Liquid water lake discovered on Mars

Yahoo – AFP, Kerry SHERIDAN, 25 July 2018

A photograph obtained from the European Space Agency on July 25, 2018, shows
an artist's impression of Mars Express over a background based on an actual
image of the Red Planet taken by the spacecraft

A massive underground lake has been detected for the first time on Mars, raising hopes that more water -- and maybe even life -- exists there, international astronomers said Wednesday.

Located under a layer of Martian ice, the lake is about 12 miles (20 kilometers) wide, said the report led by Italian researchers in the US journal Science.

It is the largest body of liquid water ever found on the Red Planet.

"Water is there. We have no more doubt," co-author Enrico Flamini, the Italian space agency's Mars Express mission manager, told a press conference.

Mars is now cold, barren and dry but it used to be warm and wet. It was home to plenty of liquid water and lakes at least 3.6 billion years ago.

Scientists are eager to find signs of contemporary water, because such discoveries are key to unlocking the mystery of whether life ever formed on Mars in its ancient past, and whether it might persist today.

"This is a stunning result that suggests water on Mars is not a temporary trickle like previous discoveries but a persistent body of water that provides the conditions for life for extended periods of time," said Alan Duffy, an associate professor at Swinburne University in Australia, who was not involved in the study.

An image released by the European Space Agency on July 25, 2018, shows radar 

data collected by the Mars Express orbiter pointing to a pond of liquid water buried 

under layers of ice and dust in the south polar region of Mars

Being able to access water sources could also help humans survive on a future crewed mission to Earth's neighboring planet, with NASA aiming to send explorers in the 2030s.

This particular lake, however, would be neither swimmable nor drinkable, and it lies almost a mile deep (1.6 kilometers) beneath the icy surface in a harsh and frigid environment.

Whether microbial forms of life could lie within is a matter of debate.

Some experts are skeptical of the possibility since the lake is so cold and briny, mixed with a heavy dose of dissolved Martian salts and minerals.

The temperature is likely below the freezing point of pure water, but the lake can remain liquid due to the presence of magnesium, calcium and sodium.

"This is a discovery of extraordinary significance, and is bound to heighten speculation about the presence of living organisms on the Red Planet," said Fred Watson of the Australian Astronomical Observatory.

"Caution needs to be exercised, however, as the concentration of salts needed to keep the water liquid could be fatal for any microbial life similar to Earth's," added Watson, who was not involved in the research.

Radar detection

The discovery was made using a radar instrument on board the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter, which launched in 2003.

The tool is called the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS), and was designed to find subsurface water by sending radar pulses that penetrate the surface and ice caps.

MARSIS "then measures how the radio waves propagate and reflect back to the spacecraft," said the study.

A photograph from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter of Gorgonum Basin within

the Red Planet's Terra Sirenum region, which scientists think once had a large lake

These reflections "provide scientists with information about what lies beneath the surface."

A team of researchers led by Roberto Orosei of the National Institute for Astrophysics in Bologna, Italy, surveyed a region called Planum Australe, located in the southern ice cap of Mars, from May 2012 until December 2015.

A total of 29 sets of radar samplings showed a "very sharp change in its associated radar signal," allowing scientists to map the outlines of the lake.

"The radar profile of this area is similar to that of lakes of liquid water found beneath the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets on Earth, suggesting that there is a subglacial lake at this location on Mars," said the report.

Researchers said they are not sure how far down it goes, but that it may be around three feet (one meter) deep.

Confirmation needed

"This is the first body of water it has detected, so it is very exciting," David Stillman, a senior research scientist in the Department of Space Studies at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, told AFP in an email.

However, Stillman, who was not involved in the research, said another spacecraft, or other instruments, need to be able to confirm the discovery.

He noted that a higher-frequency radar instrument made by the Italian space agency SHARAD, on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter launched in 2005, has been unable to detect subsurface water.

"It is strange that SHARAD cannot confirm this discovery. In fact, SHARAD cannot penetrate through the ice here and no one understands why it can't," Stillman said.

"This suggests that something strange is going on here. Thus, I'm skeptical about this discovery."

But researchers are excited about the potential for future finds, because if liquid water could be found at Mars's south pole, it might be elsewhere too.

"There's nothing special about this location other than the MARSIS radar on the Mars Express spacecraft is most sensitive to that region," said Duffy.

