CNN)

Bin Laden’s wives — and daughter who would ‘kill enemies of Islam’ (Source: CNN)

Blogspot:

  • Ghost Theory – Assange: US Intelligence Uses Facebook, Google, Yahoo To Spy On Us.
  • Inspired by Life – Out of the Broom Closet
  • The Pagan Household – Pagan Parenting to Combat the Violence of the World Today
  • Phantoms & Monsters – St. Clair Shores, Michigan: USO, UFO and Alien Entity Encounters
  • The Wild Hunt – Quick Notes: Dogwood Protests, Wicker Tree Gets Distribution, and Hoodoo & Conjure Quarterly

Feel free to leave comments regarding the articles posted.

If you’re interested in guest blogging or would like to submit an article or event, contact me at pagansworld.org@gmail.com.

Thanks for stopping by! Well wishes to you all and have a great day!

Lisa

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News & Submissions 3/22/2011

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011

My Take: Japanese New Religions’ big role in disaster response
Devastating images of human suffering have been pouring in from Japan for over a week now and many of us have wanted to help. When news reports showed store shelves in Tokyo were emptying, I felt the irrational urge to mail necessities like rice, toilet paper and batteries to relatives and friends there.

Ultimately, I knew that by the time my care packages would reach Tokyo, store shelves would have been restocked. An organized relief effort requires pre-existing networks. After the Kobe earthquake in 1995, yakuza – Japan’s organized crime cartels – efficiently distributed food and water.

Since this month’s earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, other types of organized aid networks have also largely been neglected by the news media, including the Japanese news: those managed by religious organizations.

These charitable efforts include more than traditional Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines that many rightly associate with Japan. The thriving Japanese religious landscape is much more diverse than most outsiders realize, with many so-called New Religious Movements, in addition to Christian churches and Islamic centers. Read full story from cnn.com

Among the Unbelievers
It has long been assumed that Western society in the modern age—with the rise of science and the broad intellectual legacy of the Enlightenment—must become increasingly secular. What is modernity if not the movement from the authority of tradition to the authority of reason? In this view, made famous by the German sociologist Max Weber, the “disenchantment” of the world is the price one pays for leaving the charms and consolations of religion behind. The non-believing Weber was himself nostalgic for an age when faith imbued life with meaning and purpose. But he never ceased to identify secular thinking with a decisive advance in human self- understanding.

In “Holy Ignorance,” the French social theorist Olivier Roy sets out to modify this secularization theory and to overturn its triumphalist message. He begins by noting that religion, though still obviously an important part of modern society, has been relegated to the private sphere, becoming mostly an “interior” search for spiritual well-being. In such a world, “faith communities” of every stripe increasingly withdraw from the broader culture, defending their doctrinal purity against the onslaught of coarse secular trends, what Mr. Roy calls “neo-paganism.” This withdrawal, though understandable, is a danger in itself. “Faith without culture,” Mr. Roy says, “is an expression of fanaticism.” Read full story from wsj.com

Seconds Before the Big One
Earthquakes are unique in the pantheon of natural disasters in that they provide no warning at all before they strike. Consider the case of the Loma Prieta quake, which hit the San Francisco Bay Area on October 17, 1989, just as warm-ups were getting under way for the evening’s World Series game between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A’s. At 5:04 p.m., a sudden slip of the San Andreas Fault shook the region with enough force to collapse a 1.5-mile section of a double-decker freeway and sections of the Bay Bridge connecting Oakland with San Francisco. More than 60 people died.

Over the years scientists have hunted for some signal—a precursory sign, however faint—that would allow forecasters to pin­point exactly where and when the big ones will hit, something that would put people out of harm’s way. After decades spent searching in vain, many seismologists now doubt whether such a signal even exists. Read full story from scientificamerican.com

My Voice: Abortion bill aims to halt coercion of women
The editorial roundup of the Argus Leader and Rapid City Journal have displayed many false allegations of what House Bill 1217 does and what it is intended to do for the women of South Dakota.

This is an entirely different bill than anything proposed in previous legislation and in statewide referendums.

This bill does not outlaw abortion. Its intent is to prevent women from uninformed and coerced abortions. Up to 64 percent of abortions are coerced against a woman’s will.

It is in response to Planned Parenthood’s sworn testimony under oath that abortions are scheduled with no history or examination of the patient by a doctor or even a nurse. The surgery is scheduled over the phone.

If a woman wants to discuss abortion, a non-medical worker schedules the surgery without determining whether it is appropriate, whether or not the woman is being coerced and without any assessment of the woman’s circumstances at all. Read full story from argusleader.com

Sammy Hagar says he was abducted by aliens
LOS ANGELES — No doubt Sammy Hagar, a former lead singer for Van Halen, has enjoyed a lot of far out experiences in life, but on Monday, the rocker told perhaps his farthest out tale to MTV. He was abducted by aliens.

Or, at least, his brain was.

In an interview for his new book, “Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock” at mtvhive.com, Hagar lets go of what even he admits might make him “sound like a crazy person” to some readers.

He and the reporter are talking about dreams he claims to have had about UFOs, and when asked whether he believed he had been abducted, Hagar answers: “I think I have.” Read full story from msnbc.msn.com

Experience: I feel other people’s pain
When I watch a film, I feel as if I’m in starring in it. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was horrific. My friend invited me to see it, and I had no idea what it was about – I normally try to avoid dramas and thrillers. When the character Salander was tortured, I felt as if my body was being beaten; I could physically feel the sensation of being attacked. It’s the same with emotions. If someone is happy, it’s like hearing an orchestra and I feel extreme excitement and joy. This is the reality of living with “mirror-touch” synesthesia, a rare neurological condition that causes sufferers to hyper-empathise.

My earliest memory of mirror-touch is standing in my parents’ garden in South Africa, aged six, watching butcher birds hang mice on the wire fence. I felt the tug on my neck and spine; it was as if I was being hanged. I remember crying to my mum, trying to explain what had happened. I wanted her to understand that I could see emotions as colours, and feel sounds; that someone else’s anger felt like heat running between my chest and stomach. “You’re just oversensitive, Fiona,” she said.

