You're watching FJTN, the Federal Judicial Television Network. The Federal Judicial Center presents Science in the Court Room, a series of programs for judges on science and scientific evidence. With an introduction by Stephen Breyer, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Welcome to the Federal Judicial Center's series of science programs for judges. This series is a response to two significant developments. One is that as time goes on, an increasing number of cases on your dockets are turning upon the application of scientific principles. Another is that recent decisions of the Supreme Court have imposed new duties on you, gatekeeping and decision-making duties that require an enhanced understanding of the scientific methodologies at issue in your cases. The series seeks to help you fulfill these duties in several ways. First, by providing you with an understanding of the basic principles governing three discrete fields of pure science, microbiology, epidemiology, and toxicology. Second, by examining methods of evaluating the reliability of evidence from those three fields of science. And third, by considering scientific evidence from these fields in the wider context of making rulings and management decisions in specific types of cases that is patent and toxic tort cases. As you know, after Markman v. Westview Instruments Inc., a patent case can turn almost entirely on your conclusions about the meaning of scientific terms in the patent claim. Because patent litigation increasingly involves questions of microbiology, the first three programs in the series will be devoted to an examination of the fundamentals of microbiology in the context of a patent case. The first two programs will be pure science lectures. In the third program, a panel of judges and attorneys will examine the Markman and related issues presented by microbiology evidence in the patent case. The series then turns to a consideration of scientific evidence in the arena of toxic tort litigation. There, as you're well aware, the parties often seek to present evidence from toxicologists and epidemiologists on the issue of causation. And Daubert and Joyner and Tkumo Tyre require you to make rulings on this evidence that may determine the outcome of the case. As such, the fourth and fifth programs of this series will address the basic principles of toxicology and epidemiology. The sixth will be a discussion by a different panel of judges and attorneys focusing on methods of evaluating toxicology and epidemiology evidence for purposes of resolving Daubert and other issues in toxic tort cases. The goal, of course, is not to turn you into scientists. Still, as you encounter terms like recombinant DNA, antisense, or nucleotides, and phrases like no observable effect level and cohort study, you may find yourself thinking you are on a longer and more arduous journey into the realm of scientific inquiry than you'd like to take. I can only respond that I think it is a journey you must take. Indeed, that we all must take to be effective judges in this day and age. Why? Because it will increase our knowledge about the science we can expect to encounter in our cases. And as such, increase our chances of achieving justice in them. And so, in the spirit of scientific inquiry and in the pursuit of justice, let us begin. Science in the Court Room, Program 1, Core Concepts of Microbiology. This lecture is presented by Edward S. Makarski, Jr., Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine. Professor Makarski received his doctorate in microbiology from the University of Iowa and conducted postdoctoral studies in microbiology at the University of Chicago. So among the key scientific concepts to have actually come into the courtroom over the last 10 or 15 years are from the field of biology.  The key concepts we're going to try and cover are shown on this first slide. The genes that are common to all organisms carry the blueprint for each organism.  All genes are made up of a molecule called DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid. DNA is a template, and DNA is used in the course of gene expression. That is to say, the expression of the genes into proteins that carry out many functions in life. The gene, the intermediate in expression of those genes is RNA. So RNA is sort of a messenger service. Copies DNA and carries it out to encode proteins. Proteins carry out most of the work of life. They're the enzymes. They're the things you can see, skin, eyes, most of the structure of organisms. So the molecular dogma we're going to cover today is that information flow and something about the organisms in which that information flow operates. DNA to RNA to protein. That's called the molecular dogma. It's been coined about 40 years ago now. And DNA is a universal code. So all life is DNA-based. All life has the same basic code and carries out the same basic process. And that's going to be important as we get through this lecture because it's what scientists have used to begin to understand genomics, to understand how to manipulate and do gene therapy, genetic engineering cloning. If I go now to the next slide, this is a cartoon taken from one of my daughter's books. It's actually a book from the Colchping Harbor Lab, a famous lab on Long Island. It's done a lot of molecular biology research, but it basically shows us a cartoon of some plants and some insects and basically says, if I think it's the beetle saying, I suppose you realize that if my DNA had been in a different order, I could have been a brain surgeon. And in fact, that's true. DNA is a very simple molecule. We'll get into how it's composed. And in fact, the order of the building blocks of DNA really determine everything about an organism. So for a human, it's the genes that dictate and determine what is human. Genomes from different organisms are very, very greatly with regard to size and with regard to the sequence of the building blocks. And so here we've got on the first line, the genome of bacteria. Bacteria are microorganisms. They're single cell microorganisms. A genome of a bacteria is a single DNA molecule, which we'd call a chromosome. It's a collection of genes or genomes, chromosome. And it's 4 million building blocks. The building blocks, we're going to name bases in a little while, but the building blocks are 4 million of them arranged in a particular order. And they encode some 4,000 genes. So you need 4,000 different genes or coding sequences to make a bacterium, a single cell organism. Bacteria are prokaths, one type of life. The kingdom of life is broken into prokaths and eukaryotes pretty much. So another example would be a eukaryote. Humans, a higher order organism. Human genome is 23 different molecules, pairs of chromosomes. We have a lot of other characteristics, sexual reproduction. But 23 pairs of chromosomes totaling some 3 billion. So nearly 1,000 times more complex than bacteria. And the estimate right now for the human genome is that there are some 120,000 genes. So humans or eukaryotes, they're more complex. They have larger genomes. They have more genes. Bacteria are microorganisms. They're simple. They have a smaller number of genes. All of those genomes, either organism that I've just used an example or any other living thing on Earth, has a genome made up of DNA. So now if we go on, we just talk about not just the genome, but the cells that make up different organisms. Because that's also an order of complexity here that we should all understand. On the next slide, it shows that bacteria, as I've already said, are microscopic. They're microorganisms, single cells. And down there at the bottom in the panel, an arrow is pointing at a little speck. That is a bacteria, not magnified very much there, because it's shown next to a human cell. Human cells are larger than bacterial cells. But indeed, humans are made up of lots of different cells. Some 75 trillion cells. So we're each made up of lots of cells. And each of our cells is larger than a bacterial cell. But indeed, the basic makeup of each is a common set of molecules and codes. So the movie now, which is down there in that panel, shows the bacterium being engulfed by this human cell.  It's a polymorphonuclear cell, polymorph. And its job in life is actually to engulf bacteria. So when you have a pussie wound or when you have a situation where you've got an infection, your immune cells, the white blood cells come in and take care of those bacteria. It's shown here just for size comparison. So now, if we go back to DNA and go to the next slide, we're going to look at the makeup, the structure of DNA over the next series of slides.  And those simple building blocks, we're going to call G, A, T, and C. They're abbreviations for the bases that make up DNA. But they serve the purpose here. So the order of G, A, T, and C really determines what a particular DNA molecule is. It's what a particular organism's DNA sequence is. And it plays a central role in determining what organism is what. So the order of these four nucleotides in a bacterium genome, bacterial genome, is different than the order of these bases in a human. Even though there's 4 million of them in a bacterium and 3 billion of them in humans, the sequences are very different as well. So the numbers and the sequences. And that's really a very important part of how life is defined. So DNA uses these four building blocks. And as I show them, they're paired. G colon C, A colon T, G colon G. DNA is a double helix. And that's what's shown in the cartoon there on the right. The double helix is two ribbons. And the cartoon shows the different bases as little arms shooting out and sort of opposing one another all the way down the ribbon. So DNA is a series of base pairs or nucleotide base pairs, as they're called. And so DNA is a double helix made up of these four bases in a variety of different orders. Next slide. So these four bases, if we really expand it, and this cartoon expands the double helix into the actual chemical components, which aren't so important to us here, but it gives you a feeling for what kinds of chemical bonds are involved, the four bases are made up of a organic molecule that is partly sugar and partly what is called nucleotide base. Linked by various chemical bonds, both covalent and non-covalent, that make up this double helix. So there's a chemical basis of DNA. And there's now a higher role for DNA as a coding sequence, as a sequence that carries the code for what is each organism that has a DNA genome. If we go on now to the next slide, this double helix goes back from a very highly magnified double helix into what looks like a split open egg, which is a depiction of a cell. So as I said, all organisms are made up of cells. All organisms have DNA. This would be a typical human cell, blood cell that's in a cartoon version. The DNA is contained inside the cell, inside a nucleus in that cell. And every cell in the body would have a nucleus, and that nucleus would have the same genome, the same DNA molecules as every other cell. If we now look on the next slide at a very simple organism, a bacterium, bacteria are really very simple cells. They don't have a nucleus, for example, as human cells have a nucleus that contains the DNA. They just have a little separate compartment in their cell called a