By J. R. Church

It was the brightest comet since the Hale Bopp comet graced our skies some 30 years ago. Comet McNaught was discovered on August 7, 2006 by Australian astronomer Robert McNaught. He found the faint object on a photograph taken at the Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales. By January 2007, the comet had become a spectacular sight (see photo).

It looped around the sun and is currently on its way out of our solar system. A calculation of its orbit noted that it swept to within just 15.8 million miles of the Sun on January 12 — less than half the distance of Mercury — making it a very bright object in the twilight evening sky. As we prepare this article in early February, estimates were that it might become as much as 40 times brighter than Venus.

An article on "Space.com" suggested an uncertainty about just how bright it might become, noting: "The brightest stars in the sky are categorized as zero or first magnitude. Negative magnitudes are reserved for the most brilliant objects: the brightest star is Sirius (-1.4); the full Moon is -12.7; the Sun is -26.7. The faintest stars visible under dark skies are around +6." Predicting a comet’s brightness has proven to be difficult. Many scientific predictions have fizzled around the time of perihelion (their swing around the Sun).

This is the 31st comet to bear McNaught’s name. It is a new comet and has no known previous history. Its discovery took astronomers by surprise. McNaught discovered the comet when it was a few degrees east of the head of Scorpio. His work is to look for asteroids and comets that might pose a threat of impact with planet Earth. On August 31, McNaught described the comet as having a magnitude of +17.3, or about 25,000 times dimmer than the faintest object that human eyes can see without optical aid.

Through February, the comet became a bright object in the far southeastern sky just before sunrise. However, it grew bright enough to be seen in daylight. It soon moved further south, becoming unavailable to observers in the northern hemisphere. It can only be seen by observers located south of the Equator. Some reports say that the comet grew to four times brighter than Sirius.

In 1995, the "Solar and Heliospheric Observatory" (SOHO) spacecraft was launched for the purpose of studying the Sun. Its function is to observe solar activity and relay the information to NASA. It works by placing a disc over the brightness, thus producing a continual artificial solar eclipse, then observing solar flares, the movements of Mercury, and count the number of comets swinging around the Sun. Since it was first turned on, it has counted over 1,200 comets — all discovered using the spacecraft’s cameras.

When Robert McNaught was asked about his excitement of having another comet named after him, he said, "I guess having my name attached to this comet must influence my excitement, but really, to be honest, it is largely an accident who finds them. Even more relevantly, I am backed so expertly by an excellent team of guys at the University of Arizona who wrote the software that did the detection."

Ancient civilizations thought that comets were omens of evil. Flavius Josephus reported that a bright comet hung like a sword over Jerusalem for about a year, suggesting that it seemed to be a message of doom for the city. Not long afterward, the Roman army destroyed the great Temple and slaughtered over 100,000 people.

By J. R. Church

Before the discovery of penicillin, infections were as feared as cancer is today. Imagine living in any generation over the past 6,000 years and facing the dangers of infection. For example, if you pricked your finger on a thorn, or a sewing needle, or stepped on a nail, you could be in big trouble. Your glands could swell up and require lancing, or a surgeon might have to amputate your arm or leg to save your life. This was the story of humanity for six thousand years. And infection was possible at any age. Imagine how many hundreds of millions of needless deaths have plagued mankind over the centuries.

Following the carnage of World War I, British scientist Alexander Fleming conducted experiments with bacteria. One day in 1928, a tear fell from his eye onto the culture plate. Later, he noticed that a substance in his tear killed the bacteria. He noted the incident, but didn’t know what to do with. However, some years later, a similar coincidence occurred. Fleming left his laboratory for the holidays, inadvertently leaving a discarded culture plate lying out on his bench. He simply forgot to clean and disinfect the dish. A bit of mold had fallen into the dish containing the bacteria, forming a clear patch. When he returned, he recognized the possibility of what had happened. He decided that the mold had created some kind of chemical antibiotic, which he named penicillin, after the Penicillium mold that produced it. But Fleming could not extract the bacteria-killing substance, so he moved on to other research.

The scientific aspects of the discovery were left for another scientist to develop a decade later. He was the Australian scientist, Howard Florey, who felt that no one person contained the knowledge and experience to make major discoveries in the field of medicine. He had the foresight to organize a team of specialists at Oxford University in the 1930s. One member of his team, Ernst Chain, found an article about Alexander Fleming’s work while flipping through a medical journal, and this prompted them to begin a careful investigation of the anti-bacterial properties in mold — the stuff Fleming had called "penicillin."

Individual members of the group concentrated attention on various areas of their fields of expertise, meeting periodically to exchange ideas. Chain worked with Edward Abraham on purifying penicillin. Norman Heatley improvised methods for extracting penicillin, using ether. They grew the cultures of mold in hospital bedpans. The liquid was drained and filtered through parachute silk.

A. D. Gardner and Jena Orr-Ewing studied how penicillin reacted with other organisms. Howard Florey and Margaret Jennings observed the impact of penicillin on animals. Ethel Florey later worked with her husband on clinical trials.

On May 25, 1940, the team performed one of the most important medical experiments in history. They injected eight mice with a lethal dose of streptococci bacteria. Four of the mice were treated with penicillin, while the other four were used as controls. By the next day, the treated mice had recovered and the untreated mice were dead. To say that Florey’s team was excited, is a decided understatement. World War II was raging and soldiers were dying needlessly. As quickly as he could, Florey set about to test the drug on humans.

They knew that they had to find a way to mass-produce the drug before it could be widely used and British companies were unable to help because of the war. If they had patented their formula, the entire team could have become very wealthy. But in those days, Howard Florey felt that it was unethical to patent their medical discovery. He and Norman Heatley decided to take a dangerous flight to the United States in a blacked-out plane across the Atlantic and explain his method to drug companies in the United States.

A Department of Agriculture laboratory just happened to be looking for a new use for a thick liquid — the by-product from a corn-milling process. When this liquid was used to grow mold, they were able to extract ten times the amount of penicillin. Mary Hunt, known as Moldy Mary because of her enthusiasm in finding new sources of mold, discovered that growing mold in cantaloupe was twice again as successful in producing penicillin.

By late 1943, only four years after the first mouse experiment, and in spite of the war, mass production of the drug was underway. By the end of the war, many companies were producing the drug, including Merck, Squibb and Pfizer.

