"All human beings, by their nature, desire to know."(Aristotle, The Metaphysics, circa 322BC)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
Second Big Bang In Geneva?:The Large Hadron Collider Could Unlock The Secrets Of Genesis; A History Of Science Perspective And The American Bungle
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/597second-big-bang-in-genevathe-large.html
Large Hadron Collider(LHC) Revs Up: Atom Smasher Achieves Most Energetic Collisions Yet; Quotes from Blogpost Four Hundred.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/594large-hadron-colliderlhc-revs-up.html
Large Hadron Collider Back Online To Incrementally Achieve Highest Energy Yet:Half Of The Maximum Possible;Goal To Find Most Fundamental Particles
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/584large-hadron-collider-back-online.html
Higg's And His Particle, The One Postulated To Bestow The Property Of Mass On All Other Elementary Particles In Nature, Prove Elusive
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/575higgs-and-his-particle-one.html
Powerful Large Hadron Collider Set To Smash Protons To Uncover The Tiniest Particles Of Matter And Creation;Quotes Of Aga Khan IV And Aga Khan III
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/02/563powerful-large-hadron-collider-set.html
Large Hadron Collider Roars To Life, Opening Up A Window To The Marvels Of The Ultra-Miniscule Creation; Quotes Of Aga Khan IV And Others.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/12/527large-hadron-collider-roars-to-life.html
The Large Hadron Collider and the God Particle: Can Islam be in the middle of this exciting melding of Science and Religion?; Quotes of Aga Khans
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/403the-large-hadron-collider-and-god.html
Teams of Physicists Closing in on the ‘God Particle’; Quotes From Blogpost Four Hundred.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/07/631teams-of-physicists-closing-in-on.html
The Particle Zoo: The Building Blocks of All Matter; Quotes of Aga Khans IV and III and others.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/08/393the-particle-zoo-building-blocks-of.html
The 19 Grand Ideas Of Science: What Is The Universe Made Up Of And How Does It Operate? Quotes Of Aga Khan IV And Others.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/11/501-19-grand-ideas-of-science-what-is.html
The largest objects in the Universe:
A Collection of Posts on Astronomy; Quotes of Noble Quran, Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan III, Nasir Khusraw, Abu Yakub Al Sijistani and Aristotle
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/456a-collection-of-posts-on-astronomy.html
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
597)Second Big Bang In Geneva?:The Large Hadron Collider Could Unlock The Secrets Of Genesis; A History Of Science Perspective And The American Bungle
"Every particle of the Creation has a share of the Command of God, because every creature shares a part of the Command of God through which it has come to be there and by virtue of which it remains in being and the light of the Command of God shines in it. Understand this!"(Abu Yakub Al Sijistani, 10th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist, d971, Kashf al-Mahjub("Unveiling of the Hidden"))
"Tarkib' is composition as in the compounding of elements in the process of making more complex things, that is, of adding together two things to form a synthesis, a compound. Soul composes in the sense of 'tarkib'; it is the animating force that combines the physical elements of the natural universe into beings that move and act. Incorporating is an especially apt word in this instance. It means to turn something into a body, as in 'composing'. But it is actually the conversion of an intellectual object, a thought, into a physical thing. Soul acts by incorporating reason into physical objects, the natural matter of the universe and all the things composed of it"(Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani,10th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist, d971CE, from the book, 'Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani: Intellectual Missionary', by Paul Walker)
"O brother! You asked: What is the [meaning of] `alam [world] and what is that entity to which this name applies? How should we describe the world in its entirety? And how many worlds are there? Explain so that we may recognize. Know, O brother, that the name `alam is derived from [the word] `ilm(knowledge), because the traces of knowledge are evident in [all] parts of the physical world. Thus, we say that the very constitution (nihad) of the world is based on a profound wisdom"(Nasir Khusraw, 11th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist-philosopher-poet, from his book "Knowledge and Liberation")
"In fact this world is a book in which you see inscribed the writings of God the Almighty"(Nasir Khusraw, 11th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist-philosopher-poet)
"Nature is the great daily book of God whose secrets must be found and used for the well-being of humanity"(Aga Khan III, Radio Pakistan, Karachi, Pakistan, February 19th 1950)
"Islamic doctrine goes further than the other great religions, for it proclaims the presence of the soul, perhaps minute but nevertheless existing in an embryonic state, in all existence in matter, in animals, trees, and space itself. Every individual, every molecule, every atom has its own spiritual relationship with the All-Powerful Soul of God"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
Kathalika yubayyinu Allahu lakum ayatihi la'allakum ta-'aqiloona: "Allah thus makes clear to you His Signs that you may intellect"(Holy Quran 2:242)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
Quote from article:
"Today the LHC(Large Hadron Collider) may have the potential to explain the origin of all four fundamental forces—gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Physicists believe that at the beginning of time there was a single superforce which unified these fundamental forces. Finding it could be the crowning achievement in the history of science, ending 2,000 years of speculation since the Greeks first wondered what the world is made of. It could answer some of the deepest questions facing us, such as: What happened before the Big Bang? Are there parallel universes? Is time travel possible? And are there other dimensions?"
By MICHIO KAKU
April 1st 2010: Opinion
The Wall Street Journal
Champagne bottles were popped Tuesday in Geneva where the largest science machine ever built finally began to smash subatomic particles together. After 16 years—and an accident that crippled the machine a year and a half ago—the Large Hadron Collider successfully smashed two beams of protons at the astounding energy of 3.5 trillion electron volts apiece. This act produced temperatures not seen since the Big Bang occurred 13.7 billions years ago.
The LHC is colossal. It is a gigantic doughnut, 17 miles in circumference, in which two beams of protons will eventually create energies of 14 trillion electron volts. Yet by nature's standards the LHC is a pea shooter. For billions of years the earth has been bathed in cosmic rays much more powerful than those created by the LHC.
Despite this great achievement, European taxpayers are asking if this 10 billion euro machine is a waste of money, particularly given the current financial crisis. These skeptics would do well to remember that the LHC could help us understand not only the instant of genesis, but will help unify the four fundamental forces that rule the universe. Each time one of these forces was deciphered it changed the course of human history.
When Sir Isaac Newton worked out the theory of the first force—gravity—in the 17th century, he created the mechanics that laid the groundwork for steam engines and the Industrial Revolution. The Machine Age unleashed humanity from the bondage of subsistence farming, lifting untold numbers from grinding poverty.
When Thomas Edison, James C. Maxwell and Michael Faraday helped to decipher and harness the second force—electromagnetism—it eventually gave us TV, radio, radar, computers and the Internet.
When Albert Einstein wrote down E=mc2, it helped to unlock the secret of the two nuclear forces (weak and strong), which unraveled the secret of the stars and unleashed nuclear power.
Today the LHC may have the potential to explain the origin of all four fundamental forces—gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Physicists believe that at the beginning of time there was a single superforce which unified these fundamental forces. Finding it could be the crowning achievement in the history of science, ending 2,000 years of speculation since the Greeks first wondered what the world is made of. It could answer some of the deepest questions facing us, such as: What happened before the Big Bang? Are there parallel universes? Is time travel possible? And are there other dimensions?
In addition to helping us unlock the mysteries of the universe, the LHC may also create a new scientific elite. These scientists will likely spearhead new industries, creating jobs and perhaps significant wealth in Europe.
It's sobering to remember that this could have happened in the U.S. Back in the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan pushed to create a Superconducting Supercollider just outside Dallas, Texas. This machine would have been three times larger than the LHC and would have maintained U.S. leadership in advanced science for at least a generation. Congress allotted $1 billion to dig the hole for the Supercollider. Then it got cold feet and cancelled the plans in 1993, spending another $1 billion to fill up the hole. U.S. high-energy physics was set back an entire generation and has never recovered. So today the Europeans can brag about being the world's leader in advanced physics.
Remember that because of World War II, the cream of European science, perhaps no more than a few hundred people, fled Europe for America. They unleashed the greatest explosion in science the world has ever seen. These Europeans trained new generations of American scientists, people that went on to create radar, microwaves, nuclear power, computers, the Internet, the laser and the space program. They created a scientific establishment that is the envy of the world, a source of profound wealth, and a magnet for young scientists world-wide. U.S. technological superiority and all the high-tech wonders of today can, in some sense, be traced back to this exodus. But such leadership is not a given.
I extend my congratulations to the Europeans; the LHC is their well-earned prize. I only hope that U.S. policy makers are paying close attention to Geneva.
Mr. Kaku, a professor of theoretical physics at City College of New York, is the author of "Physics of the Impossible" (Doubleday, 2008) and host of "Sci Fi Science: Physics of the Impossible," on the Science Channel.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304252704575155710695957900.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines
Related Post:
Large Hadron Collider(LHC) Revs Up: Atom Smasher Achieves Most Energetic Collisions Yet; Quotes from Blogpost Four Hundred.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/594large-hadron-colliderlhc-revs-up.html
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
"Tarkib' is composition as in the compounding of elements in the process of making more complex things, that is, of adding together two things to form a synthesis, a compound. Soul composes in the sense of 'tarkib'; it is the animating force that combines the physical elements of the natural universe into beings that move and act. Incorporating is an especially apt word in this instance. It means to turn something into a body, as in 'composing'. But it is actually the conversion of an intellectual object, a thought, into a physical thing. Soul acts by incorporating reason into physical objects, the natural matter of the universe and all the things composed of it"(Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani,10th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist, d971CE, from the book, 'Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani: Intellectual Missionary', by Paul Walker)
"O brother! You asked: What is the [meaning of] `alam [world] and what is that entity to which this name applies? How should we describe the world in its entirety? And how many worlds are there? Explain so that we may recognize. Know, O brother, that the name `alam is derived from [the word] `ilm(knowledge), because the traces of knowledge are evident in [all] parts of the physical world. Thus, we say that the very constitution (nihad) of the world is based on a profound wisdom"(Nasir Khusraw, 11th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist-philosopher-poet, from his book "Knowledge and Liberation")
"In fact this world is a book in which you see inscribed the writings of God the Almighty"(Nasir Khusraw, 11th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist-philosopher-poet)
"Nature is the great daily book of God whose secrets must be found and used for the well-being of humanity"(Aga Khan III, Radio Pakistan, Karachi, Pakistan, February 19th 1950)
"Islamic doctrine goes further than the other great religions, for it proclaims the presence of the soul, perhaps minute but nevertheless existing in an embryonic state, in all existence in matter, in animals, trees, and space itself. Every individual, every molecule, every atom has its own spiritual relationship with the All-Powerful Soul of God"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
Kathalika yubayyinu Allahu lakum ayatihi la'allakum ta-'aqiloona: "Allah thus makes clear to you His Signs that you may intellect"(Holy Quran 2:242)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
Quote from article:
"Today the LHC(Large Hadron Collider) may have the potential to explain the origin of all four fundamental forces—gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Physicists believe that at the beginning of time there was a single superforce which unified these fundamental forces. Finding it could be the crowning achievement in the history of science, ending 2,000 years of speculation since the Greeks first wondered what the world is made of. It could answer some of the deepest questions facing us, such as: What happened before the Big Bang? Are there parallel universes? Is time travel possible? And are there other dimensions?"
By MICHIO KAKU
April 1st 2010: Opinion
The Wall Street Journal
Champagne bottles were popped Tuesday in Geneva where the largest science machine ever built finally began to smash subatomic particles together. After 16 years—and an accident that crippled the machine a year and a half ago—the Large Hadron Collider successfully smashed two beams of protons at the astounding energy of 3.5 trillion electron volts apiece. This act produced temperatures not seen since the Big Bang occurred 13.7 billions years ago.
The LHC is colossal. It is a gigantic doughnut, 17 miles in circumference, in which two beams of protons will eventually create energies of 14 trillion electron volts. Yet by nature's standards the LHC is a pea shooter. For billions of years the earth has been bathed in cosmic rays much more powerful than those created by the LHC.
Despite this great achievement, European taxpayers are asking if this 10 billion euro machine is a waste of money, particularly given the current financial crisis. These skeptics would do well to remember that the LHC could help us understand not only the instant of genesis, but will help unify the four fundamental forces that rule the universe. Each time one of these forces was deciphered it changed the course of human history.
When Sir Isaac Newton worked out the theory of the first force—gravity—in the 17th century, he created the mechanics that laid the groundwork for steam engines and the Industrial Revolution. The Machine Age unleashed humanity from the bondage of subsistence farming, lifting untold numbers from grinding poverty.
When Thomas Edison, James C. Maxwell and Michael Faraday helped to decipher and harness the second force—electromagnetism—it eventually gave us TV, radio, radar, computers and the Internet.
When Albert Einstein wrote down E=mc2, it helped to unlock the secret of the two nuclear forces (weak and strong), which unraveled the secret of the stars and unleashed nuclear power.
Today the LHC may have the potential to explain the origin of all four fundamental forces—gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Physicists believe that at the beginning of time there was a single superforce which unified these fundamental forces. Finding it could be the crowning achievement in the history of science, ending 2,000 years of speculation since the Greeks first wondered what the world is made of. It could answer some of the deepest questions facing us, such as: What happened before the Big Bang? Are there parallel universes? Is time travel possible? And are there other dimensions?
In addition to helping us unlock the mysteries of the universe, the LHC may also create a new scientific elite. These scientists will likely spearhead new industries, creating jobs and perhaps significant wealth in Europe.
It's sobering to remember that this could have happened in the U.S. Back in the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan pushed to create a Superconducting Supercollider just outside Dallas, Texas. This machine would have been three times larger than the LHC and would have maintained U.S. leadership in advanced science for at least a generation. Congress allotted $1 billion to dig the hole for the Supercollider. Then it got cold feet and cancelled the plans in 1993, spending another $1 billion to fill up the hole. U.S. high-energy physics was set back an entire generation and has never recovered. So today the Europeans can brag about being the world's leader in advanced physics.
Remember that because of World War II, the cream of European science, perhaps no more than a few hundred people, fled Europe for America. They unleashed the greatest explosion in science the world has ever seen. These Europeans trained new generations of American scientists, people that went on to create radar, microwaves, nuclear power, computers, the Internet, the laser and the space program. They created a scientific establishment that is the envy of the world, a source of profound wealth, and a magnet for young scientists world-wide. U.S. technological superiority and all the high-tech wonders of today can, in some sense, be traced back to this exodus. But such leadership is not a given.
I extend my congratulations to the Europeans; the LHC is their well-earned prize. I only hope that U.S. policy makers are paying close attention to Geneva.