Eventually, she took me to the doctors, but they didn’t have any answers. My GP told my mum I had a lot of nervous energy. After that, she turned to the church. She’d take me in and have people place their hands on my body and pray for me. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

The science of spring: Plants rely on internal alarm clocks to tell them when to wake up from winter
Just in time for the birds and the bees to start buzzing, the flowers and the trees somehow know when to open their buds or start flowering. But the exact way that plants get their wake-up call has been something of a mystery.

“Why should plants care?” The general answer to that is that there are a lot of situations where it’s important not to do something developmentally until spring has arrived,” said Richard Amasino, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin Madison. “Trees want to make sure that their buds are protected until spring.”

Sibum Sung, a molecular biologist at the University of Texas Austin has an idea of how this protective action works on a cellular level. He discovered a special molecule in plants that gives them the remarkable ability to recall winter and to bloom on schedule in the spring. Sung published his results last December in the journal Science Express. Read full story from physorg.com

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Sunday Morning Post

Sunday, March 6th, 2011

17th century witch chronicles published online
LONDON — A 350-year-old notebook which documents the trials of women convicted of witchcraft in England during the 17th century has been published online.

The notebook written by Nehemiah Wallington, an English Puritan, recounts the fate of women accused of having relationships with the devil at a time when England was embroiled in a bitter civil war.

The document reveals the details of a witchcraft trial held in Chelmsford in July 1645, when more than a hundred suspected witches were serving time in Essex and Suffolk according to his account.

“Divers (many) of them voluntarily and without any forcing or compulsion freely declare that they have made a covenant with the Devill,” he wrote. Read full story from msnbc.msn.com

Krause probes Renaissance witchcraft
“‘She confessed and was burned’ was a refrain,” Virginia Krause, an associate professor of French at Brown University, said during her lecture yesterday, titled “Under the Witch’s Spell: Demonology in Renaissance France.”

During the lecture, held in the Mandel Center for the Humanities and sponsored by the Mandel Center for the Humanities, the Romance Studies Department, the History of Ideas Program and the Comparative Literature Program, Krause focused on the intangible evidence that many courts required while prosecuting witches.

Her main focus was on Jean Bodin, the 16th-century French author, who wrote treatises advising the French courts to rely on auricular evidence rather than visual, believing that the auricular was more trustworthy than the visual.

Due to this belief, most witches were prosecuted with their own confessions, obtained after torture. Bodin wrote that a confession “must pass from the mouth of the witch to the ears of the judge.” Read full story from thebrandeishoot.com

Woman attacked for ‘witchcraft’
Dungarpur (Rajasthan), March 5 : Rajasthan police Saturday began probing an alleged attack on a woman by villagers who labelled her as a witch. Five villagers, including two women, have been charged in the case, an official said.

According to police, Kamla of Modar village in Dungarpur district complained that she was being tagged as a witch and was tortured by some villagers. Read full story from topnews.in

NASA scientist finds evidence of alien life
Aliens exist, and we have proof.

That astonishingly awesome claim comes from Dr. Richard B. Hoover, an astrobiologist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, who says he has found conclusive evidence of alien life — fossils of bacteria found in an extremely rare class of meteorite called CI1 carbonaceous chondrites. (There are only nine such meteorites on planet Earth.) Hoover’s findings were published late Friday night in the Journal of Cosmology, a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

“I interpret it as indicating that life is more broadly distributed than restricted strictly to the planet earth,” Hoover, who has spent more than 10 years studying meteorites around the world, told FoxNews.com in an interview. “This field of study has just barely been touched — because quite frankly, a great many scientist would say that this is impossible.” Read full story from yahoo.com

A look at the ways the world could end
Think you’ve got a prediction for when and how the world will end? Get in line.

Throughout time, and across continents and belief systems, humankind has dished out enough end dates to fill a doomsday menu.

The backgrounds of the people who serve them up may differ, as might the details of what will unfold, but the general apocalyptic worldview is nothing original, says Lorenzo DiTommaso, an associate professor of religion at Concordia University in Montréal, Quebec and author of the forthcoming book, “The Architecture of Apocalypticism.”

“It’s a philosophy that explains time, space and human existence,” DiTommaso says. And by buying into this sort of outlook, a person can find comfort in a “comprehensive answer.”

Having studied apocalyptic movements for nearly 12 years, DiTommaso has strong opinions. He calls the apocalyptic worldview “adolescent” because it’s “a simplistic response to complex problems” and one that “places responsibility for solving these problems with someone else or somewhere else.” Read full story from cnn.com

The war that must be lost
In every religious domain, every geographical sector of the world, every culture and in every organised human endeavour, the ‘maximum patriarch’ has historically declared war on everyone who was privileged to be born with a vagina.

This unholy, cruel, oppressive, evil, anti-development, well-organised and systematically executed war has used every weapon in the patriarch’s arsenal to remove the inherent human rights and dignity of every woman in the global village.

Of course, the historical records of this universal war against the female of the species has been noted, documented and passed on in the religious tracts, the oral history, the artefacts, legal records and other documented facts from generation to generation.

In more recent times, the areas in which the women of the world have blunted the patriarch’s weapons have not only been documented but have set the stage for strategising around the female war plans in the continuing search for effective antidotes to relieve battle fatigue and the conservation of the positive energies to neutralise the enemy forces through love, compassion, determination and the best qualities of the human spirit. Read full story from jamaica-gleaner.com

Sex swap prisoners get right to bras and make-up
A detailed new policy document drawn up by Kenneth Clarke’s Ministry of Justice sets out the rights of sex change inmates, saying they must be allowed to purchase “gender appropriate” clothing from a home shopping catalogue.

Jail warders, who are already required to address inmates by courtesy titles such as Mister, must call transsexual prisoners “Miss” or “Ms” under the new mandatory guidelines, which come into effect later this month.

The document also offers advice on other problematic issues when dealing with transsexual prisoners – such as access to prison showers – and urges officers to contact the Ministry of Justice’s dedicated “gender recognition policy team” if they have questions about the policy.

