Evolution News - Closing Creationism's Abiogenesis God-Shaped Gap

Early Earth (Artist's impression)

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab

Cysteine synthesis was a key step in the origin of life | UCL News - UCL – University College London

Abiogenesis is the creation industry's favourite fall-back gap for when they find the evidence for evolution irrefutable and overwhelming. Science is then challenged to reproduce a fully functional complex cell in a laboratory, starting out with a few raw chemicals.

What they've been conditioned to believe is that any current gap in our scientific knowledge will, unlike all the previous gaps, never be closed, so it must be done by a god, notwithstanding the absurd false dichotomy in that argument.

So, these instances of their abiogenesis god-shaped gap shrinking considerably under scientific scrutiny is bound to produce hand-waving denialism in even the hardiest of creationists. It is, of course just another small step by science toward a comprehensive understanding of how self-replicating, entropy-managing, free-living collections of chemicals in a bag, started evolving into today's amazing biodiversity.

Has The Malevolent Designer Blundered?

This illustration, created at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reveals ultrastructural morphology exhibited by coronaviruses.

Illustration by CDC/Alissa Eckert, MS; Dan Higgins, MAM

Common SARS-CoV-2 mutation may make coronavirus more susceptible to a vaccine | UNC-Chapel Hill

According to Intelligent [sic] Design Creationists, nothing in biology happens without the deliberate involvement of their putative intelligent [sic} designer. Nothing mutates by chance and no mutation increase in the gene pool unless this putative designer wills it.

So, let's play around with that notion in the context of the SARS-CovV-2 virus currently responsible for the coronavirus pandemic causing devastation, death and chaos throughout the world, and in the context of the sort of arms races that often ensue with a parasite-host relationship.

Covidiots - Why Conservatives Don't Care About the Welfare of Others

Here’s Why Conservatives, Liberals Differ on COVID-19 | Lehigh University

In a thought-provoking paper by Luke Nowlan and Daniel M. Zane of Lehigh University Business School, the different reaction to the coronavirus pandemic seen in conservatives and liberals (particularly in the USA), and especially the measures governments are taking to mitigate the effects of it, they showed how these can be explained by differences in the level of superstitious belief in agency.

As has been noted before in this blog, conservatives and fundamentalist religious creationists in particular tend to suffer from the teleological thinking mode they inherit from their infancy, so tend to see agency in everything. Nothing can happen in their world that doesn't have a sentient mind making it happen. No object can do anything unless it wants to or something else makes it. The same mode of thinking also makes them susceptible to conspiracy theories, of which the Theory of Evolution is believe to be one.

Liberal thinkers however are much more likely to accept that some things happen randomly and without purpose or intent simply because the world is not deterministic, so random things can and do happen.

False Prophets For President-Reject Trump

For an omnipotent, omniscient deity, the American fundamentalist Christian god seems to be sending an awful lot of false messages to his Talibangelist prophets these days.

The money these false prophets make from their dupes followers, anyone would think they never read their Bible:

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

Matthew 7:15-16

Oops!

So who exactly are these ravening wolves? You've guessed it, they are the President-reject Trump-supporting super-rich telvangelist who live off the credulity of their dupes followers, and no-doubt, like Trump pay no tax on their ill-gotten gains, despite being barely-concealed propagandists for Trump and the Republican Party.

Catholic Abuse News - "A Sorry History of Child Sexual Abuse in the Roman Catholic Church"

Cardinal Vincent Nichol
"[Church's] moral purpose betrayed over decades" but not resigning.

Inquiry finds Catholic Church prioritised reputation over the welfare of children | IICSA Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

The report published a couple of days ago by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse into the conduct of the Catholic Church in Britain, makes grim reading for anyone interested in child welfare.

It should have made grim reading for the head of the Catholic Church in Britain, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, since it called into question his leadership of the Church and his moral authority, but he has so far refused to even consider his position, claiming that he formally offered his resignation to Pope Francis when he reached the traditional retirement age for senior clergy, but Pope Francis formally declined it.

Covidiots - The Superspreader Christians of Charlotte, North Carolina

The United House of Prayer for All People church in Mecklenburg County, Charlotte, North Carolina.

Cases rise after attending events at United House of Prayer | Raleigh News & Observer

A large outbreak of Covid-19, in which at least nine people have died, 11 people have needed hospital treatment and 208 people and close contacts have tested positive for the SARC-CoV-2 virus, has been linked to a superspreader event held in the United House of Prayer for All People church in Mecklenburg, Charlotte, North Carolina. According to the latest update from Mecklenburg County:

Catholic Abuse News - Vatican Report Blames Pope John-Paul II For the Cardinal McCarrick Debacle.

