John Dart, in Theology Today and the Tepee (July 198 l), Princeton Theological Semi-
nary, P.O. Box 29, Princeton, N.J. 08540.
Assailed missionaries, long stifled by "humanitarian" laws, and eroded by modern ideas, many of the North American Indians' reli- gious traditions have faded. A recent law, the American Indian Reli- gious Freedom Act of 1978, attempts to protect what survives.
Until the mid-20th century, Washington assumed that its duty was to "civilize and Christianize"...
licensing their profession. And many tribes whose own reli- gious rites have vanished with their old priests are now adopting the symbols of the Plains Indians-e.g., the sacred pipe and Sun Dance. Forty percent of all Indians are Christian, at least nominally. Many Protestant and Catholic church workers are trying to fit Indian rites into the framework of Christianity. Episcopalians, for instance, have accepted Navajo medicine men into their congregations and permitted them to offer prayers.
The...
Hero in the second
century B.C. But the
ancients had little
interest in finding
practical uses for
their scientific
knowledge.
cal projects or applying their knowledge only to tools of war (Archi- medes' catapults and cranes, for instance).
Moreover, the Greeks and Romans believed that honorable wealth came from the land. Men who made money by other means-trading or industry-invested their profits in land rather than "research and de- velopment." And farmers, who enjoyed...
a few individuals-the ones who make the major finds, get the research grants, and stay in the public limelight.
But some of the most important research into man's past has been taking place in laboratories, not in the field. X-rays of cross sections of bone can reveal areas of stress and strength and tell us much about our ancestors' physical activities and capabilities. Paleoneurologists such as Ralph Holloway of Columbia are analyzing casts of the insides of early skulls, hoping to determine...
the sun's pull at different points along the moon's path-takes 173.3 days to complete. This perturba- tion is in turn part of an 18.6 year "in-out" lunar oscillation perpendic- ular to the moon's orbit. England's chronically cloudy weather, argues EllegArd, would have prevented enough sightings to firmly establish the wobble's regularity. The region, although dryer and 2OC warmer 5,000 years ago, probably enjoyed only one clear day out of every two or three. Further, roughly one-third...
a virus but have been unable to isolate it.
If scientists do locate the Alzheimer virus, their task will have only just begun, notes Trubo. What will they do with it? The Creutzfeldt- Jakob virus, for example, does not trigger an immune reaction from the body-a prerequisite for manufacturing antigens.
"It could be that all of us are infected sometime during our lives" with Alzheimer's virus, suggests Dr. David Kingsburg, a virologist at the University of California, Irvine. Yet some...
John
Gribbin, in New Scientist (Apr. 7, 1981),
New Science Publications, Common-
and South
wealth House, 1-19 New Oxford St., Lon- don WC1, United Kingdom.
For years, scientists have warned of the so-called greenhouse effect- asserting that extensive burning of fossil fuels will dangerously in- crease heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, causing the Earth's climate to warm. Now, some have added a new twist. Climatol- ogists at the University of East Anglia, in England, contend that...
the release of tons of hot water into streams and ponds from U.S. government plutonium reactors near Aiken, S.C. Nuclear reactors have been changing the environment of the region since the early 1950s-for better and for worse.
Three of the plant's original five reactors are still operating, regularly releasing 158OF water into manmade reservoirs and nearnatural streams, tributaries of the Savannah River. Waters in one 166-acre pond often exceed 122'F when the reactors are running. Some creeks that...
Dwight Conquergood, in Literature in Perform-ance (Apr. 1981), Dept. of Speech Commu- nication, university of ~rizona, Tucson, Ariz. 85721.
Nowadays, the "strong, silent type" is often considered the ideal hero. Not so in England during the Dark Ages, writes Conquergood, a North- western University professor of English. There, boasting of courageous deeds was not only commonplace; it bound warriors to lives of heroic sacrifice.
Modern critics (including J.R.R. Tolkien) have dismissed...
elaborately recounting noble lineages and past heroics. ("I came from battle [where I] destroyed a race of giants," declared Beowulf.) Brandishing of weapons and other theatrical gestures added emphasis. Yet, Conquergood argues, boasts were "future-oriented." "I did" was invariably followed "I must continue to do." And boasts were made only in preparation for crises, never after them.
The audience played a key role in boasting. To win praise and accept- ance,...