At the end of May, temperatures in Delhi, India, reached above 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit). Last summer was apparently the warmest in about 2,000 years, with temperatures averaging two degrees warmer than all our climate models predicted. As everyone is aware, fossil fuels continue to increase the level of carbon dioxide in the…
“You are being watched.” This ominous warning began each episode of Person of Interest. The science-fiction crime series ran for five seasons. The plot centred around “the Machine,” a sophisticated computer system designed by billionaire genius Harold Finch (Michael Emerson), for the U.S. government after 9-11. Originally intended to predict acts of terrorism, it was…
In mid-April I attended two conferences. The first was the Faith & Science Conference offered by BioLogos and held in Raleigh, North Carolina. The second was more local, “Beyond Culture Wars”, sponsored by the Institute for Christian Studies and Martin Luther University College in Waterloo, my hometown. Unfortunately, the conferences overlapped; one started on Wednesday…
Our God-given brains use chemicals and electricity to communicate among cells and neurons. Chemicals (neurotransmitters and hormones) primarily communicate between neurons, while electricity is often the means of communication along the sometimes-considerable length of neurons. We have long influenced the brain’s chemical communication with medicines and drugs but until recently, we have been unable to…
Four Canadian innovations made dryland agriculture feasible on the Canadian prairies and the northern plains of America. In 1886, Angus MacKay of Indian Head, Saskatchewan, invented summer fallow to contend with drought. Charles Saunders of Ottawa developed early ripening Marquis wheat to avoid frost a few years later, in 1904. In 1918, the Koole brothers…
Remember when enthusiastic talk about the internet promised an Information Superhighway? The mood at the introduction of the Online Harms Bill last week felt more like a multi-vehicle crash site. Cyber-bullying, revenge porn, inciting violence and suicide, radicalization and terrorism, disinformation and hate-motivated crimes: these are a few of the online harms that injure real…
Two long-time Alberta members of the Christian Reformed Church have recently and pleasingly contributed to the fraught relationship between science and faith. Both books aim to explore the “mind of God” and God’s ongoing creational and sustaining work, though using different literary styles and techniques. Harry Cook, Professor Emeritus at Edmonton’s King’s University translated from…
“I think the significance of the leap year,” scientist Alexander Boxer, speaking on the U.S.’s National Public Radio, said, “is that it’s a great reminder that the universe is really good at defying our attempts to devise nice and pretty and aesthetically pleasing systems to fit it in.” When I heard this, I immediately substituted…
This December, Science magazine declared that drugs that mimic a gut peptide, GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1), were the scientific breakthrough of 2023. These drugs were first used to treat diabetes but were soon found to cause weight loss and have other beneficial health effects. While there are a number of these drugs, the most well-known and…
In 2018, when Donna Strickland won the Nobel Prize in Physics for her work with lasers, she was still only an associate professor at the University of Waterloo. University faculty are usually hired as assistant professors and then promoted to associate status before finally, when successful, being promoted to full professors (usually just called professors)….
As a Christian scientist, there are questions I do not have answers to and often do not understand. A source of many questions is the scale of the universe in contrast to the particulars of our faith. The universe is large and old, reflective of the power of our God, but our faith hangs on…
Every child will have an AI tutor that is infinitely patient, infinitely compassionate, infinitely knowledgeable, infinitely helpful.” These are the words of the web pioneer Marc Adreessen, writing about how “AI Will Save the World.” Such optimistic claims are not new. The rise of the world wide web came with predictions that it would be…
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