Former Cardinal McCarrick.
Sexual predator and paedophile who pulled the wool over the eyes of three popes.

Vatican says Pope John Paul II ignored sex abuse allegations to promote ex-Cardinal McCarrick - CBS News

Pope John-Paul II knew about Cardinal (then Archbishop) McCarrick's sexual predation on children and young seminarians, but turned a blind eye to it when he promoted him to Cardinal.

That is the conclusion of a Vatican investigation into the omnishables that lead to Theodore McCarrick firstly being promoted to Archbishop, then to Cardinal and ending up as the most senior Catholic cleric in America, to then be summarily sacked and defrocked when Pope Francis finally learned the truth about him, to become the most senior Catholic cleric to be so treated. The report into the scandal (English Language version)^(PDF) is published today.

American History - Jefferson's DOI Edited to Remove Condemnation of Slavery!

Thomas Jefferson (Official Presidential Portrait) Rembrant Peale, 1800

Jefferson’s “original Rough draught” of the Declaration of Independence - Declaring Independence: Drafting the Documents | Exhibitions - Library of Congress

With the Black Lives Matter campaign still ongoing in the USA, it's worth taking a quick look at the history of a constitution which allowed slavery for so long and which has left America with a divided society where racism is institutionalised and a white President-reject who relied on racist white supremacists for support, describing them as 'very fine people'. And a very large proportion of the population incensed at the realisation that America now has a black (female!) Vice President, as though having had a black President for 8 years wasn't bad enough!

This also relates to the increasing clamour from the evangelical Christian white supremacists insisting that America is a Christian country, founded as such by the almost saint-like figures of the (White Christian) Founding Fathers.

The truth, as always with these assertions from the extreme right in politics is very different.

The founding document of the American Republic, the Declaration of Independence (DOI), was originally drafted by that deist friend of Thomas Paine and follower of John Locke, the liberal left Humanist, Thomas Jefferson. It included the following passage:

More Trumpanzees Losing it - Kenneth Copeland in Full Hysterical Meltdown

Kenneth Copeland

Here’s Kenneth Copeland Laughing Maniacally About Biden Winning the Election | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Talibangelist Trumpanzee and multi-millionaire, Kenneth Copeland, true to form, found reality too much to cope with, and promptly went into a full meltdown of hysterical laughter when he heard that Joe Biden had won the election and his personal saviour, Donald J. Trump had been booted from office.

Copeland gained fame in Evangelical Christian circles when he famously declared that he had killed the coronavirus by blowing on it and telling it to go. He repeated this feat on at least two further occasions as the case numbers and death toll rose in the first wave in the USA The virus, apparently unaffected by his magic spells, failed to comply with Copeland's instructions, while Copeland's gods (the one supposedly in Heaven, and the one in the White House) both stood by helplessly watching as things got worse.

Hypocrisy News - The Texan Talibangelical Attorney General and Sleaze

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Talibangelical sleaze-bag (allegedly)

Conservative Christian TX Attorney General’s Affair Now Part of Criminal Case | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

The Texas Repugnican Attorney General, Ken Paxton, a committed Talibangelical Christian fighting for a fundamentalist Christian theocracy in the USA, is in deep do-dos.

According to the AP report, he had an extra-marital affair with a women whom he later recommended for a job with a wealthy donor who is now at the centre of a criminal investigation against him.

Evangelical Trumpanzee News - Wingnuts in Deep Denial

Pastor Curt Landry "God won't allow me to be mocked!"

A brief roundup of how delusional Trumpanzee Talibangelical Christians reacted to the news that their saviour, Donald J Trump, had been booted out of office by the American electorate. It's not a pretty sight!

Curt Landry Declares Trump Will Win Because God Will Not Allow His Prophets to Be Mocked | Right Wing Watch
First off we have Pastor Curt Landry who believes he speaks for God and declared Trump the winner last Wednesday, so God will not allow him to be humiliated. He prophesied that the swing-states, most of which went to Biden, would be won by Trump.

Son of man, do you think that I am going to allow my prophets who prophesied Trump’s second term and prophesied all this goodness coming to this nation to be mocked by a mass media manipulation? No, I shall not. For my namesake, I shall protect my word, I shall protect my people, I shall protect my prophets from this evil destruction. For I shall pull back the veil and I shall reveal that which is done in darkness. For they who shift the votes and move the boxes around, those who raised the dead and the dead vote, I will expose them says the Lord. For they may be tricky men, but they shall not trick me.

