Archive
The Temple Mount is the Key to Peace
A view of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Photo: Berthold Werner.
The current negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are a struggle close to the heart of many. Hope springs eternal, but questions remain.
Most would agree that President Obama’s insistence and Secretary of State Kerry’s persistence are the primary instigators of the current negotiations. Although the prospects of peace are always tantalizing, the likelihood that peace talks will raise unrealistic hopes and stir long- held tension is a real and present danger.
The proposed Two State Solution is an imposition on Israel’s 65-year peace process, and does not necessarily address the sensitivities of the Read more…
Sun’s magnetic field flip raises EMP threat

WASHINGTON – The sun is about to flip its magnetic field, at the peak of its 11-year solar cycle or at the half-way point of what scientists call a solar maximum – when it is at its most violent in terms of solar flares and the Earth is most vulnerable to an electromagnetic pulse.
That’s the surge of sun energy that scientists say could in an instant return the developed world to an agrarian society, essentially without any electronics, and leave millions dead.
This mid-way point is expected in about four months – a December/January time frame – putting Earth in a position of greatest vulnerability even as the solar maximum diminishes well into 2014.
Scientists for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, have said the sun will reach its most intense period this year and well into next.
Others have suggested that even until 2020 Earth still could be exposed to solar flares that if they hit Earth directly could knock out the U.S. national grid system and fry electronic components and automated control systems not only in the U.S. but in other industrialized countries.
“It looks like we’re no more than three to four months away from a complete Read more…
Federal government announces special oversight for avian flu experiments By Carolyn Y. Johnson / Globe Staff
The federal government announced Wednesday a special oversight process for experiments that involve tinkering with a new strain of avian flu detected in Asia earlier this year, but the decision has not come without controversy.
Such experiments, which can produce forms of the H7N9 virus that are more dangerous to people, are aimed at understanding the pathogen that has infected more than 130 people in China and killed about a third of them. Researchers also announced Wednesday that they had seen the first evidence that the virus had spread from person to person.
The knowledge gained from this type of research could help prepare health officials for a potential pandemic and lead to the development of new therapies or vaccines, but also poses scary what-if scenarios, ranging from the accidental escape of a Read more…