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News to Note, October 17, 2009: A weekly feature examining news from the biblical viewpoint (fascinating STEM CELL piece in story #5!)...

When Surya the orangutan meets a hound dog by the river, the two carry on like long lost friends.

IT’S a miracle. That’s what the humans believe, more often than not, after watching this compact, 40-year-old C.E.O. do his work. He enters a room purposefully, his chest thrust forward and a smile on his face. “How can I help?” is his standard introduction, and the way he says it — calmly, assertively — indicates that your problems are about to be solved. It’s unbelievable. That’s what the humans say when they see what Cesar Millan, the “Dog Whisperer,” can do. And the dogs? To a pooch, they appear to be thinking: “Thank God, help has finally arrived.” To prompt...

Oct 2, 2009 — A new fossil human ancestor has taken center stage. Those who love Lucy, the australopithecine made famous by Donald Johanson (and numerous TV specials), are in for a surprise. Lucy is a has been. Her replacement is not Desi Arnaz, but is designated Ardi, short for Ardipithecus ramidus – the new leading lady in the family tree. Actually, she has been around for years since her discovery in Ethiopia in 1992. It has taken Tim White and crew 15 years to piece together the bones that were in extremely bad condition. But now, Ardi has made...

1. Meet “Ardi”Evolutionists aren’t yet sure if they should call it a human ancestor, but one thing they do know is that “Ardi” does away with the idea of a “missing link.”Although first discovered in the early 1990s, the bones of Ardipithecus ramidus are only now being nominated for evolutionists’ fossil hall of fame—via a slew of papers in a special issue of the journal Science. In it, Ardi’s researchers describe the bones and make the case that Ardi is even more important in the history of human evolution than Lucy. Despite claims of its evolutionary significance, one of the...

Melissa Brandts and her husband were surprised to find a squirrel posing with them in a photo taken on holiday. The couple had set the timer on their camera while posing at a lakeside in a national park in Canada. Just as they were about to be captured on camera the cheeky squirrel popped up in the foreground and stole the show. The picture was taken at the side of the stunning Lake Minnewanka in Banff National Park, Canada. Mrs Brandts said: "We had our camera set up on some rocks and were getting ready to take the picture when...

WASHINGTON (May 20) — The nation's top geography whiz breezed through questions about mountain ranges, rivers and world capitals Wednesday, but he was stumped when National Geographic Bee host Alex Trebek asked him to name one of his weaknesses. "Um ..." said Eric Yang, 13, pausing. The Texas teen had just revealed to the "Jeopardy!" host how he crafts his own chess strategies and plays the piano. "That's OK," Trebek replied. "You remind me of a former president, but we won't get into that."

In 1912 scientists thought they'd discovered the elusive missing link between human and ape. Found in a gravel pit in Piltdown, England, a set of intriguing skull and jaw fragments were later reconstructed by the British Museum into a human-like head with an ape-like jaw. In 1953 it turned out the find wasn't proof of anything—other than the skill of the still anonymous forger. The skull was a medieval human's. The jaw was an orangutan's. And the teeth were a chimp's.

150 Years Later, Fossils Still Don't Help Darwin by Brian Thomas, M.S.* “Creationists claim there are no transitional fossils, aka missing links. Biologists and paleontologists, among others, know this claim is false,” according to a recent LiveScience article that then describes what it claims are 12 specific transitional form fossils.1 But do these examples really confirm Darwinism?Charles Darwin raised a lack of transitional fossils as a possible objection to his own theory: “Why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms?”2 Later in this chapter of his landmark book, he...

Complete with what has been described as ‘stark’ photos of tailing ponds, made famous by the discovery of about 500 dead ducks that caused every leftwing granola eaters head to explode, the article itself is said to contain the fair and balanced description of the scene – smoke stacks and mills chugging away – as ‘dark’ and, I’m not kidding here, ‘satanic’.

Feb 03, 2009 — If a catastrophic world event wiped out the dinosaurs, why did birds survive? They’re smaller and more delicate, it seems. National Geographic published a new hypothesis: they out-thought the doomed dinosaurs...

