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Doubts Brew About NASA’s New Arsenic Life

By Lisa Grossman

An arsenic-loving microbe found in a salty lake, which was touted last week as a potentially new form of life, is under heavy fire from the scientific community.

The microbe, a bacteria called GFAJ-1, can apparently use arsenic instead of phosphorous to build its DNA, a trick no other life form has ever managed.

A team of astrobiologists pulled the bacteria from Mono Lake in eastern California and starved it of phosphate, the molecule most organisms prefer for building their DNA backbones, while force-feeding it arsenate, the analogous form of arsenic.

The bacteria continued to grow despite the poisonous diet, prompting the researchers to assert that the microbes had successfully swapped arsenic for phosphorous. The team, led by NASA astrobiologist Felisa Wolfe-Simon, published their results in Science Dec. 2, accompanied by a very excited NASA press conference.

But other biologists started raising red flags almost immediately, questioning the methods the team used to purify the DNA and asking why the researchers skipped certain tests.

“It seems much more likely that the arsenic they’re seeing is contaminating arsenic that’s going along for the ride,” biologist Rosie Redfield of the University of British Columbia told Wired.com.

Redfield posted a biting critique Dec. 4 on her research blog. As of today, the post has received more than 40,000 hits.

She points out that the team didn’t properly clean their DNA before or after running it through a standard device for separating DNA and RNA from other molecules, a technique called gel electrophoresis.

Cleaning the samples would require “a little kit that costs $2 and takes 10 minutes, and then you have pure DNA that you can analyze,” Redfield said. The researchers used this method elsewhere in the paper, but not in the critical experiment that was supposed to show arsenic was incorporated into the bacteria’s DNA.

“That’s just asking for contamination problems,” she said. The arsenic they found could have been hanging around in the gel, not in the cells, she added. “It’s as if they wanted to find arsenic, so they didn’t take a lot of trouble to make sure they didn’t find it by mistake.”

In a guest post on the blog “We, Beasties,” Harvard microbiologist and geochemist Alex Bradley raised another issue.

The NASA team immersed the DNA in water, where arsenic compounds quickly fall apart. If the DNA was really built from arsenate, it should have broken into pieces, Bradley wrote. But it didn’t. That suggests the molecules were still using stronger phosphate to hold themselves together.

A thorough review on Slate.com by science writer Carl Zimmer raises a host of other problems with the paper. Zimmer spoke with nearly a dozen outside experts for the story (and more for ongoing updates on his blog), nearly all of whom think the NASA team failed to support their claims.

A similar story by Alla Katsnelson on Nature’s news site points out the arsenate-eating microbes appear fat and bloated, a possible sign that they are sequestering toxic substances. Rather than continuing to grow in number and thrive, the bacteria could have been getting fatter as they stored up just enough energy for survival.

The authors of the original paper have so far declined to respond to these criticisms, at least to journalists. A NASA spokesperson also publicly dismissed blog-based critiques, saying any discussion should be confined to scientific journals.

“That’s kind of sleazy given how they cooperated with all the media hype before the paper was published,” Redfield said.

But senior author Ronald Oremland of the U.S. Geological Survey spoke to an audience of scientists at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC Dec. 7, which was streamed live over NASA TV. Apparently against his own policy, Oremland fielded several questions about specific tests the team could have performed on the microbes.

Most of them, he said, were “certainly worth doing” and “an area for future work.”

“There’s a laundry list of things,” he said. “We can’t do everything.”

Oremland also indirectly addressed the backlash in the blogs.

“I’m not surprised by pushback from the scientific community and bloggers. That’s part of the process,” he said. “But those are arguments about how many angels on the head of a pin. The only way this is going to get settled is if people reproduce these experiments on their own.”

Redfield agrees that more studies are needed, and that the best place for scientific back-and-forth is in peer-reviewed journals.

