Trump's LGBT Man; Pick a Gender and Vote; UN Hates Israeli Deer; Russia's Ukraine Door; Patrolling the Sea; Pope Terrorism; Dirty Meat; Smart Bug Trap; AI Knows; Self-Crasher; and Sick Watson

Society

Meet the Trump admin official paid to promote LGBT ‘rights’ around the world lifesitenews

The decision to preserve open homosexual Randy Berry as Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTI Persons was reported Monday by the homosexual newspaper Washington Blade. It is another blow to pro-family advocates who oppose the LGBT agenda and are counting on Trump to root out homosexual and abortion activists from the foreign affairs bureaucracy after eight years of Obama’s leftist policies.

“The Obama administration has systematically filled the ranks of State with LGBTQ and abortion activists,” Perkins wrote in December. “Unless the next Secretary of State is willing to resist and remove this embedded agenda, the promotion and protection of true human rights, like religious liberty, will continue to languish.”

Motherless Babies; Gifting Death; Ball Goes Fore Pride; Abortion-Murder Plan Falls Short; Rest in Bits; A Real Blood Red River; Petra's Aphrodite; Alexander or Someone Else; Nero Coin; Israel's Finalized Military Deal; 9/11 Veto Threat; Chevy Reads Your Mood; Virtual Typer; Milky Chart; and Noisy Words

Research

Motherless babies possible as scientists create live offspring without need for female egg telegraph.co.uk

The landmark experiment by the University of Bath bath.ac.uk rewrites 200 years of biology teaching and could pave the way for a baby to be born from the DNA of two men.

A little sensationalized as it's more "maybe" than "possible", but a step in a scary direction.

Eyes Wide Closed; JW No More; Pope and Zuckerberg; Nuclear Air Defense; Illegal but Palestine; Ancient and Sophisticated; Deep Space Diver; 365 Days on the Edge of a Volcano; Car Brains; 4D Printing; Feeling Virtual Reality; and The Drone Water Hunt

Society

Kerry terror solution: Media should cover less wnd v

“It’s easy to terrorize. Government and law enforcement have to be correct 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. But if you decide one day you’re going to be a terrorist and you’re willing to kill yourself, you can go out and kill some people. You can make some noise. Perhaps the media would do us all a service if they didn’t cover it quite as much. People wouldn’t know what’s going on.”

Leaked Secret Deal; 50k People Purge; Fists of Iron; Making Aliyah; Guessing Lone Wolves; Slug-Bot; Hip on Stem Cells; The Self-Driving Bus of the Future...Today; Sun Probe; More Than Break-Even Landings; SoftBank's ARM; and The Great Pyramid Papyrus

Iran

Secret document lifts Iran nuke constraints usatoday

The document is the only secret text linked to last year's agreement between Iran and six foreign powers. It says that after a period between 11 to 13 years, Iran can replace its 5,060 inefficient centrifuges with up to 3,500 advanced machines. Since those are five times as efficient, the time Iran would need to make a weapon would drop from a year to six months.

Also see A Year After Iran Nuclear Deal, What Has Changed? npr w!

LGBT History Lessons; Struttin' Bot; Bomb Bot or Drone?; Ford's Robot Co-Workers; Nano 'Wind' Turbines for Nano Power; Cloaked Research; DNA Decoding in Space; Japan's Throne; South Seas Nuclear Power; A Friend in Africa is a Friend in the UN; Iran's 4th Test; and Terroist States Condem Terrorism Elsewhere

Society

LGBT History Lessons Heading for California Classrooms abcnews.go

The State Board of Education cde.ca.gov unanimously approved those changes in classroom instruction Thursday to comply with the nation's first law requiring public schools to include prominent gay Americans and LGBT rights milestones in history classes.

Do you remember that lesson you learned in school about the danger of rulling parties of some, shall we say, "less free" nations projecting/rewriting history to suit its purposes?

