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The Best Videos in the world of our Unborn Neighbors   Fr. Frank Pavone       It's light years beyond ultrasound and will make you practically fall off your chair when you see it.We at Priests for Life are now promoting and distributing to every sector of the Church and the pro-life movement the most vivid, powerful, and striking videography of the unborn child that exists. Obtained through a rarely used technique called embryoscopy, in which a video camera the size of a pen-point is inserted abdominally or cervically, this video footage has been incorporated into a 42-minute...

Researchers have engineered artificial penises in rabbits, using cells from the animals, who then used their new organs to father baby rabbits.The work takes scientists closer to making other complex solid organs such as livers using a patient's own cells, the researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday. It provides a tailor-made transplant, said Dr. Anthony Atala of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center's Institute for Regenerative Medicine, who led the study.

The latest airport security trend is the backscatter x-ray machine, touted as a powerful way to virtually frisk a traveler for contraband without the embarassment of a strip search. Though touted as completely safe because the level of radiation is so low, travelers have been nervous about the devices -- and not just because it shows off a nice outline of their privates to the people manning the machines -- but because they remain scared of the health problems they might propose. Looks like a little healthy paranoia might have been a good thing. While the conventional wisdom has held...

(CNSNews.com) – In Ansonia, Conn., $2.3 million in federal stimulus funds is being used for insect research, specifically the “rearing [of] large numbers of anthropoids” which includes the “Asian long-horned beetle, the nun moth and the wooly adelgid,” the New Haven Advocate reported. Duluth, Minn., rarely known for its high temperatures, received $6 million in economic stimulus funds for a snowmaking facility, even though it is the 15th snowiest city in America, according to City-Data.com.

Brent Rooney: Superfreakenomics Co-Author Should Leave Medical Matters Alone Steven D. Levitt's LAUGH-IN / Freakonomics Fried by Brent Rooney (MSc) * On Oct. 2009, Univ. of Chicago Prof. Steven D. Levitt debuted Superfreakonomics as a sequel to his best-selling book Freakonomics 2005). Perhaps Levitt is correct about Global Cooling, in his 2009 book, but nothing Levitt writes about medical matters can be believed. If a young Milton Friedman (PhD, Nobel Prize winner) had opined that “strong increased consumer demand for IPODs or Ivory Soap leads to DECREASED prices”, the loud guffaws would have shattered ears and the business press would...

While searching for the context of a surprising and fragmented presidential quote I came across this database. It had the full quote in the full context. It appears to be extensive in documenting all kinds of written and spoken presidential remarks. "The American Presidency Project is the only online resource that has consolidated, coded, and organized into a single searchable database: • The Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Washington - Taft (1789-1913) • The Public Papers of the Presidents: Hoover to Bush (1929-1993) • The Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents: Clinton - Obama (1993-2009) • Our archives also contain...

Obama Admin Sued to Stop Tax-Funding of Embryonic Stem Cell Research Washington, DC -- A coalition of pro-life advocates including two scientists, two families, an adoption agency and the Christian Medical Association have banded together to file a lawsuit against the Obama administration in an effort to stop the expected taxpayer funding of abortions. http://www.lifenews.com/bio2980.html

The Pentagon runs a massive medical research program, studying a broad range of problems from cancer to malaria to sleep disorders. The work is done at home and abroad. For instance, The Defense Department partners on AIDS prevention with African forces, and the Army worked on an experimental AIDs vaccine tested in Thailand, announcing a breakthrough in the vaccine on Thursday. Though military research has also benefited the civilian world, the main reason for the huge effort is to protect the U.S. armed forces as they are exposed to disease and injury while deployed around the world. "If half of...

how dragon boating can help cancer survivors; how canoes can help cultural identity; how snorting cocaine creates anxiety. Click here for photos. In a letter to NIH director Francis Collins, Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, and Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) on Thursday demanded to know the screening procedures and review criteria used to approve $1.6 billion in stimulus grants and another $20 million in grants Click here to see video. FOX News identified more than a dozen suspect studies, many of which were funded by stimulus dollars, and compared them...

•The Honduran Congress appears to have acted properly in deposing President Manuel Zelaya. Unlike in the United States, the Honduran Congress has the last word when it comes to interpreting the Constitution. Although there is no provision in Honduras's Constitution for impeachment as such, the body does have powers to disapprove of the president's official acts, and to replace him in the event that he is incapable of performing his duties. Most importantly, the Congress also has the authority to interpret exactly what that means. •The Supreme Court was legally entitled to ask the military to arrest Zelaya. The high...