Mr. Kaku, a professor of theoretical physics at City College of New York, is the author of "Physics of the Impossible" (Doubleday, 2008) and host of "Sci Fi Science: Physics of the Impossible," on the Science Channel.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304252704575155710695957900.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines
Related Post:
Large Hadron Collider(LHC) Revs Up: Atom Smasher Achieves Most Energetic Collisions Yet; Quotes from Blogpost Four Hundred.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/594large-hadron-colliderlhc-revs-up.html
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
596)Dr Keith Moore, My Former Embryology Prof From The University Of Toronto Medical School(1978-1982), Enlightens Us On Embryology In The Noble Quran
Quotes From The Noble Quran:
"He makes you in the wombs of your mothers in stages, one after another, in three veils of darkness." (Quran 36:6)
"Then We placed him as a drop in a place of rest." (Quran 23:13)
"Then We made the drop into a leech-like structure." (Quran 23:14)
"Then of that leech-like structure, We made a chewed lump." (Quran 23:14)
"Then We made out of the chewed lump, bones, and clothed the bones in flesh." (Quran 23:14)
"Then We developed out of it another creature." (Quran 23:14)
"And He gave you hearing and sight and feeling and understanding." (Quran 32:9)
"Then out of a piece of chewed flesh, partly formed and partly unformed." (Quran 22:5)
"And We cause whom We will to rest in the wombs for an appointed term." (Quran 22:5)
"Here is a relevant verse from the Noble Qur'an, cited by Nasir-i Khusraw, hujjat-i Khurasan in his Khawaan al-Ikhwaan : "It is He who created you from dust, then from a sperm drop, then from a blood clot, then He brings you forth as a child, then lets you reach your age of full strength, then lets you become old - though some of you die before - and then lets you reach the appointed term; and that haply you may find the intellect (la'allakum ta'qilun)."(Nasir Khusraw, 11th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist-philosopher-poet)
"Tarkib' is composition as in the compounding of elements in the process of making more complex things, that is, of adding together two things to form a synthesis, a compound. Soul composes in the sense of 'tarkib'; it is the animating force that combines the physical elements of the natural universe into beings that move and act. Incorporating is an especially apt word in this instance. It means to turn something into a body, as in 'composing'. But it is actually the conversion of an intellectual object, a thought, into a physical thing. Soul acts by incorporating reason into physical objects, the natural matter of the universe and all the things composed of it"(Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani,10th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist, d971CE, from the book, 'Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani: Intellectual Missionary', by Paul Walker)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
Dr Keith Moore confirms embryology in Quran
Video of Dr Keith Moore on this fact
All Pages
Dr Keith Moore C.V from Wikipedia:
Keith L. Moore is a professor emeritus in the division of anatomy (department of surgery), former Chair of anatomy from 1974 to 1984 and associate dean for Basic Medical Sciences (Faculty of Medicine) at the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Dr Keith Moore He has also worked at the King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Moreover, he is a founding member of the American Association of Clinical Anatomists (AACA). He was President of the AACA between 1989 and 1991. He is most known for his textbooks on the subjects of anatomy and human embryology.
He has co-written (with professor Arthur F. Dalley II) Clinically Oriented Anatomy, which is the most popular English-language anatomy textbook in the world, used by scientists, doctors, physiotherapists and students worldwide. The book is especially popular because of its 'blue boxes' - passages of text on blue background that relate the classical anatomy to real-world concepts in the diagnosis and treatment of human patients. The book has been translated into multiple languages. He also co-wrote (with professor Anne M. R. Agur) Essential Clinical Anatomy.
Awards
The American Association of Clinical Anatomists awarded Dr. Moore with their Honored Member Award (in 1994). In 2007, the American Association of Anatomists awarded him with the first Henry Gray/Elsevier Distinguished Educator Award.
Embryology and the Qur'an
Moore has written on "references to embryology in the Qur'an", for instance, in an article for The Journal of the Islamic Medical Association, Vol. 18, Jan-June 1986, pp. 15-16.
After reviewing Dr Moore C.V We shall read his article
"Ascientist's interpretation of references to embryology in the Qur'an"
Statements referring to human reproduction and development are scattered throughout the Qur'an. It is only recently that the scientific meaning of some of these verses has been appreciated fully. The long delay in interpreting these verses correctly resulted mainly from inaccurate translations and commentaries and from a lack of awareness of scientific knowledge.
Interest in explanations of the verses of the Qur'an is not new. People used to ask the prophet Muhammad all sorts of questions about the meaning of verses referring to human reproduction. The Apostle's answers form the basis of the Hadith literature.
The translations of the verses from the Qur'an which are interpreted in this paper were provided by Sheik Abdul Majid Zendani, a Professor of Islamic Studies in King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
1)"He makes you in the wombs of your mothers in stages, one after another, in three veils of darkness." (Quran 36:6)
This statement is from Sura 39:6. We do not know when it was realized that human beings underwent development in the uterus (womb), but the first known illustration of a fetus in the uterus was drawn by Leonardo da Vinci in the 15th century. In the 2nd century A.D., Galen described the placenta and fetal membranes in his book "On The Formation of the Foetus." Consequently, doctors in the 7th century A.D. likely knew that the human embryo developed in the uterus. It is unlikely that they knew that it developed in stages, even though Aristotle had described the stages of development of the chick embryo in the 4th century B.C. The realization that the human embryo develops in stages was not discussed and illustrated until the 15th century.
After the microscope was discovered in the 17th century by Leeuwenhoek descriptions were made of the early stages of the chick embryo. The staging of human embryos was not described until the 20th century. Streeter (1941) developed the first system of staging which has now been replaced by a more accurate system proposed by O'Rahilly (1972).
"The three veils of darkness" may refer to: (1) the anterior abdominal wall; (2) the uterine wall; and (3) the amniochorionic membrane (Fig. 1). Although there are other interpretations of this statement, the one presented here seems the most logical from an embryological point of view.
Figure 1. Drawing of a sagittal section of a female's abdomen and pelvis showing a fetus in utero. The "veils of darkness" are: (1) the anterior abdominal wall; (2) the uterine wall, and (3) the amniochorionic membrane.
2)"Then We placed him as a drop in a place of rest." (Quran 23:13)
This statement is from Sura 23:13. The drop or nutfah has been interpreted as the sperm or spermatozoon, but a more meaningful interpretation would be the zygote which divides to form a blastocyst which is implanted in the uterus ("a place of rest"). This interpretation is supported by another verse in the Qur'an which states that "a human being is created from a mixed drop." The zygote forms by the union of a mixture of the sperm and the ovum ("The mixed drop").
3)"Then We made the drop into a leech-like structure." (Quran 23:14)
This statement is from Sura 23:14. The word "alaqah" refers to a leech or bloodsucker. This is an appropriate description of the human embryo from days 7-24 when it clings to the endometrium of the uterus, in the same way that a leech clings to the skin. Just as the leech derives blood from the host, the human embryo derives blood from the decidua or pregnant endometrium. It is remarkable how much the embryo of 23-24 days resembles a leech (Fig. 2). As there were no microscopes or lenses available in the 7th century, doctors would not have known that the human embryo had this leech-like appearance. In the early part of the fourth week, the embryo is just visible to the unaided eye because it is smaller than a kernel of wheat.
Figure 2. Top, a drawing of a 24 day-old human embryo. Note the leech-like appearance of the human embryo at this stage. Below, a drawing of a leech or bloodsucker.
4)"Then of that leech-like structure, We made a chewed lump." (Quran 23:14)
This statement is also from Sura 23:14. The Arabic word "mudghah" means "chewed substance or chewed lump." Toward the end of the fourth week, the human embryo looks somewhat like a chewed lump of flesh (Fig. 3). The chewed appearance results from the somites which resemble teeth marks. The somites represent the beginnings or primordia of the vertebrae.
Figure 3. Top, a drawing of a 28 day-old human embryo showing several bead-like somites which resemble the teeth marks in the model shown to the left.
5)"Then We made out of the chewed lump, bones, and clothed the bones in flesh." (Quran 23:14)
This continuation of Sura 23:14 indicates that out of the chewed lump stage, bones and muscles form. This is in accordance with embryological development. First the bones form as cartilage models and then the muscles (flesh) develop around them from the somatic mesoderm.
6)"Then We developed out of it another creature." (Quran 23:14)
This next part of Sura 23:14 implies that the bones and muscles result in the formation of another creature. This may refer to the human-like embryo that forms by the end of the eighth week. At this stage it has distinctive human characteristics and possesses the primordia of all the internal and external organs and parts. After the eighth week, the human embryo is called a fetus. This may be the new creature to which the verse refers.
7)"And He gave you hearing and sight and feeling and understanding." (Quran 32:9)
This part of Sura 32:9 indicates that the special senses of hearing, seeing, and feeling develop in this order, which is true. The primordia of the internal ears appear before the beginning of the eyes, and the brain (the site of understanding) differentiates last.
8)"Then out of a piece of chewed flesh, partly formed and partly unformed." (Quran 22:5)
This part of Sura 22:5 seems to indicate that the embryo is composed of both differentiated and undifferentiated tissues. For example, when the cartilage bones are differentiated, the embryonic connective tissue or mesenchyme around them is undifferentiated. It later differentiates into the muscles and ligaments attached to the bones.
9)"And We cause whom We will to rest in the wombs for an appointed term." (Quran 22:5)
This next part of Sura 22:5 seems to imply that God determines which embryos will remain in the uterus until full term. It is well known that many embryos abort during the first month of development, and that only about 30% of zygotes that form, develop into fetuses that survive until birth. This verse has also been interpreted to mean that God determines whether the embryo will develop into a boy or girl.
The interpretation of the verses in the Qur'an referring to human development would not have been possible in the 7th century A.D., or even a hundred years ago. We can interpret them now because the science of modern Embryology affords us new understanding. Undoubtedly there are other verses in the Qur'an related to human development that will be understood in the future as our knowledge increases.
http://www.quranandscience.com/human/135-dr-keith-moore-confirms-embryology-in-quran.html?showall=1
Related Posts:
A collection of posts about life: tiniest matter, supernovae, living cells, water, proteins, blood, photosynthesis, etc;Quotes of Aga Khans+others
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/01/435a-collection-of-posts-about-life.html
How Cells Work: The Miniscule, Ordered, Dynamic And Thriving Universe Inside A Cell; Quotes of Aga Khan IV and Others.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/07/498how-cells-work-miniscule-ordered.html
Ayats(Signs) In The Universe Series:A Collection of Seven+ Posts;Quotes of Noble Quran, Prophet Muhammad, Aga Khans, Nasir Khusraw + Al Sijistani
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/460ayatssigns-in-universe-seriesa.html
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
"He makes you in the wombs of your mothers in stages, one after another, in three veils of darkness." (Quran 36:6)
"Then We placed him as a drop in a place of rest." (Quran 23:13)
"Then We made the drop into a leech-like structure." (Quran 23:14)
"Then of that leech-like structure, We made a chewed lump." (Quran 23:14)
"Then We made out of the chewed lump, bones, and clothed the bones in flesh." (Quran 23:14)
"Then We developed out of it another creature." (Quran 23:14)
"And He gave you hearing and sight and feeling and understanding." (Quran 32:9)
"Then out of a piece of chewed flesh, partly formed and partly unformed." (Quran 22:5)
"And We cause whom We will to rest in the wombs for an appointed term." (Quran 22:5)
"Here is a relevant verse from the Noble Qur'an, cited by Nasir-i Khusraw, hujjat-i Khurasan in his Khawaan al-Ikhwaan : "It is He who created you from dust, then from a sperm drop, then from a blood clot, then He brings you forth as a child, then lets you reach your age of full strength, then lets you become old - though some of you die before - and then lets you reach the appointed term; and that haply you may find the intellect (la'allakum ta'qilun)."(Nasir Khusraw, 11th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist-philosopher-poet)
"Tarkib' is composition as in the compounding of elements in the process of making more complex things, that is, of adding together two things to form a synthesis, a compound. Soul composes in the sense of 'tarkib'; it is the animating force that combines the physical elements of the natural universe into beings that move and act. Incorporating is an especially apt word in this instance. It means to turn something into a body, as in 'composing'. But it is actually the conversion of an intellectual object, a thought, into a physical thing. Soul acts by incorporating reason into physical objects, the natural matter of the universe and all the things composed of it"(Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani,10th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist, d971CE, from the book, 'Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani: Intellectual Missionary', by Paul Walker)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
Dr Keith Moore confirms embryology in Quran
Video of Dr Keith Moore on this fact
All Pages
Dr Keith Moore C.V from Wikipedia:
Keith L. Moore is a professor emeritus in the division of anatomy (department of surgery), former Chair of anatomy from 1974 to 1984 and associate dean for Basic Medical Sciences (Faculty of Medicine) at the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Dr Keith Moore He has also worked at the King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Moreover, he is a founding member of the American Association of Clinical Anatomists (AACA). He was President of the AACA between 1989 and 1991. He is most known for his textbooks on the subjects of anatomy and human embryology.
He has co-written (with professor Arthur F. Dalley II) Clinically Oriented Anatomy, which is the most popular English-language anatomy textbook in the world, used by scientists, doctors, physiotherapists and students worldwide. The book is especially popular because of its 'blue boxes' - passages of text on blue background that relate the classical anatomy to real-world concepts in the diagnosis and treatment of human patients. The book has been translated into multiple languages. He also co-wrote (with professor Anne M. R. Agur) Essential Clinical Anatomy.
Awards
The American Association of Clinical Anatomists awarded Dr. Moore with their Honored Member Award (in 1994). In 2007, the American Association of Anatomists awarded him with the first Henry Gray/Elsevier Distinguished Educator Award.
Embryology and the Qur'an
Moore has written on "references to embryology in the Qur'an", for instance, in an article for The Journal of the Islamic Medical Association, Vol. 18, Jan-June 1986, pp. 15-16.
After reviewing Dr Moore C.V We shall read his article
"Ascientist's interpretation of references to embryology in the Qur'an"
Statements referring to human reproduction and development are scattered throughout the Qur'an. It is only recently that the scientific meaning of some of these verses has been appreciated fully. The long delay in interpreting these verses correctly resulted mainly from inaccurate translations and commentaries and from a lack of awareness of scientific knowledge.
Interest in explanations of the verses of the Qur'an is not new. People used to ask the prophet Muhammad all sorts of questions about the meaning of verses referring to human reproduction. The Apostle's answers form the basis of the Hadith literature.
The translations of the verses from the Qur'an which are interpreted in this paper were provided by Sheik Abdul Majid Zendani, a Professor of Islamic Studies in King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
1)"He makes you in the wombs of your mothers in stages, one after another, in three veils of darkness." (Quran 36:6)
This statement is from Sura 39:6. We do not know when it was realized that human beings underwent development in the uterus (womb), but the first known illustration of a fetus in the uterus was drawn by Leonardo da Vinci in the 15th century. In the 2nd century A.D., Galen described the placenta and fetal membranes in his book "On The Formation of the Foetus." Consequently, doctors in the 7th century A.D. likely knew that the human embryo developed in the uterus. It is unlikely that they knew that it developed in stages, even though Aristotle had described the stages of development of the chick embryo in the 4th century B.C. The realization that the human embryo develops in stages was not discussed and illustrated until the 15th century.
After the microscope was discovered in the 17th century by Leeuwenhoek descriptions were made of the early stages of the chick embryo. The staging of human embryos was not described until the 20th century. Streeter (1941) developed the first system of staging which has now been replaced by a more accurate system proposed by O'Rahilly (1972).
"The three veils of darkness" may refer to: (1) the anterior abdominal wall; (2) the uterine wall; and (3) the amniochorionic membrane (Fig. 1). Although there are other interpretations of this statement, the one presented here seems the most logical from an embryological point of view.
Figure 1. Drawing of a sagittal section of a female's abdomen and pelvis showing a fetus in utero. The "veils of darkness" are: (1) the anterior abdominal wall; (2) the uterine wall, and (3) the amniochorionic membrane.
2)"Then We placed him as a drop in a place of rest." (Quran 23:13)
This statement is from Sura 23:13. The drop or nutfah has been interpreted as the sperm or spermatozoon, but a more meaningful interpretation would be the zygote which divides to form a blastocyst which is implanted in the uterus ("a place of rest"). This interpretation is supported by another verse in the Qur'an which states that "a human being is created from a mixed drop." The zygote forms by the union of a mixture of the sperm and the ovum ("The mixed drop").
