Free Republic

The 20-year-old passenger who jumped off a Royal Caribbean cruise last week after an argument with his dad has been identified as a former high school football player and avid hunter living in Florida. Levion Parker, of North Port, Florida, has been missing since he jumped overboard April 4 in front of his brother and father on the cruise to Cuba and the Bahamas’ Grand Inagua Island, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday. The release of his identity comes shortly after the Coast Guard called off its search for Parker. Social media posts show Parker often went on hunting...

Dr. Anthony Fauci once argued that conducting experiments on contagious viruses to increase their potency was worth the risk, even if the work could accidentally lead to a pandemic, it was revealed Friday. The nation’s chief medical advisor wrote in the American Society for Microbiology in October 2012 of the public health benefit to gain-of-function viral experiments — which center on manipulating viruses and making them stronger — as long as there is significant oversight.

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito wrote in a June 1985 memo that the ruling that legalized abortion should be overturned, a position certain to spur tough questioning at January's confirmation hearings. In a recommendation to the solicitor general on filing a friend-of-court brief, Alito said the government "should make clear that we disagree with Roe v. Wade and would welcome the opportunity to brief the issue of whether, and if so to what extent, that decision should be overruled." The June 3, 1985 document was one of 45 released by the National Archives on Friday. A total of...

Inter-world life transport argued By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor Life could quickly spread throughout the galaxy Astronomers may have shown how microbes from Earth could be spread throughout the galaxy taking life to other worlds. Scientists at Armagh Observatory and Cardiff University say bacteria could get into space on rocks blasted off the planet by an asteroid or comet impact. Their calculations then indicate the microbes would eventually leak out of our Solar System to seed other regions. The work is reported in two independent papers published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society....