The people of the United States find themselves in the midst of a severe recession, with unemployment higher than it has been in many years, housing prices cratering, retirement plans collapsing, and their lifestyles constricting. The financial industry collapsed. We had to come to the rescue, pouring our own futures into saving the banks, brokerages, and insurance companies from their own greedy foolishness. The stagnant American automobile industry was imploding, and the people had to bail them out too, further mortgaging the future of their children. Our politicians responded to this catastrophe by spending our future for us, and then...

(Posted 08/28/09 www.RemnantNewspaper.com) They weigh less than 3 pounds, usually, and are perhaps 15 inches long. But “they can remember,” reports Jennifer Harper of The Washington Times (July 16, 2009): The unborn have memories, according to medical researchers who used sound and vibration stimulation, combined with sonography, to reveal that the human fetus displays short-term memory from at least 30 weeks gestation – or about two months before they are born. "In addition, results indicated that 34-week-old fetuses are able to store information and retrieve it four weeks later," said the research, which was released Wednesday. These findings were obtained...

Civilisation would most likely be finished in the event of a zombie outbreak, claim Canadian mathematicians who have calculated the possible devastation caused by an attack by the fictional monsters. Using models developed to calculate the effects of more plausible pandemics, the team from the University of Ottawa have discovered that unless man struck back quickly and aggressively then they would be doomed. The scientific paper, which is published in a book “Infectious Diseases Modelling Research Progress”, looks at an attack by the undead creatures, who infect the living with a bite. In their study, titled When Zombies Attack!, the...

FOR generations, we doctors have promised our patients that medical advances will allow us all to live longer, more comfortable lives. Now that these results are finally arriving, "health-care reform" -- or "insurance reform," as they're now pitching it -- could snatch the rug out from under us. Cost-control is central to any health-care "reform" along the lines favored by President Obama and congressional Democrats. But new treatments, while ever more precise and personalized, are also costlier. Anyone who's been saved from cancer by the latest targeted chemotherapy treatment, had a lung or breast cancer diagnosed early by a CT...

Glenn Beck is asking everyone to find and capture audio and video clips of Obama's czars before they are erased from the internet, then send them on to him. His request is on his twitter page. Computer sophisticated FReepers, please help him out! He's taking on a huge battle.

Adi Mor, a student at Tel Aviv University's Department of Neuro-biochemistry, has developed what could be the first tablet-based treatment for children and adults with Type 1 diabetes. Early results show that the compound is effective in restoring insulin production in animal models — which could spell an end to the daily needle injections endured by diabetics.

I publish history research papers by secondary students from around the world, and from time to time I get a paper submitted which includes quite a bit more opinion than historical research. The other day I got a call from a prospective teenage author saying he had noticed on my website that most of the papers seemed to be history rather than opinion, and was it alright for him to submit a paper with his opinions? I said that opinions were fine, if they were preceded and supported by a good deal of historical research for the paper, and that...

“No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!” —President Ronald Reagan Life Legal Defense Foundation continues to watchdog the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and in doing so found the latest attempt to promulgate embryonic stem cell research by “educating” children. Let us introduce you to Senate Bill 471. Titled “The California Stem Cell and Biotechnology Education and Workforce Development Act of 2009,” the purpose of SB 471 is purportedly to train up a new generation of...

We have the best health care system in the world. Most Americans live within an hour's drive of a world-class medical facility filled with expertly trained individuals and state-of-the-art technology delivering medical miracles every day. But today, as our government attempts an overhaul that will significantly restructure and restrict the way in which doctors provide care to their patients, the health care system that so many Americans depend on is at risk. Currently, more than 250 million Americans have health insurance and the vast majority of them are satisfied with the coverage they have... What's more perplexing is the American...

Janet Gail was used to looking at mammograms and finding bad news. As a hospital technician in Pennsylvania, that was her job. But she was unprepared for what she found in her own mammogram when she did a routine screening at age 42. "I immediately recognized a suspicious area on the films," Gail -- who asked that her real name not be used because her children don't know her history -- says, "We returned to the X-ray room to take more specialized views, which only confirmed my suspicions. I knew at that moment that my life was forever changed. I...

