Mormon Life - Science tag

BYU engineers create Batman-like device for Air Force competition

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 11:27:00 -0600

source: news.byu.edu

The Dark Knight uses some pretty cool technology. A fan favorite is a gun that shoots a grappling hook, with a line attached. Once secured, the line pulls Batman straight up into the sky.

Some BYU engineering students are using this Batman device as inspiration for a Capstone project.

Science and faith discussion evolving to a place of harmony

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 13:30:00 -0600

source: deseretnews.com

As a young boy, Dixon Woodbury remembers catching giant bugs in the Seattle woods with his friends, eagerly bringing them home so his mother could tell him what they were, what they ate and what ate them. Growing up with an entomologist mother and a physiologist father, Woodbury peppered them with questions at the dinner table, always curious about the world around him.

When the topic of evolution came up, Woodbury remembers his father scratching his head then saying, "I believe that is how God did it."

"It made a lot of sense to me and I never really needed to ask again," said Woodbury who now teaches physiology and developmental biology at Brigham Young University. "I didn't understand the details of it, but that idea fit right into other things I was learning at church and school."

BYU professor's critique of climate change model contributes to journal editor's resignation

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 11:44:00 -0600

source: deseretnews.com

Mormon Life says: The discredited paper seems to have been a big deal in the climate change debate. A BYU professor's criticism, along with other critiques of a climate change model published in a scientific journal, sparked a national controversy that led the journal's editor-in-chief to resign.

The paper published in the journal "Remote Sensing" initially led some mainstream media outlets to trumpet the model as proof climate change is overstated. Forbes published an op-ed based on the paper titled "New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism." But then a couple of reviews of an earlier book using the same model surfaced, including one by BYU geological sciences professor Barry Bickmore.

Bickmore's review of the book argued that author Roy Spencer failed to report all the outcomes of his tests and left out results that challenged his conclusions.

LDS patriarch pens evolution book

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 10:46:00 -0600

source: heraldextra.com

Mormon Life says: The man discussed was Mormonism's first trained evolutionary geneticist. He passed away last year. Howard Stutz had the most varied life of any man I’ve ever known. A Golden Gloves boxing champ, coach, high school teacher and principal, member of General Patton’s Third Army in World War II, Mormonism’s first formally trained evolutionary geneticist, head of academic departments at two different institutions of higher learning, president of a local junior chamber of commerce, Brigham Young University faculty member, Latter-day Saint high councilor, bishop and stake patriarch — that’s just for starters.

His research activities took him to Morocco and Spain, to the Middle East where he tramped the slopes of Mt. Ararat, and intensively across the rangelands of western North America. And in his later years he authored a small book outlining what those very broad experiences had taught him about our world.

Scientists still searching for 'God particle'

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 10:09:00 -0600

source: deseretnews.com

Mormon Life says: I didn't realize this was being searched for anywhere outside of Angels and Demons . . . Creation is at the center of religion, and it is also at the center of a search, not for God, but for the "God particle."

In April rumors began that the $10-billion Large Hadron Collider near Geneva had found what it was built, in part, to find: the elusive Higgs boson, nicknamed the "God particle." It would have been a huge scientific breakthrough, but it looks now that the God particle may not exist after all.

"The Higgs really is the Holy Grail of particle physics and that's why this is so important," Phillip F. Schewe, a spokesman for the American Institute of Physics, told Associated Press back in April.

Scientists want to have more children, study shows

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 11:47:00 -0600

source: deseretnews.com

Mormon Life says: I've always thought of scientists as generally in favor of so-called "population control." It doesn't necessarily seem that way. A new study shows that scientists at the nation's top 20 research programs wish they could have had more children.

Elaine Ecklund and Anne Lincoln, sociologists from Rice University and Southern Methodist University respectively, found that while 45.4 percent of women and 24.5 percent of men said their careers kept them from having as many children as they wanted, female scientists are more satisfied with their lives than their male counterparts, indicating that having fewer children than desired has a bigger effect on men.

Shuttle launches BYU student-designed circuit into space

Mon, 16 May 2011 11:13:00 -0600

source: news.byu.edu

When the shuttle Endeavor launched Monday morning there was a little bit of BYU on board. A BYU research team designed a highly specialized type of circuit that could improve the reliability of current NASA technology.

The launch attracted extra attention because it’s the second-to-last shuttle mission, and it is commanded by the husband of Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona Congresswoman wounded in a shooting earlier this year.

Michael Wirthlin led the team that designed the circuit inside a chip known as a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). Such chips are unique because they can be programmed remotely.

Space Religion: Mormonism and the final frontier

Wed, 11 May 2011 09:43:00 -0600

source: discovery.com

You can argue that religion is just another childish thing that an interplanetary species should leave behind. But we seem rather attached to our gods and goddesses, so it seems just as likely that we'll take religion into space with us. Which brings us to Mormonism.

I previously blogged about Jewish, Christian and Islamic ritual in orbit and how we've had to rethink traditionally terrestrial rituals and observances. It seems that bearded prophets out of antiquity didn't even consider the possibility of space stations.

But Mormonism is a slightly different matter, as Joseph Smith founded the first Latter-day Saints church less than 200 years ago. Despite the religion's frontier roots, Mormon cosmology takes other planets and even the possibility of intelligent extraterrestrial life into account.

Church launches second solar-powered meetinghouse

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 11:15:00 -0600

source: Newsroom.lds.org

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints unveiled its first-ever solar-powered meetinghouse in the Northern Hemisphere a year ago in Farmington, Utah. The building earned Silver LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for implementing elements of “green” design.

