WorldReligionNews.com Featured Contributor Series Continues with ‘Finding Noah,’ Scientology, Hinduism and Religious …

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San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) April 24, 2014

WorldReligionNews.com continues its featured contributor series with 4 articles from a diverse group of authors representing either official religion or organizations.

This round of 'Featured Contributor' articles includes; Tracie Parker, representing the Church Of Scientology and writing about volunteerism, Margaret Rose Becker, human rights advocate, writing about religious freedom, the Council of Europe, and human rights, Rajan Zed, representing the Universal Society of Hinduism, writing about President Obama mentioning Hindu's in his Easter address and Brent Baum, director, representing the forth coming documentary 'Finding Noah.'

Read these 'Featured Contributor' articles and more here.

WorldReligionNews.com has established its "Featured Contributor" program to offer both writers officially affiliated with all faiths and belief systems, as well as independent writers and authors of note, a public platform from which to publish religion focused articles that will reach not only WRN visitors but also appear via syndication partners on sites like CNN, FOX, New York Daily News and others.

If you are an officially affiliated spokesperson/writer who would like to be considered for a "Featured Contributor" article placement on WRN, contact us here: http://www.worldreligionnews.com/contact-us/.

About WorldReligionNews.com WRN exists to cover the news generated by ALL major world religions, A to Z, from Agnosticism to Wicca and all in between, in ways that will inspire, challenge, enlighten, entertain & engage within a framework wired for a connected and distracted world. http://www.WorldReligionNews.com/.

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WorldReligionNews.com Featured Contributor Series Continues with 'Finding Noah,' Scientology, Hinduism and Religious ...

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney responds to anti-religion group’s complaint

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Clemson head football coach Dabo Swinney is responding to a complaint filed by the Wisconsin-based organization Freedom From Religion Foundation.

The organization filed a complaint with Clemson University citing "serious constitutional concerns about how the public university's football program is entangled with religion."

Swinney released this statement on Wednesday:

"Over the past week or two, there has been a lot of discussion of my faith. We have three rules in our program that everybody must follow: (1) players must go to class, (2) they must give a good effort and (3) they must be good citizens. It is as simple as that. I have recruited and coached players of many different faiths. Players of any faith or no faith at all are welcome in our program. All we require in the recruitment of any player is that he must be a great player at his position, meet the academic requirements, and have good character. Recruiting is very personal. Recruits and their families want and deserve to know who you are as a person, not just what kind of coach you are. I try to be a good example to others, and I work hard to live my life according to my faith. I am proud of the great success we have had in developing good players and good men at Clemson. We win at the highest level and we graduate players who excel on the field and in life because of their time in Death Valley. I want to thank Clemson University and all the people who have reached out to offer their support and encouragement over the past few weeks."

The Freedom From Religion Foundation touts itself as the largest national organization advocating for non-theists, and says its mission is to promote separation of church and state and educate the public on matters relating to atheism, agnosticism and nontheism.

Clemsons football program is the organizations most recent target, but in the past it has successfully fought against nativity displays on city hall properties. In 2008, the FFRF filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government over the statute establishing the National Day of Prayer, among other actions. In March, the FFRF joined 19 other plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the U.S. Treasury Department and other government officials in March demanding that the phrase In God We Trust be removed from the nations currency.

Last Thursday, FFRF sent a letter of complaint to Clemson after having filed an open records request with the university in February.

"Christian worship seems interwoven into Clemsons football program," wrote FFRF Staff Attorney Patrick Elliott. "We are concerned that this commingling of religion and athletics results, not from student initiative, but rather from the attitudes and unconstitutional behaviors of the coaching staff."

The FFRF complaint says coach Dabo Swinney invited James Trapp to become team chaplain, which they say did not follow procedure that allows student groups to select their chaplain. It says Trapp is allowed access to the whole team between drills for Bible study. It also accused Swinney of showing preference to players who believe as he does, creating a culture of religious coercion.

