Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia On The Rise In Europe

WASHINGTON (IPS) - Both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia have risen in Europe over the last four years, according to a survey conducted earlier this year and released here Thursday by the Pew Research Centre.

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Inspector, Bomb Suspects Die In Delhi Gunbattle

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- A police officer and two suspected Islamic terrorists believed involved in a series of bombings were killed in gunbattle Friday in New Delhi, a police official said.

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A Week Late, Al Qaeda Releases 9/11 Video

(CBS/ AP) Al Qaeda threatened major new attacks in Afghanistan and dismissed setbacks in Iraq, vowing that it will keep fighting there even after Americans leave, in a new video marking the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, issued Friday more than a week after the anniversary.

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Saudi Cleric Says Mickey Mouse 'Must Die'

Calling the loveable Disney rodent "one of Satan's soldiers," Sheikh Muhammad Munajid said household mice and their animated counterparts must be rubbed out, the U.K.'s Daily Telegraph reported Monday.

--snip--

And Mickey wasn't alone. Munajid also mentioned Jerry from "Tom and Jerry" fame is on his list of "impure" cartoon mice.

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16 Dead In Car Bomb, Ambush At US Embassy In Yemen

SAN'A, Yemen (AP) -- Suspected militants armed with automatic weapons, rocket-propelled grenades and at least one suicide car bomb assaulted the U.S. Embassy in the Yemeni capital on Wednesday. The coordinated attack killed 16 people, including six assailaints, officials said.

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See also:

Al Qaeda blamed for U.S. Embassy attack

Did Yemen attackers return from Iraq?

Vatican: Guess What, Darwin? Evolution Is OK

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican said on Tuesday the theory of evolution was compatible with the Bible but planned no posthumous apology to Charles Darwin for the cold reception it gave him 150 years ago.

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720 Afghan Police Killed In 6 Months

(AP) Insurgent attacks have killed around 720 Afghan police in the last six months as militants have increased the pace of bombings and ambushes, an official said Tuesday.

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Iraqi Police Say Explosives-Laden Bicycle Kills 2

(AP) Police say a bicycle laden with explosives exploded at a busy market north of Baghdad, killing two civilians and wounding 19.

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US Soldiers Battling Hard In Iraqi City

Suicide Attack Kills 3 Soldiers In Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- A suicide attack late Tuesday evening in the restive area of Swat killed three soldiers and wounded six others, the Pakistani military told CNN.

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How Memories Are Made, And Recalled

ScienceDaily -- What makes a memory? Single cells in the brain, for one thing.

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Turn It Off To Turn It On: Neuroscientists Discover Critical Early Step Of Memory Formation

The 'Satellite Navigation' In Our Brains

Scientists Watch As Listener's Brain Predicts Speaker's Words

Dark Matter 'Bridge To Nowhere' Found In Cosmic Void

More than a dozen galaxies seem to be lined up along a bridge of dark matter inside a region of nearly empty space. This 'bridge to nowhere' could shed light on how small galaxies formed in the early universe.

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Dark Matter Disk In Our Galaxy

Likely Planet Found Around Sun-like Star

Lander Sees Martian Whirlwinds In Action

Strange 'Ant From Mars' Discovered

A newly discovered species of a blind, subterranean predator -- dubbed the "Ant from Mars" -- is likely a descendant of one of the very first ants to evolve on Earth, a new study finds.

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'Witchcraft' Claim Sparked Deadly Soccer Riot

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) -- Accusations that a soccer player was using witchcraft during a match in eastern Congo sparked a riot that killed 13 people, a U.N.-funded radio station reported Monday.

Most of the victims were between the ages of 11 and 16, Radio Okapi said. They were suffocated as panicked crowds ran for the exits during the mayhem Sunday in Butembo in eastern Congo's North Kivu province.

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Moroccan Theologian: Muslim Girls Can Wed At Nine

RABAT - A Moroccan theologian repeated his claims Sunday that Muslim girls could marry as early as nine years old, arguing it was sanctioned by the Prophet Mohammed.