In 1943, Howard Florey took a supply of penicillin to treat wounded troops in North Africa. Instead of amputating wounded limbs, he suggested the wounds be cleaned, sewn up and treated with penicillin. It appeared to be an absolute miracle! For the first time in human history, medical science had been revolutionized. Since that time, untold millions of lives have been saved from otherwise certain death.

How would you like to tangle with a chicken seven feet tall? On April 3, 2006, scientists from the University of Utah and the Utah Museum of Natural History discovered the remains of a new bird-like, meat-eating dinosaur in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSENM), southern Utah. Although represented only by the fossilized remains of hand and foot bones, comparisons with more complete skeletons found in Asia demonstrate that this animal was about seven feet tall when standing upright.

Discovery of this Utah giant, which is much larger than its counterparts in Canada and the northern U.S., nearly doubles the documented range of these dinosaurs in North America, and demonstrates that they roamed much farther south than previously thought. A scientific paper naming and describing this animal, and published in the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, was authored by Lindsay Zanno, a graduate student in the Department of Geology and Geophysics, and Scott Sampson, chief curator at the Utah Museum of Natural History (UMNH), and associate professor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics.

The new dinosaur, formally dubbed Hagryphus giganteus, which means "giant four-footed, bird-like god of the western desert" in reference to the animal’s outward resemblance to a large land bird, its giant stature, and its discovery in the Utah desert. Hagryphus is a member of the oviraptorosaurs, a group of bird-like feathered dinosaurs with toothless beaks, powerful arms and formidable claws. These animals are thought by some paleontologists to have been omnivorous, feeding on a mixture of meat and plants. Although only the hands and feet of Hagryphus are known, the scientists were able to use the animal’s close relatives to estimate the size of the skeleton. The researchers say they do not know why this dinosaur was so much larger than its northern cousins but speculate that it may have been related to different environmental conditions in the south.

The most spectacular finds of oviraptorosaur dinosaurs are fossilized skeletons from the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. These dinosaurs were named oviraptors, meaning "egg-thief," because their remains were discovered in close association with nests of dinosaur eggs, and it was thought that the raptors were eating the egg contents. In more recent years, however, eggs have been found with remains of baby oviraptors inside. And the adult oviraptors turn out to have been sitting on the nests, brooding the eggs just as birds do today. Thus, it appears that the adult oviraptors were protecting the embryos rather than devouring them! Nevertheless, the name has stuck.

Oviraptorsaurs are known to have existed in a large portion of Asia but were thought to have invaded only the northern portion of North America, since previous examples were known only from Montana, South Dakota, and Alberta, Canada. Discovery of Hagryphus in southern Utah demonstrates that this group of dinosaurs was much more widespread, living across much of the western United States. Hagryphus lived in a time of global warming, which melted polar caps and produced exceptionally high sea levels. As a result, the central portion of North America was flooded, isolating the eastern and western portions of the continent. The dinosaurs preserved in GSENM were stranded on the western landmass, which formed a narrow peninsula. The relationships between northern and southern dinosaurs that occupied this western landmass during the Late Cretaceous are part of a long-term research project undertaken by University of Utah scientists.

Hagryphus is the first new dinosaur to be named from GSENM, and just one of many exciting finds made during a five-year collaborative project between the Monument and the University of Utah. The primary goal of this project, funded by GSENM, has been to conduct paleontological surveys and to excavate the fossils of dinosaurs and other life forms that existed in this region during a period near the end of the Age of Dinosaurs. Over the past five years, GSENM and University of Utah and researchers, including dozens of students and volunteers, have spent almost 17 months conducting field work within the Monument boundaries.

GSENM encompasses 1.9 million acres, comprising a substantial portion of southern Utah. Sampson states that, "due to the extremely rugged nature of the terrain, this region was the last major area within the lower 48 states to be formally mapped. For the same reason, it now represents an untapped and perhaps the last major dinosaur graveyard in this country to be explored." The central region of the Monument, known as the Kaiparowits Plateau, preserves one of the most complete records of Cretaceous life anywhere in the world. However, access to the remote back country must be accomplished almost entirely on foot, and fossils must either be carried out under human power or, if the specimen involves a large dinosaur skeleton, via helicopter. u

By J. R. Church

In our December 2005 edition of Prophecy in the News, we reported that biologist Cynthia Kenyon was looking for the key to longevity, having discovered "daf-2," a gene that had the potential to extend life. But now, it looks as if a South Korean team has succeeded.

The Britain-based publication Nature Chemical Biology claims that a team of South Korean scientists have discovered a "cellular fountain of youth" — a small molecule that enables human cells to avoid aging and dying.

Professor Kim Tae-Kook, at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, claims that the newly-synthesized molecule, named CGK733, can even make cells younger.

Kim said, "All cells face an inevitable death as they age. On this path, cells became lethargic and in the end stop dividing but we witnessed that CGK733 can block the process."

The 41-year-old scientist continued, "We also found the synthetic compound can reverse aging, by revitalizing already-lethargic cells. Theoretically, this can give youth to the elderly via rejuvenating cells.’’ Kim expected that the CGK733-empowered drugs that keep cells youthful far beyond their normal life span would be commercialized in less than 10 years.

However exciting the prospects are for this new discovery, some were cautious about its practical therapeutic application. Professor Kim Sung-hoon, at Seoul National University, said, "Obviously, it is an innovative finding. But we need to see whether or not CGK733 could really rejuvenate cells inside human bodies without generating side effects.’’

The synthesized material was created using magnetic nano-probe technology. Kim Tae-kook said, "We have the magnet-associated technology to identify molecular targets inside living cells, which allowed us to examine the mechanisms of CGK733 directly. Unlike other research teams that must make candidates materials for drugs without being able to see their intra-cell activities, we know the precise mechanism of CGK733. So we have the better chance of making a success of the substance."

The team named their new discovery "MAGIC," short for "magnetism-based interactive capture." MAGIC uses florescent materials to check whether any drug can mix with targeted proteins inside the cell. Kim said, "MAGIC is kind of a source technology to see inside cells. Based on the method, we also found a pair of promising substances that can deal with cancers."

Since Adam lived for 930 years, and other antediluvian people were reported to enjoy similar lifespans, it stands to reason that, given the right circumstances, the human body should still possess the same potential. However, if you want to live forever, without the hazards that eventually catch up with us all, then receive Christ as your personal Savior. Jesus has the ability and the power to change our mortal bodies and impart immortality. Now, that’s really living!