3)"Then We made the drop into a leech-like structure." (Quran 23:14)
This statement is from Sura 23:14. The word "alaqah" refers to a leech or bloodsucker. This is an appropriate description of the human embryo from days 7-24 when it clings to the endometrium of the uterus, in the same way that a leech clings to the skin. Just as the leech derives blood from the host, the human embryo derives blood from the decidua or pregnant endometrium. It is remarkable how much the embryo of 23-24 days resembles a leech (Fig. 2). As there were no microscopes or lenses available in the 7th century, doctors would not have known that the human embryo had this leech-like appearance. In the early part of the fourth week, the embryo is just visible to the unaided eye because it is smaller than a kernel of wheat.
Figure 2. Top, a drawing of a 24 day-old human embryo. Note the leech-like appearance of the human embryo at this stage. Below, a drawing of a leech or bloodsucker.
4)"Then of that leech-like structure, We made a chewed lump." (Quran 23:14)
This statement is also from Sura 23:14. The Arabic word "mudghah" means "chewed substance or chewed lump." Toward the end of the fourth week, the human embryo looks somewhat like a chewed lump of flesh (Fig. 3). The chewed appearance results from the somites which resemble teeth marks. The somites represent the beginnings or primordia of the vertebrae.
Figure 3. Top, a drawing of a 28 day-old human embryo showing several bead-like somites which resemble the teeth marks in the model shown to the left.
5)"Then We made out of the chewed lump, bones, and clothed the bones in flesh." (Quran 23:14)
This continuation of Sura 23:14 indicates that out of the chewed lump stage, bones and muscles form. This is in accordance with embryological development. First the bones form as cartilage models and then the muscles (flesh) develop around them from the somatic mesoderm.
6)"Then We developed out of it another creature." (Quran 23:14)
This next part of Sura 23:14 implies that the bones and muscles result in the formation of another creature. This may refer to the human-like embryo that forms by the end of the eighth week. At this stage it has distinctive human characteristics and possesses the primordia of all the internal and external organs and parts. After the eighth week, the human embryo is called a fetus. This may be the new creature to which the verse refers.
7)"And He gave you hearing and sight and feeling and understanding." (Quran 32:9)
This part of Sura 32:9 indicates that the special senses of hearing, seeing, and feeling develop in this order, which is true. The primordia of the internal ears appear before the beginning of the eyes, and the brain (the site of understanding) differentiates last.
8)"Then out of a piece of chewed flesh, partly formed and partly unformed." (Quran 22:5)
This part of Sura 22:5 seems to indicate that the embryo is composed of both differentiated and undifferentiated tissues. For example, when the cartilage bones are differentiated, the embryonic connective tissue or mesenchyme around them is undifferentiated. It later differentiates into the muscles and ligaments attached to the bones.
9)"And We cause whom We will to rest in the wombs for an appointed term." (Quran 22:5)
This next part of Sura 22:5 seems to imply that God determines which embryos will remain in the uterus until full term. It is well known that many embryos abort during the first month of development, and that only about 30% of zygotes that form, develop into fetuses that survive until birth. This verse has also been interpreted to mean that God determines whether the embryo will develop into a boy or girl.
The interpretation of the verses in the Qur'an referring to human development would not have been possible in the 7th century A.D., or even a hundred years ago. We can interpret them now because the science of modern Embryology affords us new understanding. Undoubtedly there are other verses in the Qur'an related to human development that will be understood in the future as our knowledge increases.
http://www.quranandscience.com/human/135-dr-keith-moore-confirms-embryology-in-quran.html?showall=1
Related Posts:
A collection of posts about life: tiniest matter, supernovae, living cells, water, proteins, blood, photosynthesis, etc;Quotes of Aga Khans+others
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/01/435a-collection-of-posts-about-life.html
How Cells Work: The Miniscule, Ordered, Dynamic And Thriving Universe Inside A Cell; Quotes of Aga Khan IV and Others.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/07/498how-cells-work-miniscule-ordered.html
Ayats(Signs) In The Universe Series:A Collection of Seven+ Posts;Quotes of Noble Quran, Prophet Muhammad, Aga Khans, Nasir Khusraw + Al Sijistani
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/460ayatssigns-in-universe-seriesa.html
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
595)Professor Salim Mansur, Provocative, Fearless, Definitely No Shrinking Violet And Not A Pinko Either; A Collection Of Posts.
Orestes Brownson's noble hope: "that we have reached the term of our downward tendency; that radicalism has had its day; that a reaction has commenced, and that the mass of our people will recover from their folly, and henceforth not fear to be conservative."
"Islamism is the Bolshevism of the 21st century"(Professor Salim Mansur, Montreal, Canada, 2010)
Salim Mansur: Iraq Election Could Change History; George Bush's Regime Change Broke The Sunni Imperium In The Middle East.............
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/589salim-mansur-iraq-election-could.html
Salim Mansur Gives Us The Straight Goods On Eyeraq; Hint Hint: It's Not Good News For Pinko Lefty Commie Islamist Apologists
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/580salim-mansur-gives-us-straight-goods.html
Political Science Professor Salim Mansur Reminds Muslims They Face Future Of Nightmarish Totalitarianism Unless They Wake Up And Smell The Coffee
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/02/571political-science-professor-salim.html
Political Science Professor Salim Mansur,Coreligionist,Fellow Rightwinger;Not All University Professors Are Pinko Lefty Commie Islamist Apologists
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/02/570political-science-professor-salim.html
Recipe For Armageddon: Arab Muslims And Not So Arab Muslims, Snakes Slithering In The Sewers Of Antisemitism; Salim Mansur Soliloquizes
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/02/564recipe-for-armageddon-arab-muslims.html
Salim Mansur on free speech as being a crux of western secular democracies; Cannot stand the free speech heat?: Best return to totalitarian bliss.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/02/557salim-mansur-on-free-speech-as-being.html
Salim Mansur Speaks My Mind With A Clarity That Is Astonishing: "Target The Terrorists, Not The Public"; Quote Of Easy Nash
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/01/541salim-mansur-speaks-my-mind-with.html
Addendum and Related Posts:
Welcoming Tariq Ramadan, the Islamist
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xczapz_ywelcomingy-tariq-ramadan-the-islam_news
Warm U.S.-Israel relations cool
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/salim_mansur/2010/04/01/13440991.html
Ann Coulter Is Right About These Muslims At Least: They Should Be Allowed To Use Flying Carpets And Camels Only, Definitely Not Airplanes.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/585ann-coulter-is-right-about-these.html
David Frum: England made Abdulmutallab
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/01/09/david-frum-england-made-abdulmutallab.aspx
Easy Nash
If there are 23,000 jihadist websites and blogsites out there in cyberspace, there is no reason why we should not create 100,000 non-jihadist websites and blogsites: Easy Nash(2007).
If my Blog was a four year undergraduate degree I guess my major would be Science and Religion and my minor would be Politics: Easy Nash(2010).
The mother of all insecurities: 1.6 billion Muslims on the planet and they lather themselves into a dingbatty islamofascist rage if one or two Muslims happen to be pro-zionist: Easy Nash(2010).
Self-righteous politically-correct jamal public pinkos will end up destroying the world not saving it: Easy Nash(2010)
"Islamism is the Bolshevism of the 21st century"(Professor Salim Mansur, Montreal, Canada, 2010)
Salim Mansur: Iraq Election Could Change History; George Bush's Regime Change Broke The Sunni Imperium In The Middle East.............
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/589salim-mansur-iraq-election-could.html
Salim Mansur Gives Us The Straight Goods On Eyeraq; Hint Hint: It's Not Good News For Pinko Lefty Commie Islamist Apologists
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/580salim-mansur-gives-us-straight-goods.html
Political Science Professor Salim Mansur Reminds Muslims They Face Future Of Nightmarish Totalitarianism Unless They Wake Up And Smell The Coffee
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/02/571political-science-professor-salim.html
Political Science Professor Salim Mansur,Coreligionist,Fellow Rightwinger;Not All University Professors Are Pinko Lefty Commie Islamist Apologists
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/02/570political-science-professor-salim.html
Recipe For Armageddon: Arab Muslims And Not So Arab Muslims, Snakes Slithering In The Sewers Of Antisemitism; Salim Mansur Soliloquizes
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/02/564recipe-for-armageddon-arab-muslims.html
Salim Mansur on free speech as being a crux of western secular democracies; Cannot stand the free speech heat?: Best return to totalitarian bliss.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/02/557salim-mansur-on-free-speech-as-being.html
Salim Mansur Speaks My Mind With A Clarity That Is Astonishing: "Target The Terrorists, Not The Public"; Quote Of Easy Nash
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/01/541salim-mansur-speaks-my-mind-with.html
Addendum and Related Posts:
Welcoming Tariq Ramadan, the Islamist
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xczapz_ywelcomingy-tariq-ramadan-the-islam_news
Warm U.S.-Israel relations cool
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/salim_mansur/2010/04/01/13440991.html
Ann Coulter Is Right About These Muslims At Least: They Should Be Allowed To Use Flying Carpets And Camels Only, Definitely Not Airplanes.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/585ann-coulter-is-right-about-these.html
David Frum: England made Abdulmutallab
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/01/09/david-frum-england-made-abdulmutallab.aspx
Easy Nash
If there are 23,000 jihadist websites and blogsites out there in cyberspace, there is no reason why we should not create 100,000 non-jihadist websites and blogsites: Easy Nash(2007).
If my Blog was a four year undergraduate degree I guess my major would be Science and Religion and my minor would be Politics: Easy Nash(2010).
The mother of all insecurities: 1.6 billion Muslims on the planet and they lather themselves into a dingbatty islamofascist rage if one or two Muslims happen to be pro-zionist: Easy Nash(2010).
Self-righteous politically-correct jamal public pinkos will end up destroying the world not saving it: Easy Nash(2010)
594)Large Hadron Collider(LHC) Revs Up: Atom Smasher Achieves Most Energetic Collisions Yet; Quotes from Blogpost Four Hundred.
"Islamic doctrine goes further than the other great religions, for it proclaims the presence of the soul, perhaps minute but nevertheless existing in an embryonic state, in all existence in matter, in animals, trees, and space itself. Every individual, every molecule, every atom has its own spiritual relationship with the All-Powerful Soul of God"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
"Every particle of the Creation has a share of the Command of God, because every creature shares a part of the Command of God through which it has come to be there and by virtue of which it remains in being and the light of the Command ofGod shines in it. Understand this!"(Abu Yakub Al Sijistani, 10th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist, d971, Kashf al-Mahjub("Unveiling of the Hidden"))
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
LHC revs up
Atom smasher achieves most energetic collisions yet
By Laura Sanders
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
By all accounts, the Large Hadron Collider’s first day of bashing protons was a smashing success. The powerful machine at CERN, Europe’s high-energy physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, got off to a rocky start on March 30. But by early afternoon (Geneva time), two 3.5 trillion electron volt beams were colliding head-on.
The collisions in the 27-kilometer-long accelerator set a new record for the highest energy crash of subatomic particles. “Today, we opened the door and put our nose through it,” says physicist Jurgen Schukraft, spokesperson for CERN’s ALICE experiment, which is tasked with exploring new types of matter produced in the high-energy collisions.
Researchers have routinely circulated beams at 3.5 TeV since March 19, but had not yet collided them. Around 1 pm local time, CERN tweeted “Experiments have seen collisions!!!!!!!!!!!” followed quickly by “First time in the history!!!!!!!!!!!! World record!!!!!!!!”
In the first hour of collisions, scientists had already collected more data than they did in weeks before that. Experiments recorded data for more than three hours before ramping down for the day.
“Already it looks like we are entering new territory,” Schukraft says. But it will take “years, not days or weeks,” he adds, to answer physicists’ questions about theoretical predictions like the elusive Higgs particle, dark matter and supersymmetry.
A morning collision attempt was aborted when a piece of overly sensitive equipment detected errant electromagnetic radiation. Scientists resolved the issue, and by the early afternoon, “it was all ok,” Schukraft says. “It works perfectly.”
CERN plans to run the accelerator at 3.5 TeV per beam for the next 18 months to two years, with a brief maintenance break at the end of 2010. After experiments at this energy level are complete, the LHC will be shut down and prepared to run at its maximum energy of 7 TeV per beam. If all goes according to plan, the collider will begin operating at full power in 2013.
Schukraft dismisses fears that these kinds of high-energy collisions could produce a voracious black hole and swallow the world by pointing out that he is “standing rather close to the experiment” and still able to carry on a conversation.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/57786/title/LHC_revs_up
Related Posts:
http://www.lhc.ac.uk/
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/
http://www.thestar.com/topic/largehadroncollider
http://www.thestar.com/news/sciencetech/science/largehadroncollider/article/787852--scientists-move-closer-to-finding-the-god-particle
http://www.thestar.com/news/sciencetech/science/largehadroncollider/article/787445--large-hadron-collider-sets-atom-smashing-record
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/science/the-large-hadron-collider-a-step-closer-to-the-beginning-of-time/article1518098/
Large Hadron Collider Back Online To Incrementally Achieve Highest Energy Yet:Half Of The Maximum Possible;Goal To Find Most Fundamental Particles
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/584large-hadron-collider-back-online.html
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
"Every particle of the Creation has a share of the Command of God, because every creature shares a part of the Command of God through which it has come to be there and by virtue of which it remains in being and the light of the Command ofGod shines in it. Understand this!"(Abu Yakub Al Sijistani, 10th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist, d971, Kashf al-Mahjub("Unveiling of the Hidden"))
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
LHC revs up
Atom smasher achieves most energetic collisions yet
By Laura Sanders
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
By all accounts, the Large Hadron Collider’s first day of bashing protons was a smashing success. The powerful machine at CERN, Europe’s high-energy physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, got off to a rocky start on March 30. But by early afternoon (Geneva time), two 3.5 trillion electron volt beams were colliding head-on.
The collisions in the 27-kilometer-long accelerator set a new record for the highest energy crash of subatomic particles. “Today, we opened the door and put our nose through it,” says physicist Jurgen Schukraft, spokesperson for CERN’s ALICE experiment, which is tasked with exploring new types of matter produced in the high-energy collisions.
Researchers have routinely circulated beams at 3.5 TeV since March 19, but had not yet collided them. Around 1 pm local time, CERN tweeted “Experiments have seen collisions!!!!!!!!!!!” followed quickly by “First time in the history!!!!!!!!!!!! World record!!!!!!!!”
In the first hour of collisions, scientists had already collected more data than they did in weeks before that. Experiments recorded data for more than three hours before ramping down for the day.
“Already it looks like we are entering new territory,” Schukraft says. But it will take “years, not days or weeks,” he adds, to answer physicists’ questions about theoretical predictions like the elusive Higgs particle, dark matter and supersymmetry.
A morning collision attempt was aborted when a piece of overly sensitive equipment detected errant electromagnetic radiation. Scientists resolved the issue, and by the early afternoon, “it was all ok,” Schukraft says. “It works perfectly.”
CERN plans to run the accelerator at 3.5 TeV per beam for the next 18 months to two years, with a brief maintenance break at the end of 2010. After experiments at this energy level are complete, the LHC will be shut down and prepared to run at its maximum energy of 7 TeV per beam. If all goes according to plan, the collider will begin operating at full power in 2013.