nucleoid that has their DNA genome. And again, their genome is just one molecule of DNA. Very long, four million bases, but one molecule. Here on the left is a cartoon depiction of a bacterium, which allows me to actually go through the parts of a bacteria. And on the right is an actual photomicograph of a magnified bacterium, which you really can't tell any of the parts. You might be able to tell that it's bounded by sort of a wall on the right. But on the cartoon side, we can look at the bacterium. It's cut open. We can see it's got a kind of fuzzy surface, because it's got these components called pili, which are important in the life of the bacterium. It's got long flagella sticking out at the bottom, which are used to swim around and find nutrient sources. And inside the bacterium, besides the nucleoid, there's ribosomes. And we'll talk about ribosomes. They're involved in the synthesis of proteins, which are the molecules that carry out most of the functions in life. And you can see a cell wall and a cell membrane kind of depicted there. If we go now to the next slide, this is going to be a little movie, which is showing how bacteria move around. And here it comes kind of like the Goodyear blimp. But this is a very small organism. The flagella are off to the right. We're going to zoom in and look inside the cell. And you can see sort of the cell wall and lots of components in there. It's just a cartoon version. This shows how the bacterial genome is dividing. And as the bacterial genome replicates and divides, then the cell divides. And so bacteria go through life with a simple mission, and that's to make more of themselves. They do it by this binary fission, where they duplicate their DNA by a mechanism of DNA replication. And then the cell splits by binary fission. I think we'll go through this one more time, just to highlight the aspects of what's going on. So again, a bacterium will be growing, moving around. It has inside the cell many components to carry out the functions of life. And one of the most important things is for that bacterial genome to replicate and make a second copy of itself. And for the cell to divide and make more copies of bacteria, because that's the only thing that bacteria exist for is to make more of themselves. That's their desire in life. So now if we go on to the next slide, this is a cartoon depiction of DNA replication. That last movie didn't really show as clearly as this cartoon shows. Bacterial genome is really just one very, very large circle of nucleic acid. It replicates by copying itself into two circles, and then the cell divides. This is a really simple cartoon version of what we saw in the movie just previously. And the two daughter cells then go off merrily and have their own lives. So each bacterial genome is a circle of some 4 million base pairs of DNA. DNA replication is one of the key aspects of life. You have to be able to make more DNA from existing DNA for life to propagate itself and have more of anything. Bacteria just want to make more of themselves. Many people want to have kids and things like that. So it's a very popular sport here. DNA replication is the core to this process. DNA replication is an inherent quality of DNA. As I've already said, it's a double helix. It's a complementary copy of itself in those two helices that are formed from these base pairs. And so as the DNA helix is copied into additional strands, and you can see here a replication fork where there's two progeny coming off from the original strands up above, you end up with two exact copies of what was the parental molecule. So every time a cell divides, the entire genome is copied, true of all organisms. Base pairing, the A to T, G to C relationship is retained. And it's the key to making exact copies of the DNA each time it's made. The product is the same as the starting material, so an organism like a bacterium remains the same bacterium every time it divides. And the machinery for DNA replication, which isn't shown here, this is just a replication fork, there'd be machinery in there actually doing the work, would be made up of proteins such as DNA polymerase, which is an enzyme that polymerizes or copies and makes this DNA molecule. So we go to this slide. This is some practical utility of DNA replication. So genome replication provides more copies of chromosomes. But in using a DNA template and bases and DNA polymerase, that DNA template can be copied into additional exact copies. And one of the practical uses has been the polymerase chain reaction, something we refer to as PCR. You'll see that in the newspaper as well as in scientific literature. PCR is a way to make many copies of a small amount of DNA. And it's been very important. And for example, forensics or in paternity, where if you can get a little bit of a blood sample from an individual, you can collect the DNA, a small amount PCR up regions that vary from individual to individual. So each organism is defined by a genome. But each individual has slightly different individual features, and those are also based in slightly different individual genes. And those differences can be used to actually identify the sequence of those DNA molecules can be used to identify individuals. And PCR is a way to make a lot of DNA available to, for example, forensics to figure out what individual that DNA came from. So that's become a very, very important part of, I think, molecular biology in the courtroom. It's considered a very important way to identify an individual unambiguously. Go to the next slide. Well, genome replication is only part of the process of life. Gene expression is the second. So the DNA is a template to make more of itself. We call that replication, DNA replication. The DNA is also a template to make individual gene products. Those gene products are proteins, by and large. We'll call them proteins. And proteins like DNA polymerase carry out a lot of the machinery that carry out a lot of the functions of life. And we're going to talk about this information flow now of DNA making RNA intermediate making proteins, each of them acting as a template. So RNA transcription produces an intermediate messenger RNA from a DNA template. That's the first step in gene regulation. And then the second is protein translation. That is, say, the reading of that RNA intermediate into protein produces a final product. And that final product is used to constitute most of the structures and functions that we call life, the metabolic activity of a cell. Both RNA and DNA are made up of bases. And proteins are made up of amino acids. We're going to come back to talk about that in some detail. So here's the dogma in a single slide. The dogma of DNA makes more DNA. That's replication. DNA also is a template for RNA transcription, the first step in gene expression, and translation the production of proteins off of that RNA intermediate. DNA, again, on the top here is shown as a double helix, a very small double helix. RNA is shown as a red kind of hairy looking molecule coming off of a DNA template in the middle of that panel. That RNA is an exact copy of the DNA from which it was made. And it's used, then, it is red, I should say, by a ribosome, which translates that red messenger RNA into proteins. That's the central dogma. That's what all life does. That's an important concept, I think, to understand much of the molecular biology and genomics and gene cloning that's gone on for the past couple of decades. If we go on now to the next slide. So transcription makes an exact copy. I show here on the top a DNA double helix, here laid on its side instead of standing straight up, but basically the same double helix. It's got these base pairs, G paired to C, A paired to T, and you can make various combinations on either strand. So it's made up of base pairs. It's a double helix. RNA is a single strand. It is an exact copy of one of the two DNA strands. And usually a gene is one of the two DNA strands being copied into RNA. But it's an exact copy. And it's made up of four bases. Just like DNA is made up of four bases, they're chemically slightly different. And we give them the letters G, A, C, and U, whereas it's G, A, C, and T in the case of DNA. So very much similar. The next slide, then, is a movie depiction of this first step in gene expression, which is transcription. You see the RNA polymerase moves in in binds. And if we can stop this slide for a moment, the movie, you can see the RNA polymerase has recognized a place on this double helix, which is drawn in a cartoon version underneath that big blob that moved in, the RNA polymerase. RNA polymerase is a big protein. It's composed of many different proteins, but it's a big thing that can synthesize RNA off a DNA template. It comes down and recognizes a site on the DNA, which we call promoter, because it's the place where the RNA polymerase starts to make RNA. It's got to have a starting point. And it's important that it pick the right starting point because each gene is in a different location on the genome. So if humans have 120,000 genes in three billion base pairs, the RNA polymerase has to know where to find those genes and start transcribing not just anywhere. So it finds a promoter. Now if we go on with the movie, we'll see that the RNA polymerase is now where we focused in, magnified, opens up the DNA double helix and starts making an RNA, which is a red line here, off of one template, one strand as a template. And you see that RNA polymerase moving along and leaving a red single-stranded molecule beyond. Now we've focused in even closer, and you're going to see the individual bases come in and those little energetic connections are chemical bonds that are formed to put the bases into a polymer form, which is the RNA. And each of them is dictated by the sequence on the DNA. They're each a base pair, and they're each specifically encoded. So the sequence of bases on a bacterial genome is going to encode a gene at the bacterial gene based on the RNA, based on the DNA making a particular RNA, and then bacterial proteins, whereas human genes have a different order of those four bases, make a different set of, and make human proteins. Now if we go, well, we can summarize that by going through this diagram here. Here the RNA polymerase is, again, shown as a blob, and it recognizes the DNA template as a first step. That's the promoter. It comes in and recognizes a particular site on the DNA. It then opens up those strands of DNA and starts a process of copying the DNA into an RNA molecule, just by incorporating those individual bases, as we just saw in the movie. The RNA is made as a copy, and it goes anywhere from a few hundred bases to thousands of bases. Genes vary in size from a very small few hundred bases to thousands of bases. In any case, the RNA has a defined size, and it's basically the gene intermediate. For the intermediate for gene expression, it carries a particular set of information. So we now go on and ask, how is that information used? We're going to go to the next slide, which is a cartoon, again from this Cold Spring Harbor series, called DNA Is Here to Stay. And it's a cartoon that, I think, captures the next step, which is really the most complicated step of all the life processes, the trying to decode this four base intermediate, this RNA, that's