The 20-page guidebook, issued to prison governors last week, says: “An establishment must permit prisoners who consider themselves transsexual and wish to begin gender reassignment to live permanently in their acquired gender.” Read full story from telegraph.co.uk

Deborah Harkness And A Discovery Of Witches
Once upon a time, science and the supernatural were pretty much the same thing. The stars, Haley’s Comet, eclipses, mysterious diseases, chemical reactions, it all seemed pretty paranormal to the wizards and monks and scholars who studied them.

Historian Deborah Harkness has thought a lot about the science and the supernatural. Now, she’s written her first novel, a fantasy about modern-day scholarly witches & research scientist vampires fighting great battles in our midst. And it has become a runaway best-seller.

This hour, On Point: Writer Deborah Harkness and A Discovery of Witches. Read full story from wbur.org

TheTrue Blood: Season 4 “Waiting Sucks” Eric (HBO) (soiurce Youtube – HBO)

Thanks for stopping by! Well wishes to you all, have a great Sunday!

Lisa

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News & Submissions 12/23/2010

Thursday, December 23rd, 2010

The Medical Power of Ritual
Harvard researcher Ted Kaptchuk trained for five years in traditional Chinese medicine, but then became one of the leading researchers into the placebo effect. In his hands, the fact that patients with some kinds of illnesses get better with dummy pills is a gateway into the ways that other aspects of medicine, including the capacity of doctors to generate feelings of hope, are overlooked in our technology-obsessed health care system.

This morning, Kaptchuk is out with his latest salvo in this research: a study that showed that patients with irritable bowel syndrome improved more if they were given inert sugar pills – even though they were told the pills had no active ingredients and the bottles were labeled “placebo.” Fifty-nine percent of patients who got the obviously fake pill got adequate symptom relief, compared to 35% of those who got nothing. In a press release put out by the Public Library of Science, the medical journal that published the study, Kaptchuk’s co-author, fellow Harvard professor Anthony Lembo, says: “I didn’t think it would work. I felt awkward asking patients to literally take a placebo. But to my surprise, it seemed to work for many of them.” Read full story from forbes.com

An atheist view of December
“Christians don’t deserve a monopoly on holiday cheer,” reads a simple yet loaded statement on the American Atheists’ website.

But how could Christians monopolize a holiday that is based on their beliefs?

It turns out that traditions associated with Christmas have morphed into social norms adopted even among nonbelievers.

Everywhere you turn there are decorations, cookies, and music. But for many of the 5% of Americans who say they don’t believe in God, December is not that different from what it’s like for those affiliated with a Christian religion. Those who don’t believe in the reason behind the holiday still celebrate the season’s concentration on values, family, and kindness. Read full story from cnn.com

Colossal pliosaur fossil secrets revealed by CT scanner
The innermost secrets of a colossal “sea monster” skull are being revealed by one of the UK’s most powerful CT scanners.

The X-rays are helping to build up a 3D picture of this ferocious predator, called a pliosaur, which terrorized the oceans 150m years ago.

The 2.4m-long (7.9ft) fossil skull was recently unearthed along the UK’s Jurassic coast, and is thought to belong to one of the biggest pliosaurs ever found.

The scans could establish if the giant is a species that is new to science.

Pliosaurs are aquatic reptiles belonging to the plesiosaur family. Paddle-like limbs would have powered their huge bulky bodies through the water, and they had enormous crocodile-like heads, packed full of razor-sharp teeth. Read full story from bbc.co.uk

French village threatens to call in army amid flood of doomsday survivalists
Residents of a tiny French village say it is being overwhelmed by outsiders who are intrigued by reports of aliens in the area and believe that the peak looming above may be a sacred mountain that will be a shelter at the end of human civilization.

Villagers in Bugarach, population 189, told The Daily Telegraph these visitors believe that the end of the world corresponds with the conclusion of the Mayan calendar on Dec. 21, 2012, and that the Pic de Bugarach, highest mountain in the Corbieres wine region, could provide some sort of sanctuary. Read full story from msnbc.msn.com

Do Supernova Explosions Impact Earth Every Few Hundred Million Years?
A University of Kansas research team is exploring the energy of cosmic rays and a possible link to massive prehistoric extinction events. Fossils and cosmic rays appear to have nothing in common. But Adrian Melott, a professor at the University of Kansas, is doing work with high energy cosmic rays to investigate the possibility that one may be linked to the other.

“There are a lot of things that can happen to the Earth that would cause it to get hit by more high-energy cosmic rays,” says Melott. “A supernova fairly nearby (within about 30 light-years) is an obvious one. Another one would be a gamma ray burst in our galaxy that’s pointed at us. And some people think that as we move up and down in the disc of the galaxy, when we get to the top we would get hit by more high-energy cosmic rays. So we don’t know. We have a general idea of the effects on the atmosphere, but people haven’t modeled it very much. Normally they don’t matter, because most of the cosmic rays that hit us are medium and low energy.” Read full story from dailygalaxy.com

Genome of Mystery Human Relative Revealed by 30,000 Year-Old Fossil
A 30,000-year-old finger bone found in a cave in southern Siberia came from a young girl who was neither an early modern human nor a Neanderthal, but belonged to a previously unknown group of human relatives, called “Denisovans” after the cave where the fossils were found, who may have lived throughout much of Asia during the late Pleistocene epoch.

Although the fossil evidence consists of just a bone fragment and one tooth, DNA extracted from the bone has yielded a draft genome sequence, enabling scientists to reach some startling conclusions about this extinct branch of the human family tree. Read full story from dailygalaxy.com

Slideshow: Winter Solstice, lunar eclipse met by Druids at Stonehenge (photos)
The winter solstice, lunar eclipse combination may have been a wonder to some, but for Druids at Stonehenge it was a significant spiritual experience.  The winter solstice occurs when the Earth’s axis is tilted the furthest from the sun and marks the first official day of winter.  The day is often referred to as midwinter and the winter solstice is marked by being the shortest day and longest night.  Winter solstice 2010 occurred on December 21, 2010 at 6:38 pm ET.  The lunar eclipse of 2010 ushered in the solstice as the eclipse was completed by approximately 5:00 am, December 21, 2010. Read full story from examiner.com

‘Christmas is evil’: Muslim group launches poster campaign against festive period
Fanatics from a banned Islamic hate group have launched a nationwide poster campaign denouncing Christmas as evil.

