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This article explores the question: is The X-Files dangerous to science fiction (SF) and science? Certainly it is one of the most prominent series that, despite being frequently appended with the SF television label, seems to challenge and sometimes eschew basic conceptualizations of the genre. Furthermore, at the height of its success the series was criticized by scientists such as Richard Dawkins for disseminating and popularizing anti-rational and potentially anti-scientific perspectives. On these grounds, the answer to our question appears to be yes. However, detailed analysis of the series reveals quite a different picture. Firstly, even attempts to distance the series from SF effectively encapsulate reasons for that very labelling. These specifically revolve around the use of the phrase 'extreme possibilities'. Secondly, far from presenting a simplistic juxtaposition of belief and reason, the series instead involves a dialogic exchange that helps to articulate the role of scientific inquiry in approaching the unknown.

Intro -- Praise for -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Contents -- Foreword -- 1 Starting from the Beginning -- 1.1 Beyond what? -- 1.2 Being human: the origins and early evolution of humankind -- 1.3 Corn and community, cities and civilization -- 2 The Way We Were -- 2.1 Introduction -- 2.2 Shifting power bases in the ancient world -- 2.3 Religion in the ancient world -- 2.4 Into Europe -- 2.5 Post-Roman Britain -- 2.6 Moving away from Rome -- 2.7 Science, culture and religion -- 2.8 The Industrial Revolution and the age of invention -- 2.9 Science, culture and religion revisited -- 2.10 Into the twentieth century -- 2.11 Some thoughts on the story so far -- 3 The Way We Are -- 3.1 Introduction -- 3.2 Communism and capitalism -- 3.3 Israel and Palestine -- 3.4 The European Union -- 3.5 The 1960s -- 3.6 Northern Ireland -- 3.7 Terrorism and war -- 3.8 Power bases shift again -- 3.9 Science, religion and culture -- 3.10 Human society: fraying round the edges or cracking down the middle? -- 3.11 After World War II: a final comment -- 4 Morals, Ethics and Complex Issues -- 4.1 Introduction -- 4.2 Ethical systems -- 4.3 A brief excursion into postmodernism -- 4.4 Application of ethics in medicine -- 4.5 Extending the ethical vision -- 5 Genes, Genetics and Human Disease -- 5.1 Introduction -- 5.2 Early understanding -- 5.3 Genes and medicine: the early years -- 5.4 The new genetic revolution -- 5.5 Science, sequences and sickness -- 6 Genetic Testing and Diagnosis: The Good, the Bad and the Muddly -- 6.1 Genetic testing and diagnosis -- 6.2 Prenatal and pre-implantation testing: wider ethical issues -- 6.3 A gene for this and a gene for that -- 6.4 Concluding remarks -- 7 Medical Technology: From Gamete to Grave -- 7.1 Introduction -- 7.2 The art of reproduction: from donor insemination to test-tube babies -- 7.3 Gene therapy

This article examines the benefits and challenges of engaging children in environmental citizen science, defined as science conducted by nonspecialists under the direction of professional scientists, to promote social good. Citizen science addresses two central elements of the social good model—environmental justice and inclusion with particular attention to diversity in age, gender, race/ethnicity, and social class in addressing environmental injustice that is more prevalent in underrepresented communities. This article evaluates how participation in citizen science projects focused on the environment (eco-citizen science) benefits the child's development, contributes to science, and leads to commitment to environmental stewardship and justice as adults. Our work offers a novel contribution to the discourse on social good and social justice through explicitly calling for children to be included in environmental citizen science projects. We examine the benefits and challenges of involving children in scientific projects and discuss implications for policy, practice, and future research.

Since the emergence of news related to the development of a modified H5N1-virus, a media and political firestorm has ensued. Many global health officials have condemned the publication of the results and methods related to the H5N1 findings, citing obvious threats of bioterrorism. Adamantly opposing the redaction and limitation of the research are members of the scientific community, who are calling the attempts at censorship a blatant disregard for the openness of science and the dissemination of discoveries. Herein, we discuss the fallout of these recent events and their impacts on the scientific and global health communities.

Since the emergence of news related to the development of a modified H5N1-virus, a media and political firestorm has ensued. Many global health officials have condemned the publication of the results and methods related to the H5N1 findings, citing obvious threats of bioterrorism. Adamantly opposing the redaction and limitation of the research are members of the scientific community, who are calling the attempts at censorship a blatant disregard for the openness of science and the dissemination of discoveries. Herein, we discuss the fallout of these recent events and their impacts on the scientific and global health communities.Read Complete Article at ijSciences: V120121080