made up of four different bases, into a very complex set of proteins that are made up of a lot of different amino acid building blocks. So let's go through the cartoon first. The copy strand, as it says in the upper left panel, is now complete and leaves the chromosome. So the RNA says to it, the chromosome, I'm off. I'm out of here. Now to look for a ribosome. The ribosome is the machinery for translation for making protein. Here, it's down on the bottom left panel. The copy strand finds a ribosome, which isn't too hard, because there's thousands in each cell. Each cell in any organism has a lot of protein translation machinery, something that cells do all the time and do lots of. And so the messenger RNA says aha, and the ribosome says hi. Then the ribosome binds to this RNA and starts to read the bases. And so the copy strand sticks to the ribosome, which reads the A's, C's, G's, and U's. And now the ribosome knows the order in which to join up amino acids. It's sort of like reading a sentence and knowing what the sentence means. The ribosome can read those four bases and make a complex protein out of it. We're going to talk about how that happens. But in any case, the bottom right panel says, and all this happens millions of times a minute every day inside cells of your body and every organism on Earth. And the amino acids are going off. We're seeing in chorus. I'm sure we're amino acids and we make protein. So now if we go on to the maybe less colorful but factual process here, this movie will cover the translation step. But first up at the top, you see the RNA polymerase that's making mRNA, messenger RNA. And you see the ribosomes coming in and grasping that messenger RNA. And off the bottom there comes a protein. We're going to zoom in on this. And let's stop right here for a minute if we can. Because we just zoomed in and we've got the messenger RNA on the left. And you can see the series of bases. It's up vertical at this point. And you've got these squiggly things coming in and recognizing essentially three bases at a time. Those squiggly things are transfer RNAs. They're a particular kind of RNA, different than messenger RNA, but also RNA, that at one end read the RNA by having these three base recognition sites. And at the other side have individual amino acids that make up protein. And so the circles on the right side of this frame in the movie show different amino acids being brought in. So indeed, the RNA is read kind of like a sentence in three-letter words that tell the ribosome what amino acid to put into that protein. And there's some 20 different amino acids. So there's a very large variety of order to those amino acids to make up protein. So we can get the enormous diversity of life out of a very simple four base template on messenger RNA. If we continue the movie, and we'll go through this movie twice, but let's just finish it, you see the transfer RNA comes in. You get a new amino acid added, S-E-R just got it added. And then one more comes in, ALA gets added, just reading along the messenger RNA. So if we go through again, again, we see the RNA polymerase reading that DNA into RNA coming off the bottom of the RNA polymerase. Ribosomes come in and recognize that as messenger RNA, bind to it, and start to synthesize proteins. If we go close up and look at what's happening there, the RNA is being, the ribosome is orchestrating the reading of the messenger RNA by transfer RNAs that bring particular amino acids in in an order that dictates what is the final gene product that's made, the protein that's made. And so you get the enormous diversity of 4,000 different proteins in E. coli or in any bacterium, and the 120,000 different proteins that can be made by the human genome from this very simple process. If we go to the next slide, we'll talk a little more detail about translation. So just to summarize, RNA polymerase produces this messenger RNA intermediate. Ribosomes decode words of three bases into, which are called codons, into each individual amino acid. There are 20 different amino acids that make up all the proteins in nature. Each has their own set of codons so that each amino acid is matched up with a three base word. And proteins are made up of strings of amino acids. Proteins are basically linear arrays of amino acids that fold up into different forms and take on different functions. But they're determined essentially by the sequence of that messenger RNA intermediate. So if we go now and look without a movie, but in static form, what happened when a ribosome moved on the messenger RNA? Here the messenger RNA is a blue line. And the ribosome is a glob sitting on there with two tRNAs in position. And the ribosome is moving from left to right on this messenger RNA. And you can see that there are four codons that have bars over them that have already incorporated, served as template to incorporate amino acids. And the arrows point to the amino acids on that growing protein chain that was encoded as that ribosome moved along. So that's the entire nature of the ribosome reading messenger RNA and being able to make a very different molecule of protein made up of amino acids from that template. So now if we go to the fact that replication, transcription, and translation are all universal processes, the same 20 amino acids are used throughout nature, whether it's a bacteria, a plant, or an animal. The proteins that are made, and the size is quite variable from a few dozen amino acids, very important neuropeptides or growth hormones or very small molecules, sometimes only 12 or 20 amino acids, but proteins range up in size to thousands of amino acids. The RNA polymerase, for example, that we saw making messenger RNA, that's a very, very large protein made up of thousands and thousands of amino acids. The possible arrangement of the 20 amino acids is one of the secrets of life. Not every possible arrangement is used in nature, but there are sufficient variation, there are very sufficient possibilities that the existence of all the different proteins that make up all the different organisms is assured. Bacteria again, those 4,000 genes encode 4,000 proteins. And in human beings, those 120,000 genes encode 120,000 different proteins. And that's the same as the gene number that we started off with in this series of slides for those two respective types of organism. So finally, if we go to the conclusions from this section of the lecture, we've talked about the fact that DNA is the basis of genes and that every organism on Earth has a genome made up of DNA. That's the universal code of life. RNA is transcribed from DNA to allow an intermediate messenger RNA that is used to produce proteins or gene products. DNA and RNA are made up of four bases, essentially. And they're strands of those bases, polymers of those bases. Proteins are translated from RNA and are made up of amino acids. And they're strings of amino acids. The three base codons on RNA encode each amino acid that tells the protein, tells this machinery what protein to make. And proteins end up carrying out most of the work of life and also are the structure that you see. You don't see DNA when you look at hair as a protein. Skin as a protein, by and large. Molecular dogma, then, is DNA flows to RNA flows to protein. And the universal code, all life is DNA-based. We've talked about three processes of molecular biology. Replication of DNA, transcription of RNA, and translation of proteins. Replication of DNA is the copying of a DNA template using bases, four bases, to make more DNA. It's a process that's necessary for all life forms to produce more of themselves. Transcription is a process that uses four bases as well to make a messenger RNA intermediate. That messenger RNA is used itself as a template to encode proteins. That process is called translation. Translation is done by ribosomes on messenger RNA and uses amino acids as the building blocks. All told, this process is the molecular dogma or the molecular biology of life. So those are the core concepts that we need to understand to understand biology. Microbiology and molecular biology forms a core of understanding that's been implied in science to both recombinant DNA, gene therapy, and much of genomics. Next time we'll talk about the concepts of recombinant DNA. I want to thank you for your attention.


You remember that we had several ways that we were going to increase the surface area in the intestinal tract or the digestive tract. And one of the ways was just by how long it is. We also had villi. We had microvilli. And then we had these circular folds.  Are you ready for my amazingness? Okay, you're going to have to be patient for just a second while I figure out how to make this happen. Here, what is the... Okay, here's my lumen. And this is my luminal layer. Okay, so this is my mucosa. And watch the madness.  What were my finger-like projections? Do you remember what they were? Those, each one of these little projections is a villis. This, okay, wait a second. This is a villis. How many villi do you have in here? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, eleven. Okay, let's do it here. Eleven villi in my picture. You got it? Okay, what is deep to the epithelial layer in the mucosa? We actually are going to have laminopropria that's actually extending up inside of this thing. So this is actually laminopropria in here. Does that work for you? That's one of the ways that you can tell that you have a villis. Now, microvilli, talk to me, what's the scoop? Remember your microvilli?  So I'm blowing it up right over here. You agree that I'm going to have some kind of epithelium, right? And what is lining the luminal edge of the epithelium? Microvilli. Look at all these microvilli lining my single epithelial cells. This is just a blown-up version.  Because of course you blew it up. And you can see that the microvilli, how many microvilli are in my picture right here? Okay, because, I mean, I know that you think it would be really cool if I sat here and actually counted them all. But we're going to say there's an infinite number of microvilli in here because I am not going to count them. And there's like holy microvilli all over. Do you think that you can see the microvilli on, like in your microscope, can you see the microvilli? Probably not. It might look a little fuzzy. Let's just say fuzzy, fuzzy, fuzzy, fuzzy. That's a good book. I haven't had to read that book in a long time because my humans are getting too old for fuzzy, fuzzy, fuzzy. Lots of little fuzzy microvilli. What's the circular fold? I need, look, we'll make the circular fold this color. This whole thing is one circular fold. There are 11 villi, there are a billion microvilli, and there's one circular fold in this picture. And you can tell because you know this whole thing is a villus. So then we've got this other extension out. Well, that extension is a circular fold. All right. What else do you need to know? Nothing. Now you know what to look for in your slides to see if you can find all of these different structures. Now we're going to look at each specific section of tubing and figure out, like, how are you going to know? How are you going to know if you're in the esophagus, in the stomach, in the small intestine? How are you going to know? I'm about to tell you. Be right back.