The Obama administration today announced far-reaching new guidelines on the use of stem cells in medical research, and promised federal funds to study many of the hundreds of stem cell lines whose use was prohibited by the Bush administration. President Obama had promised during the presidential campaign to ease restrictions on the use of stem cells in research, and has cited the promise of stem cell research in finding cures for disorders that have so far proven intractable. The new guidelines were announced today by officials at the National Institutes of Health. In an important shift from draft guidelines issued...

Here's something that people with poor or no vision will be excited about: three patients had their sight restored in less than a month by contact lenses cultured with stem cells. All three patients were blind in one eye. The researchers extracted stem cells from their working eyes, cultured them in contact lenses for 10 days, and gave them to the patients. Within 10 to 14 days of use, the stem cells began recolonizing and repairing the cornea. Of the three patients, two were legally blind but can now read the big letters on an eye chart, while the third,...

On May 12, my colleagues on the ethics committee of New York’s Empire State Stem Cell Board voted overwhelmingly to recommend that state funds be awarded to researchers who have paid women for their “time and burden” in the retrieval of their eggs for research purposes. If adopted by New York’s full stem-cell board, the measure will mimic the long-established practice in the assisted-reproduction industry of paying up to $10,000 per retrieval. New York would become the first state in the union to allow such reimbursements to eggs-for-research donors. As if paying women indirectly for their eggs were not shocking...

When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that the District of Columbia's law barring residents from keeping loaded handguns at home violated the Second Amendment, gun-ownership advocates had reason to celebrate. But the high court's decision could serve to bolster the other side because of its narrow reasoning, which leaves states broad authority to enact strict gun-control measures, two BU School of Public Health professors assert in the May 28 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. "Gun-control advocates need to have a full appreciation of what the Court did and did not do" in the D.C. case,...

Conventional wisdom holds that the social rate of return to R&D significantly exceeds the private rate of return and, therefore, R&D should be subsidized. In the U.S., the government has directly funded a large fraction of total R&D spending. This paper shows that there is a serious problem with such government efforts to increase inventive activity. The majority of R&D spending is actually just salary payments for R&D workers. Their labor supply, however, is quite inelastic so when the government funds R&D, a significant fraction of the increased spending goes directly into higher wages. Using CPS data on wages of...

Over the past few years, a new technology has sprung up: Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. It is the creation of Internet Marketers, and Spammers, who seek ways to get our attention, to defeat spam blockers, and to zero in on our individual demographic and perhaps more important, psychographic profiles. At its worst, it is an invasion of privacy on an unprecedented scale. It invades e-mail by using spyware to build specialized vocabularies for every customer. It looks over browser inquiries, even private correspondence with commercial entities. Then, SEO techniques are able to help create messages, using key words, or...

The European Parliament has reaffirmed its legislative value by reversing the potentially disruptive restrictions in the draft directive for protecting laboratory animals. Raise a glass to the elected members of the European Parliament (MEPs). Without their intervention last week, the European Union (EU) directive on the protection of laboratory animals would have continued its tortured path through legislative procedures in a form that was thoroughly toxic to biomedical research. The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, began working on the directive back in 2002.The draft that finally emerged last November was singularly uninformed. It should have balanced the undisputed duty...

Women with brains have more fun in bed than the average bimbo, new research suggests. A study of more than 2,000 female twins showed that those with greater emotional intelligence had larger numbers of orgasms. Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to monitor and manage feelings and emotions in oneself and others. The findings suggest that low EI is a risk factor for female orgasmic disorder, one of the most common sexual problems suffered by women. Up to 30 per cent of women find it difficult or impossible to reach a climax during sexual intercourse. Professor Tim Spector, director of...

Rallies at UCLA and other campuses in support of animal research are a welcome sign that scientists are beginning to stand up to the animal rights activists. But if the defenders of research are to win out, they must be more firm in opposing the vicious inversion of morality inherent in the notion of animal "rights," in the name of which terrorists have committed hundreds of violent crimes. They have vandalized or fire-bombed meat companies, fur stores, fast-food restaurants, leather shops and medical research laboratories across North America. The animal "rights" movement is not about the humane treatment of animals....

Creation institute sues coordinating board By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz April 21, 2009 The Dallas-based Institute for Creation Research Graduate School has sued the state’s higher education agency for denying permission to offer a master’s degree in science education. The Bible-oriented group contends in a lawsuit filed last week in federal court that the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board violated its civil rights. The suit, first reported by the Dallas Morning News, argues that the coordinating board discriminated against the institute because it doesn’t support evolution. Members of the coordinating board, who are gubernatorial appointees, voted 8-0 a year ago to...

