Science

From an article of the same name by Marc Gunther from Fortune/CNNMoney.com:

This spring, shareholders at such big companies as ExxonMobil, Ford and American Express are voting on whether gay and lesbian people deserve protection against discrimination in the workplace. But even as battles over gay rights flare up in the corporate world, there's no doubt about who's winning the war. More than 80 percent of companies in the Fortune 500 now ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Some 249 of the Fortune 500 offer health and other benefits to the same-sex partners of their employees. That's up from just 28 a decade ago. Last year, Wal-Mart, America's biggest employer, agreed to support a network for its gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) workers, joining such firms as Citigroup, DuPont and IBM. All these trends are moving in one direction - towards more rights for gay and lesbian people. This is remarkable, given the setbacks that gay rights have taken in the political arena, especially around the issue of gay marriage... For the past four years, the Human Rights Campaign has ranked big companies on gay rights issues. It looks at non-discrimination policies, domestic partner benefits, advertising in gay media, philanthropy and support for gay employee groups. This year, 101 companies received the highest possible 100 percent rating - up from 56 last year and 13 when the survey was first done in 2002. These firms aren't just on Wall Street or in Hollywood. For the first time, this year's top performers includes oil and gas companies (BP and Chevron), a chemical company (Dow Chemical) and a defense firm (Raytheon)... Why are more companies embracing gay rights? Among other things, they want to attract gay consumers. Gay purchasing power in the U.S. has been estimated at $641 billion a year by one gay-friendly research firm. But consumer power cannot explain why defense contractor Raytheon gets a perfect score from the HRC. (Gays are not a big market for cruise missiles.) There, the issue comes down to attracting and engaging workers. No company wants to make any of its people feel uncomfortable or unwanted.

From a press release from Indiana Univ.:

Indiana University scientist Chuck Bower and two partners from the business world, Frank Frigo of Louisville, Ky., and Bo Durickovic of Austin, Texas, have created ZEUS, a computer model of football as it's played in the National Football League, based on years of NFL statistics. ZEUS runs on an off-the-shelf laptop, perfect for a football sideline or a coach's booth above the playing field. ZEUS is designed to do what a coach needs to do during a game but can't -- calculate the consequences of a decision before he calls the next play. Accept the penalty or decline it? Challenge the official's call or not? Go for it on fourth down or punt? Go for one extra point or two after the touchdown? These are the kinds of decisions that often determine the outcome of a game, especially a close one. In many situations the decision is obvious, but sometimes it's not clear which choice offers the best chance to win. That's where ZEUS comes in.

A coal to diesel breathrough reportedly makes the process commercially-viable. See the press release here.

A recently-discovered fish fossil was touted as a link between fish and animals walking on land. Another fossil found recently has been reported to fill a gap in human evolution. The inside joke I keep hearing is that each new disovery that fills a gap creates two more. Anyway, from an AP story by Seth Borenstein on MSNBC.com:

The 4.2 million-year-old fossil discovered in northeastern Ethiopia helps scientists fill in the gaps of how human ancestors made the giant leap from one species to another. That's because the newest fossil, the species Australopithecus anamensis, was found in the region of the Middle Awash - where seven other human-like species spanning nearly 6 million years and three major phases of human development were previously discovered... The species anamensis is not new, but its location is what helps explain the shift from one early phase of human-like development to the next, scientists say. All eight species were within an easy day's walk of each other. Until now, what scientists had were snapshots of human evolution scattered around the world. Finding everything all in one general area makes those snapshots more of a mini home movie of evolution.

It strikes me as ironic that, at a time when science and faith are apparently in conflict in our culture, science has or is on the verge of duplicating many of Jesus' miracles. About the conflict between faith and science: for example, the battle that's been going on in the courts lately between those who view "Intelligent Design" as an alternative scientific theory to be taught alongside evolution and those who view it as nothing more than pseudoscience or thinly-veiled creationism that might be taught in church but not in school. I really don't think there is actually an inherent conflict there, as I discussed here. However, if faith and modern science aren't inherently in conflict, they're orthogonal to each other. Science relies on observation. "faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" (Heb. 11:1). I've been thinking about a different kind of conflict. Or maybe it is a way that they are complementary. When questioned about his identity by the followers of John the Baptist, Jesus pointed to his acts of healing as proof of his identity: "Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor." (Matt. 11, Luke 7) Recently, I listened to a very interesting segment of NPR's Science Friday. The summary:

Doctors announced this week that they have created a bladder using living cells, the closest they've come yet to making a fully functioning organ. The bladder was tailor-made using the cells of a woman suffering from spina bifida. The researchers say that the replacement organ seems to be well tolerated by the human body, and it did work as a functioning bladder. In this hour, we'll take a look at tissue engineering. How close are scientists to making organs to order, or getting limbs to regrow? Plus, a look at bionics. We'll talk with the inventor of a computer controlled hand for amputees, and hear about the latest in bionic eyes.

William Craelius, a biomedical engineer from Rutgers University, was on the show. From a press release from a few years back:

Bionic limb replacements that look and work exactly like the real thing will likely remain a Hollywood fantasy, but fast advances in human-to-machine communication and miniaturization could bring the technology close within a decade. That is the outlook of Rutgers biomedical engineer and inventor William Craelius, whose Dextra artificial hand is the first to let a person use existing nerve pathways to control individual computer-driven mechanical fingers. Craelius published an overview of bionics entitled "The Bionic Man - Restoring Mobility," in the international journal "Science," ...

Advances in prosthetics have allowed people who have lost one or even both of their legs to walk around freely on their own. In addition to bionic limbs, scientists are also developing the bionic eye...attempting to treat blindness via chips to be implanted in the retina. According to wikipedia, "leprosy is easily curable by multidrug antibiotic therapy." Cochlear implants have restored a form of hearing to people who are profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing. From wikipedia:

A cochlear implant is a surgically implanted hearing aid that can help provide a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing. The cochlear implant is often referred to as a bionic ear. Unlike other kinds of hearing aids, the cochlear implant doesn't amplify sound, but works by directly stimulating any functioning auditory nerves inside the cochlea with electrical impulses. External components of the cochlear implant include a microphone, speech processor and transmitter. An implant does not restore or create normal hearing. Instead, under the appropriate conditions, it can give a deaf person a useful auditory understanding of the environment and help them to understand speech when coupled with post-implantation therapy. According to researchers at the University of Michigan, approximately 100,000 people worldwide have received cochlear implants; roughly half are children and half adults. The vast majority are in developed countries due to the prohibitive cost of the device, surgery and post-implantation therapy...

Of course, scientists can't bring people back from the dead on demand, but it's not exactly uncommon for cardiac resuscitation techniques to revive people who are clinically dead. It's interesting how, in a sense, science has been able or is on the verge of being able imitate most of the miracles that Jesus used to confirm his message. It makes me wonder what sort of miracles he would have used if he had been here today. The guests on the Science Friday show emphasized that the main obstacle preventing further advancement is funding as the governemnt funding agencies are having to divert funds elsewhere. I'd much prefer my tax dollars go to research like this than to some of the other ways they've been used lately.