"There are likely similar water deposits below the ground all across Mars."

Infographic on Mars after a massive underground lake was detected on the Red Planet pic.twitter.com/o6lo8nQFbV

— AFP news agency (@AFP) July 28, 2018

New 3-D map of Milky Way will 'revolutionise astronomy'

Yahoo – AFP, Mariëtte Le Roux, April 25, 2018

The Gaia satellite collected the data on some 1.7 billion stars from its unique vantage
point in space about 1.5 million kilometres (930,000 miles) from Earth (AFP Photo)

Paris (AFP) - Europe's Gaia satellite has produced a 3-D map, hailed as revolutionary, of more than a billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy -- complete with their distance from Earth, colour, and motion through space.

The eagerly-anticipated catalogue, published Wednesday, was compiled from data Gaia gathered on some 1.7 billion stars from its unique vantage point in space, about 1.5 million kilometres (930,000 miles) from Earth.

"The dataset is very rich and we believe it will revolutionise astronomy and our understanding of the Milky Way," Gaia's scientific operations manager Uwe Lammers told AFP of the massive data release.

"This catalogue is the most precise, most complete catalogue that has ever been produced. It allows studies which have not been possible before."

Launched in 2013, Gaia started operating the following year, gathering data on 100,000 stars per minute -- some 500 million measurements per day. Its first map was published in September 2016, based on a year's worth of observations of about 1.15 billion stars.

An update, launched at the ILA international air and space show in Berlin, adds stars and provides more data on each one, from measurements taken over 22 months in 2014-2016.

Some stars were measured as many as 70 times as the satellite, co-rotating with Earth around the Sun, continuously scanned the galaxy.

"For some of the brightest stars in the survey, the level of precision equates to Earth-bound observers being able to spot a Euro coin lying on the surface of the Moon," said an ESA statement.

The new, improved map depicts 1.7 billion stars "for which we can tell where they are in the sky with very high accuracy, and how bright they are," said Anthony Brown of the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium.

For 1.3 billion of those, "we know their distance and we know how they move through space."

There is, furthermore, information on the radial velocities of some seven million stars -- indicating the rate at which they are moving towards, or away from, Earth.

Opening a chocolate box

With all this data, "we can make a map of the whole night sky," said Brown, who described the end result as "stunning".

"You see the whole Milky Way in motion around its axis."

Gaia also revealed the orbits of some 14,000 "solar system objects" -- mapped as an intricate spiderweb of space rocks shooting around the Sun.

"It represents the most accurate survey ever of asteroids in the Solar System," said Brown. More will be added in future updates.

Information sent to Earth by Gaia is collated by 450 scientists from 20 countries.

One of them, Antonella Vallenari, likened the data release to "opening a chocolate box".

"It's very, very exciting," she said at the launch event in Germany, webcast live.

The full data will be published in a series of scientific papers in a special issue of the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, laying the foundation for decades of further study.

"We are really getting today the catalogue of a billion stars zipping through the Milky Way in various directions," said Guenther Hasinger, ESA's director of science.

"With Gaia, we can actually deconstruct the whole history of the Milky Way," he added. "It's like archaeoastronomy... to really build up the history of our Universe."

Lammers said another update is due in 2020.

Pope names envoy to Bosnian 'miracle' town

Yahoo – AFP, February 11, 2017

This photo taken on May 30, 2015 in the southern Bosnian village of Medjugorje
shows Catholic pilgrims attending an outside mass near the Franciscan church
(AFP Photo/ELVIS BARUKCIC)

Vatican City (AFP) - Pope Francis on Saturday named a Polish archbishop as special envoy to a Bosnian town that has become a huge but controversial pilgrimage site thanks to reported appearances by the Virgin Mary.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, is said to have appeared to six young people in the town of Medjugorje in 1981 and to continue visiting them to this day, but the apparitions have not been confirmed officially by the Vatican.

The new envoy, Archbishop Henryk Hoser, is being sent to "acquire a deeper knowledge of the pastoral situation" in Medjugorje, and "above all the needs of the faithful who go there on pilgrimage," the Vatican said in a press statement.

