Atheists, Work With Us for Peace, Pope Says on Christmas

   

Filippo Monteforte/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Pope Francis waved from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican after his Christmas blessing.

 

By REUTERS

Published: December 25, 2013 at 7:47 AM ET                  

 

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis, celebrating his first Christmas as Roman Catholic leader, on Wednesday called on atheists to unite with believers of all religions and work for "a homemade peace" that can spread across the world.

  

Speaking to about 70,000 people from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, the same spot where he emerged to the world as pope when he was elected on March 13, Francis also made another appeal for the environment to be saved from "human greed and rapacity".

 

The leader of the 1.2 billion-member Church wove his first "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and world) message around the theme of peace.

 

"Peace is a daily commitment. It is a homemade peace," he said.

 

He said that people of other religions were also praying for peace, and - departing from his prepared text - he urged atheists to join forces with believers.

 

"I invite even non-believers to desire peace. (Join us) with your desire, a desire that widens the heart. Let us all unite, either with prayer or with desire, but everyone, for peace," he said, drawing sustained applause from the crowd.

 

Francis's reaching out to atheists and people of other religions is a marked contrast to the attitude of former Pope Benedict, who sometimes left non-Catholics feeling that he saw them as second-class believers.

 

He called for "social harmony in South Sudan, where current tensions have already caused numerous victims and are threatening peaceful coexistence in that young state".

 

Thousands are believed to have died in violence divided along ethnic lines between the Nuer and Dinka tribes in the country, which seceded from Sudan in 2011 after decades of war.

 

The pontiff also called for dialogue to end the conflicts in Syria, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo and Iraq, and prayed for a "favorable outcome" to the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians.

 

"Wars shatter and hurt so many lives!" he said, saying their most vulnerable victims were children, elderly, battered women and the sick.

 

PERSONAL PEACEMAKERS

The thread running through the message was that individuals had a role in promoting peace, either with their neighbor or between nations.

 

The message of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem was directed at "every man or woman who keeps watch through the night, who hopes for a better world, who cares for others while humbly seeking to do his or her duty," he said.

 

"God is peace: let us ask him to help us to be peacemakers each day, in our life, in our families, in our cities and nations, in the whole world," he said.

 

Pilgrims came from all over the world for Christmas at the Vatican and some said it was because they felt Francis had brought a breath of fresh air to the Church.

 

"(He) is bringing a new era into the Church, a Church that is focusing much more on the poor and that is more austere, more lively," said Dolores Di Benedetto, who came from the pope's homeland, Argentina, to attend Christmas Eve Mass.

 

Giacchino Sabello, an Italian, said he wanted to get a first-hand look at the new pope: "I thought it would be very nice to hear the words of this pope close up and to see how the people are overwhelmed by him."

 

In his speech, Francis asked God to "look upon the many children who are kidnapped, wounded and killed in armed conflicts, and all those who are robbed of their childhood and forced to become soldiers".

 

He also called for a "dignified life" for migrants, praying tragedies such as one in which hundreds died in a shipwreck off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa are never repeated, and made a particular appeal against human trafficking, which he called a "crime against humanity".

 

(Editing by Pravin Char)

An Ultracold Big Bang: A successful simulation of the evolution of the early universe

Posted on From Quarks to Quasars December 25, 2013 at 9:00 am by Joshua Filmer                

This schematic diagram of Lambda-Cold Dark Matter, accelerated Expansion of the Universe Via Alex Mittelmann, Coldcreation

In August of 2013, physicists made a major breakthrough in our understanding of the early universe in an experiment that successfully reproduced a pattern resembling the cosmic microwave background radiation. This experiment was conducted at the University of Chicago with the aid of ultracold cesium atoms.