"Fox News journalist Chris Wallace on Monday evening defended President Bush against criticism by Hollywood filmmaker Ron Howard that the president has abused his office in a way similar to President Richard Nixon..."

Situated more than 3,500 feet up in Belize's highest cloud forest, there's a ridge known as Doyle's Delight, and it's mushroom heaven. Last year, Timothy J. Baroni, a fungus scientist at the State University of New York at Cortland, and some colleagues found more than 40 new species there in less than two weeks. Among his most recent finds: a new species of salmon-colored fungus that also represents a new genus of polypore, a well-studied group long used in Asian herbal medicines. Certain polypores may be useful in treating immune diseases or in helping cancer patients recover. More than a...

An aptly named winner of the 2008 Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest, "Deadlock" was captured in the dead of night in a Belizean rain forest. U.K.-based David Maitland observed from midnight to 3 a.m. as a rare Morelet's tree frog doggedly refused to become supper for a cat-eyed snake-

Poorer people living in developing countries care more about the environment than those living in more prosperous countries, a global survey has revealed. They feel more responsible for man-made problems, live a greener lifestyle and are prepared to do more to reduce their own impact on the environment. It is the better-off consumers living more comfortably in developed western countries who are the worst environmental offenders, the survey found. They lead the least sustainable lifestyles because they live in bigger houses, have more cars and consume more goods and food. The United States was identified as the biggest culprit for...

'Big Thaw,' a summertime spectacular in National Geographic magazine, provided awesome scenes of climate-change catastrophes.The glaciers are melting. The ice sheets are melting. They're sliding rapidly out to sea. More rapidly than anyone imagined. Look for the ice sheets to collapse. Look for sea levels to rise. Etc. Etc.National Geographic's breathless account, brilliantly illustrated with the stunning photography for which it is famous, won headlines around the world. It has been dramatized and magnified on nightly newscasts and blogs alike, and has become a staple in the popular imagination.But it won't happen, says Prof. Cliff Ollier of the University...

Aftermath: Population Zero investigates what would happen if every single person on Earth simply disappeared. Explore an interactive world without humans.

Gospel Truth By APRIL D. DECONICK Published: December 1, 2007 Houston AMID much publicity last year, the National Geographic Society announced that a lost 3rd-century religious text had been found, the Gospel of Judas Iscariot. The shocker: Judas didn’t betray Jesus. Instead, Jesus asked Judas, his most trusted and beloved disciple, to hand him over to be killed. Judas’s reward? Ascent to heaven and exaltation above the other disciples. It was a great story. Unfortunately, after re-translating the society’s transcription of the Coptic text, I have found that the actual meaning is vastly different. While National Geographic’s translation supported the...

Mystery Mummy A National Geographic Special about the mysterious 4,000 year old Caucasian Mummies found in China will air on The National Geographic Channel at 9:00PM EST tonight. Click here to see a short video on the subject.The DirecTV satellite channel number is 276. I have a number of books on this subject and will monitor this thread through-out the movie and discuss it with anyone who desires.

Before it takes its first breath, a human baby has been through an incredible transformation...From a single cell to a complex, self-sustaining organism. With ground-breaking photography, computer graphics, and 4-D imaging, “In the Womb” reveals this amazing process as the first heart cells begin to beat, the nerve cells flicker to life, and the senses develop. Watch National Geographic’s In the Womb, September 19, 2007. Check your local listing for time and channel.

First, I would like to thank all of you who wrote or called me after seeing the program. I truly appreciate hearing your comments and your individual points of view. I am also sorry that it is simply impossible for me to respond to every e-mail I receive. When I was first asked to appear in a television documentary about the Shroud of Turin, sometime in 1996, I was very insecure about taking a public stand on the Shroud and wondered if I should do it at all. Somewhat ironically, since I am Jewish, I consulted with a Catholic priest...