This photo taken on May 30, 2015 on a hillslope near 

the southern Bosnian village of Medjugorje shows 

Catholic pilgrims sitting as another prays near a statue

of the Virgin Mary (AFP Photo/ELVIS BARUKCIC)

But Hoser, whose mandate will last until summer, will not be tasked with verifying the authenticity of the apparitions, because that task falls to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Under growing pressure from local clergy and pilgrims to term the Medjugorje events a continuation of Marian visions, several church investigations have been commissioned.

The last one, commissioned in 2010, concluded its report in January 2014, but nothing has been officially announced.

In November 2013, Pope Francis issued what could be interpreted as an invitation to caution about events in Medjugorje.

"The Virgin is not a post office chief who would send messages every day," he said.

Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the southern French city of Lourdes and the northern Portuguese city of Fatima are recognised as Marian visions.

Each year about one million people visit Medjugorje, some 25 kilometres (16 miles) southwest of Mostar and not far from the Croatian border.

Even Bosnia's 1990s war did not stop pilgrims from coming.

For locals, the religious tourism has been like manna from heaven, bringing prosperity in a poor Balkan country where Catholics make up 10 percent of its 3.8 million population.

Italian fertility campaign recalled for treatment

Yahoo –AFP, Angus Mackinnon, September 2, 2016

Italy has the lowest birthrate in the European Union and one of the lowest
in the world

An Italian government campaign urging young couples to "get on with it" to boost the country's flagging birthrate has been pulled after a furious backlash on social media.

Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin said Friday she had ordered changes to the online campaign after a series of captioned images intended to promote an upcoming Fertility Day were slammed as patronising, sexist and hectoring.

The biggest outcry was over an image of a fraught-looking young woman touching her stomach with one hand and holding an egg-timer in the other, with the sand running away.

"Beauty has no age. But fertility does," said the caption, widely criticised for implying women delaying pregnancy had only themselves to blame if they ended up childless.

Men were not treated any more sensitively. A picture of rotting banana skin was deployed to make the point that: "Male fertility is much more vulnerable than you might think."

That was making a similar point to a picture of a man holding a cigarette with the warning: "Don't let your sperm go up in smoke."

Another image shows a wading bird on the edge of a nest, imploring surfers to: "Get a move on! Don't wait for the stork."

The tweets, released to promote a Fertility Day planned for September 22, quickly went viral -- the initial incredulous reaction being amplified by a swell of support for Lorenzin from pro-family groups.

'Demographic suicide'

Criticism of the campaign focused on the numerous obstacles to having children in Italy, including high unemployment, low wages, weak maternity rights and inadequate childcare provision.

One of the most popular tweets was a cartoon by Virgilio Natola showing a female hand holding up a pregnancy test kit bearing the result: "Go abroad and find yourself a job."

A total of 485,000 babies were born in Italy last year, a record low and

less than half the level of the 1960s

Others cited Italy's falling birthrate as a serious problem.

"The criticisms of #fertilityday are ridiculous," tweeted Comitato Articolo 26, one of the groups involved in organising recent "Family Days" in opposition to legislation on gay civil unions.

"In the country of demographic suicide, a lot, lot more should be done."

Announcing a review of the campaign, Lorenzin said: "We did not intend to offend or provoke anyone. If the message has not gone across as we we would have liked, we will change it."

Lorenzin, a practising Catholic, was left looking isolated after Prime Minister Matteo Renzi appeared to criticise the campaign.

"As far as I know, none of my friends had their kids after seeing an advert," he said in a radio interview on Thursday.

Italy has the lowest birthrate in the European Union and one of the lowest in the world, with only eight babies born for every 1,000 residents in 2015, according to EU figures released in July.

A total of 485,000 babies were born in the country last year, a record low and less than half the level of the 1960s.

Lorenzin warned earlier this year that the current "catastrophic decline" would reduce the number of newborns to 350,000 within a decade unless action is taken to reverse the trend.

She has proposed doubling "baby bonus" child benefits to encourage more couples to start families and existing parents to expand theirs.

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Dutch centenarians double in 14 years to 2,200

Japan’s Centenarian Population Swells to Record, at Almost 59,000

"Recalibration of Free Choice"–  Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth,  4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical)  8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

“…  3 - Longer Life is Going to Happen, But…

Here is one that is a review. We keep bringing it up because Humans don't believe it. If you're going to start living longer, there are those who are frightened that there will be overpopulation. You've seen the way it is so far, and the geometric progression of mathematics is absolute and you cannot change it. So if you look at the population of the earth and how much it has shifted in the last two decades, it's frightening to you. What would change that progression?