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Bombs Kill At Least 35, Iraqis Say

A suicide bomber blew herself up Monday among police officers who were celebrating the release of a comrade from U.S. custody, killing at least 22 people, Iraqi officials said. Separate bombings in Iraq killed 13 other people.

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Militia Threatens To Close Airport In Somali Capital

(CNN) -- Islamist fighters battling for control of Somalia have threatened to close Mogadishu's only airport, warning all airlines to stop flights into the Somali capital by early Tuesday.

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Inside The Terror Plot That 'Rivaled 9/11'

What really happened in the case that led airlines to bans liquids and gels.

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U.S.: Letters detail al Qaeda infighting

Appeal Denied In Crosses Lawsuit

LAS CRUCES -- Appeals were denied Friday in two lawsuits that argued the city of Las Cruces and the public schools violated the U.S. Constitution by using Christian crosses on city logos and buildings.

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Charles Darwin To Receive Apology From The Church Of England For Rejecting Evolution

The Church of England is to apologise to Charles Darwin for its initial rejection of his theories, nearly 150 years after he published his most famous work.

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Humanists sue as exam agency blocks GCSE

Pope Condemns 'Pagan' Love Of Money, Power

PARIS - Pope Benedict XVI condemned unbridled "pagan" passion for power, possessions and money as a modern-day plague Saturday as he led more than a quarter of a million Catholics in an outdoor Mass in Paris.

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From 2005:

Benedict XVI faces tough decisions as CEO of vast empire

Radical Muslims Warn Of Another 9/11

Muslim extremists have held a meeting at the heart of the area where the liquid bombers lived in which they warned of a British September 11.

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Taliban Attacks Kill Afghan Doctors, Police

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- The Taliban has claimed responsibility for two separate attacks in Afghanistan over the weekend that killed doctors and police officers.

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New Delhi Blasts Death Toll Rises To 21

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- The death toll in a string of explosions that ripped through busy marketplaces in India's capital has risen to 21, police said Sunday.

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Five Blasts Put Delhi on High Alert

Remote Brainwaves Predict Future 'Eureka' Moment

ScienceDaily -- Real-world problems come in two broad flavors: those requiring sequential reasoning and those requiring transformative reasoning: a break from past thinking and restructuring followed by an insight (also known as Eureka or "Aha!"), which is a process by which a problem solver abruptly, through a quantum leap of understanding with no conscious forewarning, moves from a state of not knowing how to solve a problem to a state of knowing how to solve it.

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'Big Bang' Experiment Starts Well

Scientists have hailed a successful switch-on for an enormous experiment which will recreate the conditions a few moments after the Big Bang.

They have now fired two beams of particles called protons around the 27km-long tunnel which houses the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

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The Origins of the Universe: A Crash Course

Sleek Probe To Map Earth's Gravity

ScienceDaily -- The European Space Agency is launching a new satellite to map variations in the Earth's gravity field with unprecedented accuracy. The satellite will give UK scientists vital information about ocean circulation and sea level change needed to improve climate forecast models.

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'Values Voter Summit' Tries To Push Churches Into Illegal Partisan Politicking, Says Americans United

The ADF, the nation's largest Religious Right legal group, is asking pastors to endorse or oppose candidates from the pulpit on Sept. 28 in violation of federal tax law.

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FFRF Files Motion to Delay Oral Arguments

Based on comments to the media by the Green Bay mayor indicating the city may adopt a policy to place only secular decorations at City Hall, the Freedom From Religion Foundation has asked the judge to delay oral arguments scheduled for Monday, Sept. 15, in its Green Bay nativity scene lawsuit.

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Chicago Here FFRF Comes!

Priest Accused Of Dealing Coke From Church

(CBS/ AP) A Catholic priest on the University of Illinois campus has been charged with selling cocaine from his church office and rectory.

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62-Year-Old Woman Accused Of Burning Historic Church

MEDFORD, Mo. -- Authorities have arrested a 62-year-old Holden, Mo., woman in connection with a blaze that destroyed a 101-year-old Medford church.