Library of Alexandria Discovered

In our September 2004 edition of Prophecy in the News, we discussed the famed Library of Alexandria. We told how Ptolemy collected the works of all the other libraries in the world, and how the Arabian Islamic army burned the entire collection in the seventh century.

This year, archeologists have found the ruins of that famous library. A Polish-Egyptian team, excavating the ancient ruins of Alexandria, has uncovered 13 lecture halls, including central elevated podiums where a lecturer could stand.

Zahi Hawass, president of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, announced the find during a conference at the University of California, saying that the lecture halls could house as many as 5,000 students.

Hawass said, "It is the first time ever that such a complex of lecture halls has been uncovered on any Greco-Roman site in the whole Mediterranean area. It is perhaps the oldest university in the world."

Professor Wileke Wendrich, of the University of California, said that the discovery was incredibly impressive.

The works of the world’s greatest minds were collected and housed in the Royal Library of Alexandria. But, in A.D. 640, Islamic Arab legions swept through Egypt on their mission to conquer the world for Islam. It is said that the Arab military governor, baffled by the dusty scrolls in the library, asked Mecca what to do with them.

"Burn them," he was told, for "either the manuscripts contain what is in the Koran, in which case we do not have to read them, or they contain what is contrary to the Koran, in which case we must not read them."

More testing must be done to prove its viability, but the prospects of extracting adult stem cells from a patient and using them to grow new nerves, brain tissue, or organs, such as livers and hearts, is enormous.

By J. R. Church

While camped there, they looked across the tundra and noticed some black objects on the surface of the frozen river. Upon closer inspection, they discovered a troop of about 50 wild oxen frozen in ice. The oxen were trying to swim across the river when they were suddenly frozen. Their bodies were held fast in the transparent ice and looked as if they had been swimming. Their heads, all pointed toward the distant shore, were still adorned with horns, but birds had pecked out their eyes (see illustration).

By J. R. Church

Zola Levitt discovered an amazing correlation between Jewish Holy Days and the gestation of a human baby, from conception to birth. While preparing for writing a book for new parents, Zola contacted a gynecologist for some help in understanding gestation. During that session, the gynecologist showed him a series of pictures, pointed to the first one (an egg and a sperm) and said, "On the fourteenth day of the first month, the egg appears." The statement struck a chord in his Jewish mind because that was the date of Passover. He remembered the roasted egg on his family table every Passover. Now, for the first time, he knew what it meant! Not wanting to lead the gynecologist off from the subject at hand, he didn’t say anything, but continued to listen.

The gynecologist continued: "The egg must be fertilized within 24 hours, or it will pass on." This reminded Zola of the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the seed or grain that "fell into the ground and died" in order to produce a harvest, the firstfruits of which was presented to God. Next, the gynecologist said, "Within two to six days, the fertilized egg attaches itself to the wall of the womb and begins to grow." And, sure enough, the Jewish evangelist thought, "The Feast of Firstfruits is observed anywhere from two to six days after Passover!"

Next, he was shown a photo of an embryo showing arms, hands, fingers, legs, feet, toes, a head, eyes, etc. The caption said, "Fifty days." The gynecologist continued, "Around the fiftieth day, the embryo takes on the form of a human being. Until then, we don’t know if we have a duck or a tadpole." Zola thought, "That’s Pentecost!"

The next picture showed the embryo at seven months. The gynecologist said, "On the first day of the seventh month, the baby’s hearing is developed. For the first time, it can hear and distinguish sounds outside the womb." Zola knew that was the date for the Jewish Festival of Trumpets.

The gynecologist continued, "On the tenth day of the seventh month, the hemoglobin of the blood changes from that of the mother, to a self-sustaining baby." Zola thought, "That’s the Day of Atonement, when the blood was taken into the Holy of holies!"

Next, the gynecologist said, "On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, the lungs become fully developed. If born before then, the baby would have a hard time breathing." And Zola thought, "That’s the festival of Tabernacles, a time of celebrating the Temple, home of the Shekinah glory or Spirit of God." In the New Testament, the Greek term pneuma, normally translated as "breath," is applied to the "Holy Spirit."

Birth takes place on the tenth day of the ninth month. Eight days after birth, in Jewish families, a son is circumcised. Zola noted that the eight days of Hanukkah are celebrated right on schedule, nine months and ten days after Passover.

No human being could have understood the gestation period 3,500 years ago. The establishment of the Jewish Holy Days was given to Moses by Jehovah, Himself. Its correlation with the human gestation period is not only remarkable; it proves "Intelligent Design." It proves the existence of an intelligence beyond this world. It proves that there is a Creator God that guides the affairs of man.

On Wednesday, April 19, 2006, Zola Levitt went home to be with the Lord after a battle with lung cancer. The announcement on his website added: "What a soldier’s testimonial — to stay at his post until called away by Yeshua! Happy is the man whose work is his play."

In giving his testimony, Zola wrote:

"I came to the Lord on March 14, 1971, through the urgings of Campus Crusaders at Indiana University. They challenged me to read the Scriptures, particularly the Book of John. I went by night, like Nicodemus, to the campus director’s home and brought a New Testament bound by itself (what Dr. McCall, our ministry senior theologian refers to as ‘The Amputated Bible’).

"When I read John’s cosmic views of the Lord and the plan of salvation, I realized that I was reading Jewish writing about a Jewish Messiah, and a Jewish way to God. All the Campus Crusaders might have been Gentiles, but I knew Jewish thought when I read it. My prayer of 28 years ago was extremely simple. I said to God, ‘If You’re there, show me.’ An open-minded look at the life I have led since that moment would have to conclude that He has indeed shown me wonders."

Marco had traveled to China with his father, Nicolo, and uncle, Maffeo — a three-year journey by caravan across the entire width of Asia. Their route took them through Iran and Northern Afghanistan, over the high Pamir Plateau, along the lower Silk Route, and across the Gobi Desert into Mongolia. Finally, in May 1275, they reached Emperor Kublai Khan at his summer capital just north of China’s Great Wall.

By J. R. Church

It has been concluded that all matter comes from neutrinos. Matter is made up of atoms. But atoms are made up of even smaller "subatomic" particles — a nucleus consisting of protons and neutrons, surrounded by a cloud of electrons.

Atlantis — Legend or Fact?