“This is the first time an experiment like this has simulated the evolution of structure in the early universe,” according to physics professor Cheng Chin, one of the authors on this project. The goal of the experiment was to simulate the big bang using ultracold atoms in an effort to understand how the universe evolved at the earliest timescales. Tentatively, their experiment seems a tremendous success

The image reveals 13.77 billion-year-old temperature fluctuations—shown as color differences—that correspond to the seeds that grew to become the galaxies. via NASA

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is one of the only things we have left to analyze the early structure of the universe, and this CMB is a kind of window, allowing us to go back in time to that most volatile period in our universe’s history. Ultimately, it allows us to pull a fingerprint of the universe when it was only 380,000 years old. This pervasive radiation has been mapped over the last few decades. The most recent and most detailed mapping of the CMB comes from the Planck Space Observatory and was completed earlier this year.

Chen-Lung Hung, the lead author on the project, described the methodology of the experiment as follows, “…under certain conditions, a cloud of atoms chilled to a billionth of a degree above absolute zero (-459.67 degrees Fahrenheit) in a vacuum chamber displays phenomena similar to those that unfolded following the Big Bang. At this ultracold temperature, atoms get excited collectively. They act as if they are sound waves in air.” That sound wave action can be observed in the CMB.

The echoing and rippling of spacetime created in the big bang was exaggerated in the period of the universe’s rapid inflation. These ripples reverberated back and forth and interacted with each other creating the foundation for the complicated patterns we see in the universe today. This phenomenon is known as “Sakharov acoustic oscillations” after the scientists who first described them.

The simulated universe comprised of a cloud of 10,000 cesium atoms, chilled to a billionth of a degree above absolute zero. This caused the atoms to form an exotic state of matter called two-dimensional atomic superfluid. This simulated universe measured about 70-microns in diameter, or about the size of a human hair. Even though the universe had a diameter of about 100,000 light-years when emitted the pattern we recognize today as the CMB, the much smaller simulated universe behaved in exactly the same fashion as a large universe would.

Asimov's 'I, Robot' Soon To Be Reality, No Longer Fiction

(International Business Times By Cameron Fuller) -- Scientists have created what may become the future of prosthetics, a robot “muscle” that can throw something 50 times its own weight five times its length in a surprisingly fast 60 milliseconds. While it’s easy to envision what this means for the future, a Hollywood image of robot arms crushing steel bars with ease comes quickly to mind, don’t fear just yet, the new muscle is currently the size of a microchip.

 

A schematic for Berkeley Lab's new torsion muscle Care of the DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

 

“We’ve created a micro-bimorph dual coil that functions as a powerful torsional muscle, driven thermally or electro-thermally by the phase transition of vanadium dioxide,” said Junqiao Wu, the project’s lead scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Labs (Berkeley Labs).

 

The strength of the new robotic muscle comes from the special property that vanadium dioxide possesses. VO2 changes physical state when heated or cooled. The muscle, coincidentally in the shape of a V, is heated causing one dimension to contract while the other two dimensions expand, creating a torsion spring. Think catapult, but on a much smaller scale.
While in its current state the muscle demonstrates the potential for what may be the future of artificial neuromuscular systems.  Wu’s device functions in a way that creates a proximity sensor, which is very similar to the way biological muscles work.  This torsion spring and proximity sensor features “allow the device to remotely detect a target and respond by reconfiguring itself to a different shape. This simulates living bodies where neurons sense and deliver stimuli to the muscles and the muscles provide motion,” according to Wu.

The micro-muscle requires a way of heating to actuate. As it stands, Wu thinks “electric current is the better way to go because it allows for the selective heating of individual micro-muscles and the heating and cooling process is much faster.” However, Berkeley Labs is working on a way for heat from the sun to trigger the device.

This announcement comes just three months after Dr. Adrian Koh of the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Faculty of Engineering announced a similar muscle able to carry 80 times its own weight in September of this year. Both of these devices are at the forefront of more human-like robotics.

Dr. Koh suggests how these micro-muscles will change the game of humanoid robotics. “Our materials mimic those of the human muscle, responding quickly to electrical impulses, instead of slowly for mechanisms driven by hydraulics. Robots move in a jerky manner because of this mechanism. Now, imagine artificial muscles which are pliable, extendable and react in a fraction of a second like those of a human. Robots equipped with such muscles will be able to function in a more human-like manner – and outperform humans in strength.”

Robots like those seen the big budget Hollywood film “I, Robot” may no longer be an Asimovian dream, finding reality instead through people like Wu and Dr. Koh.

