Odds n Ends (5)

Good Day to you (snow and nasty wind here in Minnesota this morning). Here are the stories I found interesting from the past week:

 

1. Best-selling author Joel Rosenberg gives 4 Signs of the End-Times on Glenn Beck last night. Perhaps the leading voice of Pre-Trib/Pre-Millennialism end-times views is writer Joel Rosenberg and his new book 'Dead Heat' was on cable news shows of Glenn Beck last night. Here is his list of 4 warning signs Jesus' return is near:
   

• A Dictator appears in Russia who threatens Israel;
  
• An speedy building of the city of 'Babylon';
  
• Re-building of the 3^rd Temple in Jerusalem;
  
• Missiles striking Israel from Hamas.
  

Joel Rosenberg's website (www.joelrosenberg.blogspot.com) has a portion of the interview from Glenn Beck's show.

 

1. Increase in "Plague of Autism" may just be change in reporting methods. There is more evidence this month demonstrating that we are not, in fact, presently suffering through an age of increased incidence of autism, but rather as the definition of autism is refined, we discover individuals who were previously misdiagnosed… Using today's criteria, the researchers found nearly a quarter of the participants to have an autistic disorder rather than one based on spoken language. "Our study shows pretty direct evidence to support the theory that changes in diagnosis may contribute towards the rise in autism," says Dorothy Bishop, the lead on the new study. "These were children that people were saying were not autistic in the 1980s, but when we talk to their parents now about what they were like as children, it's clear that they would be classified as autistic now." http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-04/increase-autism-due-only-changes-diagnosis
   

 

1. New chip will let an IPOD store 500,000 songs. Hey, I like this one! No more worrying about whether or not to download every song from a CD? I'm in – Here's the link: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3728060.ece. "Mobile phones, iPods and other consumer devices may soon be able to hold a hundred times more information than they do at present thanks to a breakthrough in storage technology…"
   

   
    

2. Major Merck clinical trial was cancelled when vaccine may have actually increased the chances of people developing Aids.. Most scientists involved in Aids research believe that a vaccine against HIV is further away than ever and some have admitted that effective immunization against the virus may never be possible, according to an unprecedented poll conducted by 'The Independent'. Nearly two thirds believed that an HIV vaccine will not be developed within the next 10 years and some of them said that it may take at least 20 more years of research before a vaccine can be used to protect people either from infection or the onset of Aids. But a substantial minority of the scientists admitted that an HIV vaccine may never be developed. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/is-it-time-to-give-up-the-search-for-an-aids-vaccine-814737.html.