Carrots for Peace; Jerusalem Dividing Deal; Israel-Turkey Coming to Terms; Iran's Unsurprising Finds; Brexit's Global Economy Effect; Paul Allen's Giant Plane; Starting Human Zika Trials; Hitler the Author; FBI's Redacted History; Okinawa Protests; and Historian's Pragmatism

Israel

Backing French peace push, EU ministers add carrots to sweeten deal timesofisrael

“The EU is determined, alongside other international and regional partners, to bring a concrete and substantial contribution to a global set of incentives for the parties to make peace with a view to an international conference planned to be held before the end of the year,” the foreign ministers said in a statement.

NATO's Rotation; NK's Latest Missile Failure; Lenski Rebutted; 1/3 For Boycotting Israel; Anti-BDS Summit; Atomic Submarine; Inflated NASA; Chatty Friends; Zenbo; Social Hate Purge; Pope 'n the Kids; Carter for Social Justice; Religious Symbol Ban Allowed; Summer Terror in Europe; Tourism Plummet; UnitedHealth's CA Exit; and Gunshot Wound Plug

War

Stoltenberg says NATO ready to respond to ‘assertive Russia’ politico.eu

The Polish minister confirmed that Poland and the Baltic states would host four rotating battalions and that he talked with Stoltenberg about permanently stationing weapons stores in Poland, “which is crucially important for us and strengthens our sense of security.”

Fighting Death; Taking Advantage of the Dead; N.C. Stares Down U.S.; Anti-Culture; Presidential Prayer and Folly; Killing Baby Softly; Iran Calls for Anti-Isreal Unity; Texan IED; Legion vs Banks; Human Anti-Cancer Antibody; "No, I'm Earth!"; and Viv

Today starts creepy (testing on clinically dead) and ends sad (Utah requires painkillers for some babies before aborting them). There's also the fight between North Carolina and the Federal Government, and the President's disjointed reality when it comes to religious freedom and prayer.

Death

Dead could be brought 'back to life' in groundbreaking project telegraph.co.uk

A biotech company in the US has been granted ethical permission to recruit 20 patients who have been declared clinically dead from a traumatic brain injury, to test whether parts of their central nervous system can be brought back to life.

Defective Embryo, Healthy Baby; China Calls Cold War; Just War or Just Peace?; UNESCO's Jew-less Temple Mount; Israel Increases Troops at Temple Mount; Israeli Exerts Sovereignty over Golan; State of PA Passports; Israel Who?; Canadian Hostages; NK Plutonium; 3D Cast; Starshot Reality; 2020 Olympic Asteroids; Foldable Phone; e-Skin; Archerfish Saw Mine; Big Banks with Small Plan; Hiding from the 99%; and the Reoccurring Overpopulation Panic

A lot of stories about Israel today. Also, check out the underground bunkers for the uber-rich and a quick history on fears of overpopulation!

Abortion

Study: When tests detect birth defects, babies can still be born healthy worldmag

Researchers at the University of Cambridge, who published their results in the journal Nature Communications, found even when half the cells of an early-stage mouse embryo were abnormal, the embryo was still able to fully repair itself because the abnormal cells self-destructed and healthy cells replaced them. In many cases, the process completely repaired a defective embryo, leaving it with all healthy cells even though some of the placental cells were still abnormal. Even in cases where 75 percent of an early-stage embryo’s cells were abnormal, the ratio of normal cells increased as the embryo developed.

North Carolina Support; Discriminating Behavior Not People; New Morality Pope; Rich and Famous Sinners; Wrestling with the Future; Turkey's State; Girl Infantry-Man; and Testing Global Banking

Society

Six Reasons North Carolina Got It Right townhall

On Monday Lt. Governor Dan Forest, who helped call the special session to pass HB2, called the executive in charge at one large protesting company and simply asked if him if he or anyone there had a actually read the bill.