This is Shepherd Humphreys, and I had a problem with a lot of the tactical lights that I saw it on the marketplace and so I came up with a better solution. I came up with a tactical light. It's an accessory. It's not going to be your only light. So it's a supplemental light to your primary really bright lighting system, and it is mounted on your finger of your support hand. So at this point we're only doing right-handed, but it's going to be just reversed for the left. And this is for searching in the dark when you need to have a light. So we'll have this little thing and it's a momentary on-and-off switch and it's going to give you more details later. I want to let you know this really cool thing is out there. It's coming soon. This idea started doing my prototypes in the fall of 2017, 2018 was a rough personal year for the death of the family in all kinds of situations. I didn't get it done last year. This is 2019 and I plan to get it finished. I'm sure that my first version won't be as good as my later versions, but look forward to the tactical ring search light. I don't know what we'll call it, but something to that effect. You're going to like this, solves a lot of problems.


where in the world it's on your actual computer and again that could possibly lead you to feel a little bit more secure about it. But in any case, bank feed may be a little more difficult to use versus the online version connects to the bank very well. So both of them have the ability to connect to your banks, be able to pull in the data from the banks to your system. However, because the online version is online, it's more of a seamless type of process to do that. So the desktop version is pretty good. It works almost as well but you might have to take one extra step to say, I want you to import the data from the bank feeds and also when you update the software every year, you might have an added step to make sure that the bank feeds are properly aligned whenever that happens. Whereas the online version, once you set it up, it's pretty much connected pretty nicely. Add on apps may be more difficult to use for the desktop versus the online. For the same reason, desktop version, you might have access to add on apps that might give you more special features within QuickBooks. But because it's a desktop software, it might not be as easy to integrate certain types of apps. Whereas if you're on the online version, then you might, it's easier to set up the online version you would think to be able to be adoptable to other add on type of apps. Now you want to be careful with what type of add on apps that you're going that you want to be using. I think the online version can also lead people to basically do things that they probably that they might not want to do or might want to think about a bit more before using other types of apps and whatnot. But so there could be pros and cons with that. But in general, if you're trying to look at other integrations within QuickBooks with other apps, then then you then you might it might be easier for some of those on the online version of desktop. Okay, so once we if we choose the desktop version, then we get into what kind of desktop versions do we want? So the standard desktop is the pro premier plus. So that's going to be kind of equivalent to QuickBooks online. But the desktop version, that's the one that's for small to midsize businesses, which is as you would think into it seems to be steering those types of businesses towards the online. And that's where the question comes up. Are they trying to steer everybody off of it, and then cancel it? Right? So that and so. But it's basically the same format as the enterprise. But the enterprise is for the more advanced companies or bigger companies that have specialized type needs. So so it's still good to use any desktop version if you want to learn it, because the advanced version, the enterprise version doesn't look like it's going away because it's going to be there. And all of the normal stuff that's in pro premier is also going to be in the larger packages. It's just that the larger packages have more specializations. So within the enterprise version, then you have options such as the general business contractor. So they have enterprise that's going to be set up more specifically towards the industry of contractors, manufacturing and wholesale. So there's special needs with like contractors, because they might have like a job cost kind of system, for example, and manufacturers might have a process cost system, which have special types of needs as well as wholesale versus retail sales, not for profit, could have specialized needs. So at least the terminology for not for profits is going to be sometimes different than the for profit professional services and then retail. And so these are kind of like the subgroups of QuickBooks enterprise that you can go into. So again, the general tree that you want to think about when thinking about the software is what company do I want to be working with comparing like into it to other providers of the software and then within the company? Or even this might be your first question. Do I want to use online cloud based software or desktop software? Do I want the software on my computer? Or do I want it on the cloud? And as you think about that question, you could apply that then also to the different companies like into it versus other companies, cloud based cloud based versus desktop desktop. And then and then if you decide on a particular type such as we hear on the desktop, if we choose the desktop, then the question is what kind of desktop version do I want? These are going to be a lot more similar than if I'm looking desktop versus cloud based desktop versus cloud based, very different. They're almost like completely different software. You almost think of them as though they were different companies, right? Because they're going to be very different look and feel, although they'll have the same kind of general functionality. When you get into just the desktop, then you're kind of looking as though you have one tier level, and then they're giving you perks as you as you change. That's one way you can kind of think of it. We're not going into the different aspects of the online version, because this course is focused on the desktop. So now we're on the desktop version. And you can say, well, you have the basic version, and then you can kind of upgrade to the enterprise. If you upgrade to enterprise, then you have specialized fields that you could have as your general specialization, and you might even be able to specialize above and beyond that as you go into these, the more advanced enterprise users, usually for larger companies with specialized needs.


I know you may be tempted not to spend your hard-earned money on basic vehicle maintenance, but it's really important and should be a priority because one day it may save your life. To go through some common maintenance items, we've enlisted the help of Howard from RICQ. In Queensland, we're blessed with a lot of sunny weather, so it's easy to forget about these bad boys. Wiper blades. They're not that expensive and they're easy to replace, so try and do those at least every year. Tires. They might look like much, but this patch of rubber here has the single biggest influence on how your vehicle reacts with the road. Make sure you check your tires regularly.  Don't forget, a wheel balance and alignment is much cheaper than a new set of tires. Next up are the lights. Possibly the easiest thing to check, all you need is an assistant. Turn on the hazard lights, brake lights, headlights, pipe beams and reverse lights to check to see they're all working. Most newer cars will prompt you if there is a globe out, but it's best to check them routinely. Brakes.  I wouldn't recommend working on your brakes yourself, however it's important to know if they are working correctly. Keep an ear out for squealing, squeaking or grinding noises. A spongy brake pedal or the car pulling to one side during braking are also good indicators that something is wrong. Next on our list is servicing. Just like the dentist, a lot of people put this off, however it's always much cheaper to follow your service intervals. You'll also avoid being stranded or damaging your engine. Your mechanic will have all the gear to have a proper look at your car and keep you safe. Lastly, it's important to consider the legal implications of driving a defective vehicle. Not only are you endangering yourself and others, the defect may be evidence of criminal negligence. So get to know your car a little better and go through these simple checkups on a regular basis. That way you and your car are in the best position to respond if the worst should happen.


And also, residents in Edo'ikite were supplementary elections held in three polling units today have called on the Independent National Electrical Commission, INAC, to improve on the effectiveness of the bi-model voter accreditation system. They made the call today during the election claiming that some voters were disenfranchised due to the ineffectiveness of the beavers. Meanwhile, EKT State Commissioner of Police Ogundari Udari while monitoring the exercise applauded the peaceful process, saying the command did not receive complaints of violence in any of the locations. I say we are going forward, we are proceed. People are coming out. The last time that we voted here, so some of the beavers did not see some cars. So even today, the state is still repeating itself, so they told us to complain in line neck. So next election, so those people that they are not voting today, they can vote in a common election. It's been very, very peaceful, larger than. And well, like you also know, in the previous election, we were ahead with about 511 votes and we have elections in three units. It's just three polling units and they are almost done, but they have to wait for the normal 2.30 before they start counting, very peaceful. I've not seen anything. I've not seen anything, whether it's strategic or otherwise, I've not seen anything like vote by I went and so there was not anything like God that can be said, there is a vote by nothing for now. Very peaceful. I've gone and I've said all the units and things are going on normally without any issue, without any problem.


