Free Republic

As President, Jimmy Carter may not have consulted an astrologer to decide the details of his schedule - á la Nancy Reagan directing her husband's busy days. But Ronald Reagan's predecessor did once employ a woman in a trance to locate a downed government plane in Africa. "We had a plane go down in the Central African Republic. A twin-engine plane. Small plane. And we couldn't find it," the 81-year-old 39th President reveals to GQ magazine's Wil S. Hylton. "So we oriented satellites that were going around the Earth every 90 minutes to fly over that spot where we thought...

Occasionally a social issue becomes so ubiquitous that almost everyone wants to talk about it -- even well-meaning but uninformed pundits. For example, Charles Krauthammer preaches that religious conservatives should stop being so darn, well, religious, and should accept his whitewashed version of religion-friendly Darwinism.1 George Will prophesies that disagreements over Darwin could destroy the future of conservatism.2 Both agree that intelligent design is not science. It is not evident that either of these critics has read much by the design theorists they rebuke. They appear to have gotten most of their information about intelligent design from other critics of...

Rachel Carson, a driving force behind the modern environmental movement, grew up in a modest homestead in Springdale Borough near the Allegheny River. For the budding marine biologist, the river's waters were an early inspiration. Now, more than four decades after Ms. Carson's death, her presence may return to those waters. Allegheny County Council tomorrow will consider renaming the Ninth Street Bridge in her honor. If the resolution is approved, Ms. Carson would join Roberto Clemente and Andy Warhol as namesakes for the three Downtown "Sister Bridges" that cross the Allegheny. "This is long overdue," said Esther L. Barazzone, president...

Intelligent design — already the planned subject of a controversial Kansas University seminar this spring — will make its way into a second KU classroom in the fall, this time labeled as a “pseudoscience.” In addition to intelligent design, the class Archaeological Myths and Realities will cover such topics as UFOs, crop circles, extrasensory perception and the ancient pyramids. John Hoopes, associate professor of anthropology, said the course focused on critical thinking and taught how to differentiate science and “pseudoscience.” Intelligent design belongs in the second category, he said, because it cannot be tested and proven false. “I think this...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- The U.S. patent office has reportedly granted a patent for an anti-gravity device -- breaking its rule to reject inventions that defy the laws of physics. The journal Nature said patent 6,960,975 was granted Nov. 1 to Boris Volfson of Huntington, Ind., for a space vehicle propelled by a superconducting shield that alters the curvature of space-time outside the craft in a way that counteracts gravity. One of the main theoretical arguments against anti-gravity is that it implies the availability of unlimited energy. "If you design an anti-gravity machine, you've got a perpetual-motion machine," Robert...

WASHINGTON - The difference between the sexes has long been a rich source of humor. Now it turns out, humor is one of the differences. Women seem more likely than men to enjoy a good joke, mainly because they don't always expect it to be funny. "The long trip to Mars or Venus is hardly necessary to see that men and women often perceive the world differently," a research team led by Dr. Allan L. Reiss of the Stanford University School of Medicine reports in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. But they were surprised when...

South Park is my absolute FAVORITE TV show. I always look forward to flipping on the tube at 9:30 PM with a glass of rum in hand to watch that show. Even if it is a re-run I still love watching South Park. Therefore it was with great anticipation that I watched this season's NEW episode last night. If you missed it, you missed a gem. It was a satire on media misinformation about Hurricane Katrina along with panic over Global Warming. What happened was that Cartman and Stan accidentally caused the collapse of a dam that flooded Beaverton...

Humans have been tinkering with greenhouse gas levels in Earth's atmosphere for at least 2,000 years and probably longer, according to a surprising new study of methane trapped in Antarctic ice cores conducted by an international research team. The study showed wild gyrations of methane from biomass burning from about 1 A.D. to present, said Dominic Ferretti, lead study author and a University of Colorado at Boulder researcher with a joint appointment at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, or NIWA in Wellington, New Zealand. Scientists had expected to see slowly increasing concentrations of methane, a major greenhouse...

AMSTERDAM — Women who smoke during pregnancy have a higher chance of having a lesbian daughter, neurobiologist and brain researcher Dick Swaab has claimed. Swaab wrote about his theory this week in a University of Amsterdam magazine for graduates, newspaper 'De Telegraaf' reported. In a study on the hypothalamus, Swaab said a person's sexual preference is decided in this region of the brain. It also influences a person's predisposition to aggression, depression and symptoms associated with schizophrenia. The development of an unborn child can be influenced by external substances such as nicotine and amphetamines and the chemicals in diet pills.

Very young children who eat French fries frequently have a much higher risk of breast cancer as adults, U.S. researchers reported Wednesday. A study of American nurses found that one additional serving of fries per week at ages three to five increased breast cancer risk by 27 percent. "Researchers are finding more evidence that diet early in life could play a role in the development of diseases in women later in life," said Dr. Karin Michels, of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and Harvard Medical School, who led the study. "This study provides additional evidence that breast cancer may...

