Watching the Pandemic - UK

22 Nov 2021

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Omicron variant first detected
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C

Compulsory self-isolation if test positive no longer enforced.
24 Feb 2022

Compulsory self-isolation if test positive no longer enforced.
25 Feb 2022

Compulsory self-isolation if test positive no longer enforced.
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
28 Feb 2022

Compulsory self-isolation if test positive no longer enforced.
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
01 Mar 2022

Compulsory self-isolation if test positive no longer enforced.
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
02 Mar 2022

Compulsory self-isolation if test positive no longer enforced.
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
03 Mar 2022

Compulsory self-isolation if test positive no longer enforced.
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
04 Mar 2022

Compulsory self-isolation if test positive no longer enforced.
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
07 Mar 2022

From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
08 Mar 2022

From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
09 Mar 2022

From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
10 Mar 2022

From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
11 Mar 2022

From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
14 Mar 2022

From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
15 Mar 2022

From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
16 Mar 2022

From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
17 Mar 2022

All Anti-COVID measures now abolished!
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
18 Mar 2022

All Anti-COVID measures now abolished!
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
21 Mar 2022

All Anti-COVID measures now abolished!
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
22 Mar 2022

All Anti-COVID measures now abolished!
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
23 Mar 2022

All Anti-COVID measures now abolished!
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
24 Mar 2022

All Anti-COVID measures now abolished!
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
25 Mar 2022

All Anti-COVID measures now abolished!
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
28 Mar 2022

All Anti-COVID measures now abolished!
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
29 Mar 2022

All Anti-COVID measures now abolished!
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
30 Mar 2022

All Anti-COVID measures now abolished!
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
31 Mar 2022

All Anti-COVID measures now abolished!
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
01 Apr 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends.
04 Apr 2022

All Anti-COVID measures now abolished!
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
05 Apr 2022

All Anti-COVID measures now abolished!
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
06 Apr 2022

All Anti-COVID measures now abolished!
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
07 Apr 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends.
08 Apr 2022

All Anti-COVID measures now abolished!
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
11 Apr 2022

All Anti-COVID measures now abolished!
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
12 Apr 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends.
13 Apr 2022

All Anti-COVID measures now abolished!
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
14 Apr 2022

All Anti-COVID measures now abolished!
From week-beginning 21 Feb 2022, no updates at the weekends.
19 Apr 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
20 Apr 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
21 Apr 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
20 Apr 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
25 Apr 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
26 Apr 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
27 Apr 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
28 Apr 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
29 Apr 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
03 May 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
04 May 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
05 May 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
06 May 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
09 May 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
10 May 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
11 May 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
12 May 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
13 May 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
16 May 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
17 May 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
18 May 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
19 May 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
20 May 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
23 May 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
24 May 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
25 May 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
26 May 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
27 May 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
30 May 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
31 May 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
01 June 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
06 June 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
07 June 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
08 June 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
09 June 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
10 June 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
13 June 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
15 June 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
16 June 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
17 June 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
20 June 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
21 June 2022

Free Testing Abolished! No updates at the weekends/B.Hols.
23 June 2022

Previous 7 Days total cases per 100,000 population

The number of covid-19 cases in the UK is rising again, due to the δ variant. It had been falling steadily until about mid-May but is already some 5,000 cases higher that at the peak of the first wave in April, 2020.

The main reason why hospitalisations and deaths are not rising nearly so sharply as they did then, is due to the vaccination campaign in which just over 80% of adults have had at least one dose and close to 60% have had both.

[update 28 Nov 2021] We now have a new varianr, (ο - omicron) to watch. The question is whether the vaccines will be as effective against it as they have been against α and δ and whther it will be more or less transmissible. The early indication is that it quickly replaced δ in southern Africa so is significantly more transmisible, with 50 mutations, 30 of which are in the gene for the spike protein.

[update 15 Dec 2021] Ο is proving to be far more transmissable that δ with an r number of 2-3 or higher. Cases in UK are now at record levels but serious cases seem to be remaining low (early days yet as there is about 1-2 week lag in being diagnosed and needing hospitalisations, with deaths about a week behind.)

This slideshow uses maps of cases published daily on the UK government Coronavirus UK Summary website. It starts about early April 2021, when I started saving them. An area shown in outline only has missing data.