Organisers plan to put up thousands of placards around the UK claiming the season of goodwill is responsible for rape, teenage pregnancies, abortion, promiscuity, crime and paedophilia.

They hope the campaign will help ‘destroy Christmas’ in this country and lead to Britons converting to Islam instead. Read full story from dailymail.com

‘John of God’: Faith healer? (source cnn)

‘Seinfeld’ actor reminices about Festivus (source cnn)

Godless Christmas (source Pat Condell)

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News & Submissions 12/20/2010

Monday, December 20th, 2010

Total lunar eclipse on December 20 or 21, depending on time zone
There is a lunar eclipse on the night of December 20 or 21 – depending on your time zone. See below for the date in your location. This December solstice eclipse is also the northernmost total lunar eclipse for several centuries.

There won’t be a total lunar eclipse this far north on the sky’s dome until December 21, 2485.

That’s because this eclipse is happening almost simultaneously with the December solstice – which in 2010 occurs on December 21 – when the sun will be southernmost for this year. Remember, a totally eclipsed full moon has to lie exactly opposite the sun. The winter sun rides low to the south now, as it crosses the sky each day. So this December full moon is far to the north on the sky’s dome. It rides high in the sky – much like the June solstice sun. Read full story from earthsky.org

Whose Holiday Is It, Anyway?
It’s fundamental to who we are and how we behave. Humans are hard-wired for it.

It brings pleasure to those engaging happily in it, and grief to those who don’t.

Both war and Facebook are rooted in it.

We first become aware of it as toddlers, and spend the rest of our lives either trying to perfect it, wondering why we can’t, or both.

And until individuals understand its evolutionary underpinnings, we’ll never learn how to truly get along with each other.

It’s called ethnocentricity: the tendency to measure other groups according to the values and standards of our own, especially with the belief that one’s own group is superior to others. Read full story from naplesnews.com

The ‘zombie theology’ behind the walking dead
Some people find faith in churches. David Murphy finds them in zombies.

Murphy, the author of “Zombies for Zombies: Advice and Etiquette for the Living Dead,” says Americans’ appetite for zombies isn’t fed just by sources such as the AMC  hit series “The Walking Dead” or the countless zombie books and video games people buy.

Our zombie fascination has a religious root. Zombies are humans who have “lost track of their souls,” Murphy says.

“Our higher spirit prevents us from doing stupid and violent things like, say, eating a neighbor,” Murphy says. “When we are devoid of such spiritual ‘guidance,’ we become little more than walking bags of flesh, acting out like soccer moms on a bender.” Read full story from cnn.com

Ending ‘Don’t Ask’ Will Take Time
Congress has repealed ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” but the task of lifting the ban against gays serving openly in the military would likely take months, officials said.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in a statement after the Senate voted Saturday to end the policy that he would “approach this process deliberately.”

Once the change becomes law with President Barack Obama’s signature, the military will need to revise policies and regulations that govern everything from leadership training to standards of conduct. And before the policy officially ends, the president, the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff must sign a letter certifying that the changes wouldn’t affect military readiness. Read full story from wsj.com

President holds pre-meeting with select tribal leaders
WASHINGTON – A select group of tribal leaders from some of the 565 federally-recognized tribal nations invited to join President Barack Obama at his Dec. 16 tribal summit were summoned to meet with the president a day before the main event.

The White House announced the evening of Dec. 15 that 12 tribal leaders had met earlier in the day with the president in the Roosevelt Room. The meeting was closed to other tribal leaders, as well as press.

The president was in the room for approximately 15 minutes. His aides listened to tribal leaders speak for much longer, according to sources familiar with the event. A photo of the session was taken by a White House photographer while the president was in the room.

Complete details of the meeting were unavailable due to the closed nature of the event, but the White House released a statement to publicly document it. The National Congress of American Indians also released a statement. Read full story from indiancountrytoday.com

Got the Winter Blues? Weather’s Effect on Mood Revealed
New research into the connection between weather and moods has started to chip away at old myths as well as uncover some potentially powerful treatments for the winter blues.

The first myth to die is the idea that everyone feels bad when the weather gets foul. It turns out that most people might fall into one of four categories when it comes to their moods and weather, say researchers who have studied more than 2,000 Germans by way of daily questionnaires about their moods and other happenings in their lives.

“We saw differences and we actually categorized people according to their differences,” said Jaap Denissen of Humboldt University in Berlin. He and his colleagues have submitted their latest work, an expansion of an earlier study, to the journal Emotion. Read full story from discovery.com

Beam Me Up: ‘Teleportation’ Is Year’s Biggest Breakthrough
Thanks to physics, and the truly bizarre quirks of quarks, those Star Trek style teleporters may be more than fiction.

A strange discovery by quantum physicists at the University of California Santa Barbara means that an object you can see in front of you may exist simultaneously in a parallel universe — a multi-state condition that has scientists theorizing that teleportation or even time travel may be much more than just the plaything of science fiction writers.

Until this year, all human-made objects have moved according to the laws of classical mechanics, the rules governing ordinary objects. Toss a ball in the air and it falls back to Earth. Drop a coin from your roof and it falls into your yard. But back in March, a group of researchers designed a gadget that moves in ways that can only be described by quantum mechanics — the set of rules that governs the behavior of tiny things like molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles.

And the implication — that teleportation and even time travel may someday, somehow be a reality — is so groundbreaking that Science magazine has labelled it the most significant scientific advance of 2010. Read full story from foxnews.com

Sun’s gravity could be tapped to call E.T.
Our own sun might represent the best communications device around, if only we could harness its power, scientists say.

If the sun’s gravity could be used to create a giant telescope, people could send and receive intensely magnified signals that could allow us to call an alien civilization, some researchers propose.

According to Einstein’s general relativity, the sun’s behemoth mass warps space-time around it, which actually bends light rays passing by like a giant lens. If a detector was placed at the right focal distance to collect the light, the resulting image would be extremely magnified. Read full story from msnbc.msn.com

Celebrate the return of the light with ice lanterns
The way light refracts through ice is fascinating. Forget the science — it’s just plain fun to look at. Flickering light, captured inside an ice lantern, adds a warm and distinctive ambiance to any winter setting. And the gentle glow of fire and light cutting through the dark of winter can take the chill out of the coldest days — at least in spirit.

