The world is embarking on its sixth mass extinction with animals disappearing about 100 times faster than they used to, scientists warn, and humans could be among the first victims of the next extinction event.
Not since the age of the dinosaurs ended 66 million years ago has the planet been losing species at this rapid a rate, a study led by experts at Stanford University, Princeton University and the University of California, Berkeley said.
The study “shows without any significant doubt that we are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event,” co-author and Stanford University professor of biology Paul Ehrlich said.
And the study, which was published in the journal Science Advances on Friday and described by its authors as “conservative”, said humans were likely to be among the species lost.
“If it is allowed to continue, life would take many millions of years to recover and our species itself would likely disappear early on,” lead author Gerardo Ceballos of the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico said.
(thePublicDiscourse) – Recently, I had a discussion about marriage with someone who calls herself a “Darwinian gay feminist.” I asked her, “Is there any principled reason that marriage should be limited to only two people? There is now such a thing as a ‘throuple’—a three-way relationship. Should they have a right to marry?” She replied, “A union between three consenting adults? I see nothing wrong with it. The same goes for incest. It’s none of my business.”
I take it that she was serious in her response. Given that she believes marriage should be redefined to include same-sex couples, I suppose that makes sense. If marriage is just an emotional and loving union focused on satisfying the desires of adults, then including three or more members in this union is only logical. But her position seems to discount the fact that there might be more than just consenting adults involved. What about children who are raised by three- or four-person groups?
This isn’t just a hypothetical question. Last April, the New York Post published a story with this headline: “Married lesbian ‘throuple’ expecting first child.” The youngest member of the throuple and the biological mother, Kitten, said, “The three of us have always wanted kids and wanted to grow our family.” This might be their desire, but is this right for children? Is being raised by a throuple good for children?
I am particularly sensitive to this question, because my own childhood gave me a glimpse of what it is like to be raised in such a household.
Let me explain.
My Story
I grew up in a household living with not only my mother and father, but also my half-brother and his mother. My father had two kids: one with my mom (me) and one with another woman (my half-brother, who was three months older than I). When my mother was not there, I would see my father and my half-brother’s mother kiss and cuddle. When my half-brother’s mom wasn’t there, I would see my mother and my father kiss and cuddle. Although I was very young, these images still remain with me.
My mother and the mother of my half-brother were best friends. When they were in their late teenage years, they came from Guatemala together to the United States and developed a bond on their journey. My half-brother and I got along very well, but having the same father yet different moms in the household was confusing and troubling. It was confusing and troubling for me because I was never the center of my father’s attention, especially when he would mistreat my mom and when he would show affection to my half-brother’s mom. I hated seeing my father show affection to another woman who was not my mom.
When I was six years old, my father broke off ties with all of us and started a new family with a third woman. It was at this point that my half-brother’s mother and my mother went their separate ways. From that point onward, my mother raised me by herself.
With indoor air pollution from kerosene lamps and stoves the second largest cause of death in India, one company, founded by Australians, has come up with a solution to the problem.
Every night in the sprawling shanty towns of the country of 1.2 billion people, the air fills with dense, black smoke.
“We used to get oil from the market and pour it into the lamp and light it; the house used to get full of soot and dirt,” said Abdul, a slum-dweller in Bangalore who lives in a hut made of wooden board and tarpaulin.
That was until Abdul bought a portable solar light from a company called Pollinate Energy, founded by five young Australians.
“After we got this solar lamp a lot of things improved,” Abdul said.
“No, what you see was predicted long ago by the prophet Joel.”
Observation
It is the Jewish feast of Pentecost and all the believers are together. Suddenly there is a sound like a mighty wind-storm, and something that looks like tongues of fire appears ad settles on each one.
Everyone is filled with the Holy Spirit and they begin peaking in tongues. Onlookers from around the world are amazed at the noise and the fact that they can hear the believers praising God in their own native languages.
Some mock them as being drunk, but Peter refutes this . This is the fulfilment of Joel’s prophecy that the Holy Spirit would be poured out on all people.
Application
The Holy Spirit is the birth right of all born again believers. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are the power that makes evangelism, and all ministry, possible.
We all need a regular infilling, a “top up” of Holy Spirit power because it is so easy to take our attention away from the presence of God and focus on the things we can see.
The gift of tongues is the gateway gift to the other gifts. If we let Holy Spirit control our tongue, He has control of every part of us.
“All flesh”, every true follower of Jesus, has access to the power and grace of the Holy Spirit. Call on Him today.
Prayer
Holy Spirit come. Come and fill me in the same way you filled those early disciples. Empower me, equip me, overflow in me. Amen.
Dutch judge rules dementia patient must be euthanised
A judge in the Netherlands has allowed an 80-year-old woman to be euthanised, despite objections from the medical staff looking after her.
According to media reports, the woman was living in a dementia care home and doctors thought she was incapable of expressing her will to die.
But the woman’s family claimed she had a ‘death wish’ and obtained a court order when the care home refused to let her be euthanised.
Medical staff treating her fought against the decision, but a judge rejected the appeal and the court order remained.
Last month she was removed from the care home and killed by the ‘Life End Clinic’ which was started by activists to make euthanasia more accessible for people in the Netherlands.