Korean Stem Cell Treatment Stimulates New Bone Growth An 18-year-old with a damaged jawbone has found new hope through a treatment using adult stem cells. When a tumor developed in his jawbone, one side of the bone along with most of his teeth had to be removed. However, clinical tests of forming bones using adult stem cells have restored the damaged jawbone and his appearance looks normal now. Adult stem cells are taken from the bone marrow of the patient then multiplied and specialized to form an osteoblast, a bone-forming cell. It may sound complicated, but the treatment itself...

SPANKING is stressful at first, but it could bring consenting couples closer together. That's the implication of two studies of hormonal changes associated with sadomasochistic (S&M) activities including spanking, bondage and flogging. Brad Sagarin at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb and colleagues measured levels of the stress hormone cortisol in 13 men and women at an S&M party in Arizona, before, during and after participating in activities. During S&M scenes, cortisol rose significantly in those receiving stimulation, but dropped back to normal within 40 minutes if the scene went well. There was no change in those inflicting the activity. At...

Flexible display screens and cheap solar cells can become a reality through research and development in organic electronics. Physicists at Umeå University in northern Sweden have developed a simple method for producing cheap electronic components, writes Cellular-News.

Couples having IVF treatment are to be warned for the first time that their children have a higher risk of genetic flaws and health problems. Official guidance will make clear that test-tube babies could be up to 30 per cent more likely to suffer from certain birth defects. The alert has been ordered by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the Government's watchdog on fertility issues. It means that the one in six British couples estimated to be infertile will have to balance their desire for a child against concerns that IVF methods could lead to life-threatening defects or long-term...

UK scientists plan a major research project to see if synthetic human blood can be made from embryonic stem cells. Led by the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service, the three year trial could provide an unlimited supply of blood for emergency transfusions. The blood should be free of infections like the human form of mad cow disease. Teams will test human embryos left over from IVF treatment to find those destined to develop into the universal "O-negative" blood donor group.

CBNNews.com - Men should start taking a daily aspirin at age 45 to lower the risk of heart attack by 20 percent, according to recent U.S. Preventive Services findings. Doctors add that women should start a daily aspirin regimine at age 55 to protect against strokes. However, some medical experts have concerns.

A two-year-old girl can see for the first time, following stem-cell treatment. Dakota Clarke, who was born blind, is the first patient to undergo the new type of therapy. The £30,000 treatment, which involves inserting stems cells from an umbilical cord into her forehead, lets her see people, objects, colours and lights around her. Dakota suffers from Septo-Optic Dysplasia, in which the optic nerve doesn’t develop properly, and has responded faster than expected to the treatment. Her parents, Wilma, 28, and Darren, 34, are hoping she’ll keep improving and enjoy a lifetime of sight.

Thursday March 19, 2009 Harvard AIDS Expert Says Pope is Correct on Condom Distribution Making AIDS Worse By John-Henry Westen   March 19, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, has said that the evidence confirms that the Pope is correct in his assessment that condom distribution exacerbates the problem of AIDS.  "The pope is correct," Green told National Review Online Wednesday, "or put it a better way, the best evidence we have supports the pope's comments."  "There is," Green added, "a consistent association...

A showdown is shaping up in some of the nation's most conservative states over embryonic stem cell research, as opponents draw language and tactics from the battle over abortion to counter President Barack Obama's plan to ease research restrictions. Legislation granting fertilized embryos "personhood" has gained momentum in at least three state legislatures. *snip*

JESUS CARITASWhat should science trump?By Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted | March 10, 2009 | The Catholic Sun On Monday, March 9, President Obama signed an executive order that provides federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. This means that American taxpayers will now be paying for the killing of human beings at a very early stage in their lives (as embryos), so that scientific research can make use of them for experiments that may or may not yield positive results.We U.S. taxpayers will now be forced to pay, whether we wish to or not, for the killing of our youngest brothers...

ON Monday, when President Obama announced the re versal on embryonic-stem- cell research, there was a small parade of celebrities with diseases and families with sick kids on TV rejoicing in the president's move. At least one CNN stem-cell report, however, featured not a human but a a rat with a bum leg hobbling around his cage like - well, like Ratso Rizzo from Midnight Cowboy. The CNN newsgal explained helpfully, "Look at this poor little rat, there's clearly something wrong with his legs." Then, to the reporter's "Now, look!" delight, the rat - treated with stem cells derived from...