The answer is simple, but requires a change in thinking. The answer is a civilization on the planet who understands a new survival scenario. Instead of a basic population who has been told to have a lot of children to enhance the race [old survival], they begin to understand the logic of a new scenario. The Akashic wisdom of the ages will start to creep in with a basic survival scenario shift. Not every single woman will look at herself and say, "The clock is ticking," but instead can say, "I have been a mother 14 times in a row. I'm going to sit this one out." It's a woman who understands that there is no loss or guilt in this, and actually feels that the new survival attribute is to keep the family small or not at all! Also, as we have said before, even those who are currently ignorant of population control will figure out what is causing babies to be born [Kryon joke].

Part of the new Africa will be education and healing, and eventually a zero population growth, just like some of the first-world nations currently have. Those who are currently tied to a spiritual doctrine will actually have that doctrine changed (watch for it) regarding Human birth. Then they will be able to make free choice that is appropriate even within the establishment of organized religion. You see, things are going to change where common sense will say, "Perhaps it would help the planet if I didn't have children or perhaps just one child." Then the obvious, "Perhaps I can exist economically better and be wiser with just one. It will help the one!" Watch for these changes. For those of you who are steeped in the tradition of the doctrines and would say that sounds outrageously impossible, I give you the new coming pope [Kryon smile]. For those of you who feel that uncontrolled procreation is inevitable, I encourage you to see statistics you haven't seen or didn't care to look at yet about what first-world countries have already accomplished on their own, without any mandates. It's already happening. That was number three.….”

Comet contains glycine, key part of recipe for life

Yahoo – AFP,  May 27, 2016

Glycine, an organic compound contained in proteins, was found in the cloud around
 Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by the European Space Agency's probe,
Rosetta (AFP Photo)

Miami (AFP) - An important amino acid called glycine has been detected in a comet for the first time, supporting the theory that these cosmic bodies delivered the ingredients for life on Earth, researchers said Friday.

Glycine, an organic compound contained in proteins, was found in the cloud around Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by the European Space Agency's probe, Rosetta, said the study in the journal Science Advances.

The discovery was made using an instrument on the probe, called the Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis (ROSINA) mass spectrometer.

"This is the first unambiguous detection of glycine in the thin atmosphere of a comet," said lead author Kathrin Altwegg, principal investigator of the ROSINA instrument at the Center of Space and Habitability of the University of Bern.

In addition to the simple amino acid glycine, the instrument also found phosphorus. The two are key components of DNA and cell membranes.

Glycine has been detected in the clouds around comets before, but in previous cases scientists could not rule out the possibility of Earthly contamination.

This time, however, they could, because the mass spectrometer directly detected the glycine, and there was no need for a chemical sample preparation that could have introduced contamination.

"The multitude of organic molecules already identified by ROSINA, now joined by the exciting confirmation of fundamental ingredients like glycine and phosphorus, confirms our idea that comets have the potential to deliver key molecules for prebiotic chemistry," said Matt Taylor, Rosetta project scientist of the European Space Agency ESA.

"Demonstrating that comets are reservoirs of primitive material in the Solar System, and vessels that could have transported these vital ingredients to Earth, is one of the key goals of the Rosetta mission, and we are delighted with this result."

Scientists have long debated the question of whether comets and asteroids brought the components of life to Earth by smashing into oceans on our planet.

More than one hundred molecules have been detected on comets and in their dust and gas clouds, including many amino acids.

Previous data from Rosetta has shown that water on Comet 67P/C-G is significantly different from water on Earth, suggesting that comets did not play as big a role in delivering water as once thought.

However, the latest finding shows "they certainly had the potential to deliver life's ingredients," said a statement by the University of Bern.

Related Article:

Discovery of oxygen on comet 'big surprise'

Discovery of oxygen on comet 'big surprise'

Yahoo – AFP, Marlowe Hood, 28 Oct 2015

In a "big surprise," scientists have found lots of oxygen on Comet

 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, captured by the European space probe Rosetta 

an hour before its closest approach to the sun on August 13, 2015 (AFP Photo)

Paris (AFP) - Stunned scientists announced Wednesday the unexpected discovery of large quantities of oxygen on a comet which streaked past the Sun in August with a European spacecraft in tow.

The find came as a "big surprise" and challenges mainstream theories on the formation of our Solar System, said scientist Andre Bieler of the University of Michigan.

