Big Prize for Priest-Cosmologist

…“I always wanted to do the most important things,

and what can be more important than science and religion? Science gives us knowledge, and religion gives us meaning.

Both are prerequisites of the decent existence.”

These words belong to a 72-year old man with a lot of prize money: Michael Heller. On Wednesday, at Buckingham Palace in London, he received the biggest award a philanthropy can give – the $1.6 million Templeton Prize.

A priest-cosmologist, Heller has spent his life reconciling the digestible facets of science with religion’s mysteries. Between the two, he says, there are no gaps. People should not use God to explain what is unknown in the scientific world; science does not demystify religious themes.

Heller plans to use his prize money to create a center for the study of science and theology in Krakow, Poland.

.MGW.

The Cloning of the Bulls: Fighter’s Genes worth Keeping

. . . Modern technology meets beloved ancient pastime as

                 a Spanish breeder plots to clone his prize fighting bull, Alcalde. The hulking black beast has an impressive record; he sires some 40 calves a year – most of them topnotch fighters.

In human years, Alcalde’s almost 80.

As he nears the end of his life, breeder Victoriana del Rio cringes to think of losing a stud with such good genes. He’s hoping a cloning lab in Texas will help him keep Alcalde-like fighters in the ring for another generation.

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Jackie K O Reservoir

…“Our task must be to free ourselves…by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.” -Albert Einstein

Photo (taken today): Jackie K O Reservoir in Central Park – my old training ground.

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Ipod Case/Bottle Opener…Social Network

Only 21, Vermont native Ben Kaufman has impressive credentials. He’s already invented an iPod case that doubles as a bottle opener. (Some people really need something like that.)

He’s got his own company in China.And on February 27th, Kaufman lined up with this year’s tech and design luminaries at a prestigious technology conference in Monterey, California to unveil his latest project: a social network that will bring people together to produce new ideas, products, and designs.

It could help fight global warming, disease – you name it.

Read more: Gore, Geldof, Venter…And This Guy?

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Awaken by Shake: Largest U.K. Quake in 25 Years

…The largest earthquake to strike the U.K. in 25 years occurred near the British town of Market Rasen (population 3,200) on February 27th, in the middle of the night. The British Geological Survey (BGS) has estimated a Richter magnitude (ML) of 5.2 for the event, while the US Geological Survey (USGS) has assigned a moment magnitude (Mw) of 4.7.

The earthquake was widely felt throughout England and Wales. People reported feeling the tremor as far west as Bangor in Northern Ireland, as far east as Haarlem in Holland, as far south as Plymouth, and as far north as Edinburgh. (Apparently, many of these people logged on to Facebook to report their status: “awaken by shake.”)

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Atlas Hungered

No matter what night preceded it, she had never known a morning when she did not feel the rise of a quiet excitement that became a tightening energy in her body and a hunger for action in her mind – because this was the beginning of day and it was a day of her life.

Atlas

Breaking the Gaudi Code: Barcelona hosts Europe’s largest interdisciplinary science conference

On July, 18, 2008, a dazzling troupe will convene in Barcelona for the largest European gathering of its kind: the 3rd EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF 2008). ESOF is a chance for top scientists, researchers, business people, and science and technology communicators to discuss new discoveries—and to debate the direction of science.

The event has evolved to be the meeting point for European scientists and politicians. And though its crowd is diverse, multi-talented, and ostensibly intimidating, its mission is simple: to ensure the continuation of meaningful science dialogue.

The dialogue will be housed in a sparkling Spanish city with a dynamic reputation in the arts and architecture. (Thank you, Antoni Gaudi). Incidentally, Barcelona is also a leader in biotechnology and biomedicine.

Thse factors combine to make this cosmopolitan spot the perfect platform at which to present and discuss the major trends emerging in European science, including:

• Creative Art or Useful Science, Marcus Du Sautoy, Berwick Prize of the London Mathematical Society 2001, Oxford, UK, Mathematics

• A rebel with a cause, Richard J Roberts, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Ipswich, USA

• Doping and society: towards the perfect human machine, Jordi Segura, Institut Municipal d’Investigació Mèdica (IMIM), Spain

• Science and public policy—political dilemmas, Norman Warner, House of Lords, Provider Agency NHS London, UK

• Science and the Terrorist challenge, Richard Mottram, Former Permanent Secretary, Intelligence, Security and Resilience

• Atomic Detectives: nuclear forensics and illicit trafficking, Gabriele Tamborini, Institute for Transuranium Elements, DG Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Germany

• Frontiers in Stem Cell Research, Bernat Soria, CABIMER, Department of Cell Therapy and regenerative Medicine, Seville, Spain

• Mars and Venus: how Europeans and Americans view and use science, Alan Leshner, Chief Executive officer , AAAS & Ronald Schenkel, Director General, Joint Research Centre, European Commission

• Brain Imaging Technology, Professor Pierre Magistretti, Brain-Mind Institute, Switzerland

Que te venga.

Calmly Licking

“Penetrating so many secrets,
we cease to believe in the unknowable.
But there it sits nevertheless,
calmly licking its chops.”

-H.L. Mencken

China’s Worst Winter in 50 Years

China’s worst winter storms in 50 years

began three weeks ago and continue to wreak havoc across nearly two-thirds of the country’s provinces, disrupting power supplies, collapsing thousands of structures and paralyzing transport by air, rail, and road. Heavy snow and ice have destroyed 223,000 houses, damaged another 862,000, and caused $7.5 billion in damage, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. In many rural areas, farmers have suffered heavy agricultural and livestock losses. More than 60 people have been killed.

Hunan Province in southern China was hardest hit. In the city of Chenzhou (population 4 million), residents have been without water and electricity for 10 days. Hunan’s main north-south highway was finally cleared on Monday. In Hubei Province, to Hunan’s north, people are standing in line to get water from pumps on the street.

China’s winter crisis arrived just ahead of the Chinese New Year, when millions of city migrant workers head home to rural towns to celebrate. Over the weekend, snow and ice stranded hundreds of thousands these workers at train stations. More than one million Chinese were left waiting for transport in the southern city of Guangzhou, and though transportation conditions have gradually improved, they have not done so quickly enough; on Saturday, a young woman was trampled to death by an eager crowd swarming toward a station in Guangzhou. The crowd had just learned of the reop ening of the station’s northbound route.

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Tour de France—Neurons and Notions

I recently saw

the most fantastic short movie

about the Tour de France:

Wired to Win.

Ostensibly, it was about how our brains adapt to new input; how challenging tasks strengthen neural pathways.

Aesthetically, it was every beautiful place in the Pyrenees and France, too, that I ever want to walk through—quiet.

And mostly, it was me watching men so in love with their hard, hard work that their worst days were best-of-days. Really, they were liberated in their work. It didn’t just seem like that either. They acknowledged it.

Watching them sprint strips of Alp mountain and slice through Paris streets, I wondered: what energy motivates their

push through pain?

Lately, I am thinking that my motivations transcend normal things—like comfort and money. And it feels good to look deeper, beneath the things I’ve been convinced I want. Somewhere there’s a layer where sensory truth reveals the most simple targets of inclination—real raw desires.

I think I just really want to be doing what I love at all times; to be loving others; to be so drowned in the beauty of this that surfacing is only at sleeping—and even then,

I dream.

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