In Norse mythology, the space where the worlds of fire and ice meet is the place of creation — a place of light, air and warmth. With the arrival of winter solstice and the sun on its slow return, ice lanterns are an easy and fitting way to welcome brighter days.

The formula is simple: Add water to any mold and set it outside or in the freezer. Five-gallon buckets work well if you like the look of a traditional lantern. If you prefer globes, balloons are the way to go. Start now, and with a few supplies and a little patience, you’ll have your own creation ready in time for Christmas or New Year’s Eve. The amount of water you’re freezing and the air temperature will affect how long it takes to make your lantern. The more science you apply — tap vs. distilled water, temperature variances, thin vs. thick walls — the more varied outcomes you can achieve. Read full story from alaskadispatch.com

Why doesn’t the latest sunset fall on the longest day of the year?
If the summer solstice falls on the longest day, why doesn’t it also coincide with the earliest sunrise and the latest sunset?

We all know that the summer solstice, the moment when the sun reaches its most southerly point in the sky, falls on the longest day. So it seems logical that the day would coincide with the earliest sunrise and the latest sunset of the year. But the earliest sunrise tends to happen in early December, while the latest sunset is on another day in early January.

This phenomenon is created by a combination of the Earth’s oval-shaped orbit and its tilt of 23.5 degrees, says Professor Fred Watson, astronomer-in-charge of the Australian Astronomical Observatory.

“These two things together have a real effect on the sunrise and sunset times and they skew them so you don’t have the longest day, the earliest sunrise and the latest sunset all on the same day,” Watson explains. Read full story from abc.net.au

My Take: Religious Cities are Among the Most Violent
In one of the more jarring passages in God is Not Great, the celebrated atheist Christopher Hitchens writes of being asked a “straight yes/no question” by the conservative Jewish broadcaster Dennis Prager. Hitchens was to imagine seeing a large group of men approaching him in a strange city at dusk: “Now – would I feel safer, or less safe, if I was to learn that they were just coming from a prayer meeting?”

Hitchens’ answer, of course, is that he would feel less safe. And the rest of his polemic, which is subtitled “How Religion Poisons Everything,” is an extended attempt to explain why.

Whether religious people are more prone to criminality than unreligious people is, of course, an empirical question. So in some sense it doesn’t make all that much sense to argue about it. Just go instead and look at the data. Read full story from cnn.com

Is There An Afterlife? Christopher Hitchens vs Shmuley Boteach (source Daily Hitchens)

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News & Submissions 12/16/2010

Thursday, December 16th, 2010

Celebrating paganism with a winter solstice
A solstice is the celebration of the sun’s rebirth. Every year, Sudbury’s pagan community celebrates a summer and winter solstice, noting the longest and shortest days of the year.

Kristan Cannon-Nixon, one of five organizers who helps run both annual events, said its a way for pagans of all denominations to celebrate their beliefs together, and celebrate the shifting of seasons as it’s happening.

She said it’s “absolutely beautiful” that people who hold varying beliefs can get along at one celebration. Read full story from northernlife.ca

Black Plants and Twilight Zones: New Evidence Prompts Rethinking of Extraterrestrial Life
Astronomers have long searched for a planet that could harbor life outside our solar system. When reports came in earlier this fall of the not too hot, not too cold exoplanet Gliese 581g, it was like the answer to a dream. “If it’s confirmed, I think it’s definitely the planet we’ve been waiting for, for a long time,” says Rory Barnes, an astrobiologist at the University of Washington who wasn’t involved in the research.

The wait may continue for a while. Soon after University of California, Santa Cruz, astronomer Steven Vogt and his collaborators reported the “Goldilocks” exoplanet, a rival Swiss group said it could not find evidence for Gliese 581g in its own data set. Confirming the new find, based on 11 years of subtle and indirect telescope-based measurements, could require several more years. Read full story from scientificamerican.com

Why haven’t we found aliens yet?
The question of whether or not we are alone in the galaxy is one that has fascinated everyone from mathematicians to conspiracy theorists.

But, if extra-terrestrial life forms are abundant in the Universe – as some people believe – why have they not been in contact?

From Doctor Who to Superman, ET to Marvin the Martian, fiction has regularly brought aliens to Earth as friends or enemies but, as yet, no-one has proved they have ever seen an alien apart from on film or TV. Read full story from bbc.co.uk

EcoAlert: Ancient 2-8 Million Year-Old Forest Discovered in Canada’s Arctic
Ohio State University researchers and their colleagues have discovered the remains of the northermost  forest buried by a landslide that lived on the island two to eight million years ago, when the Arctic was cooling. The remains could offer clues to how today’s Arctic will respond to global warming.

The Ohio State team believe the trees — and exquisitely preserved – will help them predict how today’s Arctic will respond to global warming. They also believe that many more such forests could emerge across North America as Arctic ice continues to melt. As the wood is exposed and begins to rot, it could release significant amounts of methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere -and actually aggravate global warming. Read full story from dailygalaxy.com

Lunar eclipse and solstice to overlap
This year’s winter solstice -an event that will occur Tuesday -will coincide with a full lunar eclipse in a union that hasn’t been seen in 456 years.

The reappearance of the celestial eccentricity holds special significance for spiritualities that tap into the energy of the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year and a time that is associated with the rebirth of the sun.

“It’s a ritual of transformation from darkness into light,” says Nicole Cooper, a high priestess at Toronto’s Wiccan Church of Canada. “It’s the idea that when things seem really bleak, (it) is often our biggest opportunity for personal transformation. Read full story from montrealgazette.com

’Tis our season
Some stores no longer put up a tree because they say it represents Christmas and not the whole “holiday season” in general. However this is not completely true, contrary to popular belief. The use of tree and lights began way before the birth of Jesus. Not in any way desecrating Christmas, I’m just shining a candle light on the subject.

