Rat brain flies jet
Seriously
By Robin Lettice
Published Tuesday 7th December 2004 16:01 GMT
Florida scientists have grown a brain in a petri dish and taught it to fly a fighter plane.
Scientists at the university of Florida taught the ‘brain’, which was grown from 25,000 neural cells extracted from a rat embryo, to pilot an F-22 jet simulator. It was taught to control the flight path, even in mock hurricane-strength winds.
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“When we first hooked them up, the plane ‘crashed’ all the time,” Dr Thomas DeMarse, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Florida, said. “But over time, the neural network slowly adapts as the brain learns to control the pitch and roll of the aircraft. After a while, it produces a nice straight and level trajectory.”
The brain-in-a-dish was DeMarse’ idea. To produce it, 25,000 rat neurones were suspended in a specialised liquid to keep them alive and then laid across a grid of 60 electrodes in a small glass dish.
The cells at first looked like grains of sand under the microscope, but soon began to connect to form what scientists call a “live computation device” (a brain). Electrodes monitor and stimulate neural activity in this network, allowing researchers to study how the brain processes and transfers information.
The scientists hope that their research will lead to hybrid computers with organic components, allowing more flexible and varied means of solving problems.
One potential application is to install living computers in unmanned aircraft for missions too dangerous for humans. It is also hoped that further advances will help in the search for cures for conditions such as epilepsy, The Age reports.
“The algorithms that living computers use are also extremely fault-tolerant,” Dr DeMarse said. “A few neurons die off every day in humans without any noticeable drop in performance, and yet if the same were to happen in a traditional silicon-based computer the results would be catastrophic.”
The US National Science Foundation has awarded the team a $500,000 grant to produce a mathematical model of how the neurons compute.
Mirecki hospitalized after beating
By Ron Knox, Eric Weslander
Originally published 05:37 p.m., December 5, 2005
Updated 06:31 p.m., December 5, 2005
Douglas County sheriff’s deputies are investigating the reported beating of a Kansas University professor who gained recent notoriety for his Internet tirades against Christian fundamentalists.
Kansas University religious studies professor Paul Mirecki reported he was beaten by two men about 6:40 a.m. today on a roadside in rural Douglas County. In a series of interviews late this afternoon, Mirecki said the men who beat him were making references to the controversy that has propelled him into the headlines in recent weeks.
“I didn’t know them, but I’m sure they knew me,” he said.
Mirecki said he was driving to breakfast when he noticed the men tailgating him in a pickup truck.
“I just pulled over hoping they would pass, and then they pulled up real close behind,” he said. “They got out, and I made the mistake of getting out.”
He said the men beat him about the upper body with their fists, and he said he thinks they struck him with a metal object. He was treated and released at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.
“I’m mostly shaken up, and I got some bruises and sore spots,” he said.
Douglas County Sheriff’s Officials are classifying the case as an aggravated battery. They wouldn’t say exactly where the incident happened, citing the ongoing investigation
The sheriff’s department is looking for the suspects, described as two white males between ages 30 and 40, one wearing a red visor and wool gloves, and both wearing jeans. They were last seen in a large pickup truck.
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 843-TIPS or the sheriff’s office at 841-0007.
Mirecki recently wrote online that he planned to teach intelligent design as mythology in an upcoming course. He wrote it would be a “nice slap” in the “big fat face” of fundamentalists.
The remarks caused an uproar, Mirecki apologized, and KU announced last week the class would be canceled.
Bushes’ ‘holiday’ cards ring hollow for some
Christian conservatives wage war to put religion back into Christmas
By Alan Cooperman
The Washington Post
Updated: 11:14 a.m. ET Dec. 7, 2005
What’s missing from the White House Christmas card? Christmas.
This month, as in every December since he took office, President Bush sent out cards with a generic end-of-the-year message, wishing 1.4 million of his close friends and supporters a happy “holiday season.”
Many people are thrilled to get a White House Christmas card, no matter what the greeting inside. But some conservative Christians are reacting as if Bush stuck coal in their stockings.
“This clearly demonstrates that the Bush administration has suffered a loss of will and that they have capitulated to the worst elements in our culture,” said William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.
