To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Oct 10, 1999 TV Programs
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 08:46:47 +0000

From: research-bpr@philologos.org (Moza)

8:00 PM Eastern

 A&E - BIOGRAPHY OF THE MILLENNIUM: 100 PEOPLE ... 1,000
   YEARS - Profiles of the 100 most influential people of
   the past 1,000 years.(CC)(TVG)

9:00

 HIST - SWORN TO SECRECY - "The OSS: Origins of the American
   CIA" - The Office of Strategic Services is the CIA's
   predecessor.(CC)(TVG)

10:00

 CNN - MILLENNIUM - "Century of the Sword" - Chinese
   technological advances; Islam in Spain; cultural riches of
   India; highly developed, isolated Japan; divided
   Christianity.(CC)

 HIST - HISTORY UNDERCOVER - "Hitler: The Final
   Chapter" - Adolf Hitler's final days.(CC)(TVPG)

--- BPR

BPR Web Site - http://philologos.org/bpr

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Pope says sex can cause cancer
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 09:05:58 +0000

From: research-bpr@philologos.org (Moza)

Pope says sex can cause cancer

Copyright 1999 by Agence France-Presse

VATICAN CITY, Sept 30 (AFP) - Pope John-Paul II surprised an audience
of cancer-specialists Thursday by telling them the disease could be
caused by sex.

"There should be no hesitation about pointing out clearly that cancer
can be the result of people's behaviour -- including certain sexual
behaviour -- as well as of the pollution of the environment and its
effects on the body itself," he told an international gathering of
cancerologists.

"It seems a bit much to try to link cancer to sex," was the reaction
of Italian immunologist Ferdinando Aiuti.

"Scientifically, cancer is not transmitted by sexual relations," Aiuti
said, "though it is true that some types of infection, like the HIV
virus, whch are transmitted sexually, can then result in the
development of cancerous growths."

The pope also issued an appeal to the medical profession to reject
euthanasia.

"Both reason and faith require that we resist every temptation to end
a patient's life by a deliberate act of omission or by active
intervention," he said, because "euthanasia is a grave violation of
the law of God."

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - College installs footbaths for Muslims
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 09:09:22 +0000

From: research-bpr@philologos.org (Moza)

College installs footbaths for Muslims

Copyright 1999 by United Press International

CHICAGO, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- A Chicago-area community college raised some
eyebrows this fall by installing footbaths in campus bathrooms for
Muslims who want to wash their feet before praying.

Officials at William Rainey Harper College in Palatine, Ill., said the
sinks were a matter of health and safety, but some students questioned
whether the college was right to spend school funds for a religious
amenity.

Desmond Lane, president of Harper's student Senate, told the Chicago
Sun-Times, ``Putting something in for just one religion, you kind of
alienate other groups.''

But Joan Kindle, Harper's vice president for student affairs, said
anyone can use the footbaths -- and that includes campus janitors, who
use the low sinks for dumping mop water at night. The footbaths were
installed during recent bathroom renovations.

Physical plant director Bob Getz told the Sun-Times the devices were
intended to prevent Islamic students from using regular sinks to wash
their feet before their five daily prayers.

``Our custodians would walk in and see (students) with one foot on the
ground and one foot on the facial sink,'' Getz said. ``It was kind of
a dangerous situation.''

The footbaths were well-received by students in Harper's Muslim
Student Association, according to faculty adviser Charles Brown. He
said the group had about 15 to 20 members last year.

In another gesture of religious accommodation some 360 miles away, an
Ohio company has started allowing its Muslim workers breaks of up to
90 minutes on Fridays so they can attend congregational prayers away
from the plant.

Bill Kaikis, a vice president with National Electric Coil in Columbus,
said the company was skeptical of the idea at first but relented after
officials from a branch of the Council on American- Islamic Relations
intervened.

``They told us these people would come back and work and put their
time in, and that morale and productivity would improve,'' Kaikis told
the Columbus Dispatch.

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - New Mexico bars creationism from state curriculum
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 09:12:13 +0000

From: research-bpr@philologos.org (Moza)

http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/100999nm-evolution-edu.html

          October 9, 1999

          New Mexico Bars Creationism From State
          Curriculum

          Related Articles
          School Districts in Kansas Split on Evolution Ruling (Aug.
          25, 1999) Kansas Votes to Delete Evolution From State's
          Science Curriculum (Aug. 12, 1999)

          By MICHAEL JANOFSKY

SANTA FE, N.M. -- Bucking recent changes in Kansas and other
states that allow public schools to teach alternative views of
human development, the New Mexico Board of Education voted
overwhelmingly on Friday to limit the statewide science
curriculum to the teaching of evolution.

The vote effectively made New Mexico the first state in recent
years to take a firm stand against the teaching of creationism,
which generally recognizes the Bible as the ultimate authority
on how the world was formed.

Creationism holds that a divine being created humans and other
species a mere 10,000 years ago, while evolutionists say
scientific evidence shows that life began almost 4 billion years
ago with simple organisms, from which humans and all other forms
of life evolved.