Measurements made by the Rosetta probe suggested that oxygen molecules in the 67P comet's gassy halo must have existed "before or at" its formation, he told journalists.

This may have implications for mankind's understanding of the chemistry involved in the formation of the Solar System some 4.6 billion years ago.

"We believe this oxygen is primordial, which means it is older than our Solar System," said Bieler.

Scientists had previously ruled out the presence of oxygen (O2) on comets such as 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the subject of intensive prodding and probing by a European robot lab.

As O2 mixes easily with other elements, "we never thought that oxygen could 'survive' for billions of years" in a pristine state, said Kathrin Altwegg of the University of Bern, who co-authored a study in the journal Nature.

"This evidence of oxygen as an ancient substance will likely discredit some theoretical models of the formation of our Solar System," she said.

The comet is being tracked on its deep-space journey around the Sun by the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft.

The historic mission seeks to unlock the mystery of the origins of life on Earth.

Scientists believe that comets "seeded" early Earth with some of the ingredients for life.

The team monitored the ratio of oxygen to water on the comet for several months to see if the gas molecules would dissipate as solar winds ripped away layers of surface.

They did not -- proving the oxygen was embedded in the comet, not just hanging around its surface.

Prevailing theories of the Solar System's birth posit a chaotic, collision-strewn mixing of matter flowing toward and away from the newly formed Sun.

Pristine, icy grains containing oxygen would not have made it through such violence intact, the scientists said, leading them to speculate that the process was, in fact, "gentler".

The oxygen molecules must have "survived from the dark molecular clouds from which they were probably formed into comets as we have them today," said Altwegg.

Only twice before -- on the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn -- have oxygen molecules been found in the Solar System beyond Earth's atmosphere, and never before on a comet.

Oxygen is difficult to detect with Earth-bound telescopes.

'Don't jump to conclusions'

Rosetta offered a rare opportunity to study 67P's "coma" -- the envelope of dust, gas and ice that forms as it nears the Sun on an elliptical orbit.

The new data suggests that water on comets is probably the rule rather than the exception, the scientists said.

Scientists not involved in this study underlined its importance, but said more time was needed to assess the implications.

The discovery "imposes a severe constraint on the mechanism for the formation of the Solar System," said French astrophysicist Francis Rocard.

"But we shouldn't jump to conclusions," he cautioned.

Oxygen molecules were the fourth-most common gas detected in 67P's debris halo -- after water, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.

Their presence did not tell us anything about the origins of life on Earth, of the possibility of finding it elsewhere in the universe, Altwegg said.

In looking at exo-planets, "the combination of O2 and methane has been taken as a sign that you might have life underneath," she said.

"On this comet we have both, but we don't have life. So having oxygen may not be a very good bio-signature."

Related Article:

"Soul Planning" - Oct 18, 2015 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - New

Norway hotel tycoon offers 5,000 hotel nights to refugees

Yahoo – AFP, 8 Sep 2015

Hundreds of migrants walk after leaving the transit zone of the Budapest train 

station, on September 4, 2015 (AFP Photo/Ferenc Isza)

Oslo (AFP) - A Norwegian billionaire who made his fortune in the hotel business offered on Tuesday 5,000 nights in his hotel chain to refugees who do not have a spot in asylum centres.

"We are offering 5,000 nights to refugees who need it," Petter Stordalen, who owns the Nordic Choice Hotels chain, wrote on Twitter.

The migrant drama unfolding in Europe "concerns absolutely everyone," he told Norwegian news agency NTB, adding that he would also cover the meal costs for the refugees who stay in his establishments.

The Norwegian migration board UDI said it would consider Stordalen's offer if its centres were overflowing.

Norway received 2,313 asylum requests in August, most of them from Syrians, Eritreans and Afghans, the highest number registered in a single month since the 1990s.

According to UDI, the number of asylum requests could reach up to 16,000 for the full year of 2015, compared to 11,480 in 2014.

Related Articles:

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"Return of the Masters" - Apr 11-12, 2015 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

Europe court backs France in quadriplegic right-to-die ruling

Yahoo – AFP, Cedric Simon, 5 June 2015

Vincent Lambert was left severely brain damaged and quadriplegic as a result

of a 2008 road accident (AFP Photo)

Strasbourg (France) (AFP) - Europe's rights court on Friday backed the decision of a French court to allow a man in a vegetative state to be taken off life support, in a ruling that could become a benchmark on the continent.