Bush “claims to be a born-again, evangelical Christian. But he sure doesn’t act like one,” said Joseph Farah, editor of the conservative Web site WorldNetDaily.com. “I threw out my White House card as soon as I got it.”
Religious conservatives are miffed because they have been pressuring stores to advertise Christmas sales rather than “holiday specials” and urging schools to let students out for Christmas vacation rather than for “winter break.” They celebrated when House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) insisted that the sparkling spectacle on the Capitol lawn should be called the Capitol Christmas Tree, not a holiday spruce.
‘Sent to people of all faiths’
Then along comes a generic season’s greeting from the White House, paid for by the Republican National Committee. The cover art is also secular, if not humanist: It shows the presidential pets — two dogs and a cat — frolicking on a snowy White House lawn.
“Certainly President and Mrs. Bush, because of their faith, celebrate Christmas,” said Susan Whitson, Laura Bush’s press secretary. “Their cards in recent years have included best wishes for a holiday season, rather than Christmas wishes, because they are sent to people of all faiths.”
That is the same rationale offered by major retailers for generic holiday catalogues, and it is accepted by groups such as the National Council of Churches. “I think it’s more important to put Christ back into our war planning than into our Christmas cards,” said the council’s general secretary, the Rev. Bob Edgar, a former Democratic congressman.
But the White House’s explanation does not satisfy the groups — which have grown in number in recent years — that believe there is, in the words of the Heritage Foundation, a “war on Christmas” involving an “ever-stronger push toward a neutered ‘holiday’ season so that non-Christians won’t be even the slightest bit offended.”
One of the generals on the pro-Christmas side is Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association in Tupelo, Miss. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether this is sinister — it’s the purging of Christ from Christmas — or whether it’s just political correctness run amok,” he said. “I think in the case of the White House, it’s just political correctness.”
Retail boycotts
Wildmon does not give retailers the same benefit of the doubt. This year, he has called for a consumer boycott of Target stores because the chain issued a holiday advertising circular that did not mention Christmas. Last year, he aimed a similar boycott at Macy’s Inc., which averted a repeat this December by proclaiming “Merry Christmas” in its advertising and in-store displays.
“It bothers me that the White House card leaves off any reference to Jesus, while we’ve got Ramadan celebrations in the White House,” Wildmon said. “What’s going on there?”
At the Catholic League, Donohue had just announced a boycott of the Lands’ End catalogue when he received his White House holiday card. True, he said, the Bushes included a verse from Psalm 28, but Psalms are in the Old Testament and do not mention Jesus’ birth.
“They’d better address this, because they’re no better than the retailers who have lost the will to say ‘Merry Christmas,’ ” he said.
Donohue said that Wal-Mart, facing a threatened boycott, added a Christmas page to its Web site and fired a customer relations employee who wrote a letter linking Christmas to “Siberian shamanism.” He was not mollified by a letter from Lands’ End saying it “adopted the ‘holiday’ terminology as a way to comply with one of the basic freedoms granted to all Americans: freedom of religion.”
“Ninety-six percent of Americans celebrate Christmas,” Donohue said. “Spare me the diversity lecture.”
Diversity has been a hallmark of White House greeting cards for some time, according to Mary Evans Seeley of Tampa, Fla., author of “Season’s Greetings From the White House.” The last presidential Christmas card that mentioned Christmas was in 1992. It was sent by George H.W. and Barbara Bush, parents of the current president.
Seeley said the first president to send out true Christmas cards, as opposed to signed photographs or handwritten letters, was Franklin D. Roosevelt. “Merry Christmas From the President and Mrs. Roosevelt,” said his first annual card, in 1933.
Politicization of a holiday
Like many modern touches, the generic New Year’s card was introduced to the White House by John and Jacqueline Kennedy. In 1962, they had Hallmark print 2,000 cards, of which 1,800 cards said “The President and Mrs. Kennedy Wish You a Blessed Christmas” and 200 said “With Best Wishes for a Happy New Year.”
Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson continued that tradition for a couple of years, but it required keeping track of Christian and non-Christian recipients. Beginning in 1966, they wished everyone a “Joyous Christmas,” and no president has attempted the two-card trick since.
