Evolution News - Rapid Evolution of Salamander Colouration

Two opposing evolutionary forces help explain why we see two different colors of spotted salamander egg masses in ponds in central Pennsylvania, according to a new study. Egg masses are either completely clear or opaque white.

Credit: Mark Urban, University of Connecticut

Dueling evolutionary forces drive rapid evolution of salamander coloration | Eberly College of Science

A neat little illustration of how evolution can be the result of competing forces, such as natural selection and genetic drift, was published a few days ago in the journal, Biology Letters. It concerned the rapid evolution of colouration in the eggs of the spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) and involved re-surveying a network of 31 ponds in central Pennsylvania to repeat work done in 1990 and 1991 to see what changes had occurred.

Sadly, the published paper is behind a pay wall, but the news item by Gail McCormick from PennState Eberly College of Science has the details:

Christian Hypocrisy News - Liberty University Sues the Falwells.

Jerry Jnr and Becki Falwell
"Sexual behaviour 'damaging' to Liberty University"

Liberty University sues former President Jerry Falwell Jr. for $10 million, citing conspiracy, breach of contract

Good ol' Christian hypocrisy is alive and well and living in Liberty University.

The fallout from Jerry Falwell Jnr and his wife Becki's 'arrangement' with the Miami pool boy, Giancarlo Granda, in which Becki had sex with Granda while Jerry watched, is continuing unabated.

Jerry Falwell Jnr inherited his position as Liberty University's president from his father, Jerry Snr, who founded the Christian fundamentalist 'University', but was forced to resign when news of his and Becki's sexual adventures leaked out. The 'University' is now suing him for $10 million claiming breach of contract and alleging that he conspired to mislead the board of directors by concealing details of the affair from them. The University is also alleging that Falwell “fashioned a deceitful scheme to manipulate the Executive Committee of Liberty” while negotiating his last contract.

The couple also bought a Miami beach youth hostel in 2013 and installed Granda as manager. While Becki admits her affair with Granda, who has the photographs to prove it, she denies the specific allegations and Jerry Jnr, again, despite the photographic evidence showing otherwise, continues to deny his part in the arrangement.

Faith News - Going Down in Black America

Trends in the Black Church: More Faithful, But Not Immune to Decline - Barna Group

Despite the traditional attachment to the Church, especially the fundamentalist, evangelical, historically black churches, the decline in religious affiliation seen in all Americans is no less so in African-Americans, according to a running survey conducted by the Barna Group.

The proportion of Black Americans who think church involvement is "very" or "somewhat desirable" has fallen significantly in the last 23 years from 90% in 1996 (71% "very", 19% "somewhat") to 74% in 2019 (44% "very", 30% "somewhat"). The interesting thing here is the relative change in perceived importance. Only 44% now think church involvement is "very desirable" against 71% in 1996; a 27-percentage point fall! Meanwhile the proportion who think it is "somewhat desirable" has risen from 19% to 30%; a 21-percentage point increase. Clearly, the perceived importance of church invlvement is weakening but not being lost entirely, or maybe peer-pressure to declare unequivocal support for the church has lessened.



Despite this relatively high level of perceived desirability of involvement with the church, the decline in overall affiliation to the churches has continued to follow a similar trend in Black Americans to the general population. Although still higher than average for Americans, there has been a rapid decline from 2011 (89%) to 74% in 2020 in affiliation to any particular church. From the peak of 93% in 2007, this fall represents a loss of one in five affiliates to 'Nones'. 15% of Black Americans now self-identify as 'Nones'; more than double its 2007 level.



Maybe it's me, but the self-identification of religious/spiritual chart seems to reflect muddled thinking. For example, I can't imagine how someone could describe themselves as religious but not spiritual, yet 11% of Black Americans do so. The rest of this chart shows the trend common to all American demographic groups of the younger generations being increasingly neither religious nor spiritual. From a low of 7% for the Baby Boomers, through 13% for Generation X, to 16% and 17% respectively for Millennials and Generation Z. This augers well for the future since people tend to retain their affiliation once established, and affiliation is largely inherited from the parent generation, so the tendency will be for affliliation to decline and 'Nones' to increase as time goes on.

Church attendance remains relatively high amongst Black Americans at 40% attending within the last week. However, in line with other demographics, this has been falling steadily from a peak in 2009, falling 16-percentage points and more than reversing the 11-percentage point gain in the years 2001 to 2009. The average for all American demographics is just 31%, an 18-percentage point fall since 2009.

This figure would probably be significantly lower had it not been for the small rally staged by Hispanic Americans (mostly Catholic) which had declined more sharply than the average (22-percentage points) over the years 2009 - 2020 during the years of scandal in the Catholic Church.

Overall, while the grip of the church remains stronger amongst Black Americans than amongst other American demographics, they are showing very much the same trend of declining religiosity as all Americans and the same generational differences that should ensure this promising trend continues.

However it remains an enduring mystery in American religion, why the religion that was used to enslave Africans and destroy their culture to make them easier to control by the Christian slavers, quoting the Bible as justification for their racism, should be followed so fervently by the descendants of those whom it enslaved and who still endure the racism inherent in evangelical Christian white supremacism.

Talibangelical Trumpanzee News - The Loon Contest Just Got Loopier

Talibangelist Trumpanzee, Mario Murillo, of Mano Murillo Ministries

Mario Murillo Says God Will Destroy America to Save It From Democrats | Right Wing Watch

The competition between Trumpanzee Talibangeslists to see who can make the most ludicrously exaggerated prediction is hotting up. They even held a convention, or "Global Summit" of American fundamentalists at Harvest International Ministry, a church in Pasadena, California, last week end, in which they could out-loon one another. It's hard to tell which fruitloop came out a clear winner but amongst the front-runners was loopy right-wing evangelist, Mario Murillo, of Mano Murillo Ministries, another self-appointed 'prophet' who claims to see and hear God. At the 'Global Summit' he told the credulous audience just what they wanted to hear. He informed them that God is about to destroy the Democratic Party to save America, with:

Evolution News - The Origin of the Amazonian River Stingrays Explained

A selection of Amazonian freshwater sting rays (Potamotrygoninae)

Stingrays in the Amazon were stranded there by the Caribbean Sea | New Scientist

An article in New Scientist, based on research by a team led by João Pedro Fontenelle of the Department of Biological Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, explains the evolution of the 38 different species of freshwater stingray found in the Amazon river system.