Now, a meetinghouse just completed in Mesa, Arizona, is the second of three prototypes that will use the sun’s energy to produce as much electricity as the building consumes in a year to achieve a “net-zero” utility cost.

It is the latest use of state-of-the-art technology by the Church in its construction design. H. David Burton, presiding bishop of the Church, said, “For decades we have looked for innovative ways to use natural resources in our meetinghouses that reflect our commitment as wise stewards of God’s creations.”

LDS apostles sought truth in science and religion

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 11:06:00 -0600

source: deseretnews.com

Elders James E. Talmage and John A. Widtsoe, two LDS apostles, knew a thing or two about science.

Before they were both ordained as special witnesses in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Elder Widtsoe was a chemist and Elder Talmage was a geologist. Both men were considered scholars in their respective fields. Both served terms as president of the University of Utah. Both men also demonstrated it was possible to balance academic and scientific pursuits while progressing spiritually.

“The church supports and welcomes the growth of science. … The religion of the Latter-day Saints is not hostile to any truth, nor to scientific search for truth,” Elder Widtsoe said in his 1943 book “Evidences and Reconciliations.”

Elder Widtsoe said science and religion both seek truth.

Curiosity and faith fueled Henry Eyring

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 10:12:00 -0600

source: deseretnews.com

Imagine you're a Mormon scientist invited to an apostle's office to discuss disagreements in science and religion.

It happened in 1955 when world-famous chemist Henry Eyring met with Elder Joseph Fielding Smith, who later became the 10th president of the LDS Church. They talked for about an hour and gentlemanly agreed to disagree, according to the biography "Mormon Scientist: The Life and Faith of Henry Eyring."

"Brother Smith, I have read your books and know your point of view, and I understand that is how it looks to you. It just looks a little different to me," Eyring said.

The reply implied the conversation was a little more animated.

LDS scientist learns by study and by faith

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 10:24:00 -0600

source: deseretnews.com

Some say that religion and science are polar opposites. But to Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, that is not true.

Bradshaw, a senior research scientist at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition and a Mormon bishop in Pace, Fla., has found that his testimony has grown as much through service as it has through learning.

"I do believe that the process of learning, of being friends of truth and of being willing to test ideas openly, is something that’s compatible with what we believe," he said. "I'm grateful for a church where truth can only help us."

One of the things about Bradshaw's LDS faith that has impressed him is that church members are taught about eternal progression — whatever light or knowledge is attained in this life will be carried into the next life.

Astronomer has faith in science and religion

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 09:20:00 -0600

source: MormonTimes.com

As an astronomer, J. Ward Moody is not unfamiliar with having faith in the unknown.

As a former LDS bishop, he is not unfamiliar with that either.

“All of us will have faith,” he said. “The only choice we have is where we put it. Faith is the source of all progress in this world."

Moody, a BYU physics and astronomy professor as well as a member of the publication board of the largest astronomical journals in the world, studies the universe: how it began and how it is unfolding.

Scientist alleges religious discrimination cost him his job

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 10:19:00 -0700

source: ksl.com

An astronomer argues that his Christian faith and his peers' belief that he is an evolution skeptic kept him from getting a prestigious job as the director of a new student observatory at the University of Kentucky.

Martin Gaskell quickly rose to the top of a list of applicants being considered by the university's search committee. One member said he was "breathtakingly above the other applicants."

Others openly worried his Christian faith could conflict with his duties as a scientist, calling him "something close to a creationist" and "potentially evangelical."

Science shows divine nature of creation

Fri, 26 Nov 2010 10:26:00 -0700

source: MormonTimes.com

Most modern Americans are so far removed from farming — we get our milk from cartons, our meat neatly packaged at the grocery store, our grains in cereal boxes, our cranberries in cans — that we easily forget the agricultural roots of Thanksgiving Day. But Thanksgiving is a harvest festival, and similar celebrations of bounteous crops (always an uncertainty) have occurred for millennia in such places as Korea, India, Turkmenistan, Nigeria, China, Vietnam, Argentina and Persia.

The ancient Jewish feast of tabernacles, or "Sukkot," was such an occasion. The settlers of Plymouth Plantation in the Massachusetts Bay Colony celebrated Thanksgiving in 1621, but harvest festivals had already occurred in Canada in 1578 and among Spanish explorers in Florida in 1565.

Our technology is so successful today, our supply lines so reliable, our supermarkets so well stocked, that we seldom consider our dependence upon vital things such as rain and temperate weather that are far beyond our control. Furthermore, we are all beneficiaries of laws we didn't enact, moral principles we didn't invent, minerals we didn't mine, gasoline for which we didn't drill, sacrifices of ancestors we've forgotten, languages we inherited painlessly as children, literature we didn't write, roads we didn't pave, art we didn't create, cities we didn't build, clothing we didn't sew, sciences we don't even understand.

Mormon Life - Science tag

BYU engineers create Batman-like device for Air Force competition

Science and faith discussion evolving to a place of harmony

BYU professor's critique of climate change model contributes to journal editor's resignation

LDS patriarch pens evolution book

Scientists still searching for 'God particle'

Scientists want to have more children, study shows

Shuttle launches BYU student-designed circuit into space

Space Religion: Mormonism and the final frontier

Church launches second solar-powered meetinghouse

LDS apostles sought truth in science and religion

Curiosity and faith fueled Henry Eyring

LDS scientist learns by study and by faith

Astronomer has faith in science and religion

Scientist alleges religious discrimination cost him his job

SPONSORED: Surgeon refutes evolution in new book

Science shows divine nature of creation