Free Republic

<p>Scientists are conducting experiments to change the sexuality of “gay” sheep in a programme that critics fear could pave the way for breeding out homosexuality in humans.</p> <p>The technique being developed by American researchers adjusts the hormonal balance in the brains of homosexual rams so that they are more inclined to mate with ewes.</p>

I teach eleventh-grade religion at a respected and flourishing Catholic college-prep high school in the state of New York. My students are bright and talented kids, the children of some of the most successful people in this part of the state. Our discussions on morality are a window into the culture that nurtures them at least as much as most of their families do. We recently tackled abortion. A few students tried to make abortion a feminist issue, but interestingly, only a very few. Most, including the young women, react to the idea of feminism with disdain and jokes, and...

Sen. John McCain has signed a letter for the Environmental Defense Action Fund, in which the Arizona Republican emphasizes the group's support for his bill that aims to place "the first-ever national cap on global warming pollution." Mr. McCain, in his letter, mentions no specific type of "pollution," although carbon dioxide has been the main target of anti-global-warming lobbyists. Carbon dioxide is produced in large part by human breathing and cattle flatulence. The Environmental Defense Action Fund sent out the mailing, including Mr. McCain's letter, in which it asked for contributions and for recipients to sign and mail a prewritten...

I've recently returned from Torcon 3, the 61st World Science Fiction Convention, held at the end of August in Toronto. I left it deeply concerned for the future -- not merely of my chosen genre or my chosen country, but my species. I served this Worldcon as its toastmaster, and presiding over our annual Hugo Awards ceremony required me to make a speech. This being the 50th year that Hugos have been given for excellence in SF, I devoted my remarks to the present depressing state of the field. Three short steps into the New Millennium, written SF is paradoxically...

IT WAS the night before Christmas and Ebenezer Scrooge was facing a succession of supernatural terrors; or, as the latest medical thinking would have it, he was succumbing to a brain disease so obscure that doctors would not give it a name for another 150 years.A pair of medico-literary sleuths claimed last week to have tracked down the illness that haunted Scrooge. They concluded that Charles Dickens brilliantly observed the symptoms in A Christmas Carol. Robert Chance Algar, a Californian neurologist, and his aunt Lisa Saunders, a medical writer and physician, believe that the affliction that made Scrooge a byword...

A “top 10” list that may make you think that 1007, rather than 2007, is just around the corner. 1. Some Real Inconvenient Truth. Gore whipped the world into a global warming frenzy. I personally asked Mr. Gore to help arrange a debate. He declined (twice). 2. Board of Health or Bored of Science? NYC’s Board of Health banned restaurants from serving foods cooked with vegetable oils containing transfats. It mattered little to the Board that the FDA classifies trans fats as “generally recognized as safe.” 3. What Hurricane Season? The NOAA predicted a 5% chance of a below-normal hurricane...

From male killer whales that ride the dorsal fin of another male to female bonobos that rub their genitals together, the animal kingdom tolerates all kinds of lifestyles. A first-ever museum display, "Against Nature?," which opened last month at the University of Oslo's Natural History Museum in Norway, presents 51 species of animals exhibiting homosexuality. "Homosexuality has been observed in more than 1,500 species, and the phenomenon has been well described for 500 of them," said Petter Bockman, project coordinator of the exhibition. The idea, however, is rarely discussed in the scientific community and is often dismissed as unnatural because...

For some subscribers to the New Yorker, this week's edition brought an added bonus to the customary fill of cartoons, fiction, and news features: Stuck in the middle was a free DVD of Vice President Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth."

TRENTON, Nov. 15 — A lesbian couple in South Jersey won court approval this week to have both of their names listed as parents on the birth certificate of their newborn, and the attorney general’s office said it will no longer oppose such applications. The decision, in Family Court in Burlington County, stems from an Oct. 25 ruling by the New Jersey Supreme Court holding that same-sex couples are entitled to the same legal rights and protections as heterosexual couples. The court gave the Legislature 180 days either to bring gay couples within the state’s marriage laws or establish a...

AIRLINE passengers would pay up to £27 extra for a return ticket to cover the environmental damage caused by their flights, under European Commission proposals to address climate change.Draft legislation, to be published next month, would require all flights arriving or departing from European Union airports to buy permits to cover their carbon dioxide emissions. The document, a copy of which has been obtained by The Times, says that airlines would join Europe’s emissions trading scheme by 2011 and predicts that they would pass on the costs to their passengers. The report estimates that passengers on flights within Europe would...

