Covid-19 Pandemic - Another Victory for Medical Science

Covid-19: Novavax vaccine shows 89% efficacy in UK trials - BBC News

We have another little victory for science in our battle against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus!

The Novavax vaccine has successfully completed trials in the UK and South Africa and has proved to be 89.3% effective against the 'Kent' variant which has become the dominant strain in the UK and responsible for the massive increase in cases which have led to another lockdown, and 95.6% effective against the original strain.

Unlike the other three approved so far, the Pfizer, Oxford/AstraZenaca and Moderna vaccines, this one, called NVX-CoV2373, works slightly differently. Those three are based on the virus' mRNA which codes for the 'spike' protein on the virus' coat. This causes the body's own cells to manufacture the spike protein which them provokes the production of antibodies which then recognise that protein on any virus particles that enter the body. The Novax vaccine contains a synthetic version of a viral protein itself, combined with a plant-based ingredient to help produce a stronger response.

Like the Oxford/AstraZenaca vaccine, this one can be stored in an ordinary fridge, so is much earier to distribute and store than the Pfizer vaccine which requires very low temperatures.

The study involved 19,000 people aged between 18 and 84 with 27% aged over 65. In South Africa, the vaccine was 49% effective in immune-compromised HIV patients.

At the start of the pandemic, many people predicted that it would be science that provided a solution and saved humanity from this terrible plague and that religion would play no part in it. Little did we appreciate at the time just how obstructive fundamentalist religions would prove to be with many refusing to cooperate with the social distancing measures and wearing face-masks, presenting these as somehow a Satanic attack on their religion and part of a plot to close churches, synagogues, mosques, etc.

Covid-19 Daily New Cases - UK

Source: Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center (29 Jan, 2021)

Little did we appreciate just what a political issue these measures would become in places like the USA where Christian fundamentalists saw it as their responsibility to help Donald Trump cover his increasing incompetence and paranoia by pretending the pandemic was not a serious threat and probably all a hoax to discredit him.

But, as always, it is science that is delivering the goods whilst religions stand by heckling from the side-lines, no doubt preparing to rush in and claim the credit within seconds of the pandemic finally being declared over, citing their magic spells and their 'loving' god as the reason and calling for services of thanksgiving for our 'deliverance' and salvation - and bigger donations to the churches to say thank you.

And we still await an intelligent [sic] design creationist explaining why evolution by natural selection is the only explanation for the SARS-CoV-2 virus that doesn't leave their putative designer deity looking like a pestilential, genocidal, malevolent, misanthropic sadist.

Covidiot News - Why Trump's Narcissistic Personality Disorder Was So Dangerous

Why May Narcissism Be a Risk Factor for COVID? | Psychology Today

Writing in Psychology Today, Susan Heitler Ph.D explains why people with narcissistic personality disorder may be more prone to catch Covid-19.

This could explain why people such as Donald Trump and Boris Johnson were both early victims of the pandemic and why Dominic Cummings felt he was entitled to break the rules his government was telling everyone else they should comply with.

People with narcissistic personality disorder are basically too full of their own self-importance to pay any heed to what others are telling them and regard themselves as above the rules which are made for 'little people'. Other people should wear face-masks in public places; other people should maintain safe social distancing from others; other people should stay in their homes, only going outside for essential shopping, to do essential work that can't be done from home or for exercise. Those rules are for the little people who don't know any better or aren't so important.

A Little Bit of Good News About the SARS-CoV-2 Virus!

Transmission electron micrograph of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles, isolated from a patient. Image captured and color-enhanced at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland.

Credit: NIAID

T cells can mount attacks against many SARS-CoV-2 targets—even on new virus variant

The good news is that research by scientists at La Jolla Institute of Immunology (LJI), La Jolla, California, USA has shown that our T cells are capable of recognising many targets on the surface of the virus (known as epitopes) and so can mount an attack against the new variants.

The bad news is that this is so for naturally-acquired immunity (in people who have recovered from the infection). It is not clear that this applies to immunity acquired by vaccination. All the vaccines approved for general use so far are based on mRNA technology that produces antibodies to the surface 'spike' proteins only, not to other surface proteins.

The research and its importance is explained in an LJI News release by Madeline McCurry-Schmidt:

When is a False Prophet not a False Prophet?