The FFRF also complains that there are Bible quotes displayed and sessions on being baptized held in the athletic building. They also dislike that Trapp, as a paid university employee, refers to himself as a minister, promotes religion, and serves as a Fellowship of Christian Athletes representative, and keeps Bibles in his office for distribution.

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Clemson coach Dabo Swinney responds to anti-religion group's complaint

GEN Publishing introduces ‘Clinical OMICs’ digital publication

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

24-Apr-2014

Contact: Tamlyn Oliver toliver@clinicalomics.com 914-740-2199 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, April 24, 2014GEN Publishing recently introduced Clinical OMICs a semi-monthly digital publication focusing on the application of OMICs technologies in clinical settings. These advanced techniques, such as next-gen sequencing, are beginning to transform medical care just as they revolutionized basic life science research over the past decade-and-a-half.

"GEN's editors and reporters have written about the research use of pharmacogenomics, genomics, metabolomics, transcriptomics, etc. etc. for years," said John Sterling, editor-in-chief of Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN). "The rapid advance of OMICs technologies has reached the point where we are convinced that the time is now for a new publication that shows how these diagnostic methodologies are dramatically impacting clinical practice."

Clinical OMICs is directed at clinical lab directors and managers, oncologists, infectious disease specialists, and cardiologists. Intended to serve as a resource for the development and standardization of best OMICs practices, Clinical OMICs provides critical information and insights on the trend toward personalized medicine.

The premier issue contains articles on translating OMICs into cancer biology and medicine, how payers are grappling with reimbursement issues, a profile of Lawrence Brody, who is overseeing NHGRI's new division of genomics and society, the move of next-gen sequencing systems into the clinic, and a case study of a genomics test for coronary artery disease. Late-breaking clinical OMICs news, OMICs-related clinical APPS, and new products are also featured.

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About Clinical OMICs

Clinical OMICs is brought to you by GEN Publishing, the parent company of Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News.

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Ocean microbes display remarkable genetic diversity

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11 hours ago False-color scanning electron micrograph of Prochlorococcus. Credit: Anne Thompson

The smallest, most abundant marine microbe, Prochlorococcus, is a photosynthetic bacteria species essential to the marine ecosystem. An estimated billion billion billion of the single-cell creatures live in the oceans, forming the base of the marine food chain and occupying a range of ecological niches based on temperature, light and chemical preferences, and interactions with other species. But the full extent and characteristics of diversity within this single species remains a puzzle.

To probe this question, scientists in MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) recently performed a cell-by-cell genomic analysis on a wild population of Prochlorococcus living in a milliliterless than a quarter teaspoonof ocean water, and found hundreds of distinct genetic subpopulations.

Each subpopulation in those few drops of water is characterized by a set of core gene alleles linked to a few flexible genesa combination the MIT scientists call the "genomic backbone"that endows the subpopulation with a finely tuned suitability for a particular ecological niche. Diversity also exists within the backbone subpopulations; most individual cells in the samples they studied carried at least one set of flexible genes not found in any other cell in its subpopulation.

Sallie Chisholm, the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies in CEE and in MIT's Department of Biology; former CEE postdoc Nadav Kashtan; and co-authors published a paper on this work in the April 25 issue of Science.

The researchers estimate that the subpopulations diverged at least a few million years ago. The backbone is an older, more slowly evolving component of the genome, while the flexible genes reside in areas of the genome where gene exchange is relatively frequent, facilitating more rapid evolution.

The study also revealed that the relative abundance of the backbone subpopulations changes with the seasons at the study site, near Bermuda, adding strength to the argument that each subpopulation is finely tuned for optimal growth under different conditions.

"The sheer enormity of diversity that must be in the octillion Prochlorococcus cells living in the seas is daunting to consider," Chisholm says. "It creates a robust and stable population in the face of environmental instability."