Malevolent Designer News - More Mendacity in 'Design' of SARS-CoV-2

Virus that causes COVID-19 puts a plug in cellular defenses | YaleNews

Three stories in the scientific news today show the amazingly creative intelligence of the evil genius whom creationists believe created the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

The first is about how the virus overcomes the immune system this creator allegedly created to protect us from its creations - like viruses and bacteria. According to the findings of a research team from Yale, the virus reprograms the cell to make a protein, known as non-structural protein 1 (Nsp1) which acts as as plug to block the channel in the ribosomes through which the strand of messenger RNA (mRNA) needs to pass for transcription into a protein to occur. This prevents the cell from producing the immune proteins it needs to fight infections.

Covidiots - Wearing a Face Mask Does NOT Inhibit Breathing During Exercise

A new University of Saskatchewan study has found that face masks do not hinder breathing for healthy individuals during exercise.

Photo: John Ko

USask researchers find face masks don't hinder breathing during exercise - News - University of Saskatchewan

How many times have you seen a fundamentalist Christian covidiot claiming they can't breathe when wearing a face mask, in a grotesque parody of the George Floyd's and Eric Garner's last words as the police killed them?

Research at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, has shown that wearing a face mask does not inhibit respiration nor make exercise more difficult.

Evolution News - Two More Examples of Evolution in Progress

Monarch butterflies, Danaus plexippus, are known for their lengthy migrations, but in some cases the insects have spread outside their normal range and settled in non-migrating populations. These non-migrating butterflies consistently have smaller wings (bottom, collected in S. America) than migrators (top, collected in San Francisco).

Source

Two Centuries of Monarch Butterflies Show Evolution of Wing Length - Egghead

A couple more examples of evolution in progress being reported on by biologists who had no intention of refuting Creationism, but did so anyway simply by reporting the facts.

The first example is of the monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus. These North American butterflies are famous for their prodigious migration flights to a small valley in Mexico where they spend the Winter, then out across North America to their breeding grounds in Spring. Those west of the Rocky Mountains also over-winter in sites in Southern California although some do go to Mexico.

Over the years, small populations have been established on Caribbean and Pacific islands, Hawai'i, Australia and in South America, where, because the Winter climate is milder, they have given up migrating and become sedentary species. These colonies have been founded by windblown vagrants. I have even seen them in Puerto Banús, on the southern coast of Andalusia, Spain, where there is a healthy local population.

Malevolent Designer News - Covid-19 Designed to Cause Brain Damage

SARS-CoV-2 subunit S1 alters barrier status in a 3D tissue engineered microfluidic model of the human BBB. Confocal microscopy and volumetric rendering were used to visualize the tissue engineered vessel. (A) Shows a longitudinal view of an endothelialized void after perfusion that formed a predictive vessel geometry analogous to those found within the brain. (B) provides a cross sectional perspective indicating a single layer of endothelial cells. In (C) a representative merged image of the engineered vessel constructs fixed and immunestained for the tight junction protein, ZO-1, along with phalloidin to label actin and the nuclear stain, DAPI. (D) shows the typical ZO-1 membranous pattern expected in mature barrier forming brain endothelial cells. (E) after perfusion for 2 h of SARS-CoV-2 subunit S1 (10 nM), constructs were also fixed and immunolabeled for ZO-1. The arrows point to areas in which the ZO-1 cellular pattern is discontinuous, punctate or absent signifying areas of barrier breach. Scalebar = 20 μm. (F) Fluorescence intensity after ten minutes of perfusion with 4 kDa FITC-dextran, indicating the impaired barrier function in vessels perfused after 2 h of the S1 spike protein versus untreated controls. (G) Quantitative measurements for permeability coefficients of vessels exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 subunit S1 compared to untreated controls. Data was analyzed using Kruskal-Willis test, n = 3, *p < 0.05.

Source

SARS-CoV-2 Spike Proteins Disrupt the Blood-Brain Barrier, Potentially Raising Risk of Neurological Damage in COVID-19 Patients | Temple Health

The findings of a researchers from The Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA should have devotees of the malevolent designer thrilling at its sheer brilliance.

This is the intelligent [sic] designer whom they believe created the SARS-CoV-2 virus to cause the coronavirus pandemic, and this research shows how it was designed to cause neurological damage to its human victims.

While there is no direct evidence yet that the virus invades brain cells, the team at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine have shown that the spike proteins on its coat that SARS-CoV-2 uses to gain entry into a cell promote an inflamatory response in the endothelial cells that form the blood-brain barrier, potentially causing it to become leaky.