Slideshows are something which I have been experimenting with for a few weeks and hopefully, I'll be adding some controls to this one in the near future. At the moment is simply recycles back to the first slide when it comes to the end of the list.

I'll be updating it with a new slide each day. A red background indicates the last 7 days.

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Evolution News - Another Creationist Dogma Refuted - Evolution by LOSS of Information!

Pseudoblepharisma tenue with endosymbionts - green algae and purple bacteria

© Sebastian Hess

An unusual symbiosis of a ciliate, green alga, and purple bacterium

One of the problems with Creationism is that, because it is not evidence-based and relies on religious dogma and disinformation, it is constantly having to ignore evidence which refutes those dogmas. Then, as Francis Collins pointed out, if Creationists ever grow up and discover scieence, they feel they have to abandon religion because it has been proved wrong. They also discover they've been lied to from the pulpit and by self-serving liars they were fooled into thinking were honest and giving them good information.

To remain members of the Creationist cult, therefore, Creationists must continue to ignore evidence such as this, or face that awful prospect of having to consider being wrong about everything fundamental to their lives and admit being the victims of unscrupulous frauds.

Nevertheless, the facts are what they are, and the fact in this case is that, contrary to Creationist dogma, evolution can, and does, occur through a loss of information. In fact, this is commonplace in parasitology - which is one reason why Creationists will rarely discuss parasitology.

In a paper recently published open access, in the journal Science Advances, a team of biologists led by Dr. Sebastian Hess from the Institute of Zoology at the University of Cologne, Germany, has discovered an unusual single-celled flagellate organism, Pseudoblepharisma tenue, which has in its body two endosymbiotic organisms, an algae and a previously unknown purple bacterium belonging to the family of so-called ‘purple sulfur bacteria’ (family Chromatiaceae). It was discovered living in the hypoxic sediment in ponds in Simmelried, a moorland near the German city of Konstanz am Bodensee.

Anti-Covid Vaccines Working!

Perhaps better than anything, this graphic from the UK Government Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows the effects of the anti-coronavirus vaccination program.

Starting just before Christmas 2020, the NHS has had a massive drive to get the adult population vaccinated, starting with the most vulnerable then working down through the younger age groups. The most recent age group to be invited to get a vaccine is the 25 year-olds and over.

The UK is currently experiencing a surge in case numbers due to the greater infectivity of the Δ-variant but the number of hospitalisations and deaths remain at substantially lower levels than during the earlier waves. The reason for this is almost certainly the protection against being made seriously ill being given by the vaccines.

The following graphic shows the percentage vaccinated with the first and second dose, together with with the probable anti-body levels over time of different aga groups:

Christian Covidiot News - How Dangerous Covidiots Manipulate With Fear and Superstition

Dr Sherri Tenpenny. Anti-vaxxer and purveyor of Covid-19 disinformation

Ohio Doctor Testifies God Will Disapprove of Christian Lawmakers Who Support Required Vaccinations

According to Newsweek, Dr Sherri Tenpenny is one of 12 people who between them are responsible for 65% of all vaccine disinformation on social media. Nevertheless she was invited to testify before the Ohio House Health Committee.

The Committee was taking evidence concerning Bill 248 which would make it unlawful for an employer to require an employee to have an anti-Covid vaccination and would allow individuals to decline a vaccine on the grounds of medical conditions, reasons of conscience such as religion and natural immunity.

How the Raving Right Panders to American Paranoias

Pastor Rick Wiles, anti-Semitic, Talibangelical conspiracy theorist.
"The Chinese are out to get me!"

Anti-Vaxxer Rick Wiles Blames Chinese Agents for His COVID-19 Infection | Right Wing Watch

Probably for historical reasons and a long history of politicians creating and then playing on American xenophobic paranoia, America is more prone than almost any other nation to conspiracy theories based on the notion that 'abroad' is a dangerous place full of evil people plotting to 'come and take our freedoms away'.

Now the right-wing Talibangelical extremist, virulent anti-Semite and conspiracist, Pastor Rick Wiles, has taken this tactic one step further, partly to explain away making such a fool of himself over Covid-19 and the vaccines.

He spent the first part of last year telling his followers that the coronavirus pandemic was God's plague as a prelude to the End Times. When this idiotic position became untenable because so many pious, God-fearing Christian were dying of the virus, he then did a volte face, declaring that the SARS-CoV-19 virus was the result of collusion between Dr Anthony Fauci, the leading epidemiologist who had been advocating the mitigation measures to reduce the spread of the virus and the severity of the pandemic, and the Chinese government.