It is Thursday noon, folks, downtown Honolulu. Ted Ralston here in the ThinkTech studio with our show, Where the Drone Leads. And as you know from watching this show, as you have been all of you out there for the last four years religiously, we always have a drone item on our table here to talk about display and focus our attention. Today we don't, because we're going to be talking about the other side of dronism, that of counter-drone or counter-measures or protection in the case where the malicious or unintended use of drones may be something we have to take care of. And joining us today from the Washington, DC area, we have longtime UAS expert in many dimensions and many affiliations, Leonard Lejeune. Leonard, are you there? I'm here. And you're dressed in your aloha shirt and ready to go to work, right? Yeah, it's not bowtie Friday yet. Okay, all right. You guys get a chance to break down to a bowtie on Friday. That's pretty cool. We'll get you out here sometime, Leonard. You can go shorts and bare feet and beat your tire all the time and it works fine. The answer is yes. Okay, all right. You've been on the show a couple of times and I think we do need to get you on live here and give you that opportunity. Anyway, Leonard, what's really interesting here is the people who do the financial analysis of where the drone business is going have identified that countermeasures or counter drone or protection may be the largest particular or specific business sector where systems will be bought and money will be spent in the future. And you're kind of in the middle of all that right now, leading some national efforts and thinking about what we do about the emerging drone problem. Certainly in a military situation, in the security situation and even at home in the civil situation. So tell us a little bit about how your path got there and what you can say about what you think where this is all going. Well, as you said, Ted, I've been doing this a long time. And about a year ago, I was working for NASA as part of their Unmanned Traffic Management program, the UTM program. And I'd helped them put together the framework to allow them to continue without me needing to be there any longer. And so the Pentagon was looking at one of their organizations was looking at putting together a counter UAS expert team and approached me and asked me if I'd come to work as their unmanned aircraft or drone guy to be on your staff to work with your scientists or engineers or technicians in the counter side of things. So that's how I got from there to here. Okay. And obviously that reflects a great respect of the views you've gotten and the information you've gotten and the expertise and the connections over years. And so now putting it to use in the protective side. In fact, as you know, I've used a lot of your presentations that you've given at various times. And because they're so well done and so complete in the way they're explored the depth of various issues that it really does reflect the deep knowledge of the, at least the two sides of this, the Washington DC side, which is a snarl of regulations that entwine and overlap. And then the commercial side, which is all Silicon Valley, first to market. So the two frameworks are kind of heading for an interesting interaction here. In fact, thanks to Jonathan Rupretz for that visual view of time on the show last week. But in terms of the counter measures, if you think of the two extreme opposed sides where we have the civil side where we can do, maybe detect and track, but that's about all, on the military side, you have a whole different problem coming at you. You've got to defeat as opposed in addition to just simply track and identify. And we're talking about very quick developing situations and scenarios that need to be reacted. So what are your thoughts on that Leonard in terms of the, the technologies and the methods that can work both on the civil side and then how that has to be modified for the military side or vice versa? Well, you know, it was a number of years ago that people started asking the questions out loud about, you know, what are we going to do when these, when these things start becoming a threat to whether it's the physical security of a facility or, or, you know, maybe a shipyard or a port or, or a rail station or town or, or anything. And, and then of course, you know, that goes into the field of the military thought perspective as well. And consequently, the bad guys on the other side of things picked, picked that up real fast.  You know, we consider that these people have been living in the desert and living off the desert for 10,000 years, which makes them real smart, because that's something I couldn't do today if I had to. And you use that kind of background knowledge and, you know, just forethought into everything you do. And now you hire some brilliant young people, or you find young people in your own ranks, they're very brilliant and smart. You put them to work on these, these problems that they're facing now when they face us as Americans. And consequently, where we have for years, especially for the, since Vietnam, I'd say, been on the technological leading edge of both technology and air power. We've always, you know, we've, since Vietnam, we have thoroughly enjoyed air superiority and technological superiority. Well, the fact is, that is no longer the case today. And that doesn't just apply to the military side of things. We, we are now, you know, it didn't take us long to learn that DHS and, and the DOJ face exactly the same kind of problems. And, and now the Department of Transportation, several other agencies within the government are seeing the same thing now on the civil side. So while we looked at it from a military perspective, how do we, how do we identify, you know, see them, stop them, identify who they are, and then maybe knock them out of the sky? It's not just a military problem. And that's interesting because you're really talking about the reuse or the repurposing of commercially available small low tech drones in a, in a combat situation. And you're sort of introducing in the term of air superiority, there is the low air, the close in air, as well as the big air that we may have thought of as the past. And by the way, I want to compliment you on the lighting in your studio. There's perfect for a guy who's been involved in security for a long time. There's no facial recognition possible. No identification of who the speaker really is. So that's the picture really well. Hey, now we, now we can do a facial recognition on you and check the locks on the door and everything else. Anyway, well, he's a significant guy and he's that's what he does. So anyway, this, this world is changing, isn't it? And that's, it produces in certainly in a situation you're referring to in combat, very quick acting, very difficult to detect and difficult to defeat solutions. But you also know that at the end of the day, we're going to figure this out. And there's going to be some kind of systemic view of what's going on electromagnetically or visually or by radar or a combination of all three to indicate what the what the emergency situation is. So on the military side, that system that situation will self resolve, I would think, just with investment. Yeah, I think it so the way that we're we're going at this right now within the Department of Defense is we are are for one of the first times in recent history, we are combining our efforts with the DHS and the DOJ and some of the other agencies and saying, you know, this is a common problem. And we've all got to learn how to face this and deal with this all together, because it's just not not the same as having, you know, military helicopters flying against soldiers in the field or something like that. The DHS, they fully recognize that, you know, while these things may be carrying drugs across across the border, they may also have spray devices on them that you can buy from any agricultural center. And if you just whip out talcum powder out of that thing, it's going to create a panic, because until the lab verifies that it's only talcum powder, you're going to have people trampling each other and you're going to have whole stadiums, you know, just falling into disarray. So this this is a bigger problem than just the military. And that's great. So we can talk about that transition over to the civil side. The rules are different on the civil side in terms of what people can do. The need for education and with our law enforcement organizations and prosecuting organizations and such in terms of what latitude and limits and constraints they have is an important part of this as well. I think perhaps on the military side is more clear, the civil side is very complicated with the various and unstructured, I should say, unaligned rules, laws and regulations between the various states. And then within a particular area, you've got federal, state, county, local, and maybe tribal administrations or or frames of reference. So there's going to be it on illogical to think they're going to be coordinated rules across there. And there's the issue of inspection. You're right. Historically, and that's going to be a problem that all the agencies are going to have to learn how to come to grips with that. Historically, they have been separate by separate, you know, separate rules, rules of engagement and rules on how you spend your money and how you budget for your your your test and evaluation of how you're going to get from point A to point B. But, you know, recently, what the DOD has acknowledged is that because this is a multi agency wide problem, the DOD has been working closely with the FAA to come up with policies, if you will, that will allow the DOD to work on these problems with regard to the frequency and the NTIA and FCC and the FAA problem, openly on on their ranges, but at the same time to share this information with the proper agencies that need to get their hands on this. So so while we are going to