Ocean turbulence also plays a role in the evolution and diversity of Prochlorococcus: A fluid mechanics model predicts that in typical ocean flow, just-divided daughter cells drift rapidly, placing them centimeters apart from one another in minutes, tens of meters apart in an hour, and kilometers apart in a week's time.

"The interesting question is, 'Why does such a diverse set of subpopulations exist?'" Kashtan says. "The huge population size of Prochlorococcus suggests that this remarkable diversity and the way it is organized is not random, but is a masterpiece product of natural selection."

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Ocean microbes display remarkable genetic diversity

Engineered E. coli produces high levels of D-ribose as described in Industrial Biotechnology journal

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

24-Apr-2014

Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 x2156 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, April 24, 2014D-ribose is a commercially important sugar used as a sweetener, a nutritional supplement, and as a starting compound for synthesizing riboflavin and several antiviral drugs. Genetic engineering of Escherichia coli to increase the bacteria's ability to produce D-ribose is a critical step toward achieving more efficient industrial-scale production of this valuable chemical, as described in an article in Industrial Biotechnology, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available on the Industrial Biotechnology website.

In "Engineering Escherichia coli for D-Ribose Production from Glucose-Xylose Mixtures." Pratish Gawand and Radhakrishnan Mahadevan, University of Toronto, Canada, describe the metabolic engineering strategy they used to increase the yield of D-ribose from the genetically modified E. coli, which were able to produce D-ribose from mixtures of glucose and xylose. The authors propose future research directions for additional metabolic engineering and bioprocess optimization.

"The research article by Gawand and Mahadevan represents one of many ways that molecular biology is being deployed to expand Industrial Biotechnology development," says Co-Editor-in-Chief Larry Walker, PhD, Professor, Biological & Environmental Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.

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About the Journal

Industrial Biotechnology, led by Co-Editors-in-Chief Larry Walker, PhD, and Glenn Nedwin, PhD, MoT, CEO and President, Taxon Biosciences, Tiburon, CA, is an authoritative journal focused on biobased industrial and environmental products and processes, published bimonthly in print and online. The Journal reports on the science, business, and policy developments of the emerging global bioeconomy, including biobased production of energy and fuels, chemicals, materials, and consumer goods. The articles published include critically reviewed original research in all related sciences (biology, biochemistry, chemical and process engineering, agriculture), in addition to expert commentary on current policy, funding, markets, business, legal issues, and science trends. Industrial Biotechnology offers the premier forum bridging basic research and R&D with later-stage commercialization for sustainable biobased industrial and environmental applications.

About the Publisher

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Engineered E. coli produces high levels of D-ribose as described in Industrial Biotechnology journal

More Than 7 Percent of Kids on Behavioral Meds

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A new survey finds that 7.5 percent of children aged 617 are taking some sort of prescription medicine for emotional or behavioral difficulties.

Its a first look at the problem, and supports evidence that more and more U.S. kids are getting drugs for conditions like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

The good news is that more than half of their parents said the medication helped their children a lot." The troubling news is that low-income kids were more likely to be given such drugs.

LaJeana Howie and colleagues at the National Center for Health Statistics used data from interviews of the parents of 17,000 children in 2011-2012 for the study.

This definitely is a first look, Howie told NBC News. We just wanted to get a snapshot to see what the use was.

The survey did not ask parents which drugs, precisely, the children had been prescribed and it did not ask for which specific condition. But Howie said more than 80 percent of the parents also said their children had at some point been diagnosed with ADHD.

More children insured by Medicaid or the Childrens Health Insurance Program used prescribed medication for emotional or behavioral difficulties than children with private health insurance or no health insurance, Howies team reported.

And, unsurprisingly, more boys than girls were being medicated 9.7 percent compared to 5.2 percent of girls.

Over the past two decades, the use of medication to treat mental health problems has increased substantially among all school-aged children and in most subgroups of children, Howies team reported. But because this survey was done in a new way, its not possible to compare results to past years.