Hank Kunneman, false prophet of One Voice Ministries, Nebraska

Hank Kunneman Says God Hates Those Who Call Him a False Prophet for Falsely Prophesying Trump's Reelection | Right Wing Watch

Readers will be familiar with preacher of hate and false prophet, Hank Kunneman and his difficulty with coming to terms with the fact that not only did his idol and personal saviour, Donald J Trump, lose the presidency, but that he falsely prophesied he would win.

Pastor Hank, of One Voice Ministries, Nebraska, has now discovered that both he and his god also hate another group of people in addition to those who never voted for Trump. They both hate people who point out that Hank Kunneman is a false prophet!

Homophobia News - Homophobic Evangelical Says Trump Was Too Gay-Friendly for God!

Dr Scott Lively, president of Abiding Truth Ministries.
"God removed Trump for being too Gay-friendly"

Scott Lively Says Trump Was Too Pro-Gay, So God Removed Him From Office | Right Wing Watch

Trumpanzees who had convinced themselves that their idol, Donald J Trump, would win a second term are now struggling to come to terms with the fact that he lost and Joe Biden is President of the United States.

Of course, we've all heard the evidence-free whinging about a 'stolen election' and a massive conspiracy to include hundreds of thousands, even millions of fake votes in the count, but perhaps the most original to date is that of Scott Lively, a homophobic Trumpanzee and former gubernatorial candidate for Massachusetts, who believed Trump would destroy the LGBTQ movement by enacting Russian-style anti-gay laws. But, apparently, Trump was too pro-Gay, so God removed him. It seems Lively's god lacked the wisdom and character judgement to know this about Trump when he inserted him into the White House.

In 2016, Lively won a case in a Massachusetts court against a group calling themselves Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), although 'won' scarcely describes it since the judge condemned his actions in the clearest terms. SMUG had brought a case against Lively alleging that his preaching in Uganda had led to that country introducing the death penalty for homosexuality and that this constituted a crime against humanity.

The 1914 Act had increased the sentence for same-sex sexual activity, which had been illegal since colonial times, from 14 years to death or life imprisonment. It was later ruled invalid by the Uganda Supreme Court on procedural grounds.

Following agitation in Uganda by Lively and two other US evangelical Christian fundamentalists, Stephen Langa and Caleb Lee Brundidge, Lively wrote in his blog, which he concludes with the usual appeal for money to help with his efforts:

My week began with a meeting with about fifty members of the Ugandan Christian Lawyers Association on the evening of my arrival, then an address to members of the Parliament on the following morning. There were from fifty to one hundred persons in attendance, including numerous legislators and the Minister of Ethics and Integrity, with whom I enjoyed a personal chat for more than half and hour leading to the event. The centerpiece event was a three-day conference featuring myself, Don Schmierer, author of An Ounce of Prevention and several other books designed to help the families of homosexuals, and Caleb Lee Brundidge of International Healing Foundation, a formerly "gay" African-American man who now leads recovery workshops. It was a paid event, very well attended, mostly by professionals in various fields including education, counseling, government and medicine.

[...]

On the positive side, my host and ministry partner in Kampala, Stephen Langa, was overjoyed with the results of our efforts and predicted confidently that the coming weeks would see significant improvement in the moral climate of the nation, and a massive increase in pro-family activism in every social sphere. He said that a respected observer of society in Kampala had told him that our campaign was like a nuclear bomb against the "gay" agenda in Uganda. I pray that this, and the predictions, are true.

The court dismissed the case on the narrow grounds that it did not have the jurisdiction as a result of a 2013 Supreme Court ruling issued after SMUG’s case was filed. The ruling in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Shell limited the extraterritorial reach of the Alien Tort Statute, under which SMUG brought its claim. In giving his ruling, Judge Michael Ponsor of the U.S. District Court in Springfield Massachusetts, said:

The question before the court is not whether Defendant’s actions in aiding and abetting efforts to demonize, intimidate, and injure LGBTI people in Uganda constitute violations of international law. They do... The much narrower and more technical question posed by Defendant’s motion is whether the limited actions taken by Defendant on American soil in pursuit of his odious campaign are sufficient to give this court jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s claims.... Since they are not sufficient, summary judgment is appropriate for this, and only this, reason.

Lively told listeners of the "Swamp Rangers" radio show that Trump had "fully endorsed backed and applauded [Richard] Grenell, [who] was an outspoken advocate for the central doctrine of the progressive movement, which is queer theory", so God had him removed.

Theocracy News - Another Defeat For Christian Talibangelicals

Camp Constitution's Christian flag.