--snip--

The suspect told Millstead that God had told her to hold church services at her house, Millstead said.

The suspect also told Millstead that God had told her to "get rid of all the bad people," Millstead said.

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Colorado Meatpacking Plant Lays Off 100 Muslim Workers

GREELEY, COLO. -- A meatpacking company Wednesday laid off about 100 Muslim immigrant workers who walked off the job last week in protest of the firm's refusal to give them time to pray during the holy month of Ramadan.

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UK's First Hindu School Opens

Krishna-Avanti Primary School, due to open in Camrose Avenue on Monday, has drawn criticism from religious and secular groups for its promotion of Hinduism over other faiths.

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Bahrain Teacher 'Insulted Islam'

MANAMA: An American woman was referred to the court yesterday by the Public Prosecution after being charged with insulting the Prophet Mohammed.

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Saudi OKs Killing "Immoral" TV Execs

(AP) Saudi Arabia's top judiciary official has issued a religious decree saying it is permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV networks that broadcast immoral content.

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Car Bomb Kills 32 North Of Baghdad

(AP) A car bomb ripped through a crowded commercial district in a mainly Shiite town north of Baghdad on Friday, killing at least 32 people and wounding 43, Iraqi officials said.

--snip--

Earlier Friday, a suicide bomber blew himself up in front of a Shiite mosque farther north in Sinjar as worshippers left prayers at midday, killing two civilians and wounding 15, police chief Col. Awad Kahlil said.

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U.S. Hits Pakistan Again, At Least 12 Reported Killed

(CBS/AP) The main opposition party called Friday for parliament to meet in joint session to devise strategy on how to deal with cross-border attacks after the latest suspected U.S. missile strike killed 12 people in northwestern Pakistan.

American forces in Afghanistan are stepping up their efforts to hit Taliban and al Qaeda militants in what they call safe havens in Pakistan's wild border regions, despite stiff protests from Islamabad.

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See also:

Bush OK'd Secret U.S. Strikes In Pakistan

And...

7 Years Later, No Closer To Bin Laden

In Hunt for Bin Laden, a New Approach

U.S. Suffering Deadliest Afghan Year

(AP) Insurgents killed two U.S. troops in Afghanistan on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks Thursday, making 2008 the deadliest year for American forces since U.S. troops invaded the country in 2001 for sheltering Osama bin Laden.

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U.S. "Running Out Of Time" In Afghanistan

Pentagon admits Afghan strategy not succeeding

FFRF's Full Page Ad In Today's New York Times Imagines A World Free From Religion

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has placed a full-page in today's New York Times (p. A17), featuring a photograph of the intact pre-9/11 Manhattan skyline juxtaposed with the words: "Imagine a World Free From Religion."

"One of the lessons of 9/11 is that there is no greater source of terrorism, strife, bloodshed, persecution or war than religion," the Foundation ad points out.

"John Lennon was right," comments Freedom From Religion Foundation co-president Dan Barker, author of the new book, Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists (Ulysses Press).

"If there were no religion," Dan added, "it would not automatically solve all our problems, but it would make them so much easier to address."

"In this approaching seventh anniversary of the terror attacks, the role religion plays in creating terrorism and division is that proverbial 800-pound gorilla in the room," said Foundation co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor.

The ad points to "the growing threat of religious fanaticism here at home," the de facto religious test for public office being imposed on candidates, and asks: "Is the American public flirting with theocracy?," adding: "Don't let it happen here!"

The ad promotes membership in the Freedom From Religion Foundation, points out that FFRF is the largest national association of freethinkers, recounts FFRF achievements and touts the Foundation's significant 30-year history of litigation to keep state and church separate.

"We came into the office today to find the phones ringing off the hooks, and already have been contacted by many very interested prospective members from all over the nation," said Dan.

"We thank the original East Coast FFRF member who suggested this ad and contributed $10,000, and the other members who contributed toward this national statement," added Annie Laurie.

View ad here

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., is a national association of more than 12,000 freethinkers (atheists, agnostics) that has been working since 1978 to keep church and state separate.