The news poses serious problems for Creationists who believe Evolution by natural selection is impossible and special creation by magic is a better explanation for this sort of biodiversity.

These stingrays are unique in that they inhabit fresh water and are only found in South America. Theya re clearly related to the saltwater stingrays which are themselves related to the rays and sharks. They range in size from 25 centimetres to a metre across.

By analysing the genomes of 350 individuals across 35 of the 38 species to compare genetic differences between the different species, the team showed that they diverged from their saltwater relatives some 26 million years ago between the Oligocene and Miocene epochs. This coincides with a period during which the sea level was higher and this area of South America was a coastal swamp, with the Caribbean Sea intruding far inland. The Andese mountain range was slso lower, creating a wide lowland area west of the Amazon into which the sea could intrude, known to science as the Pabas Wetlands. The result was a mixture of freshwater, saltwater and brakish lagoons with a series of salt gradients, making it easy for marine species washed into these lagoons to adapt to fresh water.

Later, as see levels fell as water became locked up in the polar icecaps, and the Pabas receded, populations of stingrays would have become isolated, making it possible for these populations to diversify due to natural selection by local environments, and genetic drift.

The result is the 38 different species we see today, the inevitable result of these natural processes.

The problem for Creationists is that this is all very understandable in terms of evolutionary theory, and meshes neatly into what is known from other strands of science about sea level change and the environment in that place at that time, giving a perfectly rational, coherent explanation of what we see today. By contrast, there appears to be no reason why a magic creator, even if the existence of such an entity had a rational explanation, would create these species with genomes that just happened to look like they had diversified from a common marine ancestor some 26 million years ago and arranged the geology so it just happened to look like the conditions for this diversity had a consistent, scientific explanation which does not require magic or the existence of a magic creative entity.

The team's findings were published last March in the Journal of Biogeography, sadly behind a paywall.

Reference:

Fontenelle, JP, Marques, FPL, Kolmann, MA, Lovejoy, NR.
Biogeography of the neotropical freshwater stingrays (Myliobatiformes: Potamotrygoninae) reveals effects of continent-scale paleogeographic change and drainage evolution.
J Biogeogr. 2021; 00: 1– 14. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14086

If you're a Creationists and are beginning to have some doubts because of this tsunami of scientific evidence for evolution and none at all for Creationism, then you might benefit from reading these two books, that should help you understand the realities of nature and dispense with the fantasies and disinformation you've been fooled with by frauds with a political and financial agenda.

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Malevolent Designer News - The Evil Genius Behind the Coronavirus Revealed

A multidimensional view of the coronavirus - TUM

Creationist mode:

As well as the paper cataloguing the multitude of mutations and varieties of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that creationism's intelligent [sic] designer has had to come up with to try to keep ahead of human medical science, we have here another paper detailing the amazing complexity of the interaction between the virus and human cells as it destroys them and kills its victims. It is by a team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany, and the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Germany

Creationists can access the database the team behind this paper have constructed and made available, to marvel at the sheer complexity of the 1484 interactions between the viral proteins and the cell proteins. As described in the TUM news release:

Malevolent Designer News - Sponges Don't Get Cancer...

Tethya wilhelma

Can withstand 100 times the dose of X-rays that would be fatal for humans

Sponges can survive massive doses of radiation without getting cancer | New Scientist

According to a paper published in biorXiv ahead of peer-reviewed publication, a research team led by Angelo Forunato of Arizon State University's Arizona Cancer Evolution Center have found that sponges don't get cancer.

Sponges, which belong to the Porifera phylum, live for thousands of years, grow continually and lack an immune system. They are also exposed to solar radiation, so, since cancers normally arise due to mistakes in cell mitosis when the DNA is replicated, or to radiation damage to the DNA, they should accumulate numerous cancers over time.

Yet cancers have never been found in sponges. Clearly, there is something preventing this and, unlike with elephants which rarely get cancer, it can't be due to a highly efficient immune system.

In fact, sponges can survive the highest doses of ionizing radiation ever recorded for a living species. In their experiments, the Arizona team exposed the sponge species Tethya wilhelma to a dose of 600 Gy of X-ray radiation without harm. This is about 100 time the lethal dose for humans.

Malevolent Designer News - One Year of Trying to Keep Ahead of Science

One year of SARS-CoV-2 evolution | Microbiology Society

Creationist mode:

A review paper published just a few days ago should thrill intelligent [sic] design Creationists. It catalogues the measures their intelligent [sic] designer has gone to to try to keep ahead of human medical science so it can carry on killing and making sick as many people as possible with its SARS-CoV-2 virus. The paper is published, open access, in a Microbiology Society's journal, the Journal of General Virology.

Of course, the scientists talk about mutations, evolution, etc, but, as any devoted intelligent [sic] design advocate knows, this is the deliberate design of a magic deity, who is one and the same as the god of the Christian Bible and the Qur'an.

The Microbiology Society new release says:

The review discusses the findings of over 180 research articles and follows the changes that have taken place in the SARS-CoV-2 genome, and the variants that have occurred as a result.

As more and more variants appear, we are getting a better picture of their shared similarities and differences and can better predict what other new variants will look like. Putting all this information together will also help us design booster vaccines that protect against as many variants as possible or design targeted diagnostics.

Although the genomic surveillance in Europe and the USA is fairly strong it is becoming clear there are large areas of the world that we simply have no idea what variants are circulating. These are starting to appear in Europe as imports or community outbreaks. Better surveillance across a broader range of countries would allow us to better risk assess what the next stage of the pandemic might look like. If we want to monitor the ongoing emergence, spread, and import of potential vaccine escape mutants we have to continue this effort or risk further pandemic waves and vaccine failure. Furthermore, understanding the genomic epidemiology of the virus as early as possible will allow us to rapidly develop updated vaccine boosters.

The authors

A number of SARS-CoV-2 variants have emerged from immunocompromised hosts, research has identified. It is thought that variants of concern – including B.1.1.7, a variant first identified in Kent – were a result of long-term infection in people with a weakened immune system.

Persistent infections in immunocompromised people could cause the virus to mutate more frequently because the person’s immune system cannot clear the virus as quickly as the immune system of a healthy person.

Authors Professor Wendy Barclay, Dr Thomas Peacock, Professor Julian Hiscox and Rebekah Penrice-Randal explain the importance of monitoring genetic changes in SARS-CoV-2 for future control of the virus: “As more and more variants appear, we are getting a better picture of their shared similarities and differences and can better predict what other new variants will look like. Putting all this information together will also help us design booster vaccines that protect against as many variants as possible or design targeted diagnostics” they said.

