Free Republic

The following are some key findings in a report issued Saturday by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: • Global warming is "unequivocal." Temperatures have risen 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 100 years. Eleven of the last 12 years are among the warmest since 1850. Sea levels have gone up by an average seven-hundredths of an inch per year since 1961. • About 20 percent to 30 percent of all plant and animal species face the risk of extinction if temperatures increase by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. If the thermometer rises by 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit, between 40 to...

In a 2005 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, epidemiologist John Ioannidis showed that among the 45 most highly cited clinical research findings of the past 15 years, 99 percent of molecular research had subsequently been refuted. Epidemiology findings had been contradicted in four-fifths of the cases he looked at, and the usually robust outcomes of clinical trials had a refutation rate of one in four. The revelations struck a chord with the scientific community at large: A recent essay by Ioannidis simply entitled "Why most published research findings are false" has been downloaded more than 100,000...

A University of Pittsburgh reproductive biologist relied on the now-discredited stem-cell findings of a disgraced Korean scientist to win a $16.1 million federal grant last fall, according to federal documents and letters obtained by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Pitt's Gerald Schatten will use the money for an ambitious stem-cell research program that will occupy four of seven floors of Magee-Womens Research Institute's building, now under construction in Oakland, the documents show. The five-year grant, awarded to Schatten in September by the National Institutes of Health, is based in part on cloning experiments deliberately falsified by Hwang Woo-Suk, the documents show.

CIA report on 9/11 is complete Two years after deadline, findings have yet to reach Congress By Walter Pincus Updated: 1:39 a.m. ET Aug. 20, 2005 The CIA inspector general's report on the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has finally been completed — nearly two years after its congressionally set deadline — but has yet to be sent to Capitol Hill because CIA Director Porter J. Goss is still deciding how to respond to its findings, according to administration and congressional sources. Inspector General John L. Helgerson's voluminous report, triggered in December 2002 by a recommendation of the House-Senate inquiry...

TAMPA, Fla. - The medical examiner's office plans to release its autopsy report Wednesday on Terri Schiavo — findings her family hopes will shed light on the cause of the collapse that left her severely brain-damaged 15 years ago. Schiavo, 41, died March 31, nearly two weeks after the feeding tube that had kept her alive was removed under a court order obtained by her husband, Michael Schiavo. Her death ended a bitter legal battle between Michael Schiavo, who said his wife did not want to be kept alive artificially, and her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, who disputed doctors'...

For centuries, people have been intrigued by the number 666, the "number of the beast" from the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. Not only is it mentioned in the Bible, it has been associated with the Satanism, universal price codes and the game of roulette, as the numbers on the wheel add up to 666. Now, the legendary number is getting a fresh look, as researchers are re-examining evidence the number may actually be 616. In the King James Version of the Bible, the well-known verse of Revelation 13:18 reads: "Let him that hath understanding count the number...

In a scathing report delivered to City Hall after sundown yesterday, San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre concluded that there is "substantial evidence" Mayor Dick Murphy and the City Council committed civil violations of federal securities laws. Aguirre's report, widely anticipated at an anxious City Hall, said Murphy and the council, beginning in early 2002, concealed important facts about the city's ailing pension system from the public and from investors in more than $1 billion of city bonds. At a hastily called news conference early last night, Murphy, reading a written statement, called Aguirre's allegations "untrue, irresponsible and defamatory." Murphy...

Almost six months after reports surfaced alleging that San Jose Councilman Terry Gregory solicited lavish meals and gifts in violation of city law, an investigation proposed last week by Mayor Ron Gonzales promises the first answers to questions about whether Gregory has done anything wrong. Who gets to hear those answers, however, is entirely unclear -- and may largely be up to Gonzales and City Attorney Rick Doyle if they determine Gregory acted in ways that expose the city to legal liability. Gonzales' investigation has sparked unfavorable comparisons to the city's early efforts in August to investigate questions about its...

Published online: 07 July 2004 Michael HopkinFossil findings blur picture of art's birthWho created the earliest artwork? Artworks from Germany were found alongside human remains. For years archaeologists have clung to the idea that only truly modern humans were artists, and that our Neanderthal cousins spent their entire evolutionary lifetime as boorish philistines. But fresh analysis of a prized set of human bones has dealt a body blow to this cherished theory. The first sparks of artistic creativity are seen in carved figurines found at various sites throughout Europe. The oldest examples are between 30,000 and 40,000 years old, which...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The chairman of the commission looking into the Sept. 11 attacks said Sunday that some of its findings has surprised him and will surprise the public as well. Thomas H. Kean also said he expects the commission's final report to be published before the November elections, possibly as early as July, even though the White House must clear it for intelligence problems. The commission's deadline for submitting its report is July 26, extended from May 27 after complaints that the White House was delaying the turnover of necessary materials. Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey,...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Speculation was rife on Monday that space scientists were on the verge of announcing they had discovered evidence that Mars was once a wet and warm planet, possibly capable of sustaining microscopic life forms. Officials with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced that Mars scientists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, were flying to Washington for a "significant" announcement, but shied away from saying what it would be. "I can't confirm what they are going to say ... just that it's a significant ... finding," by the rover Opportunity, JPL spokesman Guy Webster...

After a decades-long scientific quest, scientists analyzing data from the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft have at last found critical evidence the instrument was built to search for – the presence of water-related carbonate minerals on the surface of Mars. However, the discovery also potentially contradicts what scientists had hoped to prove: the past existence of large bodies of liquid water on Mars, such as oceans and seas. In a report to be published in the August 22 issue of the journal Science, Arizona State University planetary geologists Joshua Bandfield, Timothy Glotch and Philip Christensen...