By J. R. Church

This was reported to Zahi Hawass, the Secretary-General of Egypt’s Supreme Council for Antiquities, who immediately sealed the area and set about to plan one of Egypt’s largest digs. Hawass estimates that the cemetery covers about three square miles and contains some 10,000 mummies, dating back over 2,000 years.

Unlike many other ancient Egyptian grave sites excavated, these are not mummies of members of the royal family but rather of wealthy individuals who were perhaps merchants of the oasis. The elaborate golden masks and chest plates, bas-reliefs and hieroglyphic inscriptions survived almost intact. The site thus offers a unique opportunity for Egyptologists to study various aspects of social, political and religious life in ancient Egypt. Since the excavation site remains closed to the public — only five mummies are currently on display at the Bahariya museum — this book is for the time being our only peep-hole into this amazing discovery.

As she gazed upon the elderly nematodes she felt sorry for them, and the thought occurred, "I’m getting old, too." Suddenly, the idea came to her that she should study their aging process! She had never seen an "old" worm before, and their plight challenged her to see if she could figure out why and how they were getting old.

In the course of her research at the University of California-San Francisco, she learned that the worm only has 6 chromosomes, making it rather easy to find the gene that she dubbed "daf-2." Though her colleagues tried to discourage her, in 1993, she discovered that daf-2 was responsible for making a protein similar to the human insulin receptor.

Back then, very few scientists expected a single gene to have much effect on an organism, but Kenyon pursued the study. She discovered a way to turn off the gene … and was surprised to see the worms live twice as long! Eureka! She had found the proverbial "fountain of youth!"

Recently, she discovered another gene (daf-16) which also has a similar effect. She was able to increase the lifespan to six-times longer! She expanded the 20-day lifespan to over 125 days. Even more important, the worms remained young and robust most of that time. They looked and acted young. This is equivalent to 500 years for a human being.

After finding out that tiny worms could live six times longer, she set out to see if it could be done in larger animals … such as mice, the mammal used for most lab experiments that lead to discoveries for humanity. Earlier this year, another lab reported that altering the daf-2 gene in mice increased their life span by 26 percent, with no ill effects. She thought, "If targeting this gene works in mice … much closer to humans that roundworms are … why not in people?"

Finding the secret to longevity has become her calling. Most diseases invade the elderly. If she could keep people young and healthy, and turn off the daf-2 gene and the daf-16 gene (which she calls "sweet sixteen") then she sees no reason why people shouldn’t live to be 500 years old!

As a young adult, she dropped out of the University of Georgia, unsure what to do with her life. One day, her mother (a college professor) brought home a book by James Watson entitled, "The Molecular Biology of the Gene." It captured her imagination and led to her study of genetics. She said, "It was like a path to understanding the secrets of the molecular underpinning of life."

For her, the most intriguing thing about genetics was the aging process. For example, she wondered why mice only live two years, while similar-size bats live 50 years. Finding the answer has been her life-long ambition.

She helped set up a biotech company aimed at finding life-extending therapies, especially, for example, regulating daf-2. She said, "If our company could make a pill, everyone would want it."

The proverbial "fountain of youth" is not a fantasy anymore!

I have long felt that Jesus knew the answer to long-life. When He comes to establish a 1,000-year kingdom, humanity will live longer. Isaiah wrote, "There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed" (Isa. 65:20).

If Adam lived 930 years, what happened to the rest of us? Adam’s fall and Noah’s Flood brought down the life span of the human race. However, according to the Bible, such longevity was once possible. Now, scientists are on the verge of discovering the secret. Perhaps such research led to Daniel’s prophecy that in "… the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased" (Dan. 12:4).

Scientists in Korea used stem cells from an umbilical cord to restore feeling and mobility to a paraplegic patient who had been paralyzed for 19 years. They gave her an infusion of adult stem cells, with stunning results. After 15 days, she could move her hips, feel her hip skin and raise her legs slightly. After 25 days, she developed feeling in her feet.

Their research was published in Cythotherapy, a peer-reviewed journal. The article said that she not only regained feeling, but after 41 days, she showed some regeneration of the spinal cord at the site of the injury. The scientists concluded that adult stem cells could be "a good treatment method" for paraplegic patients.

Stem cells from an umbilical cord are considered "adult stem cells" in contrast to embryonic stem cells. A human embryo has to be destroyed in order to harvest its stem cells, thus raising ethical concerns. Some have expressed enthusiasm over the use of adult stem cells, because human embryos don’t have to be used.

Bioethics specialist Wesley J. Smith, was enthusiastic about the study, but, writing for Lifesite. Com, said, "We have to be cautious. One patient does not a treatment make." Dr. Smith is a senior fellow at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute and a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture.

Dr. Smith continued, "But still, this is a wonderful story that offers tremendous hope for paralyzed patients. The fact that the patient has a very old injury makes the results even more dramatic."

Dr. Smith said that he had known about the study, "but because I didn’t want to be guilty of the same hyping that is so often engaged in by some therapeutic cloning proponents, I waited until it was published in a peer-reviewed journal."

Smith then pointed out that the study had been completely ignored by the mainstream media in America. He remarked, "Can you imagine the headlines if the cells used had been embryonic?

The Roslin Institute first cloned Dolly the sheep. At the time many expressed fear that they were paving the way toward cloning humans. Now, they’ve done it. A report from Dublin, Ireland, says that scientists have created the first embryonic human without the use of sperm — from the genetic material of the mother alone.

They stimulated an egg to divide without the use of a human sperm, to a stage of development where they hope they can harvest cells for experimental research. Dr. Paul De Sousa, spokesman for the Roslin Institute said, At the moment we have not managed to get stem cells from these embryos but that continues to be our ambition." He made these remarks at the British Association’s Festival of Science in Dublin. It was reported by the BBC.

Current British law allows the creation of cloned embryos for so-called "therapeutic" use. Such tiny humans can be used in scientific research, but not implanted into a mother and allowed to mature into a viable baby.

This procedure has been given a new name — Parthenotes — from the Greek term "parthenogenesis," meaning, "virgin birth."

By the way, when used in animals like monkeys, this technique often results in abnormal development. Matthew O’Gorman, a spokesman for the opposition, said, "It is another example of Frankenstein science, which illustrates how out of touch with public opinion these recent scientific developments are!" He continued, "They were granted a license by an unelected, unaccountable quango!"