Their review discusses where mutations have occurred, what part of the virus they affect and how the resulting variants could impact vaccination efforts. According to the authors, mutations in SARS-CoV-2 are expected, as the virus is adapting to humans. “Sequencing of human seasonal coronaviruses has not been done on a scale like SARS-CoV-2, particularly when they would have initially spread into humans. SARS-CoV-2 is at the start of its journey in humans whereas other human coronaviruses have been around, in some cases, for many decades” they said.

The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants is one of the great challenges in the ongoing pandemic. This review article summarises our current knowledge and understanding of the evolution of the virus, as well as the consequences – for example in terms of vaccination. It is of great interest to anyone wishing to learn more about the history of this virus and what the future may hold.

Professor Alain Kohl
Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of General Virology

Variants with the same or similar mutations have emerged independently in different countries: “SARS-CoV-2 is probably still finding its way in humans in terms of optimal infection and transmission. The scale of the outbreak and the massive sequencing efforts will identify concurrent mutations; basically, the virus is undergoing the same types of selection pressures wherever you are in the world, and the outbreak was all seeded by the same original virus,” explained the authors.

Mutations of particular interest include those in the spike protein. This protein allows the virus to enter host cells and is the main target of the immune system, including immunity generated by all current SARS-CoV-2 vaccines.

Mutations in the gene that codes for spike could change the shape of the protein, allowing it to no longer be recognised by the immune system. Because this protein is so important for SARS-CoV-2 entry, favourable mutations are more likely to succeed and create new, dominant variants of the virus.

Changes that give the virus an advantage can quickly become dominant. For example, one mutation, named D614G, was found in 80% of SARS-CoV-2 viruses sequenced just four months after it was first detected. Now, viruses without the D614G mutation are only commonly seen in parts of Africa.

Another mutation, N501Y, is found in the SARS-CoV-2 variant B.1.1.7. This mutation is believed to be the result of infection of an immunocompromised individual and may contribute to the virus being more contagious. Infections with this variant have a higher fatality rate. In the UK, B.1.1.7 became the dominant variant within three months and is now responsible for over 90% of infections there.

Significant spike protein mutations discussed in the review include:

D614G: In February 2020, a mutation was detected in the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 and named D614G. This mutation was found to makes SARS-CoV-2 more infectious, however does not make the virus more harmful. This increase in infectivity led to a significant fitness advantage and within four months, 80% of SARS-CoV-2 viruses sequenced around the world were found to have the mutation. Now, only parts of Africa have circulating viruses without the D614G mutation.

Despite initial concerns, D614G does not have an effect on vaccine efficiency and in some cases, viruses with the D614G mutation are more readily cleared by antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.

Y435F: In mid-2020, reports of mink becoming infected by humans became frequent. In mink, the spike protein of the virus commonly developed two mutations called Y435F and N501T. These mutations allow for stronger binding of the virus to human receptor cells. Viruses with these mutations were found in a cluster of human infections in Denmark, believed to have originated from mink. Concerningly, this variant was able to infect people who had previously been infected with SARS-CoV-2 and were thought to have some immunity to the virus. As a result, 17 million mink were culled.

The mutation Y435F has also been reported to have developed in an immunocompromised person, possibly as a result of chronic infection with the virus allowing it to adapt.

N501Y: In December 2020, a highly transmissible variant of the virus was isolated in Kent, UK. This variant, named B.1.1.7, contained a mutation in the spike protein called N501Y. Not only does this mutation make the virus more contagious, but it was also found to have a higher fatality rate. In the UK, B.1.1.7 is now the dominant variant, and is responsible for over 90% of infections.

The mutation N501Y has been found to have little effect on immunity from both vaccines and previous infections.

E484K: The spike protein mutation E484K has emerged in recent months, once in South Africa and at least twice in Brazil. Variants with the mutation of E484K are able to evade the immune system of both vaccinated and previously infected individuals.

It is thought that this mutation was driven by high levels of population immunity, which drove mutations in the spike protein to evade the immune system. In Brazil, there have been several reports of healthcare workers and other people with antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 being reinfected with variants with the E484K mutant, raising concerns about vaccine protection against this variant.

The authors also provide a handy table of all these mutations so devotees of the putative intelligent [sic] designer can marvel at the amount of work this obsessive malevolence has put into ensuring as many of us get as sick as possible.

Creationist mode:

Okay, back to the real world now - the world where people who understand biology are working to protect us from the results of evolution by natural selection - the world where muttering magic spells to an imaginary magic designer do absolutely nothing to mitigate the harm from parasites like this pernicious little virus.

Spike mutations of interest mapped to the spike trimer. Mutations shown in red, ACE2 shown in yellow, spike monomer in RBD ‘up’ conformation shown in green, spike monomers in RBD ‘down’ conformation shown in pink and blue. Structure made using PyMOL using PDBID 7A94 [24].

ABSTRACT

SARS-CoV-2 is thought to have originated in the human population from a zoonotic spillover event. Infection in humans results in a variety of outcomes ranging from asymptomatic cases to the disease COVID-19, which can have significant morbidity and mortality, with over two million confirmed deaths worldwide as of January 2021. Over a year into the pandemic, sequencing analysis has shown that variants of SARS-CoV-2 are being selected as the virus continues to circulate widely within the human population. The predominant drivers of genetic variation within SARS-CoV-2 are single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) caused by polymerase error, potential host factor driven RNA modification, and insertion/deletions (indels) resulting from the discontinuous nature of viral RNA synthesis. While many mutations represent neutral ‘genetic drift’ or have quickly died out, a subset may be affecting viral traits such as transmissibility, pathogenicity, host range, and antigenicity of the virus. In this review, we summarise the current extent of genetic change in SARS-CoV-2, particularly recently emerging variants of concern, and consider the phenotypic consequences of this viral evolution that may impact the future trajectory of the pandemic.

Peacock, Thomas P.; Penrice-Randal, Rebekah; Hiscox, Julian A.; Barclay, Wendy S.
SARS-CoV-2 one year on: evidence for ongoing viral adaptation
Journal of General Virology 2021; 102(4), DOI: 10.1099/jgv.0.001584

Copyright: © 2021 The authors. Published by the Microbiology Society.
Open Access
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

This tongue-in-cheek twist on the science is, of course, the logical conclusion of the curious Creationist dogma that nothing happens unless their putative designer deity so wills it and, being omniscient, it knows perfectly in advance what the consequences of its designs will be. If any Creationist disagrees with this, feel free to explain the flaw in that logic. Is your designer deity not omniscient and blunders with its designs, being forever surprised by what they do? Or is it just incompetent and now lacks the power to stop SARS-CoV-2 doing what it does and evolving away randomly until it comes up with new, more successful designs all by natural processes that your deity is powerless to prevent?

