World's 2010 nature target 'will not be met'

The world's governments will not meet their internationally-agreed target of curbing the loss of species and nature by 2010, a major study has confirmed.

Virtually all species and ecosystems show continued decline, while pressures on nature are increasing, it concludes.

Published in the journal Science, the study confirms what conservationists have known for several years.

The 2010 target was adopted in 2002, but the scientists behind this study say implementation has been "woeful".

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Evolution Timeline - From first life-forms to Homo Sapiens

The Theory of Evolution is not a mathematical fact but it is a scientific theory.

A scientific theory originates as a hypothesis, is proven once, then tested by a multitude of peers who come to the same conclusion and is well supported by an abundance of facts.

Some people claim there is substantial debate among scientists about its validity. This is simply not true.

Why would people want to prevent our progression and understanding of where we came from? Why would people argue against something that is no longer up for debate? Why would people hate something that's basic principles have lead us to medical breakthroughs in Antibiotics?

I think its because people need to feel safe and comforted in this crazy world, and the only answers previously had been supplied by the superstitions of the past.

This is no longer the case, the answers we have been given are wonderful, they are incredible, we are part of something very special. Each and everyone of us has an ancestral line that goes back 3.5 billion years. That's this many zeros. 3,500,000,000.

To really gain some perspective click on the following link:

Evolution Timeline

The page indicates the time line of evolution on our 4 billion year old planet.

Pay attention to the bottom scroll bar on the page for an indication of the scale.

• The lines on the background indicate inches and feet.
• 1/20th in. = roughly 100 thousand years. (108,000)
• 1 inch = about 2 million years. (2,160,000)
• 1 foot = about 26 million years. (25,920,000)
• The whole page is about 135 feet wide, almost half a football field, representing 3.5 billion years. (3,500,000,000)

One of the things that I am most amazed about is how long the dinosaurs endured on earth, and how briefly humans have lasted, so far.

Zoom in by a factor of 1,000 on the Hominid Timeline, from walking upright to the present day.

It's Time to End the Church of Scientology's Tax-Exempt Status

It's pretty simple. American tax codes are wrongly benefiting and empowering the unethical, potentially illegal, and most assuredly uncharitable activities of an organization using "religion" as a cloak.

For more than 25 years, the IRS denied tax-exemption to the Church of Scientology. The long-running policy flowed from an IRS determination in 1967 that Scientology was in fact a commercial entity operated solely for the benefit of founder L. Ron Hubbard.

Hubbard has been gone for nearly a quarter century, but the questionable practices of extracting huge fees from members, paying lip service to informed consent and employing violence, threats and unfair labor tactics to protect its interests continue today under Scientology leader David Miscavige.

A legitimate religious organization does not use physical, mental, emotional and financial abuse to maintain membership. Nor does it function as a conspiracy to threaten and intimidate others. A valid religion informs people of church doctrine and beliefs before they make a commitment to join. A religious group with even the most basic ethics does not use its constituents as slave labor to reproduce and perpetuate its teachings.

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New evidence may solve mystery of the origin of water on Earth

For chemical compounds to bind together with other chemical compounds, they need to be in something fluid so that they can freely move around. This is why there is no life on Mars or Venus, the water would be either ice or steam.

When water is in its liquid format, then any chemicals inside the water are free to float along until they touch another chemical, which bind together and eventually create large chemical strings and eventually life.

That is a simplified version but if you'd like to learn more about this process take a look at this Made Easy video

This is only part 3 in a series of 11 short videos, that I've linked on the left hand side of this blog.

However, the BBC article below is on the origin of water, the petri dish of life, on our planet:

Scientists have found new evidence that the water on Earth was delivered by asteroids during the earliest years of the solar system.

The development comes after two teams of scientists independently discovered the first “wet” asteroid, paving the way for the first experimental proof of a longstanding mystery surrounding the origin of water on Earth.

Scientists believe that the Earth was formed barren. During a period of intense bombardment, between 4.1 and 3.8 billion years ago, ice-covered comets and asteroids could have delivered water. It had been assumed that these asteroids would have now dried out.

But the new observations, by teams using infrared telescopes at Johns Hopkins University, in Maryland, and the University of Central Florida, show that 24 Thermis, one of the largest asteroids in the solar system’s main asteroid belt, is covered in a thick layer of frost

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