Advocates of human cloning claim that there is a difference between human beings and human embryos — that therapeutic cloning requires that cloned human embryos be killed for experimentation prior to birth.

However, Archbishop Renato Martino, the former Vatican representative to the United Nations, said that therapeutic cloning is "an even more serious offence against human dignity and the right to life, since it involves human beings who are created in order to be destroyed."

He said therapeutic cloning "must be" prohibited, calling it an "exploitation of human beings, sought by certain scientific and industrial circles, and pushed forward by underlying economic interests.

Why do people have strokes and heart attacks during early morning hours while sleeping? A doctor once told me that blood pressure usually goes down during sleep.

Ah-hah! That is not quite the way the body works! In the early 1950s, Eugene Aserinsky, a graduate student at the University of Chicago, did a sleep study, dividing non-REM sleep into four stages, and accounting for about 75 percent of total sleep.

In each stage, brain waves become progressively larger and slower, and sleep becomes deeper. After reaching stage 4, the deepest period, the pattern reverses, and sleep becomes progressively lighter until REM sleep, the most active period, occurs.

REM sleep and dreaming are triggered by the "pons" (see picture) and neighboring structures in the brainstem.

The pons sends signals to the thalamus and the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for most cognitive activities. The pons also sends signals to shut off the neurons in the spinal cord, thus paralyzing us during this dream-state (probably to keep us from throwing our arms about and hitting someone).

Then the brain tells the heart to pump more blood. This raises one’s heart rate and blood pressure. It seems that during this time, we could become ticking time bombs.

Many people have strokes or heart attacks early in the mornings, either in their sleep, or after getting up with chest pains. During this time, any sudden exercising or straining can be fatal.

A few years ago, before my heart surgery, I woke up one morning, looked in the mirror and noticed that I had a "black eye" — a small bruise on the inside area of my right eyelid.

I thought, "Did I hit myself during sleep?"

The next morning, I woke up with the inside area of my left eyelid blackened. When I checked my blood pressure, I found that it was extremely high — about 200 over 105. I am confident that I came very close to having a stroke or heart attack.

When I expressed concern to my physician, he dismissed it, saying, "I don’t even want to talk about it. It is of no consequence."

However, my continuing concern eventually led to the discovery that I had a birth defect — a coarctation (or narrowing) in my aorta artery. The aorta is the half-inch tube leading out of the top of the heart and descending behind it to feed blood to the lower parts of the body.

About four inches down behind my heart, the aorta artery was closed to a narrow passageway of about 1/16th of an inch. My heart was having to work extra hard to pump blood to the lower parts of my body. This birth defect could have killed me at any time during my 63 years of living with it.

The surgeon told me that he had repaired coarctations in some 5,000 babies over 30 years, but that I was his first adult patient. When I asked him why, he said that he had never known anyone to survive that long with my problem.

During a nine-hour procedure, he went into the backside of my heart area, cut out about a two-inch section of my aorta artery and replaced it with a dacron tube. Over the next year, the wall of my aorta grew over the outside and inside of the dacron patch, permanently embedding it in a new section of artery.

Even today, I keep a close watch on my blood pressure. Normally, my blood pressure stays at about 120 over 70, but during the night, it has gone up as high as 165 over 85. Most of the time, it only goes to about 145 over 80.

Not being a doctor, I cannot advise anyone on what to do about this, but I have started taking a blood pressure pill and an aspirin before retiring for the night.

I used to take a blood pressure pill in the mornings, but it seems to me that the time I needed it most was during those early morning hours before waking up. I think the pill is more effective in the first few hours after being taken. Who knows how many people could be spared if they would take, at least, an aspirin before going to bed!

Also, when I wake up, and before I get out of bed, I reach over to the end table, get my blood pressure device, and take my blood pressure.

Whether or not it is high, I rise gently, making sure that I do not overly exert myself. It seems to me that alarm clocks can be dangerous for older people by startling the sleeper during that possibly dangerous period.

New Invention: Diving Without an Oxygen Tank!

By J. R. Church

Israeli inventor Alon Bodner has discovered a way to retrieve volumes of oxygen from water, making it possible for humans to breath under water without the need for cumbersome oxygen tanks. In fact, divers can now stay underwater as long as they like. There are no heavy tanks with limited supplies of oxygen, and no weights needed to counter-balance the buoyancy of the air tanks.

Bodner’s invention will also be able to supply oxygen for submarines which, until now, have had to surface from time to time to re-supply their oxygen tanks. Nuclear submarines currently use electrolysis to separate oxygen and hydrogen from water, but standard submarines do not have enough energy on board for electrolysis. Such equipment requires too much energy to be practical. However, this new method, developed in Israel, provides plenty of oxygen without heavy equipment or energy.

Bodner said that he got the idea from fish, who do not perform chemical separation of oxygen from water. Instead, they use the dissolved air in water to breathe.

IsraCast, a news media in Israel, reported: "In the ocean the wind, waves and underwater currents help spread small amounts of air inside the water. Studies have shown that in a depth of 200 meters (yards) below the sea there is still about 1.5% of dissolved air. This might not sound like much but it is enough to allow both small and large fish to breathe comfortably underwater. Bodner’s idea was to create an artificial system that would mimic the way fish use the air in the water, thus allowing both smaller submarines and divers to get rid of the large, cumbersome compressed air tanks."

His system uses a physics principle known as "Henry’s Law," which states that the "amount of gas that can be dissolved in a liquid body is proportional to the pressure on the liquid body."

Bodner used a rotating centrifuge to create increased pressure inside a small sealed chamber containing sea water. His centrifuge was able to extract enough oxygen from the water for a person to breathe.

His discovery will absolutely revolutionize the way divers maneuver and work under water. A laboratory model of the system has already been built and tested. It runs on rechargeable batteries, and can be worn in the form of a vest (see above).

Alon Bodner is now building a full-sized prototype, and has already received a patent for the invention in Europe. He is expecting to receive one in the United States as well.

According to the news report, "Meetings have already been held with most major diving manufacturers as well as with the Israeli Navy. Initial financial support for the project has been given by Israel Ministry of Industry and Commerce and Bodner is currently looking for private investors to help complete his project.

The idea of breathing underwater without air tanks has been the dream of science fiction writers for many years. In the George Lucas "Star Wars" movie, "The Phantom Menace," Obi-Wan whips out a little Jedi underwater breathing apparatus and dives in. Now, it looks like science fiction has turned into scientific fact.