Or would you rather people thought of your god as a malevolent deity who deliberately creates pain and suffering because it so hates its creation?

Your god; your choice.

Meanwhile, if you have the slightest doubt, here are a couple of books that expose the Intelligent Design hoax for what it is - a badly thought-out attempt to foist fundamentalist religious dogma on scientifically-illiterate people disguised as science by dressing it up in a grubby labcoat.

Evolution News - Evolution of Sex Determination Chromosomes

Odorrana swinhoana

Credit: Ianbu (Own work)
CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Discovery of 6 sex chromosomes in a frog species offer clues on evolution of complex XY systems | Hiroshima University

Mammals and birds, with a few exceptions such as the platypus, use just two sex chromosomes for sex determination. Humans, like other mammals use X and Y chromosomes, for example. Two X-chromosomes determine the female gender and one of each determine the male gender. Birds do things slightly differently with W and Z chromosomes where two Z-chromosomes determine the male gender and one of each determine the female.

But a team of Japanese scientists based at Hiroshima University have discovered that the frog, Odorrana swinhoana (syn Raina narina), endemic to Taiwan, uses a much more complex system involving six chromosomes, retaining some of the archaic sex-determinism from a common vertebrate ancestor of fish, amphibians and reptiles!

The Hiroshima University news release explains:

The discovery was a surprise to the international research team led by Associate Professor Ikuo Miura of Hiroshima University’s Amphibian Research Center. In 1980, the first reported instance of multiple sex chromosome systems in amphibians was found in the Taiwanese brown frog Raina narina — a synonym for O. swinhoana — which had a male-specific translocation between two chromosomes. Its sex chromosomes could be described as ♂ X1Y1X2Y2 - ♀ X1X1X2X2.

The finding suggested that translocation — a chromosomal abnormality that happens when a chromosome breaks and its fragment fuses to another — occurred between two potential sex-determining chromosomes. At that time, however, the identification of the chromosomes involved in the translocation was uncertain.

So when the researchers set out to precisely identify the chromosomes involved, they were expecting only one translocation and not three. The three male-specific translocations created a system of six sex chromosomes, ♂ X1Y1X2Y2X3Y3 - ♀ X1X1X2X2X3X3. Their findings were published in the journal Cells last March 16, 2021.

A first among vertebrates

Cases of multiple chromosomes in amphibians are rare and their karyotypes, or collection of chromosomes, are generally highly conserved with little rearrangement among species. A majority are also homomorphic with undifferentiated sex chromosomes, unlike mammals and birds which have heteromorphic XY and ZW sex-determination systems. So far, there are only 10 known cases of multiple sex chromosome systems in amphibians.

What’s more, the research team uncovered that the potential sex-chromosomes involved in the translocations contained orthologs of the sex-determining genes in mammals, birds, and fishes. Orthologs are genes that evolved from an ancestral gene found in the shared ancestor of those species.

The researchers found the Dmrt1, the male determining gene in birds, and Amh, the male determining gene in fish and platypus, on the Y1 chromosome; the Sox3, the ancestral gene of SRY in therian mammals and the male determining gene in medaka fish, on the Y3 chromosome; and an unidentified sex-determining gene on the Y2 chromosome.

This is the first time that sex chromosomes containing orthologs of the sex-determining genes in mammals, birds, and fishes are found together in a vertebrate species.

>Chance vs choice

Sex chromosomes evolve from an ordinary autosomal pair after acquiring a sex-determining gene. But the team has yet to figure out which of the three pairs is the original sex chromosome and which is the major sex-determining gene of the three candidates: Dmrt1, Amh, and Sox3.

Miura explained that up to now, sex chromosome-autosome fusion has been documented as a chance occurrence.

“In fact, it was like that in this frog, too. The break and fusion of the chromosomes may have occurred by chance,” he said.

But the researchers believe that the chromosome members involved in the fusions were selected non-randomly or inevitably chosen as they probably share a common genomic region.

“To be so, the three may share a common DNA sequence on each of them, which makes them closely localized to each other, and this makes it possible to join the simultaneously occurring breakages and translocations.”

“This rare case suggests sex-specific, nonrandom translocations and thus provides a new viewpoint for the evolutionary meaning of the multiple sex chromosome system.”

The group's findings are published, open access in Cells:

Graphical abstract

The six sex chromosomes found in the Taiwanese frog species Odorrana swinhoana. Mammal, bird, and fish sex-determining gene orthologs and another unidentified sex-determining gene were found in the frog’s three Y chromosomes.

Abstract

Translocation between sex-chromosomes and autosomes generates multiple sex-chromosome systems. It happens unexpectedly, and therefore, the evolutionary meaning is not clear. The current study shows a multiple sex chromosome system comprising three different chromosome pairs in a Taiwanese brown frog (Odorrana swinhoana). The male-specific three translocations created a system of six sex-chromosomes, ♂ X1Y1X2Y2X3Y3-♀ X1X1X2X2X3X3. It is unique in that the translocations occurred among three out of the six members of potential sex-determining chromosomes, which are known to be involved in sex-chromosome turnover in frogs, and the two out of three include orthologs of the sex-determining genes in mammals, birds and fishes. This rare case suggests sex-specific, nonrandom translocations and thus provides a new viewpoint for the evolutionary meaning of the multiple sex chromosome system.

1. Introduction

Sex chromosomes generally evolve from an ordinary autosomal pair after acquiring a sex-determining gene and thus are composed of a pair of X and Y chromosomes in an XX-XY system or of Z and W chromosomes in a ZZ-ZW system. Rarely, the sex-chromosome is fused with an autosome and generates multiple sex-chromosome systems. If either a homolog of a sex-chromosome pair is fused with an autosome, the number of sex-chromosomes increases, while if they are both homologs, the pair of sex-chromosomes remains the same but gets larger in size. The latter is the case in placental mammals, including humans, in which an autosome corresponding to kangaroo (marsupial) chromosome 5 was fused with both the X and Y chromosomes ^[1,2]. To date, the evolutionary meaning of the translocation between sex chromosomes and autosomes has been documented in relation to speciation ^[3,4], sexual benefit ^[5], and life elongation of decaying Y chromosomes ^[6,7]. However, such evolutionary advantages of multiple sex-chromosomes were acquired after the unexpected translocation and thus mean no evolutionary inevitability; that is, evolution has no foresight but always hindsight ^[8].

