The Institute for Creation Research has filed a petition with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board accusing the agency of "viewpoint discrimination." Last month, the board denied the institute state certification, which the institute needs to offer its online master's degree in science education. Both sides seem to agree on why the petition was denied: The degree, like the ICR's entire program, would be based on "creation science" rather than evolution. Texas Higher Education Commissioner Raymund Paredes recommended rejecting the ICR's proposal because the institute's program wouldn't prepare graduates to meet the science standards now set for Texas public schools, which include the study of evolution, and because science and religious belief "are not the same thing."
The petition paves the way for the ICR to bring legal action against the agency and its board members in federal and state court. —Heather Wax

Scientific exhibits using real human bodies as models have met with criticism before—in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, for example—but there's a different note in the reaction to the Body Worlds exhibit set to open June 13 in Edmonton, Alberta. Unlike the archbishop of Cincinnati, who nixed plans of Catholic schools in his diocese to see a similar exhibit, Edmonton's Archbishop Richard Smith has struck a somewhat more conciliatory note. While Smith stressed that these bodies "are not just an object to be gawked at as an object of curiosity, but to be honored," his archdiocese isn't telling parishioners not to visit the exhibit, and students in local Catholic schools may even see it on a field trip—provided they receive parental permission. —Dan Messier

Dr. Marco Iacoboni, a neurologist and neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, has written a piece for Natural History that explains what mirror neurons are and the role these brain cells play in empathy and social connections. In essence, explains Iacoboni, mirror neurons specialize in allowing us to understand the actions, feelings, and intentions of others by automatically simulating these actions and emotions in our own brains. "When we watch movie stars kiss onscreen, some of the cells firing in our brains are the same ones that fire when we kiss our lovers. And when we see someone else suffering or experiencing pain, mirror neurons help us to read her or his facial expression and make us viscerally feel the suffering or the pain of the other person," he writes. "Those moments, I will argue, are the foundation of empathy (and possibly of morality)."
Iacoboni, who heads the leading lab in human mirror neuron research, adapted the piece from his new book, Mirroring People: The New Science of How We Connect With Others. —Heather Wax

The Phoenix Mars Lander, which thrilled NASA scientists when it landed safely over the weekend, has sent back amazing images of never-before-seen terrain taken during its first full day of exploration. During its three-month mission on Mars, the lander will search for signs that liquid water existed on the planet's northern plains and look for traces of organic compounds in the soil, trying to determine whether it could have supported primitive life. —Heather Wax

In an attempt to show that evangelicalism is compatible with scientific progress, education, and popular culture, a new study out of Boston University's Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs will take a look at what's being called the "evangelical intelligentsia." The study will try to correct the perception that evangelicals are "barefoot people of Tobacco Road who, I don't know, sleep with their sisters or something," BU sociologist Peter Berger, who's leading the study with evangelical political scientist Timothy Shah of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, told the AP. It's "not good if a prejudiced view of this community prevails in the elite circles of society," he added.
The root of this prejudice, some believe, is the idea that all evangelicals are fundamentalists. In reality, fundamentalists are a subset of the evangelical community who tend to interpret the Bible literally—including an emphasis on six-day creation. That's not the case for the majority of evangelical scientists, who believe in God-guided evolution, says Shah.
But if they want to be culturally relevant, evangelicals are going to have to step outside the comforts of their community and mix with the "larger world of ideas," says Boston College sociologist Alan Wolfe, who believes evangelicals have been too insular to be truly effective. —Dan Messier

After 15 years at Case Western Reserve University, theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss is leaving the school for an innovative position at Arizona State University starting this August. He'll join the faculty as a professor in the school of earth and space exploration, and the university will be looking to Krauss to take a lead role in an emerging interdisciplinary initiative focused on the fundamental questions of our origins—in the widest sense. The initiative's research area will include the origin of such things as the universe, galaxies, consciousness, and culture, as well as humans. To help kick-start the project, Krauss is organizing a symposium for next April that will bring together Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, and Craig Venter, along with other leading scientists.
"Krauss has the rare ability to grasp the key foundational concepts across a range of sciences, and to explain them in an attractive and comprehensible way," physicist Paul Davies, who directs the research center Beyond at ASU, said in a press release. "His world-famous book The Physics of Star Trek well captures the fun-loving, daring and out-of-the box thinking of this renowned scientist." —Heather Wax

After hours of testimony, the state House Education Committee approved an "academic freedom" bill that would allow science teachers to use supplemental material "that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning.” The committee's chairman, Republican Representative Don Trahan, did add an amendment that would allow the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to review the supplemental material and block anything that wasn't scientific—but many critics worry about what will still find its way into the schools. Democratic Senator Ben Nevers, who sponsored the Senate version of the proposal, denies the bill has a "hidden agenda"—maintaining it is about "science education, period"—yet opponents believe the bill is really an attempt to sneak religious theories like creationism and "intelligent design" into the science classroom.
The bill will now go before the full House for a vote. —Heather Wax