Schukraft dismisses fears that these kinds of high-energy collisions could produce a voracious black hole and swallow the world by pointing out that he is “standing rather close to the experiment” and still able to carry on a conversation.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/57786/title/LHC_revs_up
Related Posts:
http://www.lhc.ac.uk/
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/
http://www.thestar.com/topic/largehadroncollider
http://www.thestar.com/news/sciencetech/science/largehadroncollider/article/787852--scientists-move-closer-to-finding-the-god-particle
http://www.thestar.com/news/sciencetech/science/largehadroncollider/article/787445--large-hadron-collider-sets-atom-smashing-record
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/science/the-large-hadron-collider-a-step-closer-to-the-beginning-of-time/article1518098/
Large Hadron Collider Back Online To Incrementally Achieve Highest Energy Yet:Half Of The Maximum Possible;Goal To Find Most Fundamental Particles
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/584large-hadron-collider-back-online.html
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
593)Currently 14 Billion Years Old,The Universe At 4 Billion Years Old, Containing Much Hydrogen+Dust, Shows Intense Dynamism And Early Star Formation
"In Islamic belief, knowledge is two-fold. There is that revealed through the Holy Prophet (s.a.s.) and that which man discovers by virtue of his own intellect. Nor do these two involve any contradiction, provided man remembers that his own mind is itself the creation of God. Without this humility, no balance is possible. With it, there are no barriers. Indeed, one strength of Islam has always lain in its belief that creation is not static but continuous, that through scientific and other endeavours, God has opened and continues to open new windows for us to see the marvels of His creation"(Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan University, 16 March 1983, Karachi, Pakistan)
"The creation according to Islam is not a unique act in a given time but a perpetual and constant event; and God supports and sustains all existence at every moment by His will and His thought. Outside His will, outside His thought, all is nothing, even the things which seem to us absolutely self-evident such as space and time. Allah alone wishes: the Universe exists; and all manifestations are as a witness of the Divine Will"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
"Behold! in the creation of the heavens and the earth; in the alternation of the night and the day; in the sailing of the ships through the ocean for the profit of mankind; in the rain which Allah sends down from the skies, and the life which He gives therewith to an earth that is dead; in the beasts of all kinds that He scatters through the earth; in the change of the winds, and the clouds which they Trail like their slaves between the sky and the earth; (Here) indeed are Signs for the people of intellect"(Noble Quran)
Chapter 30, Verse 27: He originates creation; then refashions it - for Him an easy task. His is the most Sublime Symbol in the heavens and the earth(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter 21, Verse 30: Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together before We clove them asunder, and of water fashioned every thing? Will they not then believe?(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter 51, verse 47: We built the heavens with might, and We expand it wide(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter79, verse 30: And then he gave the earth an oval form(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter 86, verse 11: I swear by the reciprocating heaven.....(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
"And the more we discover, the more we know, the more we penetrate just below the surface of our normal lives – the more our imagination staggers. Just think for example what might lie below the surfaces of celestial bodies all across the far flung reaches of our universe. What we feel, even as we learn, is an ever-renewed sense of wonder, indeed, a powerful sense of awe – and of Divine inspiration"(Aga Khan IV, Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat, Ottawa, Canada, December 6th 2008)
"The second great historical lesson to be learnt is that the Muslim world has always been wide open to every aspect of human existence. The sciences, society, art, the oceans, the environment and the cosmos have all contributed to the great moments in the history of Muslim civilisations. The Qur’an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God’s creation"(Closing Address by His Highness Aga Khan IV at the "Musée-Musées" Round Table Louvre Museum, Paris, France, October 17th 2007)
"......The Quran tells us that signs of Allah’s Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation - in the heavens and the earth, the night and the day, the clouds and the seas, the winds and the waters...."(Aga Khan IV, Kampala, Uganda, August 22 2007)
"God has given us the miracle of life with all its attributes: the extraordinary manifestations of sunrise and sunset, of sickness and recovery, of birth and death, but surely if He has given us the means with which to remove ourselves from this world so as to go to other parts of the Universe, we can but accept as further manifestations the creation and destructions of stars, the birth and death of atomic particles, the flighting new sound and light waves. I am afraid that the torch of intellectual discovery, the attraction of the unknown, the desire for intellectual self-perfection have left us"(Aga Khan IV,Speech, 1963, Mindanao, Phillipines)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
Cosmic telephoto lens shows intense, early star formation
Recently discovered galaxy gives detailed view of stellar birth in the young universe
By Ron Cowen
Sunday, March 21st, 2010
Enlarge
STARS BIRTH: A fortuitous alignment of celestial objects allowed astronomers to snap their sharpest image to date of star-making regions in a galaxy about 10 billion light-years from Earth. Large bright clouds in this artist’s rendering of the distant galaxy SMM J2135-0102 are sites of vigorous star formation.
Thanks to some gravitational sleight of hand, astronomers have obtained their sharpest view yet of individual star-making factories in a distant galaxy, 10 billion light-years from Earth. The study reveals that the concentration of new stars in these giant clouds of gas and dust is 100 times higher than that of similar regions in the Milky Way today.
Mark Swinbank of the Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University in England and his colleagues were able to home in on star birth regions only 300 light-years across because of a chance alignment with a massive cluster of nearer galaxies that lies along the same line of sight but much closer to Earth. Because heavy objects bend light, the massive foreground cluster acts like a telephoto lens, enlarging the more distant galaxy 16-fold. Swinbank and his collaborators report their findings in a Nature article posted online March 21.
EnlargeIntergalactic blowupThis false-color composite image shows the foreground galaxy cluster (center of left image) that acts as a gravitational lens, the magnified view of the remote galaxy SMM J2135-0102 (top right image, in red) and individual star-forming clouds in the galaxy (bottom right). The magnification of the distant galaxy by the foreground cluster creates a mirage, doubling the actual number of star-forming clouds.
The astronomers discovered the galaxy, SMMJ2135-0102, using the submillimeter-wavelength Atacama Pathfinder Experiment Telescope in northern Chile. Follow-up observations with the Submillimeter Array on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea produced the sharp images that revealed four star-forming blobs in the galaxy. The smallest blob is about 300 light-years across, and most of the patches are about three times bigger than those in the galaxy Arp 220, a rare example of intense star formation in the universe today.
Observing at submillimeter wavelengths — which lie between infrared and radio waves on the electromagnetic spectrum — was critical for assessing the true star formation rate, because the radiation easily penetrates dusty, star-forming regions, notes Swinbank. Visible light emitted by stars is absorbed by surrounding dust and re-emitted at submillimeter and infrared wavelengths. That’s why “it is virtually impossible to derive accurate star-formation rates from optical imaging alone,” comments Fabian Walter of the Max Planck Institute of Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany.
Previous lower-resolution studies, both in visible light and at submillimeter wavelengths, have found vigorous star formation in galaxies even more distant from Earth, which hail from even further back in time. “All of these results are pointing at the same picture: much more intense star formation in the distant universe than we expected, given how stars form locally,” says Swinbank.
The galaxy SMMJ2135-0102, observed as it appeared when the universe was about 3 billion years old, comes from the era when cosmic star formation was at its peak. James Dunlop of the University of Edinburgh suggests that such galaxies formed stars so abundantly because the galaxies still had plenty of gas — the raw material for making stars — and the gravity of the galaxies had had enough time to pull the gas together into cold, compact regions. Before about 10 billion years ago, gravity hadn’t yet drawn enough clumps of gas together, while at later times most galaxies had already run out of gas, he suggests.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/57447/title/Cosmic_telephoto_lens_shows_intense,_early_star_formation
Related Posts:
A Collection of Posts on Astronomy; Quotes of Noble Quran, Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan III, Nasir Khusraw, Abu Yakub Al Sijistani and Aristotle
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/456a-collection-of-posts-on-astronomy.html
Basics on the vast distances and sizes in Astronomy.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/273basics-on-vast-distances-and-sizes.html
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
"The creation according to Islam is not a unique act in a given time but a perpetual and constant event; and God supports and sustains all existence at every moment by His will and His thought. Outside His will, outside His thought, all is nothing, even the things which seem to us absolutely self-evident such as space and time. Allah alone wishes: the Universe exists; and all manifestations are as a witness of the Divine Will"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
"Behold! in the creation of the heavens and the earth; in the alternation of the night and the day; in the sailing of the ships through the ocean for the profit of mankind; in the rain which Allah sends down from the skies, and the life which He gives therewith to an earth that is dead; in the beasts of all kinds that He scatters through the earth; in the change of the winds, and the clouds which they Trail like their slaves between the sky and the earth; (Here) indeed are Signs for the people of intellect"(Noble Quran)
Chapter 30, Verse 27: He originates creation; then refashions it - for Him an easy task. His is the most Sublime Symbol in the heavens and the earth(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter 21, Verse 30: Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together before We clove them asunder, and of water fashioned every thing? Will they not then believe?(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter 51, verse 47: We built the heavens with might, and We expand it wide(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter79, verse 30: And then he gave the earth an oval form(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter 86, verse 11: I swear by the reciprocating heaven.....(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
"And the more we discover, the more we know, the more we penetrate just below the surface of our normal lives – the more our imagination staggers. Just think for example what might lie below the surfaces of celestial bodies all across the far flung reaches of our universe. What we feel, even as we learn, is an ever-renewed sense of wonder, indeed, a powerful sense of awe – and of Divine inspiration"(Aga Khan IV, Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat, Ottawa, Canada, December 6th 2008)
"The second great historical lesson to be learnt is that the Muslim world has always been wide open to every aspect of human existence. The sciences, society, art, the oceans, the environment and the cosmos have all contributed to the great moments in the history of Muslim civilisations. The Qur’an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God’s creation"(Closing Address by His Highness Aga Khan IV at the "Musée-Musées" Round Table Louvre Museum, Paris, France, October 17th 2007)
"......The Quran tells us that signs of Allah’s Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation - in the heavens and the earth, the night and the day, the clouds and the seas, the winds and the waters...."(Aga Khan IV, Kampala, Uganda, August 22 2007)
"God has given us the miracle of life with all its attributes: the extraordinary manifestations of sunrise and sunset, of sickness and recovery, of birth and death, but surely if He has given us the means with which to remove ourselves from this world so as to go to other parts of the Universe, we can but accept as further manifestations the creation and destructions of stars, the birth and death of atomic particles, the flighting new sound and light waves. I am afraid that the torch of intellectual discovery, the attraction of the unknown, the desire for intellectual self-perfection have left us"(Aga Khan IV,Speech, 1963, Mindanao, Phillipines)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
Cosmic telephoto lens shows intense, early star formation
Recently discovered galaxy gives detailed view of stellar birth in the young universe
By Ron Cowen
Sunday, March 21st, 2010
Enlarge
STARS BIRTH: A fortuitous alignment of celestial objects allowed astronomers to snap their sharpest image to date of star-making regions in a galaxy about 10 billion light-years from Earth. Large bright clouds in this artist’s rendering of the distant galaxy SMM J2135-0102 are sites of vigorous star formation.
Thanks to some gravitational sleight of hand, astronomers have obtained their sharpest view yet of individual star-making factories in a distant galaxy, 10 billion light-years from Earth. The study reveals that the concentration of new stars in these giant clouds of gas and dust is 100 times higher than that of similar regions in the Milky Way today.
Mark Swinbank of the Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University in England and his colleagues were able to home in on star birth regions only 300 light-years across because of a chance alignment with a massive cluster of nearer galaxies that lies along the same line of sight but much closer to Earth. Because heavy objects bend light, the massive foreground cluster acts like a telephoto lens, enlarging the more distant galaxy 16-fold. Swinbank and his collaborators report their findings in a Nature article posted online March 21.
EnlargeIntergalactic blowupThis false-color composite image shows the foreground galaxy cluster (center of left image) that acts as a gravitational lens, the magnified view of the remote galaxy SMM J2135-0102 (top right image, in red) and individual star-forming clouds in the galaxy (bottom right). The magnification of the distant galaxy by the foreground cluster creates a mirage, doubling the actual number of star-forming clouds.
The astronomers discovered the galaxy, SMMJ2135-0102, using the submillimeter-wavelength Atacama Pathfinder Experiment Telescope in northern Chile. Follow-up observations with the Submillimeter Array on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea produced the sharp images that revealed four star-forming blobs in the galaxy. The smallest blob is about 300 light-years across, and most of the patches are about three times bigger than those in the galaxy Arp 220, a rare example of intense star formation in the universe today.
Observing at submillimeter wavelengths — which lie between infrared and radio waves on the electromagnetic spectrum — was critical for assessing the true star formation rate, because the radiation easily penetrates dusty, star-forming regions, notes Swinbank. Visible light emitted by stars is absorbed by surrounding dust and re-emitted at submillimeter and infrared wavelengths. That’s why “it is virtually impossible to derive accurate star-formation rates from optical imaging alone,” comments Fabian Walter of the Max Planck Institute of Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany.
Previous lower-resolution studies, both in visible light and at submillimeter wavelengths, have found vigorous star formation in galaxies even more distant from Earth, which hail from even further back in time. “All of these results are pointing at the same picture: much more intense star formation in the distant universe than we expected, given how stars form locally,” says Swinbank.
The galaxy SMMJ2135-0102, observed as it appeared when the universe was about 3 billion years old, comes from the era when cosmic star formation was at its peak. James Dunlop of the University of Edinburgh suggests that such galaxies formed stars so abundantly because the galaxies still had plenty of gas — the raw material for making stars — and the gravity of the galaxies had had enough time to pull the gas together into cold, compact regions. Before about 10 billion years ago, gravity hadn’t yet drawn enough clumps of gas together, while at later times most galaxies had already run out of gas, he suggests.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/57447/title/Cosmic_telephoto_lens_shows_intense,_early_star_formation
Related Posts:
A Collection of Posts on Astronomy; Quotes of Noble Quran, Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan III, Nasir Khusraw, Abu Yakub Al Sijistani and Aristotle
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/456a-collection-of-posts-on-astronomy.html
Basics on the vast distances and sizes in Astronomy.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/273basics-on-vast-distances-and-sizes.html
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
592)The Canadian Conservative Government Featured On Easy Nash's Blog: Rt Hon Stephen Harper, Hon Jason Kenney Et Al; A Collection Of Posts
Orestes Brownson's noble hope: "that we have reached the term of our downward tendency; that radicalism has had its day; that a reaction has commenced, and that the mass of our people will recover from their folly, and henceforth not fear to be conservative."
Discover Canada: The Rights And Responsibilities Of Citizenship – Audio Guide; Quotes Of Minister Jason Kenney, Canadian Minister Of Citizenship..
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/08/638discover-canada-rights-and.html
How Canada's Conservatives Won The Immigrant Vote; Quotes of Hon Jason Kenney, Canadian Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/07/629how-canadas-conservatives-won.html
Do You Really Want An Inept Bunch Of Liberal Opposition Dingbats Running Canada Or The Steady Hand Of The Stephen Harper Conservative Government?
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/587do-you-really-want-inept-bunch-of.html
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper,22nd Prime Minster Of Canada,Takes Your Questions As A Guest Of Google's YouTube, Addressing Canadians Directly
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/582the-right-honourable-stephen.html
A Collection Of Posts On My Blog Relating To The Stephen Harper Government's Magnificent New Citizenship Guide; Quotes Of Minister Kenney Et Al
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/576a-collection-of-posts-on-my-blog.html
Nationalistic Fervour Generated By Canadian Olympic Medals Perfect Time For Canadians to Refresh Knowledge Of Country: Read New Citizenship Guide:)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/573nationalistic-fervour-generated-by.html
PM Harper Describes With Aplomb The Ethos That Last WW1 Veteran John Babcock Represented; Canada's New Citizenship Guide Embodies That Very Ethos.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/02/562pm-harper-describes-with-aplomb.html
Coalition Spectre Re-Emerging, The Real Pro Rogues, Pinko Lefty Commies: This Last Phrase Applies To Most Canadian Media And All The Opposition.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/01/550coalition-spectre-re-emergiing-real.html
Two Tragedies In Opposite Parts Of The World, The Landslide In Hunza,Pakistan And The Earthquake In Port-Au-Prince,Haiti, Galvanize All To Action.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/01/546two-tragedies-in-opposite-parts-of.html
A Collection Of Posts Describing The Stephen Harper Conservative Government's Magnificent New Citizenship Guide; Quotes Of Minister Jason Kenney.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/12/526a-collection-of-posts-describing.html
The Conservative Government Of Prime Minister Stephen Harper Has Consistently Shown The Utmost Deference And Respect To His Highness The Aga Khan.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/06/486the-conservative-government-of-prime.html
Canadian Conservative Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney makes Courageous and Necessary Immigration Reform
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/04/475canadian-conservative-minister-of.html
The Right Hon. Stephen Harper, 22nd Prime Minister Of Canada: Muslim Community Not To Blame For Bad Apples; Quote Of Prime Minister Stephen Harper
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/09/646the-right-hon-stephen-harper-22nd.html
Quotes Of Canadian Minister Of Citizenship, Immigration And Multiculturalism Hon. Jason Kenney(2009):
1)When you become a citizen, you're not just getting a travel document into Hotel Canada.