[...]

5. Conclusions

The translocations among the three potential sex-determining chromosomes, two of which include orthologs of the sex-determining genes in mammals, birds and fishes, found in this study suggest the nonrandom evolution of multiple sex chromosomes and the existence of a common genomic sequence shared by the potential sex-chromosomes. Identification of the common sequence would provide a hint for understanding the mechanisms of sex-chromosome evolution and turnover among the regular members of homomorphic sex chromosomes.

Miura, Ikuo; Shams, Foyez; Lin, Si-Min; de Bello Cioffi, Marcelo; Liehr, Thomas; Al-Rikabi, Ahmed; Kuwana, Chiao; Srikulnath, Kornsorn; Higaki, Yuya; Ezaz, Tariq
Evolution of a Multiple Sex-Chromosome System by Three-Sequential Translocations among Potential Sex-Chromosomes in the Taiwanese Frog Odorrana swinhoana
Cells 2021, 10(3), 661; https://doi.org/10.3390/cells10030661

Copyright: © 2021 The authors. Published by MDPI
Open access
Excerpts reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

And now the inevitable question for Creationists:

What are these ancestral genes doing in this frog if they are not from a shared common vertebrate ancestor and why would an intelligent designer design such an unnecessarily complex system for determining gender in this frog when a much more simple system exists and is used in other vertebrates, including other frog species?

As we have seen, the undirected, unintelligent, mindless process of evolution by natural selection is perfectly capable of providing answers to these questions. If all you can come up with is an unknowable mystery, then what use is the notion of ID Creationism?

Evolution News - If This Is Not A Transitional Hominin, What Would Be?

KNM-ER 2598 partial occipital

a Inset image indicates the approximate anatomical location of the KNM-ER 2598 occipital.
b Posterior view and right lateral view are shown.

Revisiting a Renowned Skull From Early Human Homo Erectus | AMNH

When it was discovered about 50 years ago at East Turkana in northern Kenya, the skull fragment of what came to be known as Homo erectus, was believed to be the oldest specimen of a truly human species known, at 1.9 million years old.

However, some people doubted the age of this specimen, suggesting the remains could have been moved there from later strata by wind or water. Now a study led by American Museum of Natural History Assistant Curator Ashley Hammond has revisited the site and found more fragments of what are believed to be H. erectus associated with strata that confirm the original dating of the earlier skull fragment.

Talibangelist News - And Right Round The Twist Goes Another Trumpanzee Loon

Ricky Skaggs, Talibangelical Trumpanzee

Famous Musician Ricky Skaggs Says the Election Was 'A Crime' and God Will Return Trump to Office | Right Wing Watch

The country singer, Ricky Skaggs appears to be the latest Talibangelical Trumpanzee to follow fruitloops like Robin Bullock, Steve Quayle, Rick Joyner, Jonny Enlow, Hank Kunneman, and Kat Kerr, round the twist into psychotic delusion. He is now claiming God talks to him and gives him important messages for the rest of us. This is a common phenomenon in the excessively religious and shows how the line between excessive religiosity and psychosis is so fine as to be invisible on occasion.

So, when Skaggs appeared on the "Elijah Streams" Talibangelical YouTube program last Tuesday, his audience heard him say:

Religious Abuse News - The Mexican Cult With a Paedophile Leader - Allegedly

Naasón Joaquín García
Alondra Ocampo	Susanna Medina Oaxaca

Trial date set in sexual abuse case against La Luz del Mundo leader Naasón Joaquín García

On Monday, a Superior Court Judge reversed the April 8th decision of an Appeal Court that the case against alleged Paedophile, Garcia, be dropped because of procedural delays in bringing the case to court. The trial will now be held on September 27 and Garcia remains in detention in lieu of a $90 million bail.

Also to appear in court on the same day, is Susana Medina Oaxaca. The third defendant in the case, Alondra Ocampo, has pleaded guilty to four counts, include three counts of contact with a minor for a sexual offense, involving three Jane Does, and one count of forcible sexual penetration, involving a fourth Jane Doe. She is believed to have struck a deal with the prosecution, the details of which are not disclosed.

Garcia is leader of the Mexican fundamentalist Christian La Luz del Mundo (The Light of the World) church and is known to the sect as "The Apostle". He faces counts of forcible rape and forcible oral copulation of a minor, human trafficking and possession of child pornography.

According to court documents, Ocampo took photos of minor girls “touching each other sexually at her direction” to send the photographs to García. Ocampo directed one of the victims, along with other minors, to perform “flirty” dances for García while wearing as little clothing as possible.

After the dance, García “gave them a speech about a king having mistresses and stated that an apostle of god can never be judged for his actions,” according to the court papers.

According to this report in the Los Angeles Times:

Catholic Abuse News - The Church Pays Up to Avoid a Court Case

Fr. Gerald Ridsdale.
Predatory paedophile who abused almost 70 schoolboys when chaplain to their Catholic boys school.

Gerald Ridsdale: Victorian man abused as schoolboy by paedophile priest given $1.5m settlement | Victoria | The Guardian

A man who cannot be named for legal reasons, a victim of the notorious, predatory paedophile Catholic priest, Gerald Ridsdale, has been given one of the largest amounts received to date, a A$1.5 million settlement on the eve of the court case in which he was claiming compensation for the abuses he received from Ridsdale and two Catholic teachers at his school in the Catholic dioceses of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia.

Ridsdale was sentence in 1994, initially to 12 months in prison for abusing 9 boys, but this was extended as more victims came forward. By 2006, he had pleaded guilty to 54 more child victims and his sentence was extended so he would not be eligible for parole until 2019.

Since then, a further batch of 23 additional charges have been brought against him, bringing his total number of victims to 65, and he will now not be eligible for parole untill 2022, Judge Irene Lawson deciding that even at the age of 83 he still posed a threat to the community.

Evolution News - Rapid Evolution in Foxgloves

Common foxglove, Digitalis purpurea, pollinated by bumblebees

Study finds rapid evolution in foxgloves pollinated by hummingbirds - British Ecological Society

Researchers from the University of Sussex, Universidad de Los Andes (Colombia) and Universidad de Costa Rica have shown how a change of environment and the presence of new pollinator species can induce rapid evolutionary change in flowers.