The origin of the Christmas tree and lighting up our houses are ancient traditions that date back to more than 4,000 years in Egypt with palm branches celebrating the 12 months of the sun with a 12-day festival during the winter solstice. Evergreens, mistletoe, holly and ivy are the few plants alive during the cold winter months and are ancient symbols of eternal life which gave our ancestors hope for the coming months. Read full story from northjersey.com

Column: Local Mars Hill Church pastor Mark Driscoll bashes yoga and ‘Easternism’
Last fall, Dr. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, received national attention for an article he posted on his website arguing that Christians should not practice yoga. His argument was that yoga is rooted in the religions of Hinduism and Buddhism. Therefore, he believes that practicing yoga is corrupting to people that consider themselves Christians.

I guess you can lump yoga together with religion. However, most people just show up for their one-hour class at the local health club and then go back to their busy lives when it’s over. It is not necessary to debate the merits of Christianity versus another religion because commercialized American ‘yoga’ has hardly any religious significance. Making yoga into the enemy of Christianity is silly and paranoid. Read full story from nwasianweekly.com

Statue ‘Cemetery’ Found Near Egyptian Tomb
Two statuary fragments recently uncovered at the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III in Luxor. On the left is the head of the baboon god, Hapi, and on the right are the legs of another red granite statue. (Photo: SCA)

Egyptian archaeologists believe they have found a type of cemetery of broken and damaged ancient statues near the northern side of the funerary temple of King Tut’s grandfather on the west bank of the Nile in Luxor.

A team excavating the site, which has recently yielded many statues, has unearthed two red granite statue fragments.

One is part of a larger statue of Amenhotep III, believed to be the grandfather of King Tutankhamun, and features two legs. The other is a 2.73-meter (9-foot) high head of the god Hapi. Read full story from discovery.com

A Winter’s Tale: Afghans Take Pride In Turning Away Occupiers
Afghans have a winter tradition that goes back centuries — they put hot coals in a pot under a table and put a quilt over that. It’s called a sandali. Everyone sticks their feet under the blanket and the freezing temperatures don’t seem so bad — as long as you don’t leave the table. Stories help pass the time

“We’d sit around the sandali and my grandfather told stories while we ate raisins and dried mulberries.” says Sayed Mushtaba Frotan, a 54-year-old former guerrilla fighter. Read full story from npr.org

Fish Thought to Be Extinct for 70 Years Rediscovered
In 1940, a hydroelectric dam was constructed in northern Akita Prefecture, Japan. The project, it was known at the time, would destroy the only native habitat of the black kokanee salmon by making the waters too acidic for the fish to survive. Still, developers went ahead with their plans.

A concession was made to protect the species: 100,000 eggs were transported to nearby Lake Saiko. Unfortunately, the transplanted eggs did not hatch and the species quickly became extinct. At least, that’s what was thought.

Now, a new discovery suggests that a small population of kokanee salmon may have survived. Read full story from treehugger.com

Change is afoot for 800-year-old whirling dance (source cnn)

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News & Submissions 12/04/2010

Saturday, December 4th, 2010

A season for everyone
ST. GEORGE – Christmas may dominate the holiday schedule, but December is a special and spiritual month for many local residents, regardless of their religious beliefs.

Cedar City resident Melanie Cottam is clear evidence of that.

Though her Cedar City home is adorned with wreaths, candles and even a decorated tree, Cottam said she doesn’t focus her celebrations on Christmas each winter. As a pagan, she and her family observe a different December celebration. Read full story from thespectrum.com

Celebrating the solstice
With the changing seasons, another page is turned in the book of time.

It’s the “when” that we think of — seasons past, what’s to come.

But in astronomical terms, as Mr. Steele notes in his wonderful poem, the seasons also fall under the “where” category.

Where our Earth is tilted determines the seasons. At winter solstice, which this year occurs on the evening of Dec. 21, the axis of our planet is tilted the farthest away from the sun. Read full story from thechronicleharold.ca

Misconceptions about voodoo abound
It’s common for people familiar with Haiti to joke that 90 percent of the country’s inhabitants are practicing Catholics, 10 percent practice a Protestant faith and 100 percent practice voodoo.

But the truth is that “voodoo is a very important part of Haitian life. Americans often just dismiss it as superstition or witchcraft,” said University of Kentucky history professor Jeremy Popkin, who teaches a class called “Haiti in the Modern World.” “It is a religion with deep roots in the African beliefs that were brought by slaves” to the Caribbean nation.

Popkin’s class, which includes a section on the religion, grew out of interest in the country that followed the devastating earthquake in January. Popkin, who wrote a book about the 13-year-long Haitian revolution, said his class was formed in response to a talk about the country held on campus after the earthquake. Read full story from kentucky.com

Wooden cross work of vandals at Alaska store
SOLDOTNA, Alaska – A store owner says a wooden cross wrapped to the store sign in Soldotna was an unwelcome act of vandalism that goes against her pagan and spiritual beliefs.

Rondell Gonzalez arrived Thursday at her store, the Pye’ Wackets on the Kenai Spur Highway, and found a makeshift cross about 7 feet tall attached to her business sign with plastic food wrap, the Peninsula Clarion reported. Read full story from adn.com

UFO enthusiasts want to build memorial to ‘fallen aliens’ in Ukraine
In Ukraine, UFO enthusiasts want to build a memorial to “fallen aliens” who have died during their alleged Earthly encounters, the Russia-based news channel RT tells us. Read full story from usatoday.com

WikiLeaks to publish files on aliens, UFOs
LONDON: WikiLeaks will publish more secret US diplomatic files relating to aliens and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), said the founder of the whistleblower website Julian Assange and claimed his life was at risk after the recent expose.

Assange revealed he would publish classified US files about aliens and UFOs.

According to the Daily Mail, none had so far satisfied the twin publishing criteria for WikiLeaks: that the documents are original and not self-authored. Read full story from indiatimes.com

Follow up: Does this answer the question of the ghost child?
After examining bobdezon’s modified photo above it all becomes quite clear….At least to me. Of course there are hard core believers out there that will never be convinced but it’s awfully hard to deny. Bea and Red are right in that it’s getting more and more difficult to pass an authentic picture. Sometimes technology can be a bad thing but it’s not going to stop anytime soon. However something tells me that if there ever was an authentic picture to come along there would be something about it that would indicate authenticity. Of course that’s just my opinion but we have to hold out some sort of hope. Read full story from ghosttheory.com

Ancient Mega-Lake Found in Egyptian Desert
The hyper-arid deserts of western Egypt were once home to a lush mega-lake fed by the Nile River’s earliest annual floods.