be doing the bulk of the testing on DOD ranges using, you know, DOD assets, the policies that are just now going into effect, in fact, the policy hasn't been released yet, but but I saw a briefing on it today, is that there will be openness between the agencies on sharing on how to do this kind of thing. Let's pick up right after our one minute break here, how that might be applied here in Honolulu. You're breaking up, Ted. I can't hear you. Okay. Well, I say we'll take a break here for one minute, fix the communications, and then come back and talk about how that might apply here in Honolulu. Is Steven Philip Katz? I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist and I'm the host of Shrink Wrap Hawaii where I talk to other shrinks. Did you ever want to get your head shrunk? Well, this is the best place to come to pick one. I've been doing this. We must have 60 shows with a whole bunch of shrinks that you can look at. I'm here on Tuesdays at three o'clock every other Tuesday. I hope you are too. Aloha. It is just afternoon on Thursday, folks. We're heading into the second half of our show where the drone leads at ThinkTech Studios downtown and joining us online once again, Leonard Lejeune out of various places right now out of the Washington, D.C. area. We were talking about the interesting and incredible area of countermeasures, protection, and security in the world of drones. We were speaking just before the break, Leonard, about how perhaps in a signal way here, the various agencies that are affected by potential malicious use of drones are coming together to think of how to do the protection. Department of Justice, FAA, maybe FCC, and DOD. And so as you were leading us in that direction just before the break, the thought comes to mind, how do we take that emerging collective thinking? How do we transmit the fact that that's happening to our various agencies here in Honolulu? And furthermore, how do we reverse that and take their ideas as they see them from the various perspectives here and feed it into that chain where that collective thinking is taking place? Well, I think that that's part of the growth process. It's going to have to learn how to be made. Now, I know that every single one of these agencies has internal newsletters or memos or ways that they put out information. For instance, you know that I'm a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and I'm on their mailing list for all their how to put out different topics to discuss. I'm also a member of the Airborne Law Enforcement Association and they do exactly the same thing there. Inside DOD, the counter UAS, the threat working group areas, we have our own newsletters that talk about these things. There's going to likely have to evolve out on all of this a common thread same sort of a thing, kind of newsletter or something that can be provided to the people who are most interested in following through on how to deal with these problems or what technologies are being made available today, what agencies are doing, what kind of work so that there can be some cross talk going on between the different agencies, different officers, Dallas Police Chief needs to talk to, you know, NASA and NASA Ames. Who do I talk to? Give me a phone number. Give me an email address. Give me a name. That kind of thing is going to have to evolve out of this just like this where us learning how to work together in the counter UAS or counter drone realm is going to have to learn how to deal with it. That's most interesting. So that almost sounds like a social media opportunity or event or what the social media can assist with. Absolutely. And I'm really too old to understand all that stuff, but you're not. And so maybe that's one of the items we can discuss next week when we have a major discussion session out here is how to connect everybody in that regard from an information flow and education perspective, and then get them all our participants to feed their information in whatever form it might be, upline to the where the collective collection of information is going. And you mentioned something interesting earlier, if say some hypothetical Dallas policeman needs to contact NASA, I'll bet today he has to go through a lot of different barriers before he can represent Dallas Police to NASA. So we have to break down those social structures and find a way that his information can get to, we'll say, NASA immediately without being filtered by the normal process here, because we are in such a developing domain. If we expect the local or the standard systems of upwards percolation of information and then move across and then down the other organization, we'll probably not get the speed and the completeness that we want in that communication. Well, you were right. The web is going to be the way to go. The social media aspect of it is going to be the right way to follow. So one area that just comes to mind is when we think of counterterrorism, that's another area that spans everything from local and even tribal police all the way through DOD. And so there are websites that are dedicated to these kinds of things that people who work inside these fields are given permissions and able to access these websites through passwords, through private email servers or whatever. And now there are chat rooms and there's bulletin boards and all of these things. I see the counter UAS realm following somewhat along those same lines. That's interesting. That suggests sort of almost like an intelligence function where you have semantic analysis and different means to take information that's in varied form and convert it to a standard form so that it all fits into a way we can digest it, pull it together and look at patterns, pattern recognition. You can't have an adverse drone activity unless there's drones in the area and there's just people trained to fly them. So there's factors that are left of launch here that can be factored into the situation as well. But it's not all necessarily dire and heavy. What we think of a lot here when we have these kind of conversations is what happens in Honolulu five years from now when we have 500 drones in well-intentioned commercial service delivering tennis bracelets and prescription medicines and pizzas around town or 5,000 for that matter. Just within that structure itself, well-intentioned commercial operations, we have the problem of a potential fault or failure. We have the potential for malicious input and for nuisance factors. So even that, a well-intended system still needs to protect itself through pattern identification and thread identification. So you are familiar with UTM? I am. All right. So UTM is a good starting place. It's a great model to start with. UTM, like ATM, air traffic management, nobody is allowed to operate in the air at certain places, certain altitudes beyond certain thresholds, whatever that threshold may be, without the FAA knowing all about it. And consequently, UTM is going to be the driver behind the same thing for the unmanned aircraft or the drone side of things. Ultimately, now while it's not happening today, ultimately what I see is when you go into Best Buy or Fries to buy that small drone for your $600, $800 drone, you're going to fill out your registration paperwork before you're even allowed to walk out the door. And maybe they'll put that on the price with it for the $5 registration or whatever. But once you walk out the door, your registration is going to be in the system. And when you log on, get ready to fly, the system is going to want to know, can I talk to UTM? Can I talk to the network before I take off? So it's going to all be interlinked at some point, which is going to create a clear picture. Now, this doesn't mean there's going to be human involved. Obviously, we couldn't have a human involved when you've got half a million drones flying at one time in the airspace. It's going to be computer-centric. But there will be the red flags that pop up and tell some controller somewhere. There's a bad thing getting ready to happen over here or something's going on that's out of the norm. And you should pay attention to this. So we're going to see, once again, an opportunity for big data and pattern recognition and threat identification that comes from looking at these large pictures, maybe similar to the way we look at disease growth, for that matter, or even fire propagation. It's the same thing will now apply here in the world of large-scale use of drones, ATM forming the framework for normal ops and these deviations forming the identity of the issue, and then some kind of resolution has to occur. So, fascinating future world, Leonard. And I really hope that the people who are a lot younger than me anyway, and perhaps you, no offense, but are digging into this stuff and coming up with the methods we're going to be using. We do have the electronic thumbprint coming forth on all drones as soon as the ARAC is completed with this work. So that'll be a start in that direction. UTM is a great framework to start from. And I think our well-learned and understood pattern recognition out of intelligence is going to play a role here too. So it's great to have you on again, and it's really appreciate what you're bringing to us, this knowledge that there's going to be joint development of methods and procedures through DOJ, starting with them and FAA and FCC, very important. And I still would like to find a way to have you present that to our crowd next week here when we all gather and talk about that from a Hawaii perspective. So, Leonard. I'm not traveling like I usually, so I'm probably available. Okay. Well, we'll count on that. And we'll figure out how to make the hook up. And Leonard Lejeune, did we show anybody how to get a hold of Leonard here, Ray? Leonard Lejeune, contact our station and we'll put you in touch. Anybody who has interest and knowledge and things to think about and add to the picture and counter drone. Thank you very much, Leonard. And we'll see you all next Thursday.