Scientists at Frankfurt University have shown that mineral water in plastic bottles is contaminated with chemicals which act like female hormones in the body. A research project in conjunction with the German Environment Ministry showed that some were as contaminated as water from sewage works for the oestrogen-like substances. Martin Wagner, who worked on the study, said in a statement, “When we started the work we did not expect to find such a massive oestrogen contamination in a foodstuff which is so strictly controlled.” The scientists examined 20 different brands of mineral waters, 12 of which displayed heightened hormone content.

On Wednesday, only two days after he lifted President Bush’s executive order banning federal funding of stem cell research that requires the destruction of human embryos, President Barack Obama signed a law that explicilty bans federal funding of any "research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death." The provision was buried in the 465-page omnibus appropriations bill that Obama signed Wednesday. Known as the Dickey-Wicker amendment, it has been included in the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services every fiscal year since 1996....

AMA Supports President's Decision to Fund Stem Cell Research For immediate release March 9, 2009 Statement attributable to: Joseph Heyman, MD Board Chair, American Medical Association "The American Medical Association supports President Obama's decision to lift the ban on federal funding of stem cell research. Stem cell research holds great promise to treat diseases that science has so far been unable to cure, and this change in policy will allow researchers to accelerate their efforts by applying for federal research funds. "The AMA supports biomedical research on stem cells and has encouraged strong public support of federal funding for this...

LARRY KING LIVE WANTS YOUR VOTE ON WHETHER OBAMA SHOULD USE TAXPAYER DOLLARS FOR STEMCELL RESEARCH???

In a clinic Dr. Hans Wolfert (Sig Ruman) complains that Dr. Paul Ehrlich (Edward G. Robinson) does not follow rules. Ehrlich tells his wife Hedvig (Ruth Gordon) he wants to quit, but his daughters need milk. In a laboratory Ehrlich shows Dr. Emil von Behring (Otto Kruger) his dyes. Ehrlich is warned he may be fired if he does not conform, but he leaves work to tell Dr. Robert Koch (Albert Bassermann) that a dye could make the tubercle bacillus he discovered visible. Ehrlich loses his job and experiments, coughing. Hedvig heats his room, making a stain work. Behring has...

President Barack Obama Deceives Media, Public on Opposition to Human Cloning by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com Editor March 10, 2009 Email RSSPrint Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- While most media reports were focused on President Barack Obama's decision to roll back protections limiting taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research, little attention was paid to Obama's ingenuous method of supposedly opposing human cloning.During his speech in the East Room of the White House, Obama told supporters and the media that human cloning is "dangerous, profoundly wrong."Obama said he would never open the door to using human cloning for reproductive purposes. However, he...

Monday March 9, 2009 Studies Find Contraception Makes Women Obese and Newborns Too Thin By Thaddeus M. BaklinskiOTTAWA, March 9, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - University of Ottawa researchers have found that women who conceive within a month of taking birth-control pills tend to have premature babies or babies with a low birth weight. At the same time, another study from the University of Texas has revealed that users of the contraceptive "shot" are significantly more likely than other women to become obese.Xi-Kuan Chen, an epidemiologist and senior analyst with the Canadian Institute for Health Information at the University of Ottawa said...

Study reports ‘stunning’ U.S. Catholic population shift alongside growing secularization Hartford, Conn., Mar 10, 2009 / 03:22 am (CNA).- A new study on American religion finds that Catholicism is facing a “stunning” decline in the northeast United States as the population center of U.S. Catholics shifts towards the southwest. Secularism continues to grow in all regions, while mainline Protestant denominations face the most significant population decline.The study, titled the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), was conducted by the Program on Public Values at Trinity College.According to the ARIS report, Catholic numbers and percentages rose in many states in the South...

Obama ESCR policy change a ‘slap in the face’ to pro-lifers, critics say President Barack Obama Washington D.C., Mar 9, 2009 / 04:58 pm (CNA).- Catholic and Pro-life leaders have reacted critically to President Barack Obama’s overturning of federal restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, characterizing the policy change as a “slap in the face” to pro-lifers and arguing that scientific advancement should not come by destroying embryonic human life. On Monday, President Obama overturned President George W. Bush’s 2001 executive order which barred funding for any embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) that uses embryonic stem cell lines created after...