THE FOCUS
MAY 21, 2010
Volume 6, Issue 21
Published by the Center For Atheism (CFA)
Editor: David Birnkrant
The Focus provides links to articles collected from major newspapers and magazines, and is emailed weekly.
This Week in Atheism is a cable show that discusses the articles featured below, every Wednesday at 6:30 PM (EST), Manhattan Cable station 57.
Live streaming is available at: http://www.mnn.org.
Comments, suggestions and subscription:
info@centerforatheism.org.
The Center for Atheism (CFA) was established by the New York City Atheists as a separate and independent national organization to propose, develop, and be a catalyst for new national activities supporting the objectives of atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers, skeptics, secularists and separation-of-church-and-state advocates.
CFA will accept and review suggestions from individuals and other secular organizations that will foster our goals.
===================================
FEATURED ARTICLES
ATHEISM
BOOKS, FILM, THEATRE, TV, YOU TUBE
New Book Helps Atheist Parents And Their Children Deal With Religious Conflicts
PR Web (press release)
Surrey, BC (PRWEB) May 19, 2010 -- Evolution vs. creation is the focal point of a new book written for atheist or agnostic parents and their children. ...
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/05/prweb4011164.htm
EVOLUTION, CREATIONISM, I.D
.
SCIENCE
Black Holes: Gas Blowers of the Universe
ScienceDaily (May 14, 2010) Supermassive black holes with the mass of many millions of stars have been detected at the centre of many large galaxies. A super-massive black hole acts like a lurking "monster" at the centre of the galaxy which swallows the surrounding material through the intensity of its gravitational pull. X-ray observations indicate that a large amount of energy is produced by the in-fall of matter into a black hole, and ejected in powerful jets...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100511111925.htm
Immune System Compromised During Spaceflight, Study Finds
ScienceDaily (May 14, 2010) Astronauts are known to have a higher risk of getting sick compared to their Earth-bound peers. The stresses that go with weightlessness, confined crew quarters, being away from family and friends and a busy work schedule -- all the while not getting enough sleep -- are known to wreak havoc on the immune system...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100514094842.htm
Changing Thoughts Key to Battling Even Severe Depression
ScienceDaily (May 14, 2010) Moderate to severely depressed clients showed greater improvement in cognitive therapy when therapists emphasized changing how they think rather than how they behave, new research has found...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100512125257.htm
Water Was Present During Birth of Earth, Study of Silver Suggests
ScienceDaily (May 14, 2010) Tiny variations in the isotopic composition of silver in meteorites and Earth rocks are helping scientists put together a timetable of how our planet was assembled beginning 4.568 billion years ago. The new study, published in the journal Science, indicates that water and other key volatiles may have been present in at least some of Earth's original building blocks, rather than acquired later from comets, as some scientists have suggested...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100513143457.htm
Mathematicians Solve 140-Year-Old Boltzmann Equation
ScienceDaily (May 14, 2010) Pennsylvania mathematicians have found solutions to a 140-year-old, 7-dimensional equation that were not known to exist for more than a century despite its widespread use in modeling the behavior of gases...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100513162755.htm
Fossil Find Fills in Picture of Ancient Marine Life
ScienceDaily (May 14, 2010) Paleontologists have discovered a rich array of exceptionally preserved fossils of marine animals that lived between 480 million and 472 million years ago, during the early part of a period known as the Ordovician. The specimens are the oldest yet discovered soft-bodied fossils from the Ordovician, a period marked by intense biodiversification...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100513123829.htm
Two Proteins Key for Normal-Sized Brains: Findings Could Shed Light on Evolution of Human Head Size
ScienceDaily (May 13, 2010) In work that may one day correct or prevent genetic conditions tied to smaller-than-normal brains and shed light on the evolution of human head size, researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory analyzed the interaction of two proteins key to brain development...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100512125222.htm
Most Distant Galaxy Cluster Revealed by Invisible Light
ScienceDaily (May 13, 2010) An international team of astronomers from Germany and Japan has discovered the most distant cluster of galaxies known so far -- 9.6 billion light years away. The X-ray and infrared observations showed that the cluster hosts predominantly old, massive galaxies, demonstrating that the galaxies formed when the universe was still very young. These and similar observations therefore provide new information not only about early galaxy evolution but also about history of the universe as a whole...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100512164920.htm
What Makes World's Strongest Animal -- The Tiny Copepod -- So Successful?
ScienceDaily (May 13, 2010) The world's strongest animal, the copepod, is barely 1 mm long. It is also the world's fastest animal and the most abundant multicellular animal on the planet. So what is it that makes the copepod so successful...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100512172444.htm
50-Year-Old Laser Is Only Just Getting Started, Physicists Say
ScienceDaily (May 12, 2010) On the laser's 50th birthday, physicists assert that the discovery's usefulness has far further to go, despite already underpinning some of the last half century's most disruptive technologies (not least, the optical fibres which make today's high speed internet possible)...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100512062626.htm
SEPARATION CHURCH / STATE
Christian Legal Society v. Martinez
EscapeOKC
You can make the argument that religious groups should not be receiving public funds because of separation of church and state, Keiser said. ...
http://www.escapeokc.com/?p=1124
MISCELLANEOUS
Science Admits Evolution Theory Wrong
The Spoof (satire)
Scientists at the WITSALTA convention in Denver, Colorado, US of A., today agreed that the theory of evolution has been debunked (that doesn't mean kicked ...
http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s5i44466===================================