David Kerr, professor of cancer therapeutics at Oxford university, sees renewed scientific leadership as a way for the Obama administration to make diplomatic inroads in areas where America is not popular, such as the Middle East. He points out that a recent forum on particle accelerators had representatives from Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Iran, Jordan, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority and Turkey all sitting around one table.

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Book Review: In The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, Steven Pinker challenged the assumption that people are molded by society and their upbringing, raising awkward questions about race and intelligence, aggression, greed and free will.

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A counter-intuitive finding from the pollsters

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The born again experience doesn’t require a specific set of beliefs. It requires a specific social/emotional process, and the dogmas or explanations are secondary.

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NYT science reporter Nicholas Wade reports on recent developments in scientists’ efforts to re-create the chemistry of the origin of life.  New lab work that shows how fatty acids could have formed vesicles that can keep in nucleic acids but let in nucleotides, their building blocks.  With this and other recent advances, scientists are putting together bits and pieces of the story of how life began.  “At some point some of these threads will start joining together,” said Dr. Sutherland, a British scientist who recently outlined a potential pathway for inorganic precursors to form nucleotides.

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Once triggered for any reason, the feeling that something is right or real can be incredibly powerful—so powerful that when it goes head to head with logic or evidence the feeling wins. Our brains make up reasons to justify our feeling of knowing rather than following logic to its logical conclusion.

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A festival celebrating science, and mixing science with arts, performances, and celebrity, is in New York City.  According to the organizer, the idea is to “bring them in for the art and have them leave with science.”

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An exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge explores the mutual influences of science and art 150 years ago when Darwin published On the Origin of Species

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Despite the salacious title, this article is a thoughtful discussion of how moral reasoning (instead of religious dogma) can be applied to the issue of abortion.

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Tony Blair’s latest “faith” initiative is likely to do more harm than good, says NSS

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While atheist advocates railed against Bush, they seem willing to give Obama a pass on his God talk — at least for now…

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It’s difficult to see the assimilation of science into Peter Mandelson’s new Department for Business, Innovation and Skills as anything but bad news.

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When scientists set out to trace the roots of human laughter, some chimps and gorillas were just tickled to help. Literally.

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Why are religions similar to each other?  History and biology.  Religions emerge out of ancestor religions. Though the characters and details merge and morph, elements get carried through that allow us to track the lineage. But another reason for similarities among religious stories is that all of them are shaped by the human mind and our tendency to project the structure of the human mind into the world around us. Gods and magical beings have have human psyches, with quirks and limitations that are peculiar to our species.

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People are altruistic because they are militaristic, and cultured because they are common. At least that is the message of a couple of new studies

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Ida, the fossil of an early primate, caused a sensation when she was unveiled last month. But she is just one of thousands of beautifully preserved ancient creatures that are being unearthed from an old shale quarry in Germany. Patrick Barkham pays a visit

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For the first time, Gapminder can now visualize change in life expectancy and income per person over the last two centuries. In this Gapminder video, Hans Rosling shows you how all the countries of the world have developed since 1809 - 200 years ago.

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N.Y. Times science writer Dennis Overbye, writing about “Angels & Demons” starring Tom Hanks, complains about the myth of religion having a monopoly on wisdom. “[The movie] crystallized what is wrong with the entire way that popular culture regards science. Scientists and academics are smart, but religious leaders are wise.”

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Osel Hita Torres was chosen as a baby by the Dali Lama as a reincarnation of a spiritual leader.  He was supposed to study Buddhism, become a lama and be worshipped by monks on a throne.  After years of training, Torres left the Buddhists order and moved to Europe where he lives a more modern lifestyle.  The Buddhists community still worships him despite his defection.

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Officials from the Church of Scientology’s French affiliate are in court this week, charged with fraud. But is it a case of religious intolerance?

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