For the project, 181 students were divided into 18 groups, randomly allotted to deal with one of the four deadly sins - sloth, gluttony, lust and wrath. They were expected to read sources to devise molecular ways to counter these sins. Group progress was monitored over 12 weeks by P. K. Rangachari, professor (emeritus) medicine in the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine and 3M National Teaching Fellow in the BHSc (Hons) program. Randomly selected students were not only regularly questioned about the work and its progress but defended their group's approaches to the entire class. Molecules explored included the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin, as well as testosterone and others. A final report was graded.

"Coming in as first year students we expected to be told what to do and be guided," said Faysal Naji, 19. "But, we were faced with the challenge of taking a sin - something we never formerly related to biology - and we had to find out how that sin was somehow related to the body's physiological function."

By getting students to think outside the box, the aim was to come up with the best molecule and design for a drug, or remedy, that counteracts sin.

"Arguments were flying left and right," said Naji. To reduce lust, for example, one group suggested targeting testosterone; others chose prolactin or oxytocin. Another group "invented" a wrath-o-meter that would sense changes in brain transmitters that signaled rage attacks and counter that with an automated nasal spray with an anti-wrath drug.

The chosen interventions had to be defensible on scientific grounds. It was in reality an exercise in rationality, logic, synthesis of information and a willingness to transfer learning to something never seen before.

Imaginative solutions offered by the second batch of students included the use of a spray to dispense a molecule to stimulate people to action and targeting pheromones to counter lust.

The country, which has been pilloried by the US and Britain in the UN climate talks for demanding steep carbon emission cuts, will establish 11 new rights for nature. They include: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered.

"It makes world history. Earth is the mother of all", said Vice-President Alvaro García Linera. "It establishes a new relationship between man and nature, the harmony of which must be preserved as a guarantee of its regeneration."

The law, which is part of a complete restructuring of the Bolivian legal system following a change of constitution in 2009, has been heavily influenced by a resurgent indigenous Andean spiritual world view which places the environment and the earth deity known as the Pachamama at the centre of all life. Humans are considered equal to all other entities.

But the abstract new laws are not expected to stop industry in its tracks. While it is not clear yet what actual protection the new rights will give in court to bugs, insects and ecosystems, the government is expected to establish a ministry of mother earth and to appoint an ombudsman. It is also committed to giving communities new legal powers to monitor and control polluting industries.

Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca said Bolivia's traditional indigenous respect for the Pachamama was vital to prevent climate change. "Our grandparents taught us that we belong to a big family of plants and animals. We believe that everything in the planet forms part of a big family. We indigenous people can contribute to solving the energy, climate, food and financial crises with our values," he said.

In the indigenous philosophy, the Pachamama is a living being. The draft of the new law states: "She is sacred, fertile and the source of life that feeds and cares for all living beings in her womb. She is in permanent balance, harmony and communication with the cosmos. She is comprised of all ecosystems and living beings, and their self-organisation."

The Good Book takes great pains to appear similar to the Judeo-Christian Bible, the bestselling book of all time. Judging from the exterior, the book has been constructed to have a similar size and weight as the Bible. The humanist bible even takes on a moniker commonly associated with the Bible.

The book of Genesis in the Bible illustrates God as Creator of the universe and of mankind. In The Good Book, its book of Genesis states, "All things take their origin from earlier kinds: Ancestors of most creatures rose from the sea, some inhabitants of the sea evolved from land-dwelling forefathers."

The Bible's first book also includes the story of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Meanwhile, at the front of The Good Book is the story of an apple falling on philosopher Isaac Newton's head.  And while the Bible establishes that humanity, by nature of Adam and Eve's actions, is innately sinful. The Good Book establishes that everything and everyone is innately good.

He thus decided to create a more philosophical bible using source material from the likes of Aristotle, Confucius, Darwin, and Lord Chesterfield. He reasoned, "If they (the writers of the Bible) had gone to those sources and put them together, they would have made a different book and maybe there would have a different history as a result."

During his Thursday talk, he faulted the Bible and the spread of religion for humanity's strife. He asserted that the fanatical study of the Bible and other religious texts prompts followers to commit acts of violence in the name of God. He denounced the Bible as false because it holds itself as being the sole source of truth.

By contrast, Grayling argued that The Good Book, which he compiled over the course of 30 years, embraces plurality. He believes study of his humanist bible will promote free thinking because his bible is not about rules or deities. "There's no command there to believe, to accept, to obey. There's no promises of rewards or threats of punishment," the 62-year-old outlined.

Grayling's plan is to make sure his book becomes a long-lasting resource available to all. During the talk, he vowed to have the book printed in a pocket-sized version as well as a picture version for children.  He joked, "If it does last a long time, let's say 500 years or something, I've got a very good [chance] at being a god." He quickly added that this was not his aim and that he would likely be "a lousy god."

Emergency crews searched for victims in hard-hit swaths of North Carolina, where 62 tornadoes were reported from the worst spring storm in two decades to hit the state. Ten people were confirmed dead in Bertie County, county manager Zee Lamb said.

The storm claimed its first lives Thursday night in Oklahoma, then roared through Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. Authorities have said seven died in Arkansas; seven in Alabama; two in Oklahoma; and one in Mississippi.

In North Carolina, the governor declared a state of emergency and said the 62 tornadoes reported were the most since March 1984, when a storm system spawned 22 twisters in the Carolinas that killed 57 people - 42 in North Carolina - and injured hundreds.

One of the volunteers who scoured the rubble was an Iraq war veteran who told Lamb he was stunned by what he saw. "He did two tours of duty in Iraq and the scene was worse than he ever saw in Iraq - that's pretty devastating," Lamb said.

"There were several cases of houses being totally demolished except for one room, and that's where the people were," he said. "They survived. Pretty devastating."

Uzi Rubin, Israel's foremost missile and rocket expert, told CBN News the threat to the Jewish state was "severe."  "Those bunkers are not in population centers just by mistake," Uzi Rubin noted.  

"The idea here is to attack Israeli population centers from Hezbollah population centers, to attack our population centers in order to terrorize and discourage us to fire from their population centers in order to use their own population as a human shield," he explained. 

Rubin said Hezbollah's arsenal has quadrupled since 2006 to more than 40,000 rockets and missiles. He explained that for Israel, there is a bigger concern than the number of weapons.. 

"Now, instead of spreading it around kilometers away from the target, they can put them within 500 meters of a target," Rubin explained. "Now they are becoming not just a terror threat, they are becoming a military threat."

This means Israel's national infrastructure, including power plants or Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, could become targets. 

With Hezbollah's rockets now capable of reaching central Israel, the northern border isn't the only danger zone. Add the rockets from Hamas in the south and all of Israel is in range of its Islamic enemies.