The common foxglove, Digitalis purpurea, is a native plant of Europe where it is normally pollinated by bumblebees. The markings on the inside of the corolla tube and the length of the tube are adaptations to facilitate these pollinators. However, in Costa Rica and Columbia, there were two independent introduction events about 200 years ago. These populations are pollinated by different bumblebee species and also hummingbirds, which are absent from Europe.

The researchers have shown that in these introduced populations, the corolla tube is significantly longer; a clear adaptation to new pollinator species. The British Ecological Society News release, explains:

Catholic Abuse News - The Priest Who Saw Sex With Young Girls as Payment for His Good Works

Rev. Richard Daschbach

Rev. Richard Daschbach

Defrocked US priest revered in East Timor accused of abuse

The newly-independent nation of East Timor, or Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste as it shoud be called, is said to be the most devoutly Catholic country outside the Vatican City.

It was in this atmosphere of unquestioning trust, almost amounting to idolization of Catholic Priests as Men of God, that the American, Rev. Richard Daschbach, predated on children to satisfy his sexual perversion.

He had risen to local fame when he set up a refuge for the destitute and orphaned child victims of the long, bloody war for independence from Indonesia, that the Timorese final won in 2002.

The way that you determine who sits on his lap is by the list that he’d have on his door, and that meant that you were the little girl that was going to go with him.

Abuse victim

But there was a grim price to pay for his protection. Every evening a list would be posted on his bedroom door and the girl whose name appeared at the top of the list was expected to share a bed with Daschbach and another elementary school-aged girl. Fear of banishment from the shelter prevented the young girls from complaining or resisting at the time.

Trumpanzee Fruitloop News - More Bull From Robin Bullock

Robin Bullock, Youth Force Ministries Church International

'Prophet' Robin Bullock Calls on Biden to Confess That He's 'Not the Legitimate President' | Right Wing Watch

Readers will be familiar with self-styled prophet of God, Robin Bullock, of Youth Force Ministries Church International, and his increasingly deranged attempts to prove his God-given guarantee that Trump would win a second term was not a false prophesy, despite the fact that Biden won.

Only last week he claimed that God has given him authority to 'call' Donald Trump back to the White House. A month ago, he was declaring that President Joe Biden didn't really exist. Now he claims God has told him he is 'extending the hand of mercy' to this 'non-existent' Joe Biden. All he has to do is 'confess' that he is not the legitimate president and hand power back to Trump and all will be forgiven.

Covidiot News - SCOTUS Backs Christian Super-Spreader Events

Supreme Court, Washington DC

Photo: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

By 5-4 Vote, Supreme Court Lifts Restrictions on Prayer Meetings in Homes - The New York Times

Donald Trump's right-wing fundamentalist appointees on SCOTUS are paying dividends for the Christian Trumpanzees in California.

Early in the coronavirus pandemic the Supreme Court normally ruled in favour of states imposing restrictions on gatherings in places of worship, citing the health and welfare of the public over the desire of religious people to gather together in a single place and so spread the virus. Now, following the replacement of the late Ruth Bader-Ginsberg with the Trump-appointed right-wing fundamentalist, Amy Coney Barrett, a move widely seen as a thank you for the support he received from the Talibangelicals, SCOTUS is leaning more towards prohibiting states from banning or imposing limits on these gatherings, citing religious freedom over the health and welfare of the public at large.

Last Friday, the court split 5-4 on the issue, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr joining with the three liberal justices in dissenting.

Pandering to the Christian need for martyrdom and victimhood the conservatives said that California treated at-home worship differently to hardware stores, hair dressing salons, retail stores, personal care services, movie theaters, private suites at sporting events and concerts and indoor restaurants. None of those were required to limit access to no more than three families.

However, in their dissent, Justices, Elena Kagan, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, said the majority had compared in-home prayer meetings with the wrong kinds of activities - a comparison not justified or required by the law. In other words, they had been highly selective to justify their bias:

Justice Kagan wrote:

The First Amendment requires that a State treat religious conduct as well as the State treats comparable secular conduct. Sometimes finding the right secular analogue may raise hard questions. But not today. California limits religious gatherings in homes to three households. If the State also limits all secular gatherings in homes to three households, it has complied with the First Amendment. And the State does exactly that: It has adopted a blanket restriction on at-home gatherings of all kinds, religious and secular alike. California need not, as the per curiam insists, treat at-home religious gatherings the same as hardware stores and hair salons—and thus unlike at-home secular gatherings, the obvious comparator here. As the per curiam’s reliance on separate opinions and unreasoned orders signals, the law does not require that the State equally treat apples and watermelons.

In other words, the blanket ban on in-home gatherings swept up in-home gatherings for religious services not because they were religious services but because they were in-home gatherings.

Justice Kagan further explained:

And even supposing a court should cast so expansive a comparative net, the per curiam’s analysis of this case defies the factual record. According to the per curiam, “the Ninth Circuit did not conclude that” activities like frequenting stores or salons “pose a lesser risk of transmission” than applicants’ at-home religious activities. Ante, at 3. But Judges Milan Smith and Bade explained for the court that those activities do pose lesser risks for at least three reasons:

• First, “when people gather in social settings, their interactions are likely to be longer than they would be in a commercial setting,” with participants “more likely to be involved in prolonged conversations.”
• Second, “private houses are typically smaller and less ventilated than commercial establishments.”
• And third, “social distancing and mask-wearing are less likely in private settings and enforcement is more difficult.”

These are not the mere musings of two appellate judges: The district court found each of these facts based on the uncontested testimony of California’s public-health experts.

In other words, even if California had treated at-home worship differently to commercial premises, there was good reason to do so in terms of expert assessment of the differential public health risks.

In granting religions special privileges to the rest of society and in ignoring the threat to the health and welfare of the general public that their selfishness poses, Trump's compliant SCOTUS is posing a threat to American democracy and moving it closer to a de facto theocracy where a religion can apply to the Supreme Court to have its self-awarded privileges enshrined in American Law - which is exactly what Trump and his Talibangelical supporters wanted. Meanwhile these religions are spearheading the campaign against the anti-coronavirus measures and against the vaccinations that will reduce the virus' severity, citing all manner of ludicrous conspiracy theories and dubious interpretations of obscure Bible texts to justify it.