At one point he demanded that Dr Fauci be arrested and tortured to make him confess his 'crime'. Wiles also campaigned vigorously against the vaccines, urging people not to have them.

To make matters worse, he spent last month in hospital with Covid-19 himself! So, now it's not an End-times plague, but a Chinese Communist Party plot to kill Americans and come and take their land away.

He now claims he was infected by a special Chinese hit squad as a reprisal for exposing the collusion between Fauci and the Chinese Communist Party. Looking ill and sounding hoarse, he told listeners to his paranoia pulpit, 'RealNews' [sic]:

There is a medical mafia in this country. I’m suggesting the CCP agents in America struck at me because I am calling for Fauci to be arrested and interrogated.

I mean this with all my heart. If the China Communist Party is not stopped, most Americans may be dead in the next five years. Think about what I just said: a systematic, genocidal plan to exterminate the American population over the next five years through a variety of biological weapons and vaccines, to the point that there’s hardly anybody remaining alive in the country. China is deliberately exterminating the American population for the purpose of migrating hundreds of millions of Chinese settlers to North America.

The most effective way to substantially depopulate America would be to take Rick Wile's advice and not get a vaccine and not take the very sensible anti-Covid-19 measures advocated by leading scientists such as Dr Anthony Fauci. As figure from the UK now show with very little room for doubt, the vaccine is not only extremely safe, but has been instrumental in reducing the severity of infections in those unfortunate enough to be infected.

The UK is now at wat looks like the beginning of another wave of infections, due in part to the Δ-variant and possibly in part to a relaxation of the lockdown. Cases yesterday went over 8,000 (more than double what they were just a few days ago and 2,000 above the peak of the first wave in April 2020, when the HNS was teetering on the brink of collapse due to the number of hospital cases and the demand for ITU beds and ventillators) yet the number of deaths remains low, as do the new hospitalisations and the number of people in hospital. As I showed 2 days ago, the mass vaccination campaign by the NHS has broken the link between infection rates and death/hospitalisation rates. Figures yesterday confirm that:

Comparison of UK first wave and current coronavirus wave

Date	New Cases	New Admissions	Hospital Patients	Deaths	Deaths per New Case	New Admissions per New Case
April 5, 2020	6199	2917	18855	599	0.966	0.47
June 11, 2021	8125	173	1058	17	0.002	0.02
Source: Coronavirus (Covid-19) in the UK

The rate of serious infections requiring hospitalisation was some 23 times higher in April 2020 compared to today!

The only logical explanation for this is that 76.6% of the adult population (41.1 million people) have now had at least one dose of the vaccine and 54% (29.2 million) have had both doses.

So, if the Chinese Communist Party really was aiming to exterminate Americans, they could do worse than urge people to listen to loony Rick Wiles and heed his dangerously misleading advice. As an evangelical Christian, though, Pastor Rick Wiles believes his own self-aggrandisement and political power and influence has a higher priority than worrying about the welfare and well-being of his compatriots and co-religionists and ensuring the truthfulness of the stuff he manipulates them with.

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How Science Works - Falsifying a Theory and Running Rings Around Creationism

Drone image of the fairy circles and a lonesome tree in the Giribes Plains. Hundreds of thousands of fairy circles occur in the Giribes without any Euphorbia damarana in the vicinity. These typical fairy circles of the Giribes have a regular pattern, mostly with an extraordinary degree of spatial ordering. By contrast, euphorbias in the isolated location where Theron marked the shrubs had an opposite clustered pattern, which cannot explain the origin of the regularly distributed fairy circles.

Photo credit: S Getzin, University of Göttingen

Origin of fairy circles: Euphorbia hypothesis disproved - Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

The great thing about science, and what gives it its power as the tool for discovering the truth, is that it has self-correction built in, and every properly-constructed theory is falsifiable. In this example, we see a theory proposed back in 1979 to explain the phenomenon of the 'fairy rings' of Namibia being systematically falsified by observations which could not be true if the theory is correct.

The 'fairy rings' of Namibia is a vast area on the edge of the Namib dessert in which there is a pattern of regularly-spaced circles of barren soil occurring in an essentially mono-specific grassland.

