Religion, Creationism, evolution, science and politics from a centre-left atheist humanist. The blog religious frauds tell lies about.
Thursday 21 April 2022
Evolution News - How Our Gut Biota May Be Dictating What We Eat.
In a fascinating example of the kind of thing that co-evolution can produce, scientist at Pittsburg University believe they have shown how the gut biota of mice could be controlling the mouse's cravings for particular foods.
If this holds true for humans, it could mean that our gut biota could be telling us what they want us to eat, based not on our nutritional needs, but on theirs. We have, of course, been evolving along with our gut organisms since the first multicellular organisms evolved the first alimentary cannal, and possibly even earlier. More recently, it has proved possible to track the dispersion out of Africa and across the globe by subtle differences in the strains of organisms in our gut biota.
In other words, evolution has had plenty of time to evolve suptle relationships between us and our internal biota and, biologically speaking, we have not been evolving as a single species but as a collony, so any species in the colony could be influencing the evolution of the colony as a whole.
That evolutionary relationship was behind the research by the Pittsburgh Scientists, Assistant professor, Kevin Kohl and Doctor Brian Trevelline, as the Pittsburgh University new release explains:
Evolution News - Yet Another of the 'Missing' Transitional Form
It's difficult to keep track of all these 'non-existent' transitional fossils. Like London buses, you can wait for ages, then several will turn up together. One can't help but wonder how creationist find the time to ignore all of them.
Here for instance is one recently discovered fossil showing the transition from dinosaur to bird feathers, complete with evidence of pigmentation, showing that colour was important for display, even in these pterosaurs.
The discovery was made by An international team of palaeontologists led by Dr Aude Cincotta and Prof. Maria McNamara from University College Cork (UCC), Ireland and Dr Pascal Godefroit from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, together with colleagues from Belgium and Brazil.
The discovery was made when the team examined the 115 million year old fossilized headcrest of the pterosaur, Tupandactylus imperator, from north-eastern Brazil.
The news item from University College, Cork, give the detils:
Wednesday 20 April 2022
Covidiot Antivaxxer News - Study Shows That Covid-19 Can Cause Dementia
There are two ways of looking at the latest findings concerning the long-term effects of severe COVID-19.
- If you are a creationist, you could marvel at the inventive genius of any intelligent designer who could design such a thing as the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 just to increase the suffering in the world
- If you are a caring and compassionate person, you can appreciate how this findings makes it imperative that as many people as possible are vaccinated and boosted in order to reduce the likelihood of someone else catching the disease and to help make the pandemic a thing of the past.
The risk of new onset dementia was more common in COVID-19 pneumonia patients over the age of 70 in our study.
The type of dementia seen in survivors of COVID-19 infection mainly affects memory, ability to perform everyday tasks and self-regulation. Language and awareness of time and location remained relatively preserved.
The findings suggest a role for screening for cognitive deficits among COVID-19 survivors. If there is evidence of impairment during screening and if the patient continues to report cognitive symptoms, a referral for comprehensive assessment may be necessary.
MU School of Medicine.
The study was only of new onset dementia. The median time interval between infection and dementia diagnosis was 182 days for COVID-19 patients. The study only included new onset dementia associated with hospital admission during a short follow-up period. Dr Qureshi said a more detailed study, conducted over a longer time may help to determine the reasons why COVID-19 is linked to dementia.
The authors give more details in the abstract to their open access paper published in the journal Open Forum Infectious Diseases:
AbstractThe findings from this study, with the findings in the study which was the subject of my last blog post which showed the efficacy of the vaccines in children, give a very clear message to anyone with a sense of social responsibility, which I appreciate tends not to include evangelical creationists and members of extremist right-wing antivaxxer cults, is that vaccinations work and should be encouraged, if we are ever to put an end to this pandemic and to reduce the suffering it has wrecked worldwide.
Background
Case series without control groups suggest that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection may result in cognitive deficits and dementia in the postinfectious period.
Methods
Adult pneumonia patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection (index hospitalization) and age-, gender-, and race/ethnicity-matched contemporary control pneumonia patients without SARS-CoV-2 infection were identified from 110 healthcare facilities in United States. The risk of new diagnosis of dementia following >30 days after the index hospitalization event without any previous history of dementia was identified using logistic regression analysis to adjust for potential confounders.
