Jehovah's Witness teenager dies after refusing blood transfusion

Joshua McAuley, 15, refused blood transfusion because of religious beliefs after being crushed by car in West Midlands

A teenage Jehovah's Witness who was crushed by a car as it crashed into a shop died after refusing a blood transfusion in hospital.

Joshua McAuley, 15, was airlifted to hospital from the incident in Smethwick, West Midlands, on Saturday morning, but died later that day.

The schoolboy, who received abdominal and leg injuries, is believed to have told doctors at Birmingham's Selly Oak hospital not to give him a blood transfusion because of his religious beliefs.

Clive Parker, an elder at Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses in Smethwick, where Joshua and his family worshipped, said Joshua was conscious after the accident and "made a stand on the blood issue".

He said: "I don't want to talk about it any more than that because I don't want to add to the family's distress.

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Evangelicals rewrite Texan curriculum

An interesting article in the Sydney Morning Herald by Chris McGreal on the events in America in 2010 and their views on how to improve our Children's education.

HOUSTON: In a coup likely to shift what millions of American children learn at school, a clutch of Christian evangelicals and social conservatives who have grasped control of the Texas Board of Education are expected to force through a new state curriculum this week.

The board is to vote on a purge of alleged liberal bias in Texas school books in favour of what board member Cynthia Dunbar says really matters: a belief in America as a nation chosen by God as a beacon to the world.

''We are fighting for our children's education and our nation's future,'' Ms Dunbar said. ''In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote patriotism and to promote the free enterprise system.

These are our children. The next generation. If we stop providing our children with the answers to the questions we have already solved, how are they going to surpass us and go on to better things.

It's like teaching our children that the world is flat, then hoping they don't figure out the truth later in life, by which time its going to be harder for them to understand other questions on Cosmology, Geology, etc.

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Happy Draw Mohammed Day

The Search For Hidden Dimensions

I'm so glad there are these clever people in the world. This is simply amazing.

Brian Greene explains how extra dimensions may solve several problems in physics, and gives his stance on the possibility of a "multi-verse".

To learn more about String Theory, watch Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe" on NOVA

Can Monkeys Talk?

Robert Seyfarth describes how monkey calls used by Vervet Monkeys might be precursors to language.

To read more about language in monkeys (and chimps), see the NY Times article: "Deciphering the chatter of monkeys and chimps"

'World's biggest' forest protection deal for Canada

Timber companies and environment groups have unveiled an agreement aimed at protecting two-thirds of Canada's vast forests from unsustainable logging.

Over 72 million hectares are included in what will become the world's largest commercial forest conservation deal.

Logging will be totally banned on some of the land, in the hope of sustaining endangered caribou populations.

Timber companies hope the deal will bring commercial gains, as timber buyers seek higher ethical standards.

The total protected area is about twice the size of Germany, and equals the area of forest lost globally between 1990 and 2005.

"The importance of this agreement cannot be overstated," said Avrim Lazar, president and CEO of the Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC).

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FACT: Darwin's theory of Universal Common Ancestry

More than 150 years ago, Darwin proposed the theory of universal common ancestry (UCA), linking all forms of life by a shared genetic heritage from single-celled microorganisms to humans. Until now, the theory that makes ladybugs, oak trees, champagne yeast and humans distant relatives has remained beyond the scope of a formal test. This week, a Brandeis biochemist reports in Nature the results of the first large scale, quantitative test of the famous theory that underpins modern evolutionary biology.

The results of the study confirm that Darwin had it right all along. In his 1859 book, On the Origin of Species, the British naturalist proposed that, "all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form." Over the last century and a half, qualitative evidence for this theory has steadily grown, in the numerous, surprising transitional forms found in the fossil record, for example, and in the identification of sweeping fundamental biological similarities at the molecular level.

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