In the past decade, much attention has focused on developmental brain research and its implications for the regulation of crime. Public and policy interest has been directed primarily toward juveniles. In light of recent research, courts and legislatures increasingly have rejected the punitive response of the 1990s and embraced a developmental approach to young offenders. Of particular importance in propelling this trend has been the framework offered by the U.S. Supreme Court in a series of Eighth Amendment opinions that have rejected harsh adult sentences for juveniles. These decisions, supported by adolescent brain research, rested on two empirically based principles: First, juvenile offenders, due to their developmental immaturity, typically are less culpable and, therefore, deserve less punishment than their adult counterparts. Second, because their criminal conduct is the product of immaturity, most juveniles have a greater potential to reform than do adults. This framework has influenced broader sentencing reforms for juvenile offenders. It has also led policymakers to focus on the impact of juvenile justice settings and programs on youth development and crime reduction. More recently, advocates and some policymakers have argued that developmental research should shape the law's response to young adult offenders. Over the past decade, developmental psychologists and neuroscientists have found that biological and psychological development continues into the early twenties, well beyond the age of majority. Recently, researchers have found that eighteen- to twenty-one-year-old adults are more like younger adolescents than older adults in their impulsivity under conditions of emotional arousal. It is also well established that young adults, like teenagers, engage in risky behavior, such as drinking, smoking, unsafe sex, drug use, and criminal activity, to a greater extent than older adults. The possibility that much risky behavior, including involvement in criminal activity, is a product of psychological and social immaturity raises the question of whether the presumption of reduced culpability and greater potential for reform should be applied to young adult offenders as well as juveniles.

Created by human ingenuity, cyberspace is a fact of daily life. Until recently, this arena of virtual interaction was considered largely a matter of low politics— the routine, background, and relatively non-contentious. Today cyberspace and its uses have vaulted into the highest realm of high politics – the most salient and contentious forms of interaction. We now appreciate that cyber capabilities are also a source of vulnerability, posing potential threats to national security, and disturbing the familiar and traditional international order. The expansion of cyber access has already influenced the Westphalian-anchored international system in powerful ways. This paper argues that the construction of cyberspace is creating new challenges for the social sciences, the full nature of still remains to be fully understood -- perhaps even calling into question some of its most basic assumptions. We frame these challenges with reference to co- evolution of the new cyber domain and the traditional international system, and then focus more specifically on the emergent synergy between two independent features of the contemporary world order -- cyberspace (an arena of interaction) and sustainability (a policy imperative), and their convergence on the global policy agenda It is no surprise that sustainability is closely connected to security – or alternatively that security is contingent on sustainability. By extension, cyber security is derivative, in that is refers to security in the cyber domain. ; This material is based on work supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, Grant No. N00014-09-1-0597. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations therein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Office of Naval Research.

The volume collects a series of contributions that help reconstruct the recent history of the N.th tradition, highlighting important moments of self.reinterpretation in the "samprad.ya"?s interaction with different social milieus. The leitmotif tying together the selection of articles is the authors? explorations of the overlap between religious authority and political power. For example, in which ways do the N.ths? hagiographical claim of possessing yogic charisma (often construed as supernatural powers, siddhis) translate into mundane expressions of socio.political power? And how does it morph into the authority to reinterpret and recreate particular traditions? The articles approach different aspects of the recent history of the N.th samprad.ya, spanning from stories of yog.s guiding kings in the petty principalities of the eighteenth century to gurus who sought prominence in the transnational environments of the twentieth century; examining some N.th lineages and institutions under the British Raj, in the history of Nepal, and in contemporary India.

One week before the mass demonstrations that led to the collapse of the Czechoslovak Communist regime in November, 1989, a Charter 77 activist, Jan Urban, proposed that the group contest the national elections to be held in June of 1991. Urban's friends laughed at his proposals for being hopelessly Utopian. But a week later, thousands of students filled Wenceslas Square, a general strike was called, and the regime collapsed. The leaders of the future Civic Forum, who had been carefully watching events in Hungary, Poland and the GDR, had little idea that their own country was ripe for revolution.Charter 77 would not have fared much better had it consulted Western social scientists, because our models for understanding the emergence of new social movements and their spread and outcomes are woefully inadequate. While prediction in social science is always hazardous, our lack of preparation for the recent wave of mobilization in Eastern Europe is particularly glaring, given the vast body of research and theorizing that has developed since the 1960s both in Western Europe and the United States.

"Does science deny God? Did the Universe and life appear by chance or is there evidence of a bigger scheme of thing behind them? In this context, I am concerned with answering these questions. This problem is addressed using knowledge in cosmology, physics and biology. The initial part describes the stages of the "Genesis" according to physical cosmology from the Big Bang to the appearance of life on Earth. It will touch on problems of why the universe is dominated by matter, the theory of inflation, the limits of our knowledge on the early Universe, the lack of a theory that can allow us to study the phases immediately after the Big Bang, the relation between the concepts of quantum mechanics and the existence of God. It shows how the Universe is finely regulated, that is, the physical constants have been chosen so that life appears in the Universe. The regulation is so strong that we are forced to think the existence of a great designer who has created a particular Universe like the one we are observing. This conclusion can be avoided only if there is an infinity of universes, a multiverse. We ask ourselves if science can create the Universe from nothing and using the same arguments of cosmologists such as Krauss (author of The Universe from Nothing). It is now known that the current science does not allow the creation of a Universe from absolutely nothing. Physics and cosmology do not deny God. Indeed, the argument of the fine adjustment of constants is strongly indicative of the existence of a great designer. Other evidence confirming this comes from biology. Thousands of experiments in recent decades highlight the impossibility of generating life in the laboratory. There is an intrinsic order in life encoded in DNA that is not present in experiments. Simple calculations show that the "blind and aimless" evolution described by neo-Darwinists such as Dawkins does not allow the generation of life"--