Results
Among 10 403 patients with pneumonia associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection, 312 patients (3% [95% confidence interval {CI}, 2.7%–3.4%]) developed new-onset dementia over a median period of 182 days (quartile 1 = 113 days, quartile 3 = 277 days). After adjustment for age, gender, race/ethnicity, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, hyperlipidemia, nicotine dependence/tobacco use, alcohol use/abuse, atrial fibrillation, previous stroke, and congestive heart failure, the risk of new-onset dementia was significantly higher with pneumonia associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection compared with pneumonia unrelated to SARS-CoV-2 infection (odds ratio [OR], 1.3 [95% CI, 1.1–1.5]). The association remained significant after further adjustment for occurrence of stroke, septic shock, and intubation/mechanical ventilation during index hospitalization (OR, 1.3 [95% CI, 1.1–1.5]).
Conclusions
Approximately 3% of patients with pneumonia associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection developed new-onset dementia, which was significantly higher than the rate seen with other pneumonias.
Qureshi, Adnan I; Baskett, William I; Huang, Wei; Naqvi, S Hasan; Shyu, Chi-Ren
New-Onset Dementia Among Survivors of Pneumonia Associated With Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Infection
Open Forum Infectious Diseases, Volume 9, Issue 4, April 2022, ofac115, doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofac115
Copyright: © 2022 The authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Infectious Diseases Society of America.
Open access
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Probably what evangelical creationists hate most about the vaccines is that they represent a considerable triumph of science over what they believe to be the creation of their god, visited on mankind for disagreeing with evangelical creationists.
Antivaxx Covidiots Wrong Again. Vaccinations Protect Children
A new study has shown that the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA COVID-19 vaccine significantly reduces the proportion of sever COVID-19 infections, reducing the risk of hospitalisation in 5–11-year-olds by two-thirds. Although it was lower for the Omicron variant than for Delta, protection against hospitalisation remained high for 12–18-year-olds. It also gave high protection against critical COVID-19 requiring life-supporting interventions for adults during both Delta and Omicron waves.
The study was carried out by researchers at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital, Chicago, IL, USA and is published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
As explained in the news release from the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital:
Unintelligent Design - Scientists are Improving on the Designer's Blunder
As I have said before in these blogs and in my popular book, Unintelligent Design: Refuting the Intelligent Design Hoax, if only they understood the subject, creationists should be acutely embarrassed by a ubiquitous enzyme known by the common name, RuBisCo, which stands for ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase.
RuBisCo is probably the least efficient of all enzymes - which is why it is so abundant in nature, accounting for the green we see where photosynthesising plants are growing. It's what gives the planet its characteristic green colour everywhere, apart from the deserts, oceans, polar ice caps and mountain peaks.
It is the enzyme responsible for 'fixing' the carbon in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, so it can be built up into glucose in photosynthesis. Glucose is the basic sugar from which most other carbohydrates are built and the source of energy on which almost all living organisms ultimately depend. It is also the building block of structural material such as cellulose and lignin for plants and chitin for the exoskeletons of arthropods.
In fact, RuBisCo is so inefficient that it would be a major breakthrough in agriculture if scientists could make it more efficient so more food could be produced with the same resources. An added bonus would be that more CO2 would be extracted from the atmosphere, so reducing global warming.
Imagine that! Something creationists believe was intelligently designed by an omniscient, omnipotent designer that is so badly designed that mere humans are having to redesign it to make it more efficient!
Tuesday 19 April 2022
Talibangelical Christian Theocracy News - Pastor Tony Spell Spills the Beans
It is unusual for a Talibangelical Christian pastor to be so honest (and lacking in nouse) as to admit their political ambitions in public, knowing full well that they need to pretend to be good democrats and supportive of US democracy if they are to keep fleecing their dupes, but extreme right-winger, Pastor Tony Spell, of the Life Tabernacle Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has no such qualms. He wants to run the government, or at least have the right to veto government policies he doesn't like and command others instead.
Not to put too fine a point on it, he has ambitions to be the American equivalent of the Iranian Supreme Leader or the equivalent of a Taliban Caliph. Unelected, accountable to no-one but himself and having the power to meddle in every aspect of public and private life in the USA.