What You Believe About Homosexuality Doesn’t Matter

Posted on December 19, 2013 by Tyler

Today, there are 2 news stories that have been circulating all over my Facebook and Twitter news feeds. One you are probably aware of, the other maybe not. The two, though, are closely related. The first news story is the indefinite suspension of Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson due to the comments he made during an interview with GQ magazine. The second news story is about the “defrocking” of Pennsylvania UMC pastor Frank Schaefer after he performed the marriage for his gay son and subsequent refusal to submit to church law regarding this action. The link between these two stories is clear. The church’s views (or, in the case of Duck Dynasty, a certain understanding of the Christian faith’s views) regarding homosexuality.

The reaction to both of these stories has been…emphatic, to say the least. The debate over the “rightness or wrongness” of homosexuality has once again been fired up. The appeals to the Biblical passages have been made. The academic rebuttals to the interpretation of those passages has no doubt been referenced. The calls for freedom and tolerance (from both sides) have been shouted…or at least typed out with great gusto. The theological debate (and I am using that term VERY generously here) has been raging all day long, and no doubt will continue to rage in the weeks to come.

But I refuse to engage in it. The way I see it, the time for that debate has long since passed. The stakes are too high now. The current research suggestions that teenagers that are gay are about 3 times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers. That puts the percentage of gay teens attempting suicide at about 30-some percent. 1 out of 3 teens who are gay or bisexual will try to kill themselves. And a lot of times they succeed. In fact, Rev. Schaefer’s son contemplated suicide on a number of occasions in his teens.

The fact of the matter is, it doesn’t matter whether or not you think homosexuality is a sin. Let me say that again. It does not matter if you think homosexuality is a sin, or if you think it is simply another expression of human love. It doesn’t matter. Why doesn’t it matter? Because people are dying. Kids are literally killing themselves because they are so tired of being rejected and dehumanized that they feel their only option left is to end their life. As a Youth Pastor, this makes me physically ill. And as a human, it should make you feel the same way. So, I’m through with the debate.

When faced with the choice between being theologically correct…as if this is even possible…and being morally responsible, I’ll go with morally responsible every time. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor and theologian during World War II. He firmly held the theological position of nonviolence. He believed that complete pacifism was theologically correct. And yet, in the midst of the war, he conspired to assassinate Adolf Hitler; to kill a fellow man. Why? Because in light of what he saw happening to the Jews around him by the Nazis, he felt that it would be morally irresponsible not to. Between the assassination of Hitler and nonviolence, he felt the greater sin would be nonviolence.

We are past the time for debate. We no longer have the luxury to consider the original meaning of Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church. We are now faced with the reality that there are lives at stake. So whatever you believe about homosexuality, keep it to yourself. Instead, try telling a gay kid that you love him and you don’t want him to die. Try inviting her into your church and into your home and into your life. Anything other than that simply doesn’t matter.

How effective are renewable energy subsidies? Maybe not effective as originally thoughts, finds news study

How effective are renewable energy subsidies? Maybe not effective as originally thoughts, finds news study

(Phys.org) —Renewable energy subsidies have been a politically popular program over the past decade. These subsidies have led to explosive growth in wind power installations across the United States, especially in the Midwest and Texas

But do these subsidies work?

Not as well as one might think, finds a new study from Washington University in St. Louis' Olin Business School.

The "social costs" of carbon dioxide would have to be greater than $42 per ton in order for the environmental benefits of wind power to have out weighed the costs of subsidies, finds Joseph Cullen, PhD, assistant professor economics and expert on environmental regulation and energy markets.

The social cost of carbon is the marginal cost to society of emitting one extra ton of carbon (as carbon dioxide) at any point in time.

The current social cost of carbon estimates, released in November and projected for 2015, range from $12 to $116 per ton of additional carbon dioxide emissions. The prior version, from 2010, had a range between $7 and $81 per ton of carbon dioxide. The estimates are expected to rise in the coming decades.

Cullen's findings are explained in a paper titled "Measuring the Environmental Benefits of Wind-Generated Electricity" in American Economic Journal: Economic Policy.

