..."Scholars widely believe that organized churches didn't exist until at least the third century A.D. Following the death of Jesus Christ, Christian worship typically took place in homes and other domestic buildings or, less commonly, by rivers outside city walls during the first century A.D. Architecturally distinct, organized churches did not emerge until the Byzantine period, in the fifth century A.D. "..."Experts Skeptical Biblical scholar Stephen Pfann, president of the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem, responded cautiously to Al-Housan's reported findings. "It sounds rather anachronistic," he said, adding that during the first century, the term "church" or "ekklesia" was used for the assembled body of believers—not the building or catacombs where they were assembling. "If they are talking about a cave, it could have been a hiding place. In time—if there were martyrs there or something significant that took place there or a well-known individual who was among the disciples of Jesus—then you would have had reason to commemorate the site, which could later be used by the church's monks." "But the cave that's there is one that doesn't necessarily commemorate anything … I don't know how you can take an underground cave and say it could present itself "...

..."The survey by sociologist and pollster Reginald Bibby examined the beliefs of 1,600 Canadians, 82 percent who said they believed in "God or a higher power" and 18 percent who said they did not. The poll was released as an aggressive branch of atheism is getting increasing attention. Led in part by authors Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris as well as by the so-called Blasphemy Project, the new combative form of atheism argues that society would be better off in a "God-less world." "...""To the extent that Canadians say good-bye to God, we may find that we pay a significant social price," Bibby said in a press release. According to the survey, there is a: -- 32-point gap between theists and atheists on whether forgiveness is "very important" (84 percent vs. 52 percent). -- 33-point gap on patience (72 percent vs. 39 percent). -- 30-point gap on generosity (67 percent vs. 37 percent). -- 19-point gap on concern for others (82 percent vs. 63 percent). -- 23-point gap on family life (88 percent vs. 65 percent). Among the poll's other findings, there was a 13-point gap between theists and atheists on kindness, 16-point gap on "being loved," 11-point gap on friendship, 10-point gap on courtesy, 12-point gap on politeness, 13-point gap on friendliness and 5-point gap on honesty. If the poll is correct, Canada has a higher percentage of atheists than does America. A Gallup poll of American adults this summer found that 6 percent consider themselves atheists. Also, most polls find that roughly nine in 10 Americans profess a belief in God, a higher percentage than in Canada. The Ottawa Citizen took the poll results seriously, asserting in an editorial that "declining religious affiliation could be accompanied by a decline in civility." "Clergy and theologians have long argued something similar, namely, that without formal religion it is hard for society to maintain and perpetrate ethical behaviour," the editorial stated. "Of course, clergy are not the most objective analysts in these matters. Bibby, however, speaks as an academic. … "Bibby's research suggests that as religiosity declines, we start to travel blind – and society pays a price," the editorial continued. "Religious affiliation, apparently, has a civilizing function. We become socialized at church. The fear, then, is that as we separate ourselves from these institutions, social harmony could suffer." "

.."The cave contains a circular structure that may have been an apse, and the floor of the later church above contains a mosaic that refers to the “70 beloved by God and the divine”—a reference, the excavators say, to the first followers of Jesus, who went to that area of Jordan to flee persecution. "..."Critics, however, have begun to question the identification of the cave as an early church; see BAR editor Hershel Shanks’ television interview, and also see http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/06/080613-old-church.html. To learn more about churches in the Holy Land during the first centuries of Christianity, read “Ancient Churches in the Holy Land” and “Inscribed ‘To God Jesus Christ,’” which describes what may be the very earliest church yet found in Israel. Both articles are from the BAS Library. "..

..."There are other monikers, however, that make Roberts cringe. “I seem to separate the word Christian from a lot of other words and phrases that give me negative images, such as evangelical, radical fundamentalist right, or charismatic. Some of these words and phrases seem alien and wacky to me. I can’t relate to them at all.” Buzzwords aside, Roberts does admire Christians who are actually rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting prisoners – the kind of things that Jesus told us to do. "..."And he has a few words for us believers: Listen to those around you. Be honest in conversations. Learn from people who may not share your faith. “Here’s my advice to Christians who want to influence people like me,” Mehta says. “Be open to reaching out to people who disagree with you, instead of forcing us to adopt your beliefs in order to win your approval. Shouldn’t the fact that we are a human being be enough to earn your respect?” In the end, Mehta wants to have a conversation – a two-way dialogue rather than a one-way sermon. “Atheists and other religious outsiders are all around you,” Mehta says. “We work at the same places, live in the same neighborhoods, go to the same movies, and walk our dogs in the same parks. Don’t you think it’s time we got to know one another?” "

....Many studies have looked at how global warming may cause shifts in where plants...Climate shift. The warming of the Walden Pond area ( above...species are threatened most by global warming and which are likely to adapt...

"After fertilization, maternal proteins in oocytes are degraded and new proteins encoded by the zygotic genome are synthesized. We found that autophagy, a process for the degradation of cytoplasmic constituents in the lysosome, plays a critical role during this period. Autophagy was triggered by fertilization and up-regulated in early mouse embryos. Autophagy-defective oocytes derived from oocyte-specific Atg5 (autophagy-related 5) knockout mice failed to develop beyond the four- and eight-cell stages if they were fertilized by Atg5-null sperm, but could develop if they were fertilized by wild-type sperm. Protein synthesis rates were reduced in the autophagy-null embryos. Thus, autophagic degradation within early embryos is essential for preimplantation development in mammals"

"Molecular sequence data have been sampled from 10% of all species known to science. Although it is not yet feasible to assemble these data into a single phylogenetic tree of life, it is possible to quantify how much phylogenetic signal is present. Analysis of 14,289 phylogenies built from 2.6 million sequences in GenBank suggests that signal is strong in vertebrates and specific groups of nonvertebrate model organisms. Across eukaryotes, however, although phylogenetic evidence is very broadly distributed, for the average species in the database it is equivalent to less than one well-supported gene tree. This analysis shows that a stronger sampling effort aimed at genomic depth, in addition to taxonomic breadth, will be required to build high-resolution phylogenetic trees at this scale. "

"Continuous Global Positioning System observations reveal rapid and large ice velocity fluctuations in the western ablation zone of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Within days, ice velocity reacts to increased meltwater production and increases by a factor of 4. Such a response is much stronger and much faster than previously reported. Over a longer period of 17 years, annual ice velocities have decreased slightly, which suggests that the englacial hydraulic system adjusts constantly to the variable meltwater input, which results in a more or less constant ice flux over the years. The positive-feedback mechanism between melt rate and ice velocity appears to be a seasonal process that may have only a limited effect on the response of the ice sheet to climate warming over the next decade"

"Experiments conducted at Gakona, Alaska, using the intensity-modulated HF heating waves to interact with electrojet currents for the generation of VLF waves, are reported. An unexpected large increasing rate from 4 to 8 kHz in the frequency dependency of the VLF radiation intensity was observed. The peak value at 8 kHz was intense (about 7.5 dB above that of the 2 kHz signal used as a marker) and the wave intensity from 5 to 17 kHz appeared to be abnormally high (i.e., stronger than that at 2 kHz). In the experiments, we also observed the enhancement of spread-E irregularities at electrojet current altitudes due to the amplitude-modulated heater wave. These results and theoretical analyses suggest that temporally modulated electrojet currents mix with heater wave-excited density irregularities to form whistler mode currents, which generate VLF whistler waves directly with much larger intensities and better directivity than a Hertzian dipole can."