Until now, teachers had been required to give equal weight to
alternative theories -- which in practical terms meant
creationism -- in their science classroom discussions.

"This gives teachers the political cover they need to teach
evolution," said Marshall Berman, the board member who led a
three-year campaign to change the policy.

The board voted 14-1 in favor of the change, which will affect
the 100,000 children who attend New Mexico's 725 public schools.
The lone dissenter, Van W. Witt, objected by arguing that
students should be allowed to consider all sides of the debate
and then "make up their minds with their parents."

In the brief debate among board members that preceded the vote,
Berman refuted that position, insisting that creationism --or
"intelligent design," as some evolution opponents call it -- is
not a comparable theory for teaching in public schools.

"If the assumption is there are two sides, I question the
assumption," Berman told Witt. "The sense is of creationism as a
scientific theory, that it exists as a reliable principle. But
it is not based on science."

While the often emotional debate between proponents of
creationism and evolution is not new, it was rekindled this
summer when the Kansas Board of Education voted to delete almost
any mention of evolution from the state's science curriculum.

In a similar action, the Education Department of Kentucky
deleted the word "evolution" from the state science curriculum,
replacing it with the phrase "change over time," which some
state teachers interpreted as an attack on widely-accepted
scientific principles.

Other states, including Alabama and Nebraska, have made other
changes that allow for discussion of theories that challenge
evolution.

Creationists hailed each of those changes as major victories
during a time when the teaching of evolution has enjoyed pre-
eminence in most public school districts as a result of a 1987
Supreme Court decision that said states could not compel the
teaching of creationism in public schools.

In their battles to chip away at the dominance of evolution as
the unchallenged explanation of life, creationists have run
headstrong into teachers and scientists who have effectively
lobbied their state and local school boards, as they have here
in New Mexico, to keep evolution at the forefront of classroom
discourse.

Flora M. Sanchez, the president of the New Mexico Board, said
that since the Kansas decision she had received "a lot of
negative input" from scientists and teachers around the state
who were uncomfortable with performance standards that required
teachers to entertain alternative theories to evolution. Many of
the board members felt uneasy with comparisons with Kansas, she
said, adding, "So we decided we had to clarify our standards."

Some of that pressure was evident on Friday, during the public
comment period that preceded the vote. Eight proponents of the
changes, most of them scientists and teachers, urged the board
to vote in favor, while three people appeared to raise objections.

Bruce Miller, a high school biology teacher who testified
before the board, said that he feels more comfortable with a
regulation that narrows teaching to theories based on science.

"I need it spelled out that I don't have to address a string of
silly alternative theories," he said. "With 175 class room days,
I don't have time for that."

Another proponent of the change, David E. Thomas, editor of the
Newsletter of the New Mexicans for Science and Reason, said that
if public schools allowed unscientific theories to be taught,
"pretty soon we'll have Holocaust deniers insisting there were
no gas chambers."

Cindy Chapman, who teaches first- and second-graders, said the
new regulations would even help teachers of the youngest
children in public schools whose early knowledge of human
development is often shaped by religion and is learned at home.

She said she was recently approached by a little boy in class
who told her why dinosaurs no longer roam the earth.

"He said, 'Because there was no room in the ark,"' Ms. Chapman
said. "I don't think he made that up himself."

Among those protesting the new standards was Paul Gammill, a
retired engineer and the father of three children who attended
Albuquerque public schools. He echoed the concerns of many
creationists, telling the board that evolution is "arbitrary and
dogmatic." He insisted that his view has nothing to do with
religion, but in an interview before his testimony he said a
belief in God is not compatible with acceptance of evolution.

While it appeared that most board members had their minds made
up before the vote, they listened with rapt attention to Tom
Manaster, a retired cab driver from Chicago now living in New
Mexico who urged the board to reject any teaching standards
beyond what can be proven.

"I wouldn't be here if it weren't for good science," he said.
"Five years ago I survived a brain tumor. Those doctors had all
kinds of religions and beliefs, but they also had some pretty
good science."

via: transhumantech@onelist.com

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - "Sunshine" glasses
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 18:06:17 +0000

From: research-bpr@philologos.org (Moza)

From The Sunday Times,
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/Sunday-Times/stinwenws03014.h
tml?99 9

- October 10 1999 BRITAIN

Wakey wakey: the new system could enable soldiers to stay alert for up
to 48 hours Photograph: Tim Ockenden

'Sunshine' glasses keep troops awake
Jonathan Leake, Science Editor

FATIGUE - a soldier's worst enemy - is being banished from the
battlefield. Ministry of Defence researchers have found ways of
resetting soldiers' body clocks so that they can go without sleep for
up to 36 hours.

Tiny optical fibres embedded in special spectacles are used to project
a ring of bright white light around the periphery of a soldier's
retina. The light, with a spectrum identical to a tropical sunrise,
fools his brain into thinking it has just woken up.

