Rules, regs to be integrated without congressional review
By Jerome R. Corsi
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Bush and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso at a White House summit meeting last April where they launched the Transatlantic Economic Council
Six U.S. senators and 49 House members are advisers for a group working toward a Transatlantic Common Market between the U.S. and the European Union by 2015.
The Transatlantic Policy Network – a non-governmental organization headquartered in Washington and Brussels – is advised by the bi-partisan congressional TPN policy group, chaired by Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah.
The plan – currently being implemented by the Bush administration with the formation of the Transatlantic Economic Council in April 2007 – appears to be following a plan written in 1939 by a world-government advocate who sought to create a Transatlantic Union as an international governing body.
An economist from the World Bank has argued in print that the formation of the Transatlantic Common Market is designed to follow the blueprint of Jean Monnet, a key intellectual architect of the European Union, recognizing that economic integration must inevitably lead to political integration.
As WND previously reported, a key step in advancing this goal was ...   more »

Researchers at University of California, Berkeley, have discovered the first example of fruit mimicry caused by a parasitic organism.  The parasite, a type of roundworm called a nematode, causes its host, in this case an ant, to grow a bright red abdomen that resembles the ripe berries found throughout their tropical forest environment.
The researchers believe the parasite induces this dramatic effect on its hosts as a way to trick birds into eating the infected ants.  This provides a mechanism for the parasite to propagate itself as the birds spread the parasite through their droppings.
“It’s just crazy that something as dumb as a nematode can manipulate its host’s exterior morphology and behavior in ways sufficient to convince a clever bird to facilitate transmission of the nematode,” said Robert Dudley, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, in a press release put out today by the University.
Dudley said the bizarre lifecycle of the nematode can be seen in tropical forests ranging from Central America to the lowland Amazon. 
“It’s phenomenal that these nematodes actually turn the ants bright red, and that they look so much like the fruits in the forest canopy,” said co-author Stephen ...   more »

Scientists have extended the lifespan of yeast, microbes responsible for creating bread and beer, by 10-fold. That's twice the previous record for life extension in an organism.
The breakthrough could ultimately inform efforts to extend human lives.
Instead of one week, the yeast lived for about 10 weeks through genetic tinkering and a low-calorie diet.
"We've reprogrammed the healthy life of an organism," said Valter Longo, a biologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles who led the life-prolonging experiments.
Longo and his colleagues detail their findings in two upcoming studies; one in the Jan. 25 issue of the journal PLoS Genetics and another in the Jan. 14 issue of the Journal of Cell Biology.
Genetic soldiers
DNA, short for deoxyribonucleic acid, is the body's set of blueprints and instructions, carried by genes.
"Evolution designed our genes, our army, to be ready for growth and reproduction," Longo told LiveScience. Problem is, pooling the body's efforts into growing makes room for genetic errors that lead to age-related disease. "We can use our energy to grow and reproduce, or protect ourselves."
Longo and his team previously found two genes — RAS2 and SCH9 — related to growth and development of ...   more »

by Rabbi S. Weiss(IsraelNN.com) "And G-d said to Moshe: Stretch your arm over the water of the Reed Sea, and it shall split." Later, after Bnei Yisrael had crossed safely through the sea, G-d said, once again, "Stretch your hand upon the sea, and the water shall return to its original place." And so it did.
Now, I fully understand why a miracle was necessary to split the sea; but why should an "act of G-d" be necessary for the water to resume its original, natural function? Doesn't science teach us the obvious, that "water seeks its own level"? Do I need a miracle for this?
Another question: Why, inexplicably, does the Torah tell us that "Bnei Yisrael walked on dry land through the water, which formed a wall for them on each side" (14:29), after the sea had already come crashing down? The place for this pasuk is clearly before the Egyptians are drowned, while the Jews were yet passing through the Reed Sea.
I suggest that the Torah is teaching us here an important truth of the universe. The fact that the sea can go "against" nature - defying gravity to rise up in a wall - is ...   more »

Prince Turki al-Faisal, adviser to King Abdullah, says if Israel accepts Arab League plan and signs comprehensive peace, 'one can imagine the integration of Israel into the Arab geographical entity'
Reuters
A senior Saudi royal has offered Israel a vision of broad cooperation with the Arab world and people-to-people contacts if it signs a peace treaty and withdraws from all occupied Arab territories.
In an interview with Reuters, Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former ambassador to the United States and Britain and adviser to King Abdullah, said Israel and the Arabs could cooperate in many areas including water, agriculture, science and education.  
Asked what message he wanted to send to the Israeli public, he said: "The Arab world, by the Arab peace initiative, has crossed the Rubicon from hostility towards Israel to peace with Israel and has extended the hand of peace to Israel, and we await the Israelis picking up our hand and joining us in what inevitably will be beneficial for Israel and for the Arab world."  
The 22-nation Arab League revived at a Riyadh summit last year a Saudi peace plan first adopted in 2002 offering Israel full normalisation of relations in return for full withdrawal ...   more »

Etgar Lefkovits
Nearly 300,000 Israelis have left Jerusalem over the last decade and a half, an annual survey released Thursday showed.
The findings represent a stunning failure of Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski and his two predecessors, Ehud Olmert and Teddy Kollek as well as past and present Israeli Governments to stem the ongoing exodus of Jewish residents from the capital who are moving to the suburbs and elsewhere for better quality of life, and make the city more attractive for others.
272,300 Jerusalem residents, mostly Jews, have left the city between 1990-2006, according to the 2006 Statistical Yearbook of Jerusalem put out by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies.
The survey find that 17,300 Jews left Jerusalem in 2006, compared to 10,900 who moved to the city, leaving the overall annual migration level at 6,400, up from 5,800 the year before, and similar to numbers in recent years.
About half of those who left the city moved to various Jerusalem suburbs, as well as nearby West Bank settlements, while the other half relocated to central Israel, the study finds.
The statistics reflected an ongoing trend of Jewish migration from the city to the suburbs which began in the 1980's, and ...   more »