Jeff Gift PhD

Toxicologists like myself make a living out of evaluating the impact of chemical exposures and other insults on the health of laboratory animals (we can't test humans after all). Rats and mice, members of the evolutionary order Rodentia, make up a large majority of these experimental animals. Ken Boschert, a veterinarian with Washington University's division of comparative medicine and the operator of a Web site called Net Vet (netvet.wustl.edu/) estimates that 99 percent of experimental animals nowadays are rats and mice, which are small, cheap to feed, and reproduce quickly. Rats and mice are also believed to share a closer evolutionary lineage to humans than other non-primate mammals.

Many of you will remember with me the epic TV series Mission Impossible which chronicled the adventures of the Impossible Mission Taskforce, a team of government spies and specialists who were assigned "impossible missions" by the unseen "Secretary". If not, you may have seen the more recent movie of the same title. If not, well, bear with me. I think you'll get the point. In the original series, the Team Leader (Dan Briggs the first season, then Jim Phelps the other six) was always given a mission, usually involving the impossible (hence the title) task of disarming an alarming situation within a time limit (inevitably by the end of the show).

"For sheer numbers, no other ocean beings can match viruses. Thousands, sometimes even millions of these molecular parasites inhabit every drop of surface seawater, outnumbering even bacteria by 10 to 1... evidence that suggests that viruses are a powerful force in the sea, and one that determines how many plankton and ultimately how many fish, and even humans, an ocean ecosystem can support... viruses must have a profound influence on the WHY DID GOD CREATE VIRUSES?

A major line of reasoning used to argue against the creationist worldview is ‘why a benevolent God would create pathogenic organisms whose sole function seems to be to cause disease and suffering?

According to secular scientists, two German fossils recently identified as "amazingly modern-looking" hummingbirds are 30-million years old. This find pushes the fossil record for hummingbirds back an alleged 29 million years. The discovery was made by Dr. Gerald Mayr of the natural history museum Forschungsinstitut Senkenberg in Frankfurt and reported in the journal Science. 1

According to the Center for Disease Control, this year's flu season is the worst this country has experienced in years. The CDC reports that flu is widespread in at least 13 states, and only Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. have reported no cases (USATODAY.com - Flu Shot Shortage is Feared, Dec., 17, 2003). Hospitals in Arizona and North Carolina report patients swamping pediatric emergency rooms. Health departments are scrambling to get vaccines. Paper masks are being handed out in waiting rooms.

The Raleigh News and Observer dedicated four pages of prelim coverage to the catastrophic event, with headlines such as "Shelters Ready as Isabel Heads for 1 PM Landfall," "Schools Are Closed from Triangle to the Coast" and "Trains, Some Flights, Performances Canceled." On Wednesday evening, September 17, several Public Health Service (PHS) comrades and I received voice mail messages from the Secretary [for the U.S. Department of Health and Humans Services] Command Center (DHHS) with orders to report to the North Carolina State Emergency Operations Center (EOC) in Raleigh and assist in determining the need for Federal support. On Thursday, September 18, 1:00 pm, the eye of Hurricane Isabel passed over Cape Lookout, North Carolina.

In the lead article of our March, 2003 issue, "Baby Picture," we focused on satellite pictures of cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) that NASA scientists claimed were "the best "baby picture" of the Universe ever taken." In this issue we focus on another "baby," one of a dozen baby bristlecone pine (Pinus aristata) trees that are the subject of a recent, June 16, 2003, New York Times article. 1

On February 11, 2003, a NASA press release announced "the best ‘baby picture' of the Universe ever taken." The "baby picture" shown here has subsequently been featured in prominent science journals and newspapers across the globe. 1 ^,2 ^,3 ^,4  It was taken about 1.5 million kilometers above Earth by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), a satellite that measures the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB).

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