Boston Can Reject Religious Flag at City Hall – Courthouse News Service

Another American Talibangelical Christian, fighting to subvert the US Constitution, overthrow the Establishment Clause and build a Taliban-style Christian theocracy in the USA, has suffered defeat in the courts.

This latest attempt - to get Boston City Hall to endorse Christianity - arose because in City Hall Plaza, outside City Hall, are three 83-foot-tall flagpoles. One normally flies the Stars and Stripes, another, the flag of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, leaving the third for various flags for various occasions. Bostonians can petition City Hall for permission to have a particular commemorative flag flown on this pole.

Three flagpoles outside Boston City Hall

Howard Shurtleff, founder of 'Camp Constitution' [sic], had petitioned Boston City Hall to fly a Christian flag on September 17 'to commemorate the signing of the US Constitution' (the one that bans the promotion or endorsement of any religion by any government or its agencies!) to celebrate the 'Judeo-Christian heritage of the USA'. (Readers might note the lack of any Jewish imagery on the flag). The city refused the petition on the grounds that the Constitution prohibited the city from endorsing or favouring any religion.

Shurtleff's group sued in the U.S. District Court in Boston, claiming they had been discriminated against and denied their First Amendment right to free speech, arguing disingenuously that their purpose was entirely secular, and lost; District Judge Denise Casper ruling:

Shock for Conservative Christians as SCOTUS Strikes Down Texas Ban on Abortions

Abortion rights demonstrators

Supreme Court wipes out lower court rulings in Texas abortion battle

It's been a bad day for conservative Christians trying to sneak through a ban on abortions in the USA, despite the constitutional right to abortion services.

In another reversal for the 'pro-life', misogynistic Christian right, the US Supreme Court has struck down a Texas law, introduced on the pretext of conserving hospital resources during the coronavirus pandemic, which effectively banned all abortions in the state.

On Monday, despite the Trump-inflicted right-wing Christian fundamentalist bias in the Supreme Court, they wiped off the books a lower court ruling that had upheld an order by the Republican Texas governor, Greg Abbott, that banned nearly all abortions during the pandemic.

Abbot's ban on all medical procedures that were deemed non-essential or 'elective' was seized on by Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, who declared that abortions came under this heading and were thus prohibited by it. This order was blocked by U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel of Austin. His ruling was appealed by the state and, by a 2-1 vote, the three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld enforcement of the Governor's order. This latter ruling has now been struck down by SCOTUS.

Evolution News - How Fish Fins Became Tetrapod Limbs

Perdepes (reconstruction) showing the forelimb skeleton.

Researchers reconstruct changes in forelimb function as vertebrates moved onto land | Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology

Another bad day for Creationists!

Now an international team of research biologists led by Julia Molnar, Assistant Professor at New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine and Stephanie Pierce, Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University have published details of how fish fins evolved into the tetrapod limb. And they use the dreaded word 'transition'!

To work out how this transition occurred using evidence from the fossil record, the team first spent a long time working out which muscles were present and how and where they were attached to the skeleton. They then fed this information into computer software originally developed to study human locomotion. The Harvard University department of Organismic & Evolutionary Biology news article explains:

Covidiot News - The Myths the Fruitloops are Falling For

Not sure about the Pfizer vaccine, now it's been approved in Australia? You can scratch these 4 concerns straight off your list

Writing for an primarily Australian readership, Archa Fox, Associate Professor at the University of Western Australia, exposes the nonsense behind four myths concerning the Pfizer ant-Covid mRNA vaccine about to be rolled out in Australia.

Sadly, Australia has a few pockets of QAnon conspiracists who are promulgating these myths, some of which leave you wondering what it is that could induce these idiots to believe this stuff. But then, Australia also has more than its fair share of fundamentalist Christians, Young Earth Creationists and probably flat-earthers too. Scientific illiteracy and bottomless credulity are not confined to Bible-belt USA.

Firstly, a little bit of information about what the vaccines are and how they work. Bear with me if you already understand this stuff.

Creationist Failure News - Another 'Non-Existent' Missing Link

Artistic reconstruction of Cretophengodes azari

Dinghua Yang

Cretophengodes azari, a fossil light-producing beetle from Cretaceous Burmese amber (~100 million years old).

Credit: Chenyang Cai

January: bioluminescent beetle | News and features | University of Bristol

Yes folks! It's 'non-existent' missing link time, yet again. These come up with such monotonous regularity that I hope I'm not boring you with them!

This time it's the missing link between ancient beetles and the modern bioluminescent species such as fireflies and glow worms. This exceptionally well-preserved, 'non-existent' specimen was found embedded in 100-million-year-old Burmese amber. It was discovered and identified by biologists from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology (NIGP) and Peking University in China, led by Dr. Chenyang Cai, research fellow at the University of Bristol and associate professor at NIGPAS.

Their findings were published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B recently. Sadly, the publishers want money for permission to post even the abstract online but, according to the press release from Bristol University:

A Victory for Human Rights as Biden Plans to Codify Roe v. Wade Into Federal Law

President Joe Biden - Promise to codify Roe v. Wade into federal law if SCOTUS rules against it.

Biden vows to ‘codify’ Roe v. Wade on anniversary of ruling - The Christian Post

The Biden/Harris administration will codify the SCOTUS ruling known as Roe v. Wade into federal law, if SCOTUS, with its new right-wing majority given it by Trump's appointees, ever reverses it.

Last Friday, on the 48th anniversary of the landmark 1973 SCOTUS ruling, President Biden said:

The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to codifying Roe v. Wade and appointing judges that respect foundational precedents like Roe. In the past four years, reproductive health, including the right to choose, has been under relentless and extreme attack. We are deeply committed to making sure everyone has access to care — including reproductive health care — regardless of income, race, zip code, health insurance status, or immigration status.

Trumpanzee News - Another One Who Can't Cope With Reality

Hank Kunneman of One Voice Ministries
Trump is still gonna win! Any day now! Real soon!

'Prophet' Hank Kunneman Refuses to Repent for Repeatedly Prophesying Trump's Reelection | Right Wing Watch

Hank Kunneman, an extremist evangelical fundamentalist Christian preacher and self-appointed 'prophet' of One Voice Ministries, Nebraska, repeatedly bore false witness to his followers, assuring them that Donald J. Trump would win the 2020 presidential election - because God says so, and of course, Kunneman hears voices!

Now he has to try to cope with the reality that not only did Trump lose, not only have the votes been counted, recounted and certified, not only has the result been turned into a 'landslide' EC win for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris but that they have been duly and legally sworn in as POTUS and VPOTUS respectively, and have already stared on a program of repairing much Of the damage Trump did and reversing his more harmful directives like the withdrawl from the Paris agreement on climate change and withdrawing funding from the WHO because it kept telling him things he didn't want to hear.

Another Newly-Discovered Substance Shows Why Biodiversity is Important

Leaf-cutter ants

New antifungal compound from ant farms - American Chemical Society

Following close on my article a few days ago on the antibiotic found in the skin of an Australian toadlet and how this demonstrates the need to maintain a rich biodiversity if only for the resource of natural medicines yet to be discovered in nature, we have another example of an unlikely compound being found - within the nest of leaf-cutter ants.

This time, it's an antifungal compound, produced by bacteria that live on the attine ants (ants of the Atta genus of what are more commonly known as leaf-cutter ants that farm fungi on a substrate of moist chewed-up leaf matter). The ants use this antifungal compound, called attinimicin, to keep their crop and its substrate free from fungal parasites.

Creationist Fraud News - A Turkish Creationist Cult Leader Gets a 1074-Year Jail Sentence

The 64-year-old cult leader Adnan Oktar, who owned a TV channel, was arrested in 2018 along with 200 collaborators.

Credit: Anadolu Agency

Turkey court gives cult head Adnan Oktar over 1,000 years in jail

Anyone who spends much time debating creationism in online groups will be familiar with the followers of Adnan Oktar, aka Harun Yahya, a Turkish Moslem fundamentalist Creationist and purveyor of scientific disinformation on a par with Christian fundamentalists such as Kent Hovind, Ken Ham and Ray Comfort, only he is much richer and owns a TV channel.

He, unlike his Cristian counterparts (Hovid excepted), has now been sentenced by a Turkish court to over 1000 years in prison, though not, unfortunately for his crimes of lying to school children who are now taught Creationism in school and not the science of evolutionary biology, due it Oktar's political lobbying and influence.

Evolution News - Rhesus Monkeys Have Human-Like Immune Response to Covid-19

In a promising result for the success of vaccines against COVID-19, rhesus macaque monkeys infected with the human coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 developed protective immune responses suggesting long-lasting immunity.

