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Is it possible that the pretty woman I saw today (but, really couldn't see given her mask) is a back door grab of a religion? Any articles, anyone?

Charles Darwin’s discovery of evolution is common knowledge but Darwin the person is barely known. Even on his 200th birth anniversary this year — he was born in England on Feb. 12, 1809 — much has been said about his works but little about his inner life of contrasts. Darwin loved the natural world from childhood. He roamed the wilderness to study insects while neglecting Greek and Latin, the essential subjects. He said of his schooling, “I was considered by all my masters and by my Father as a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect.” Sent...

It's not the best-researched global-warming theory, but it could be the most horrifying to certain fans of college football: Environmentalists said Friday that climate change might push the growing range of Ohio's iconic buckeye tree out of the state, leaving it for archrival Michigan. snip "People had thought of global warming as something far away, affecting polar bears," said Tom Bullock, an advocate for the Pew Environment Group in Ohio. "If we don't get started now we will reduce the opportunity to reduce global warming and curb its worst effects."snipThe coalition doesn't have any evidence that the buckeye's range has...

Drop in solar activity has potential effect for climate on earth. The sun has reached a milestone not seen for nearly 100 years: an entire month has passed without a single visible sunspot being noted. The event is significant as many climatologists now believe solar magnetic activity – which determines the number of sunspots -- is an influencing factor for climate on earth. According to data from the NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center, the last time such an event occurred was June of 1913. Sunspot data has been collected since 1749. When the sun is active, it's not uncommon to...

Australian astronomers may have found a solution to how far-away Jupiter and Saturn drive the sun's solar cycle. In a paper published in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, astronomer Dr Ian Wilson and colleagues from the University of Southern Queensland, suggest Jupiter and Saturn affect the sun's movement and its rotation, and hence its sunspot activity. Every 11 years the sun undergoes a period of intense solar activity, marked by flares, coronal mass ejections and sunspots. This period is known as the solar maximum and occurs twice each solar, or Hale, cycle. "The sun can be thought...

Amsterdam plans to close down its most famous district, citing sleaze, criminal activity and human trafficking. Not everybody is happy about it. Two weeks ago a young Dutch fashion designer named Bas Kosters opened a new store. His colorful and sumptuous creations—skirts, handbags, sweatshirts—merit attention. But the most striking aspect of his new venue is the location. Kosters's work is on display in Amsterdam's Red Light District behind two tall windows that until recently were used as a brothel. The ladies have vanished. The red lights and curtains have been removed and replaced by Kosters's hyperfashionable clothes. Kosters found this...

LONDON (Reuters) - When Richard Martinez goes to a nightclub or bar, he often goes alone. But the 38-year-old former RAF officer wastes no time in heading for a target -- a woman -- to flirt with and flatter. Martinez will not try too hard, but will allow himself to be drawn into conversation and, if asked, will give out his phone number for a potential future date. Martinez is a "honey trapper" -- or as he likes to call himself, an "integrity tester" -- one of a growing team of private detectives who are hired by wives, husbands or...

If Roger Clemens is lying — which I tend to believe he is — then his major crime is being unable to imagine a life worth living without constant, pervasive fan adulation. Seriously, if the guy isn't telling the truth, all he's really fighting for is the right to show up in any restaurant in America and get a table without waiting, a round of drinks on the house and some groupie telling him he's the greatest. He's a crackhead, a celebrity addicted to human lips resting on the crack of his/her rear end. And, as we know, crackheads do...

"Super Readers, Super Readers!" my little Gb begs in strident toddler tones. I oblige, and he is now sitting on the couch, while Mr. and Mrs. Gb take a break from the work day, watching a show on PBS that has eunuch-type super hero characters exhorting those watching out there in kidville to 'read'. This show, insipid as it is, gets rave kudos from the ocean of Moms out there, and I couldn't find a single hit in Google which criticizes it. But, there is a problem, and its illustrated by my little boys face. He's not concentrating, not in...

Six days of the summer at Caux were devoted to a conference on 'The life of faith', which was addressed by the Russian poet Irina Ratushinskaia. She told the conference why she had felt closer to God in a Soviet labour camp than she did in freedom in the West. Those of us who have survived totalitarian prisons are endlessly asked, 'Why don't you sound bitter about the past?' When we try to explain that in a way it was a positive experience, people make strange faces and ask what is so positive about suffering. So I would like to...

