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Glimpses Into the 'Vegetative State' |
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Written by Andrew Haines
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Sunday, 07 February 2010 16:37 |
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One of the most interesting (and hope-inspiring) topics to hit the press lately has been the story of a man thought to be in a vegetative state, who has responded to doctors at Cambridge via brainwaves detected in fMRI technology. The man, who sustained heavy head trauma in a car accident five years ago, has been physically unresponsive since the event. Over the last few days, the case has garnered lots of ink on most major news networks, who have consistently recognized the instance as critical for the ongoing debate on the "definition of death" and end-of-life ethics.
The results of recent tests conducted on patients thought to be in a permanent vegetative state were released by British and Belgian researchers in a paper entitled, "Willful Modulation of Brain Activity in Disorders of Consciousness." The findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Overall, only 5 of 54 patients who were tested responded to the stimuli presented by the researches, who used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to detect and decipher brain wave activity. But even with only a limited percentage of returns, the research is groundbreaking.
In the test, patients were asked to alter their thoughts—concentrating on either spatial imagery or motor imagery—which the scientists tracked as enacting different parts of the brain. One of the patients, a Belgian auto accident victim, even went on to answer a series of "yes" and "no" questions using the response technique. The 29-year-old man used the two types of mental imagery to respond accurately to biographical questions about his life. According to CNN, the fMRI technique was never formerly attempted on patients thought to be in vegetative states.
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Tim Tebow's Super Bowl Showdown |
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Written by Andrew Haines
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Thursday, 28 January 2010 11:13 |
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It probably wouldn't be much of a match-up on the gridiron, but during this year's Super Bowl Tim Tebow will encounter perhaps the most vehement opponent of his entire career: pro-choice Americans.
For thirty-seconds during Super Bowl XLIV, Tebow will be featured in a commercial by Focus on the Family designed to highlight the errors of abortion, and challenge viewers to consider what potential unborn life might hold. Tebow, whose mother Pam was sick during her pregnancy with the Heisman winner in 1987, was almost himself the victim of abortion. But in just twenty years, Tebow has demonstrated firmly the value of his own life (leading the Florida Gators to a BCS championship), and the value of his pro-life morals. "I know some people won’t agree with [the ad]," said Tebow, "but I think they can at least respect that I stand up for what I believe."
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Why Marriage is Inherently Heterosexual |
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Written by Patrick Lee
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Monday, 25 January 2010 13:32 |
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[This article was originally published by the Witherspoon Institute on December 19, 2008. It is republished here with the author's permission.]
A recent story in Newsweek claimed that the only reasons for opposing same-sex "marriage" are religious. But there are powerful arguments for marriage rooted not in faith but in reason.
In the December 15th [2008] edition of Newsweek, both Jon Meacham in his editor’s note and religion editor Lisa Miller in her front-page article mock arguments from scripture. At the same time, they invoke that same Bible’s authority for a “more general” message of “inclusivity,” in order to lobby for making gay marriage a sacrament. Meacham and Miller paint all opposition to the radical re-definition of marriage as hateful bigotry, comparing it to racism, and labeling appeals to the authority of the Bible against homosexual “marriage” and homosexual acts as fundamentalism. Indeed Meacham goes further: it is “the worst kind of fundamentalism.” How much worse than suicide-bombings and beheadings he does not make clear.
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