Servicemen can stay awake for up to 48 hours if the regime is combined
with a series of short, carefully timed naps lasting no more than 20
minutes.

This system was first used in action during the bombing of Kosovo when
American pilots had to fly 36-hour sorties from Stealth bomber bases
in Missouri to Europe. They were monitored by computers and remained
alert even though their total sleep time was just an hour or two.

Professor Russell Foster, a sleep expert at Imperial College, London,
has used these techniques to alter his own body clock.

"The effects are very impressive," he said. "You have to get light at
the right time and avoid it at the wrong time or you can feel quite
odd."

Foster's work on previously unknown light-sensitive cells at the back
of the eye has been central to the research. Scientists had believed
that the eye had just two main types of light-sensing cell; the rods
which give night vision and the cones which detect colours in
daylight.

Foster, who spent eight years in the United States undertaking
research for the American air force, found two more light-sensitive
cells. They contribute nothing to vision, connecting instead to the
hypothalamus, the part of the brain which regulates fatigue and sleep
patterns.

People who lack these cells, as in some types of blindness, are often
unable to synchronise their lives with normal day and night cycles and
sleep at the wrong time.

The research is based on equipment designed by Foster and Dr Neil
Goldman, an American scientist, to manipulate the new cells by
targeting them with light "pulses". The tiny optical fibres embedded
in the frames and lenses of normal-looking spectacles are angled to
direct light around the retina - creating a tunnel of light, which the
wearer can see through normally.

In research at the University of Surrey, Professor Josephine Arendt
has shown that soldiers can stay awake for much longer than normal
without compromising alertness. Speaking last week in Dresden,
Germany, at an international conference on sleep, she said: "They
always need to sleep eventually - but we can put it off for a much
longer time than ever realised."

The creation of the 10,000- strong rapid deployment force by Britain
in 1996 prompted the Ministry of Defence research. It has already
attracted great interest from special forces such as the SAS, who
often cross time zones and need to arrive in the peak of condition.

Colonel Gregory Belenky, a researcher at the Walter Reed Army
Institute of Research in Maryland, has studied performance changes as
soldiers got tired.

He found they were at their best between 8pm and 10pm and were at
their worst between 4am and 6am. Kept awake, their efficiency declined
by 25% for each sleepless day.

Professor Gary Zammit, director of the Sleep Disorders Institute of
New York, said the civilian implications of the research were
tremendous. "Millions of people have problems sleeping or have to
adjust their body clock because of work or travel. This gives us the
first real way of controlling the human body clock," he said.

via: isml@onelist.com

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - CIA probing NY virus outbreak
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 18:09:45 +0000

From: research-bpr@philologos.org (Moza)

CIA probing New York virus outbreak -magazine

NEW YORK, Oct 10 (Reuters) - The CIA is investigating whether a recent
outbreak of West Nile-like fever in New York might have been an
attempt at bio-terrorism, The New Yorker magazine reported on Sunday.

The virus, which killed five people and made at least 27 others ill,
is believed to have been passed to people via mosquitoes that bit
infected birds.

Without quoting anyone directly at the Central Intelligence Agency,
the magazine describes analysts there as having a ``whiff of concern''
that it might have been sent deliberately to the United States.

Many experts have been warning for years that the United States is
vulnerable to a bio-terrorism attack. But none has ever named West
Nile as one of the potential weapons -- anthrax, botulin toxin and
even bubonic plague are considered to be the potential weapons of
choice.

West Nile virus is not particularly deadly and causes only mild
flu-like symptoms in most people. The very young, very old or ill can
develop encephalitis -- a swelling of the brain -- and die.

Last week the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said 50
potential or definite cases of West Nile-like fever had been
identified in New York and said the outbreak was definitely on the
wane. No new cases have been reported since Sept. 17.

But the report in The New Yorker said the CDC had been asked to check
on whether the virus could have been deliberately spread.

``We're taking it seriously. We'll see where the data take us,'' the
magazine quoted ``a person at the CDC'' as saying.

Navy Secretary Richard Danzig told the magazine he was not alarmed.
``Even if you suspect biological terrorism, it's hard to prove,'' he
said.

The magazine cites a book written by a man using the name Mikhael
Ramadan, who claimed to be an Iraqi defector and said Iraqi leader
Saddam Hussein was planning to make a weapon out of a strain of West
Nile virus.

He described it as being ``capable of destroying 97 percent of all
life in an urban environment.''

The CDC has said it is concerned about the New York outbreak because
West Nile fever has never been seen in the Americas before. It is
common in Africa and Asia.

Last year, U.S. and Romanian experts reported in The Lancet medical
journal that a 1996 outbreak in Romania had been identified as West
Nile fever, with a mortality rate of between 4 and 8 percent. They
said Europe was vulnerable to more such outbreaks.

Last week, Thomas Briese and colleagues at the University of
California at Irvine said they had identified the New York virus as a
Kunjin/West Nile-like flavivirus.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/19991010/ts/flu_terror_1.html

via: End_Times_News@onelist.com