2)I think it's scandalous that someone could become a Canadian not knowing what the poppy represents, or never having heard of Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, Dieppe or Juno Beach.
3)We mention freedom of conscience and freedom of religion as important rights but we also make it very clear that our laws prohibit barbaric cultural practices, they will not be tolerated, whether or not someone claims that such practices are protected by reference to religion.
4)I think we need to reclaim a deeper sense of citizenship, a sense of shared obligations to one another, to our past, as well as to the future, a kind of civic nationalism where people understand the institutions, values and symbols that are rooted in our history.
Easy Nash
Discover Canada: The Rights And Responsibilities Of Citizenship – Audio Guide; Quotes Of Minister Jason Kenney, Canadian Minister Of Citizenship..
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/08/638discover-canada-rights-and.html
How Canada's Conservatives Won The Immigrant Vote; Quotes of Hon Jason Kenney, Canadian Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/07/629how-canadas-conservatives-won.html
Do You Really Want An Inept Bunch Of Liberal Opposition Dingbats Running Canada Or The Steady Hand Of The Stephen Harper Conservative Government?
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/587do-you-really-want-inept-bunch-of.html
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper,22nd Prime Minster Of Canada,Takes Your Questions As A Guest Of Google's YouTube, Addressing Canadians Directly
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/582the-right-honourable-stephen.html
A Collection Of Posts On My Blog Relating To The Stephen Harper Government's Magnificent New Citizenship Guide; Quotes Of Minister Kenney Et Al
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/576a-collection-of-posts-on-my-blog.html
Nationalistic Fervour Generated By Canadian Olympic Medals Perfect Time For Canadians to Refresh Knowledge Of Country: Read New Citizenship Guide:)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/573nationalistic-fervour-generated-by.html
PM Harper Describes With Aplomb The Ethos That Last WW1 Veteran John Babcock Represented; Canada's New Citizenship Guide Embodies That Very Ethos.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/02/562pm-harper-describes-with-aplomb.html
Coalition Spectre Re-Emerging, The Real Pro Rogues, Pinko Lefty Commies: This Last Phrase Applies To Most Canadian Media And All The Opposition.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/01/550coalition-spectre-re-emergiing-real.html
Two Tragedies In Opposite Parts Of The World, The Landslide In Hunza,Pakistan And The Earthquake In Port-Au-Prince,Haiti, Galvanize All To Action.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/01/546two-tragedies-in-opposite-parts-of.html
A Collection Of Posts Describing The Stephen Harper Conservative Government's Magnificent New Citizenship Guide; Quotes Of Minister Jason Kenney.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/12/526a-collection-of-posts-describing.html
The Conservative Government Of Prime Minister Stephen Harper Has Consistently Shown The Utmost Deference And Respect To His Highness The Aga Khan.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/06/486the-conservative-government-of-prime.html
Canadian Conservative Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney makes Courageous and Necessary Immigration Reform
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/04/475canadian-conservative-minister-of.html
The Right Hon. Stephen Harper, 22nd Prime Minister Of Canada: Muslim Community Not To Blame For Bad Apples; Quote Of Prime Minister Stephen Harper
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/09/646the-right-hon-stephen-harper-22nd.html
Quotes Of Canadian Minister Of Citizenship, Immigration And Multiculturalism Hon. Jason Kenney(2009):
1)When you become a citizen, you're not just getting a travel document into Hotel Canada.
2)I think it's scandalous that someone could become a Canadian not knowing what the poppy represents, or never having heard of Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, Dieppe or Juno Beach.
3)We mention freedom of conscience and freedom of religion as important rights but we also make it very clear that our laws prohibit barbaric cultural practices, they will not be tolerated, whether or not someone claims that such practices are protected by reference to religion.
4)I think we need to reclaim a deeper sense of citizenship, a sense of shared obligations to one another, to our past, as well as to the future, a kind of civic nationalism where people understand the institutions, values and symbols that are rooted in our history.
Easy Nash
591)A New Species Of Human: The Old Man Of The Mountain; The Fossil Record Reveals A Hitherto Unsuspected Mountain-Dwelling Hominid. The Boogeyman?
"...As we use our intellect to gain new knowledge about Creation, we come to see even more profoundly the depth and breadth of its mysteries. We explore unknown regions beneath the seas – and in outer space. We reach back over hundreds of millions of years in time. Extra-ordinary fossilised geological specimens seize our imagination – palm leaves, amethyst flowers, hedgehog quartz, sea lilies, chrysanthemum and a rich panoply of shells. Indeed, these wonders are found beneath the very soil on which we tread – in every corner of the world – and they connect us with far distant epochs and environments.
And the more we discover, the more we know, the more we penetrate just below the surface of our normal lives – the more our imagination staggers. Just think for example what might lie below the surfaces of celestial bodies all across the far flung reaches of our universe. What we feel, even as we learn, is an ever-renewed sense of wonder, indeed, a powerful sense of awe – and of Divine inspiration"(Aga Khan IV, Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat, Ottawa, Canada, December 6th 2008)For the full version of this quote see:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/12/21/easy-nashs-blogpost-four-hundred-updated-with-quotes-from-the-opening-of-the-delegation-of-the-ismaili-imamat/
"All human beings, by their nature, desire to know."(Aristotle, The Metaphysics, circa 322BC)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
A new species of human
The old man of the mountain
Mar 25th 2010
From The Economist print edition
The fossil record reveals a hitherto unsuspected mountain-dwelling hominid.
MYTH and fantasy populate the world with “othermen”—the elves, goblins, dwarfs and giants that live in the wild wood, in the cave or on the high mountain peak. Not animal, but not quite human either, they feed fear and imagination in equal quantity. Nor are such creatures merely the province of the past and the poetaster. The story of the yeti—the abominable snowman that haunts the Himalaya—has provoked serious investigation by explorers hoping to find not-quite-human humans. Sadly, there is nothing there. But not so long ago there might have been. For a bunch of explorers of a different sort, using DNA sequences instead of hiking boots, have discovered a real otherman from the mountains of Asia.
Svante Paabo, of the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, was the inspiration for Michael Crichton’s novel “Jurassic Park”. His group extracts and sequences genetic material from fossils, and has produced DNA analyses of both mammoths and Neanderthal man. Their latest object of study is a finger bone found in a cave in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia (pictured above). The team Dr Paabo assembled to look at this bone, led by Johannes Krause, assumed it was either from an early modern human or a Neanderthal, both of whom once lived in the area. What they found shocked them. It was neither.
The new, as yet unnamed species—the first to be defined solely by its DNA—is unveiled in this week’s Nature. Anatomically, it consists of the distal manual phalanx of the fifth digit or, in layman’s parlance, the tip of the little finger. Even by the standards of palaeontology, one of whose early practitioners, Georges Cuvier, claimed to be able to extrapolate an entire animal from a single bone, declaring a species from evidence this slight would be ambitious. It was not the bone itself, though, but what was in it, that allowed Dr Krause and Dr Paabo to be so confident.
Fingering the truth
From 30 precious milligrams drilled out of the sample they extracted mitochondrial DNA. The mitochondria, a cell’s power packs, are the much-modified descendants of bacteria that took up residence in the ancestors of modern animal and plant cells a billion years ago. As a relic of that ancestry they still have a few genes of their own and, because each cell has thousands of mitochondria, those genes are easier to find in old samples than are genes from the nucleus, of which there is only one per cell.
Using the latest DNA-sequencing technology, Dr Krause and his colleagues worked out the order of the genetic “letters” of over 1m fragments of DNA from their sample. By looking for overlaps between these fragments and fitting the resulting contiguous sequences to reference sequences from humans and Neanderthals the team were able to come up with a DNA sequence for most of the mitochondrion, and it was nothing like one that would have been expected from either a modern human or a Neanderthal.
The rate at which random changes over the generations occur in mitochondrial DNA is fairly well known and, using that knowledge, Dr Krause estimates that the newly discovered species last shared an ancestor with modern humans about 1m years ago. That is extraordinary. It means that its ancestors must have emerged from Africa (where that million-year-old common ancestor would have lived) independently of the migrations which gave rise to Neanderthals and humans.
The common ancestor is, however, too recent for the new species to be a remnant of the first human excursion from Africa, the one that led to Java man and Peking man, now known as Homo erectus. It is, in other words, a fourth example of anthropological tourism from Africa to the rest of the world, on what is now looking like a well-worn route. Yet it is the lone example. That shows how fragmentary and ill-understood human history is.
The finger bone was found in strata dated to between 48,000 and 30,000 years ago (the bone itself has not yet been dated). That means the creature was contemporary with both Neanderthals and modern humans in the area. There was, then, a real ecosystem of othermen in southern Siberia. In 2003 the scientific and popular press were both filled with the discovery of a similar arrangement on the Indonesian island of Flores. A hitherto unsuspected species of dwarf human turned up in caves there, contemporary with modern humans. It was quickly dubbed the “hobbit”. Do not be surprised if, whatever proper name it is eventually assigned, the new, mountain-dwelling, central-Asian species actually becomes known as the yeti.
http://www.economist.com/science-technology/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15767281
Related Posts:
Scientists Decode Genomes Of Five Africans, Including Archbishop Desmond Tutu; Quote From Blogpost Four Hundred.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/02/567scientists-decode-genomes-of-five.html
Weaving Together The KESHAVJEE Family Story From The Accounts of Mamdoo Keshavjee, Lella Umedaly, Muthal Naidoo and Easy Nash; Quote Of Aristotle.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/12/534weaving-together-keshavjee-family.html
The Genographic Project of the National Geographic Society: How I discovered my ancestry from 10-15 thousand years ago.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2007/11/249the-genographic-projectnational.html
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
And the more we discover, the more we know, the more we penetrate just below the surface of our normal lives – the more our imagination staggers. Just think for example what might lie below the surfaces of celestial bodies all across the far flung reaches of our universe. What we feel, even as we learn, is an ever-renewed sense of wonder, indeed, a powerful sense of awe – and of Divine inspiration"(Aga Khan IV, Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat, Ottawa, Canada, December 6th 2008)For the full version of this quote see:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/12/21/easy-nashs-blogpost-four-hundred-updated-with-quotes-from-the-opening-of-the-delegation-of-the-ismaili-imamat/
"All human beings, by their nature, desire to know."(Aristotle, The Metaphysics, circa 322BC)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
A new species of human
The old man of the mountain
Mar 25th 2010
From The Economist print edition
The fossil record reveals a hitherto unsuspected mountain-dwelling hominid.
MYTH and fantasy populate the world with “othermen”—the elves, goblins, dwarfs and giants that live in the wild wood, in the cave or on the high mountain peak. Not animal, but not quite human either, they feed fear and imagination in equal quantity. Nor are such creatures merely the province of the past and the poetaster. The story of the yeti—the abominable snowman that haunts the Himalaya—has provoked serious investigation by explorers hoping to find not-quite-human humans. Sadly, there is nothing there. But not so long ago there might have been. For a bunch of explorers of a different sort, using DNA sequences instead of hiking boots, have discovered a real otherman from the mountains of Asia.
Svante Paabo, of the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, was the inspiration for Michael Crichton’s novel “Jurassic Park”. His group extracts and sequences genetic material from fossils, and has produced DNA analyses of both mammoths and Neanderthal man. Their latest object of study is a finger bone found in a cave in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia (pictured above). The team Dr Paabo assembled to look at this bone, led by Johannes Krause, assumed it was either from an early modern human or a Neanderthal, both of whom once lived in the area. What they found shocked them. It was neither.
The new, as yet unnamed species—the first to be defined solely by its DNA—is unveiled in this week’s Nature. Anatomically, it consists of the distal manual phalanx of the fifth digit or, in layman’s parlance, the tip of the little finger. Even by the standards of palaeontology, one of whose early practitioners, Georges Cuvier, claimed to be able to extrapolate an entire animal from a single bone, declaring a species from evidence this slight would be ambitious. It was not the bone itself, though, but what was in it, that allowed Dr Krause and Dr Paabo to be so confident.
Fingering the truth
From 30 precious milligrams drilled out of the sample they extracted mitochondrial DNA. The mitochondria, a cell’s power packs, are the much-modified descendants of bacteria that took up residence in the ancestors of modern animal and plant cells a billion years ago. As a relic of that ancestry they still have a few genes of their own and, because each cell has thousands of mitochondria, those genes are easier to find in old samples than are genes from the nucleus, of which there is only one per cell.
Using the latest DNA-sequencing technology, Dr Krause and his colleagues worked out the order of the genetic “letters” of over 1m fragments of DNA from their sample. By looking for overlaps between these fragments and fitting the resulting contiguous sequences to reference sequences from humans and Neanderthals the team were able to come up with a DNA sequence for most of the mitochondrion, and it was nothing like one that would have been expected from either a modern human or a Neanderthal.
The rate at which random changes over the generations occur in mitochondrial DNA is fairly well known and, using that knowledge, Dr Krause estimates that the newly discovered species last shared an ancestor with modern humans about 1m years ago. That is extraordinary. It means that its ancestors must have emerged from Africa (where that million-year-old common ancestor would have lived) independently of the migrations which gave rise to Neanderthals and humans.
The common ancestor is, however, too recent for the new species to be a remnant of the first human excursion from Africa, the one that led to Java man and Peking man, now known as Homo erectus. It is, in other words, a fourth example of anthropological tourism from Africa to the rest of the world, on what is now looking like a well-worn route. Yet it is the lone example. That shows how fragmentary and ill-understood human history is.
The finger bone was found in strata dated to between 48,000 and 30,000 years ago (the bone itself has not yet been dated). That means the creature was contemporary with both Neanderthals and modern humans in the area. There was, then, a real ecosystem of othermen in southern Siberia. In 2003 the scientific and popular press were both filled with the discovery of a similar arrangement on the Indonesian island of Flores. A hitherto unsuspected species of dwarf human turned up in caves there, contemporary with modern humans. It was quickly dubbed the “hobbit”. Do not be surprised if, whatever proper name it is eventually assigned, the new, mountain-dwelling, central-Asian species actually becomes known as the yeti.
http://www.economist.com/science-technology/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15767281
Related Posts:
Scientists Decode Genomes Of Five Africans, Including Archbishop Desmond Tutu; Quote From Blogpost Four Hundred.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/02/567scientists-decode-genomes-of-five.html
Weaving Together The KESHAVJEE Family Story From The Accounts of Mamdoo Keshavjee, Lella Umedaly, Muthal Naidoo and Easy Nash; Quote Of Aristotle.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/12/534weaving-together-keshavjee-family.html
The Genographic Project of the National Geographic Society: How I discovered my ancestry from 10-15 thousand years ago.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2007/11/249the-genographic-projectnational.html
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
Sunday, March 28, 2010
590)Astronomers Back Up Einstein, Again: Survey Of Stars Has Confirmed The Accelerating Expansion Of The Universe And Einstein's Ideas About Gravity.