According to the American Psychiatric Association, 5 percent of U.S. children have ADHD. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention points to studies showing that 11 percent and more of kids have been diagnosed with ADHD, up from 7.8 percent in 2003. Other reports show diagnoses have jumped 24 percent in a decade.

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More Than 7 Percent of Kids on Behavioral Meds

BNSF and Amtrak 714 with the Comets Around Modesto – 4-23-14 – Video

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BNSF and Amtrak 714 with the Comets Around Modesto - 4-23-14
Wednesday, 4-23-14 Today I went to see 714 in Modesto with the ex-NJT Comet Cars and a F40PH Cabbage leading, but was early enough to see a BNSF train (I didn #39;t bring my scanner to check info)....

By: NVergilio - Calirailia Productions

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BNSF and Amtrak 714 with the Comets Around Modesto - 4-23-14 - Video

Comets Year in Review by the Numbers

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April 23, 2014 - American Hockey League (AHL) Utica Comets The inaugural season for the Utica Comets ended with a 35-32-5-4 record, good for a tie for ninth in the Western Conference with 79 points. The Comets finished the 2013-14 campaign four points out of the final playoff position in the West, which was won by the Oklahoma City Barons (83 points). The Comets' 35 victories places them fourth of seven seasons for Utica AHL teams, trailing the 1989-90 Utica Devils, who hold the 'Utica record' with 44 wins.

Our Best For Last: Since Jan. 17, the Comets composed a record of 24-12-4, good for 52 points, a .650 winning percentage and the third best mark in the AHL over that time span. The Comets trailed just Chicago (56 points) and St. Johns (56 points) over that timespan.

Cardiac Comets: The Comets finished the season with 20 wins when either tied or trailing after two periods of play, the most in the AHL. Utica led Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and Toronto, who finished with 17 apiece. The Comets' 14 wins when tied after 40 minutes was also the most in the league, while their six come from behind wins in the final stanza tied for fourth.

One Goal Wonders: The Comets, courtesy of a one-goal win on Friday, finished the regular season tied for the AHL lead with the Norfolk Admirals and the Providence Bruins with 46 one-goal games played this season. Utica's 24 one-goal wins were second in the league, one behind Providence.

Road Warriors: Games away from The AUD proved to be a home away from home for the Comets, as they finished as one of just four teams with more wins on the road than at home. Utica ended its season at 19-15-3-1 on the road, including a 14-6-2 record over their final 22 away from the Mohawk Valley.

Were Going Streaking: Utica finished the season unable to complete a winning streak in five consecutive games, with their longest settling at four games on three separate occasions. Dating back to the history of the Utica Devils, AHL teams from Utica have now won four games 18 times in a row without extending their streak to five.

Baby Got Back-To-Back: Back-to-back games turned out to be a source of well being for the Comets this season, as they team finished 10-6-2 in the second half of those sets. Over their last 11 back-to-back contests, the Comets went 9-1-1, losing in regulation only on Mar. 29 against Abbotsford.

The Three-In-Three Musketeers: Three-in-three sets also proved to be fruitful for Utica, with the Comets 4-2-0 when playing for the third time in three nights. Utica played four of these at The AUD, where they went 3-1-0, with victories coming over Western Conference foes Iowa, Milwaukee and Lake Erie. The Comets also defeated Toronto at Ricoh Coliseum.

East Of Eden: The Comets' most success vs. a division came against foes from the East, against which Utica posted an 8-2-1-1 record, good for a .750 winning percentage. The Comets posted three wins against both Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and Binghamton, in addition to two against Syracuse, with no regulation losses against the Crunch.

Wild, Wild West: Despite a slow start, in which the Comets dropped each of their first seven games against in conference opponents, Utica finished the season at 26-21-4-3 against the Western Conference, good for a .546 winning percentage. After the aforementioned rocky beginning, the record stood at 26-15-3-3, for a .617 winning percentage.