In 1979 a South African botanist, G.K. Theron, published a theory that the circles were caused by toxins in the decaying leaves of the plant Euphorbia damarana. This theory has now been falsified by researchers led by scientists from Göttingen University, as the Göttingen University news release explains:

Talibangelical False Prophet News - Loopy Jeff Jansen Still Can't Accept Reality

Jeff Jensen, former Co-Senior leader, Global Fire Ministries International, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, USA

'Prophet' Jeff Jansen Declares, 'It's Revolution Time,' Says Trump Will Be Back in Office in June | Right Wing Watch

Even his fellow Talibangelical Christians at Global Fire Ministries International in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, USA, are embarrassed by false prophet and fanatical Trumpanzee, Jeff Jansen, it seems. Not surprisingly, either, given Jansen's increasingly bizarre behaviour as he tries to justify his false prophesies throughout 2020 that Donald Trump would win in November, although, it's probably not his unswerving devotion to the worship of Donald Trump and his blatant false prophesies that seem to concern them most.

Jansen's first attempt to make his false prophesies look like true ones was to simply declare that Trump did win really, then he announced that God had told him he would restore Trump to the White House by March 2021, apparently having been powerless to stop the 'Satanic padophile cnnibals' stealing the election. When March 2021 came and went, he decided that God had meant May, but in May he announced it would now be June.

Covidiot Evangelical News - The Fool Returneth to His Folly

Tony Spell, pastor of the Life Tabernacle Church of Central City, La., waits outside the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, Monday, June 7, 2021. Spell, who flouted coronavirus restrictions last year, prepared Monday to ask the court to revive his lawsuit challenging the restrictions.

Credit: AP Photo/Gerald Herbert

Pastor seeks revival of suit challenging virus restrictions

The notorious Covidiot Christian evangelical preacher of greed and selfishness, Pastor Tony Spell of the Life Tabernacle Church of Central City, Louisiana, USA, is back in the news again. He has still not given up his lucrative campaign for self-martyrdom by being 'persecuted' for encouraging his idiot followers to put themselves and others at risk by attending non-Covid-safe services in his church, despite the ban on such gatherings.

He first came to prominence when he saw a get-rich-quick opportunity in the $1,200 stimulus checks the Trump administration handed out to try to kick-start the economy after the first coronavirus wave and lockdown in spring 2020. He demanded his congregation hand their checks over to him!

Covidiot News - New Study Shows Face Masks Work!

Face Masks Block Expired Particles, Despite Leakage | UC Davis

More evidence, if any were needed, of the efficacy of face masks in reducing the transmission of the coronavirus.

A research team from University of Califronia, Davis and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, have shown that a face mask is effective at reducing the production of aerosols from talking or coughing, despite leakage around the sides.

The point that often seems to be lost on the selfish evangelical Christians who refuse to wear a face mask having been fooled into thinking they're some sort of anti-Trump political statement with which, as loyal Trumpanzee cultists, they are obliged to disagree, is that masks protect other people from you. But protecting your friends and family and the wider community is not something that seems to trouble evangelicals overmuch, as other surveys have shown.

The point is not lost however, on those socially responsible individuals who recognise that, in a pandemic such as the current one, we all have a moral obligation to help protect others as well as ourselves, to reduce the number of deaths and serious illnesses and to conserve health-care resources for those who really need them. It is reassuring to those people that they have been doing the right thing all along.

As the UC, Davis news release explains:

Look What Science's Anti-Covid Vaccines Have Achieved

At the moment, the UK is experiencing something of a surge in SARS-CoV-2 cases, yesterday reaching over 6000 confirmed new cases – double what it was just a week ago - almost certainly due to the 'Indian' or Δ-variant currently responsible for a surge in the Bolton/Greater Manchester area and elsewhere in the UK.

This variant is calculated to be some 40% more infectious than the ‘Kent’ variant. Admittedly on a higher level of routine testing, this is approaching the levels that prompted the first major lockdown in April 2020, as this chart shows:

Malevolent Designer News - More Evidence of Sheer Nastiness with SARS-CoV-2

New findings show that a Covid-19 infections can provoke an auto-immune response to give long-term health problems.

Many patients with COVID-19 produce immune responses against their body's own tissues or organs, finds study

The more we find out about the effects of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, currently responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic, the more it looks like Creationism's intelligent [sic] designer went to great lengths of sheer nastiness when it designed this virus - If you believe that tosh, that is!