LINK

See also:

Humanists Praise Bold New York Times Ad

Billboard Targets Ex-Mormons In Valley; Draws Controversy

A billboard in Chandler is drawing attention from Mormons and former followers alike.

The Utah-based group Post-Mormon has placed a billboard at the corner of Gilbert Road and Chandler Boulevard in an attempt to reach out to ex-Mormons who feel abandoned by their friends and family.

It features a family with a note that reads, "You're not alone!" as well as the web address postmormon.org.

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Ban On Political Endorsements By Pastors Targeted

CHICAGO -- Declaring that clergy have a constitutional right to endorse political candidates from their pulpits, the socially conservative Alliance Defense Fund is recruiting several dozen pastors to do just that on Sept. 28, in defiance of Internal Revenue Service rules.

The effort by the Arizona-based legal consortium is designed to trigger an IRS investigation that ADF lawyers would then challenge in federal court. The ultimate goal is to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out a 54-year-old ban on political endorsements by tax-exempt houses of worship.

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See also:

Americans United Commends Ohio Clergy For Opposing Pulpit Partisanship

Scientists In Switzerland To Do The Monster Smash

(AP) Scientists will launch an experiment in a tunnel deep beneath the French-Swiss border Wednesday, hoping to find evidence of extra dimensions, invisible "dark matter," and an elusive particle called the "Higgs boson."

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Powerful telescope 'looks back' 4.6 billion years

Anthropologists Develop New Approach To Explain Religious Behavior

ScienceDaily -- Without a way to measure religious beliefs, anthropologists have had difficulty studying religion. Now, two anthropologists from the University of Missouri and Arizona State University have developed a new approach to study religion by focusing on verbal communication, an identifiable behavior, instead of speculating about alleged beliefs in the supernatural that cannot actually be identified.

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Biologists On The Verge Of Creating New Form Of Life

A team of biologists and chemists is closing in on bringing non-living matter to life.

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Ancient Trees Recorded In Mines

Spectacular fossil forests have been found in the coal mines of Illinois by a US-UK team of researchers.

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Devolution In Education

This summer and fall, the science curriculum comes under scrutiny. But far from being a yawner, the review may turn out to be a key battleground between scientists and science teachers on one hand and the religious right on the other.

The basic fight is expected to be over what kids are taught about evolution -- which takes up only about three days of teaching in a 180-day school year. But scientists and teachers argue there are much bigger things at stake: the intimidation of teachers and the possible beginning of biblical beliefs being taught as science in Texas public schools.

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Atheist At Fort Riley Reports Death Threat

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - An atheist soldier at Fort Riley who's suing the military is reporting that he has received a death threat.

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'Heretics Barbecue' Gathers Skeptics

There was a time when Mark Boyd's truck sported a "Darwin fish," which is a parody of the Christian ichthys symbol. Then somebody ripped it off, broke it into four pieces and put it under one of the vehicle's windshield wipers.

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Man Indicted For Allegedly Seeking Heavenly Tax Refund

A Marion man, who allegedly claims to be a citizen of heaven rather than a U.S. Citizen, has been charged in federal court in Cedar Rapids with making a false claim on his taxes.

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Pope Orders Disciplinary Measures On Priest Over Sex Scandal

Pope Benedict XVI has authorised severe cautionary and disciplinary measures against Fr Tomislav Vlasic, the former spiritual director to six children who said Our Lady was appearing to them at the site in Bosnia.

The Franciscan priest was suspended after he refused to co-operate with a Vatican probe of scandalous sexual immorality "aggravated by mystical motivations".

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Church Obsessed With Gays - Tutu

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has accused the Anglican church of allowing its "obsession" with homosexuality to come before real action on world poverty.

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Football 1, Religion 1

There was no clear winner as two of Northern Ireland's great passions - football and religion - clashed on the streets of east Belfast.

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Church Of Scientology Faces Fraud Trial In France

A French judge has ordered two branches of the Church of Scientology and seven of its leaders to stand trial for fraud, in the latest of a series of French legal battles against the organisation promoted by celebrities such as Tom Cruise.