SARS-CoV-2 gains entry to a cell by binding to the angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) on the cell surface and the researchers has show that ACE2 is present on the surface of endothelial cells lining the inner surface of blood vessels. The Temple Health press release explains further:

Malevolent Designer News - Making a Better Coronavirus

Emergence and spread of a SARS-CoV-2 variant through Europe in the summer of 2020 | medRxiv

Phylogenetic overview of SARS-CoV-2 in Europe. The tree shows a representative sample of isolates from Europe colored by the amino acid at positions 222, 477, and 614 of the spike protein. A novel rapidly spreading variant (blue; 20A.EU1) with mutation S:A222V on a S:D614G background emerged in early summer and is common in most countries with recent sequences. A separate variant (20A.EU2) with mutation S:S477N is prevalent in France. On the right, the proportion of sequences belonging to each variant (through the duration of the pandemic) is shown per country. Tree and visualization were generated using the Nextstrain platform (Hadfield et al., 2018) as described in methods.

Click image to enlarge

It's one of those days when intelligent [sic] design proponents need to pretend their putative designer is not responsible for designing something and look around for something else to blame.

The one thing they can't blame, of course, is a perfectly natural, amoral, undirected natural process like evolution by natural selection, because that would concede that science is right after all and that apparent design does not require a sentient designer.

What we have today is news that the coronavirus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic currently ravaging population and economies world-wide looks as though it was modified last summer to make it spread more widely and more quickly than before. In other words, to make it better at making as many people sick as possible.

Covidiot News - Catholic Wingnuts Claim Facemasks are Against God

Covid-19 daily new cases - Michigan (Saturday, October 31, 2020 at 03:00 AM EDT)

Source: Johns Hopkins University - Corona Virus Resource Center

Religious school, parents argue mask mandates violate rights

Two parents, supported by a Catholic School, are suing the US state of Michigan over the order requiring school students to wear a facemask at all times. They claim the order violates their religious beliefs.

At the time of writing, Michigan is experiencing a high and rising second wave of Covid-19 cases, with a record high of 3555 new cases on Oct. 29.

In their submission the parents, Christopher Mianecki and Stephanie Smith, acting for their respective children, and Resurrection Catholic School from Ingham County, Lancing claim:

In accordance with the teachings of the Catholic faith, Resurrection School believes that every human has dignity and is made in God’s image and likeness. Unfortunately, a mask shields our humanity. And because God created us in His image, we are masking that image.

The Five Faces of Donald Trump - Trump's Mental Makeup

Trump: A Man of 5 Emotions | Psychology Today

Arash Emamzadeh, a psychologist writing in Psychology Today, believes he has observed five emotions that dominate Donald Trump's personality.

He points out firstly that:

Compared with the last US president, Barack Obama, Trump appears less emotionally in control and perhaps less capable of experiencing or expressing a "range of human emotions."

In other words, although Emamzadeh doesn't use the words, Trump appears to have a lack of self-control and the empathy of a psychopath.

Evolution News - Closing Creationism's God-Shaped Gap

Models for potential precursors of cells endure simulated early-Earth conditions | Eberly College of Science

Another shovel-full of science has just been thrown into Creationism's favourite God-shaped gap - abiogenesis - by a bunch of scientists from Penn State University Eberley College of Science.

The abiogenesis question is the increasingly-used last resort of Creationists who can no longer mount a serious challenge to the science of evolution. Never slow to use a dishonest false dichotomy fallacy, they challenge scientists to explain how the first 'life' assembled without the intervention of a magic creator, and to replicate it in a laboratory - as though the ultimate proof of a scientific theory is to replicate it in a laboratory, regardless of the fact that the theory might involve a whole planet or conditions only found near hydrothermal vents in the ocean abyss, and millions of years!

But that God-shaped gap just got smaller, as it has been doing now for several decades, as chemists, physicists and geologists discover more about the conditions on the early Earth when living systems first arose, and about the chemical and physical processes that were possible, even likely under those conditions.

Covidiot News - Welsh Christians Above The Law

Pastor Wade McLennan, New Hope Church, Llanrumney, Cardiff.
"God told me to break the law!"

Watch: Police in riot van interrupt Welsh church during 'illegal' lockdown service

American-style Christian covidiocy is alive and well (unlike many American pastors and their Covid-19 victim dupes) and living in Wales.