The fate of Vincent Lambert, 38, who was left a quadriplegic with severe brain damage after a 2008 road accident, has torn apart his family in a judicial tug-of-war over his right to die.

Viviane Lambert reacts after a hearing

 in the case of her son, Vincent (AFP

 Photo/Patrick Hertzog)

His parents and two siblings had appealed to the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights in a desperate bid to stop doctors from withdrawing intravenous feeding after exhausting their legal options in France.

But the court voted 12 to five that a French court decision, which said Lambert should be allowed to die, did not violate European rights laws.

"It is a scandal, our son has been sentenced to death," said his mother Viviane Lambert, who wiped away tears as the ruling was handed down.

"We will stay by Vincent's side and keep on fighting."

The case pitted Lambert's mother against his wife who insists her husband -- a former psychiatric nurse -- would never have wanted to be kept alive artificially.

Legal tug-of-war

Even though the court ruled in her favour, wife Rachel said she was "devastated" by the decision.

"There is no relief or joy to express," she said, adding "we want his wishes to be fulfilled."

The legal drama began in January 2014, when Lambert's doctors, backed by his wife and six of his eight siblings, decided to stop the intravenous food and water keeping him alive in line with a 2005 passive euthanasia law in France.

Viviane Lambert (L) says her son is

 merely handicapped and any attempt to

 stop life-sustaining treatment would

 amount to "disguised euthanasia" (AFP

 Photo/Patrick Hertzog)

His deeply devout Catholic parents, half-brother and sister won a court application to stop the plan, calling it "akin to torture".

In an appeal, the French supreme administrative court, known as the State Council, ordered three doctors to draw up a report on Lambert's condition and in June 2014 ruled that withdrawing care from a person with no hope of recovery was lawful.

Lambert's parents then took the case to Europe's rights court which ruled the State Council decision was "the object of a thorough investigation where all points of view were expressed and all aspects weighed long and hard."

Lawmaker Jean Leonetti, who drew up France's passive euthanasia law, said up to 1,700 patients were in a similar situation to Vincent Lambert in the country and urged people to make "living wills" so their medical wishes would be clear.

While the decision relating to the contentious euthanasia debate is likely to have an impact across Europe, the bitter Lambert family battle is set to continue in France.

Parents to fight on

Rachel Lambert (C) looks on

 after the hearing in the case

 of her husband, Vincent

(AFP Photo/Patrick Hertzog)

Vincent's parents plan to seek a new medical decision as the doctor who was behind the initial decision to stop intravenous feeding is no longer employed at the medical unit where their son is being kept.

Medical experts have said Lambert is in an irreversible vegetative state.

But Viviane believes her son is showing signs of progress, including lifting his leg and swallowing, and just needs better care. His parents want him moved to a new medical facility.

Viviane's lawyer Jerome Triomphe urged the health ministry to allow the transfer of Lambert "so that those who want to take care of him can do so rather than leave him on death row at the wishes of whose who want to get rid of him."

Laurent Pettiti, the lawyer for Lambert's wife, said it was difficult to imagine "how an administrative judge could go against the decision of the European Court and State Council."

'Inhumane procedure'

In practice, once all legal avenues are exhausted, the palliative care unit where Lambert is being held will stop artificial nutrition and hydration and sedate Lambert to avoid discomfort and suffering.

Vincent Lambert is in an

irreversible vegetative state, 

according to medical experts

 (AFP Photo)

In such cases it can take between a week and 10 days for the patient to die.

The "Death with Dignity" association welcomed the ECHR ruling, but deplored the fact that euthanasia was not legal in France and could allow Lambert to avoid the "inhumane procedure."

Lambert's case ignited a fierce debate around euthanasia in France where it remains illegal despite recent efforts to ease legislation dealing with the terminally ill -- a campaign promise by President Francois Hollande.

In March, lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in favour of a law allowing medics to place terminally ill patients in a deep sleep until they die.

The law also makes "living wills" -- drafted by people who do not want to be kept alive artificially if they are too ill to decide -- legally binding on doctors.

Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg as well as in the US states of Vermont, Oregon and Washington.