Euthanasia was legalised in the country in 2002 and under the law doctors must fulfil certain criteria such as ensuring that a patient’s request is voluntary and being satisfied that they are suffering unbearably.
If a patient has dementia, doctors can only euthanise them if an ‘advance directive’ or ‘living will’ is in place.
A survey of doctors in the Netherlands who specialise in euthanasia has revealed that more than half approve of the practice for patients with dementia.
Of the 547 doctors surveyed, 52 per cent could imagine themselves personally allowing the practice in cases where the dementia patient has made an advance directive but is now unable to express their will.
Last year a Dutch academic warned Westminster not to legalise assisted suicide because the number of euthanasia deaths in the Netherlands has soared since the legalisation of the practice in 2002.
Theo Boer originally supported euthanasia, but has now reviewed close to 4,000 euthanasia cases and said that it is becoming the “default” mode of dying for cancer patients.
He said: “Cases have been reported in which a large part of the suffering of those given euthanasia or assisted suicide consisted in being aged, lonely or bereaved.
“Some of these patients could have lived for years or decades”, he added.
The great population scares of last century confidently predicted that the world would not be able to feed an increasing population. You would expect that if that prediction were to come true then food prices would be increasing. In fact, the U.N. says that since 1961 the world prices for food have slightly decreased, adjusting for inflation.
Food prices are (slightly) lower today than they were in 1961. Yes, that’s right. Adjusted for inflation, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization calculates, the food price index in 2015 stood at 131.2. It was 131.7 in 1961.
In the meantime, the world population has increased from 3.01 billion to 7.28 billion – a rise of 4.2 billion or 135 percent.
If you are Paul Ehrlich, Lester Brown, William and Paul Paddock, Garrett Hardin, Rajiv Gandhi and countless other followers of Reverend Malthus, this should NOT be happening. But, it is. Human beings are intelligent animals. Unlike rabbits, who overbreed when food is plentiful and die out when it is not, humans innovate their way out of scarcity.
It’s one of the most persistent myths in motoring: old cars are as solid as rocks and can crush new cars like beer cans.
The misconception arises from the recent development of the crumple zone, where designated parts of modern cars lose their shape under even minor impacts.
But what appears to be a weakness is actually a strength – crumple zones absorb energy and effectively sacrifice themselves for the sake of the passenger compartment, the safety and rigidity of which is constantly increasing with every new model.
It’s one of the fundamental design principles promoted by organisations like ANCAP and its international car safety partners, including the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) in the United States.
The vehicles involved are a 2009 Chevrolet Malibu (sold in Australia by Holden since 2013) and a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air, an iconic sedan featured locally in the original Mad Max movie.
The Malibu, which was rated five stars by ANCAP in 2013, behaves as you’d expect with the front of the car being crushed while the passenger compartment remains intact.
By comparison, what happens to the Bel Air is nothing short of terrifying. Even the dryly technical IIHS description of the impact captures the gut-wrenching terror of what would surely be the driver’s final seconds of life:
Dummy movement wasn’t well controlled, and there was far too much upward and rearward movement of the steering wheel. The dummy’s head struck the steering wheel rim and hub and then the roof and unpadded metal instrument panel to the left of the steering wheel.
During rebound, the dummy’s head remained in contact with the roof and slid rearward and somewhat inward. The windshield was completely dislodged from the car and the driver door opened during the crash, both presenting a risk of ejection. In addition, the front bench seat was torn away from the floor on the driver side.
In other words, it’s hard to say whether the driver would’ve been killed first by brain damage, a broken neck, multiple organ failure or blood loss from leg amputation.
In terms of the car’s structure, the impact pushes the engine into the footwells while the A-frame and chassis rail simply disintegrate back beyond the line of the roof.
“The Bel Air collapsed,” said David Zuby, the senior vice president for the IIHS’s vehicle research centre.
“The area in which the driver was sitting collapsed completely around him.”
The test was to mark the 50th anniversary in 2009 of the IIHS, a group funded by the US insurance industry.
The idea was to show how much automotive safety had progressed in five decades, particularly since the IIHS – in partnership with ANCAP and other national road safety bodies – started crash testing in earnest in 1992.
And while the test is now six years old, its message is as pressing as ever: buy the newest, safest car that you can afford and drive as carefully as you can.
Were you expecting this crash test to deliver this result? Let us know what you think.
A porcupine has unearthed a 1,400-year-old ceramic lamp after digging his burrow at an Israeli site rich with ancient treasures, according to the Israeli antiquities authority.
Archaeological “police” noticed a pile of dirt next to the entrance of a burrow while looking for thieves during a routine visit to the late Roman and Byzantine site of Horbat Siv in central Israel.
There they found the lamp.
“Porcupines are excellent archaeologists who know how to dig,” Ira Horovitz, an antiquities official, said on the authority’s website.
“With the country having numerous archaeological sites, porcupines show up and build their shelters among underground remains.
“They push the soil expertly toward the surface, along with all sorts of objects.”
Despite the lucky find, the authority issued a humorous warning to Israel’s porcupines, telling them to “refrain from digging in archaeological sites without permission, which is a crime”.
Dutch judge rules dementia patient must be euthanised
New Life Narrabri 