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India sex selection doctor jailed

Previously I mentioned India's 10 million missing daughters. From a story by the BBC News:

A doctor in India and his assistant have been sentenced to two years in jail for revealing the sex of a female foetus and then agreeing to abort it. This is the first time medical professionals have been jailed in such a case. Under Indian laws, ultrasound tests on a pregnant woman to determine the gender of the foetus are illegal. It has been estimated that 10m female foetuses may have been terminated in India in the past 20 years. Dr Anil Sabhani and Kartar Singh were caught in a sting operation in the northern state of Haryana. Government officials sent in three pregnant women as decoy patients to find out if the clinic would carry out abortions based on sex selection. Audio and video evidence showed the doctor telling one woman that tests had revealed that she was carrying a "female foetus and it would be taken care of". But convictions are rare due to lax and corrupt officials and the slow judicial system.

Less Sleep, Fat Children

From an article on the Science Blog:

The less a child sleeps, the more likely he or she is to become overweight, according to researchers from Université Laval's Faculty of Medicine in an article published in the latest edition of the International Journal of Obesity. The risk of becoming overweight is 3.5 times higher in children who get less sleep than in those who sleep a lot, according to researchers Jean-Philippe Chaput, Marc Brunet, and Angelo Tremblay. These results come from data collected among 422 grade school students aged 5 to 10. The scientists measured the weight, height, and waist size of each participant. Information on the children's lifestyle and socioeconomic status was obtained through phone interviews with their parents. Through body mass index measurement, the researchers determined that 20% of the boys and 24% of the girls were overweight. Children who slept less than 10 hours a night were 3.5 times more at risk of being overweight than those who slept 12 or more hours. No other factor analyzed in the study--parental obesity, parents' level of education, family income, time spent in front of the TV or computer, regular physical activity--had as much of an impact on obesity than time spent sleeping. Hormone production is currently the researchers' prime hypothesis to explain the relationship between sleep and obesity. "Lack of sleep lowers the level of leptin, a hormone that stimulates metabolism and decreases hunger. In addition, short nights of sleep boost the concentration of ghrelin, a hormone that increases hunger," explains Professor Angelo Tremblay.

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Aspartame OK

From an AP story on MSNBC.com:

A huge federal study in people - not rats - takes the fizz out of arguments that the diet soda sweetener aspartame might raise the risk of cancer. No increased risk was seen even among people who gulped down many artificially sweetened drinks a day, said researchers who studied the diets of more than half a million older Americans. A consumer group praised the study, done by reputable researchers independent of any funding or ties to industry groups.

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Christians have abortions just as often

The Center for Reason recently published a study that claims that the percent of viable pregnancies that are terminated is the same in more-"Christian" regions of the U.S. as it is in other regions. From the press release here:

A new study by The Center For Reason (www.CenterForReason.com) finds that Christians have just as many abortions as their non-Christian counterparts. The study concludes that in the year 2000, Christians were responsible for 570,000 abortions. Catholics were found to be the worst offenders, with abortion rates higher than the national average. San Francisco, Calif. (PRWEB) March 12, 2006 -- With over one million abortions being performed in the US each year, this issue has dominated the political landscape. In recent years the rhetoric has escalated, with the pro-life movement becoming a flagship for Christian morality and ethics. The prevailing Christian doctrine--that abortion is murder--has polarized the issue, firmly placing the vast majority of Christians on the pro-life side of the debate. Incendiary comments by some of the more outspoken Christian figureheads have sought to portray abortion as an "evil" perpetrated by the non-Christian left. In response to this, The Center For Reason, a private research group, undertook a study to test the premise: "Christians have fewer abortions than non-Christians". The results disproved the premise. The study, available as a downloadable report, reveals that Christians have just as many abortions as non-Christians. Data analyzed for all fifty states show that the rate of abortion is the same in the most-Christian segments of the population as it is in the least-Christian. The most-Catholic segments, on the other hand, showed significantly higher abortion rates. All data sources used in the study are publicly available, and are referenced in the report. All raw data and calculated values are tabulated in the report, to allow full verification of the results.

This is the result that the Center would hope to find, so there is some danger of bias. However, I would guess that the result is probably not too far from the truth and isn't that big of a surprise. We've heard the same thing in the past about divorce. And we know that the large percentage of Americans that claim to be Christians doesn't exactly translate to Christian behavior being observed as the dominant norm in our society. Unfortunately, it may be that many Christians aren't exactly diligent in applying in applying Biblical principles to our own lives. Our lives really aren't that different from those of others. The report is for sale for $10. About the Center for Reason from their web site:

Our mission is to raise the level of public discourse by bringing reason, knowledge and scientific analysis to topics of public concern. We are a group of private citizens, and are not affiliated with any political party, church, corporation or any other organization. We conduct research into topics that we believe have been misrepresented in public debate. We sell our research reports for a nominal fee to help defray our costs. We also accept donations, and suggestions for future topics of research.

Prayer did not help heart patients

From an AP story on cnn.com:

In the largest study of its kind, researchers found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications. Researchers emphasized their work does not address whether God exists or answers prayers made on another's behalf. The study can only look for an effect from prayers offered as part of the research, they said. They also said they had no explanation for the higher complication rate in patients who knew they were being prayed for, in comparison to patients who only knew it was possible prayers were being said for them. The work, which followed about 1,800 patients at six medical centers, was financed by the Templeton Foundation, which supports research into science and religion. It will appear in the American Heart Journal. Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School and other scientists tested the effect of having three Christian groups pray for particular patients, starting the night before surgery and continuing for two weeks. The volunteers prayed for "a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications" for specific patients, for whom they were given the first name and first initial of the last name.

James 5:16 says that "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." Also, I've never felt too comfortable/motivated praying for someone that I didn't know at all, someone I had no connection to. I guess I have to generally agree with the perspective of the dude from Duke:

Dr. Harold G. Koenig, director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at the Duke University Medical Center, who did not take part in the study, said the results did not surprise him. "There are no scientific grounds to expect a result and there are no real theological grounds to expect a result either," he said. Science, he said, "is not designed to study the supernatural."

Update: April 2, 2006 10:24 PM:
Of all coincidences and all places, the power of prayer to heal was quoted to Tony Soprano tonight...

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