SYDNEY,
Australia (AP) - Scientists investigating the icy waters of Antarctica
said Tuesday they have collected mysterious creatures including giant
sea spiders and huge worms in the murky depths.
Australian experts taking part in an international program to take a census of marine life
in the ocean at the far south of the world collected specimens from up
to 6,500 feet beneath the surface, and said many may never have been
seen before.
Some of the animals far under the sea grow to
unusually large sizes, a phenomenon called gigantism that scientists
still do not fully understand.
“Gigantism is very common in
Antarctic waters,” Martin Riddle, the Australian Antarctic Division
scientist who led the expedition, said in a statement. “We have
collected huge worms, giant crustaceans and sea spiders the size of
dinner plates.”
The specimens were being sent to universities
and museums around the world for identification, tissue sampling and
DNA studies.
“Not all of the creatures that we found could be
identified and it is very likely that some new species will be recorded
as a result of these voyages,” said Graham Hosie, head of the census
project.
The expedition is part of an ambitious international effort to map life forms in the Antarctic Ocean, also known as the Southern Ocean, and to study the impact of forces such as climate change on the undersea environment.
Three ships—Aurora Australis from Australia, France’s L’Astrolabe and
Japan’s Umitaka Maru—returned recently from two months in the region as
part of the Collaborative East Antarctic Marine Census. The work is
part of a larger project to map the biodiversity of the world’s oceans.
The French and Japanese ships sought specimens from the mid- and
upper-level environment, while the Australian ship plumbed deeper
waters with remote-controlled cameras.
“In some places every inch of the sea floor
is covered in life,” Riddle said. “In other places we can see deep
scars and gouges where icebergs scour the sea floor as they pass by.”
Among the bizarre-looking creatures the scientists spotted were
tunicates, plankton-eating animals that resemble slender glass
structures up to a yard tall “standing in fields like poppies,” Riddle
said.
Other animals were equally baffling.
“They had
fins in various places, they had funny dangly bits around their
mouths,” Riddle told reporters. “They were all bottom dwellers so they
were all evolved in different ways to live down on the sea bed in the
dark. So many of them had very large eyes—very strange looking fish.”
Scientists are planning a follow-up expedition in 10 to 15 years to
examine the effects of climate changes on the region’s environment.
Copyright
2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not
be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
From IndependentConservative: Thomas Weeks Beats Juanita Bynum in Atlanta Airport Hotel Parking Lot. Mercy! and also I Knew Thomas Weeks Was a Heretic, But He Has Surpassed My Expectations of How Terrible a Heretic He Really is!. From the Atlanta Journal - Constitution (in my opinion the worst newspaper in the country, but hey it keeps winning Pulitzer Prizes) Husband attacks evangelist Bynum in parking lot. Please note that it says 1. Bynum and Weeks are SEPARATED (so why attend their marriage conferences since THEY ARE BOTH IN THEIR SECOND MARRIAGE ANYWAY!) and 2. Weeks beat Bynum so badly that she required a trip to the hospital and 3. Weeks fled the scene before the police could get him. Now can anyone deny that evil spirits are not involved here? All of you people who have been flooding this weblog with your defense of this couple, their members, and their friends in the religion industry (a great many of whom KNOW what this couple are really like), what do you have to say now?
Does this vindicate everything that I have been saying against Weeks III and Bynum? Actually, no it doesn’t. Why not? Because everyone sins. David committed adultery and then murdered “the other man.” Peter denied Jesus Christ three times, and then almost caused the church to split apart with his refusal to have table fellowship with Gentile Christians. Christians are going to sin (see my essay When Christians Sin)! How do I know this? BECAUSE THE BIBLE SAYS SO!
So the issue here is NOT the sin of Bishop Weeks III beating his wife. Rather, the real issue is the false doctrine of unitarianism (denial of Trinity) that Weeks and Bynum preaches, their false prosperity doctrine, and their getting rich off the gospel by exploiting and making merchandise of the poor. The worst part is that Weeks III (and his father Bishop Weeks II) and Bynum preach an abiblical doctrine of legalism and works that they themselves do not keep!
