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The Evolution Debate Special Coverage:
A Red Peril
By C. CLAIBORNE RAY, The New York Times, August 23, 2005
Q. Whatever happened to scarlet fever? It used to be a scourge of the young. Was a vaccine found? What about rheumatic fever?
A. Scarlet fever, which used to be called scarlatina, has not disappeared. The organisms that cause it, Group A streptococcus bacteria, still infect humans, and no vaccine is available, but it has become less common in the United States and much less serious, mostly because of antibiotics.
( Read More )
At Risk: Sunday's Child, Monday's Child, Midnight's Child?
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR, The New York Times, August 23, 2005
Babies born in the hours before dawn seem to face a greater risk of death, California researchers have concluded after a seven-year study.
Their analysis covered more than 3.3 million infants born without lethal congenital abnormalities.
( Read More )
How India Reconciles Hindu Values and Biotech
By PANKAJ MISHRA, The New York Times, August 21, 2005
LONDON — In 2001, President Bush restricted federal financing for stem cell research. The decision, which was shaped at least partly by the Republican Party's evangelical Christian base, and which disappointed many American scientists and businessmen, provoked joy in India. The weekly newsmagazine India Today, read mostly by the country's ambitious middle class, spoke of a "new pot of gold" for Indian science and businesses. "If Indians are smart," the magazine said, American qualms about stem cell research "can open an opportunity to march ahead."
Just four years later, this seems to have occurred. According to Ernst & Young's Global Biotechnology Report in 2004, Indian biotechnology companies are expected to grow tenfold in the next five years, creating more than a million jobs. With more than 10,000 highly trained and cheaply available scientists, the country is one of the leading biotechnology powers along with Korea, Singapore, China, Japan, Sweden, Britain and Israel.
( Read More )
When a Bug Becomes a Monster
By MARC SANTORA, The New York Times, August 21, 2005
Health officials in New York are working with increasing urgency to develop a defense in case a deadly strain of influenza begins to spread widely.
The city and state health departments are concerned about a dangerous strain of avian flu that continues to sweep across Asia, infecting millions of birds. While the virus is not easily transmissible from person to person at this point, scientists are worried about the theoretical possibility that it could combine with a more common form of influenza and become a rapidly spreading killer.
New York City health officials have been meeting every two weeks since February to develop a response plan. They hope to have an updated draft ready in the next few weeks. At about the same time, the state hopes to have its draft plan ready as well.
( Read More )
- Scientists Speak Up on Mix of God and Science
By CORNELIA DEAN
Disdain for religion is far from universal among scientists, and some are beginning to speak out about their faith. - In Explaining Life's Complexity, Darwinists and Doubters Clash
By KENNETH CHANG
Proponents of intelligent design say biological marvels point to the hand of a higher being, but mainstream scientists say such an explanation is unscientific. - Neo-Creo
By WILLIAM SAFIRE, New York Times Magazine
The word creationism, coined in 1868 in opposition to what was then called Darwinism or evolutionism, had fallen on hard times. The proponents of a theory faithfully attributing the origin of matter to God, ''the creator,'' were seemingly overwhelmed by the theory put forward by Charles Darwin and bolstered with much evidence by 20th century scientists. As a result, the noun creationism (like its predecessor, teleology, the study of purposeful design in nature) gained a musty connotation while evolutionism modishly lost its -ism.
( Read More )
A Red Peril
By C. CLAIBORNE RAY, The New York Times, August 23, 2005
Q. Whatever happened to scarlet fever? It used to be a scourge of the young. Was a vaccine found? What about rheumatic fever?
A. Scarlet fever, which used to be called scarlatina, has not disappeared. The organisms that cause it, Group A streptococcus bacteria, still infect humans, and no vaccine is available, but it has become less common in the United States and much less serious, mostly because of antibiotics.
( Read More )
At Risk: Sunday's Child, Monday's Child, Midnight's Child?
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR, The New York Times, August 23, 2005
Babies born in the hours before dawn seem to face a greater risk of death, California researchers have concluded after a seven-year study.
Their analysis covered more than 3.3 million infants born without lethal congenital abnormalities.
( Read More )
How India Reconciles Hindu Values and Biotech
By PANKAJ MISHRA, The New York Times, August 21, 2005
LONDON — In 2001, President Bush restricted federal financing for stem cell research. The decision, which was shaped at least partly by the Republican Party's evangelical Christian base, and which disappointed many American scientists and businessmen, provoked joy in India. The weekly newsmagazine India Today, read mostly by the country's ambitious middle class, spoke of a "new pot of gold" for Indian science and businesses. "If Indians are smart," the magazine said, American qualms about stem cell research "can open an opportunity to march ahead."
Just four years later, this seems to have occurred. According to Ernst & Young's Global Biotechnology Report in 2004, Indian biotechnology companies are expected to grow tenfold in the next five years, creating more than a million jobs. With more than 10,000 highly trained and cheaply available scientists, the country is one of the leading biotechnology powers along with Korea, Singapore, China, Japan, Sweden, Britain and Israel.
( Read More )
When a Bug Becomes a Monster
By MARC SANTORA, The New York Times, August 21, 2005
Health officials in New York are working with increasing urgency to develop a defense in case a deadly strain of influenza begins to spread widely.
The city and state health departments are concerned about a dangerous strain of avian flu that continues to sweep across Asia, infecting millions of birds. While the virus is not easily transmissible from person to person at this point, scientists are worried about the theoretical possibility that it could combine with a more common form of influenza and become a rapidly spreading killer.
New York City health officials have been meeting every two weeks since February to develop a response plan. They hope to have an updated draft ready in the next few weeks. At about the same time, the state hopes to have its draft plan ready as well.
( Read More )