Seventh Century Quranic Ayats:
Chapter 51, verse 47: We built the heavens with might, and We expand it wide(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter 21, Verse 30: Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together before We clove them asunder, and of water fashioned every thing? Will they not then believe?(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter 30, Verse 27: He originates creation; then refashions it - for Him an easy task. His is the most Sublime Symbol in the heavens and the earth(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
Astronomers back up Einstein, again
CBC News
Thursday, March 25, 2010
See Picture:This star field is part of the Cosmic Evolution Survey area, the largest ever survey of the universe conducted using the Hubble Space Telescope. (NASA, ESA and A. Koekemoer)
A survey of the stars using the Hubble Space Telescope has confirmed the accelerating expansion of the universe and Einstein's ideas about gravity, a team of astronomers said.
Astronomers from North America and Europe, including Ludovic Van Waerbeke of the University of British Columbia, studied more than 446,000 galaxies to create a map of the distribution of matter in the universe.
This 3-D map of the universe includes the distribution of dark matter, material that gives off no light but whose existence is seen in how its gravity interacts with stars, galaxies and even light itself.
The survey, published this week in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, confirmed that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, propelled by a mysterious force called dark energy.
"Our results confirmed that there is an unknown source of energy in the universe which is causing the cosmic expansion to speed up, stretching the dark matter further apart exactly as predicted by Einstein's theory," said Van Waerbeke in a statement.
The astronomers were able to find where the dark matter is using a technique called weak gravitational lensing, where light from distant galaxies is observed to bend as it travels through space.
The General Theory of Relativity, a manuscript published by Albert Einstein in 1915, holds that gravity arises because matter warps space and time, meaning that light bends near massive objects, such as the core of a galaxy.
Even a less massive object, such as a clump of dark matter, can cause light to bend slightly. Van Waerbeke has used weak gravitational lensing since the late 1990s to map structures of dark matter by measuring the distortions seen in the patterns of light from galaxies.
Einstein's theory also predicted the existence of dark matter, to explain the "missing" matter that doesn't give off light and makes up 80 per cent of the mass of the universe, and dark energy, to explain the universe's accelerating expansion.
"The data from our study are consistent with these predictions and show no deviation from Einstein's theories," said Van Waerbeke.
The survey also used data from the Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS), which used the Hubble telescope to photograph 575 slightly overlapping views of the same patch of sky.
The COSMOS project required nearly 1,000 hours of observations to complete. Like Hubble itself, COSMOS is a joint operation of the European Space Agency and NASA.
Observations from ground-based telescopes were also used to calibrate the distances of the more than 194,000 galaxies mapped during the survey.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/03/25/tech-space-einstein-dark-matter.html
Related Posts:
Original Manuscripts:Rewrite Of Physics By Einstein On Display;A Powerfully Fresh Outlook On The Universe In Which We Live,Move And Have Our Being
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/579original-manuscriptsrewrite-of.html
20 things you need to know about Albert Einstein, the smartest scientist of the 20th century; Quotes of Aga Khan III
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/31220-things-you-need-to-know-about.html
Albert Einstein and Faith; Quote of Aga Khan III
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/311albert-einstein-and-faith-quote-of.html
Einstein=Genius squared: the man who taught us key insights about the Universal "Soul that sustains, embraces and is the Universe
http://easynash.blogspot.com/2007/05/178einsteingenius-squared-man-who.html
A Collection of Posts on Astronomy; Quotes of Noble Quran, Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan III, Nasir Khusraw, Abu Yakub Al Sijistani and Aristotle
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/456a-collection-of-posts-on-astronomy.html
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
he first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
Chapter 51, verse 47: We built the heavens with might, and We expand it wide(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter 21, Verse 30: Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together before We clove them asunder, and of water fashioned every thing? Will they not then believe?(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter 30, Verse 27: He originates creation; then refashions it - for Him an easy task. His is the most Sublime Symbol in the heavens and the earth(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
Astronomers back up Einstein, again
CBC News
Thursday, March 25, 2010
See Picture:This star field is part of the Cosmic Evolution Survey area, the largest ever survey of the universe conducted using the Hubble Space Telescope. (NASA, ESA and A. Koekemoer)
A survey of the stars using the Hubble Space Telescope has confirmed the accelerating expansion of the universe and Einstein's ideas about gravity, a team of astronomers said.
Astronomers from North America and Europe, including Ludovic Van Waerbeke of the University of British Columbia, studied more than 446,000 galaxies to create a map of the distribution of matter in the universe.
This 3-D map of the universe includes the distribution of dark matter, material that gives off no light but whose existence is seen in how its gravity interacts with stars, galaxies and even light itself.
The survey, published this week in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, confirmed that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, propelled by a mysterious force called dark energy.
"Our results confirmed that there is an unknown source of energy in the universe which is causing the cosmic expansion to speed up, stretching the dark matter further apart exactly as predicted by Einstein's theory," said Van Waerbeke in a statement.
The astronomers were able to find where the dark matter is using a technique called weak gravitational lensing, where light from distant galaxies is observed to bend as it travels through space.
The General Theory of Relativity, a manuscript published by Albert Einstein in 1915, holds that gravity arises because matter warps space and time, meaning that light bends near massive objects, such as the core of a galaxy.
Even a less massive object, such as a clump of dark matter, can cause light to bend slightly. Van Waerbeke has used weak gravitational lensing since the late 1990s to map structures of dark matter by measuring the distortions seen in the patterns of light from galaxies.
Einstein's theory also predicted the existence of dark matter, to explain the "missing" matter that doesn't give off light and makes up 80 per cent of the mass of the universe, and dark energy, to explain the universe's accelerating expansion.
"The data from our study are consistent with these predictions and show no deviation from Einstein's theories," said Van Waerbeke.
The survey also used data from the Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS), which used the Hubble telescope to photograph 575 slightly overlapping views of the same patch of sky.
The COSMOS project required nearly 1,000 hours of observations to complete. Like Hubble itself, COSMOS is a joint operation of the European Space Agency and NASA.
Observations from ground-based telescopes were also used to calibrate the distances of the more than 194,000 galaxies mapped during the survey.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/03/25/tech-space-einstein-dark-matter.html
Related Posts:
Original Manuscripts:Rewrite Of Physics By Einstein On Display;A Powerfully Fresh Outlook On The Universe In Which We Live,Move And Have Our Being
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/579original-manuscriptsrewrite-of.html
20 things you need to know about Albert Einstein, the smartest scientist of the 20th century; Quotes of Aga Khan III
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/31220-things-you-need-to-know-about.html
Albert Einstein and Faith; Quote of Aga Khan III
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/311albert-einstein-and-faith-quote-of.html
Einstein=Genius squared: the man who taught us key insights about the Universal "Soul that sustains, embraces and is the Universe
http://easynash.blogspot.com/2007/05/178einsteingenius-squared-man-who.html
A Collection of Posts on Astronomy; Quotes of Noble Quran, Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan III, Nasir Khusraw, Abu Yakub Al Sijistani and Aristotle
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/456a-collection-of-posts-on-astronomy.html
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
he first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
589)Salim Mansur: Iraq Election Could Change History; George Bush's Regime Change Broke The Sunni Imperium In The Middle East.............
Quote:
"Nevertheless, this can be said of the Iraq election, despite the violence of those who fear democracy: It is a transformative event in Arab history and its consequences will have far-reaching effects over time across the Middle East.....
It is a quirk of history that George W. Bush, by forcing regime change in Baghdad, broke the Sunni Arab imperium in the Middle East.....
Iraqi leaders, religious and secular, have learned from their own history of persecution that freedom can only be defended through the legitimacy of democratic politics."
Iraq election could change history
By SALIM MANSUR
Last Updated: March 20, 2010
The recent “tiff,” as George Jonas over at the National Post described the brouhaha between the United States and Israel, pushed aside the emphatically more significant story about the Iraq election from the top of the mainstream media’s news cycle.
The election by all accounts was fair, yet there is obviously some distance to go before it might be said a culture of democracy flourishes in Iraq — the land once ruled by the great king Hammurabi in the second millennium before Christ.
Nevertheless, this can be said of the Iraq election, despite the violence of those who fear democracy: It is a transformative event in Arab history and its consequences will have far-reaching effects over time across the Middle East.
For more than 1,300 years, Sunni Muslims — first Arabs and then those who have followed them — have shaped Islam doctrinally, and dominated Muslim history with sword and fire.
Their words and written accounts, their narrative of Muhammad, his family and companions, were made into the official version of Islam to be absorbed without questioning by Muslims through the centuries. I speak of this from the inside experience of an individual born, raised and married among Sunni Muslims.
Sunni Arab dynasties took it as their privilege to rule by claiming the mantle of the prophet, and the authority it symbolized, for their own. They colonized the land between the Persian Gulf and the Atlantic and crushed mercilessly any opposition just as they had done at the outset of Muslim history by benefiting from the massacre of the prophet’s family.
Shiite Arabs as a minority mourned the terrible injustice done to the prophet’s family. They kept alive the memory of Karbala in modern Iraq, where Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of Muhammad, was brutally killed in 680.
Shiite Arabs have been the persecuted minority, powerless and mocked by Sunni Arab rulers from the first century of Islam. Even after modern Iraq was created by Britain following the First World War and Shiite Arabs found themselves as a majority in the country, Sunni Arabs ruled over them.
It is a quirk of history that George W. Bush, by forcing regime change in Baghdad, broke the Sunni Arab imperium in the Middle East.
We have followed the effects of Bush’s monumental decision, which opened the door for democratic change in Iraq, as an example for the region, and how spitefully the Sunni Arabs have responded.
Shiite Arabs, at first with misgivings and then with maturing confidence, have taken hold of their rendezvous with freedom that Fouad Ajami, a Shiite Lebanese-American scholar of the Middle East, aptly described as the “foreigner’s gift.”
Iraqi leaders, religious and secular, have learned from their own history of persecution that freedom can only be defended through the legitimacy of democratic politics.
Shiite clerics in Najaf — Shiite Islam’s holiest city located in Iraq — have maintained their tradition of keeping religion separate from politics and this might prove to be the critical element in the advancement of Iraqi democracy.
Iraq is rich in oil and water and is now gifted with freedom. If Iraqi resoluteness in defending democracy remains unshaken, it will transform the region for better.
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/salim_mansur/2010/03/19/13294876.html
Related Posts:
Salim Mansur Gives Us The Straight Goods On Eyeraq; Hint Hint: It's Not Good News For Pinko Lefty Commie Islamist Apologists
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/580salim-mansur-gives-us-straight-goods.html
Political Science Professor Salim Mansur Reminds Muslims They Face Future Of Nightmarish Totalitarianism Unless They Wake Up And Smell The Coffee
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/02/571political-science-professor-salim.html
Easy Nash
If my Blog was a four year undergraduate degree I guess my major would be Science and Religion and my minor would be Politics: Easy Nash(2010).
Self-righteous politically-correct jamal public pinkos will end up destroying the world not saving it: Easy Nash(2010)
If there are 23,000 jihadist websites and blogsites out there in cyberspace, there is no reason why we should not create 100,000 non-jihadist websites and blogsites: Easy Nash(2007).
"Nevertheless, this can be said of the Iraq election, despite the violence of those who fear democracy: It is a transformative event in Arab history and its consequences will have far-reaching effects over time across the Middle East.....
It is a quirk of history that George W. Bush, by forcing regime change in Baghdad, broke the Sunni Arab imperium in the Middle East.....
Iraqi leaders, religious and secular, have learned from their own history of persecution that freedom can only be defended through the legitimacy of democratic politics."
Iraq election could change history
By SALIM MANSUR
Last Updated: March 20, 2010
The recent “tiff,” as George Jonas over at the National Post described the brouhaha between the United States and Israel, pushed aside the emphatically more significant story about the Iraq election from the top of the mainstream media’s news cycle.
The election by all accounts was fair, yet there is obviously some distance to go before it might be said a culture of democracy flourishes in Iraq — the land once ruled by the great king Hammurabi in the second millennium before Christ.
Nevertheless, this can be said of the Iraq election, despite the violence of those who fear democracy: It is a transformative event in Arab history and its consequences will have far-reaching effects over time across the Middle East.
For more than 1,300 years, Sunni Muslims — first Arabs and then those who have followed them — have shaped Islam doctrinally, and dominated Muslim history with sword and fire.
Their words and written accounts, their narrative of Muhammad, his family and companions, were made into the official version of Islam to be absorbed without questioning by Muslims through the centuries. I speak of this from the inside experience of an individual born, raised and married among Sunni Muslims.
Sunni Arab dynasties took it as their privilege to rule by claiming the mantle of the prophet, and the authority it symbolized, for their own. They colonized the land between the Persian Gulf and the Atlantic and crushed mercilessly any opposition just as they had done at the outset of Muslim history by benefiting from the massacre of the prophet’s family.
Shiite Arabs as a minority mourned the terrible injustice done to the prophet’s family. They kept alive the memory of Karbala in modern Iraq, where Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of Muhammad, was brutally killed in 680.
Shiite Arabs have been the persecuted minority, powerless and mocked by Sunni Arab rulers from the first century of Islam. Even after modern Iraq was created by Britain following the First World War and Shiite Arabs found themselves as a majority in the country, Sunni Arabs ruled over them.
It is a quirk of history that George W. Bush, by forcing regime change in Baghdad, broke the Sunni Arab imperium in the Middle East.
We have followed the effects of Bush’s monumental decision, which opened the door for democratic change in Iraq, as an example for the region, and how spitefully the Sunni Arabs have responded.
Shiite Arabs, at first with misgivings and then with maturing confidence, have taken hold of their rendezvous with freedom that Fouad Ajami, a Shiite Lebanese-American scholar of the Middle East, aptly described as the “foreigner’s gift.”
Iraqi leaders, religious and secular, have learned from their own history of persecution that freedom can only be defended through the legitimacy of democratic politics.
Shiite clerics in Najaf — Shiite Islam’s holiest city located in Iraq — have maintained their tradition of keeping religion separate from politics and this might prove to be the critical element in the advancement of Iraqi democracy.
Iraq is rich in oil and water and is now gifted with freedom. If Iraqi resoluteness in defending democracy remains unshaken, it will transform the region for better.
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/salim_mansur/2010/03/19/13294876.html
Related Posts:
Salim Mansur Gives Us The Straight Goods On Eyeraq; Hint Hint: It's Not Good News For Pinko Lefty Commie Islamist Apologists
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/03/580salim-mansur-gives-us-straight-goods.html
Political Science Professor Salim Mansur Reminds Muslims They Face Future Of Nightmarish Totalitarianism Unless They Wake Up And Smell The Coffee
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/02/571political-science-professor-salim.html
Easy Nash
If my Blog was a four year undergraduate degree I guess my major would be Science and Religion and my minor would be Politics: Easy Nash(2010).
Self-righteous politically-correct jamal public pinkos will end up destroying the world not saving it: Easy Nash(2010)
If there are 23,000 jihadist websites and blogsites out there in cyberspace, there is no reason why we should not create 100,000 non-jihadist websites and blogsites: Easy Nash(2007).
588)Biologist Wins Templeton Prize, Postulating No Contradiction Between Science And Religion But That They Are Seperate Realms; Islam Says Otherwise.