And some have asked, as did the sincere Pastor Anavah(http://www.victoriouslyfree.org/ plus her own weblog click here) in her comment whether I am against women preachers and enjoyable sex in marriage. Regarding the former, the Bible specifically forbids women having a position of authority over men in the church, and that is a consistent principle established in Old Testament Judaism and carrying over to the New Testament Body of Christ. If Pastor Anavah executes her ministry in a manner that respects the authority of God and the Bible (and not of any man) and is doctrinally sound and faithful to the Bible while doing so then who am I to condemn her calling and work? God forbid that I would do such a thing lest I be condemned myself on account of my false accusation, just as the friends of Job were! Yes, it is possible to minister while not having a position of authority over a man, and writing and distributing her book on spiritual warfare in fighting addiction (which can be ordered on her site) and maintaining a Christian website are excellent examples of how to do so. There are others, and I have tried to list them in my women preachers category, my favorite of which are women in India that converted to Christianity from Hinduism working as evangelists preaching the gospel in a society and culture that treats women quite shamefully and also persecutes Christians (see Women Preachers Working In The Asian Mission Field and Christian Persecution Alert: Female Indonesian Evangelists Released). And no, I am not against enjoyable sex in marriage. Quite the contrary, sexuality is a gift from God - and a spiritual one at that - that was given to be enjoyed by men and women within the confines of holy matrimony. But as false preachers tend to do, Weeks III and Bynum have taken a pure holy God - given gift and utterly defiled it with their false doctrines and own personal perversions, making it something base and wretched. Look at this clip where Weeks III asks this man to name the part of his wife’s anatomy that pleases him the most (a corrupt base view of sexuality; Jesus Christ called this pornea - the root word of pornography - and in Matthew 5:32listed such evil as legitimate grounds for divorce), and when he gives a predictable response, Weeks III breaks out into uncontrollable laughter!
Strange laughter is a clear sign of demonic presence and activity, and though I am a charismatic with a Pentecostal background, we cannot ignore what many other Bible believing Christians have to say about some of our charismatic “laughing revivals!”
Make no mistake people, there is a statistically proven link between pornea (or pornography) and violence (including spousal and domestic abuse), there are demons involved in pornea and violence, and now you have Thomas Weeks III beating his estranged wife! So I ask you spiritual warfare deliverance minister Pastor Anavah, how on earth could you not know this? Your very position requires you to know it and to preach and teach against it, and not to defend the oneness heretics that exploit the poor trafficking their sexual drugs for financial gain! For I, Pastor Anavah, am not an ordained minister and nor do I hold any church position! This is something that you should be taking me aside and educating me on as did Priscilla to Apollos in Acts 18:24-26! So Pastor Anavah, rather than coming on here defending heresy, you need to be faithfully and zealously pursuing the call that God has put on your life! Monitor and multiply the talents that God has given you charge over lest He take them from you and give them to another, for the closing verse of the parable of the talents, Matthew 25:29, reads “For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.”
And this is not a personal attack on Pastor Anavah, who indeed seems to be someone sincerely seeking to serve to God. She represents all of you! God gave every member of the Body of Christ a work to do, a charge to keep, a ministry to fulfill, even if you are as I: not someone who holds a five fold ministry position or church office. You have read the warnings given to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3, and if you have not, please read them now! For it is not just about the false preachers. Judgment day is coming, and we will be held accountable: me and ALL OF YOU!
And this is to all of you people who keep claiming how we need unity in the Body of Christ. See this link and understand why I REFUSE TO UNITE WITH HERETICS! LIGHT HAS NO UNITY WITH DARKNESS!
And in closing, here is the news report of Bynum’s being beaten, courtesy of IndependentConservative: . I will point out, in the interests of fairness, that Bishop Weeks III has not had a chance to address these charges, let alone be convicted in a court of law of them, and some have alleged that there is something amiss about this whole affair. Well you can decide for yourself about the domestic violence accusations against the man, but in terms of his heresies and blasphemies, well his own words (and actions in other matters) condemn this oneness false preacher.
As I have said time and time again, there is a war going on. Now is the time for hand to hand spiritual combat, not lukewarm sitting on the sidelines. If you are not saved, follow The Three Step Salvation Plan and get saved. If you claim salvation but have no desire to fight, now is the time to study the scriptures (try http://bible.cc) and examine yourself to see whether you be truly in the faith!
