Author Archives: Jerry

Scott Hahn has a New Online Resource on Scripture Studies

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I just received a letter in the mail from from the St.
Paul Center for Biblical Theology, which was founded by the Evangelical convert
to Catholicism, Scott Hahn, and his wife Kimberly. Dr. Hahn has been dreaming of
helping Catholics know the Bible better for sometime, and reminded us in the letter
that St. Jerome wrote “Ignorance of Scripture is Ignorance of God”.

This center has a free online Bible Studies Course, an introduction to the Bible
geared towards HS students, and a periodical called Breaking
the Bread–a year-long subscription for the latter may be had by making an online
donation to the Center. He has several other interesting projects in the works,
and commend this website to all as something to use and watch over time as the services
develop.

The letter I received was also a request for funds–I hope to send him some money,
but at the very least we should pray for this new work and spread the word.

Some Developments in Biomedicine

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  • Thanks to Wired,
    I was tipped off on an article published in Nature about a type of stem
    cell that
    seems to be at the heart of the most advanced
    brain tumors in adults and children    . It is considered stem-cell like
    since its
    chief marker, CD133, is a protein associated with embryonic nerve cells,
    and because
    it has tremendous ability to reproduce. In one dramatic experiment, 16
    of 19 mice
    injected with CD133-positive human tumor cells developed tumors. Of the
    15 that
    received tumor cells negative for CD133 markers, none developed tumors,
    though traces
    of the cells were still found in the mouse brains during dissection,
    implying that
    while these human cells could live in the mouse, they could not develop
    a tumor
    on their own. This opens a new dimension into how cancer develops (and
    where these
    so-called “stem cells” really come from), and also hints that
    a CD133
    blocker may be a new weapon against cancer. Considering that an advanced
    brain tumor
    right now is more or less a death sentence within a year, this could be
    quite important!
    Dysfunctional stem cells were previously known to be at the
    heart of leukemia    , but this is the first solid tumor with a stem
    cell as its
    apparent source.
  • There’s some interesting Type I diabetes research where Harvard
    researcher Denise
    Faustman seems to have suppressed the autoimmune reaction against
    beta-cells in
    the pancreas which leads to insulin depletion and diabetes. What’s
    really neat is
    that beta cells seem to spontaneously regenerate when the autoimmune
    reaction is
    suppressed, promising a knock-down cure for that disease. I read about
    this on the
    NY Times, but it’s now no longer open for free access, so check out this
    blurb from
    Do
    No Harm     about the research and Lee Iacocca’s funding initiative for
    Dr. Faustman.
  • Check out the
    Public Library of Science    , an organization that publishes
    peer-reviewed scientific
    journals that are free to the public and entirely online.

Alternatives to the GOP?

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Some commentators on Funky’s
blog have complained that pro-life Christians have found themselves
voting Republican
whether they wanted to or not. Mr. Bush’s actions in Iraq had me
wondering if we
could somehow find a pro-life Nader, but unlike Nader, who would have
the Democrats
become more liberal (at least with economic issues), perhaps our
pro-life Nader
would help pull the Republicans to a more moderate set of social and
international
policies–i.e., maybe tug them to the left. Or, this pro-life Nader
could rally
pro-life Democrats and even encourage that party to get a little more
open-minded
about its abortion plank.

Well, with that in mind, check out this article in Wired.com about the
still-undetermined
role of blogs
in elections, and the Washington
Post article on how Evangelicals often campaigned for Bush
independently of
the GOP or Bush’s own staff. The latter is comforting, since it means
that many
Christians are not in lock-step with the Republicans so much as they
thought that
the Republican candidate was a better pick. They worked independently,
behold, here
is an
NY Times article about how the Dems can woo the church-goers yet
again. Of particular
note are the candid comments from Fr. Richard Neuhaus, editor of the
influential
journal First Things
(and a personal
favorite of this contributor!).

So with this in mind, we should draw some hope that pro-life Christians
may use
their leverage to get a better candidate. The trick is now to work on
finding and
supporting some good ones.

Notable News in Science

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Since one of Funky’s regular commentators here has diabetes, I thought
that he and
other readers would be interested in this
article on a promising research on Type I diabetes.

She calls
attention to the
fact that Type I diabetes is really an autoimmune disease, and the lack
of insulin
is really a symptom of the body’s attack on insulin producing beta cells
in pancreas.
Keep an eye on this one!

A Diabetes Researcher Forges Her Own Path to a Cure

Dr. Denise Faustman thinks she has a shot at curing diabetes. She has published one significant scientific paper after another on the disease. She has succeeded in curing it in mice, something no one else has accomplished.

But when Dr. Faustman, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, went looking for money to finance the next stage of her research, testing the ideas with diabetes patients, she could find no backers. Pharmaceutical companies turned her down. So did the Juvenile Diabetes Research Association.

Also, speaking of science resources, check out the
Public Library of Science, an organization that publishes
peer-reviewed scientific
journals that are free to the public and entirely online.

Anglican-Rite Catholics

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Dappled
Things has a great blurb and some links regarding the promotion of
an option
for the use of an Anglican (slightly modified, I think) Rite for Roman
Catholic
Churches. This had come up in a previous post of Ales
Rarus, and I’m all for increasing the breadth and depth of the
liturgical life
of the Church, so enjoy! And pass it on! I’d like to help Fr. Jim and
his quest
to keep reminding the bishops about this option, and getting the word
out.