In an open access paper published a few days ago in the journal Clinical & Experimental Immunology, a group of researchers led by Professor Alex Richter, of the University of Birmingham, show that some patients infected with the virus go on to produce antibodies against their own body tissues and so develop systemic symptoms not directly related to the virus itself:

Trumpanzee News - Why So Many Repuglicans Believe the QAnon lies

The Trumpanzee cult rally on Jan 6, 2021, prior to their failed coup d’état.

QAnon's Repeated Mythology: Consequences to Brain Function | Psychology Today

In an article in Psychology Today, Dr. Gary L. Wenk, a Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience & Molecular Virology, Immunology and Medical Genetics at the Ohio State University and Medical Center, explains why so many Repuglicans believe the blatant QAnon lies.

His key points are:

• QAnon is a recent example of leaders controlling followers by offering a comfortable myth that comforts and confirms fears.
• Frontal lobes in the brain are apt to accept lies told to ourselves and each other.
• Humans have been accepting myths as truths for millennia, for some they reduce the feeling that the world is dangerous and frightening.

Controlling followers with comforting myths is a well-established political technique, so it is not surprising that Trump, in alliance with the shadowy group behind QAnon, should be using it to try to set up and control the Trumpanzee cult. The same technique has also been successfully used by religions for several thousand years of course, so it is not surprising either that Trump's technique has resulted in a virtual new religion to replace the failing Evangelical Christianity. For God so loved America that he sent his misbegotten son, Donald, to save her from Satan, Black people, liberals, homosexuals, Jews, Chinese and all those other evil foreigners that God hates too. God bless America!

Malevolent Designer News - The Malevolent Designer Hasn't Given Up on Zika Virus

Map of Uganda, with trap sites indicated by black circles and positive sites indicated by red stars (Python Cave, Maramagambo Forest: Egyptian rousette bat, 2009 (n = 1); Kawuku: Ethiopian epauletted fruit bat, 2013 (n = 1); Bugonga: African straw-colored fruit bat, 2011 (n = 2)).

Map was created using QGIS 3.4.2 (www.qgis.org).

CSU researchers make first-ever discovery of Zika virus RNA in free-ranging African bats

Creationist mode:

Spurred on by the success of its coronavirus in killing millions of humans and leaving many times more with long-term health problems and disabilities, Creationism's Intelligent [sic] Designer may have improved on its Zika virus (ZIKV) design to make it more capable of causing microencephaly and permanent disability in new-born children.

According to a discovery by Colorado State University (CSU) scientists, ZIKAV can be carried and may be widely dispersed by bats, in an eerie use of the same order of mammals in which Creationism's putative designer of all living things, developed the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, currently responsible for its best attempt at a global genocide of humans for a century, with Covid-19.

Unintelligent Designer News - Does God Favour Spiders?

Photographs of worker ants of Myrmica rubra (a), Lasius niger (b) and Camponotus modoc (c) that were used to prepare test stimuli, and of subadult female spiders of Steatoda grossa (d), Latrodectus hesperus (e), Eratigena agrestis (f) and Araneus diadematus (g) that were tested in laboratory experiments. Bar length, 1 mm.

Spiders can sniff out and avoid killer ants, SFU study finds - University Communications - Simon Fraser University

Findings like his throw up all sorts of questions for Creationists - who normally avoid them like the plague, being fully aware of how toxic facts are to their cult.

It is the discovery by a team of researchers based at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada, that spiders avoid building their nests in the vicinity of European fire ants, their natural predators.

Foraging ants leave a scent trail when foraging, to act as a marker for other ants and so they can find their way back to the nest. The researchers collected samples of this scent by exposing filter papers to several species of ant then placing the impregnated filter papers in a chamber of a multi-chambered habitat occupied by four species of spider. They found that the spiders preferred to stay and build their webs in the chambers without the ant scent-contaminated filter-papers.

The strongest deterrent effect was found for the European fire ant, Myrmica rubra, a recently-introduced species to North America, which the team attribute to evolution under strong selection pressure, however, Creationists are required by dogma to reject that natural explanation so must attributed it to design by their solitary putative designer, of which more later. The teams findings are published open access in the Royal Society Open Science journal:

More of My Books Now in Hard Cover

Following on from the two hard cover versions published a couple of weeks ago, most of the rest of my books are now available in hard cover, including the entire, 5 volume, Light of Reason series of selected articles and essays from this blog: