Year 13 student Xavier English gave a 6 minute speech about the use of virtual reality for training in health and safety situations.

"It's the next platform and will create lots of things in technology." English said.

"People don't realise how far virtual reality has become. "It's at the point of real experience.

"I know it's extremely relevant."

English has been awarded the Ministry for Social Development Silver Scholarship ($2500) and the Ministry of Education Gold Scholarship ($5000).

Old boy Finn Lowndes, who now studies physics and law at Victoria University, delivered a speech about nuclear fusion technology being the solution to the world's energy crisis.

He said the words "nuclear power" would normally be met with trepidation by environmentalists.

At the moment nuclear power depends on nuclear fission reactors which involve the coming together of atomic nuclei.

If anything goes wrong with fission reactor an explosion such as the ones the power plants in Chernobyl and Fukushima can occur.

However, nuclear fusion reactors involved the coming together of atomic nuclei, as opposed lo their separation (fission).

"If something goes wrong there would be no explosions." said Lowndes.

"It's a new field that needs pioneering minds to take charge of."

Lowndes' presentation has been selected as one of 6, from university undergraduates across New Zealand, to compete in the national finals in September.

He will be awarded between $1500 and $10,000 depending on his performance in the finals.

The Sir Paul Callaghan Eureka Awards are designed to increase young New Zealanders interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects.

A key part of the Eureka Awards is showing how the student's STEM idea can benefit New Zealand's economic, environmental and social wealth and well-being.

Source

• FaceBook
• Cook Strait News
• Eureka
• Image: Cook Strait News

Christian reawakening to the Jewishness of Jesus began in the late nineteenth century but received greater attention as Christians devoted increased attention to Jews and Judaism in light of the Shoah.

From the 1960s onwards, a desire for reconciliation with, and greater understanding of, Judaism became commonplace, epitomised by Vatican II and the publication of Nostra Aetate in 1965.

Nearly all Christian studies now take the Jewishness of Jesus seriously, but what is less well known is the work of Jewish scholars who similarly have re-awoken to the fact that Judaism nurtured Jesus the Jew.

In the latter part of the twentieth century, David Flusser and Géza Vermes, both of whom built on the pioneering work of a small number of Jewish scholars in the early twentieth century (notably Martin Buber, Joseph Klausner and Claude Montefiore), have been followed by three new Jewish scholars - Shmuley Boteach, Daniel Boyarin and Amy-Jill Levine.

While Flusser portrayed Jesus as a charismatic figure whose teaching demonstrated an extraordinary sense of mission, Vermes depicted Jesus as a Galilean Hasid and holy man.

For both, Jesus was a charismatic teacher, healer and prophet. Vermes in particular has had the greater impact, demonstrated by the title of his first book, Jesus the Jew, which in 1973 seemed revolutionary but now is taken for granted in New Testament scholarship. Continue reading.

Source: The Tablet

Image: Rockland411