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Lawmaker Candidates Face Koran Test In Indonesia's Aceh

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's Aceh province will begin testing candidates for next year's provincial elections on the Koran from Monday, an election commission official said.

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Sikhs And Hindus Accuse BBC Of Pro-Muslim Bias

Hindu and Sikh leaders have accused the BBC of pandering to Britain's Muslim community by making a disproportionate number of programmes on Islam at the expense of covering other Asian religions.

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Russian Prosecutors In Bid To Ban South Park

Moscow prosecutors began legal proceedings aimed at the cartoon series South Park today in a bid to kill Kenny in Russia.

--snip--

A statement by Moscow prosecutors read: "It offends the honour and dignity of Christians and Muslims alike." It could just have easily included Jews, Scientologists, Catholics, Mormons and Moonies all of whom have been mercilessly targeted by American series.

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Tunisia Gets Religious TV Amid Islamist Concern

TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisia's first religious television channel has begun broadcasting, with the blessing of a government keen to ensure growing religious devotion does not fuel the rise of militant Islam.

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Airliner Bomb Trial: Three Muslim Extremists Face Lengthy Jail Terms Over Plot

Three Islamic extremists are facing lengthy prison sentences after being found guilty of conspiring to kill hundreds of people in a terrorist bombing campaign.

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US Finds Clues In Bakery To Foil Iraqi Terror Plot

The U.S. military believes insurgents planned to tunnel underneath the compound's blast walls and blow up the headquarters building. With 250-300 Iraqis working in the governor's office and perhaps hundreds more there for business, casualties from such a blast could have been catastrophic.

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See also:

New Cholera Outbreak Hits Iraq

Iraq Palestinians head to Iceland

Guard: Al Qaeda Chief In Pakistan Killed

(CNN) -- The newly appointed al Qaeda chief in Pakistan, Abu Haris, has died of his wounds after a missile attack in northwestern Pakistan, according to a guard who was also wounded in the attack.

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U.S. Strike Hits Pakistan Village

Right at the Edge

Pakistan's Unlikely President

3 U.S. Troops Killed In Afghan Blast

(AP) A NATO bomb missed its target by more than 1.5 miles and hit a house Tuesday, killing two Afghan civilians and wounding 10 at a time of rising tension between the Afghan government and international troops over the use of airstrikes.

Meanwhile, a roadside bomb killed three U.S. coalition soldiers and an Afghan contractor, the coalition said.

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Large Hadron Collider Readies For World's Biggest Experiment

IT is the most ambitious and expensive civilian science experiment in history, using the biggest machine yet built. It has sparked alarmist fears that it might create a black hole that will tear the Earth apart, and it has triggered two last-minute legal attempts to stop it.

And next Wednesday, after almost two decades of planning and construction, the project in question will finally get under way.

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See also:

Collider Triggers End-of-World Fears

Large Hadron Collider Switch-on Fears Are Completely Unfounded, Report Finds

Earlier:

The Large Hadron Rap

European Probe Zooms Past Asteroid

DARMSTADT, Germany - The Rosetta deep-space probe successfully passed close to an asteroid 250 million miles (400 million kilometers) from Earth, the European Space Agency said Friday night.

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See also:

Rosetta Observes Asteroid At Close Quarters

And...

New partial rings discovered around Saturn

Trichoplax Genome Sequenced: 'Rosetta Stone' For Understanding Evolution

ScienceDaily -- Yale molecular and evolutionary biologists in collaboration with Department of Energy scientists produced the full genome sequence of Trichoplax, one of nature's most primitive multicellular organisms, providing a new insight into the evolution of all higher animals.

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See also:

Yale Researchers Find 'Junk DNA' May Have Triggered Key Evolutionary Changes In Human Thumb And Foot

Bettany And Connelly To Star In Creation

Real-life husband and wife Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly have signed on to play a married couple in Creation, Jon Amiel's project about the life of Charles Darwin, says The Hollywood Reporter.

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Wash. Rampage Suspect In Court: 'I Kill For God'

MOUNT VERNON, Wash. (AP) "I kill for God. I listen to God," a man accused of a northwest Washington shooting rampage said Friday at a hearing where six charges of first-degree murder and four of first-degree assault were filed against him.

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Vicar Admits Child Porn Charges

A vicar is behind bars after he admitted possessing more than 55,000 indecent pictures of children.

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Deadly Iraq Bombings Target Market, Politician

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- At least six people were killed and 50 wounded in a suicide car bombing Saturday at an outdoor market in northern Iraq, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.

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Suicide Bomb In Northwest Pakistan Kills 25

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- A suicide car bomb targeting a security checkpoint in northwest Pakistan killed at least 25 people, including 10 police officers, and wounded 50 others, a Peshawar police spokesman said Saturday.

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Ask An Atheist!

Atheism sets its roots from the pre-Socratics. The etymology of atheist can be traced to Ancient Greek from the word atheos meaning without (a-) god (theos).

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Optical Computing Closer To Reality

ScienceDaily -- Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have theorized a way to increase the speed of pulses of light that bound across chains of tiny metal particles to well past the speed of light by altering the particle shape.

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See also:

Physicists Discover 'Doubly Strange' Particle

A Fine-tooth Comb To Measure The Accelerating Universe

Do 68 Molecules Hold The Key To Understanding Disease?

ScienceDaily -- Why is it that the origins of many serious diseases remain a mystery? In considering that question, a scientist at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine has come up with a unified molecular view of the indivisible unit of life, the cell, which may provide an answer.

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See also:

Cell Division Study Resolves 50-year-old Debate

Americans United Hails Florida Supreme Court Ruling Removing Deceptive Amendments From Florida Ballot

Americans United for Separation of Church and State hailed today's ruling by the Florida Supreme Court removing two ballot amendments that would have erased religious freedom safeguards and harmed public schools in the state.

The lawsuit, Ford v. Browning, filed by Americans United and other civil liberties and education groups in June, asserted the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission exceeded its authority by approving both ballot amendments and that one of the amendments is worded in a misleading manner.

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Spain Mulls Easing Strict Abortion Law

(AP) Spain has taken a first step toward amending its restrictive law on abortion, a government minister said Thursday, moving to fill one of the last big gaps in a drive for sweeping social change in this traditionally Roman Catholic country.

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Iran Bill To Ease Polygamy Angers Women

(AP) A bill that would allow Iranian men to take additional wives without the consent of their first wife has angered women and the country's top justice official, who say it would undermine women's rights and could be a government attempt to more deeply enshrine its strict Islamic interpretation into law.

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U.S. Troops Crossed Border, Pakistan Says

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Helicopters carried U.S. and Afghan commandos many miles into Pakistan on Wednesday to stage the first U.S. ground attack against a Taliban target inside the country, Pakistani officials said. At least 20 local people died in the raid, according to the officials.

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See also:

Pakistan reacts with fury after up to 20 die in 'American' attack on its soil

Pakistan, Afghanistan deplore U.S. attacks

And...

Pakistan PM escapes assassination attempt

Anti-Radical Islam Reporter Killed In South Russia

Abulla Alishayev was the second journalist to die in three days in Russia's north Caucasus, a region scarred by fighting between federal forces and Muslim rebels.

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Canceled Novel About Muhammad, Child Bride Finds New Publisher

SPOKANE, Wash. - A historical novel about the prophet Muhammad and his child bride that was pulled by Random House over concerns it would anger Muslims has been sold to another publisher, the author said Wednesday.

"We do have a U.S. publisher," Sherry Jones, of Spokane, told The Associated Press in an e-mail Wednesday. "We can announce that, but not the name until they announce it."

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Don't Let Them Eat Cake, Saudi Cleric Says

The Saudi ban on birthdays is in line with the strict interpretation of Islam followed by the conservative Wahhabi sect adhered to in the kingdom. All Christian and even most Muslim feasts are also prohibited because they are considered alien customs the Saudi clerics don't sanction.

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A New Taliban?

The emergence of a Saudi-style 'morality police' is ringing alarm bells in Yemen.

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Iraqi Government To Gain Control Of Anti-Al Qaeda Councils

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. military will transfer control of Sunni Awakening groups to the Iraqi government next month, a U.S. military spokesman said Thursday in Baghdad.

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Gaza Hospitals Strain Under Pressure Of Strikes

(AP) A walkout of medical staff throughout Gaza has strained services at hospitals and clinics throughout the territory, the latest in a series of crippling strikes that are deepening bitter divisions between Gaza's militant Hamas rulers and loyalists of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

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Violence In India Is Fueled By Religious And Economic Divide

TIANGIA, India: Those who came to attack Christians here early last week set their trap well, residents say.

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See also:

Where Politics Crucifies the Poor

Atom Collider Rap Is A YouTube Smash

EAST LANSING, Michigan (AP) -- Who says science doesn't turn people on? Kate McAlpine is a rising star on YouTube for her rap performance -- about high-energy particle physics.

More...

The Large Hadron Rap

See also:

Courts weigh doomsday claims

And...

Cosmic crash unmasks dark matter

New maps detail solar system objects

Rosetta Spacecraft On Its Way To Meet Asteroid Steins

Origin Of Cosmic Dust That Lands On Earth Discovered

Origin Of High Energy Emission From Crab Nebula Identified

Furthermore...

'Autonomous' Helicopters Teach Themselves To Fly

Scientists Grow 'Nanonets' Able To Snare Added Energy Transfer

DNA Tubes Created With Programmable Sizes For Nanoscale Manufacturing

Bonobos May Have Greater Linguistic Skills Than Previously Thought

ScienceDaily -- What happens when linguistic tools used to analyze human language are applied to a conversation between a language-competent bonobo and a human? The findings, published this month in the Journal of Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, indicate that bonobos may exhibit larger linguistic competency in ordinary conversation than in controlled experimental settings.

--snip--

Pedersen said linguistic aspects of the conversation included turn taking, negotiation, pauses and repetition, and went far beyond information sharing made possible through the use of lexigrams symbols.

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Prehistoric Funerary Precinct Excavated In Northern Israel

ScienceDaily -- Hebrew University excavations in the north of Israel have revealed a prehistoric funerary precinct dating back to 6,750-8,500 BCE.

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See also:

'Lost World' Beneath Caribbean To Be Explored

Scientists Develop New Computational Method To Investigate Origin Of Life

ScienceDaily -- Scientists at Penn State have developed a new computational method that they say will help them to understand how life began on Earth. The team's method has the potential to trace the evolutionary histories of proteins all the way back to either cells or viruses, thus settling the debate once and for all over which of these life forms came first.

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See also:

Person's Geographic Origins Located From DNA

Gene 'Network' Linked To Schizophrenia Pieced Together; Patients Confirmed To Carry Mutations

New Master Switch Found In Brain Regulates Appetite And Reproduction

Genetic Link To Relationship Difficulties Found

Sleight Of Hand And Sense Of Self: Illusion Isn't Always Just In The Mind

'Armored' Fish Study Helps Strengthen Darwin's Natural Selection Theory

In The Nevada Desert, There's Something Out There -- The Black Mailbox

TIKABOO VALLEY, NEV. -- The only landmark for about 40 miles on a barren stretch of highway is a mailbox battered by time and desert gusts. It's known as the Black Mailbox, though it's actually a faded white.

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'Arming' For Armageddon

LAKELAND, Fla. -- Both Christian and secular critics assailed the makers of Jesus Camp for referring to the camp's extremist, militant Christianity as "evangelical." There is a name, however, that describes Kids on Fire's agenda, if you're familiar with their theology: Joel's Army. Pastor Becky Fischer, who runs the camp, said that a third of the kids at her camp were under 6 years old because they are "more in touch in the supernatural" and proclaimed them to be "soldiers for God's Army." Her camp's blend of end-times militancy and supernaturalism is perfectly emblematic of the Joel's Army movement, whose adherents believe their cause is prophesied in the Old Testament chapter titled "An Army of Locusts."

