Category: Science

Excerpts:

Somewhere in Florida, 25,000 disembodied rat neurons are thinking about flying an F-22.

These neurons are growing on top of a multi-electrode array and form

a living "brain" that’s hooked up to a flight simulator on a desktop

computer. When information on the simulated aircraft’s horizontal and

vertical movements are fed into the brain by stimulating the

electrodes, the neurons fire away in patterns that are then used to

control its "body" — the simulated aircraft.

Currently the brain has learned enough to be able to control the

pitch and roll of the simulated F-22 fighter jet in weather conditions

ranging from blue skies to hurricane-force winds. Initially the

aircraft drifted, because the brain hadn’t figured out how to control

its "body," but over time the neurons learned to stabilize the aircraft

to a straight, level flight.

"Right now the process it’s learning is very simplistic," said

DeMarse. "It’s basically making a decision about whether to move the

stick to the left or to the right or forwards and backwards and it

learns how much to push the stick depending upon how badly the aircraft

is flying."

The bigger goal is to figure out how neurons talk to each other. MRI

scans, for example, show millions of neurons firing together. At that

resolution, it is impossible to see what’s happening between individual

neurons. While scientists can study neural activities from groups of

cells in a dish, they can’t watch them learn and grow as they would

within a living body unless the neurons have some kind of body to

interact with.

By taking these cells and giving them back a "body," the researchers

hope to uncover how the neurons communicate with each other and

eventually translate that knowledge to develop novel computing

architecture.

GET THE STORY FROM WIRED.

MORE FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA.

And this just in from UNIVERSE TODAY:

In related news, EarthForce defense contractors announced

project aimed at creating a powerful "shadow" warship using a human

being as its central processing unit.

"We’re very excited about the new shadow ship," said Gen. Wink

Tinkley of EarthForce. "Using a human being as the CPU means a lot more

computing than a simulated rat brain has. The only problem we’ve found

is that telepaths can interfere with the human’s neural connection with

the ship."

EarthForce contractors also announced the creation of an even more

ambitious program which will allow a detachable human as a ship’s CPU.

When perfect, this pilot program will allow humans who pilot such

ships–known as "pilots"–to live normal lives by being extracted from

their ships at the end of missions.

As if creating "boffins" and zombie dogs weren’t enough, scientists have also created monkey zombies. And, as before, their ultimate, sinister goal is to create human zombies.

Say same technique will allow making human zombies.

YOU’RE NEXT!!!

GET THE STORY.

Your travel tip for the day: If you go the Holy Land, scratch "Swimming in the Jordan" off of your To-Do List:

"The Jordan River, where Christians believe Jesus was baptized, is heavily polluted with sewage and is in danger of drying up after decades of conflict and intense agricultural use, environmentalists said on Friday.

[…]

"’The Jordan River will disappear if nothing is done soon. More than half of it is raw sewage and runoff water from agriculture. What keeps the river flowing today is sewage,’ Munqeth Mehyar, chairman of Friends of the Earth Middle East (FOEME), an Israeli-Jordanian-Palestinian group, told Reuters."

GET THE STORY.

Glad I didn’t know any of this when I went to the Holy Land on pilgrimage in the Jubilee Year 2000. It would have sucked some of the magic out of being sprinkled with Jordan River water while we renewed our baptismal promises.

Your travel tip for the day: If you go the Holy Land, scratch "Swimming in the Jordan" off of your To-Do List:

"The Jordan River, where Christians believe Jesus was baptized, is heavily polluted with sewage and is in danger of drying up after decades of conflict and intense agricultural use, environmentalists said on Friday.

[…]

"’The Jordan River will disappear if nothing is done soon. More than half of it is raw sewage and runoff water from agriculture. What keeps the river flowing today is sewage,’ Munqeth Mehyar, chairman of Friends of the Earth Middle East (FOEME), an Israeli-Jordanian-Palestinian group, told Reuters."

GET THE STORY.

Glad I didn’t know any of this when I went to the Holy Land on pilgrimage in the Jubilee Year 2000. It would have sucked some of the magic out of being sprinkled with Jordan River water while we renewed our baptismal promises.

… The ivory-billed woodpecker, long thought extinct:

"A group of wildlife scientists believe the ivory-billed woodpecker is not extinct. They say they have made seven firm sightings of the bird in central Arkansas. The landmark find caps a search that began more than 60 years ago, after biologists said North America’s largest woodpecker had become extinct in the United States.

"The large, showy bird is an American legend — it disappeared when the big bottomland forests of North America were logged, and relentless searches have produced only false alarms. Now, in an intensive year-long search in the Cache River and White River national wildlife refuges involving more than 50 experts and field biologists working together as part of the Big Woods Partnership, an ivory-billed male has been captured on video."

GET THE STORY.

For more information on the ivory-bill woodpecker, see this link.

(Nod to a friend who told me of the story. His link to an article on the story had an Evil registration requirement, so I did some poking around to find a non-registration link.)

Not to be a crab about an otherwise interesting wildlife story, but now that this woodpecker has made a comeback, we can expect it to be placed on an endangered species list and have it’s habitat declared off-limits to human beings. Thanks, Woody!