Because of the high and rising numbers of coronavirus cases in Wales, the Welsh Government has introduced a partial lock-down which includes a ban on gathering in places of worship. In the USA Churches have proved to quickly become Covid-19 hotspots and church services have become super-spreader events.

Malevolent Designer News - The Evil Genius' Bat Testbed!

David's myotis bat Myotis davidii

Source: Biodiversity Data Journal

Duke-NUS study uncovers why bats excel as viral reservoirs without getting sick

Bats have a unique immune system that enables them to play host to a virus such as SARS-CoV-2 (the virus responsible for the current coronavirus pandemic) while not being harmed by at and, more importantly from the virus' point of view, not killing it either.

In this way, the virus is free to mutate and replicate and, when a mutation which can live in another species arises, can transfer to that other species, the way SARS-CoV-2 is believed to have transferred to humans.

As I said in my latest book, The Malevolent Designer: Why Nature's God is not Good, it is as though Creationism's putative magic invisible designer has set bats up as a pathological virus factory and test bed for developing nasty little viruses to make humans and other animals sick and die, like some bitter and twisted evil genius, full of hate for its creation, who now spends its time devising ways to increase the pain and suffering in the world.

Malevolent Designer News - A Brilliant Way to Kill Plants!

Phytoplasma symptoms in vegetable crops.

(A) Little leaf in brinjal; (B) close up view of brinjal flower showing phyllody; (C) big bud in tomato; (D) witches broom’ in Cucurbita pepo; (E) flat stem in lettuce; (F) witches’ broom in chili; (G) witches’ broom in potato; (H) witches’ broom in cabbage; and (I) flat stem in cowpea.

Source

Phytoplasma effector proteins devastate host plants through molecular mimicry (APS) - Leibniz-Institut für Alternsforschung (FLI)

Here we have yet another example of the malevolence of any creative intelligence that can come up with so much of nature. In this case we have a type of obligate, endoparasitic bacterium that lives in plant cells and prevents the plant from reproducing while the plant supports bacterial reproduction, in what has been termed 'zombification' - where a parasite converts the host to work for it, often against its own interests.

This pathogen is currently imposing a major economic burden on those least able to bear it - third-world farmers.

Two teams of researchers have worked to explain exactly how this bacterium works. The Lipmann Insitute press release explains:

Phytoplasma are a type of bacteria that live within the cells and cause devastating diseases with damaging effects. For example, in many cases plants infected with phytoplasma are no longer able to develop flowers. These plants have actually been described as "zombies," since they allow the reproduction of phytoplasma but are unable to reproduce themselves anymore. A group of biologists based at Friedrich Schiller University and the Fritz Lipmann Institute in Germany are working to help better understand exactly how phytoplasma cells bring about the so-called zombification of plants.

Trump's Disastrous Year Explained - It Was Them Witches What Did It!

America leads the world again in new coronavirus cases as a third, even bigger wave threatens to spin out of control.

Source: Johns Hopkins University

Thousands of Witches Plot a 'Binding Spell' Tonight Against President Trump | CBN News

Why has Donald Trump had such a disastrous year - getting impeached and making such a hash of the coronavirus pandemic? It's all the fault of witches, apparently and not because of the spells they cast on him a year ago, but because they signally failed to work!

According to the conservative Christian website, Christian Network Broadcasting (CBN) News a year ago today, thousands of witches were planning to join forces and cast a 'binding spell' on Donald Trump. Being Wiccans, these witches are forbidden from doing harm, so the binding was simply to prevent Trump doing any more harm to America and Americans than he had done already, short of harming him.

Covid-19 - Neanderthal's Revenge?

The ancient Neanderthal hand in severe COVID-19 | Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University OIST

Who would have thought that some of the Neanderthal DNA we inherited from those of our ancestors who interbred with them, could be causing some of us to suffer much more with Covid-19 than those of us who don't have those particular bits of Neanderthal DNA?

Yet that's the conclusion of a two researches, Hugo Zeberg of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany and the Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden and Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, and the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Onna, Japan.

Their findings were published in Nature on September 30, 2020.

Still Lying to Win. How Desperate Donny is STILL Trying to Fool Americans

Belief in the truth-value of narratives by candidate preference.

QAnon story gains credence with up to 44% of Americans: News: The Media School

The latest report from Indian University's Observatory on Social Media shows a continuing campaign of lies and disinformation emanating from QAnon, designed to win support for Donald Trump by fooling Americans.

It shows how this tactic is having its greatest success amongst republican voters, who appear to be the most gullible and susceptible to conspiracy theories and unlikely narratives. This bears out the recent article in Psychology Today which explained the psychology behind the making of a Trump voter.

Evolution News - Another Way in Which Humans Are Just Like Chimpanzees

Three males groom together in a chain — Likizo (a younger male) grooms Big Brown (an older male), who grooms Lanjo (another younger male).

Photo: John Lower
Source: Havard Gazette

Aging chimps show social selectivity – Harvard Gazette

Despite the denial of Creationists, humans are very like their closest relatives, the chimpanzees in so many way, and not just physical, physiological and genetic. Our psychology is similar too, as this latest finding shows.

A team of psychologists and primatologists from the Harvard Department of Human Evolutionary Biology has shown that chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, like humans, tend to be increasing selective in their friendships as they age. Their findings are published today in Science.

It had been thought that this tendency was unique to humans and stemmed from our sense of our own mortality (itself believed to be a uniquely human trait). However, detailed observation has shown that aging chimpanzees also show the same selectivity in their friendship, tending to favour those they know and trust and with whom there has been little history of animosity.

Malevolent Designer News - Covid-19 Design Even MORE Devious!

Neuropilin-1 (NRP1) is a host factor for SARS-CoV-2 infection. The image shows human cells infected with SARS-CoV-2 and expressing viral proteins (shown in green). Removal of NRP1 from cells or treating cells with a drug or an antibody targeting NRP1 reduces SARS-CoV-2 infection

Credit: University of Bristol

October: Neuropilin-1 study | News and features | University of Bristol

Intelligent design creationist fans of the designer whom they believe created the SARS-CoV-2 virus that is currently causing the coronavirus pandemic, killing people by the hundreds of thousands, making millions more sick and wrecking economies as governments attempt to slow its progress and prevent medical services from being overwhelmed, will be thrilled to learn just what a thorough job it did this time, apparently having practiced first with SARS.

The malevolent brilliance of this designer can scarcely be imagined!

One of the puzzling things about SARS-CoV-2 is that it is so much more virulent than the closely related SARS virus and now two independent research teams have discovered why. Both viruses have a 'spike' protein on their outer coat which helps them bind to their victim's cells as a prelude to gaining entry into the cell, where it releases its RNA which converts the cell's reproductive machinery to making new viruses, killing the cell in the process. And yet, SARS-CoV-2 seems to be so much more successful at doing this.

The Bristol University press release explains:

Evolution News - How Ants Evolved by Losing Complexity

Cataglyphis bombycina workers and (larger) queens.

Credit: Philip Hönle

Losing flight had huge benefits for ants, finds new study | Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University OIST

How did ants evolve their famous strength and endurance, which far exceeds even the fittest and strongest mammals in comparison to their size?

The answer to this was provided yesterday by a combined team of researchers from Institut d’Écologie et des Sciences de l’Environnement, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France and the Biodiversity and Biocomplexity Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Okinawa, Japan.

And Once again, a science paper refutes another sacred Creationist dogma - that so-called 'macro-evolution' always involves an increase in complexity and is therefore impossible because the new information needed can't arise naturally, so needs a magic man to provide it.

What Makes a Trumpanzee?

5 Psychological Reasons Why the 45th President Remains Popular | Psychology Today

Why would anyone in their right mind even think of voting for Donald Trump again? That question was answered by the psychologist, Vinita Mehta Ph.D., Ed.M., writing in Psychology Today.

There are five things that make a Trumpanzee:

1. Social Dominance Orientation (SDO).

   Readers of my blog-posts may remember we met this term in another Psychology Today article which explained why religious fundamentalists can so easily turn violent and why Creationists feel compelled to over-claim their expertise and insist they know impossible things to be true. Basically, they have a hierarchical view of society and try to elevate themselves up this assumed social hierarchy by pretending to be the superior of educated people, privy to 'secrets' and having a special understanding not available to lesser folk. People who are high in SDO:
   

Malevolent Design News - How Covid-19 was Designed to be Sneaky

SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, appears to have evolved silent changes to its RNA code that gave it a biological edge over previous strains.

Credit: Felipe Esquivel Reed

'Silent' Mutations Gave the Coronavirus an Evolutionary Edge | Duke Today

Sadly, this news came just too late to be included in my new book, The Malevolent Designer: Why Nature’s God is Not Good, because it is a brilliant example of what intelligent [sic] design creationists are obliged to assume was deliberately designed by their putative designer god, and which, if such a god existed, would make it a pestilential, genocidal misanthrope of the highest order.