Seeley dates the politicization of the White House Christmas card to Richard M. Nixon, who increased the number of recipients tenfold, to 40,000, in his first year. The numbers since have snowballed, hitting 125,000 under Jimmy Carter, topping 400,000 under Bill Clinton and rising to more than a million under the current Bushes, with each president’s political party paying the bill.
The wording, meanwhile, has often flip-flopped. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter put “Merry Christmas” in their 1977 card and then switched to “Holiday Season” for the next three years. Ronald and Nancy Reagan, similarly, began with a “Joyous Christmas” in 1981 and 1982 but doled out generic holiday wishes from 1983 to 1988. The elder President Bush stayed in the “Merry Christmas” spirit all four years, and the Clintons opted for inclusive greetings for all of their eight years.
The current Bush has straddled the divide, offering generic greetings along with an Old Testament verse. To some religious conservatives, that makes all the difference.
“There’s a verse from Scripture in it. I don’t mind that at all, as long as we don’t try to pretend we’re not a nation under God,” said the Rev. Jerry Falwell.
How the ACLU Didn’t Steal Christmas
Published on Tuesday, December 6, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
by Fran Quigley
When the angry phone calls and e-mails started arriving at the office, I knew the holiday season was upon us. A typical message shouted that we at the American Civil Liberties Union affiliate in Indiana are “horrible” and “we should be ashamed of ourselves,” then concluded with an incongruous and agitated “Merry Christmas.”
We get this type of correspondence a lot, mostly in reaction to a well-organized attempt by extremist groups to demonize the ACLU, crush religious diversity and make a few bucks in the process. Sadly, this self-interested effort is being promoted in the guise of defending Christmas.
For example, the Alliance Defense Fund celebrates the season with an “It’s OK to say Merry Christmas” campaign, implying that the ACLU has challenged such holiday greetings. (As part of the effort, you can get a pamphlet and two Christmas pins for $29.)
The Web site, WorldNetDaily, touts a book claiming “a thorough and virulent anti-Christmas campaign is being waged today by liberal activists and ACLU fanatics.” The site’s magazine has suggested there will be ACLU efforts to remove “In God We Trust” from U.S. currency, fire military chaplains and expunge all references to God in America’s founding documents. (Learn more for just $19.95 . . . )
Of course, there is no “Merry Christmas” lawsuit, nor is there any ACLU litigation about U.S. currency, military chaplains, etc. But the facts are not important to these groups, because their real message is this: By protecting the freedom of Muslims, Jews and other non-Christians through preventing government entanglement with religion, the ACLU is somehow infringing on the rights of those with majority religious beliefs.
In truth, it is these Web-site Christians who are taking the Christ out of the season. Nowhere in the Sermon on the Mount did Jesus Christ ask that we celebrate his birth with narrow-mindedness and intolerance, especially for those who are already marginalized and persecuted. Instead, the New Testament — like the Torah and the Quran and countless other sacred texts — commands us to love our neighbor and to comfort the sick and the imprisoned.
That’s what the ACLU does. We live in a country filled with people who are sick and disabled, people who are imprisoned, and people who hunger and thirst for justice. Those people come to our Indiana offices for help at a rate of several hundred a week, usually because they have nowhere else to turn. The least of our brothers and sisters sure aren’t getting any help from the Alliance Defense Fund or WorldNet Daily. So, as often as we can, ACLU secures justice for those folks for whom Jesus worried the most.
As part of our justice mission, we work hard to protect the rights of free religious expression for all people, including Christians. For example, we recently defended the First Amendment rights of a Baptist minister to preach his message on public streets in Southern Indiana. The ACLU intervened on behalf of a Christian valedictorian in a Michigan high school, which agreed to stop censoring religious yearbook entries and supported the rights of Iowa students to distribute Christian literature at their school.
There are many more examples, because the ACLU is committed to preserving the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom for all. We agree with the U.S. Supreme Court’s firm rulings that this freedom means that children who grow up in non-Christian homes should not be made to feel like outsiders in their own community’s courthouse, legislature or public schoolhouse.
To our “Merry Christmas” correspondents and all other Americans, we wish you happy holidays.
Fran Quigley is the executive director of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, www.iclu.org