He admitted they had not. They just labeled it “discriminatory” without even reading it.

An article linked to by today's Tim Challies update. Been tricky to find anyone not bashing North Carolina over this law.

3 Reasons Why Religious Liberty Laws Don’t Discriminate thegospelcoalition.org

One of the most ubiquitous phrases is that such bills are a “license to discriminate.” According to this line of thinking, it is invidiously discriminatory if a baker, florist, or photographer declines to use his or her creative talents in service of a same-sex wedding ceremony.

Two from Tim Challies in one day!

The New Morality of Pope Francis newyorker

I was ordained in early 1969, a few months after the promulgation of “Humanae Vitae,” the Vatican’s resounding condemnation of “artificial birth control,” which would define my future. I was a chaplain at a university where, true to the era, the norms of sexual morality had been upended. I certainly saw the need, in those wild days, for a humane and ethical analysis of the state of sexual intimacy, personal commitment, erotic longing, and gender rights. But, believe me, the triumphalist salvo from Rome made the moral condition worse, not better.

An opinion piece on how relative moralism was enshrined in Catholism long before Pope Francis. This article's author sees that as a good thing, and is praising the latest pope for pulling back further from absolutes. I found it worth reading, seeing the insights of one who is lost and deep within an idolatrous system where the issue at stake is not whether or not any decisions conform to God's word, but the words of the popes. Interesting read: sad because of the utter blindness of this man and enraging because of the utter joy taken in promoting a system wickedly at odds with God and calling it good. (Rom 1:32)

Depravity

The Troubled Minds of the Rich and Famous news.nationalgeographic

Talking from her home in Alexandria, Virginia, Kalb takes us inside the brain of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, explains how Howard Hughes had a grilled cheese sandwich problem, and why Charles Darwin is her hero.

Sin has affected how we think and relate and understand (known as the Noetic Effect of sin). This means that people really do end up a mess even by man's noeticly-effected-standard, but when we look for an answer in psychology, as the author of this book is doing, we are missing that we, ourselves, are corrupted and looking for the out for our own responsibility! This look at those in history shows us that being well-known doesn't change our nature. Not even one bit.

Singularitry

The funny things happening on the way to singularity techcrunch

About 10 years ago, inventor, futurist and now Director of Engineering at Google Ray Kurzweil famously embraced the concept of “the singularity” — that moment in time when machine intelligence surpasses our own. Kurzweil predicted the singularity would occur by 2045, and man and machine would become inseparable.

Given the relationship most people have with their smartphones, you could argue it’s already happening.

Though deeply entrenched in a humanistic worldview, an engaging read.

Turkey

One day after Israel issues travel warning to Turkey, US follows suit jpost

"The US Mission in Turkey would like to inform US citizens that there are credible threats to tourist areas, in particular to public squares and docks in Istanbul and Antalya," the statements reads.

Military

Louisiana woman makes U.S. Army history ksla

A Robeline native is making armed forces history as the first woman to enlist in the infantry in the United States Army.

Banking

4 top banks used blockchain tech to trade credit swaps qz

Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi, Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan, and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) successfully traded credit default swaps on the blockchain, according to an announcement today.

Pipe Flares; Google and BOFA Jump On-board; Military Suicide; NK in Semi-War Mode; Obama and Xi Shake Their Fist Some More; Resurrecting the Book of the Dead; Theology without Christ; Programming Cells; Smoking DNA; AI vs AI; Automated Lawyer; NASA Too Eager?; Amazon and Microsoft Joining the Street Fight; and Blockchain

Caution: Today is April 1st - I've done my best to watch out for prank articles, but if you find one that I fell for on this list, let me know!

Terrorism

Incendiary devices found hanging on Tyngsborough power lines   bostonglobe

Federal, state, and local authorities Thursday said they could find nothing to suggest the devices were installed as part of a terror plot. But they said the incident, which involved objects resembling pipe bombs, had targeted a key electrical link between Canada and the Northeastern United States.