"Islam does not deal in dichotomies but in all encompassing Unity. Spirit and body are one, man and nature are one. What is more, man is answerable to God for what man has created"(Aga Khan IV, Speech to the Asia Society, New York, USA, September 25 1979)
“Muslims believe in an all-encompassing unit of man and nature. To them there is no fundamental division between the spiritual and the material while the whole world, whether it be the earth, sea or air, or the living creatures that inhabit them, is an expression of God’s creation.”(Aga Khan IV, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, 13 April 1984)
"In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God"(Aga Khan IV, July 23rd 2008, Lisbon, Portugal)
"The second great historical lesson to be learnt is that the Muslim world has always been wide open to every aspect of human existence. The sciences, society, art, the oceans, the environment and the cosmos have all contributed to the great moments in the history of Muslim civilisations. The Qur’an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God’s creation"(Closing Address by His Highness Aga Khan IV at the "Musée-Musées" Round Table Louvre Museum, Paris, France, October 17th 2007)
"....in Islam, but particularly Shia Islam, the role of the intellect is part of faith. That intellect is what seperates man from the rest of the physical world in which he lives.....This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives. Of that I am certain"(Aga Khan IV, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, August 17th 2007)
"Of the Abrahamic faiths, Islam is probably the one that places the greatest emphasis on knowledge. The purpose is to understand God's creation, and therefore it is a faith which is eminently logical. Islam is a faith of reason"(Aga Khan IV, Spiegel Magazine interview, Germany, Oct 9th 2006)
"In this context, would it not also be relevant to consider how, above all, it has been the Qur'anic notion of the universe as an expression of Allah's will and creation that has inspired, in diverse Muslim communities, generations of artists, scientists and philosophers? Scientific pursuits, philosophic inquiry and artistic endeavour are all seen as the response of the faithful to the recurring call of the Qur'an to ponder the creation as a way to understand Allah's benevolent majesty. As Sura al-Baqara proclaims: 'Wherever you turn, there is the face of Allah'.The famous verse of 'light' in the Qur'an, the Ayat al-Nur, whose first line is rendered here in the mural behind me, inspires among Muslims a reflection on the sacred, the transcendent. It hints at a cosmos full of signs and symbols that evoke the perfection of Allah's creation and mercy"(Aga Khan IV,Speech, Institute of Ismaili Studies, October 2003, London, U.K.)
"Education has been important to my family for a long time. My forefathers founded al-Azhar University in Cairo some 1000 years ago, at the time of the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt. Discovery of knowledge was seen by those founders as an embodiment of religious faith, and faith as reinforced by knowledge of workings of the Creator's physical world. The form of universities has changed over those 1000 years, but that reciprocity between faith and knowledge remains a source of strength"(Aga Khan IV, 27th May1994, Cambridge, Massachusets, U.S.A.)
"The Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims. Exchanges of knowledge between institutions and nations and the widening of man's intellectual horizons are essentially Islamic concepts. The Faith urges freedom of intellectual enquiry and this freedom does not mean that knowledge will lose its spiritual dimension. That dimension is indeed itself a field for intellectual enquiry. I can not illustrate this interdependence of spiritual inspiration and learning better than by recounting a dialogue between Ibn Sina, the philosopher, and Abu Said Abu -Khyar, the Sufi mystic. Ibn Sina remarked, "Whatever I know, he sees". To which Abu Said replied," Whatever I see, he knows"."(Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan University Inauguration Speech, Karachi, Pakistan, November 11th 1985)
Indeed, one strength of Islam has always lain in its belief that creation is not static but continuous, that through scientific and other endeavours, God has opened and continues to open new windows for us to see the marvels of His creation"(Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan University, 16 March 1983, Karachi, Pakistan)
"Thus Islam's basic principle can only be defined as mono-realism and not as monotheism. Consider, for example, the opening declaration of every Islamic prayer: "Allah-o-Akbar". What does that mean? There can be no doubt that the second word of the declaration likens the character of Allah to a matrix which contains all and gives existence to the infinite, to space, to time, to the Universe, to all active and passive forces imaginable, to life and to the soul. Imam Hassan has explained the Islamic doctrine of God and the Universe by analogy with the sun and its reflection in the pool of a fountain; there is certainly a reflection or image of the sun, but with what poverty and with what little reality; how small and pale is the likeness between this impalpable image and the immense, blazing, white-hot glory of the celestial sphere itself. Allah is the sun; and the Universe, as we know it in all its magnitude, and time, with its power, are nothing more than the reflection of the Absolute in the mirror of the fountain"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
"Islam is fundamentally in its very nature a natural religion. Throughout the Quran God's signs (Ayats) are referred to as the natural phenomenon, the law and order of the universe, the exactitudes and consequences of the relations between natural phenomenon in cause and effect. Over and over, the stars, sun, moon, earthquakes, fruits of the earth and trees are mentioned as the signs of divine power, divine law and divine order. Even in the Ayeh of Noor, divine is referred to as the natural phenomenon of light and even references are made to the fruit of the earth. During the great period of Islam, Muslims did not forget these principles of their religion. Alas, Islam which is a natural religion in which God's miracles are the very law and order of nature drifted away and is still drifting away, even in Pakistan, from science which is the study of those very laws and orders of nature.……Islam is a natural religion of which the Ayats are the universe in which we live and move and have our being………..The God of the Quran is the one whose Ayats are the universe……"(Aga Khan III, April 4th 1952, Karachi, Pakistan)
"The God of the Quran is the One whose Ayats(Signs) are the Universe in which we live, move and have our being"(Aga Khan III, April 4th 1952, Karachi, Pakistan)
"Behold! in the creation of the heavens and the earth; in the alternation of the night and the day; in the sailing of the ships through the ocean for the profit of mankind; in the rain which Allah sends down from the skies, and the life which He gives therewith to an earth that is dead; in the beasts of all kinds that He scatters through the earth; in the change of the winds, and the clouds which they Trail like their slaves between the sky and the earth; (Here) indeed are Signs for the people of intellect"(Noble Quran)
"One hour of contemplation on the works of the Creator is better than a thousand hours of prayer"(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
March 25, 2010
Biologist Wins Templeton Prize
By CORNELIA DEAN
Francisco J. Ayala, a biologist and former Roman Catholic priest whose books and speeches offer reassurance that there is no essential contradiction between religious faith and belief in science, particularly the theory of evolution, has won the 2010 Templeton Prize.
The John Templeton Foundation awards the annual prize, worth about $1.5 million, to “a living person who has made exceptional contributions to affirming life’s spiritual dimension.”
Dr. Ayala, an evolutionary biologist and a geneticist at the University of California, Irvine, lectures widely on science and religion, emphasizing that they are separate realms and that people come to grief when they attempt to “entangle” them — as, for instance, when scientists assert there is no God or when advocates of creationist theories invoke supernatural intervention to explain evolutionary change.
Dr. Ayala, 76, whose recent research focuses on the evolution of micro-organisms, particularly those that cause malaria, is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and holds the National Medal of Science.
Among his other writings, his book “Darwin’s Gift” (John Henry Press, 2007) describes the theory of evolution as helping to explain how evil could co-exist with a good and omnipotent God. His newest book, “Am I a Monkey? Six Big Questions about Evolution,” will be published this year by Johns Hopkins University Press.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/science/26templeton.html?ref=science
Related Post:
'The Sciences' from the IIS's 'Muslim Philosophy And The Sciences' by Dr Alnoor Dhanani; Quotes of Aga Khan IV
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/11/507the-sciences-from-iiss-muslim.html
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
“Muslims believe in an all-encompassing unit of man and nature. To them there is no fundamental division between the spiritual and the material while the whole world, whether it be the earth, sea or air, or the living creatures that inhabit them, is an expression of God’s creation.”(Aga Khan IV, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, 13 April 1984)
"In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God"(Aga Khan IV, July 23rd 2008, Lisbon, Portugal)
"The second great historical lesson to be learnt is that the Muslim world has always been wide open to every aspect of human existence. The sciences, society, art, the oceans, the environment and the cosmos have all contributed to the great moments in the history of Muslim civilisations. The Qur’an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God’s creation"(Closing Address by His Highness Aga Khan IV at the "Musée-Musées" Round Table Louvre Museum, Paris, France, October 17th 2007)
"....in Islam, but particularly Shia Islam, the role of the intellect is part of faith. That intellect is what seperates man from the rest of the physical world in which he lives.....This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives. Of that I am certain"(Aga Khan IV, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, August 17th 2007)
"Of the Abrahamic faiths, Islam is probably the one that places the greatest emphasis on knowledge. The purpose is to understand God's creation, and therefore it is a faith which is eminently logical. Islam is a faith of reason"(Aga Khan IV, Spiegel Magazine interview, Germany, Oct 9th 2006)
"In this context, would it not also be relevant to consider how, above all, it has been the Qur'anic notion of the universe as an expression of Allah's will and creation that has inspired, in diverse Muslim communities, generations of artists, scientists and philosophers? Scientific pursuits, philosophic inquiry and artistic endeavour are all seen as the response of the faithful to the recurring call of the Qur'an to ponder the creation as a way to understand Allah's benevolent majesty. As Sura al-Baqara proclaims: 'Wherever you turn, there is the face of Allah'.The famous verse of 'light' in the Qur'an, the Ayat al-Nur, whose first line is rendered here in the mural behind me, inspires among Muslims a reflection on the sacred, the transcendent. It hints at a cosmos full of signs and symbols that evoke the perfection of Allah's creation and mercy"(Aga Khan IV,Speech, Institute of Ismaili Studies, October 2003, London, U.K.)
"Education has been important to my family for a long time. My forefathers founded al-Azhar University in Cairo some 1000 years ago, at the time of the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt. Discovery of knowledge was seen by those founders as an embodiment of religious faith, and faith as reinforced by knowledge of workings of the Creator's physical world. The form of universities has changed over those 1000 years, but that reciprocity between faith and knowledge remains a source of strength"(Aga Khan IV, 27th May1994, Cambridge, Massachusets, U.S.A.)
"The Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims. Exchanges of knowledge between institutions and nations and the widening of man's intellectual horizons are essentially Islamic concepts. The Faith urges freedom of intellectual enquiry and this freedom does not mean that knowledge will lose its spiritual dimension. That dimension is indeed itself a field for intellectual enquiry. I can not illustrate this interdependence of spiritual inspiration and learning better than by recounting a dialogue between Ibn Sina, the philosopher, and Abu Said Abu -Khyar, the Sufi mystic. Ibn Sina remarked, "Whatever I know, he sees". To which Abu Said replied," Whatever I see, he knows"."(Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan University Inauguration Speech, Karachi, Pakistan, November 11th 1985)
Indeed, one strength of Islam has always lain in its belief that creation is not static but continuous, that through scientific and other endeavours, God has opened and continues to open new windows for us to see the marvels of His creation"(Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan University, 16 March 1983, Karachi, Pakistan)
"Thus Islam's basic principle can only be defined as mono-realism and not as monotheism. Consider, for example, the opening declaration of every Islamic prayer: "Allah-o-Akbar". What does that mean? There can be no doubt that the second word of the declaration likens the character of Allah to a matrix which contains all and gives existence to the infinite, to space, to time, to the Universe, to all active and passive forces imaginable, to life and to the soul. Imam Hassan has explained the Islamic doctrine of God and the Universe by analogy with the sun and its reflection in the pool of a fountain; there is certainly a reflection or image of the sun, but with what poverty and with what little reality; how small and pale is the likeness between this impalpable image and the immense, blazing, white-hot glory of the celestial sphere itself. Allah is the sun; and the Universe, as we know it in all its magnitude, and time, with its power, are nothing more than the reflection of the Absolute in the mirror of the fountain"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
"Islam is fundamentally in its very nature a natural religion. Throughout the Quran God's signs (Ayats) are referred to as the natural phenomenon, the law and order of the universe, the exactitudes and consequences of the relations between natural phenomenon in cause and effect. Over and over, the stars, sun, moon, earthquakes, fruits of the earth and trees are mentioned as the signs of divine power, divine law and divine order. Even in the Ayeh of Noor, divine is referred to as the natural phenomenon of light and even references are made to the fruit of the earth. During the great period of Islam, Muslims did not forget these principles of their religion. Alas, Islam which is a natural religion in which God's miracles are the very law and order of nature drifted away and is still drifting away, even in Pakistan, from science which is the study of those very laws and orders of nature.……Islam is a natural religion of which the Ayats are the universe in which we live and move and have our being………..The God of the Quran is the one whose Ayats are the universe……"(Aga Khan III, April 4th 1952, Karachi, Pakistan)
"The God of the Quran is the One whose Ayats(Signs) are the Universe in which we live, move and have our being"(Aga Khan III, April 4th 1952, Karachi, Pakistan)
"Behold! in the creation of the heavens and the earth; in the alternation of the night and the day; in the sailing of the ships through the ocean for the profit of mankind; in the rain which Allah sends down from the skies, and the life which He gives therewith to an earth that is dead; in the beasts of all kinds that He scatters through the earth; in the change of the winds, and the clouds which they Trail like their slaves between the sky and the earth; (Here) indeed are Signs for the people of intellect"(Noble Quran)
"One hour of contemplation on the works of the Creator is better than a thousand hours of prayer"(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
March 25, 2010
Biologist Wins Templeton Prize
By CORNELIA DEAN
Francisco J. Ayala, a biologist and former Roman Catholic priest whose books and speeches offer reassurance that there is no essential contradiction between religious faith and belief in science, particularly the theory of evolution, has won the 2010 Templeton Prize.
The John Templeton Foundation awards the annual prize, worth about $1.5 million, to “a living person who has made exceptional contributions to affirming life’s spiritual dimension.”
Dr. Ayala, an evolutionary biologist and a geneticist at the University of California, Irvine, lectures widely on science and religion, emphasizing that they are separate realms and that people come to grief when they attempt to “entangle” them — as, for instance, when scientists assert there is no God or when advocates of creationist theories invoke supernatural intervention to explain evolutionary change.
Dr. Ayala, 76, whose recent research focuses on the evolution of micro-organisms, particularly those that cause malaria, is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and holds the National Medal of Science.
Among his other writings, his book “Darwin’s Gift” (John Henry Press, 2007) describes the theory of evolution as helping to explain how evil could co-exist with a good and omnipotent God. His newest book, “Am I a Monkey? Six Big Questions about Evolution,” will be published this year by Johns Hopkins University Press.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/science/26templeton.html?ref=science
Related Post:
'The Sciences' from the IIS's 'Muslim Philosophy And The Sciences' by Dr Alnoor Dhanani; Quotes of Aga Khan IV
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/11/507the-sciences-from-iiss-muslim.html
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
587)Do You Really Want An Inept Bunch Of Liberal Opposition Dingbats Running Canada Or The Steady Hand Of The Stephen Harper Conservative Government?
Quote:
"We look like fools," one Liberal MP said after the vote. Another Liberal told a reporter it was "clown city" on their side of the House, a phrase the Conservatives gleefully repeated in the House Wednesday.
"We told the Liberal leader that his motion was divisive, and we were right. He divided his caucus," Windsor area Conservative MP Jeff Watson said.
Liberals licking wounds after voting gaffe
MPs break ranks on plan to revive abortion issue
By Andrew Mayeda And David Akin
Canwest News Service
March 25, 2010
Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff receives a standing ovation from his caucus while speaking during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa March 24, 2010.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff conceded Wednesday that his party has some "internal issues" to resolve after several of his own MPs broke ranks in a vote designed to attack the Conservatives as social conservatives out of touch with mainstream Canadians.
"I would have preferred a different result last night, and we have some internal caucus issues to work out," Ignatieff told reporters Wednesday.
The Liberal plan was to put forward a motion in the House of Commons that could, under some circumstances, be interpreted as endorsing abortion as part of the "full range of family planning, sexual and reproductive health options" to be included in the government's G-8 maternal health initiative.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is hosting the annual G-8 leaders summit in Huntsville, Ont., this summer, has said he intends to make improving maternal and child health a key priority for the group.