It's almost as though they believe science is interfering with their god's plan to kill as many people as possible with one of its nastier designs and it requires their help in doing so. If only the virus restricted itself to fundamentalists, it would be tempting to let them carry on and allow Darwinian evolution to improve the human species by natural selection.

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Malevolent Designer News - The Ingenious Way Tuberculosis Poisons You

This transport system may be widespread across many Gram-positive bacteria that contain proteins in the WXG100 superfamily. Tuberculosis kills 1 million people each year.

The tuberculosis pathogen releases its toxin by a novel protein transport system - News | UAB

Creationist mode:

The sheer genius of Creationism's putative Intelligent designer is breath-taking on occasion.

In this case, almost literally, since it concerns the mechanism by which Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the cause of the common lung disease, tuberculosis, kills you. In its determination to make people sick, the Intelligent Designer constantly comes up with these ingenious ways to make sure its nasty little parasites do the job they were designed to do, despite our immune system it allegedly designed to protect us from the organisms it designed to make us suffer.

Scientists at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Alabama, USA have just published the results of their research in which they discovered that M. tuberculosis not only produces a toxin to poison us with, but it also has a nifty way to make sure we get a good dose of it.

The problem the bacterium has is getting the toxin through its own cell membrane and into the host. Its cell membrane is designed to keep substances inside the cell, not leaking out, so it has to be able to control what leaves and provide it with a means of passing through small, special channels designed for the purpose. It does this by making two small proteins which join together to form dimers. Five of these dimers then join together as a ring in the bacterium's cell membranes to make tiny, star-shaped pores through which the toxins can pass.

Jeff Hansen, in the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) news letter gives the details:

Six years ago, Michael Niederweis, Ph.D., described the first toxin ever found for the deadly pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This toxin, tuberculosis necrotizing toxin, or TNT, became the founding member of a novel class of previously unrecognized toxins present in more than 600 bacterial and fungal species, as determined by protein sequence similarity. The toxin is released as M. tuberculosis bacteria survive and grow inside their human macrophage host, killing the macrophage and allowing the escape and spread of the bacteria.

Here, we show for the first time that small Esx proteins of the WXG100 family have an important molecular function inside the Mtb cell by mediating toxin secretion. Our results suggest a dynamic mechanism of pore formation by small Esx proteins that might be applicable to other members of the large WXG100 protein family. Thus, our study not only represents a major advancement in our understanding of secretion of TNT and likely of other proteins in M. tuberculosis, but also describes a biological function for Esx-paralogs in M. tuberculosis and their homologs in the large WXG100 protein family in Gram-positive bacteria.

EsxE and EsxF constitute the first known outer membrane components mediating protein secretion in M. tuberculosis, however, it is unlikely that EsxE and EsxF are sufficient for TNT secretion, since an energy source is required in all known bacterial protein secretion systems. Therefore, it is possible that EsxE-EsxF associate with other proteins or protein complexes to achieve CpnT export and TNT secretion.

This work was a remarkable achievement of an outstanding graduate student, Uday Tak, who did almost all of these experiments by himself.

Professor Michael Niederweis, Co-author
Department of Microbiology
University of Alabama at Birmingham, AL, USA

For 132 years, the lack of an identified toxin in M. tuberculosis had contrasted with nearly all other pathogenic bacteria whose toxins contribute to illness or death. M. tuberculosis infects 9 million people a year and kills more than 1 million.

Now, in another groundbreaking work, the University of Alabama at Birmingham researcher and colleagues describe how two small ESX proteins made by the M. tuberculosis bacteria mediate secretion of TNT by pore formation in the membranes that envelop the bacteria. This finding may have broad application because a distinctive three-amino acid motif found on EsxE and EsxF — tryptophan/any-amino-acid/glycine, known in shorthand as WXG — is also found on many other small mycobacterium proteins and on the large WXG100 superfamily of bacterial proteins that resemble EsxE and EsxF.

“Here, we show for the first time that small Esx proteins of the WXG100 family have an important molecular function inside the Mtb cell by mediating toxin secretion,” said Niederweis, a professor in the UAB Department of Microbiology. “Our results suggest a dynamic mechanism of pore formation by small Esx proteins that might be applicable to other members of the large WXG100 protein family. Thus, our study not only represents a major advancement in our understanding of secretion of TNT and likely of other proteins in M. tuberculosis, but also describes a biological function for Esx-paralogs in M. tuberculosis and their homologs in the large WXG100 protein family in Gram-positive bacteria.”

TNT is one of two domains in the M. tuberculosis outer membrane protein CpnT; activity of the TNT domain of CpnT in the cytosol of the macrophage induces macrophage death by hydrolyzing NAD+. M. tuberculosis has an inner membrane and an outer membrane, and a protein needs to get through each layer to be secreted outside of the bacterium. How CpnT gets to the outer membrane was unknown.

EsxE and EsxF are part of the same gene segment as CpnT, and the UAB researchers hypothesized that the two small proteins might be involved in secretion of the toxin.

By creating different strains that lacked either EsxE or EsxF, they showed that both proteins were necessary for the translocation of CpnT to the cell surface of M. tuberculosis and for the secretion of TNT into the cytosol of macrophages infected with M. tuberculosis. Furthermore, EsxE and EsxF are surface-accessible proteins on M. tuberculosis as a membrane-associated complex.

To learn more about the mechanism of that translocation, the UAB team made mutants of each Esx protein, where the tryptophan amino acid of the single WXG motif on each protein was replaced by the amino acid alanine. The mutants showed that an intact WXG motif on EsxE and on EsxF were required for efficient CpnT translocation to the outer membrane of M. tuberculosis and subsequent TNT secretion into the cytosol of infected macrophages.

Purification of the water-soluble EsxE and EsxF proteins showed they formed EsxE-EsxF dimers, and five of these dimers assembled into star-shaped structures, as viewed by electron microscopy. Each was about 10 nanometers across, with a 3-nanometer central pore.

Experiments with planar lipid bilayers were key to understanding the molecular function of EsxE-EsxF, as they showed that the EsxE-EsxF pores formed channels through lipid membranes.

Finally, the researchers showed that the WXG motifs were required for pore formation and membrane disruption by the EsxE-EsxF complex, and the motifs mediated assembly of functional EsxE-EsxF oligomers. This now defines a biochemical role for the previously enigmatic WXG motif.