Welcome traders to another tick mill intro day way without this session with me Patrick Munney want to take a look here at the dollar cab on the hourly time frame intro pattern developing here five way of sequence we're tracking we've got one two and we're looking at potential third wave low here and a fourth wave to complete we have an equality objective versus this abc swing structure which will put us up into one twenty four fourteen one twenty four thirty seven then have to send in trend line resistance so we watch for bearish reversal patterns here to set short positions targeting a fifth wave extension to the downside and the fifth wave at a minimum being equal to wave first wave so that will put us down into projected descending trend line support the s3 pivot one twenty two seventy three as always traders plan the trade trade the plan and most importantly manage all this until next time next very much


Welcome to Hard Questions. This is where we gather pastors together and take on your tough questions and answer them right from the Bible, the Word of God. I'm Tom Hollis, the moderator, and today our panelists include. Dr. Weymar Glaze, Bethany Baptist Church in Pittsburgh. Pastor Buck Schaefer, Grace Life Church, Monroeville and North Hills. Pete Jackaloney, lead pastor, South Hills Assembly Guide Church, Bethel Park, PA. Janethan Gilbert, pastor of another level in Mount Washington. Well, pastors, thank you for being with us today. Thank you for taking time from your busy schedule to answer some of these tough questions. And today we're gonna talk about is God in hell? But first, let's start with this one. What does it mean that God is a spirit? Pastor Jay.  You know, I always like to look at it too. You look in Genesis chapter one, which says, let us create man in our image and in our likeness. And what's amazing though, he doesn't use anything. In Genesis chapter, that's in chapter one, 26. In Genesis chapter two, he said, then he formed man out of the dust of the ground. Then a little bit further, then he breathed into his nostrils, the breath of life and man became a living soul. So we see, there's three different distinctions there. And I believe that when he created, he created the essence of who we are. That's why when our spirit and our soul leaves, the body is dead. The Bible talks about even in James, how as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead. So when we break all that down, what does it mean that he's a spirit? It's the essence of who he really is. This is not us. This is not who we are. Who we are is that inner part, that eternal being that we're all created. That's why when we all die here, whether heaven or hell, we're all created eternally. We are, no matter where we go, hopefully it's redeemed. But God has let us know in this passage here in Genesis one, by creating man that he was showing us that we're spirit beings and that that's the essence of who we are. Real quick, the let us. Who's he talking to? Let us. Elohim, actually. Elohim. Elohim, which is the plurality named for God. So he's talking about all three, which is kind of unique when he created him. He said he created male and female in that moment as well. So we see that there's even the three there. And if you add God in the middle, when you get married, you have the father, the son, holy spirit. And then you have the oneness of God. Then you have man and woman, which gives us that three-fold cord that's not easily broken, all created in there. So. Teaching here. That's good. And the thing is, if God isn't spirit, then it would limit him in his omnipresence. He has to be spirit. And then it would take away the full attributes of God, the all-knowing God, the all-powerful God, the omnipresent God. So he is spirit. And I'm sure it's hard. We struggle with that, the fact that because we are in flesh. That whole spiritual realm.  Well, the things that we're seeing are made of things that do not appear. So we are spirit beings created in his image and likeness.  I agree with Jay. We're all spirit beings, but God is everywhere. He is a spirit. The reality is we're limited to a body. He's not. That's right. Well, you know, an interesting take that I have on it is when we get to heaven, I tell people, you won't see God.  God is invisible. You know, you can't see something that's invisible. Now you may see his Shekinah presence. You know, you may see light. You may see glory, but you're not going to see God. And you know, people look at me kind of strange when I say that. Yeah, look at it. I'm just saying, if he's a spirit, you can't see a spirit, right? Right, right, right. How can you see God? Well, we'll see the fullness of God into the spirit to realm. You'll see a manifestation of God. You know what I'm saying? He takes on bodily form or physical tangible. Right, exactly, exactly. We'll see the fullness of the God had bodily in Christ. You know, as I saw the Lord, he was high and lifted up and his train filled the temple.  Would that be a theophany, though? Just, just, yeah.  Well, a manifestation, there was a manifestation. Well, because when you talk about that too, you're talking about seeing Jesus in revelation who took on bodily form. Right, now you will see Jesus, yeah. And if you've seen me, you've seen the Father too. I remember when he said, when one of our professors at Bible College said that, these girls that were raised in the church, you know, PKs, they were crying and they were going to leave Bible College over this because, yeah, I heard that taught years and years ago, yeah. Interesting take on that. I do want to ask a follow up question on this. So when we're made in the image of God, so what does that mean?  What does it mean to be made in the image of God? Well, image, likeness, dominion. I love what it says over there in Psalms. He says, what is man? The psalmist says that you are mindful of him and the Son of man that you visit as him. Yet you have made him a little lower than Elohim. The same word, God himself. That's the original translation.  So I think we're God-like. Now I didn't say we're gods, we are God-like. We're like his children. We were made in his image to take what? To be fruitful, to multiply, to take dominion. So God created earth and the fullness thereof and put his prized possession in it. Us made in his image and his likeness for dominion to take authority and dominion. Of course, sin came, we know the story, but I think we're gonna be a lot more like God than we think God-like. Well, the Bible says that as he is now, so are we in this area. Come on, bro. So yeah, just to give you a quick amen right there. All right, so we just love that. I make teams here, bro. Let's move right along here so see if we can all agree on something else here or disagree as the case may be. Second question, if God is everywhere, we all agree with that, is God in hell, fuck? Wow.  So let's go to Psalms 139 and... Yeah, that's where I went. I just, you know, where can you go from a presence of, if I make my bed in hell, you are there. So, you know, she-whole, we can look at the different meanings. So God is everywhere, omniscience, omnipresence. He's everywhere.   I think God has awareness that people are in hell, but that means this scripture saying in Psalms 139, he's everywhere and understands that. Wow, that, any other takes on that? That's just an unusual question, but yeah. If I could quote Dr. Glaze here, I believe because he's spirit, we can't say he's not in hell, but is his manifested presence in hell? There's why I would say no, his manifested presence. No, definitely not in hell. Well, he is omnipresent, right? Right, means he's all present in all places. Because again, Solomon, when he dedicated the temple, said the heavens and the heavens cannot continue. Everywhere cannot even help. But that brings up a good question because just thinking about it, where can I go from your presence? Right.  That's void of God, right? Correct? Well, there's two words for that too. As I did some research on it, I should have wrote them down, but there's two words for presence too. There's a presence where there's like an intimate, I'm here with you, and then there's the presence of him as far as that he's everywhere. So what's like the manifest presence? That's what I'm saying. Yeah, for example, like God is with us here. Like that's why there can be a people in church and God can be there. One person can have an experience, another person can't. He's there, but they feel nothing. The other person has this thing that is so intimate with him. And so he has that ability because he's spirit to be able to do both. He can be everywhere, but not be intimate with everyone. He's got to be. We can't talk about this like all like this. He's everywhere, but it's true. Pastor Clay's. To me, I think the key is relationship. That his presence is in she all or hell, but the people there don't have a relationship with him. Whereas we do, and so I would say that that would be the big difference as far as his presence is concerned. That there's, like for us, we have a relationship and he comforts us in the relationship. He speaks peace to us in the relationship, but in hell, his presence is not going to comfort anybody. It's not going to speak peace. He's still God of that. He still reigns the prince. No, just one quick thing. When you said that, something came to my mind in Genesis. God was everywhere, but he asked Adam, where are you? So why would God ask him that question because something that relationship was broken? So God can be everywhere in spirit. That doesn't mean you have access to him. That's right. I mean, it's all back to that relationship thing, isn't it that we are relating to God and that when that's broken or when that's cut off, like in hell, there's no manifest presence again of God? Interesting stuff. We're going to find out more when we get to heaven, but we're going to find out if we can see him or not. Oh my goodness. I got to think about that one. All right. Well, coming back in just 60 seconds when we ask what makes Christianity unique from other religions, we'll be right back. Christ. Yes, Christ model. I'll tell you what, you should be here when the commercial comes on because we have some really good conversations in the break. Well, we want to get to some more good questions here, good conversation and good discussion about the word of God. And the third one is this. What is the immutability of God? And why is it important? That's the bill. Well, the immutability of God is the fact that he doesn't change. In Malachi, he said, I am God. I change not in Hebrews. This is Jesus Christ the same yesterday, the day and forever. So why is that important? The reason that it's important is because if God could change, that means that he's not perfect. So that, you know, if he could change for the better, then that means who he is right now is not, he's not the intimate, I mean the infinite ultimate being. If he could change for the worse, then, you know, that, you know, that takes away from who he is. So, you know, to me, I think the reason that it's important that God is immutable is because he is infinite in time. He is infinite in space. He is infinite in eternity from everlasting to everlasting, thou our God. And if he could change, then that means that either he, he's not all that he should be right now or that he could be better than what he is. So. It's not a word we use very much immutable, but that's what it means, Pete. He doesn't change. He even said, I change not. He declared that. That I am a God that does not change. And what else would I love about this is the fact that not only is he not immutable, but his word isn't. Every one of his promises, Jay, are guaranteed as long as we live. That's right. He's a God that changes not. He doesn't change. What's that mean to you, Buck? You know, James 1, every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father above, whom there isn't even a shadow of turning in him. He's the same yesterday, today and forever. He's a good God and he never changes. So we're on the right team. He's still good. It's a comfort to us, right? And also that means that to your point, that's why when they cried out, Holy, Holy, Holy, one of your things is that he never changes. When you're holy, it means no matter how much pressure is put on you, you don't shift. The problem with us, if enough pressure gets applied, what comes out of us is changes. With him, no matter how much pressure