Also Incendiary Devices Found On Power Lines In Tyngsboro

Society

Google Ventures Bans Investments in North Carolina   recode.net

Google Ventures, now known as GV, has joined a growing list of tech and corporate heavyweights speaking out against North Carolina’s HB 2, a law that the companies say discriminates against transgender people in the state.

They continue to line up. See also Bank of America Joins Backlash Against North Carolina LGBT Law

U.S. military suicides remain high for 7th year   usatoday

The Pentagon reported Friday that 265 active-duty service members killed themselves last year, continuing a trend of unusually high suicide rates that have plagued the U.S. military for at least seven years.

Heartbreaking.

North Korea

North Korea to pursue nuclear and missile programmes   uk.reuters

North Korea will pursue its nuclear and ballistic missile programme in defiance of the United States and its allies, a top Pyongyang envoy said on Friday, adding that a state of "semi-war" now existed on the divided Korean peninsula.

Obama and Xi agree to fully crack down on North Korea   businessinsider

"Both leaders committed... to strengthen coordination in addressing the shared threat presented by North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile systems," the White House said.

Also see North Korea fires another missile into sea

Paganism

Spanish Archaeologists Try to Reconstruct Fragments of the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead   ancient-origins

For the last 14 years, twenty archaeologists, Egyptologists, and Spanish specialists have been working on the southern foot of the hill of Dra Abu el-Naga with a team of over a hundred Egyptian workers. During this time, they have united their efforts and been studying every part of the area, and scrutinizing every centimeter of a vast necropolis which is overflowing with burials from different eras.

There seems to be a certain obsession with translating this book lately...

Apostasy

Christianity is no longer compulsory for Oxford Theology students   christiantoday

The reduction in compulsory modules for second and third year students will enable other papers to be taken, including "feminist approaches to religion and theology" and "Buddhism in space and time".

Biology

A programming language for living cells   mit.edu

MIT biological engineers have created a programming language that allows them to rapidly design complex, DNA-encoded circuits that give new functions to living cells.

Smoking During Pregnancy Seems to Alter Fetal DNA   webmd

For the study, researchers collected blood samples from newborns, mainly from the umbilical cord. Compared to babies of nonsmokers, those born to regular smokers had over 6,000 spots where DNA was chemically modified.

AI

China To Face Off Against AlphaGo With Own AI Team   androidheadlines

An A.I. development team out of China, called China Computer Go Team, has announced that they have their own Go-playing A.I. in development. While an A.I. capable of playing Go at all is an accomplishment, this team has decided that’s not quite enough. Instead, they intend to develop their A.I. with the goal of challenging AlphaGO at its own native game.

Appeal Parking Tickets Via Bot in New York City   fortune

A parking-lawyer web robot that has saved British drivers nearly $4 million in fines over the past several months is now ready to help Americans, starting with New Yorkers, by appealing their tickets for free.

Complete with creepy eye icon for the bot

Space

ASAP concerned NASA is taking risks to meet Orion schedule   nasaspaceflight

NASA’s key advisory body has warned the agency that schedule pressure, in combination with cost pressure, is causing compromises that carry additional risk. Focusing on the Orion spacecraft, NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) claimed NASA is “taking risk after risk” to meet the schedule for Orion’s opening missions.

Automation

Amazon, Microsoft look for big data role in self-driving cars   reuters

Amazon, Microsoft look for big data role in self-driving cars

Banking

Blockchain--What You Need to Know   prnewswire

Spearheaded by Bitcoin, blockchains achieve consensus among distributed nodes, allowing the transfer of digital goods without the need for centralized authorisation of transactions.

Other...

Scientists may have just uncovered an ancient Viking site in North America   businessinsider

HOW DID THE APOLLO COMMAND AND SERVICE MODULES SEPARATE?   popsci

Interesting videos about something you never even once wondered about