The Liberals bet, correctly, that the Conservatives would vote against their motion. But though the NDP and Bloc Quebecois voted with them, their strategy blew up in their faces when three of their own MPs voted against their own motion and 14 others failed to show up. The Liberals lost by six votes.
Liberals on Wednesday grumbled to reporters that the party strategy was flawed from the outset and then compounded by terrible execution when it came time to vote on the issue Tuesday evening.
To make matters worse, and to the delight of the Conservatives, several Liberal MPs followed up that defeat by mistakenly voting for the government's spending plan, part of the 2009 budget.
"We look like fools," one Liberal MP said after the vote. Another Liberal told a reporter it was "clown city" on their side of the House, a phrase the Conservatives gleefully repeated in the House Wednesday.
"We told the Liberal leader that his motion was divisive, and we were right. He divided his caucus," Windsor area Conservative MP Jeff Watson said.
"While some stood against him, even more chose to sit out the Liberal leader's motion. One Liberal MP even told the media it was clown city."
The Liberals' whip, Cape Breton MP Rodger Cuzner, who is responsible for ensuring that all Liberal MPs are in the House of Commons ready to toe the party line on important votes, was avoiding reporters Wednesday.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/Liberals+licking+wounds+after+voting+gaffe/2724340/story.html
Easy Nash
"We look like fools," one Liberal MP said after the vote. Another Liberal told a reporter it was "clown city" on their side of the House, a phrase the Conservatives gleefully repeated in the House Wednesday.
"We told the Liberal leader that his motion was divisive, and we were right. He divided his caucus," Windsor area Conservative MP Jeff Watson said.
Liberals licking wounds after voting gaffe
MPs break ranks on plan to revive abortion issue
By Andrew Mayeda And David Akin
Canwest News Service
March 25, 2010
Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff receives a standing ovation from his caucus while speaking during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa March 24, 2010.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff conceded Wednesday that his party has some "internal issues" to resolve after several of his own MPs broke ranks in a vote designed to attack the Conservatives as social conservatives out of touch with mainstream Canadians.
"I would have preferred a different result last night, and we have some internal caucus issues to work out," Ignatieff told reporters Wednesday.
The Liberal plan was to put forward a motion in the House of Commons that could, under some circumstances, be interpreted as endorsing abortion as part of the "full range of family planning, sexual and reproductive health options" to be included in the government's G-8 maternal health initiative.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is hosting the annual G-8 leaders summit in Huntsville, Ont., this summer, has said he intends to make improving maternal and child health a key priority for the group.
The Liberals bet, correctly, that the Conservatives would vote against their motion. But though the NDP and Bloc Quebecois voted with them, their strategy blew up in their faces when three of their own MPs voted against their own motion and 14 others failed to show up. The Liberals lost by six votes.
Liberals on Wednesday grumbled to reporters that the party strategy was flawed from the outset and then compounded by terrible execution when it came time to vote on the issue Tuesday evening.
To make matters worse, and to the delight of the Conservatives, several Liberal MPs followed up that defeat by mistakenly voting for the government's spending plan, part of the 2009 budget.
"We look like fools," one Liberal MP said after the vote. Another Liberal told a reporter it was "clown city" on their side of the House, a phrase the Conservatives gleefully repeated in the House Wednesday.
"We told the Liberal leader that his motion was divisive, and we were right. He divided his caucus," Windsor area Conservative MP Jeff Watson said.
"While some stood against him, even more chose to sit out the Liberal leader's motion. One Liberal MP even told the media it was clown city."
The Liberals' whip, Cape Breton MP Rodger Cuzner, who is responsible for ensuring that all Liberal MPs are in the House of Commons ready to toe the party line on important votes, was avoiding reporters Wednesday.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/Liberals+licking+wounds+after+voting+gaffe/2724340/story.html
Easy Nash
If my Blog was a four year undergraduate degree I guess my major would be Science and Religion and my minor would be Politics: Easy Nash(2010).
Thursday, March 25, 2010
586)Remarkable Creatures: For Extinct Monsters of the Deep, a Little Respect; Quotes From Blogpost Four Hundred
"...As we use our intellect to gain new knowledge about Creation, we come to see even more profoundly the depth and breadth of its mysteries. We explore unknown regions beneath the seas – and in outer space. We reach back over hundreds of millions of years in time. Extra-ordinary fossilised geological specimens seize our imagination – palm leaves, amethyst flowers, hedgehog quartz, sea lilies, chrysanthemum and a rich panoply of shells. Indeed, these wonders are found beneath the very soil on which we tread – in every corner of the world – and they connect us with far distant epochs and environments.
And the more we discover, the more we know, the more we penetrate just below the surface of our normal lives – the more our imagination staggers. Just think for example what might lie below the surfaces of celestial bodies all across the far flung reaches of our universe. What we feel, even as we learn, is an ever-renewed sense of wonder, indeed, a powerful sense of awe – and of Divine inspiration"(Aga Khan IV, Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat, Ottawa, Canada, December 6th 2008)For the full version of this quote see:http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/12/21/easy-nashs-blogpost-four-hundred-updated-with-quotes-from-the-opening-of-the-delegation-of-the-ismaili-imamat/
“Muslims believe in an all-encompassing unit of man and nature. To them there is no fundamental division between the spiritual and the material while the whole world, whether it be the earth, sea or air, or the living creatures that inhabit them, is an expression of God’s creation.”(Aga Khan IV, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, 13 April 1984)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
March 22, 2010
For Extinct Monsters of the Deep, a Little Respect
By SEAN B. CARROLL
Here is a quick paleontology quiz. Which group of animals included large, air-breathing predators up to 50 feet long that bore live young, dominated their world for more than 100 million years and were ultimately exterminated by an asteroid 65 million years ago?
Easy, right?
Did you say dinosaurs? Sorry, wrong answer. But it was a trickier question than it may have appeared.
The correct answer is marine reptiles, which at the time of the last great extinction included mosasaurs, plesiosaurs and pliosaurs. The key clue in my question was “bore live young.” Unlike the dinosaurs, which were terrestrial and laid eggs, marine reptiles were fully aquatic and bore live young. This latter combination was no coincidence.
Despite their awesome size and abundance in the fossil record — their bones were among the first to be recognized as fossil remains of extinct creatures — marine reptiles have long played second fiddle to their much more famous saurian cousins.
But if we humans were aquatic creatures, we would have a whole lot more respect for these other reptiles. They were the top predators of Cretaceous seas. Thanks to their prevalence, scientists have figured out a lot about them, particularly recently. This includes, most remarkably, insights into their genetics — something that is not even preserved in the fossil record — and what it took to transform ordinary lizards into extraordinary sea monsters.
The first scientific description of a fossil marine reptile was of a beast discovered in 1764 by workmen in an underground limestone quarry near Maastricht, in the Netherlands. It took a long time for the identity and significance of the bones to be realized. At first mistaken for a crocodile, fish or whale, the creature was pilfered by the French Army when it seized Maastricht in 1795. The fossil was eventually recognized as something entirely different and named Mosasaurus (“Mosa,” Latin for the Meuse River, near Maastricht, and “saurus,” meaning lizard).
Mosasaurs and other marine reptiles were center stage in the growth of the fossil record in the early 19th century. Ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs like those discovered by young Mary Anning in the Lyme Regis area of Dorset, in southern England, were displayed in museums across Europe. Marine reptile fossils have been found across the globe, from Africa to Australia, and even Antarctica, a distribution that documents their long success. The first report of the creatures in the American West was from the Lewis and Clark expedition, which encountered a large skeleton in 1804 while voyaging up the Missouri River in Sioux country. It, too, was initially misidentified as a fish, even though at a reported 45 feet long, that would have been one heck of a fish.
Indeed, the name ichthyosaur means “fish lizard” and describes the streamlined body form that resembled large fish and sea mammals like dolphins.
Extinct marine reptiles also exhibited another important similarity to all sea mammals: they bore live young. We know this because among the plethora of fossil skeletons that have been unearthed are specimens of female ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs and other extinct marine reptiles preserved in the act of giving birth, with their young emerging tail-first, just as baby whales, dolphins and manatees do; doing so prevents the air-breathing young from drowning.
The bearing of live young distinguishes the marine reptiles from many other reptiles that lay eggs, like lizards and snakes, as well as dinosaurs. Even reptiles that spend most of their time in water, like crocodiles, sea turtles and marine iguanas, must come to land to lay eggs. This is because gas exchange through the eggshell is too slow underwater to allow the young to develop.
Interestingly, the only living reptiles that spend their entire lives in water, the 60 or so species of sea snakes, all bear live young. So there appears to be a simple requirement for reptiles to be fully aquatic: to bear live young.
But that precludes another common reptilian trick, the control of the determination of the sex of their young by the temperature at which eggs are incubated. In crocodiles, the majority of sea turtles and some lizards, the temperature of the environment surrounding their eggs governs whether the hatchling is male or female, as opposed to the presence of distinct sex chromosomes as in many other species.
Since live-bearing reptiles are not able to regulate sex through incubation temperature, this fact raises the question of whether there is a link between the evolution of giving birth to live babies, and the control of sex by genetic means. Chris Organ and Daniel Janes of Harvard, and Andrew Meade and Mark Pagel of the University of Reading, in England, recently examined 94 living species of reptiles, birds and mammals and found that, indeed, there was a very strong link. The genetic control of sex appears then to be a crucial prerequisite to evolving live birth.
Given that link, the scientists then investigated whether they could infer how sex was controlled in ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs and other lines of extinct marine reptiles, each of which evolved from a different ancestor and at different times. Using sophisticated statistical tests, they concluded that, indeed, genetic control of sex was likely to have operated in each group.
The point of the study was not so much the feat of inferring the genetics of long-extinct creatures, but of understanding the steps involved in evolving a fully aquatic lifestyle. Once the genetic control of sex evolved, so could live birth. And with live birth, these animals were freed of the obligation to return to land to nest. That freedom allowed them to evolve large body size, and the fins and fluked tails that made them efficient swimmers. They dominated the open seas.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/science/23creatures.html?ref=science
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
And the more we discover, the more we know, the more we penetrate just below the surface of our normal lives – the more our imagination staggers. Just think for example what might lie below the surfaces of celestial bodies all across the far flung reaches of our universe. What we feel, even as we learn, is an ever-renewed sense of wonder, indeed, a powerful sense of awe – and of Divine inspiration"(Aga Khan IV, Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat, Ottawa, Canada, December 6th 2008)For the full version of this quote see:http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/12/21/easy-nashs-blogpost-four-hundred-updated-with-quotes-from-the-opening-of-the-delegation-of-the-ismaili-imamat/
“Muslims believe in an all-encompassing unit of man and nature. To them there is no fundamental division between the spiritual and the material while the whole world, whether it be the earth, sea or air, or the living creatures that inhabit them, is an expression of God’s creation.”(Aga Khan IV, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, 13 April 1984)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
March 22, 2010
For Extinct Monsters of the Deep, a Little Respect
By SEAN B. CARROLL
Here is a quick paleontology quiz. Which group of animals included large, air-breathing predators up to 50 feet long that bore live young, dominated their world for more than 100 million years and were ultimately exterminated by an asteroid 65 million years ago?
Easy, right?
Did you say dinosaurs? Sorry, wrong answer. But it was a trickier question than it may have appeared.
The correct answer is marine reptiles, which at the time of the last great extinction included mosasaurs, plesiosaurs and pliosaurs. The key clue in my question was “bore live young.” Unlike the dinosaurs, which were terrestrial and laid eggs, marine reptiles were fully aquatic and bore live young. This latter combination was no coincidence.
Despite their awesome size and abundance in the fossil record — their bones were among the first to be recognized as fossil remains of extinct creatures — marine reptiles have long played second fiddle to their much more famous saurian cousins.
But if we humans were aquatic creatures, we would have a whole lot more respect for these other reptiles. They were the top predators of Cretaceous seas. Thanks to their prevalence, scientists have figured out a lot about them, particularly recently. This includes, most remarkably, insights into their genetics — something that is not even preserved in the fossil record — and what it took to transform ordinary lizards into extraordinary sea monsters.
The first scientific description of a fossil marine reptile was of a beast discovered in 1764 by workmen in an underground limestone quarry near Maastricht, in the Netherlands. It took a long time for the identity and significance of the bones to be realized. At first mistaken for a crocodile, fish or whale, the creature was pilfered by the French Army when it seized Maastricht in 1795. The fossil was eventually recognized as something entirely different and named Mosasaurus (“Mosa,” Latin for the Meuse River, near Maastricht, and “saurus,” meaning lizard).
Mosasaurs and other marine reptiles were center stage in the growth of the fossil record in the early 19th century. Ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs like those discovered by young Mary Anning in the Lyme Regis area of Dorset, in southern England, were displayed in museums across Europe. Marine reptile fossils have been found across the globe, from Africa to Australia, and even Antarctica, a distribution that documents their long success. The first report of the creatures in the American West was from the Lewis and Clark expedition, which encountered a large skeleton in 1804 while voyaging up the Missouri River in Sioux country. It, too, was initially misidentified as a fish, even though at a reported 45 feet long, that would have been one heck of a fish.
Indeed, the name ichthyosaur means “fish lizard” and describes the streamlined body form that resembled large fish and sea mammals like dolphins.
Extinct marine reptiles also exhibited another important similarity to all sea mammals: they bore live young. We know this because among the plethora of fossil skeletons that have been unearthed are specimens of female ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs and other extinct marine reptiles preserved in the act of giving birth, with their young emerging tail-first, just as baby whales, dolphins and manatees do; doing so prevents the air-breathing young from drowning.
The bearing of live young distinguishes the marine reptiles from many other reptiles that lay eggs, like lizards and snakes, as well as dinosaurs. Even reptiles that spend most of their time in water, like crocodiles, sea turtles and marine iguanas, must come to land to lay eggs. This is because gas exchange through the eggshell is too slow underwater to allow the young to develop.
Interestingly, the only living reptiles that spend their entire lives in water, the 60 or so species of sea snakes, all bear live young. So there appears to be a simple requirement for reptiles to be fully aquatic: to bear live young.
But that precludes another common reptilian trick, the control of the determination of the sex of their young by the temperature at which eggs are incubated. In crocodiles, the majority of sea turtles and some lizards, the temperature of the environment surrounding their eggs governs whether the hatchling is male or female, as opposed to the presence of distinct sex chromosomes as in many other species.
Since live-bearing reptiles are not able to regulate sex through incubation temperature, this fact raises the question of whether there is a link between the evolution of giving birth to live babies, and the control of sex by genetic means. Chris Organ and Daniel Janes of Harvard, and Andrew Meade and Mark Pagel of the University of Reading, in England, recently examined 94 living species of reptiles, birds and mammals and found that, indeed, there was a very strong link. The genetic control of sex appears then to be a crucial prerequisite to evolving live birth.
Given that link, the scientists then investigated whether they could infer how sex was controlled in ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs and other lines of extinct marine reptiles, each of which evolved from a different ancestor and at different times. Using sophisticated statistical tests, they concluded that, indeed, genetic control of sex was likely to have operated in each group.
The point of the study was not so much the feat of inferring the genetics of long-extinct creatures, but of understanding the steps involved in evolving a fully aquatic lifestyle. Once the genetic control of sex evolved, so could live birth. And with live birth, these animals were freed of the obligation to return to land to nest. That freedom allowed them to evolve large body size, and the fins and fluked tails that made them efficient swimmers. They dominated the open seas.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/science/23creatures.html?ref=science
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
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