gets on him, around him, in him, through him, it doesn't matter what it is. He's still the same no matter what. And that's how you can always tell when you've become holier than you were or sanctified is that the same pressure that hits you once before, you don't shift in your character because now that holiness has been perfected within you. So the fact that he's immutable, it doesn't matter what comes on him, he remains the same, which is what we cannot do. And that's a comfort. As we draw close to him, we are changed. But he remains the same. Great question. Well, we'll probably have a lot of discussion on what makes Christianity unique from other religions? Pastor Pete. When I think of other religions, I think of other religions as far as that you're saved by the things that you do. What makes Christianity unique? All other religions, you're saved according to what you do. It's a fact that in Christianity, we are saved by his finished work on the cross. Ephesians chapter two, verses eight through 10, for by grace, and we don't understand this. I mean, we can wrestle this, we can talk about what grace is, but it says by grace, have you been saved through faith? Not of yourselves, it's the gift of God. And again, we live, our whole being deals with meriting. We merit this, we merit that, we earn this, we earn that. And then when it comes time for salvation, and I've had people challenge me, we say a simple prayer, be merciful to me, Lord, a sinner. And you're saved? Just on something like that? And we are, the moment that simplistic Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. I believe immediately the grace and the mercies of God take place. Regardless of that person struggling with drugs, yada, yada, yada, yada, they're immediately saved. So that's what makes Christianity different. We're saved by grace. Our works now, we're saved to do good works as we are discipled. And, but that doesn't take place overnight. Okay, very good point. We're saved not by what we do, but by his grace. I agree 100% man by grace, we're saved. But I think the resurrection stands us apart from every other religion. And you know, for Paul to say, if the same spirit that rose Christ from the dead, quickens us, it quickens our mortal body. You don't hear that in Buddhism. If you go into those shrines over there, if you go into the mosques over there, it's a very somber. It's a very, it's a beating you down. It's heavy works. But you know, Paul tells us if the resurrection didn't happen, everything we preach is in vain. So the reality is I've heard no other religion that has a resurrected savior that's alive and well. He told us be filled with the Holy Ghost and go do what I asked you to do. He's risen. So I think that sets us apart from everything else. Absolutely. And I think every other religion is fear-based. ours is love-based. There's another one. It's the only religion that celebrates the death of its martyr and resurrection. There's no other religion that celebrates its death. We are like, good Friday. There's no, when Buddha died, no one's like, man, we celebrate because he did, he ain't coming back guys. You know, that's it. There's this, we celebrate the death of our founder and it's the only religion where the creator dies for a fallen creation. So there's so many different, and in all of that, it's encompassed in love. Every other one, like you mentioned, it's all beat down like, I've got to do right. I've got to do this. That's why those martyr or not, I want to call them martyrs, but suicide kamikaze flew into those buildings. They were thinking, this is the way I can get to heaven and appease the wrath of a God. And ours was done by his son. I mean, so there's so much that you can go into that makes us different. Everything about it is different from every other religion except for one thing. We all have a sin problem and we're all trying to figure out how to get it fixed. That's right, Pastor Glaze. Well, yeah, I mean, Jay just now said it. You know, we acknowledge the sinfulness of human beings, but we also note that an antidote has been provided for sin.  You know, the fact of the matter is, is that it's so easy, Christianity is so easy that a caveman can do it, right? I mean, you know, all the other religions leave me guessing if I've done enough. Christianity, you know, other religions say, do, do, do, Christianity says done, you know? And so when you look at it, it takes the guesswork out of it. You know, again, if you accept the grace of God by faith, you are saved. And so, you know, that's the part of it. I think that distinguishes Christianity from other religions. Really, it seems to me that the better way that this question could be phrased is what is the difference between Christianity and religion? Like, it's- And what else is there that has the blood of the lamb that doesn't just cover sins, but takes them away and then makes you righteous, makes you to look just like Jesus, the firstborn amongst many brethren? That's powerful. The blood just washes away. So the whole blood has that, the whole Bible has that blood flowing through everything. It's powerful. And that's what forgives us. Okay, yes, and that's the reason why years ago, evangelicals were known as a slaughterhouse religion because without the blood, we don't have it. Nothing but the blood. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me hold again? And what we've alluded to this here, but it bears saying again, every other religion is about what we can do to reach God. You know, you've seen that little thing where there's a cliff over here with a guy on it, God's over here, and how can he get over there? And he can try philosophy. He can try good works. He can try religion. He can try all manner of different things. And none of that will reach across there, but the cross of Christ reaches across there. The cross of Christ is the thing that we can, by no expertise of our own, but by his death, you alluded to it, which I think is really important. It's the death of our founder. The death, it's not, the life was wonderful, but it's the death and resurrection of our founder that by how we're made righteous. One of the things that's really unique too, and we do communion, it doesn't celebrate the resurrection, you do commemorate the Lord's death. It's the only religion that celebrates the death of its founder. Yeah, so, I mean, there are some unique things.   We can't get through that barrier of sin. We can't do that, but God himself came and broke through there for you, that you can know him and all you need to do is invite him into your life, open that door of your heart and say, you know, God be merciful to me as sinner, as Pete just said. In other words, God come into my life, be my savior and Lord, if you surrender to him today, you'll know what we're talking about about celebrating his life, death and resurrection. Well, coming up in just 60 seconds, the hotline question of the week. Welcome back to Hard Questions. You know, we love taking your questions on our Hard Questions hotline. So let's listen to this one. If you have pictures of Jesus around your house and you talk to that picture and prayer, pray, is that okay to do? Okay. All right. This is a little bit different for me. It seems a little strange at the praying to pictures of Jesus. Go ahead, Pete. Yeah, pick on the ex-Catholic boy. Hey. The Sicilian that, you know, I think God takes this very seriously when he talks about having no images and false idols and images. Again, guys, I grew up in a, and I'm not attacking, but I grew up in a situation where all of these images were throughout our house. I think if we go back to a question that was asked a little while ago, God is spirit. And I think if we limit or even begin to see these pictures as our relationship with God, I think we'll be limiting ourselves. I think we'll be limiting the power and the presence of God. And I think that we'll say that the presence of God will eventually come to places only when I'm at home looking at these pictures that we don't have as presence with us in the car, when we're in an airplane, when we're in the mall. And I think there's danger to that. I really believe there's danger to that. And that's the reason why I would highly encourage you, ma'am, please take the pictures down because it seems like if you're talking to them now, they've got some rule. There's not something wrong with the picture so much as they praying to it. There you go. Substituting it for that relationship with God. But, you know, as you travel the different nations, I've done a lot of work in Russia and it just caught me weird at the Russian Orthodox Church and they would, you know, in Rome, they'd kiss those icons and they'd kiss. If you go back to the history of that, you find out that when Martin Luther nailed those 95 theses to the door of that chapel, it was the just shall live by faith. And you found out the day after, they piled relics and pictures and all kinds of stacks of stuff up there because that's what people were doing. And the root of that was kind of like, you know, like modern day people would do here, get this, God's in this. And I think what they do is they take out of the New Testament where, hey, a handkerchief or a cloth that Paul had said, go let's lay this on someone. It was their faith that brought God's healing power, not a relic, not a this or that. The other, and I think what people have done is they actually tried to profit from selling stuff in Rome that really if you look at the Roman Catholic Church and it was go do this, go do this. And all of a sudden that became into a form of godliness with no power. And now people want this and they still do it all over the world. It's a form rather than the substance of it. With no power. One of the things I take a look at as we're talking is if I'm sitting here with you right now, right? And we're talking, I believe you're alive and well. And you're right there, right? And I'm talking to your picture. You're alive, you're in the room with me. You know what I mean? And I'm talking to a physical picture of you and it limits the spiritual relationship and revelatory power that the believer has. I think sometimes we underestimate the power of revelation. The revelation of God. God's like, no, no, don't put me in that little picture right there. That ain't me. I'm right here and I can be anything you need. And you can be limiting the revelation of God that he wants to give to you by limiting it to a picture here saying, this is him.  And she's like, wait, I'm right here. Yeah, but I'm looking at the picture. He's with you in the room. He's with you wherever you are. You don't need all of those things.  Is there any different from a golden calf? Not much. You know, that gets to it. I mean, the whole, the serpent that Moses had lifted up into wilderness had to be destroyed because people were praying to it. Now again, I don't want to be too hard on the lady here. She's praying to Jesus. She just happened to be looking at the picture, but don't separate, you know. Well, you know, I have a different take.  No way, no way. No, but I deal with a lot of brothers in the hood. And one of the reasons that they reject Christianity is because they say, how can you worship a white Jesus? And so what they're condemning is the fact that in America, Jesus has been born. And Jay, you probably run into this. He's been portrayed as a blue-eyed blonde hair. So, you know, even to have an image of Jesus, you know, that's going to be how you see him. And that's not how he really is. Now, I'm agreeing with everything else that's been said, that, you know, as far as the worshiping part, but I'm just saying, even as far as your conceptualization of Jesus, that, you know, in Africa, he's going to be conceptualized different, right? He's going to have an afro and, you know, he's going to be holding the blue. Well, that's really a good point. It's a powerful point. Yeah, we need to remember, what we need to see God as he is in the scripture, in the revelation of his presence in us, not necessarily in a picture. So that's a very good question. Well, we'd like to end the program with scripture. And today, we are going to go to Isaiah 44.6, where it says, this is what the Lord says, Israel's king and redeemer, the Lord Almighty, I am the first and the last. Apart from me, there is no God. We hope you enjoyed today's program. We want to hear from you. Please email us your questions at hardquestionsatvn.org.