Author: shockofgod
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Added: September 2, 2010

RICHARD FEYNMAN, Nobel laureate and physicist extraordinaire, called it a “magic number” and its value “one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics”. The number he was referring to, which goes by the symbol alpha and the rather more long-winded name of the fine-structure constant, is magic indeed. If it were a mere 4% bigger or smaller than it is, stars would not be able to sustain the nuclear reactions that synthesise carbon and oxygen. One consequence would be that squishy, carbon-based life would not exist.

Why alpha takes on the precise value it has, so delicately fine-tuned for life, is a deep scientific mystery. A new piece of astrophysical research may, however, have uncovered a crucial piece of the puzzle. In a paper just submitted to Physical Review Letters, a team led by John Webb and Julian King from the University of New South Wales in Australia present evidence that the fine-structure constant may not actually be constant after all. Rather, it seems to vary from place to place within the universe. If their results hold up to the scrutiny, and can be replicated, they will have profound implications—for they suggest that the universe stretches far beyond what telescopes can observe, and that the laws of physics vary within it. Instead of the whole universe being fine-tuned for life, then, humanity finds itself in a corner of space where, Goldilocks-like, the values of the fundamental constants happen to be just right for it.
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Collins strongly disputes that assessment [Craig Venter's pronouncement that the Human Genome Project has contributed little to medicine]. He says that after reading the Times story he sat down and wrote out a list of breakthroughs directly attributable to the advances in genomics, among them providing new understanding of age-related macular degeneration, Crohn’s disease and the role of autophagy, and Parkinson’s disease and the central role of alpha-synuclein aggregates; and the development of a recent drug for lupus. “It’s revolutionized everything that we do,” he says. He has discussed some of this with his friend the militant atheist Christopher Hitchens: “As you might have heard, Christopher has esophageal cancer, and I have actually been spending a fair amount of time with him and his wife, Carol, trying to help him sort through the options for therapy—including some rather cutting-edge approaches based on cancer genomics.”

I’m not going to pull my punches if Collins continues his public harmonizing of science and faith, but any Christian who would try to cure the world’s most vocal atheist is a Christian I can appreciate—and live with.
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Author: Dokusant
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Added: August 30, 2010

Author: Aresftfun
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Added: August 28, 2010

Q: What’s the first thing you read in the morning? A: My site, Pharyngula, of course. I have to clean up spam, catch up with the conversation, and feed the fires with my own contributions.

Q: What newspapers and magazines do you subscribe to or read regularly? What do you read in print versus online or mobile? A: I read Nature, Science, BioEssays, Development, Developmental Biology, PNAS [Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences] regularly, and a few other journals irregularly. I read almost nothing printed on paper—I prefer to download PDF's and read them on my laptop or iPad. Newspapers I might read occasionally for the novelty, usually if there's one left on the table at the coffee shop. I do browse The New York Times online

Q: What books have you recently read? A: I read a book every day or two, except lately when I've been swamped with work. Last book read was Lone Frank's Mindfield: How Brain Science Is Changing Our World, before that was Oren Harman's The Price of Altruism, Erik Larson's Thunderstruck, a fun little book called Quirks of Human Anatomy by Lewis Held, it goes on and on. I tend to slurp up any printed matter that stumbles before my eyes.

Q: Has your reading of professional journals changed in the past 10 years? If so, how? A: Not in subject matter, which remains almost entirely in developmental and evolutionary biology. I have picked up browsing the PLoS journals. The big change is in the switch to electronic media—10 years ago, it was a matter of regular trips to the library to photocopy papers. Now I just stuff PDF's onto a hard drive.

Q: Do you read blogs? If so, what blogs do you like best? A: My faves right now are Why Evolution Is True, Sandwalk, Butterflies and Wheels, ERV, a few others—anything where the personality of the author shines through, and I do favor hard-edged godless science writers who don't mince words.
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Author: IHateAllReligions
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Added: August 26, 2010

Author: dechha1981
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Added: August 25, 2010