Fossil fish and space shuttle radar images have defined the bed and drainage channels of the long lost lake, which at times was larger than Lake Michigan, stretching as far as 250 miles west of the Nile in southwestern Egypt.

The discovery pushes back the origin of the “Gift of the Nile” floods to more than a quarter million years ago and paints a drastically different picture of Egypt’s environment than is seen today. It also explains the longstanding puzzle of the fossilized fish found in the desert — fish that are of the same kinds that live in today’s Nile River. Read full story from discovery.com

Atheist Ad Campaigns Are All the Rage
Atheists have been trying to get out their message, from city bus ads to the recent controversial billboard displayed at the Lincoln Tunnel which prompted a counter-billboard from the Catholic League. The latest: Co-opting rich billionaires into the act. Recently, the Illini Secular Student Alliance (ISSA), at the University of Illinois, launched a bus ad campaign to set the record straight when it comes to the charitable atheists of our world. Read full story from gothamist.com

Cancun talks start with a call to the gods
With United Nations climate negotiators facing an uphill battle to advance their goal of reducing emissions linked to global warming, it’s no surprise that the woman steering the talks appealed to a Mayan goddess Monday.

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, invoked the ancient jaguar goddess Ixchel in her opening statement to delegates gathered in Cancun, Mexico, noting that Ixchel was not only goddess of the moon, but also “the goddess of reason, creativity and weaving. May she inspire you — because today, you are gathered in Cancun to weave together the elements of a solid response to climate change, using both reason and creativity as your tools.” Read full story from washingtonpost.com

Feature: Belief in witchcraft and the effects on human rights
Belief in witchcraft, which dehumanises the vulnerable in society, survives in modern technologically developed cultures and remains a potent factor in most illiterate societies.

It remains widespread in some communities, where witch doctors are believed to wield great power in tribal societies.

In some cases, witchcraft offers an easy explanation to why one person is successful and another is not. Read full story from myjoyonline.com

Research shows spiritual beliefs preserve rainforests
A recent study suggests that indigenous cultural beliefs such as shamanism help to preserve rainforests and their wildlife.

The report is the result of a large body of data collected by scientists along with indigenous Wapishana and Makushi Indians of Guyana who were trained to conduct wildlife population counts. Read full story from survivalinternational.org

David Silverman vs. Fox News Panel (source Fox News)

President Obama’s Hanukkah Celebration (source cnn)

Jay Leno spoofs the Belief Blog (source cnn)

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News & Submissions 12/01/2010

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

Christian Colomnist: We’ve Won the War on Christmas
Despite renewed attacks on Christmas, one Christian columnist says in the grand scheme of things “it’s not a war” because Christian principles are deep within U.S. and world customs.

Gary McCullough, director of Christian Newswire, says he is annoyed and bothered by the latest atheist attacks on Christmas and the story of Christ’s birth. He asserts that Christians have already won the culture war by using their principles to “co-opt” rituals and holidays in America and abroad.

“We take them over, we make them our own and we mock their pagan roots,” insisted McCullough. Read full story from christianpost.com

Seneca Nation files FERC notice for Kinzua Dam license
SALAMANCA, N.Y. – The Seneca Nation of Indians has taken the first step toward becoming the owner-operator of a massive hydroelectric facility built on land expropriated from the nation more than 50 years ago.

Seneca President Robert Odawi Porter has announced that the nation filed application documents with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Nov. 30 for the license to operate the Seneca Pumped Storage Project at Kinzua Dam.

Seneca will be competing for the permit against the current owner, FirstEnergy Corp. of Akron, Ohio. The current 50-year license to operate the pumped storage project expires in 2015. Read full story from indiancountrytoday.com

Midweek Musings: Four steps to remember in saying good-bye
This holiday season will be the first one in my family without our father in this world.

He passed away in June, and I know from working with other families that the first holidays after a death are often layered with sadness. Last year, I wrote a column about one of our final conversations with my dad while he was still lucid.

This year, remembering some of what he said has helped us through our grief. As I mourn him, all the things I’ve said to people as a pastor over the years are coming toward me, now. It’s strange and beautiful to be on the receiving end of comfort. Holidays are special markers in communities, large and small: who is still with us, how we have changed, where are we now, who we are becoming. Read full story from gloucestertimes.com

World AIDS Day 2010: Rates of new HIV infections are slowing, but what now?
Scores of cities and communities all over the world will dim the lights this December 1st to mark World AIDS Day as part of the Light for Rights campaign which focuses on human rights, HIV and AIDS.Significant progress has been made in advancing access to HIV prevention, treatment, support and care over the past ten years, but putting human rights approaches at the centre of the response is crucial to further progress. The 2010 Global Update on the AIDS Epidemic by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) shows that in 2009 the pace of new infections had declined by almost 20% compared to 1999, but still outpaces treatment success by two to one. There are still major gaps in the implementation of human rights commitments at national and regional levels according to the report. For many people living with HIV – and the people most affected by it – human rights can help to guarantee access to health services, work, education and community participation. Read full story from worldaidscampaign.org

December Skies
This month we’ll lead off with news of a spectacular lunar eclipse that will be visible from all of North America during the night of Dec. 20-21. This is going to be a beauty with totality lasting for an hour and 12 minutes. We will be able to see the entire eclipse from beginning to end. Mark your calendars because this won’t happen again for North America until April 2014. Read full story from dchieftain.com

Full-Scale Replica Of Noah’s Ark Planned For Grant Co.
PETERSBURG, Ky. — The Creation Museum will announce details Wednesday afternoon of its planned expansion.

Answers In Genesis, which built and operates the religious-themed attraction, plans to build a full-scale wooden replica of Noah’s Ark based on biblical descriptions. Read full story from wlwt.com

What does it mean to be human?
Calling someone a “Neanderthal” in the heat of an argument may not be such an insult after all. Last May, scientists announced they had completed a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome, and found evidence that Neanderthals and modern humans interbred, likely sometime 80,000 to 50,000 years ago when modern humans left Africa and ventured into Eurasia — Neanderthal territory. Those encounters left a mark in the modern gene pool: As much as 4 percent of the DNA in people with European or Asian ancestry may be Neanderthal DNA, the researchers reported in Science.