Getty Images

Rhesus Macaques Develop Promising Immune Response to SARS-CoV-2 | UC Davis

To an evolutionary biologist, it makes perfect sense that one of our close relatives in the animal world should react to a virus that is pathological to humans in much the same way that humans do.

To a believer in special creation of all the different species by magic, there is no reason at all to expect this to be so. Indeed, what would be the sense in a supposedly intelligent designer designing lots of variations on a basic theme, even down to the details of things like an immune system as a defence against the viruses it also designed to make them sick, and just arranging it so they looked like they all shared a common ancestor?

Evolution News - Convergent Spitting Cobra Evolution May Have Been Caused by Early Humans

Naja nubiae slow motion spitting

Credit: © The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London and Callum Mair

Spitting Cobra venom reveals how evolution will often find the same answer to a common problem | Bangor University

Researchers at Bangor University School of Natural Sciences, Bangor, Wales believe they have shown that the components of the venom ejected by spitting cobras has evolved on three separate occasions due to the same environmental pressures. The fact that there are components in these cobra's venom that exploit the mammalian pain receptors to give instantaneous pain, suggests that this evolved as a defensive, not an aggressive mechanism, aimed at deterring attacks by mammals.

Contrary to the theory that venoms are adapted primarily to enable snakes to kill prey, in spitting cobras, a venom which causes instant pain, and a delivery system which enables the snake to spray the venom to a distance of up to 2.5 metres towards the eyes of anything which comes too close, suggests a defence mechanism, rather than hunting weaponry.

They have also suggested that early hominins may have played a part in this convergent evolution by attacking the snakes.

Gullible Idiot News - QAnon Dupes in a QAndry

For QAnon Believers Facing Reality, What Happens Now? | Psychology Today

The Trumpazee Dupes who got their 'information' from Trump's disinformation sources such as QAnon - the supposed 'deep state' whistle-blower and Trump confidante, responsible for the more outlandish beliefs of the Trumpanzee cult - have a major psychological task facing them - how to rationalise the demonstrable fact that none of the QAnon predictions and claims proved to be true with their belief in the certainty and reliability of their source?

Their problem is the familiar one of how to cope with the cognitive dissonance that results when reality doesn't conform to your requirements and beliefs, forcing you to either change your precious beliefs or ignore reality by explaining it away.

Catholic Abuse News - Irish Church Ratting on Compensation Promise

Site of the Mother and Baby Home at Tuam (now demolished).

Dáil hears call for church assets to be seized if religious orders refuse to pay for abuse - Independent.ie

20 years ago, the then minister Michael Woods, a Fiana Fáil TD, struck a €120 million deal with the Catholic Church in Ireland to pay compensation and reparations to the survivors of the Mother and Baby homes run by Catholic nuns.

Under their draconian, abusive and judgmental regimes, hundreds of babies, stigmatised as the illegitimate products of 'sin', died from diseases, neglect and malnutrition, their bodies then being disposed of like rubbish by being thrown in disused septic tanks or given to the gardener/handyman to dispose of in unmarked graves in the grounds. Some of the bodies were sold to Dublin medical schools to be used for dissection, for as little at 50 pence per body.

The €120 million was to be the Church's contribution to a government-run 'restorative justice' scheme. Most of the commitment has been reneged on.

Malevolent Designer News - What on Earth is Creationism's Magic Designer Up To?

Alarming COVID variants show vital role of genomic surveillance

This is one for those Creationists who subscribe to the Intelligent [sic] Design Hoax but who still believe their putative designer is one and the same as the supposedly all-loving, caring and compassionate deity described in the Christian Bible.

Does the evidence of an increasing number of variant forms of the SARS-CoV-2 virus show us that your god is deliberately trying to find ways to get around the vaccines that human medical science has developed or is it just a result of the operation of the natural process of evolution?

Covidiot News - Muddled Vatican Promulgates a Lie Then Dismisses it Anyway

Pope Francis. Conversion to 'situational ethics'.

Bishops issue updated statement on COVID-19 and vaccination - Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales

The Catholic Church has succeeded in getting itself into a proper muddle over the Covid-19 vaccination.

On the one hand, it is promulgating a lie - that the vaccine is derived from the cells of aborted foetuses - and on the other hand, having raised that thought in the minds of its followers, it now says that 'fact' doesn't prohibit them from receiving the vaccine, even though previous vaccines have been prohibited on just those grounds.