Sunday 17 April 2022
How Science Works - Questioning the Existence of Time Itself
In science, dogma is anathema and the only certainty is that there are no certainties. There is always the possibility that what we think we know is merely an illusion or the product of our limited perception, and not reality itself.
This is perhaps perfectly illustrated by the curent debate in theoretical physics about the nature of space-time, and time in paticular.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Saturday 16 April 2022
What Is The SARS-Cov-2 Omicron XE Variant and Should You Be Worried?
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
What’s the new Omicron XE variant and should I be worried?
Paul Griffin, The University of QueenslandIt seems every few weeks we hear about a new COVID variant, and it’s hard to know how concerned we ought to be.
A “recombinant” variant has emerged, dubbed “Omicron XE”, which is the result of two omicron strains merging together in a single host and then going on to infect others.
So what do we know about this new hybrid, and do we need to worry?
Friday 15 April 2022
Covidiot News - Why Boosters are Important.
A study by researchers at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA, has shown why it is not only important to get vaccinated, but why it is just as important to get boosted and this is especially true for those vaccinated with Pfizer's BNT162b2 vaccine, but also for those vaccinated with either Moderna's mRNA-1273 vaccine or the single-shot Johnson & Johnson Ad26.COV2.S vaccine.
It shows that for the Pfizer vaccine, antibody levels rose more slowly than with the Moderna mRNA vaccine and fall more quickly, especially in older people. Antibody levels also fell with the Moderna vaccine, but age did not appear to make a significant difference. Peak levels were reached after about 20 days for all three vaccines, but levels for Pfizer and Moderna were some 50 times higher than with Johnson & Johnson's Ad26.COV2.S vaccine.
According to the University of Virginia news item:
Anti-Vaxxer, Covidiot News - Why Vaccination Is a Good Thing
Yet more evidence, if any were needed, of the efficacy and desirability of getting vaccinated against COVID-19 was provided today in a paper published by a Swiss team from the Université de Genève (UNIGE) and the Hôpitaux universitaires de Genève (HUG). The results of their study were published in Nature Medicine a few days ago.
The team have shown that vaccinations reduce the viral load and thus the infectivity of vaccinated people who are unfortunate to become infected.
The press release from the Université de Genève explains:
Thursday 14 April 2022
Abiogenesis News - Earliest Signs of Life Found in Canada
Scientists from University College, London (UCL) and State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, School of Earth Sciences, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, China, believe they may have found evidence of the earliest life on earth, from just 300 million years after its formation.
The traces of bacterial deposits were found in rocks from Quebec’s Nuvvuagittuq Supracrustal Belt which are believed to have been formed in hydrothermal vents - regarded as the most likely place for the formation of organised, self-replicating, biotic systems from inorganic sources.
The evidence is in the form of tubes, branching filaments and ellipsoids of haematite, very similar to structures formed today by chemosynthetic bacteria in hydrothermal vents such as those close to the Loihi undersea volcano near Hawaii, as well as other vent systems in the Arctic and Indian oceans. Although the scientists concede that these structures could conceivably be the result of chance chemical reactions, no structures like these that are the result of chemical reactions have ever been found.
The UCL press release which accompanied the team's open access publication in Science Advances explains the technique used to examine the microfossils:
Wednesday 13 April 2022
Unintelligent Designer News - How the Genetics of Egg Mimicry in a Brood Parasite Could Cause Their Extinction
There has been some serious forgery going on in the world of evolution!
And, despite any hopes the thought of that might raise in the deluded minds of creationists, I'm not talking about human forgeries such as the famous Piltdown skull hoax, but natural forgeries produced by the natural force of evolution by natural selection.
The forgeries in question are the way brood parasite birds' eggs mimic those of the hosts.