Related Articles:

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Former doctor Nicolas Bonnemaison arrives at the courthouse

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 "Current" Events –  Apr 10, 2005 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

"... The Ethics of Life

You, as a Human Being, are designed to appreciate and love life. But you put it in a box. You think you live once. You say, life is precious; make it count; keep it going at all costs; make it work. And the underlying thought is that because you only go around one time, all the purpose is wrapped up in one lifetime. Well, I'm going to give you something to think about, something that happened just recently that tens of millions of people all over earth who have the western news media know of.

It was all about one woman's life, and you know who I'm talking about. I'm talking about Terri [Terri Schiavo]. And I'm going to talk about Terri because, you know, she's here [speaking of the real Terri]! And I'm going to give you a perspective about Terri that perhaps you hadn't thought about before, and as I do it, she's going to watch.

It's very metaphysical, you know? This perspective is one from my side of the veil. Terri leaned into the wind of birth many years ago, just as you did. I was there, too. There were potentials laying in front of her - a track that she could take if she wished. There was no predestination, only predispositions of energy that laid before her: the parents she would have (which she had selected), the man she might meet or marry, the accident waiting to happen. All of these things were in her "potential track," and she could have chosen not to go there.

But like so many of you, she looked at it and examined it. These were the times we spoke to her and said, "Dear one, you're going into another Human lifetime that has a potential that's awesome - grander than most Humans on the planet will ever experience. You'll get to present something to tens of millions of people. You'll make them think about life. You'll change the legal system of your country. You'll awaken peoples' awareness to situations that need to be addressed with respect to morality, integrity, and even intuition. Will you do it?"

And I remember what she said. The grand angel who stood before me, who you now call Terri, smiled broadly and said, "I'm ready for that." And some of you cry in your sorrow and say "Why is this Human dead? How could such a thing be tolerated? Why would such a thing happen? Life is so precious." And I ask you this, as Terri looks on in her joy, would you take this away from her? Would you take that away from humanity, what she showed and did that resulted directly in her passing?

Start thinking of these things, perhaps differently. We've told you before that there are even those Human Beings who come in with a predisposition of suicide! What a horrible thought, you might say. "Kryon, could that even be appropriate?" And we say this: More than appropriate, it's by design! "But why should that be?" You might say. "What a horrible dishonorable death." And if that's your reaction, you're placing the whole grand picture in your own little Human box.

When you start examining it spiritually, without Human bias, you start to see that around a suicide there's this energy that develops. It's all about the family. Is there shame? Is there drama? Does it kick the family in the pants so that perhaps they might study things they never did - or perhaps they might they even look within themselves for spirituality? Blessed is the one that comes in with these tasks [like suicide]. There are so many of them who do. For these are the grease of personal change within families, and provide a gift that is grand!

You see, Spirit looks at these things differently. The curtain goes up, it goes down. You come and you go and there are profound lessons, some of which are taught harshly, by those who teach them through their own deaths.

"Well, what is it Kryon? Don't dodge the question with a diversion to suicide, for this isn't what Terri did. Is it proper or is it improper to have somebody in this vegetative state put to death by others around her?" Our answer: Exactly which Human are you talking about? You want a blanket answer, don't you? For six and half billion souls and paths, you want one answer for all. Well, you won't get one. For Terri, the answer is a solid yes. It was as it should have been. She came in with this grand opportunity to change the world, and she did it while everyone watched.

There is appropriateness in all things and sometimes you create for yourselves what seems to be inappropriate. Yet later you understand what the gift was within the challenge. Celebrate Terri, and don't think of this as a shameful thing that Humans did to her. Think of it instead as a book that was written for you to look at, one which pushes you to a place to ask, "What should we do about this now, personally? What should our legislatures do about this, if anything? How can we approach these things more humanely and with more honor? Is our culture addressing this issue? Are we addressing this issue personally?" Let's put these questions where they belong. It's not about "right to life"; it's about the appropriateness of "this life." Each case is individual, and some are profoundly given for the planet and for those around the individual.

Oh, as all of you came into this planet and leaned into the wind of birth separately, each was unique. Each of you has a different story, a different goal, but all have the same purpose: the elevation of the vibration of the planet. Sometimes it happens to many of you at the same time. We'll get to that before we finish. ..."

"THE THREE WINDS" – Feb 23-24, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Humanity, Home - other side of the veil, Wind of Birth - Birth, Wind of Existence - Life, Wind of Transition - Death) - (Text version)