What researchers at Duke University, Durham, N.C., USA have discovered is the 'silent' mutations that turned a harmless coronavirus, infecting bats and other animals, into a deadly, pandemic virus currently causing mayhem with world economies and deaths in the millions as governments all over the world struggle to contain the virus and avoid local health services being overwhelmed.

New Book - The Malevolent Designer

It hasn't all been boredom and worry during the coronavirus lockdown, when we were confined to our homes for most of the day for several weeks during Spring this year! I spent most of it getting a suntan in my garden and writing a book!

The Malevolent Designer: Why Nature's God is not Good, richly illustrated by my good friend and companion in life, the artist Catherine Hounslow-Webber, is a sequel to my popular book, The Unintelligent Designer: Exposing the Intelligent Design Hoax.

This book, with a close look at the realities of nature, shows why any creative entity who designed much of nature could not honestly be regarded as resembling the notional Abrahamic god, whom we are expected to believe, despite the evidence of its resemblance to an irascible Bronze Age Middle-Eastern tribal warlord in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, and the fear, amounting to a psychotic phobia, it evokes in the minds of devotees, is nevertheless an all-loving, maximally good god.

The book takes the reader through a whole range of parasite-host relationships, from the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) to parasitic plants, explaining how parasites are often equipped with mechanism to make them more effective at making their hosts sick and finding their way into new victims. The concluding chapter looks at ways in which any such designer has already given some species a much superior system such as the immune system of sharks, the cancer-avoiding system in elephants and the superior eyes and respiratory systems of birds, yet neglected to give other species those same systems, instead handicapping them with inferior 'designs'.

Catholic Corruption News - What a Carry On At The Vatican!

Cecilia Marogna / Cardinal Angelo Becciu

Woman arrested amid Vatican financial scandal claims she worked in ‘parallel diplomacy’ | News | LifeSite

The mystery over the sudden sacking by the Pope of Cardinal Angelo Bacciu, amidst rumours of financial impropriety and misuse of Vatican funds, deepened yesterday with the announcement that a close female associate of his, Cecilia Marogna, 39 had been arrested in Milan and charged with embezzlement.

Until his abrupt sacking, Bacciu had been effectively number two in the Vatican; one of the few members of the Pope's inner cabinet with direct access to him without needing to make an appointment.

Marogana had been employed by Bacciu as a “security advisor”. According to this report in the Catholic-leaning LifeSite:

Christian Loonies for Trump

True to form, Evangelical Christian lunatics are coming out in strength for Donald Trump, that most un-Christian of American presidents.

Here we have a clutch of such fruitloops. The first is one is self-styled "prophetess" Kat Kerr, whom readers of my blog will remember from when she had ordered 100 million angels to guard the GOP National Congress and announced that her personal friend, Jesus, was a Trump supporter.

She has now announced that she can draw God from memory, because she has met him, touched his 'living' hair and has a photographic memory.

Ireland to Reduce Catholic Interference in its Education System

A selection of religious symbols on display at Citywest and Saggart Community National School, an Education and Training Board (ETB) school.

Photograph: Eric Luke

Catholic symbols in State schools to be phased out | Irish Times

The Irish Times is reporting that Catholic influences are to be phased out in State-run schools. This is part of an increasing recent trend towards rejection of religion, especially Catholicism, in Ireland in recent years, and is an important milestone on the road to a fully secular society in the Republic.

Amongst the catholic influences to be removed will be graduation masses, Catholic-only symbols and inspection visits by Catholic diocesan inspectors.

Covidiot News - Wackadoodle Conspiracists

Covidiots protesting against lockdown in Harrisburg, PA, USA

Credit:
Paul Weaver

Popular COVID-19 conspiracies linked to vaccine ‘hesitancy’ | University of Cambridge

Researchers from Cambridge University, UK have analysed data obtained from five different countries and have shown how readily misinformation and fake news about the coronavirus can gain traction. The countries are USA, UK, Mexico, Ireland and Spain.

Using this data, they were able to identify a number of 'key predictors' for susceptibility to fake pandemic news. They also found a clear link between susceptibility to fake news about coronavirus and hesitancy about receiving any future vaccine against it.

Covidiot News - Playing the Persecuted Victims Card

Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn protested new restrictions put in place this week on synagogues, schools, restaurants and nonessential businesses.

Credit: Mark Abramson, The New York Times

Cuomo’s Restrictions on Synagogues in Virus Hot Spots Can Go Forward - The New York Times.

A federal judge in Brooklyn has ruled that Governor Andrew M. Cuomo's restrictions to limit the spread of the corona virus do not violate the right to free exercise of religion for Orthodox Jews.

