Day: September 14, 2006

New Technique Reveals Far More Ocean-Based Bacteria Than Previously Believed

Using a technique that examines short bits of DNA, researchers examined water taken from the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean and discovered thousands of previously unknown species of bacteria.

The survey was part of the Census of Marine Life, a decade-long effort to map all marine life. Researchers found an astonishing amount of bacteria in the deep ocean samples — over 20,000 different species in just one liter of water.

In a press release announcing the publication of the results of the survey in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, leader author Mitchell L. Sogin said,

Microbiologists have formally described 5,000 microbial ‘species’. This
study shows we have barely scratched the surface. Over the last 10 to 20 years, molecular studies have shown there to be more than 500,000 kinds of micro organisms. In our new study, we discovered more than 20,000 in a single liter (about one quart) of seawater, having expected just 1,000 to 3,000. The number of different kinds of bacteria in the oceans could eclipse five to 10 million

Sources:

Ocean Microbe Census Discovers Diverse World of Rare Bacteria. Press Release, Census of Marine Life, July 31, 2006.

Thousands of bacterial species discovered in oceans. CBC News, July 31, 2006.

A Young Mind Is A Terrible Thing to Waste . . . Memorizing the Koran

The New York Times published one of the strangest religion-related stories when reporter Michael Luo wrote about schools in the United States where students aged 7 to 14 spend 8 hour days memorizing the Koran.

And that’s pretty much all they do, according to the New York Times. Luo writes (emphasis added),

Because the task is so difficult, most of the children at the Muslim center study only the Koran while they are enrolled in the class. Some parents try to tutor their children in other subjects on the side. But for the most part, it is after the children finish that they work to catch up in other subjects in preparation for going back to regular school.

As Luo notes, this is likely a violation of New York state law which requires private schools to offer instruction that is “substantially equivalent” to that received in public schools. And they do this for two years or longer.

The real kicker, though, that makes this story even more bizarre is that the children are learning to memorize the Koran so that they can recite it in Arabic. But most of the students at the American memorization schools don’t read or speak Arabic, so they are memorizing it phonetically. As Luo puts it, “Students know how to pronounce the words but mostly do not know what they mean.”

The children are essentially human tape recorders, regurgitating sounds in a language they don’t understand. Unbelievable.

In exchange for this sort of waste, the children are told they will receive a get-into-heaven-free card. Luo writes,

A hafiz [person who has memorized the Koran] plays an important role during Ramadan, when the entire Koran must be recited over 30 days to mosque members. But becoming a hafiz is also believed to bring rewards in the hereafter, guaranteeing the person entrance to heaven, along with 10 other people of his choosing, provided he does not forget the verses and continues to practice Islam.

”It’s almost like a bank account for the afterlife,” said Zawar Ahmed, 11, who recently became a hafiz through the Muslim Center and brought in sweets for his classmates to celebrate.

Source:

Memorizing the Way to Heaven, Verse by Verse. Michael Luo, The new York Times, August 16, 2006.

Wicca for the Rest of Us

With its tagline of “Stop the Fluff. Think For Yourself. Fight the Bunny,” Wicca for the Rest of Us is a Wiccan website even this atheist can get into. For example, the site hosts a series of essays debunking some of the historical falsehoods bandied about by some Wiccans/pagans/neopagans/whatever. The site’s take down of Margaret Murray’s bizarre, discredited theories about European witchcraft is especially well-written.

Onion Religious Parody of Middle East

War-Torn Middle East Seeks Solace in Religion had me laughing out loud the other day,

Palestinian widow and mother of three Dareen Idriss agreed, citing the healing power of prayer as a way to cope with the relentless slaughter she and her family witness every day. “When the children cannot stop crying because of the bombs, we all gather our families in the rubble of the mosque to pray for justice,” Idriss said. “During this calm meditation, we also pray for the annihilation of the Hebrew race.”

West Bank settler Ari Chayat, whose neighborhood has also been ravaged by violence, echoed this profound reliance on faith. “The world is so brutal and unfair,” Chayat said. “Many days, my uncompromising belief in a vengeful creator is all that gets me out of bed in the morning.”

“If it wasn’t for my faith that the God of Abraham has given these lands to Jews and Jews alone by divine decree, I probably wouldn’t even be here today,” Chayat added.

Reason on Star Trek’s 40th Anniversary

Reason’s Tim Cavanaugh has a 4,700 word article marking the 40th anniversary of Star Trek’s appearance on television.

Cavanaugh does a nice job of weaving together a history of Trek in its various forms and its long-running appeal and cultural impact.

If that point seems tangential, it contains the most important kernel of Star Trek’s appeal: its rejection of the notion that progress would leave us diminished, less sure of our genders, our free will, or our humanity. The representative science fiction film of Star Trek’s era, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, paints a largely bleak future of dull, robotic humans, hostile and powerful central computers, and an endless Cold War; the movie’s only note of optimism comes at the end, with the possibility that a human being might leave behind his body and his humanity, and be reborn as a cerebral super-being. Star Trek’s future, skeptical of super-beings and dehumanization alike, shows progress and technology mostly allowing people to be more human, not less—more manly or womanly, better fed, smarter, healthier, and wiser. Its important message, as one Reason Online reader put it, was its simplest: “Technology solves problems.” And even when high tech causes problems it won’t defeat us, as Captain Kirk proves in countless episodes that have him arguing computers into self-destructing—the most ludicrous being an incident where he disables the Enterprise’s powerful electronic brain by having it compute pi (3.14) to its final digit.

This optimism, more than any correct guesses about wireless telephony, police use of Tasers, or the shape of 21st-century neoconservatism, was the dangerous message of Star Trek. The dystopian science fiction of the late ’60s and early ’70s (to which Star Trek was a rare exception) shares something with contemporary hysteria over stem cell research. Both claim to fear that the advance of science will hurt us, but their real fear is that it won’t hurt us. Because if human life really is getting better, then maybe you’ve wasted your life fearing the unknown, clinging to useless traditions, missing out on better things ahead.

Source:

Happy 40th Birthday, Star Trek. Tim Cavanaugh, Reason, August-September 2006.