The discovery of our intimate history with Neanderthals received tremendous press last spring, but another implication of the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome also deserves attention, says the study’s lead author, Richard Green, a genome biologist now at the University of California at Santa Cruz. “The hope is to be able to use the Neanderthal [genome] to shine a flashlight on recent evolution in humans,” he says.

Until now, scientists had been limited to comparing human DNA to the DNA of our closest living relative, the chimpanzee. It was impossible to know, however, when any detected difference arose in our evolutionary history: Did it occur right after the split with the chimp lineage (sometime about 8 million years ago), in australopithecines, in other now-extinct species in the genus Homo? Or is it a change only found in Homo sapiens? By comparing our genome to that of Neanderthals, researchers can now look for the genetic changes that make modern humans unique among all hominins. Read full story from earthmagazine.org

Olmecs to Toltecs: Great ancient civilizations of Mexico
It always strikes me when I travel in Mexico how many foreign visitors don’t know the Olmecs from the Toltecs, never mind the Totonacs. Most of what we’ve learned about Mexico’s ancient cultures begins and ends with the Aztecs and the Maya. Those justly renowned civilizations arose relatively late in the country’s history, building on traditions that came before and incorporating influences from other peoples near and far.

Mesoamerica at its height was home to more than 25 million people. The 280 languages still spoken in Mexico today show that despite shared traditions and influences, many distinct civilizations arose because of geography, climate and contact with other cultures. Read full story from sfgate.com

Catholic League counters atheist billboard
Take that, atheists.

New York Catholics, furious about an atheist-sponsored billboard calling Christmas “a myth,” lashed out with a counter-attack today — a billboard of their own that defends the celebration of the birth of Christ.

The billboard erected by the Catholic League went up near the New York side of the Lincoln Tunnel, at Dyer Avenue and 31st Street, in a bid to offset the anti-Christmas billboard at the tunnel’s New Jersey entrance. Read full story from nypost.com

Moon Helps Astronomers Corral Elusive Cosmic Particles
Search for ultra high energy neutrinos from space turns the moon into part of the ‘detector’

Seeking to detect mysterious, ultra-high-energy neutrinos from distant regions of space, a team of astronomers used the Moon as part of an innovative telescope system for the search. Their work gave new insight on the possible origin of the elusive subatomic particles and points the way to opening a new view of the Universe in the future. Read full story from redorbit.com

Radiation Rings Hint Universe Was Recycled Over and Over
Most cosmologists trace the birth of the universe to the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. But a new analysis of the relic radiation generated by that explosive event suggests the universe got its start eons earlier and has cycled through myriad episodes of birth and death, with the Big Bang merely the most recent in a series of starting guns.

That startling notion, proposed by theoretical physicist Roger Penrose of the University of Oxford in England and Vahe Gurzadyan of the Yerevan Physics Institute and Yerevan State University in Armenia, goes against the standard theory of cosmology known as inflation.

The researchers base their findings on circular patterns they discovered in the cosmic microwave background, the ubiquitous microwave glow left over from the Big Bang. The circular features indicate that the cosmos itself circles through epochs of endings and beginnings, Penrose and Gurzadyan assert. The researchers describe their controversial findings in an article posted at arXiv.org on November 17. Read full story from wired.com

Sacred run and sacred paddle provide solemn memorial for Massachusetts Natives
BOSTON – “I hope our ancestors regain some of their pride stripped from them here on this island that is now a sewer treatment plant for the City of Boston. I am honored they watched over us,” wrote Annawon Weeden, Wampanoag, who finished a 20-mile sacred paddle Oct. 30 to memorialize the internment of indigenous people on Deer Island in Boston Harbor in 1675 as well as the path they were forced to travel: 12 miles by roads, 20 miles by river to the open sea and then to barren Deer Island.

A cheer went up in the crowd of more than 150 people who had gathered in the meeting hall, the sacred paddlers’ destination, at the Deer Island Wastewater Treatment Facility, when they recognized that Troy Phillips, Nipmuc, had entered the room. “They’re here, they’re here,” was shouted by many for the people knew how dangerous the journey was for all the paddlers and runners and they had already waited several hours later than expected. Read full story from indiancountrytoday.com

Native women caucus focused on increasing awareness
ALBUQUERQUE – Native leadership gathered for the fourth Womens Caucus focused on women and children’s issues during the National Congress of American Indians conference held in Albuquerque Nov. 14 – 19.

Nearly 160 women turned out for two events, the first all-day Women’s Forum, and an evening Women’s Caucus Reception where they decided to make issues affecting women and children a higher national priority.

“I’m so excited about the NCAI Women’s Caucus. Finally our women – the life givers, culture bearers and caregivers of our nations – have a national voice,” said Susan Masten, co-president of Women Empowering Women for Indian Nations, who co-chaired the caucus with NCAI Secretary Juana Majel Dixon. Read full story from indiancountrytoday.com

Bizarre Insects Inspire Unintentionally Surreal Art
In the first half of the last century, a German blacksmith named Alfred Keller began crafting some of the most surrealistic, alien-seeming sculptures the world had ever seen — delicate works which took months to complete. These incredible creations, meticulous in detail, rivaled even the most imaginative pieces from contemporary artists — but they weren’t inspired by some absinth-induced vision or fit of madness. Indeed, Keller’s muse was nature itself — and these bugs are quite real.

As an employee of Berlin’s Natural History Museum, Keller was charged with creating lifelike models of insects to be placed on display — a challenge he took very, very seriously. The master artisan worked tirelessly fashioning his creepy, crawly creations from common materials, producing breathtaking works that did incredible justice to the real thing. Read full story from treehugger.com

A monster of an exhibition: First handwritten draft of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein goes on display
The handwritten first draft of Mary Shelley’s masterpiece, Frankenstein, has gone on display in Britain for the first time.

The exhibition also includes a never before seen portrait of the author alongside belongings and literary work from her family – one of Britain’s most renowned literary dynasties. Read full story from dailymail.co.uk

Nearly half of Britons believe in aliens, research has found. (source telegraph.co.uk)

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