"Given the lack of a national climate legislation, renewable energy subsidies are likely to be continued to be used as one of the major policy instruments for mitigating carbon dioxide emissions in the near future," Cullen says. "As such, it's imperative that we gain a better understanding of the impact of subsidization on emissions."

Since electricity produced by wind is emission free, the development of wind-power may reduce aggregate pollution by offsetting production from fossil fuel generated electricity production. When low marginal cost wind-generated electricity enters the grid, higher marginal cost fossil fuel generators will reduce their output.

However, emission rates of fossil fuel generators vary greatly by generator (coal-fired, natural gas, nuclear, hydropower). Thus, the quantity of emissions offset by wind power will depend crucially on which generators reduce their output, Cullen says.

The quantity of pollutants offset by wind power depends crucially on which generators reduce production when wind power comes online.

Cullen's paper introduces an approach to empirically measure the environmental contribution of wind power resulting from these production offsets.

"By exploiting the quasi-experimental variation in wind power production driven by weather fluctuations, it is possible to identify generator specific production offsets due to wind power," Cullen says.

Importantly, dynamics play a critical role in the estimation procedure, he finds.

"Failing to account for dynamics in generator operations leads to overly optimistic estimates of emission offsets," Cullen says. "Although a static model would indicate that wind has a significant impact on the operation of coal generators, the results from a dynamic model show that wind power only crowds out electricity production fueled by natural gas."

The model was used to estimate wind power offsets for generators on the Texas electricity grid. The results showed that one mega watt hour of wind power production offsets less than half a ton of carbon dioxide, almost one pound of nitrogen oxide, and no discernible amount of sulfur dioxide.

"As a benchmark for the economic benefits of renewable subsidies, I compared the value of offset emissions to the cost of subsidizing wind farms for a range of possible emission values," Cullen says. "I found that the value of subsidizing wind power is driven primarily by carbon dioxide offsets, but that the social costs of carbon dioxide would have to be greater than $42 per ton in order for the environmental benefits of wind power to have out weighed the costs of subsidies."

Explore further: NREL calculates emissions and costs of power plant cycling necessary for increased wind and solar
 

More information: Cullen, Joseph. 2013. "Measuring the Environmental Benefits of Wind-Generated Electricity." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 5(4): 107-33.

Provided by Washington University in St. Louis 

Jeffrey D. Sachs proposes a new curriculum for a new era. - Project Syndicate

Jeffrey D. Sachs proposes a new curriculum for a new era. - Project Syndicate

Earth's orbit about the sun is not perfectly circular.  Like all planets, it is an ellipse with at least a little eccentricity, for Earth this being 0.0167.  This means that our planet's distance from the sun ranges from 94,509,460 miles to 91,402,640 miles.  This difference results in an almost seven percent difference in solar energy reaching us between periapsis and apoapsis.

Oddly, the northern hemisphere summer occurs when the sun is furthest away, and its winter when the sun is closest.  The effects of our 23.5 degree axial tilt clearly overwhelms the orbital eccentricity effect, although it factors into the Milankovitch cycles, developed by  Milutin Milanković.

Many pseudoscientists and other quacks have abused these facts to put forth their own "theories" about the seasons; for example, in his book Your Right to Know by the then living Master of ECKANKAR, "Sri" Darwin Gross, we are told that Earth's magnetic forces are pulled by the sun's greater distance, causing internal terrestrial heat to well up and "cause" summer.  Gross was apparently unaware of the elementary fact that when it is summer in the northern hemisphere it is winter in southern, and so forth.

I confess that the reason I know this so well is because at that time I was a member of ECKANKAR.  This issue probably did more to drive me back to my scientific childhood than anything else (though there were many other factors) and into a career and lifelong devotion to science and reason.  I suppose, ironically, I owe an intellectual debt to Darwin Gross (who died not long ago) and ECKANKAR for demonstrating how distressing the irrational life is and, consequently, how rewarding the rational life can be. ECKANKAR, by the way, is still with us, still strong and, yes, profitable and tax-exempt, with tens of thousands of followers.  They keep a pretty low profile, but are rather like Scientology in their tactics, from what I've recently read.