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Protest Continues Over Darwin Exhibition

A protest, supporting rational thinking against attacks by religious fundamentalists, will take place outside a Northampton museum.

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Ireland Is Running Out Of Priests

With precious few candidates for the priesthood and rapidly emptying pews, the Catholic Church is being forced to accept radical change.

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Cathedral turns to wine bars to woo new business

U.S. Fights Islamic Anti-Defamation Push

U.S. officials said they hope to persuade moderate Muslim nations - among them Senegal, Mali, Nigeria and Indonesia - to reject the measure, which lacks the force of law but has provided diplomatic cover for regimes that repress critical speech. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.

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Anglicans Still Divided Over Homosexuality

Senior churchmen yesterday rejected proposals designed to avoid a schism in the Anglican Communion, insisting they would continue to develop their own global movement for conservative evangelicals and offer it as an alternative solution to the current crisis over homosexuality.

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Bishop Post To Go To Gay Cleric

A gay cleric is in line to become the next Bishop of Bangor, replacing the Right Rev Tony Crockett, who died of cancer this year. Canon Jeffrey John, who entered into a civil partnership with his long-term partner, the Rev Grant Holmes, in 2006, is currently the dean of St Albans and is a Welsh speaker - making him an ideal candidate for the job.

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Women Preachers At Moderate Mosque 'Urge Faithful To Kill Gays'

Women preachers are urging followers at one of Britain's most influential mosques to kill homosexuals and view all non-Muslims as "vile", according to a television documentary.

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Even In Flood, India's 'Untouchables' Last Rescued

TRIVENIGANJ, India - In the two weeks since a monsoon-swollen river burst its banks, ancient prejudices have run just as deep as the floodwaters. India's "untouchables" are the last to be rescued - if at all - from a deluge that has killed dozens and made 1.2 million homeless.

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Christians hide in forests as Hindu mobs ransack villages

The Scary Alternative To A 2-State Solution

Largely unreported in the American and Western media, on August 10, two days after the start of both the Russian invasion and the Olympics, Palestinian lead negotiator Ahmed Qurie declared that if the peace process did not advance towards a final settlement soon, Palestinians would stop pursuing a two-state solution demand the establishment of a bi-national state with Israel.

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Be Like Others

In Iran, a country where homosexuality is punishable by death, but sex-change operations are legal according to Islamic law, a generation of young men are compelled to make an agonizing choice.

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'Be Like Others' Director Tanaz Eshaghian on Sundance, Sex Changes, and the Ayatollah

Sex crimes

Baghdad Touched By War Even As Security Takes Hold

(AP) Salam Dawood sat in his car stuck in traffic. A mother and her two sons shuffled among the vehicles, begging for money when a roadside bomb exploded.

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New Barrier Wall Going Up in Baghdad's Sadr City

Loyalists of Iraq's Sadr sign blood oaths to continue fighting

Iraq to clear out Baghdad squatters

Iraqi troops take control of key province

US Allies Angry at Anbar Handover

Uncertainty After Anbar Handover

Doubts persist as Iraq takes over U.S.-backed patrols

Al Qaida Has Free Movement In Pakistan, Top Official Concedes

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan's top security official Monday admitted that al Qaida's leadership moved freely in and out of the country and vowed that "no mercy" would be shown to extremists based in its tribal territory that borders Afghanistan.

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Pakistan investigates 'honor killings' of 5 women

Pakistan police urged to probe 'honor killings'

Pakistani women buried alive 'for choosing husbands'

Pakistan election tactics reopen radical Islamic schools

Pakistan misses al Qaeda's No.2 in raids

Pakistan Airstrike Kills 40 Taliban

Pakistan Halts Terror Fight For Ramadan

500th U.S. Service Member Dies In Afghanistan

(CNN) -- A sailor killed in Afghanistan on Saturday was the 500th U.S. service member to die in that country since the war there began in 2001.

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