..."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 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. "..

"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. "

"A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days. "..."Daniel Boyarin, a professor of Talmudic culture at the University of California at Berkeley, said that the stone was part of a growing body of evidence suggesting that Jesus could be best understood through a close reading of the Jewish history of his day. “Some Christians will find it shocking — a challenge to the uniqueness of their theology — while others will be comforted by the idea of it being a traditional part of Judaism,” Mr. Boyarin said. Given the highly charged atmosphere surrounding all Jesus-era artifacts and writings, both in the general public and in the fractured and fiercely competitive scholarly community, as well as the concern over forgery and charlatanism, it will probably be some time before the tablet’s contribution is fully assessed. It has been around 60 years since the Dead Sea Scrolls were uncovered, and they continue to generate enormous controversy regarding their authors and meaning. "...

"Now that the European Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is completed and ready to fire up in August, a slew of articles have popped up quoting doomsayers. An AP article from this weekend was the most recent example of critics warning that the 17-mile, $5.8 billion supercollider – which will slam protons together in an attempt to learn more about the building blocks of the universe – will inadvertently create a black hole that will gobble up the Earth. So, will the most ambitious science project in human history end human history? No. "..." A study released last month disassembled the arguments http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.3381 against powering up the collider. The report found “no basis for concerns that [small] black holes from the LHC could pose a risk to Earth on timescales shorter than the Earth’s natural lifetime.” In other words: Yes, it could happen, but chances are the sun will burn out before this collider can have an Earth-ending mishap."....

.."An astronomer and astrophysicist, Coyne pointed to the very existence of the observatory as evidence that the church sees faith and science as compatible. "The same God that created the universe that I study as a scientist is the God who spoke to the Jewish people of old," he said. But shrill voices from both the scientific and religious communities have created a tense climate for researchers in the United States, said Francis Collins, outgoing director of the National Human Genome Research Institute and recipient of the Mendel Medal in 1998.Extremes in the debate can be seen in recent books by atheists who excoriate faith and in the new Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., Collins said. "...""Mendel would be horrified to see the way in which people are being asked to make a choice between God and science," Collins said. "That's an unnecessary choice." Most people are inclined both toward a spiritual side of human existence and to trust science as well, said Collins, author of "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief." Catholics are more likely than other Americans to believe in evolution. A survey conducted last year by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found 58 percent of Catholics believed in evolution compared with 48 percent for the nation as a whole. "..."Mendel's work was not recognized until after he died and many of his personal effects were not saved. He presented his findings in 1865 but they were largely overlooked until other scientists essentially replicated them at the turn of the century. "... "..."

In today's Lancet, Kristin Dunkle and colleagues1 present a mathematical model of the expected proportion of new heterosexually transmitted HIV infections in urban Zambia and Rwanda that are acquired during marriage or cohabitation. Their model, which uses existing data from voluntary counselling and testing and population-based surveys for HIV, consistently estimates that most new HIV infections occur within marriage or cohabitation. They conclude that HIV-prevention efforts should expand beyond individuals to target couples."...."Additionally, their estimates of transmission risk-reduction after couples seek voluntary counselling and testing are drawn from studies done several years ago, and do not include potential benefits of antiretroviral therapy on HIV viral load and transmission,3 or potential reductions in acquisition associated with male circumcision (an intervention that is associated with a 60% reduction of HIV acquisition in men). Both factors could potentially avert millions of new HIV infections in HIV-discordant partnerships.3,4 These interventions might have particular relevance for prevention within cohabitating HIV-discordant partnerships, which could have higher frequency of exposure and lower use of condoms than non-cohabitating partnerships.5 Thus the effect that a comprehensive prevention package can have on couples could be even higher than that estimated by Dunkle and colleagues. More than 20 years into the epidemic, it is striking that nearly 80% of HIV-infected adults in sub-Saharan Africa are unaware of their HIV status and more than 90% are unaware of their partners' status.6,7 Nationally representative data from east Africa suggests that 40–50% of married HIV-infected individuals have an HIV-uninfected spouse,5 and most do not know their own or their partner's status and do not understand that HIV discordance can exist within couples.7 Because most HIV-infected people are not diagnosed, they