In Deuteronomy 29:29, Moses wrote:

"The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law."

Therefore, it is quite fitting that this scientific discovery should be made by a Jew. Not only do they have a mental capacity for such discoveries, they have a divine promise for it as well.

In Daniel 12:4, the prophet is told that in the last days, "knowledge shall be increased." Here is another sign that we live in those days. A hundred years ago, there were no fancy automobiles, no jet airplanes, no radios, no televisions, and certainly no computers. There have been more inventions in the past century than in all the other centuries combined.

Today, transportation has advanced beyond the wildest dreams of mankind. We can drive an automobile from the frozen tundra in Alaska to the southern tip of South America. We can board an airplane and be anywhere we want to go in the world in a matter of hours. Rockets propel men around the world in less than 90 minutes.

Over the past century, many of our modern conveniences were invented by Jews. For example, the telephone was invented by a Jew in Europe, but Alexander Bell stole his invention, and is credited with its discovery. Albert Einstein not only discovered the formula for the atomic bomb, he invented television. Today’s new invention by Alon Bodner is God’s way of blessing the world through the Jews.

Archeologist Vendyl Jones has been looking for the ashes of the red heifer in the Judean wilderness for over forty years. He has moved a lot of dirt, found a large pile of incense and a small jar of anointing oil, but so far, has not found the famed ashes. However, this year marks the 38th year since Israel gave the Temple Mount back to Moslem control (1967), and Jones is convinced that he is on the verge of finding, not only the ashes, but the Mosaic Tabernacle, complete with the golden ark!

During all these years of digging, Jones has followed the descriptions of buried treasure written in a copper scroll, found in a cave near Qumran in the early 1950s. In the opening paragraphs of the copper scroll, Jones sees a reference to 40 boulders, all of which he claims to have located. He said that his current search is simply a matter of drilling a small hole, lowering a miniature TV camera and spotting the Temple treasures.

Recently, an unnamed Kabballist has granted a special blessing to his efforts, encouraging Jones that the "time is right" to find it. He expects to locate the treasure on or before "Tisha B’Av" — August 14, 2005. Tisha B’Av (the ninth day of the Jewish calendar month of Av) is a solemn day to the Jews. Historically, it is the day the twelve spies came back from the Promised Land. Ten of them told tales of woe, scaring the people with stories of giants. The hearts of the people melted and they refused to enter the land that God had promised to them.

Both Solomon’s Temple and Herod’s Temple were burned on the ninth of Av. Because of Israel’s unbelief during this season in 1967, many believe that God added another 40 years to Jewish agony. Jones has refined it to only 38 years and says that Israel will be granted a special divine blessing this August.

According to the Talmud, the Ark was hidden in a secret passage under the Temple Mount. Vendyl Jones says that the tunnel actually continues some 18 miles underground toward the east and once exited in the cliffs overlooking the Dead Sea. He has been in that tunnel, but didn’t follow it all the way out to the Qumran area because of the many side tunnels he saw while there. Jones said, "My son and I went an hour and 20 minutes into the tunnel. There were so many branches and we didn’t have anything to mark the route, so I said, ‘We better get out of here and come back with a roll of string.’ Then I made the mistake of asking permission to do it. That was before I learned that Israel is a lot like heaven - it is a lot easier to get forgiveness than it is permission."

Jones said, "In the copper scroll, the first five lines say, ‘In the desolations of the Valley of Achur, in the opening under the ascent, which is a mountain facing eastward, covered by forty placed boulders – here is a tabernacle and all the golden fixtures.’"

"This is what we have been looking for all these years, and I’ve walked over those boulders thousands of times without really stepping back and looking – realizing ‘hey, those boulders have been brought in here, they’ve been placed in here, they didn’t come off a mountain. And they’re huge.’"

Dr. Jones says the discovery of the lost ark will "flip the whole world right-side-up."

By J. R. Church

One day in 1989, she noticed that her pet dog began to act strangely. Sniffing at a mole on her leg, he became agitated. She had never seen such a reaction in the pet before.

The dog, a female border collie-doberman mix, had tried to bite off the mole. Noting the pet’s distress, she decided to consult her physician about the small mole. Upon examination, it was found to be a melanoma cancer!

In 2001, two English doctors reported a case of a man with a patch of eczema on his leg for 18 years. One day his pet labrador started to persistently sniff the patch. It turned out that he had developed skin cancer and, once the tumor was removed, the dog showed no further interest in the eczema patch.

Can dogs smell cancer cells? Their incredible sense of smell has long been known. Dogs are used to sniff out bombs and illegal drugs. Police dogs also are used to find missing people. But now, scientist are experimenting with a dog’s ability to sniff out cancer cells.

Laboratory tests have proven that they can pick out the cancer cells with accuracy. As seen in the photo above, Tangle, a cocker spaniel sniffs out bladder cancer from patient samples.

Dr. Tim Cole, professor of medical statistics at Imperial College in London, said, "The issue is not whether or not they can detect cancer, because clearly they can. The issue is whether you can set up a system whereby they can communicate with you. That requires further ingenuity."

David Neal, a cancer surgeon at Cambridge University in England, said, "I’m skeptical about whether it will be implementable, but scientifically, it should be followed up. It might be that the dogs are better than our current machines at picking up abnormal proteins." Then Neal posed the questions: "What are the dogs picking up? Can we get a machine that does the same?" It is thought that a dog’s sense of smell is generally 10,000 to 100,000 times better than a human’s.

Recently, an experiment was conducted at Amersham Hospital in Buckinghamshire, England, and the organization, Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, set out to prove whether dogs could be trained to detect cancer. Six dogs — all pets of the trainers — were used in the study. They included three working strain cocker spaniels, one papillon, a labrador and a mongrel.

Dr. Carolyn Willis headed up the experiment. The trainers used samples from bladder cancer patients, from people sick with unrelated diseases and from healthy people to train the dogs over seven months to select the cancer-unique elements by process of elimination.

They learned to ignore differences in the samples that were due to age, diet and other factors. The scientists used 36 cancer patients and 108 comparison volunteers. Each dog had to sniff seven samples and lie down next to the one from a cancer patient. The test was repeated eight times for each dog, with new samples every time.

Taken as a group, they correctly selected the right sample on 22 out of 54 occasions, giving an average success rate of 41%. By chance alone, they should have only been correct 14% of the time. The two best dogs, Tangle and Biddy, both cocker spaniels, were right 56% of the time. The papillon, Eliza, tied with Bea, the third cocker spaniel, followed by the labrador, Jade. Bringing up the rear was Toddy, the mongrel.

One of the cancer patients was identified correctly by all six dogs, whereas two other cancer patients were consistently missed, indicating that perhaps the strength of the sample varies from person to person, or according to the severity of the disease.

One of the most intriguing finds, was in a comparison patient whose sample was not supposed to be cancerous. But the dogs consistently identified it as being cancer. Doctors conducted a detailed test on the patient and found a life-threatening tumor in his right kidney.

Lead researcher. Dr. Carolyn Willis, said: "We are very excited because this is the first time this has been scientifically proven." The researchers hope to be able to identify the exact cocktail of chemicals the dogs were smelling. Then they might be able to design a medical device to detect these signature odors and pick up cancers in patients.

Another research is being done in Cleveland, Ohio. Michael McCulloch is using a two-year old dog named Shing Ling to find lung cancer from breath samples. So far, Shing Ling has chosen correctly 87% of the time! Others are carrying out similar experiments in Florida.

Morley Safer of CBS News said, "There are more than 65 million dogs — two in every five American households have dogs as pets. They and their owners pride themselves on their special gifts.

"As different as they are, they share one common trait. They know their owners. In fact, chances are, if you own a dog, your pet is paying closer attention to you, your state of mind, and even your health than you pay to yourself."

Who knows, one day, your pet dog might just save your life!

By J. R. Church

It’s called "a provocative study" — Is religion a product of evolution? This is the question under consideration in the October 25, 2004, edition of TIME magazine by staff writer, Jeffrey Kluger. He said that some scientists think that the evolutionary process simply developed a genetic tendency in some people toward a feeling of transcendence.

Is there a gene embedded in our chromosomes that gives us a sense of something or someone beyond this time/space dimension? Are some people divinely disposed while others are not? Rush Limbaugh said that some people have the gene while others do not. He said, "Those who have it live in the red states and those who don’t live in the blue states!"

All kidding aside, could we have a genetic connection to heaven? Is it possible that our Creator could have embedded such a genetic code in human chromosomes? If the theory of a "God gene" were ever proven, the evidence would have to come down on the side of "design" rather than on random selection by some evolutionary process.

Kluger writes, "Ask true believers of any faith to describe the most important thing that drives their devotion, and they’ll tell you it’s not a thing at all but a sense — a feeling of a higher power far beyond us." However, Kluger suggests that mankind may have a more practical need for religion — the need for survival. He postulates that religion helps man to think that his body and mind can be preserved somewhere after death. He questions: "Which came first, God or the need for God? Did humans create religion from cues from above, or did evolution instill in us a sense of the divine so that we would gather into the communities essential to keeping the species going? … Even among people who regard spiritual life as wishful hocus-pocus, there is a growing sense that humans may not be able to survive without it."

This idea of a God gene is the work of Dr. Dean Hamer, chief of molecular biology at the National Cancer Institute. He has published a book on the subject, claiming that he has located one of the genetic codes that give man the sense of transcendence. Hamer calls his God gene "VMAT2" — a vesicular monoamine transporter that regulates the flow of mood-altering chemicals in the brain.

This so-called "God gene" contains the codes for the neurotransmitters that regulate our moods: "… every thought we think and every feeling we feel is the result of activity in the brain. I think we follow the basic law of nature, which is that we’re a bunch of chemical reactions running around in a bag."

Dr. Hamer misses the point. This secular hypothesis offers no explanation as to why we have such a gene in the first place.

Dr. Hamer seems to think that our "feelings of spirituality may be due to little more than an occasional shot of intoxicating brain chemicals governed by our DNA."

It seems to me that he is putting the proverbial "cart before the horse." There is a verse in the Bible that lends toward the possibility that God programmed our DNA to recognize a transcendental existence. Solomon wrote:

"He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world [eternity] in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end" (Eccl. 3:11).

Kluger quoted a translation that says, "[God has] set eternity in the hearts of men, yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end."

The Interlinear Bible’s literal translation says, "He has set eternity in their hearts, without which man cannot find out the work that God makes from the beginning to the end."

The context may be telling us that God has placed something deep within us, without which we could not even begin to fathom eternal values.

For example, if a computer cannot contact, nor comprehend the Internet without a special software driver and modem, it seems logical that mankind cannot contact, nor comprehend our Creator without some program encoded in our genetic makeup.

Kluger suggests, "If human beings were indeed divinely assembled, why wouldn’t our list of parts include a genetic chip that would enable us to contemplate our maker?"

However, before we buy into that concept, let us remember that "moods" affect only the soul. Though moods may account for a feeling of ecstasy, only the Holy Spirit can guide us toward a true knowledge of God.

Feelings of ecstasy can lead us into all kinds of foolish notions. In the Old Testament, such religiosity could lead one into "idolatry." We are cautioned to "try the spirits, whether they are of God" (I John 4:1). The Bible tells us that "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17).

Whether or not we are predisposed toward feelings of transcendence, God still offers eternal life to all. Salvation is not a matter of emotion, but of faith — of simply believing what we read in the Bible about the First Advent of Christ — His death, burial and resurrection on our behalf.

Now, we are intelligent people. Therefore, we would do well to explore that inner desire to live forever by reading the only book in the world that offers the answer for a future existence beyond this world — the Bible. We should read it … carefully.

I think it was Socrates who once said that this world is just an illusion. What is real and what is not? Is our universe just a computerized program that merely seems real? Over the past couple of centuries, scientists have discovered that everything is comprised of just over a hundred elements. For example, water is comprised of a combination of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Water looks and feels real enough, but when broken down into elements, its atoms are comprised of electrons, protons and neutrons! Are they only computer-type "programs" containing some kind of programming language that creates the various elements?

When we think of computer programs, we think of either a bunch of zeros and ones, "01010101," or a software language that tells the zeros and ones how to interact within the computer-bound world of electrons. Computer programs are comprised entirely of electrons. What the computer does not have access to, are protons and neutrons. However, if protons and neutrons were available, then perhaps computers could produce the same elements that presently make up our universe. Maybe they could generate something like the Holidek in Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek series.

Long before Socrates came on the scene, early Jewish scholars studied the first chapter of Genesis that tells us where everything came from. They read, "And God said, Let there be light" (Gen. 1:3), and concluded that God made the universe with some kind of language, and that everything is produced out of a metaphysical substance called "light." Furthermore, the Apostle John introduced Jesus as the "Word" of Creation: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men" (John 1:1-4).

The author of Hebrews 11:3 wrote: "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."

Was our universe created with a Divine programming language? Did God simply program the laws of thermodynamics to allow all things to deteriorate (or run down) as they currently do? Will God merely reprogram the universe someday? Is this how God is going to create "new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness" (II Pet. 3:13) — a new universe that will never run down?

The more scientists learn about the basic building blocks of our universe, the more convinced they become that a Designer planned it all. Some still stubbornly hold to the Darwinian theory of natural selection, but Dr. Francis Crick, discoverer of the double-helix DNA has concluded that the human genome is so complicated, it could not have merely come into existence accidentally. Of course, being a lifelong advocate of evolution, he cannot bring himself to think in terms of "God" so he set forth the "Panspermia" theory that some space voyagers seeded our planet with its various life forms.

If DNA is the product of some ancient "intelligence" then the basic building blocks of DNA — called "atoms" — also have to be the product of that same "intelligence." Strands of DNA are comprised of atoms. The programming of the atom may be on a much deeper level than the computer programming of Microsoft, Unix or MacIntosh, but they seem to have similar characteristics, nevertheless.

When Jesus healed the blinded eyes, straightened the bones of the lame, and cured the leper, He was working on the molecular or subatomic level. He merely spoke their healing into existence. In fact, Jesus said that one day, the dead would hear His voice! (John 5:28). When Jesus walked on water or walked through walls, He may have been manipulating the elements. When Jesus read men’s minds and knew what they were thinking (John 6:61), He may have been in control of the technology that connected the human brain with His own.

Someday, we will leave this world, either through death or by translation, and enter the realm of heaven. When we get there, we may find that heaven is more real than this present world. Our soul/spirit may not be a ghost after all. We may learn that our intelligence, emotion and sense of existence are not ghostly after all. Many people have asked about what kind of bodies will we have in heaven? To be sure, we will have real bodies in heaven. They may be more substantial than the ones we have now.

The Royal Library at Alexandria, Egypt, was the most famous in the ancient world for nearly a thousand years. It contained half a million volumes — handwritten on parchment. The city was built by the Greek architect Dinocrates (332-331 B. C.), by order of Alexander the Great, immortalizing his name, and spreading Greek culture throughout the known world.

After Alexander’s death at the age of 33, his half-brother, Ptolemy, ruled Egypt, enriched the city, and built the magnificent library as a repository of the world’s greatest literary works.

Ptolemy determined to collect copies of all the books in the world. Many of the scrolls housed there were originals. He would borrow the originals, copy them, then return the copies and keep the originals!

It is said that Ptolemy borrowed the city of Athen’s official scrolls, containing the works of the foremost Greek scholars and authors. He left a large deposit as security, but, instead of returning the scrolls, the king simply forfeited the deposit, and sent back copies to the furious Athenians.

By the time Julius Caesar conquered Egypt in the middle of the first century B.C., the collection of volumes at the Royal Library numbered between 300,000 and 500,000 scrolls.

Scholars at the Library copied the world’s most revered works from Europe, India, Persia and Africa. It is said that in A.D. 1450, before the invention of movable type, Europe possessed only a tenth as many books as had been housed in the Alexandria Royal Library.

Alexandria quickly flourished into a prominent cultural, intellectual, political, and economic metropolis, the remains of which are still evident to this day.

The library held the masterpieces of science and literature, the sole copies of works now vanished from the earth. It was the jewel of Ptolemy’s grand goal. It was attached to a research institute — called the Museum, after the Muses, the nine Greek goddesses of the arts and sciences.

An estimated 14,000 students studied physics, engineering, astronomy, medicine, mathematics, geography, biology, philosophy and literature under the world’s best teachers.

If an ancient original manuscript is missing, it probably was housed at Alexandria. In the third century B.C., seventy-two Jewish scholars were commissioned to translate the Hebrew Bible into the Greek language.

Ptolemy wrote to the chief priest, Eleazar, in Jerusalem, and arranged for six translators from each of the twelve tribes of Israel.

The seventy-two scholars (altered in a few later versions to seventy or seventy-five) arrived in Egypt to the Ptolemy’s hospitality, and translated the Torah (or Pentateuch: the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures) in seventy-two days.

Although opinions as to when this occurred differ, scholars find 282 B.C. an attractive date. It became known as the Septuagint — derived from the Latin word for "seventy."

I would not be a bit surprised if the original manuscripts of both the Old and New Testaments were eventually housed there.

In A.D. 48, Mark Anthony brought 200,000 scrolls from the library at Pergamos as a gift to Cleopatra. Among the famous scrolls were the works of:

Euclid (fourth-century B.C.), a Greek mathematician, whose Elements of Geometry were used as a textbook for more than 2,000 years. It was one of the most important books in Western thought and education.

Apollonius of Perga (third century B.C.), a mathematician who first demonstrated elliptic, parabolic and hyperbolic curves.

Archimedes of Syracuse (third century B.C.), a mathematician, physicist, engineer and inventor. He is credited with having invented the Archimedes screw, a kind of pump, and other mechanical devices.

Aristarchus of Samos (third century B.C.), an astronomer who discovered that the earth moves around the sun. Some 1,700 years before Copernicus, Aristarchus argued that day and night are the result of the earth turning on its axis.

Herophilus of Thrace (around 300 B.C.), remembered as "the father of scientific anatomy." He was the first scientist to prove that the brain, not the heart, was the organ of thought.

The works of the world’s greatest minds were collected and housed in the Royal Library of Alexandria. But, in A.D. 640, Islamic Arab legions swept through Egypt on their mission to conquer the world for Islam. It is said that the Arab military governor, baffled by the dusty scrolls in the library, asked Mecca what to do with them.

"Burn them," he was told, for "either the manuscripts contain what is in the Koran, in which case we do not have to read them, or they contain what is contrary to the Koran, in which case we must not read them."

The scrolls were used as fuel for Alexandria’s 4,000 public baths. There were evidently enough to heat bath water for several months. The last of the treasures of antiquity blazed brightly and were gone — some forever — thanks to Islam.