Bishops, Science Center, launch, fair, tools

==> U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement on embryonic stem cell research during their semi-annual conference going on right now in Orlando.

ORLANDO, Fla. –The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops issued a document Friday warning against what they consider the moral dangers of embryonic stem cell research, saying it treats human beings as commodities and reduces procreation to a manufacturing process.

With elections looming this fall, the bishops said they are not asking Catholics or the public to choose between science and religion. Instead, they are urging people to examine how society should conduct medical research.

Some folks are speaking out against that decision, though.

==> Brian Tonner of the Orlando Science Center had a “My Word” opinion piece published in the Orlando Sentinel.

There’s an important, powerful message in the recently published science FCAT results for schools in our region. Whether you consider the scores for the state, or for individual counties, the story is the same. Scores on the science FCAT are well below 50 percent competency at all grade levels, and even more striking, they get worse as the students move from grade five, to grade eight, to grade 11.

But I guess that was a going away speech of sorts. Tonner is resigning as the Science Center’s president and CEO.

==> Here’s a nice set of photos showing GLAST (Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope) being prepared and launched earlier this week.

==> In these tough economic times schools are slicing and dicing budgets to make ends meet. But when the Hernando County School Board discovered that the all-county elementary science fair was a casualty, they said they would prefer that it be slipped back in.

“A Bag Of Tools”
Isn’t it strange
     That princes and kings,
And clowns that caper
     In sawdust rings,
And common people
     Like you and me
Are builders for eternity?

Each is given a bag of tools,
     A shapeless mass,
A book of rules;
     And each must make—
Ere life is flown—
     A stumbling block
Or a steppingstone.
— R.L. Sharpe

==> Now take the words in this post heading and make a headline out of them. “Science Center bans bishops from science fair program launch: ‘They lack mental tools to comprehend.'”