Jonathan's blog

From an article in the LA Times by Karen Kaplan:

Scientists have created human embryonic stem cells using a technique that does not require the destruction of embryos - a development that could break the political roadblock over the highly touted but controversial research. The method, described today in the journal Nature, involves taking a normal 3-day-old embryo with eight to 10 cells and removing a single cell, which is then biochemically coaxed into producing embryonic stem cells. The original embryo, despite missing one cell, is unharmed, thus avoiding concerns about destroying life. Fertility clinics have been removing cells from embryos created in vitro since 1990 to screen them for genetic diseases and chromosomal abnormalities. Doctors estimate at least 2,500 children alive today had a cell or two removed when they were days-old embryos. The Bush administration, which has restricted federal support for human embryonic stem cell research to prevent taxpayers from funding the destruction of embryos, said it was too soon to say whether the new approach could solve the issue's ethical dilemma.

There are similar articles in the NY TImes and The Washington Post.

From an article of the same title on beliefnet by Daniel Burke:

A "new generation of Religious Right" pastors is turning churches into Republican political machines, three left-leaning interest groups charged on Tuesday (Aug. 22). The report, titled "The Patriot Pastors' Electoral War Against the `Hordes of Hell,"' was issued by the NAACP, the People for the American Way Foundation and a subsidiary group, the African American Ministers Leadership Council... In particular, Ohio pastors Russell Johnson and Rod Parsley have been active in Buckeye state politics, the report says, building "a powerful political machine with growing influence ... and the potential to reconfigure both the political and spiritual map, as godliness becomes more clearly defined on a partisan ideological spectrum."... Both Parsley and Johnson have repeatedly and publicly extolled the virtues of Ken Blackwell, the Republican candidate for governor of Ohio, though both insist they lead non-partisan efforts.

A milestone has been reached...today was Elliot's first day of kindergarten.

From an article of the same title by Jay Mathews in The Washington Post:

Fourth-graders in traditional public schools nationwide did somewhat better on average than those in charter schools in reading and mathematics in 2003, a long-awaited federal report said yesterday... The center looked at 6,764 traditional public schools and 150 charter schools, which are public schools that operate independently. It said traditional schools scored 4.2 points higher in reading and 4.7 points higher in math on the 500-point National Assessment of Educational Progress test for fourth-graders, after adjusting for such student characteristics as family income... The study emphasized that the results could have been distorted by several factors it could not adjust for, such as the lack of a random sample, different levels of parental support and different levels of learning before the students reached fourth grade.

The report is online here and in the summary says:

[The] analysis showed that in reading and mathematics, average performance differences between traditional public schools and charter schools affiliated with a public school district were not statistically significant, while charter schools not affiliated with a public school district scored significantly lower on average than traditional public schools.

There's also an article in the NY TImes here.

From an article of the same title by Rob Stein in the Washington Post:

Bad news for all those baby boomers starting to pile on the pounds as they go through middle age: You don't have to be obese -- just a little overweight -- to increase your risk of dying prematurely, according to a large government study. The 10-year study of more than 500,000 U.S. adults found that those who were just moderately overweight in their fifties were 20 percent to 40 percent more likely to die in the next decade. Another study involving more than 1 million Korean adults, also being published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine, produced similar results... The number of Americans who are overweight has been increasing steadily in the United States. About two-thirds of Americans are now overweight, including about a third who are obese. Anyone with a body mass index (BMI) between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight, whereas a BMI of 30 or above is considered obese. (A 5-foot-10-inch adult who weighs between 174 and 208 pounds is considered overweight; above that is considered obese.)... But other researchers were not convinced, saying the findings are questionable for a number of reasons, including the fact that the weight data relied on the participants' recollections, which are notoriously unreliable, instead of direct measurements. Also, the sample was not necessarily representative of the general population, they said.