In comments likely to enhance his progressive reputation, Pope Francis has written a long, open letter to the founder of La Repubblica newspaper, Eugenio Scalfari, stating that non-believers (Atheists) would be forgiven by God if they followed their consciences. Responding to a list of questions published in the paper by Mr Scalfari, who is not a Roman Catholic, Francis wrote: […]
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PAKISTAN: The 7.7-magnitude earthquake that struck Balochistan—killing at least 515 people—shifted enough mud and rock to create a new island in the Arabian Sea, off the port city of Gwadar. The land mass, seen here in a photo shot by the Pleiades satellite, is reportedly about 250 ft. (76 m) long and roughly 60 ft. (18 m) high. Like others […]
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We might have a ninth planet out there about 25 times farther out than Pluto from the sun. Some Astronomers have been searching for this planet for three years when it was first thought to be in existence. They believe that it has been hanging out in the outskirts of the solar system and have yet to find its actual […]
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Spending evenings in front of a glowing computer, TV, or cellphone screen can put you at risk of depression, Science News reports. Nighttime exposure to light from gadgets has already been shown to contribute to insomnia, cancer, obesity, and diabetes. Now, a new study shows that screen glow can cause mood-related changes in the brain. For weeks, researchers exposed hamsters […]
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American culture is sick, and secularism is the cause of our disease. That, said Steve Chapman, is the contention of religious conservatives like presidential candidate Rick Santorum, who insist that feminists, liberals, and gay marriage have undermined traditional morality, and that only a return to our Christian roots will cure what ails us. But all evidence suggests that this view […]
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Why do chimpanzees kill one another? For years, many studies have shown that chimps that were observed killing one another had become more aggressive only when humans encroached on their environment. But new studies have lent weight to an alternative theory: Chimpanzees are, like humans, natural-born killers who use violence as a means of expanding their territory and increasing their […]
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■ A cat that ran for the U.S. Senate in Virginia received about 7,000 write-in votes in last week’s election, according to his owners. That means Hank, who hails from Springfield, Va., can claim third place behind Democratic victor Tim Kaine and Republican also-ran George Allen.The human candidates were separated by 180,000 votes, which means that Hank did not affect […]
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Firstborn kids truly do have a tendency to be more astute than their kin, another study has found. The reason is not biological, as a few specialists have suspected, but instead the way folks treat children, contingent upon conception order. The study compared the IQs of 240,000 Norwegian men and found that the normal IQ of firstborn children was 2 […]
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■ A World War II veteran was able to hear a symphony he wrote 67 years ago for the first time, when the U.S. Army Orchestra premiered it in Washington, D.C. Retired Col. Harold Van Heuvelen, 93, was inspired by his experiences as a soldier to write a symphony in 1945, but it languished on the shelf for decades and […]
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All the gold on Earth was forged in the collisions of massively dense stars billions of years ago. Astronomers have come to this conclusion after observing and analyzing the afterglow of a crash between two neutron stars in a galaxy 3.9 billion light-years away that yielded a hoard of gold likely equal to the mass of 20 Earths. “At today’s […]
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