Sacred Scandal Weekend begins Friday April 6 through Sun April 8 beginning at 12pm ET/9am PT. Running Monday through Friday. Here's the programming... The Holy Grail April 6th For centuries, storytellers have enthralled audiences with the exploits of those who've dared to pursue the Holy Grail, from King Arthur to Indiana Jones. But just what is the Holy Grail and why does it continue to capture our imagination? Secret Bible (HD) The Knights Templar Beginning April 6th, repeating on April 16th and 21st The real creators of the Da Vinci Code, the Knights Templar were said to own the Holy...

...Regardless, the earth-shattering piece began ... Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet's recent climate changes have a natural—and not a human-induced—cause, according to one scientist's controversial theory. The article marvelously continued: Earth is currently experiencing rapid warming, which the vast majority of climate scientists says is due to humans pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. (Get an overview: "Global Warming Fast Facts".) Mars, too, appears to be enjoying more mild and balmy temperatures. In 2005 data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide "ice caps" near Mars's...

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/070125-dogs-video.htmlRELATED Video: Working Dogs Go Beyond "Man's Best Friend" Video: Dog Whisperer Tackles Pit Bull Terror Dogs: Photos, Video, Audio, and More January 25, 2007—Though they come in many different sizes and temperaments, all domesticated dogs living today are descended from just a few wild wolves that roamed Asia some 15,000 years ago. But why, out of all of the animals that humans have domesticated, have dogs become so close to their owners? Join an anthropologist as he conducts experiments on both wild dogs and down-home pups to figure out why dogs are so good at communicating with humans. Video...

Last April, the National Geographic Society made headlines with a completed translation of the second century gnostic text known as the Gospel of Judas – financed by the society and heavily promoted with tie-in books and a TV documentary – that would challenge Christianity's traditional understanding of the relationship between Jesus and his betrayer.Its new special, "The Secret Lives of Jesus," makes similar sensational claims, airing as part of the "Explorer" series Sunday, Dec. 17, 9-10 p.m. EST on cable's National Geographic Channel. Despite its provocative title, however, the program – as with the Judas expose – provides no explosive...

What was already expected to be a controversial documentary that charges that Osama bin Laden's top spy infiltrated three different branches of U.S. national security has gotten even hotter, with veteran investigative reporter Peter Lance calling the TV documentary based on his book a whitewash that's "like doing 'Schindler's List' from Hitler's perspective." The documentary, "Triple Cross," is scheduled to air on the National Geographic Channel Aug. 28, with Lance's book of the same name set for publication a few weeks later. But their accounts of the way bin Laden's master spy Ali A. Mohamed outwitted the CIA, the FBI...

I found one of my dad's old National Geographic magazines, and it had some neat pictures on the crusades that I thought I would share. Peter Bartholomew, a servent in the Crusader army, told the nobles that St. Andrew had revealed to him the hiding place of the lance that pierced Christ's side at the Crucifiction. Here, after a search beneath the Church of St. Peter, Crusaders gasp as Bartholomew uncovers a corroded lance head. Hope rekindled, the knights broke the Muslim siege the next day.Braving a Rain of Arrows, Europeans Route the Turks on the Plains of Antioch.Crusaders Marching...

Thursday, June 1, 2006, at 11P Through narrative and accompanying visuals, the series, Final Report, will be the story-behind-the-story. The Final Report: Waco Tragedy, examines and answers the questions central to understanding the events that lead to the deaths of 4 ATF agents and80 members of the Branch Davidians including their leader, David Koresh, in a raid and subsequent grisly fire in April, 1993.

On now on the National Geographic Channel, Inside 9-11. Conecting all the dots from 1980 to 9-11, featuring Steven Emerson, first of 2 parts.

Washington DC, Apr. 24, 2006 (CNA) - Questions have arisen about the group of scholars who collaborated with National Geographic in its recent T.V. special about the “discovery” and contents of the alleged Gospel of Judas, which attempts to portray Jesus’ betrayer in a positive light.   Elaine Pagels is a feminist who has written several books against the Catholic Church, such as “The Origin of Satan,” written with the initial help of her colleagues at the Hebrew University of Tel Aviv.  With the assistance of the openly pro-abortion MacArthur Foundation, she researched and wrote “Adam, Eve and the Serpent,”...