NEWS.com.au (an Australian news site) announced the shocking fact:

Boffins Create Zombie Dogs!

You’re probably going: "Wait! I didn’t know that scientists had created boffins! Much less that the boffins had in turn created zombie dogs!"

"Boffin," apparently, is a UK (and Aussie) slang term for scientists and doctors who work for the military, so a U.S. translation of the headline would be:

Military Scientists Create Zombie Dogs!

Except . . . they’re not really zombie dogs. They’re more like cryogenically-suspended-and-then-revived dogs.

But let’s not let that get in the way of a good headline! Let’s pretend that they really are zombie dogs.

The <pun intended>chilling thing</pun intended> is that the "boffins" intend next to create "zombie" humans!

Oooo-oooooo! Pretty scary, eh, kids?

Just like that movie on Monster Chiller Horror Theater!

No word on whether the "zombie" dogs have a taste for human brains, but I can imagine what would happen if you put them in a bowl in front of the "zombie" dogs!

In the meantime . . .

GET THE (CHILLING) STORY!

A reader writes:

Any ideas on what Christian homosexuals should do if they no longer want to be homosexual and would like to have children with a woman?  In other words, what could one do to change their sexual preference?

I’m afraid that I don’t have a lot of knowledge in this area, but we’ve had Dr. Joseph Nicolosi–a counselor who specializes in this area–on Catholic Answers Live before (LISTEN, DOWNLOAD).

I believe that Nicolosi is based in the L.A. area. If you live there you might be able to see him for help. Otherwise, you might be able to get a referral to someone in your area who could help.

Nicolosi is also head of a group called NARTH (National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality). Their website IS HERE.

There’s also a support group that I can recommend. It’s called Courage, and its website IS HERE.

Both the NARTH website and the Courage web site should contain links to additional resources, book recommendations, etc., as well as ways to contact folks dealing with the same issue.

I also have an additional piece of advice: It has long been my conviction that people should not define themselves by their sins or temptations. Thus I do not encourage people to identify themselves by saying "I am a homosexual" or "I am an alcoholic" or "I am an overeater" or "I am an anything else." People are people. They may have different temptations and different histories, but if they define themselves by the temptations they have or the mistakes they’ve made in the past, it will make it all the harder to deal with those temptations or overcome their past.

Everyone–regardless of their temptations or their backgrounds–is a person with dignity whom God loves and for whom Christ died and who, if he is a Christian, is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Thus I would advise you not to think of yourself as a homosexual. You’re a person dear to God’s heart who happens to have same sex attractions to deal with, just as everyone has some kind of temptation to deal with. If you make the shift to thinking of yourself as a person who has an issue to overcome rather than as "a homosexual" then it will make it that much easier to overcome the problem.

Hope this helps, and God bless!

20

Doctors are not as religious as their patients. . . . True.

Doctors are horribly irreligious. . . . False.

A new study is out on the religiosity of doctors and it finds that the picture is . . . complex.

The study wasn’t the gold standard of research as it relied upon doctors filling out and mailing in questionnaires, though it got a surprisingly high return rate (about 2/3rds of those sent the questionnaires returned them). Still, the results showed doctors were more religious than anticipated, though not quite as religious as their patients.

76 percent said they believe in God and 59 percent said they believe
in some sort of afterlife. That compares to 83 percent and 74 percent
of the general population.

Researchers say that although more than 80 percent of patients describe
themselves as Protestant or Catholic, only 60 percent of doctors
describe themselves the same way.

5.3 percent of doctors are Hindu vs. 0.2 percent of nondoctors 14.1
percent of doctors are Jewish vs. 1.9 percent of nondoctors 1.2 percent
of doctors are Buddhist vs. 0.2 percent of nondoctors 2.7 percent of
doctors are Muslim vs. 0.5 percent of nondoctors

Surprisingly,

Although
doctors were less likely to believe in God or an afterlife, the survey
showed that 90 percent of doctors attend religious services at least
once a month compared with 81 percent of their patients.

Many doctors (particularly among Christians, Buddhists, and Mormons) said that their faith influenced their medical practice, though others (particularly among Jews and Hindus) did not.

GET THE STORY.

Not just any virus, of course, a very special little virus that goes by the abbreviation AAV-2.

What’s so special about it?

"Our results suggest that adeno-associated virus type 2, which infects the majority of the population but has no known ill effects, kills multiple types of cancer cells yet has no effect on healthy cells," said Craig Meyers, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Penn State College of Medicine in Pennsylvania.

"We believe that AAV-2 recognizes that the cancer cells are abnormal and destroys them. This suggests that AAV-2 has great potential to be developed as an anti-cancer agent," Meyers said in a statement.

It wipes out HPV or Human Pappiloma Virus cells, HPV being a leading cause of cervical cancer.

The same thing happened with cervical, breast, prostate and squamous cell tumor cells.

GET THE STORY.

How smart are parrots? And how good are they at . . . parroting?

Pretty darn smart, and pretty darn good.

Case in point: Einstein, a parrot who is a . . . master parrot.

What am I talking about?

WATCH THE VIDEO (Window Media Format).