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Comets Year in Review by the Numbers

Super Micro may employ 2,800 at new San Jose complex

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By George Avalos Oakland Tribune

SAN JOSE -- Super Micro Computer, a fast-growing networking and communications company, intends to build a 1.6 million-square-foot complex at the Mercury News' current site in North San Jose that could have 2,800 or more employees and will include something rare for the Bay Area: manufacturing activities.

The company has submitted to the city preliminary plans for the project, which will include light manufacturing, offices and warehouse space. The plans include 2,800 parking spaces, which suggests a major employment boost for San Jose.

The proposed complex, which will be built on 36 acres near the interchange of Interstate 880 and Brokaw Road, would rise near the current Super Micro headquarters and engineering operations.

A Ridder Park Drive sign is shown in front of the San Jose Mercury News newspaper office, owned by McClatchy, in San Jose, Calif., Thursday, July 13, 2006. (PAUL SAKUMA/AP file photo)

Super Micro bought the site from Digital First Media, the parent company of the Mercury News, for about $30.5 million in September. The newspaper is expected to relocate to downtown San Jose, where it will move about 300 editorial, advertising and administration employees.

Super Micro officials couldn't be immediately reached for comment, but city officials said the company will retain its current facilities and that its new complex will be an expansion of its operations.

"Super Micro has told us they are growing and they need to expand, particularly in warehousing and light manufacturing and assembly," said Nanci Klein, San Jose's deputy economic development director. "We are very excited to see them moving forward on this."

Over its most recent 12 months, Super Micro earned $36 million on revenue of $1.27 billion.

"Super Micro is doing very well, their financials are strong and they are a market leader," said Rob Enderle, a San Jose-based analyst who tracks the tech sector. "They are one of the up-and-comers."

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Super Micro may employ 2,800 at new San Jose complex

No Ottawa computers implicated in gas-plant deletions, investigator says

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OTTAWA No computer in Ottawa was accessed illicitly by someone using a super-account to delete damaging gas-plants documents, a government cybersecurity expert now says, contradicting testimony he gave to a Queens Park committee last week.

Shawn Truax was part of the government investigation into improper computer access that may have been used to conceal information about whether senior Liberals working for then-premier Dalton McGuinty knew that cancelling two unpopular gas-powered generating plants before the 2011 election could cost Ontarians as much as $1 billion, instead of the $40 million McGuinty and others estimated at the time.

The investigation scooped up 52 hard drives, including a handful from a provincial government office on Elgin Street, and last week Truax testified he believed one of them had been accessed using special privileges granted on the authority of McGuintys chief of staff, David Livingston. Police are now investigating whether Livingston committed a crime by, as they allege, handing those privileges over to an outside computer expert to erase files that government employees wouldnt.

Truax told the committee of MPPs hed have to check his notes to be sure, and promised to follow up with a letter spelling out the details.

Last week, trying hard to connect the affair to people now in the government under Premier Kathleen Wynne, Progressive Conservatives suggested the computer was used by current Ottawa South MPP John Fraser, who was a senior McGuinty aide before being elected his successor. He worked in the office in the 180 Elgin St. office where Truaxs people collected hard drives.

Actually, Truaxs letter says, his investigators didnt find that any computer in Ottawa was involved. They gathered up and scanned five computer hard drives, including Frasers, but they didnt find that any of them had been accessed in the manner in question.

I have confirmed that none of the hard drives obtained from the Ottawa location were in the group of 24 hard drives that we determined had been accessed by the (special) administrative access right, Truaxs letter says. I wish to thank the committee for the opportunity to clarify my statements, and apologize for any misunderstanding that may have resulted from my testimony.

dreevely@ottawacitizen.com

twitter.com/davidreevely

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No Ottawa computers implicated in gas-plant deletions, investigator says