The Washington Post religion section recently had an article about the Gnostic gospels. What are they? — A reader in SterlingThe Gnostic gospels are attributed to the work of a community known as the "Gnostics," which existed in the early Church. (Gnosis in Greek means "knowledge.") However, before addressing the issue of the Gnostic gospels, we must first understand more about the Gnostic community and the heresy entitled "Gnosticism." The origins of Gnosticism are unclear. The first traces of Gnosticism arise centuries before Christianity and are rooted in the ancient religions of Syria, Babylonia, Phoenicia and Persia, and in the...

Pope Benedict XVI Thursday recounted the Biblical betrayal of Jesus by Judas, calling the apostle a double-crosser for whom "money was more important than communion with Jesus, more important than God and his love."Benedict's traditional depiction of Judas came during his Holy Thursday homily, a week after the release of an ancient Egyptian Coptic text dubbed the "Gospel of Judas," in which Judas is portrayed not as Jesus' betrayer but as his confidant who was doing his will by handing him over to his enemies to be crucified.Holy Thursday marks the start of a series of solemn ceremonies in the...

Suppose I wrote down a story I made up in which George Washington has a series of conversations with some associate and secretly imparts to him a detailed exposition of Marxist political and economic theory. Now, suppose I hide this document and 200 years from now, one of my descendents finds it and turns it over to the National Geographic Society. Would a 23rd-century issue of National Geographic run an article touting "a long-lost document that gives us new insights into the political thought of George Washington and influences upon Karl Marx?"

The Gospel of Judas debuted Thursday in Washington, D.C. What's the Gospel of Judas, you ask? Well, it's not a gospel. And it's not written by Judas. But it's still important, if not the most important nonbiblical text discovered during the last 60 years, as a National Geographic Society executive told The New York Times. The text, a copy of the document written during the second century, reveals some big news. Turns out Judas wasn't the renegade disciple who betrayed Jesus and committed suicide after remorse overwhelmed him. No, this Judas was just doing what Jesus told him to do....

Interview With Father Thomas Williams, Theology Dean ROME, APRIL 5, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The National Geographic Society has announced its intentions to publish an English translation of an ancient text called "The Gospel of Judas" later this month. The 31-page manuscript, written in Coptic, purportedly surfaced in Geneva in 1983 and has only been translated now. ZENIT asked Legionary Father Thomas D. Williams, dean of theology at the Regina Apostolorum university in Rome, to comment on the relevance of the discovery. Q: What is the "Gospel of Judas"? Father Williams: Though the manuscript still must be authenticated, it likely represents a...

This was written almost a year ago and is most prophetic. It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside paid silent homage to the man who invented air-conditioning as they watched TV "storm teams" warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday. But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a...

Many of those who watched the National Geograhic program on the 9/11 attack "Inside 9/11" caught the following statement: "At this air force base in Tampa (picture of entrance gate to Macdill Air Force Base), members of the U.S. Army special operations command are reviewing an unusual chart that reportedly identifies both Atta (picture id of Atta shown) and Al-Shehhi (picture id of Al-Shehhi shown) as likely members of an Al-Qaeda terror cell operating within the united states. the officials decide they cannot pass this information along to the FBI, in part because the men are holding valid U.S. visas...

Both episodes of Inside 9-11 on tonight

"go beyond what has been reported and get a clearer picture of the day that redefined our nation."...an exceptionally powerful series..." —Dorothy Rabinowitz, Wall Street Journal "...a visually compelling sweep of imagery..." —Ned Martel, New York Times

Schedule is part one Sunday Aug 21 at 9pm eastern for two hours and concluding Monday Aug 22 at 9pm for two additional hours. FReepers should check their local listings.INSIDE 9/11

Whenever liberals remind us that not all Muslims are terrorists or anti-American rioters, I always think that not everyone in the pre-civil-rights south was a church bomber or member of the Ku Klux Klan. ...Which brings me to Inside 9/11, a new four-hour documentary that premieres Aug. 21 on the National Geographic Channel. The producers have been promoting this two-night special, which the cable network considers so important that it's making the show available for free in areas that don't carry NGC, as strictly reportorial rather than political. And as far as possible, this is true: The documentary, which features...