“But putting it out just so people can comment on it directly is also extremely valuable,” she said. Scientists have always discussed their work in non-peer-reviewed channels, such as letters or conferences, she notes. “It’s just working faster and better now because we have things like blogs. That just lets the science be so much more powerful. In a lot of ways this is how science is supposed to work.”

Image: The bloated microbes that may just be storing arsenic, not using it in their DNA. Science/AAAS

See Also:

NASA Unveils Arsenic Life Form

The Wrong Stuff: NASA Dismisses Arsenic Critique Because Critical …

The Real Scoop on Aliens Oops Arsenic in Old Lakes

Is That Arsenic-Loving Bug — Formerly an Alien — a Dog?

All Life on Earth Could Have Come From Alien Zombies

Biologists on the Verge of Creating New Form of Life Read more at www.wired.com

 

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SpaceX Launches Cargo Spacecraft Into Orbit

By Jason Paur

Space Exploration Systems successfully launched its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft at 10:43 a.m. EST this morning from Cape Canaveral in Florida into low earth orbit. The launch marks the second flight for a Falcon 9 and the first for the spacecraft. The first attempt for the demo flight was aborted two minutes and 50 seconds before a scheduled 9:03 a.m. EST launch after a faulty signal in one of the devices that controls switching off the rocket motors.

A little over nine minutes after launch SpaceX announced the Dragon spacecraft had reached orbit and cheers could be heard from the launch team.

The SpaceX rocket and spacecraft are designed to carry cargo or human payloads to the International Space Station as part of the Commercial Orbital Transportation System that will replace the space shuttle.

Today’s COTS 1 test flight is expected to last around three and a half hours with the Dragon making nearly two orbits around the earth before splashing down in the Pacific about 500 miles off the coast of Mexico. If successful, it will be the first time a private company has launched and recovered a spacecraft from earth orbit. It also marks the first time a new American spacecraft capable of carrying humans has launched into orbit since the space shuttle first flew nearly 30 years ago.

The Falcon 9 rocket is nearly 158 feet tall and made its first flight into orbit in June. The Dragon capsule is nearly 17 feet tall and 12 feet in diameter. The system can carry 7,297 pounds of pressurized cargo into orbit. The Dragon spacecraft is designed to carry five to seven passengers to orbit, as well.

SpaceX says the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft could begin carrying cargo to the ISS as early as next year. The company has a contract for at least 12 flights to the ISS and is also capable of returning cargo from the station.

Images: SpaceX Read more at www.wired.com

 

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Serpentine Swedish Setup Turns Freeways Into Power Plants

URL:  http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/12/serpentine-swedish...

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Mastercard.com Taken Down by Pro-WikiLeaks Forces

By Ryan Singel

Mastercard’s website became the latest casualty in the showdown between WikiLeaks and the U.S. government, as supporters of WikiLeaks’ release of secret U.S. diplomatic cables flooded the credit card company’s website Wednesday morning with a deluge of traffic. The attack is revenge for the company’s decision to cut off cardholders’ ability to donate to the whistleblowing website. The flood overwhelmed the site’s servers, making it inaccessible to the public. Mastercard’s payment infrastructure, which isn’t publicly accessible on the web, would not be affected by the denial of service attack, which was launched by an ever-shifting group that goes by the name Anonymous. The group already attacked (and took down for several hours) a Swiss bank that froze an account belonging to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Anonymous is also aiming at PayPal.com, an attack which could, if successful, block financial transactions, but so far that site remains up. Mastercard, Visa and PayPal have all cut off WikiLeaks in the past week, citing violations of their “terms of service” agreements, but no such action has been taken against The New York Times and other publications that are reprinting and reporting on the cables. The U.S. State Department has called the ongoing publication of the 250,000 diplomatic cables “illegal,” but no charges have been filed against the site. Publishing government documents, even classified ones, is not explicitly illegal in the United States as it is in England. An Anonymous member/sympathizer wrote to Wired.com to announce the attacks, passing along this statement from the chat channel being used to organize the attack: We are the clear logic used to unveil wrongdoing. The general public, clouded by misleading information mostly by the media with a political agenda, fails to see and understand this wrongdoing. Because of this, those who do the wrongdoing escape unpunished. Anonymous is here to ensure punishment does not go unserved to those who deserve it. WikiLeaks itself has suffered from denial of service attacks since last Sunday, including one from a “patriotic” hacker. That’s when the site began publishing cables provided to the site by Pfc. Bradley Manning (according to chat logs seen by Wired.com), who had access to them as part of his work as an intelligence analyst in Iraq. Manning is in jail in Quantico, awaiting trial. Assange is also now in custody in London related to sex-crimes charges in Sweden, which has the organization scrambling to operate. Assange is likely to fight extradition. Anonymous, which has its roots in the uncensored crook of the 4chan message boards, has a history of such attacks, including a recent campaign against the record industry for attacking file sharing sites, mass infiltrating an online game for kids to protest its stupidity and a long-running, earlier campaign against the Church of Scientology. The Scientology attacks were investigated by the FBI and at least one Anonymous member was jailed for his part in clogging Scientology’s websites. Few who are part of Anonymous are actual “hackers,” and instead join in the attacks by running specialized software provided by more technically adept members. Instruction for what sites to target and when are passed around online chat channels and websites, creating a sort of online insurgency. Photo credit: Steve Rhode See Also: PayPal Freezes WikiLeaks Account ‘Chaos’ at WikiLeaks Follows Assange Arrest WikiLeaks’ Assange Arrested in London, Denied Bail Columbia University Reverses Anti-WikiLeaks Guidance Cable Traffic: WikiLeaks, Facebook, and You Read more at www.wired.com

 

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Tobias Lear V: Personal Secretary and Murderer of “Heretic” George Wasington

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Tobias Lear V: Personal Secretary and Murderer of “Heretic” George Wasington

Tobials Lear V: Personal Secretary and Murderer of George Washington on December 14, 1799

Tobias Lear V is undoubtedly the murderer of our dear White Father of the Republic of these Protestant United States of America (1787-1868), General and President George Washington.  Lear not only poisoned Washington with anthrax (possibly via a handkerchief), but then gave his noble relative a deadly cocktail, the final “poison cup.” Lear went on to be the personal secretary of President Thomas Jefferson, Lear destroying most of Washington’s private letters.  Since Jefferson benefited from both the death and destruction of the private papers of Washington, Thomas Jefferson also stands accused of murder!

President Thomas Jefferson, 1805: Co-Conspirator in the Murder of George Washington, 1799

This wicked sinner, Tobias Lear, later committed suicide, driven to his grave by a guilty conscience born out of his calculated murder of the greatest leader of the most prosperous and advanced Gentile nation in world history!  Your Editor must take a moment to weep over yet another “extirpation” of an “accursed liberal and heretic” leader carried out by Satan’s Jesuit Order.  For Washington, like Oliver Cromwell (also poisoned), was used by the Risen Lord Jesus Christ for the benefit of His Body, the Church of the risen Son of God captivated by the Word of God, the Holy Bible of the Protestant Reformation!

More to come! Read more at www.vaticanassassins.org

 

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Christian Character of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant/Baptist George Washington

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Christian Character of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant/Baptist George Washington

Washington Crossing the Delaware River, Accompanied by Baptist Chaplain, Captain John Gano, December 25, 1776

“General Washington’s personal appearance was in harmony with his character; it was a model of manly strength and beauty.  He was about six feet two inches in height, and his person well proportioned,—in the earlier part of life rather spare, and never too stout for active and graceful movement.  The complexion inclined to the florid; the eyes were blue and remarkable far apart; a profusion of brown hair was drawn back from the forehead, highly powdered according to the fashion of the day, and gathered in a bag behind.  He was scrupulously neat in his dress, and while in camp, though he habitually left his tent at sunrise, he was usually dressed for the day.  His strength strength of arm, and his skill and grace as a horseman, have been already mentioned.  His power of endurance was great, and there were occasions, as at the retreat from Long Island and the battle of Princeton, when he was scarcely out of his saddle for two days.  Punctilious in his observances of the courtesies of society as practiced in his day, he was accustomed, down to the period of his inauguration as President, at the balls given in his honor, to take part in a minuet or a country-dance.  His dairy uniformly records, sometimes with amusing exactness, the precise number of ladies present at the assemblies, at which he was received at his tours through the Union.  His general manner in large societies, though eminently courteous, was marked by a certain military reserve.  In smaller companies he was easy and affable, but not talkative.  He was frequently cheered into gayety, at his fireside, by the contagious merriment of the young and happy, but also relapsed into a thoughtful mood, moving his lips, but uttering no audible sound. Washington’s religious impressions were in harmony with the rest of his character,—deep, rational and practical.  On this topic, our remaining space admits of little more than a reference to the interesting article on this subject in the fourth section of the appendix to Mr. Sparks’s twelfth volume.  Washington was brought up in the Episcopal communion, and was a member of the vestry of two churches.  He was at all times a regular attendant on public worship, and an occasional partaker of the communion; and is believed habitually to have begun the day with the reading of the Scriptures [the AV1611 English Reformation Bible] and prayer in his closet.  His private correspondence, his general orders, and his public acts of all kinds contain devout recognitions of a divine Providence in the government of the world [as did Oliver Cromwell], and his whole life bears witness to the influence of a prevailing sense of religious responsibility.  In his last moments he breathed a truly pious spirit of resignation.  In his own affecting words, he died ‘hard,’ but he was ‘not afraid to go.’ Though prevented, by the rapid progress of his disease, and the almost total obstruction of the vocal organs [our dear George was strangling to death via a poison cup!], from expressing his feelings, he manifested to the last the submission of a sincere Christian to the will of the great Disposer. . . . In the final contemplation of his character, we shall not hesitate to pronounce Washington, of all men that have ever lived, THE GREATEST OF GOOD MEN AND THE BEST OF GREAT MEN.” [Emphasis added in Bold] Edward Everett, The Life of George Washington, (New York: Sheldon and Company, 1860), pp. 258-263. Read more at www.vaticanassassins.org

 

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Alan O’Reilly: Rome’s Destruction of White Protestant and Baptist Great Britain

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Alan O’Reilly: Rome’s Destruction of White Protestant and Baptist Great Britain

Henry Cardinal Manning, Archbishop of Westminster: Papal Agent of the Jesuits in the Plotted Overthrow of the AV1611 Bible, White British Protestants and British Empire, 1865-1892

http://www.vaticanassassins.org/2010/12/alan-oreilly-to-ejp-queen-victorias-haman-jesuit-coadjutor-king-edward-vii-2/

Thanks, Eric

I hope readers find these summaries useful.  Chapter 8 of David Daniels’ book Did The Catholic Church Give Us The Bible? from Chick Publications, entitled “The Jesuits Attack” shows simply but graphically how John Newman and the Oxford Movement subverted Bible belief in the Church of England and prepared the ground for Westcott and Hort, the spiritualists – see remarks below.  In Our Authorized Bible Vindicated, Chapter 10, Benjamin Wilkinson, http://kjv.benabraham.com/html/chapter-10.html states that:

“The triumvirate which constantly worked to bring things to a head, and who later sat on the Revision Committee, were Ellicott, Lightfoot, and Moulton.  They found it difficult to get the project on foot.  Twice they had appealed to the Government in hopes that, as in the case of the King James in 1611, the King [i.e. the monarch, Queen Victoria] would appoint a royal commission.  They were refused.”

God must have still had some of His men in the British Government at the time, fighting a rear-guard action.  We desperately need them now.

The king, of course, did sanction the AV1611, Ecclesiastes 8:4, which explains why that Book has power and none of the new bibles do.  But Wilkinson’s disclosure shows how the Society of Jesus (SJ) plans long term and underlines the fact that one victory against the Jesuit does not win the war!

Spiritualism was/is of course another Satanic device (2 Corinthians 2:11) designed to undermine the Holy Bible’s authority.  This device made great progress in 19th century England, under the influence of Helena Blavatsky, but Dr. Rivera stated in The Force that no-one went deeper into the occult than the Jesuits, so they must have been involved.   It’s also worth noting that the Devil was working on “the oppositions of science falsely so called” (1 Timothy 6:20) in England at this time, with Darwinianism, Origin of the Species being first published in 1859.

It is interesting that evolution got a big boost in 1912, with the so-called Piltdown Man (the remains were discovered in a gravel pit near the village of Piltdown, in East Sussex, England).  The Piltdown Man was exposed as a hoax in 1953, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man, but by then the lie of evolution had taken a firm hold in the US and the UK, which it won’t lose until the Second Advent.  Instrumental in creating the hoax was Teilhard De Chardin, SJ, who was at the original dig site.

On all these fronts, Cardinal Manning’s strategy is seen to have been unfolding in the formerly Bible-believing English-speaking Protestant nations.  [Manning was a personal friend of Roundtable founder, 33rd Degree Freemason Cecil Rhodes.  EJP]  This is what he actually said in 1859:

“If ever there was a land in which work is to be done, and perhaps much to suffer, it is here…We have to SUBJUGATE and SUBDUE, to CONQUER and RULE, an imperial race. We have to do with a will which reigns throughout the world, as the will of old Rome reigned once.  We have to BEND or BREAK that will which nations and kingdoms have found invincible and inflexible.  Were heresy conquered in England, it would be conquered throughout the world.  All its lines meet here, and therefore in England the Church of God must be gathered in its strength.”

[Notice Rome's confessed conspiracy specifically directed against the White "imperial race" of the British Protestants!  Indeed, Rome is waging a race war upon the White peoples of every historic White Protestant nation on earth!  EJP]

It therefore becomes clear why the 1611 Authorized King James Holy Bible became the focal point of attack, to be discredited by means of spiritualism, closet Catholicism (John Newman, later a Cardinal of Rome!) evolution and textual criticism, so-called, the latter attack mounted by Westcott and Hort, who were great admirers of both Blavatsky and Newman.  This is what the English writer F. W. Faber said about the KJB – he defected from the Church of England to Rome and said this after he became a Catholic.

“Who will not say that the uncommon beauty and marvelous English of the Protestant Bible is not one of the great strongholds of heresy [i.e. Bible belief] in this country?  It lives on the ear like music that can never be forgotten, like the sound of church bells.  Its felicities often seem to be things rather than words.  It is part of the national mind, and the anchor of national seriousness.”

Britain was of course a great imperial power in the 19th century and we have to remember what Charles Chiniquy said in Why I Left the Church of Rome (all the Lord’s people should read it).

“It is a fact that to-day, almost all over the world, the Church of Rome grants permission to read the Bible…But I will here ask the Roman Catholics, “To whom do you owe that privilege and honour of a Bible in your house?  Is it to your Church?”  Oh! no, for if your Church could be free to fulfil her own laws you would be sent to gaol; nay you would be burnt on a scaffold for that Bible.  But you owe that privilege to the glorious British Protestant flag which protects you – wherever it floats on the breeze, no Pope, no priest will dare to trouble you for that Bible – they let you possess and read that holy book because they cannot help it.”

So Britain had to be crushed politically and militarily as well as ideologically.  Hence “Uncle Edward” and WW1.  Although Britain was technically a victor in 1918, the nation lost its best future leaders mainly in 1916, during the battle of the Somme, a Pyrrhic victory for the Allies.  The nation has never recovered from that loss.  [Britain ultimately also lost 100,000 of her finest White Protestant men in Turkey thanks to Winston Churchill's human sacrifice at Gallipoli!  EJP]

It’s easy to see therefore how Cardinal Manning’s strategy has unfolded – and who the next-favoured target of the Vatican and the SJ is.  It is of course “the prince of this world” (John 12:31, 14:30) who guides the Black Pope and that explains why the SJ strategy is so comprehensive and ruthless.  It is worse than inhuman.  It is therefore a great encouragement to know that the Devil will finally be defeated and cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10) and the Lord will be on His throne forever unchallenged (Revelation 22:1).

Yours in the Lord Jesus Christ

Alan Read more at www.vaticanassassins.org

 

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Thrift Stores Pitch in to Fund Bible Missions

By Michelle A. Vu|Christian Post Reporter

(Photo: Bible League International/The Christian Post)

A Bibles for Missions Thrift Center in Pella, Iowa.

About a dozen thrift centers located in the Midwest aim to make a large profit this Christmas season, but not to benefit themselves.

The Bibles for Missions Thrift Centers give all their profits to Bible League International, a non-profit evangelical Christian ministry dedicated to making disciples, training Bible study leaders, and church planters around the world. The thrift centers, which are for-profit and operate as separate entities, were formed by Bible League to help financially support the mission.

After each center pays its bills, the remaining fund is donated to Bible League to support ministry in the specific country the center has “adopted.” None of the centers’ staff members are paid; they are all volunteers.

“During this season as people are purchasing items, they’re also supplying God’s word to other brothers and sisters, other love ones around the world,” said Connie Reitsma, BLI’s liaison with the centers, to The Christian Post on Tuesday.

Since 1992, when the first center opened, Bibles for Missions Thrift Centers have provided more than $21 million to support Bible League. The centers’ goal this year is to donate $2 million, with the holiday season being the time when most of the money is generated.

Supporters of the Bible ministry help by donating to the centers items that will generate funds as well as by purchasing merchandise there. People who donate and shop at the centers, according to BLI, are often as dedicated as the staff there to fulfilling the mission of Bible League: “To provide Scriptures and training worldwide, so that people prepared by the Holy Spirit will be brought into fellowship with Christ and His Church.”

After a person finishes the first part of BLI’s Bible study training program, he or she receives a copy of the Scriptures. BLI says it has given out millions of Bibles in more than 80 countries since its founding in 1938. Its vision is to see every person who wants a Bible to have one and every neighborhood having a vibrant Bible study group.

There are a total of 13 Bibles for Missions Thrift Centers in the United States, located in: Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, and Tennessee. These centers raise funds to support mission works in Mexico, Columbia, Ecuador, Haiti, Kenya, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, China, and the Philippines.

Related Bible League Announces 3.3 Million Bible Studies Completed in 2006 Bible League Marks 70th Anniversary Australian Christians Walk to Bring Bibles to Persecuted Believers Read more at www.christianpost.com

 

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Assange man of the year in Naples nativity creches | Reuters

URL:  http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6B74BI20101208?ut...

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Nanny Government: Yes Mum!: Retailers slam crackers health and safety rule

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Retailers slam crackers health and safety rule

LONDON

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's retailers are being forced to demand age-identification from shoppers seeking to buy Christmas crackers because of new health and safety legislation they have branded "daft."

Under the pyrotechnic articles (safety) regulations of August 2010, Christmas crackers have been classed as "category 1" fireworks, which means they have an age restriction of 16 and cashiers have to check the age of people buying them.

The majority of Britain's stores use a "challenge 25" policy for selling age-related products such as alcohol, tobacco and fireworks, meaning people who look under 25 are asked to prove they are old enough to buy.

"Busy shoppers with a lot on their minds will be understandably frustrated if they are asked to provide ID to buy a box of Christmas crackers," the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said in Wednesday.

Under the legislation, stores face financial penalties and individual cashiers fines of up to 5,000 pounds ($7,848) and six months in prison for selling crackers to underage customers.

"It's the health and safety rules which have gone crackers and not retailers themselves," the BRC said.

(Reporting by Mark Potter, editing by Paul Casciato) Read more at www.reuters.com

 

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