The next time someone claims that the Founding Fathers wanted a total separation of church and state, try asking them who made these statements:
It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage, and such only, as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent both in order of time and degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society. Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe.
It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favors.
And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever.
This will be huge someday. Researchers have found a way to take the output of a neuron, or group of neurons, in a monkey’s brain and route them through electrodes to their destination muscles. Basically, they can bypass a section of nerves, meaning that at some point doctors will be able to reverse the effects of some forms of paralysis. From the IEEE Spectrum Online:
Though it will be years before spinal bypass surgery reaches even the clinical-experiment stage, researchers at the University of Washington (UW) and the Washington National Primate Research Center, both in Seattle, have figured out a way to get macaque monkeys in their lab to manipulate temporarily paralyzed muscles in their arms using brain-controlled electrical stimulation. In research reported last week in Nature, they describe what happened when they attached electrodes to neurons in a monkey’s motor cortex—the part of the brain that controls voluntary movement—and used fairly simple algorithms to translate activity in these cortical cells into electrical signals that tell muscles when, how much, and how forcefully to contract.
This by itself will be a huge advance in medical technology when it is ready for prime-time.
But wait, there’s more.
Not only have they been able to re-connect the existing brain cells that control, say, a wrist to the muscles in that area, but they found that the monkey could retrain other brain cells to do the same thing.
The most surprising outcome of their experiments is the revelation that motor cortex cells that had previously been dedicated to moving, say, the big toe on a monkey’s left foot or bending its knees could be trained to control its wrists. This flexibility, says Fetz, may allow patients with head injuries that damaged part of the cerebral cortex to still be candidates for a neuroprosthesis.
It’s hard to even imagine the kind of impact this kind of research will have in the future.
Many are familiar with Monty Python’s skit about the “Norwegian Blue” parrot with “lovely plumage” that was “pining for the fjords.”
Fewer know that the Norwegian Blue actually did exist, apparently. However, it has now “joined the choir invisible,” as it has been extinct for many years. 55 million years, according to one Dr. Waterhouse, who made the finding. (I have doubts about his number, but that’s an other topic for an other time.)
The U.K.’s Daily Mail reported that Dr. Waterhouse noticed a fossilized bone among bird remains found in a mine in Denmark:
Research has now confirmed the bone was part of an upper wing
from a bird in the parrot family. Although the mine was in Denmark,
the birds would also have lived in what is now Norway.
Dr Waterhouse, now assistant curator of natural history at the
Norfolk Museums Service, said: “All that remained was a single
upper wing bone, but it contained characteristic features that
showed it was clearly from a member of the parrot family, about the
size of a yellow-crested cockatoo.”
…
Details of the Norwegian Blue have been published in the latest
issue of Paleontology journal, under the distinctly Pythonesque
title Two New Fossil Parrots (Psittaciformes) from the Lower Eocene
Fur Formation.
I don’t know if this will have any actual impact on anything, but at least the news should be heard. The Democrat leadership in the house has blocked a vote on important energy legislation, and has gone home for a five-week vacation. Many of the Republicans are still in the capitol, protesting the move. Get the word out!
Regret the Error has posted what must be the best (or worst) typo of 2008. Personally, I suspect Gollum has started working for this particular newspaper.
Wildlife photographer Hal Brindley has caught on camera the first known case of a leopard attacking and killing a crocodile. The pictures are unbelievable.