I wrote about this very phenomenon in my popular, illustrated book, The Malevolent Designer: Why Nature's God is not Good, in which I said:
Cuckoo Finches and Arms Races.Now one of the zoologists I cited in that section of my book, Professor Claire Spottiswoode from the Department of Zoology, Cambridge University, England, UK and the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, University of Cape Town, South Africa, along with Professor Michael Sorenson of the Department of Biology, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA, and others, has published an open access paper in PNAS which addresses the following questions:
The cuckoo finch or parasitic weaver, Anomalospiza imberbis of East Africa is an obligate brood parasite on other birds of the Cisticolas and Prinias families. As we have seen with the earlier brood parasites, this has resulted in the inevitable evolutionary arms race as the parasitized hosts evolve strategies to reduce the depredation and the cuckoo finch evolves ways to circumvent the defence strategies of its intended hosts.
The strategy adopted by the tawny-flanked prinia, Prinia subflava, is to change the colours of its eggs more quickly than the cuckoo finch can and to produce eggs in an array of colours with markings that the prinia recognises as its own, almost like a signature.
The red-faced cisticola, Cisticola erythrops, on the other hand, while not varying the colour of its eggs has evolved to be better at spotting the cuckoo finch’s eggs and removing them. Another species, the rattling cisticola, Cisticola chiniana which might be expected to be an ideal host for the cuckoo finch appears to have won the arms race and is not parasitized at all (89).
Malevolent Designer News - How Cholera was Redesigned To Make It More Effective.
What is not generally appreciated is that the coronavirus pandemic is not the only pandemic the human population of Earth is being subjected to. We are also in the midst of a cholera pandemic - the seventh such pandemic - caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae, a waterborne pathogen that infects the gut of humans through contaminated water and food. When ingested, V. cholerae colonizes the gut’s inner surface, causing a watery diarrhea, that if left untreated, can lead to severe dehydration and death. The form that infects humans differs from the 'wild' form in a number of ways, one of which is the low number of plasmids they carry, but quite why remained a mystery until now.
According the World Health Organization (WHO), the ongoing seventh cholera pandemic is responsible for up to four million infections, and up to 143,000 deaths each year.
Now, three researchers at the Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology, Global Health Institute, School of Life Sciences, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland have discovered that the variant responsible for the current pandemic has been modified to make it better able to defend itself against viruses and ingression of genetic material from other bacteria via horizontal gene transfer of plasmids. Their paper was published a few days ago in Nature
According to the EPFL new release:
Horizontal gene transferIn summary then, it seems that the ability to pick up plasmids left around by other bacteria and thus acquire new traits is a two-edged sword because it can also insert harmful genes into the bacterium. The pathogenic form of V. cholerae is sufficiently well adapted to living in the specialised environment in the human gut that, on balance, picking up more plasmids carries a greater risk of harm than it does of acquiring a benefit, so they have been modified to reject any such plasmids. The same mechanism also protects them against the phage viruses that abound in the human gut.
Only a few strains of V. cholerae can cause pandemic disease, with most being harmless aquatic organisms. This is because the pandemic strains have acquired specialized “toolboxes” of genes and other genetic elements called “pathogenicity islands”, which can turn the bacterium into a pathogen.
Strains that cause cholera pandemics have acquired pathogenicity islands through a process known as “horizontal gene transfer”, by which bacteria share genes both within and across species. Horizontal gene transfer is a powerful driver of bacterial evolution because it can quickly endow bacteria with new abilities that help them adapt and survive. But it is also indiscriminate, passing on genes that are unnecessary or even harmful to their new host.
Horizontal gene transfer often involves plasmids – self-replicating circular pieces of DNA found in bacteria that can carry up to hundreds of genes. But strains of V. cholerae that are causing the currently ongoing 7th pandemic of cholera only rarely carry plasmids while plasmids are abundant in related strains isolated from the environment instead of patients.
This surprising phenomenon caught the attention of scientists at EPFL, who decided to look into it.We wanted to find out why plasmids are so rare in the 7th pandemic clade of V. cholerae, shedding light on how bacterial pathogens evolve.
Professor Melanie Blokesch, lead author
Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology
Global Health Institute
School of Life Sciences
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
Mystery of the missing plasmids
First, the researchers introduced a small model plasmid into V. cholerae strains from the 6th and 7th pandemics, as well as non-pandemic strains isolated from different water bodies. They then tthracked the plasmid’s stability over the course of many generations. Surprisingly, the model plasmid persisted in all strains, but was quickly eliminated from the 7th pandemic ones.
Two DNA defense systems
Encouraged, the scientists used genetic engineering methods to identify the parts of the V. cholerae genome responsible for this loss. This approach led to the discovery of two novel defense systems that work together to eliminate plasmids, and are encoded within two distinct pathogenicity islands.
Publishing in Nature, the researchers named the systems ‘DNA defense modules’ (Ddm). The first one, DdmDE, is made up of two proteins that target and degrade small plasmids in a process helped by a second defense system, DdmABC.
This second system turned out to have a much broader role in bacterial defense. Not only can it enhance the elimination of small plasmids, but it can turn against theThis finding might explain why the recent pandemic strains mainly carry antibiotic resistance integrated in their genome and not on plasmids.
Professor Melanie Blokeschhost cell, degrading its DNA and triggering a form of cell suicide. Essentially, DdmABC protects bacterial population against viruses by killing infected cells before the virus has time to replicate and spread.The combined activity of these two defense systems solves the long-standing mystery of the missing plasmids in the 7th pandemic V. cholerae strains. Furthermore, our discovery suggests that the ability of the 7th pandemic strains to defend against mobile genetic elements has likely played a key role in their evolution and success.
The team also found that DdmABC targets large plasmids that often carry huge arrays of antibiotic-resistance genes, and can persist by jumping from one bacterium to the next, spreading multidrug resistance.
Of course, a biologist will explain this as the result of evolution, but a creationist is obliged by dogma to reject that explanation and instead attribute this to intelligent [sic] design by their favourite magic deity - which unfortunately leaves that deity looking responsible for making 4 million people sick and killing 143,000 of them every year, by designing a specialised form of V. cholerae to do it with.
For some reason, the politically motivated extremist frauds behind the creationist movement would prefer their dupes to see their putative deity as some sort of evil, pestilential genius than to accept that the scientific method is the best tool we have for discovering the truth about the world. Could this be because the scientific method is also the best tool we have for exposing the fallacies that underpin their political ambitions, so they prefer an ignorant, superstitious and above all, fearful, population?
Sunday 10 April 2022
Evolution News - How Amazonian Biodiversity Arose
The major driver of evolutionary diversity is environmental change because it is the environment the species finds itself in that selects for fitness to survive and reproduce in that environment. This is why species can superficially look as though they are designed to suit their particular environment.
So, it is not surprising that a group of scientists led by Dr. Lukas Musher of the American Museum of Natural History’s Richard Gilder Graduate School found that changes in the local environment in the Amazon River basin are what led to the rich biodiversity in the Amazon Rain Forest. What was surprising, however, was the fact that it was dynamic changes in the courses of the many small tributaries to the Amazon that were the major factor and that proliferating bird species were the result, despite the fact that small rivers do not present major barriers to flying birds.
The team also discovered that this dynamic system had produced several local micro-species along the banks of these rivers, which are vulnerable to extinction.
From the American Museum of Natural History press release:
One of the most contentious questions in evolutionary biology is, how did the Amazon become so rich in species?
A new study focused on birds examines how the movements of rivers in the Amazon have
Saturday 9 April 2022
Evolution News - How SARS-CoV-2 Evolved the Different Strains
Since the Coronavirus pandemic first took off in early 2020, the world has experienced several waves of new, more infectious variants. This presents creationists with two possibilities:
- Either their preferred 'intelligent [sic] designer' is intentionally modifying its original design to overcome human efforts to contain and control the pandemic.
- Or, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is evolving naturally under environmental pressure in exactly the way scientists explain how evolution works.
COVID-19 News. Why Men Should Get Vaccinated
With the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic far from over, new research shows why men should get vaccinated to avoid the risk of an infection seriously affecting their fertility.
The research by Indian scientists working at the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, has shown that even a mild or moderate illness could change the levels of semen proteins related to male reproductive function.