As though to demonstrate that Evangelical Christian covidiots were not the only religious fundamentalists keen to help spread the coronavirus as widely and quickly as possible, a group of ultra-Orthodox American Jews calling themselves Agudath Israel of America, had sued Gov. Cuomo over his plans to restrict gatherings in areas with high and rising Covid-19 cases. These infection hot-spots include zones with a high Jewish population. The order sets new capacity limits on places of worship, depending on the level of infection in the zone.

Trump's Disastrous Presidency Exposed

Illustration: Señor Salme

How Trump damaged science — and why it could take decades to recover

The science magazine, Nature, which is normally carefully apolitical, has come out firmly against re-election of Donald Trump as POTUS because of the damage he has done and will continue to do to science. This article really should be read by anyone interested in getting the best outcome from the November elections for America, for science and for the world.

Pandering to his scientifically illiterate, evangelical base, Trump has not only shown his ignorance of science but his open hostility to it, epitomised as it is by his attitude towards the measures to contain and control the coronavirus pandemic.

For example, on September 13 this year, in Henderson Nevada, in contravention of Nevada state rules for social distancing, Trump held a rally in which thousands of Trumpanzees (fanatical Trump supporters) packed shoulder-to-shoulder, without face-masks, in a warehouse in conditioned that looked designed to maximise the spread of the virus, and late boasted about breaking the rules and getting away with it.

Malevolent Designer News - How Parasitic Plants Got Better At Parasitism

Common Broomrape, Orobanche minor

Illustration: Catherine Hounslow-Webber
From The Malevolent Designer: Why Nature's God is not Good
© Catherine Hounslow-Webber.

Planting Parasites: Unveiling Common Molecular Mechanisms of Parasitism and Grafting | Nagoya University Research Achievements

Good news for intelligent [sic] design advocates!

Researchers at Nagoya University, Japan, have worked out how parasitic plants have been modified to make it easier for them to parasitise other plants. They secrete an enzyme known as β-1,4-glucanase (GH9B3). They showed that the process of attaching the haustorium (the organ through which a parasitic plant extracts water and nutrients from its victim is very similar to the way a graft unites the tissues of the scion and the stock. The press release from Nagoya University explains:

Plant parasitism is a phenomenon by which the parasite plant latches onto and absorbs water and nutrients from a second host plant, with the help of a specialized organ called the "haustorium." Once the haustorium forms, specific enzymes then help in forming a connection between the tissues of the parasite and host plants, known as a "xylem bridge," which facilitates the transport of water and nutrients from the host to the parasite.

Evolution News - Fossils of Oldest Monkey Found

Reconstruction of M. pentelicus from Shuitangba.

Image credit: Mauricio Antón

Oldest monkey fossils outside of Africa found | Penn State University

A combined team of American and Chinese palaeontologists have examines fossils found in a lignite mine in south-eastern Yunan Province, China, and concluded that they are the oldest fossils of monkeys yet found outside Africa. At about 6.4 million years old, they coexisted temporally and geographically with early apes.

The significance of these fossils, appart from being some thousand times older than Creationists believe the Universe to be, is explained by A'ndrea Elyse Messer in a Penn State University news release:

"This is significant because they are some of the very oldest fossils of monkeys outside of Africa," said Nina G. Jablonski, Evan Pugh University Professor of Anthropology, Penn State. "It is close to or actually the ancestor of many of the living monkeys of East Asia. One of the interesting things from the perspective of paleontology is that this monkey occurs at the same place and same time as ancient apes in Asia."

The researchers, who included Jablonski and long-time collaborator Xueping Ji, department of paleoanthropology, Yunnan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Kunming, China, studied the fossils unearthed from the Shuitangba lignite mine that has yielded many fossils. They report that "The mandible and proximal femur were found in close proximity and are probably of the same individual," in a recent issue of the Journal of Human Evolution. Also uncovered slightly lower was a left calcaneus — heel bone — reported by Dionisios Youlatos, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, in another paper online in the journal, that belongs to the same species of monkey, Mesopithecus pentelicus.

Continuing Human Evolution

Sketch of median artery vessel which supplies blood to the human forearm and hand.

Credit: Professor Maciej Henneberg

Forearm artery reveals human evolution continues – News

Three scientists from Flinders and Adelaide Universities, Australia, have found evidence of continuing human evolution in the increasing occurrence in adults of an artery known as the median artery, in the forearm. The median artery begins as the main blood supply to the developing forearm but normally atrophies in the embryo when the role is taken over by two other arteries - the radial and ulnar arteries.