Well, in a few hours, a few LSU folks will recall with dread the name Greg Frey. Yep, the Buckeye quarterback no one remembers but die-hard Buckeye and LSU fans. The quarterback who led the team to one of the most spectacular comebacks ever witnessed at Ohio Stadium. As Wikipedia puts it: On September 24, 1988, he rallied Ohio State from a 33-20 deficit in the final four minutes for a 36-33 victory over the ninth-ranked LSU Tigers. I was at that game in the shoe, urging all the fans who were leaving early to stay put. It was gratifying...

(snip) Much has been made about whether or not Fred Thompson is the second coming of Ronald Reagan, and while it's clear that he's not, it's also becoming fairly clear that the oddly constructed coalition that Reagan built combining fiscal conservatives, defense hawks, libertarians, Evangelicals and working-class conservative Democrats is about to fall apart unless Thompson can reinvent it. (snip) Among those issues, of course, abortion is the major litmus test that Thompson will need to pass to win their support. And fortunately for the candidate, his lobbying on behalf of Planned Parenthood took place 17 years before his presidential...

Our most celebrated atheist, the biologist Professor Richard Dawkins, has briefly turned his attention away from bashing people who believe in God. Instead, he is about to bash people who subscribe to 'new age' therapies which he says are based on 'irrational superstition'. In a TV programme to be shown later this month, Dawkins looks at a range of ludicrous therapies and gurus, including faith healers, psychic mediums, 'angel therapists', 'aura photographers', astrologers and others. Not surprisingly, he is horrified by such widespread irrationality, not to mention an exploitative industry that fleeces people while encouraging them to run away from...

I n a move that may be unprecedented for a New Hampshire religious leader, Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson yesterday endorsed Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Robinson, the Episcopal Church's first openly gay bishop and among the best-known religious figures in the state, said he was endorsing as a private citizen and would not bring politics to the pulpit. "I'm looking for a healer, and I believe that Sen. Obama can be that," said Robinson, of Weare. A registered independent, Robinson said he had never before waded into politics publicly, but he said that in recent years, he's become convinced...

The blue-masked man bends forward in his rolling chair, back stiff, eyes pressed to microscope. On his surgical table lies a woman wrapped in blue like a package, except for naked right eye, lid peeled back, pupil widely dilated, bathed in light. He is busy with two slender instruments. One obliterates a lens, opaque as butter. The other suctions out milky debris. He slips a tube into the same incision and deposits a folded thing that spreads like the wing of a moth. The folded thing becomes a clear lens. It all takes five minutes. The woman sees again. The...

I have a sad story to be told about our National Anthem to the Americans who don’t know it. The short version of the story is I was a Prisoner of War with the Chinese in Korea for two and a half years. During the war, from 4/23/51 to 8/16/53, while I was a prisoner, we were required to learn and sing the Chinese National Anthem at every gathering (lectures, formations, classes, and every meal). I went in the army in 1950 not knowing my National Anthem, and I came out of the Army and POW camp knowing the Chinese...

Clint Eastwood's pair of films about the famous battle on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima have spurred former residents to campaign for the island's name to be officially changed. The site of the battle was a barren volcanic outpost that was home to only around 1,000 people before the war. Before 1944 it was always known as Iwo To. It only became known as Iwo Jima because Japanese officers who arrived to fortify the island after its residents were evacuated got the name wrong. That's perhaps not quite so surprising when you consider that Iwo To and Iwo Jima...

WASHINGTON -- Children at the top of the pecking order - either by birth or because their older siblings died - score higher on IQ tests than their younger brothers or sisters. The question of whether firstborn and only children are really smarter than those who come along later has been hotly debated for more than a century. Norwegian researchers now report that it isn't a matter of being born first, but growing up the senior child, that seems to result in the higher IQ scores. Petter Kristensen and Tor Bjerkedal report their findings in Friday's issue of the journal...

LONDON (Reuters) - They insist they're no superwomen, they have no special powers, and are certainly not pain or adrenaline junkies. But 'freebirthers' choose to go through what some call the most painful and potentially frightening experience of a woman's life with no drugs, no midwife and no medical help. Delivering their own babies at home, often alone, they dismiss what they say is "fearmongering" by doctors and midwives and confidently catch their offspring as they leave the womb. "Birthing uses the same hormones as lovemaking -- so why would you want anyone poking and prodding you, observing you and...

Evan O'Dorney always eats fish before his spelling bees. The brain food apparently has served him well: He's the 2007 Scripps National Spelling Bee champion. The 13-year-old from Danville, Calif., aced "serrefine" Thursday night to become the last youngster standing at the 80th annual bee. He won a tense duel with Nate Gartke of Spruce Grove, Alberta, who was trying to become the first Canadian to win the bee. Evan won a trophy and a $35,000 prize, plus a $5,000 scholarship, a $2,500 savings bond and a set of reference works. He said he knew how to spell the winning...