The information supplied by the Americam Chemical Society (ACS) explains more:
Many people who recover from COVID-19 experience long-term symptoms, such as brain fog or heart problems. Increasing evidence suggests that the virus can also impair fertility. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Omega have analyzed protein levels in semen of men who have recovered from COVID-19. The pilot study suggests that even mild or moderate illness could change the levels of proteins related to male reproductive function, the researchers say.The team's findings were published open access yesterday in AMC Omeg:
Although SARS-CoV-2 mainly affects the respiratory system, the virus — and the body’s response to it — also damages other tissues. Recent evidence indicates that COVID-19 infection can reduce male fertility, and the virus has been detected in male reproductive organs. Firuza Parikh and Rajesh Parikh at Jaslok Hospital, Sanjeeva Srivastava at the Indian Institute of Technology and colleagues wondered if COVID-19 infection could have long-term impacts on the male reproductive system. To find out, they decided to compare levels of proteins in the semen of healthy men and those who previously had mild or moderate cases of COVID-19.
The researchers analyzed semen samples from 10 healthy men and 17 men who had recently recovered from COVID-19. None of the men, who ranged in age from 20 to 45, had a prior history of infertility. The team found that the recovered men had significantly reduced sperm count and motility, and fewer normally shaped sperm, than men who hadn’t had COVID-19. When the researchers analyzed semen proteins using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, they found 27 proteins at higher levels and 21 proteins at lower levels in COVID-19-recovered men compared with the control group. Many of the proteins were involved in reproductive function. Two of the fertility-related proteins, semenogelin 1 and prosaposin, were present at less than half their levels in the semen of the COVID-19-recovered group than in the semen of controls. These findings suggest that SARS-CoV-2 has direct or indirect effects on male reproductive health that linger after recovery, the researchers say. The work might also reveal insights into the pathophysiology of human reproduction in recovered men, they add. However, they note that larger studies should be done to confirm these findings, and a control group of men who recently recovered from other flu-like illnesses should be included to ensure that the findings are specific for COVID-19.
Friday 8 April 2022
Malevolent Designer News - How Bacteria Help Cancers Spread
Creationist mode:
Creationism's beloved malevolence is never short of ideas for making life a little (or preferably a lot) more unpleasant in it's never-ending quest to increase the amount of suffering in the world.
For instance, as a group of research scientists have shown, not content with creating cancers, it has enlisted the help of the bacteria it also created to help spread the cancers once they take hold in a body. The bacteria travel inside the cancer cells as they circulate in the blood looking for somewhere else to start a new tumour, and help defend them against the mechanical stresses they encounter in the circulation.
The findings by Shang Cai of the Westlake Laboratory of Life Sciences and Biomedicine, Westlake University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China and colleagues was published yesterday in the journal Cell, sadly, behind an expensive paywall. However, the abstract is available here.
Evolution News - How a Human Malarial Parasite Evolved From a Chimpanzee Parasite
the An open access paper published in Nature Communications yesterday, illustrates how, contrary to creationist claims, the Theory of Evolution is not only alive and kicking, but is the fundamental theory underpinning most of biomedical research.
The paper, by an international team of scientists led by Dr. Lindsey J. Plenderleith of the Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Centre for Immunity, Infection and Evolution, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK and including colleagues from the Department of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA and the Recherche Translationnelle Appliquée au VIH et aux Maladies Infectieuses, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France, and others, solves the 100-year-old mystery of the origins of a species of the malaria-causing parasite, Plasmodium malariae which is distinct from the commoner, P. falciparum and P. vivax which normally cause the disease in humans. P. malariae is morphologically identical to a species found in the other African apes and was once thought to be the same species.
Tuesday 5 April 2022
Creationist Bigot News - Creationists are Much More Likely to be Racist, Homophobic and Violent
According to a paper published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology recently, people who reject the idea of human evolution are significantly more likely to be racist, homophobic, intolerant of other political opinions and supportive of political violence. This was true, not only of the USA, where the tendencies were especially marked, but also in Eastern Europe, Israel and Islamic countries.
This was the finding of four Massachusetts University Amherst (MUA) Psychologists, who, according to information supplied by MUA:
Monday 4 April 2022
Christian Liars News - More Lies from the Liar King
No-one epitomises the axiom that when you show the world you know you need to lie for your faith, you show the world that you know your faith is a lie that needs fools to believe falsehoods, than pseudo-historian and right-wing Christian Talibangelical, David Barton.
David Barton relies on the guaranteed fact that his right-wing audience will be mostly ignorant of both the Bible and American history and will never fact check any of his claims. So long as he tells them what they want to hear, they will continue to give him money and support his efforts to turn the USA into a fundamentalist Christian theocracy.