The Year is 2020 A new telescope orbiting high above the earth has just made a discovery that will change our lives forever. EXTRATERRESTIAL takes a look at what life on other worlds might really look like.

Tin SoldierAn American Vigilante In Afghanistan, Using the Press for Profit and Glory By Mariah Blake In April 2004, a former U.S. Special Forces soldier named Jonathan Keith Idema started shopping a sizzling story to the media. He claimed terrorists in Afghanistan planned to use bomb-laden taxicabs to kill key U.S. and Afghan officials, and that he himself intended to thwart the attack. Shortly thereafter, he headed to Afghanistan, where he spent the next two months conducting a series of raids with his team, which he called Task Force Saber 7. By late June, he claimed to have captured the...

In "Quest for the Phoenicians," three renowned scientists, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence and oceanographer Robert Ballard, geneticist Spencer Wells and archaeologist Paco Giles, search for clues about the Phoenicians in the sea, in the earth and in the blood of their modern-day descendents... Ballard looks at ancient shipwrecks along Skerki Bank off the island of Sicily... Paco Giles excavates a cave at the bottom of the rock of Gibraltar... Spencer Wells collects DNA from a 2,500-year-old Phoenician mummy's tooth, to extract its unique genetic code and compare it with DNA samples collected from men and women from Lebanon to Tunisia.

This article will make the people whom blindly think evolution is science a bit angry. National Geographic has finally decided to do a balanced and accurate story on intelligent design, instead of the emotional, fallacy-ridden tirades other "scholarly" magazines have produced.

In stark contrast to their sensationalistic ‘Feathers for T. rex’ article, National Geographic has printed a brief, yet revealing statement by Xu Xing, vertebrate paleontologist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing. Xu's revelation appears in the somewhat obscure Forum section of the March, 2000 issue, together with a carefully crafted editorial response. The letter from Xu Xing, vertebrate paleontologist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, reads: ‘After observing a new feathered dromaeosaur specimen in a private collection and comparing it with the fossil known as Archaeoraptor [pages 100–101], I have concluded that Archaeoraptor is a composite....

River Oaks Plantation via The Associated Press Christopher Griffin posed with the huge hog dubbed "Hogzilla" that he killed on the River Oaks Plantation in 2004. ALAPAHA, Ga., March 17 - Few episodes in this modern age have drawn the Southern talent for tall tales like the legend of Hogzilla, the alleged 12-foot, 1,000-pound wild hog shot and killed on a South Georgia farm last June. Documented by only a single photograph before the carcass was buried, Hogzilla drew television crews from as far away as Japan and appeared on the cover of Weekly World News. The pig became the...

Last year's state champ in the National Geographic Bee won't be able to compete in this year's contest due to a little-publicized rules change, his parents said. Matt Savage, a home-schooled seventh-grader from Francestown, had already won a school-level Bee at Great Brook School in Antrim. But after his win, officials with the Bee called and told parents Larry and Diane Savage that he couldn't go on to the state contest because of rules governing how home-schoolers can enter the event. "We want to follow the rules, but it would have been appropriate to advertise the rules," Mrs. Savage said,...

Did anyone tape last night's National Geographic Channel IN THE WOMB. I am interesting in obtaing a copy for my children. Please Freepmail me!! Grateful thanks! And thank you ADMIN MOD

When 'Shock and Awe' launched the first stages of Operation Iraqi Freedom the phrase became synonymous with a massive military strike—terrifying and overwhelming. It was a strategy designed to end the war in hours or days. That was the theory.