DID a clairvoyant help US commandos ferret Saddam Hussein out of his hiding place in Iraq three years ago? Israeli-born celebrity psychic Uri Geller, best known for his spoon-bending antics, says the power of the paranormal led US troops to the fugitive Iraqi ex-dictator.

TOKYO — Japanese researchers said Sunday that a bottlenose dolphin captured last month has an extra set of fins that could be the remains of back legs, a discovery that may provide further evidence that ocean-dwelling mammals once lived on land. Fishermen captured the four-finned dolphin off the coast of Wakayama prefecture (state) in western Japan on Oct. 28, and alerted the nearby Taiji Whaling Museum, according to museum director Katsuki Hayashi.

I called Tim Russert to ask if Dick Cheney had washed his hands after their interview on Sunday. "No-o-o," he replied, sounding confused. Any sort of scrubbing, I wondered? Antiseptic wipe, Purell, quick shower on the way out? No, Tim assured me, the vice president did not stop at the basement shower at NBC, or even drop by the men's room you pass on the right as you head out to the parking lot. According to The New York Times' health section on Tuesday, Lady Macbeth and Pontius Pilate were not alone in wanting that "damned spot" out. "People who...

Very obese women should be denied fertility treatment, experts say. The British Fertility Society is recommending women with a body mass index of 36 and over should not be allowed access to fertility treatment. Underweight women and those classed just as obese (BMI over 29) should be forced to address their weight before starting treatment, the society said. NHS guidelines say overweight women should be warned of the health risks, but do not impose any ban on treatment. Being overweight can put both the health of the mother and child at risk through problems such as gestational diabetes and high...

"The British Fertility Society is recommending women with a body mass index of 36 and over should not be allowed access to fertility treatment. Underweight women and those classed just as obese (BMI over 29) should be forced to address their weight before starting treatment, the society said. "

TUESDAY, Aug. 29 (HealthDay News) -- Adult obesity rates increased in 31 states during the past year, leaving an estimated two-thirds of Americans vulnerable to fatal diseases such as diabetes, stroke and cancer.This, despite federal and state government efforts to curb the overweight epidemic, according to a new report from the Trust for America's Health.The report, titled F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies Are Failing America, 2006, was released Tuesday and is the third in a series of annual reports by the trust detailing state obesity rates as well as the effectiveness of government policies to fight the problem.According...

Evolutionary biology has vanished from the list of acceptable fields of study for recipients of a federal education grant for low-income college students. The omission is inadvertent, said Katherine McLane, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, which administers the grants. “There is no explanation for it being left off the list,” Ms. McLane said. “It has always been an eligible major.” Another spokeswoman, Samara Yudof, said evolutionary biology would be restored to the list, but as of last night it was still missing. If a major is not on the list, students in that major cannot get grants unless...

The American Association for the Advancement of Science claims for its journal Science “the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of one million.” Be that as it may, Science is the Dan Rather of science journalism. “Fake Data, but Could the Idea Still Be Right?” in the July 14 issue actually makes the following statement (emphases mine): European investigators last week confirmed that a pioneering oral cancer researcher in Norway had fabricated much of his work. The news left experts in his field with a pressing question: What should...

Aug. 7, 2006 — - Last week President Bush underwent his annual physical. It revealed he was in pretty good health, except for one thing. According to his body mass index, he's overweight. His BMI was 26, putting him in the lower range of the overweight category. He weighs 196 pounds, meaning he has gained 5 pounds since last year and his percentage of body fat has increased to 16.8 percent, which is, overall, pretty good for a man who just turned 60. (To calculate your BMI, go here). Still, the appropriate body weight range is 157 to 192 pounds...

Apocalyptic visions of climate change used by newspapers, environmental groups and the UK government amount to "climate porn", a think-tank says. The report from the Labour-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) says over-use of alarming images is a "counsel of despair". It says they make people feel helpless and says the use of cataclysmic imagery is partly commercially motivated. However, newspapers have defended their coverage of a "crucial issue". 'Nobody knows' The IPPR report also criticises the reporting of individual climate-friendly acts as "mundane, domestic and uncompelling". The style of climate change discourse is that we maximise the problem...