The Evolution of Faith: How God Is Creating a Better Christianity by Philip Gulley

I'm anxious to read this from Phil. He's a Quaker paster (some would say that's an oxymoron) and an author of If Grace Is True: Why God Will Save Every Person and the Harmony series. In an excerpt of this he asked; "How a book that has been altered numerous times over the decades can now be viewed as God's unchanging truth is a mystery to me." (He is talking about the Quaker book "Faith and Practice" but it could also easily apply to many "Holy Books," I think.) Agree or disagree with Phil, he will always raise provocative questions for folks who consider themselves "Christians" or followers of Christ.

It comes out June 20th. You can order a copy here.

Possibilities on This Planet Do Not Go Back, They Go Forward

Michael Specter, New Yorker staff writer and author of Denialism, asks why we have increasingly begun to fear scientific advances instead of embracing them.

Reason Number 4,587 For Why I Love Science

There is a five-story, blood-red waterfall pouring slowly from the Taylor Glacier in Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valley. Its story, at Atlas Obscura, is nothing short of  remarkable:

Roughly 2 million years ago, the Taylor Glacier sealed beneath it a small body of water which contained an ancient community of microbes. Trapped below a thick layer of ice, they have remained there ever since, isolated inside a natural time capsule. Evolving independently of the rest of the living world, these microbes exist without heat, light, or oxygen, and are essentially the definition of "primordial ooze." The trapped lake has very high salinity and is rich in iron, which gives the waterfall its red color. A fissure in the glacier allows the subglacial lake to flow out, forming the falls without contaminating the ecosystem within.

Via: Buzzfeed.

Becoming Human – The Last Human Standing

The third and final installment of Becoming Human, the NOVA series about our hominid relatives, airs tonight on PBS. I’m really enjoying the series. If you missed the past episodes, they are currently online at PBS’ Video site.

Tonight: The Fate of the Neanderthals:

NOVA examines the fate of the Neanderthals, our European cousins who died out as modern humans spread from Africa into Europe during the Ice Age. Did modern humans interbreed with Neanderthals or exterminate them? The program explores crucial evidence from the recent decoding of the Neanderthal genome.
How did modern humans take over the world? New evidence suggests that they left Africa and colonized the rest of the globe far earlier, and for different reasons, than previously thought. As for Homo sapiens, we have planet Earth to ourselves today, but that’s a very recent and unusual situation. For millions of years, many kinds of hominids coexisted. At one time Homo sapiens shared the planet with Neanderthals, Homo erectus, and the mysterious “Hobbits”—three-foot-high humans who thrived on the Indonesian island of Flores until as recently as 12,000 years ago.
“Last Human Standing” examines why “we” survived while those other ancestral cousins died out. And it explores the provocative question: In what ways are we still evolving today?

Why Does Art Work?

Neuroscientists using neuroaesthetics, a new scientific field, are attempting to unravel why a Picasso appeals to the human brain. “The job of an artist,” Jonah Lehrer writes for Psychology Today, “is to take mundane forms of reality—whether a facial expression or a bowl of fruit—and make those forms irresistible to the human brain.” Lehrer draws off research by V.S. Ramachandran who found that artists employ “deliberate hyperbole” that makes it easier for people’s minds to decipher what an image really is. "A Martian who came to earth would be very curious about why all these people go to museums and look at 2D representations," Ramachandran says. "Why does art work? That's the question we're trying to answer."

Source: Psychology Today

Bobby McFerrin Hacks Your Brain With the Pentatonic Scale

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

Shared via Twitter by @MarilynM

We Seem To Be in Good Hands With New EPA Chief Lisa Jackson

Lisa Jackson has no small job ahead of her. As the new EPA administrator, she's charged with protecting public health and safeguarding the environment. One of her first initiatives is to follow up on a USA Today series that found hundreds of America's schools located dangerously close to toxic hot spots. Administrator Jackson talks with PRI's Living on Earth host Bruce Gellerman about testing the air that schoolchildren breathe, regulating carbon dioxide, and what she'd like to do with the EPA's proposed budget increase.

"(There is) more about the importance of restoring the American public's trust that EPA is first and foremost a science based organization. That we need to be a place where American's look to get answers and American's need to believe that those answers are based on the soundest science that we can possibly muster and without regard to politics, if you will. That the environment is clearly a nonpartisan, nonpolitical issue at its heart. People care about the places where they live and work. So we've talked a lot about making sure that agency scientists are – and their science – are respected and conversely, that they live up to awesome responsibility of being a voice for the environment and public health in this country.

Second, we talked about restoring the rule of law at this agency. I wouldn't call it lawless, but we've had some – a number of cases where our major regulatory actions, especially on air, have been overturned by the courts. And what's really disturbing there is that, in the mean time, a framework for protection of human health is undermined.

Finally, we've talked a lot about transparency and the importance of people being able to see inside this agency and feel assured that no individual stakeholder or special interest is making the agenda, that our agenda is governed by an open dialogue with all stake holders, environmental groups, industry advocates of all types, and then we move on based on science and the law. You know, this EPA, the Obama EPA is on the job, and all we can ask of the American people is that we be given an opportunity to earn their trust and to have them see us as a steward of the issues that they care about. That is our fundamental job here at EPA."

Mr. President

"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer."

--Address in Chicago Accepting Election as the 44th President of the United States, November 4, 2008

What I've Been Watching

When I get a spare hour, I try to take some time to watch one of these: Physics for Future Presidents from UC Berkeley Professor Richard A. Muller. The most interesting and important topics in physics today, stressing conceptual understanding rather than math, with applications to current events. Fascinating stuff!

The CERN Rap

I'm such a science geek. Katherine McAlpine, aka Alpinekat (a scientific editor at Atlas), posted on Youtube and vimo, a rap about the LHC! And it is very cool!

CERN Rap from Will Barras on Vimeo.

Watch the August 1, 2008 Total Solar Eclipse From China

On August 1, 2008, a total solar eclipse occurred as the new moon moved directly between the sun and the earth. The moon’s umbral shadow fell on parts of Canada, Greenland, the Arctic Ocean, Russia, Mongolia, and China. The Exploratorium’s eclipse expedition team Webcasted the eclipse with a fascinating live remote from Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwestern China near the Mongolian border. Watch and learn here!

FYI, if you don't want to learn all the science stuff but just watch the eclipse, go to the 33 min. mark in the video. Don't worry about the clouds. ;-)