Not long after an affirming treatment by Hollywood, the life of the "father of the sexual revolution," Alfred Kinsey, is about to be feted on Broadway. The musical "Dr. Sex" is scheduled to run Aug. 26 to Oct. 30 at the Peter Norton Space in New York City, according to BroadwayWorld.com Production notes call "Dr. Sex" the "cleanest show about sex in the history of musical comedy." The movie "explores the loving relationship between Dr. Alfred Kinsey, his wife, Clara ... and their handsome boyfriend (and lab assistant), Wally Matthews." Brian Noonan of "The Phantom of the Opera" and "Les...

Ask Michael Jacobson how he feels when critics call the Center for Science in the Public Interest the "food police" and he answers with the bravado that has made CSPI one of the most reviled enemies of big food companies. "Depends on who says it," said Jacobson, CSPI's executive director and co-founder. "People who say it with humor, I think 'fine.' Other people mean it in a derogatory way, and I think nasty thoughts about those people. "I see it in a way as food detectives, where we try to find out what's going on and we tell the public...

A majority of Kansans polled say they want public schools to either allow evolution to be criticized or teach other theories alongside it in science classes. And more than one-third of the respondents say the Bible's story of creation is the best explanation for the origin of life. Those findings are part of a poll about evolution conducted June 14-16 for The Wichita Eagle and the Kansas City Star. The results offer encouragement to proponents of the state's proposed new science standards, which are critical of how evolution is taught. But evolution proponents see the results as proof that the...

As the culture wars rage over gay rights, a flock of sheep at Oregon State University may help answer a key question behind the controversy: Is homosexuality a matter of choice or biology? The Corvallis herd includes a group of rams that scientists delicately refer to as "male-oriented." These animals consistently ignore females and bestow all their amorous attentions on members of their own sex. Researcher Charles Roselli says a decade of study suggests sexual orientation is largely hard-wired into the sheep's brains before birth. Now, he's trying to figure out how that happens, zeroing in on genes and hormones....

Interview with Martin Gardner Martin Gardner occupies a unique position in the mathematical world. The author of the “Mathematical Games” column that ran for twenty-five years in Scientific American magazine, he opened the eyes of the general public to the beauty and fascination of mathematics and inspired many to go on to make the subject their life’s work. His column was the place where several important mathematical notions, such as Conway’s Game of Life and Penrose tiles, first became widely known. It was also a place where the sheer fun of mathematical games and puzzles was celebrated and savored....

Eighty years after the Scopes "Monkey Trial," the battle between those who support the validity of biological evolution and those who oppose it rages on in Kansas--and in more than a dozen other states around the country. The controversy may appear to be simply about the teaching of science in the classroom. But it represents a far more complex, widespread clash of politics, religion, science and culture that transcends the borders of conservative, so-called red states and their more liberal blue counterparts. "This controversy is going to happen everywhere. It's going to happen in all 50 states. This controversy is...

The National Parent-Teacher Association has refused an ex-homosexual group’s request to exhibit at its annual convention while welcoming a pro-homosexual activist organization – even inviting it to present a workshop. Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays had its application to exhibit rejected because it supports former homosexuals. The National PTA, however, sought the attendance of Parents, Families and Friends of Gays, a pro-homosexual advocacy group that promotes in same-sex marriage. With 6 million members, the National PTA is the largest volunteer child advocacy organization in the United States. One of its purposes is "to be inclusive in its efforts...

IT sounds like something out of the satirical journal Annals of Improbable Research: a team of Swedish neuroscientists scanned people's brains as they smelled a testosterone derivative found in men's sweat and an estrogen-like compound found in women's urine. In heterosexual men, a part of the hypothalamus (the seat of physical drives) responded to the female compound but not the male one; in heterosexual women and homosexual men, it was the other way around. But the discovery is more than just a shoo-in for that journal's annual Ig Nobel Prize - it raises provocative questions about the science and ethics...

A Scottsdale couple have been charged with child abuse after their three children, who police said were put on a type of vegan diet, were found malnourished and severely underweight. The couple’s 3-year-old daughter weighed 12 pounds when she was taken to Phoenix Children’s Hospital last month after apparently having a seizure, said Scottsdale detective Sam Bailey. All three children remained hospitalized Wednesday, Bailey said. The parents, Blair Parker, 34, and Kimu Parker, 35, were arrested April 28, and on Wednesday were each being held on $90,000 bail in a Maricopa County jail. The Parkers were charged by a direct...

Global warming "solutions" would devastate poor people and countries Recent articles about global warming in ultra "progressive" Mother Jones magazine reflect a meltdown in fundamental principles of science, economics, ethics and democracy. The Earth has warmed slightly since the Little Ice Age ended 150 years ago, and humans today are no doubt exerting some influence on our climate. But aside from computer-generated worst-case scenarios about temperatures, storms, melting Arctic icecaps and rising sea levels, there is little to support theories of calamitous global climate change. Models and clamorous claims of climate catastrophe are not evidence, especially when satellite and weather...