“EsxE and EsxF constitute the first known outer membrane components mediating protein secretion in M. tuberculosis,” Niederweis said. “However, it is unlikely that EsxE and EsxF are sufficient for TNT secretion, since an energy source is required in all known bacterial protein secretion systems. Therefore, it is possible that EsxE-EsxF associate with other proteins or protein complexes to achieve CpnT export and TNT secretion.”

The UAB researchers propose two models for the transport of CpnT by EsxE and EsxF. In the first, the EsxE-EsxF heterodimers form a pore in the inner membrane, and then form another pore in the outer membrane to create transmembrane channels. “Alternatively,” Niederweis said, “the inner membrane channel is extended to span the periplasm via filament formation, and connects to EsxE-EsxF pores in the outer membrane, exposing EsxF on the cell surface. In this model, the putative EsxE-EsxF channel tunnel enables export of the CpnT polypeptide to the outer membrane of M. tuberculosis, and subsequent secretion of TNT and EsxE-EsxF.”

Co-authors with Niederweis in the study, “Pore-forming Esx proteins mediate toxin secretion by Mycobacterium tuberculosis,” published in Nature Communications, are Uday Tak and Terje Dokland, UAB Department of Microbiology.

Brilliant, what? This is the sort of thing that any self-respecting ID advocate, such as Michael J Behe, could make another fortune from, with a book claiming it is 'irreducibly complex' so couldn't have evolved and must have been designed by a magic man, proving Darwin wrong. And all to make a million people get progressively more debilitated and sicker until they die. It used to be a lot more than that in the good ol' days before human medical science came up with antibiotics that kill the mycobacteria, but the Intelligent Designer is working on that problem too, and has already come up with antibiotic resistant strains which are becoming more common nowadays.

Creationist mode:

Well that's how a Creationist should be seeing things anyway, since they also purport to worship this putative entity they claim designed and created all living things and, being omniscient, knew exactly what they would do and designed them for that purpose.

Here is how people who understand biology see it:

Abstract

Mycobacterium tuberculosis secretes the tuberculosis necrotizing toxin (TNT) to kill host cells. Here, we show that the WXG100 proteins EsxE and EsxF are essential for TNT secretion. EsxE and EsxF form a water-soluble heterodimer (EsxEF) that assembles into oligomers and long filaments, binds to membranes, and forms stable membrane-spanning channels. Electron microscopy of EsxEF reveals mainly pentameric structures with a central pore. Mutations of both WXG motifs and of a GXW motif do not affect dimerization, but abolish pore formation, membrane deformation and TNT secretion. The WXG/GXW mutants are locked in conformations with altered thermostability and solvent exposure, indicating that the WXG/GXW motifs are molecular switches controlling membrane interaction and pore formation. EsxF is accessible on the bacterial cell surface, suggesting that EsxEF form an outer membrane channel for toxin export. Thus, our study reveals a protein secretion mechanism in bacteria that relies on pore formation by small WXG proteins.

Tak, U., Dokland, T. & Niederweis, M.
Pore-forming Esx proteins mediate toxin secretion by Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
Nat Commun 12, 394 (2021). doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-20533-1

Copyright: © 2021 The authors. Published by Springer Nature Ltd.
Open access
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0)

Perhaps the most amazing thing about ID Creationism is how it not only completely fails to provide any answers to basic questions about mechanisms, or provide any evidential basis for the claims it makes, but how it appears to blind its followers to the nasty realities of the natural world with it parasites and the suffering they cause, and the ultimate futility in the arms races which about and which make no sense at all as the product of a single master designer.

Amazingly too, they claim to get their morals from this hateful misanthropist!

As I showed in my beautifully-illustrated book, The Malevolent Designer: Why Nature's God is not Good, the natural world is full of examples such as this of how any designer who came up with it could only be a malevolent sadist who enjoys watching suffering and creates it for the pleasure of watching its creation suffer, like an evil man who breeds kittens for the fun of burning them alive and the pleasure of watchig them suffer.

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Talibangelical News - Hysteria Because SCOTUS Rules Facebook is not USA

Republican Laura Loomer, Right wing Trumpanzee Conspiracist

Laura Loomer Contemplates Getting a 'Nazi-Style Holocaust Tattoo' to Symbolize Her 'Digital Extermination' on Social Media | Right Wing Watch

Something that extremist Talibangelical fundamentalists find hard to understand is how the US constitutional constraints on the US government don't apply world-wide or to private organizations, so imagine their shock and horror when they discover that they don't!

Laura Loomer, an extreme right-wing, Islamophobic conspiracy theorist and Trumpanzee nut-job was so incensed when SCOTUS declined to hear the case she brought before them, claiming her ban on Facebook and other social media for disseminating hate and disinformation violated her First Amendment right to free speech that she is threatening to have the SCOTUS case number tattooed on her wrist, like a Nazi death camp victim.

In effect, SCOTUS ruled that they have no jurisdiction over how a private company applies its own TOS that its customers have agreed to. It's hard to see how they could have reached any other conclusion, given that the First Amendment is explicitly a constraint on government and the social media are private companies and not part of the government or even agents of the government at any level in the USA.

With typical insensitivity, Loomer is equating the loss as what she regards as her special entitlement to abuse and foment hate with being a victim of the Holocaust!

Malevolent Designer News - How SARS-CoV-2 Was 'Designed' to Kill Us

Schematic model of SARS-CoV-2-induction of complement in respiratory epithelial cells. SARS-CoV-2 infects respiratory epithelial cells and induces an interferon response. IFNs signal via the IFN receptor to activate STAT1 via JAK1/2. STAT1 co-operates with RELA to induce transcription of IL6 and complement genes including C3, CFB, C1R and C1S. CFB acts as an alternative pathway C3 convertase to cleave C3 intracellularly to C3a and C3b. C3a engages C3aR and C3b engages CD46 on leukocyte subsets in the lungs to drive inflammation. These events can be pharmacologically targeted with antivirals (e.g., remdesivir), JAK-STAT inhibitors (e.g., ruxolitinib) and/or cell permeable complement inhibitors, including CFBi.

COVID-19 causes 'unexpected' cellular response in the lungs, research finds - Purdue University News

Creationist mode:

News today of what a brilliant job the Intelligent [sic] Designer did with the SARS-VoV-2 virus which is designed to make us sick and die.

An international team of researchers working with Majid Kazemian, assistant professor in the departments of computer science and biochemistry at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indian, USA, have discovered that a biochemical pathway, known as the immune complement system, is triggered in lung cells by the virus, which might explain why the disease is so difficult to treat.

According to the press release from Purdue University press release: