Atheism is Unstoppable: August 2015

Monday, 31 August 2015

Supreme Court Rules Against Kentucky Clerk in Gay Marriage Case

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

By Elisha Fieldstadt

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a Kentucky county clerk’s request to deny gay marriage licenses on the basis of religious objections.

The court issued the one-line order without explanation.

Kim Davis, the clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky, “holds an undisputed sincerely held religious belief that marriage is a union between a man and a woman, only,” her lawyers had said in an application after the Supreme Court ruled earlier this summer that same-sex marriage was legal across the country.

Immediately after the Supreme Court’s June 26th gay marriage ruling, Kentucky’s governor, Steve Beshear, ordered all the state’s county clerks to comply with the decision and issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

When Davis refused, citing her religious objection, couples seeking licenses sued, and a federal judge ordered her to comply. Last week a three-judge panel of the Sixth Court of Appeals agreed. The Supreme Court decision on Monday denied Davis’ request for a stay while she pursues an appeal.

Kentucky clerk seeks Supreme Court help to deny gay marriage licenses

Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis appearing at the Federal Courthouse in Covington.

Mike Wynn, The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal.

By Steve Bittenbender

A Kentucky county clerk petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday for an emergency order allowing her to continue to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples, a move coming two days after a federal appeals court rejected her request.

In a related move, a federal judge refused to extend a stay of his own ruling requiring the clerk to furnish marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples while she appealed on the grounds that her religious faith overrides her duties as a public servant.

U.S. District Judge David Bunning said earlier in August that Kim Davis had to live up to her responsibilities as the Rowland County clerk despite her religious convictions, and he issued a preliminary injunction requiring her to issue marriage licenses.

Bunning put his order on hold through Aug. 31 to give Davis an opportunity to ask the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for a longer stay, which the appellate court denied on Wednesday. The circuit court found Davis had little chance of prevailing on the merits of her case.

Davis contends that to approve marriage licenses for same-sex applicants would violate her deeply held religious belief that matrimony is between one man and one woman.

Ants have group-level personalities, study shows

JOHN TANN/FLICKR/CREATIVE COMMONS

By Claire Asher

If you stuck to Aesop’s fables, you might think of all ants as the ancient storyteller described them—industrious, hard-working, and always preparing for a rainy day. But not every ant has the same personality, according to a new study. Some colonies are full of adventurous risk-takers, whereas others are less aggressive about foraging for food and exploring the great outdoors. Researchers say that these group “personality types” are linked to food-collecting strategies, and they could alter our understanding of how social insects behave.

Personality—consistent patterns of individual behavior—was once considered a uniquely human trait. But studies since the 1990s have shown that animals from great tits to octopuses exhibit “personality.” Even insects have personalities. Groups of cockroaches have consistently shy and bold members, whereas damselflies have shown differences in risk tolerance that stay the same from grubhood to adulthood.

To determine how group behavior might vary between ant colonies, a team of researchers led by Raphaël Boulay, an entomologist at the University of Tours in France, tested the insects in a controlled laboratory environment. They collected 27 colonies of the funnel ant (Aphaenogaster senilis) and had queens rear new workers in the lab. This meant that all ants in the experiment were young and inexperienced—a clean slate to test for personality.

Turning breath into words: New device unveiled to give paralysis victims a voice

Image courtesy of Loughborough University

By Loughborough University

A new device which transforms paralysis victims’ breath into words — believed to be the first invention of its kind — has been developed by academics from Loughborough University.

Billed as a tool to help bring back the art of conversation for sufferers of severe paralysis and loss of speech, the prototype analyses changes in breathing patterns and converts ‘breath signals’ into words using pattern recognition software and an analogue-to-digital converter. A speech synthesizer then reads the words aloud.

The Augmentative and Alternate Communication (AAC) device is designed for patients with complete or partial loss of voluntary muscle control who don’t have the ability to make purposeful movements such as sniffing or blinking — gestures which previous AAC devices have come to rely upon.

Outspoken Indian scholar killed by gunmen

By Al Jazeera

Renowned Indian scholar and rationalist, M M Kalburgi, has been killed after being shot by unidentified men in the southern state of Karnataka, police have said.

Police said on Sunday that two men came to Kalburgi’s residence in the town of Dharwad, nearly 400km from IT hub of Bangalore, and shot him after he opened the door.

Kalburgi, a recipient of several literary awards, including the prestigious Sahitya Academy Award, was rushed to the district hospital by his family members but died on the way.

Dharwad City Police Commissioner Ravindra Prasad told Al Jazeera that police was considering it as a case of murder and a “special squad” has been formed to work on the case.

He said the police did not suspect any particular group and that the investigation was under way with a “clean mind”.

Sunday, 30 August 2015

New rules may end U.S. chimpanzee research

By David Grimm

No researchers have applied for required federal permits to conduct invasive research on chimpanzees living in the United States. That suggests that all U.S. biomedical research on chimps has stopped—or is about to stop—and it’s unclear whether the work will ever start again. Research on chimpanzees has been waning since 2013, when the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that it would phase out most government-funded chimp research and retire the majority of its research chimps to sanctuaries.

Ancient Native Americans May Have Had Pet Bobcat

Shutterstock

By Tia Ghose

A 2,000-year-old burial mound discovered in the area that’s now Illinois contained the remains of a young bobcat, new research reveals.

The ancient bobcat was wearing a special collar and was found in a ritual burial mound normally reserved for humans.

“It really looked like it had been buried not because it was a feral accessory for a human, but because it was, in some way, kind of respected on its own,” said study co-author Angela Perri, a zooarchaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.

Thursday, 27 August 2015

A persuasive case against faith-based hiring with federal funds

Evan Vucci/AP

By Times Editorial Board

Religious organizations long have been valuable partners with the federal government in providing services ranging from child care to drug and alcohol rehabilitation to the resettlement of refugees. But organizations that receive grants from Washington rightly must be willing to care not only for their own flock but for all people in need. Even former President George W. Bush, who made federal cooperation with faith-based agencies a priority, acknowledged that.

But when it came to hiring, the Bush administration allowed faith-based agencies to discriminate in favor of members of their own faith, even if the grant program in question required recipients not to do so. That policy is undergirded by a 2007 opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel that is still in force. It concludes that preferring co-religionists is justified by the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which allows case-by-case challenges to government actions that “substantially burden” the free exercise of religion.

Last week, 130 civil rights and liberal organizations sent a letter to President Obama urging him to reconsider the 2007 memo. The groups make a persuasive case. As Americans United for Separation of Church and State, one of the signatories, puts it, the memo provides a legal rationale for “taxpayer-funded religious discrimination.”
Such discrimination is troubling. It also exposes a contradiction that runs through the government subsidization of social services by religious groups. A key rationale for such assistance is that, as Bush put it in a 2002 speech, religious agencies “inspire life-changing faith in a way that government never should.” Yet under rules that Bush himself supported, those agencies can’t talk about that faith. Thus a Christian group running, say, a drug rehabilitation program may not tell participants that accepting Jesus must be part of their recovery.

Lovable Atheist Sitcom Characters Win Big in the NO GOD BUT FUNNY Contest

By Paul Fidalgo

Challenging the negative stereotypes of atheists as heartless, hopeless, or just plain evil in popular entertainment, talented freethinkers were asked to create a sitcom featuring a lovable atheist lead character for the No God But Funny Contest, sponsored by the Center for Inquiry and the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Judges with expertise in comedy and television have pored over the many excellent teleplay and webisode submissions, and the winning entries have been chosen!

Contestants were asked to “contribute to the downfall of civilization” by submitting either a 22-minute pilot script, for the prize of $15,000, or a fully produced 3 to 15-minute “webisode” for the bigger prize of $25,000. In either case, the challenge was to create a show with a likable, funny atheist character that reversed stereotypes of the nonreligious, frequently portrayed as callous, amoral, or as “lost souls.”

Tuesday, 25 August 2015

Hummingbird tongues are way weirder than we thought

By Rachel Feltman

Thanks to a new study, we finally know how hummingbird tongues work.

Until now, the general consensus was that hummingbirds used capillary action to sip tiny bursts of nectar. Capillary action is a force you can observe by putting a long, thin tube in a glass of water: The water will travel up through the narrow space without any suction. Scientists thought that the long, narrow grooves they saw on hummingbird tongues accomplished the same feat.

11-year-old rape victim denied abortion gives birth in Paraguay

HNGN

Thursday’s birth was confirmed by Asunción Red Cross Director Mario Villalba.

In the mostly Catholic country, 684 girls between the ages of 10 and 14 gave birth last year. Most of the minors had been victims of sexual abuse, according to government figures. A Paraguayan law bans abortions except in cases where the pregnancy endangers the mother’s life.

John Oliver’s Bogus Church Is a Huge Success: ‘Thousands of Dollars’ Received

Frederick M. Brown/Getty

By Marlow Stern

It was one of the better episodes of HBO’s Last Week Tonight in an already illustrious canon. During last week’s edition of the satirical series, host John Oliver targeted the fraternity of shady televangelists fleecing Americans for millions as part of “The Prosperity Gospel.” These hucksters demand “seed” money from their followers in exchange for the lord’s blessing and then use said seed money to treat themselves to lavish private jets, vacations, and luxurious “parsonages” in the form of mega-mansions. Oh, and to make matters worse, all of these donations and purchases are tax-free under the guise of religious exemptions.

After the episode aired, the IRS came under fire for conducting just three audits of churches total in 2013 and 2014, and zero between 2009 and 2013. Anything designated a “church,” including the Church of Scientology, is exempt from paying taxes by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which grants the free exercise of religion.

In order to prove how ridiculously easy it is to establish a tax-free “church” that pads its coffers with donations for “blessings,” Oliver established his own church—Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption—and asked his viewers to send cash donations to a P.O. Box that he’d then donate to charity.

“To be honest, slightly more of you responded than we were expecting,” Oliver said on Sunday night’s program.

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It’s a titi! New monkey species found in Peru

By Marlowe Hood

For nearly a century the carcass of a small, reddish-brown monkey from South America gathered dust in a windowless backroom of the American Natural History Museum in New York City.

Like a morgue corpse in a drawer with the wrong toe tag, it was a victim of mistaken identity. No one realised during all those years that it was, in fact, a specimen of an unknown species.

That taxonomical injustice will be rectified at the end of this month when the newly-minted Latin name of the overlooked monkey — rediscovered in 2013 during a jungle expedition through central Peru mounted by a Dutch primatologist — is officially published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

To wit, Primate Conservation, a reference in the field.

Then and only then, according to the rules of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, will Callicebus urubambensis, named for the river along which it lives, finally exist in the annals of biology.

The discovery of new primates, especially monkeys, is a pretty big deal.

FDA approves first treatment for sexual desire disorder

Allen G. Breed/AP Photo

By FDA

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Addyi (flibanserin) to treat acquired, generalized hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) in premenopausal women. Prior to Addyi’s approval, there were no FDA-approved treatments for sexual desire disorders in men or women.

“Today’s approval provides women distressed by their low sexual desire with an approved treatment option,” said Janet Woodcock, M.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER). “The FDA strives to protect and advance the health of women, and we are committed to supporting the development of safe and effective treatments for female sexual dysfunction.”

HSDD is characterized by low sexual desire that causes marked distress or interpersonal difficulty and is not due to a co-existing medical or psychiatric condition, problems within the relationship, or the effects of a medication or other drug substance. HSDD is acquired when it develops in a patient who previously had no problems with sexual desire. HSDD is generalized when it occurs regardless of the type of sexual activity, the situation or the sexual partner.

Most complete human brain model to date is a ‘brain changer’

iStockphoto

By Emily Caldwell

Scientists at The Ohio State University have developed a nearly complete human brain in a dish that equals the brain maturity of a 5-week-old fetus.

The brain organoid, engineered from adult human skin cells, is the most complete human brain model yet developed, said Rene Anand, professor of biological chemistry and pharmacology at Ohio State.

The lab-grown brain, about the size of a pencil eraser, has an identifiable structure and contains 99 percent of the genes present in the human fetal brain. Such a system will enable ethical and more rapid and accurate testing of experimental drugs before the clinical trial stage and advance studies of genetic and environmental causes of central nervous system disorders.

“It not only looks like the developing brain, its diverse cell types express nearly all genes like a brain,” Anand said. “We’ve struggled for a long time trying to solve complex brain disease problems that cause tremendous pain and suffering. The power of this brain model bodes very well for human health because it gives us better and more relevant options to test and develop therapeutics other than rodents.”

Cassini’s Final Breathtaking Close Views of Dione

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

By Preston Dyches

A pockmarked, icy landscape looms beneath NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in new images of Saturn’s moon Dione taken during the mission’s last close approach to the small, icy world. Two of the new images show the surface of Dione at the best resolution ever.

Cassini passed 295 miles (474 kilometers) above Dione’s surface at 11:33 a.m. PDT (2:33 p.m. EDT) on Aug. 17. This was the fifth close encounter with Dione during Cassini’s long tour at Saturn. The mission’s closest-ever flyby of Dione was in Dec. 2011, at a distance of 60 miles (100 kilometers).

“I am moved, as I know everyone else is, looking at these exquisite images of Dione’s surface and crescent, and knowing that they are the last we will see of this far-off world for a very long time to come,” said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team lead at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado. “Right down to the last, Cassini has faithfully delivered another extraordinary set of riches. How lucky we have been.”

Synthetic Life Seeks Work

By Brian Alexander

In the May 15, 2014, edition of the journal Nature, Floyd Romesberg’s chemistry lab at San Diego’s Scripps Research Institute published a paper titled “A Semi-Synthetic Organism with an Expanded Genetic Alphabet.” Romesberg and his colleagues had created a bacterium incorporating chemical building blocks that, as far as anybody knows, have never been part of any earthly life form.

There had been previous claims to “creating life.” Genome pioneer Craig Venter led a team that manufactured a genome for a germ that causes pneumonia in cows, but their effort used the familiar chemical bases of DNA, known by the letters A, G, C, and T. Romesberg’s group, on the other hand, added two additional letters, dubbed X and Y. When the bacteria successfully replicated X and Y in succeeding generations, Romesberg’s lab could claim to have made the first living thing with an expanded genetic code.

“People would ask what the big deal is, and I said, ‘Imagine you had a language with only four letters,’” Romesberg says. “‘It would be clumsy and would really curtail the kinds of stories you could tell. So imagine two more letters. Now you could write more interesting stories.’”

Researchers set new temperature record for a superconductor

Nature (2015) doi:10.1038/nature14964

By Bob Yirka

A combined team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute and Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz has set a new warmth record for a superconductor. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the team describes the process they followed that led to the record and why it gives them optimism regarding the possibility of ever finding a superconductor that works at room temperature. Igor Mazin, with the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, offers a News & Views piece on the work done by the team in the same journal issue, suggesting that the new record is causing some disbelievers to become more optimistic that the holy grail of superconductors will someday soon be found.

Local food movement rooted in relationships and values

University of Iowa

By University of Iowa

More Americans than ever before are supporting their local food markets, and it’s not just because they believe the food is fresher and tastes better.

According to a new University of Iowa study, people are shopping farmers markets and joining food coops at record numbers because they enjoy knowing who grows their food. These so-called “locavores” are also driven to eat locally grown produce and meat because their commitment to do so makes them feel a part of something greater than themselves — a community that shares their passion for a healthy lifestyle and a sustainable environment.

For these enthusiasts, supporting the local food movement is a sort of civic duty, an act to preserve their local economy against the threats of globalization and big-box stores.

“It’s not just about the economical exchange; it’s a relational and ideological exchange as well,” said Ion Vasi, an associate professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Sociology and Tippie College of Business at the UI and corresponding author of the study.

Why we’re smarter than chickens

Jovana Drinjakovic

By University of Toronto

Toronto researchers have discovered that a single molecular event in our cells could hold the key to how we evolved to become the smartest animal on the planet.

Benjamin Blencowe, a professor in the University of Toronto’s Donnelly Centre and Banbury Chair in Medical Research, and his team have uncovered how a small change in a protein called PTBP1 can spur the creation of neurons — cells that make the brain — that could have fuelled the evolution of mammalian brains to become the largest and most complex among vertebrates.

The study is published in the August 20 issue of Science.

Brain size and complexity vary enormously across vertebrates, but it is not clear how these differences came about. Humans and frogs, for example, have been evolving separately for 350 million years and have very different brain abilities. Yet scientists have shown that they use a remarkably similar repertoire of genes to build organs in the body.

So how is it that a similar number of genes, that are also switched on or off in similar ways in diverse vertebrate species, generate a vast range of organ size and complexity?

We Can Now 3D-Print Glass and it is Entrancing

Mediated Matter Group/Vimeo

By Mary Beth Griggs

The process of making glass was already amazing. Take tiny grains of sand, melt them at staggering temperatures with other chemicals, then carefully cool it into a brand new solid, ready to be a vase, window, bottle, or bead. It’spossible to make glass on your grill in the backyard but generally it’s a skill reserved for craftsmen or factories. Then, there’s MIT.

MIT’s Mediated Matter Group has figured out a way to put molten glass through a 3D printer, creating beautiful sculptures. They call their system G3DP, and it is incredibly beautiful to watch.

Magnetic Wormhole Created in Lab

©iStock.com

By Tia Ghose

Ripped from the pages of a sci-fi novel, physicists have crafted a wormhole that tunnels a magnetic field through space.

“This device can transmit the magnetic field from one point in space to another point, through a path that is magnetically invisible,” said study co-author Jordi Prat-Camps, a doctoral candidate in physics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain. “From a magnetic point of view, this device acts like a wormhole, as if the magnetic field was transferred through an extra special dimension.”

The idea of a wormhole comes from Albert Einstein’s theories. In 1935, Einstein and colleague Nathan Rosen realized that the general theory of relativity allowed for the existence of bridges that could link two different points in space-time. Theoretically these Einstein-Rosen bridges, or wormholes, could allow something to tunnel instantly between great distances (though the tunnels in this theory are extremely tiny, so ordinarily wouldn’t fit a space traveler). So far, no one has found evidence that space-time wormholes actually exist.

The new wormhole isn’t a space-time wormhole per se, but is instead a realization of a futuristic “invisibility cloak” first proposed in 2007 in the journal Physical Review Letters. This type of wormhole would hide electromagnetic waves from view from the outside. The trouble was, to make the method work for light required materials that are extremely impractical and difficult to work with, Prat said.

A Drug Meant for Narcolepsy can Boost Brain Function

The Javorac via Flickr

By Alexandra Ossola

In 1998, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the drug modafinil as a treatment for narcolepsy, a condition in which the brain has trouble regulating its sleep-wake cycle that results in sudden “sleep attacks” where a person falls asleep at unwanted or inappropriate times. In the years since, modafinil has become popular for another, off-label use: to boost a person’s cognitive abilities—an effect that hadn’t been thoroughly studied by scientists. Now a team of researchers has reviewed the literature to find that modafinil does, in fact, increase a number of important activities in the brain, according to a study published yesterday in the journal European Neuropsychopharmacology. This finding, however, doesn’t ensure that your doctor will prescribe it to you to help you cram for an exam.

A New Blood Test can Predict Whether a Patient will have Suicidal Thoughts

Indiana University School of Medicine

By Alexandra Ossola

Researchers now have a more sophisticated understanding of mental health, and many are trying to take that understanding to the next level by predicting human behavior. Though this idea is worrying to some, many mental health experts see these predictive tools as a way to intervene with treatment before a patient has taken irrevocable action—like suicide. Now researchers from Indiana University have developed a test that detects specific biomarkers in a patient’s blood to determine if he or she is at risk for suicidal tendencies, according to a study published yesterday in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

Every year over 40,000 Americans die from suicide—“a potentially preventable tragedy,” the study authors write. Even if people have already been diagnosed with mental illness, it’s really hard to tell if they will have suicidal tendencies before the thoughts start cascading, or if they take action. The researchers wanted to find both biological and self-reported indicators that could tip them off to patients who are at a higher risk of suicide, even if the patients themselves didn’t know it.

The researchers analyzed the biomarkers in 217 male participants that had been diagnosed with a number of mental disorders, paying special attention to those found in the 37 participants that went from low to high levels of suicidal thoughts during the course of the study. Once they identified which biomarkers were most indicative of suicidal tendencies, the researchers partnered with the local coroner’s office and looked for them in blood samples from 26 men who had committed suicide. The blood test was 92 percent accurate, the researchers found.

Monday, 24 August 2015

Long distance travelers likely contributing to antibiotic resistance’s spread

By American Society for Microbiology

Swedish exchange students who studied in India and in central Africa returned from their sojourns with an increased diversity of antibiotic resistance genes in their gut microbiomes. The research is published 10 August in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

In the study, the investigators found a 2.6-fold increase in genes encoding resistance to sulfonamide, a 7.7-fold increase in trimethoprim resistance genes, and a 2.6-fold increase in resistance to beta-lactams, all of this without any exposure to antibiotics among the 35 exchange students. These resistance genes were not particularly abundant in the students prior to their travels, but the increases are nonetheless quite significant.

The germ of the research was concern about the burgeoning increase in antibiotic resistance. “I am a physician specializing in infectious diseases, and I have seen antibiotics that I could safely rely on ten years ago being unable to cure my patients,” said principal investigator Anders Johansson, MD, PhD, Chief, Infection Control, Umeå University and the County Council of Våsterbotten, Sweden.

Faith No More

Sebastien Thibault

By Mario Quadracci

I could tell you how I morphed from a young Catholic boy, sweet and epistemically snug in my first communion cardigan, to a middle-aged skeptic comfortable with existential uncertainty. I could describe how the death of a child rattled my preconceptions about an all-good creator and led me on a spiritual search through theology, philosophy, biology, cosmology, mythology and history, ultimately leading to a rejection of all things supernatural.

I could try to convince you that we reside in a purely naturalistic universe. I could attempt to demonstrate the human authorship of all of history’s gods and the holy books ascribed to them. I could labor to show the historical, scientific and logical fallacies of many of religion’s claims. All of this could be done.

But these aren’t the reasons I abandoned my belief in God. The reason has nothing to do with the substantial evidence for the nonexistence of a deity. They have only solidified my position. The reason I’m an atheist has everything to do with the entire lack of evidence for a god.

Facebook group backs ‘God’ decals

By LDR Staff

A letter asking the Laclede County Sheriff’s Office to remove “In God We Trust” decals from patrol cars has sparked an outcry from supporters who want the motto to stay.

A local man, Richard Miller, recently started a Facebook group, “Those in favor of the “In God We Trust” on law enforcement vehicles,” to show his support of the decals.

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Tuesday, 18 August 2015

Computer scientists find mass extinctions can accelerate evolution

Joel Lehman

By University of Texas at Austin

A computer science team at The University of Texas at Austin has found that robots evolve more quickly and efficiently after a virtual mass extinction modeled after real-life disasters such as the one that killed off the dinosaurs. Beyond its implications for artificial intelligence, the research supports the idea that mass extinctions actually speed up evolution by unleashing new creativity in adaptations.

Computer scientists Risto Miikkulainen and Joel Lehman co-authored the study published today in the journal PLOS One, which describes how simulations of mass extinctions promote novel features and abilities in surviving lineages.

“Focused destruction can lead to surprising outcomes,” said Miikkulainen, a professor of computer science at UT Austin. “Sometimes you have to develop something that seems objectively worse in order to develop the tools you need to get better.”

In biology, mass extinctions are known for being highly destructive, erasing a lot of genetic material from the tree of life. But some evolutionary biologists hypothesize that extinction events actually accelerate evolution by promoting those lineages that are the most evolvable, meaning ones that can quickly create useful new features and abilities.

Rapid Eye Movements Show When the Scenes Change in Your Dreams

Shutterstock

By Alexandra Ossola

It’s easy to know when someone is in REM sleep—her eyes move quickly back and forth. Researchers have long known that the movements accompany dreaming, and theorized that the nature of the movements were indicative ofsome aspect of the dreams. Now researchers have monitored the activity of individual neurons to find that the eye movements are associated with a sort of “scene change” in the dream, they say. The researchers reported their findings this week in Nature Communications.

The researchers took electroencephalograms (EEGs) to monitor the brain activity of 19 patients over four years, both while they were asleep and awake. The scientists were looking at neurons all over the brain, but they were paying special attention to those in the medial temporal lobe. Interestingly, this area of the brain isn’t associated with vision—it’s important for declarative memory, your brain’s conscious recollection of facts and events.

Biotech Company is Developing Transplantable Pig Organs for Humans

Mutinka via Pixabay

By Alexandra Ossola

Every year, around 8,000 people die waiting for an organ transplant. There just doesn’t seem to be enough human organs available for those who need them. Biotech company United Therapeutics has been investigating ways to grow pig organs to be used in humans, and in the four years its researchers have been working on it, the company has become the largest commercial backer of xenotransplantation (transplants between species) and has found some initial success.

Dropped assignment raises questions about book banning

American Library Association

By Amanda Claire Curcio

A principal’s ad-hoc decision to pull a summer reading assignment after a handful of parents slammed the book’s content and language is calling into question Leon County Schools’ censorship bylaws.

The book – an award-winning and critically acclaimed 2003 British novel, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” by Mark Haddon – is narrated by a 15-year-old mathematical whiz with cognitive disabilities, similar to autism and Asperger’s Syndrome, who relays what he sees and hears in an almost emotionless way, including when adults around him curse or doubt the existence of God.

Critics of the decision say that dropping the assignment without going through a committee review process violates district bylaws and sets a troubling precedent.

“This case is very startling. A handful of parents are making choices for every other parent in that school,” said Sarah Hoffman, a National Coalition Against Censorship program manager. “There is a reason policies are in place – to protect educators and the decisions they make.

“This seems like a knee-jerk reaction,” she added.

Monday, 17 August 2015

Research examines relationship between autism and creativity

By University of East Anglia

New research has found that people with high levels of autistic traits are more likely to produce unusually creative ideas.

Psychologists from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and University of Stirling examined the relationship between autistic-like traits and creativity. While they found that people with high autistic traits produced fewer responses when generating alternative solutions to a problem – known as ‘divergent thinking’ – the responses they did produce were more original and creative. It is the first study to find a link between autistic traits and the creative thinking processes.

The research, published today in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, looked at people who may not have a diagnosis of autism but who have high levels of behaviours and thought processes typically associated with the condition. This builds on previous research suggesting there may be advantages to having some traits associated with autism without necessarily meeting criteria for diagnosis.

Humans responsible for demise of gigantic ancient mammals

By University of Exeter

Early humans were the dominant cause of the extinction of a variety of species of giant beasts, new research has revealed.

Scientists at the universities of Exeter and Cambridge claim their research settles a prolonged debate over whether humankind or climate change was the dominant cause of the demise of massive creatures in the time of the sabretooth tiger, the woolly mammoth, the woolly rhino and the giant armadillo.

Known collectively as megafauna, most of the largest mammals ever to roam the earth were wiped out over the last 80,000 years, and were all extinct by 10,000 years ago.

Lewis Bartlett, of the University of Exeter, led the research, which also involved the universities of Reading and Bristol and is published in the journal Ecography. He said cutting-edge statistical analysis had helped solve the mystery almost beyond dispute, concluding that man was the dominant force in wiping out the creatures, although climate change could also have played a lesser role.

Scotland Will Bar All Genetically Modified Crops

llee_wu/Flickr

By Ned Stafford

The Scottish government has announced that it intends to ban the cultivation of GM crops approved by EU regulatory authorities within its borders. Scotland’s GM crop ban became feasible legally earlier this year after the European parliament approved a new law that allowed EU member nations to ban GMOs for reasons ‘other than science’, including country planning and socio-economic impact. The new law also extends to devolved administrations, such as Scotland’s, as well as member states.

The announcement was welcomed by environmental groups opposed to GMOs, but unleashed a torrent of criticism from scientists, agribusiness leaders and farm organisations.

Huw Jones, head of cereal transformation at agricultural science institute Rothamsted Research, UK, said: ‘This is a sad day for science and a sad day for Scotland.’

Sunday, 16 August 2015

Could this Liver Drug Slow Down Parkinson’s Disease?

Adam Rhoades/Flickr

By Amy Pullan-Sheffield

A drug used for decades to treat liver disease appears to slow down the progression of Parkinson’s disease, according to tests in fruit flies.

Researchers say the findings support the fast-tracking of the drug, ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA), for a clinical trial in Parkinson’s patients.

A mutation in the LRRK2 gene is the single most common inherited cause of Parkinson’s disease. However, the precise mechanism that leads to Parkinson’s is still unclear.

For the study, published in the journal Neurology, researchers demonstrated the beneficial effects of the drug in vivo using the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster). In fruit flies, the mitochondrial defects caused by the LRRK2 mutation to dopaminergic neurons can be monitored through the progressive loss of visual function. Flies carrying the mutation maintained their visual response when fed with UDCA.

Wireless power transfer tech: Trials set for England’s offroads

Scott Meltzer/public domain

By Nancy Owano

Wireless charging technology that is built into the road, powering electric cars as they move, is to undergo trials on England’s offroads. Announced on Tuesday, the technology will address the need to power up electric and hybrid vehicles on England’s roads. The trials will get under way later this year.

Key questions that the trial will address: will the technology work safely and effectively? How will the tech allow drivers of ultra-low emission vehicles to travel longer distances without needing to stop and charge the car’s battery? The announcement referred to “dynamic wireless power transfer” technologies where cars are recharged while on the move.

Transport Minister Andrew Jones said that the government is already committing £500 million over the next five years to keep Britain at the forefront of this technology. The trials will involve fitting vehicles with wireless technology and testing the equipment, installed underneath the road, to replicate motorway conditions.

Newly discovered cells regenerate liver tissue without forming tumors

Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Meinzer, Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum

By Medical Press

The mechanisms that allow the liver to repair and regenerate itself have long been a matter of debate. Now researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have discovered a population of liver cells that are better at regenerating liver tissue than ordinary liver cells, or hepatocytes. The study, published August 13 in Cell, is the first to identify these so-called “hybrid hepatocytes,” and show that they are able to regenerate liver tissue without giving rise to cancer. While most of the work described in the study was done in mouse models, the researchers also found similar cells in human livers.

Of all major organs, the liver has the highest capacity to regenerate—that’s why many liver diseases, including cirrhosis and hepatitis, can often be cured by transplanting a piece of liver from a healthy donor. The liver’s regenerative properties were previously credited to a population of adult stem cells known as oval cells. But recent studies concluded that oval cells don’t give rise to hepatocytes; instead, they develop into bile duct cells. These findings prompted researchers to begin looking elsewhere for the source of new hepatocytes in liver regeneration.

By Time…

By Time Photo

: epaselect epa04881779 Meteors from the Perseid meteor swarm burn up in the atmosphere as our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is seen in the clear night sky over the German island of Fehmarn, Germany, early 13 August 2015. The Perseid meteor shower occurs every year in summer when the Earth passes through debris and dust of the 109P/Swift-Tuttle comet. The Perseids, one of the brightest meteorite swarms, consist of a multitude of stellar particles which due to their high speed glow up and burn by entering Earth’s atmosphere. EPA/DANIEL REINHARDT

: Aug. 12, 2015 – Clearlake, California, U.S. – A meteor from the Perseid Meteor shower can be seen in the upper left corner in this long exposure image as the Jerusalem Fire burns in Lake and Napa Counties near the town of Clearlake. The Jerusalem Fire burns off Morgan Valley Rd after jumping north of the highway. The fire has burned 14,000 acres and is only 5% contained. Mandatory evacuations were in place. (Credit Image: © Stuart Palley via ZUMA Wire)

: Mandatory Credit: Photo by Peter Greig/REX Shutterstock (2789309a) Perseid meteor shower at Bamburgh in Northumberland Perseid Meteor Shower, Britain – Aug 2015 Keen astronomer Peter Greig captured an incredible shot of the Perseid Meteors at Bamburgh in Northumberland last night (Mon). He said: “I saw around a dozen meteors tonight up at Bamburgh. I got my best picture within 10 minutes of arriving. “There was also a faint aurora in the north and the Milky Way was very prominent with the naked eye. I’m hoping to go back out again tonight.” Mary Spicer took several images by the water tower in Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire. She said: “I saw four meteors in the hour I was there, but it’s still early for the peak. One of the Perseids in my photos has a lovely green tail which is quite characteristic of Perseids. “With the Moon out of the way people in a dark sky location can expect to see around 60 meteors per hour during the next couple of nights.”

View the rest of the gallery by clicking the name of the source below.

Is This The Biggest Great White Shark Ever Filmed?

Shark Obsessed

By Maya Wei-Haas

Off the western coast of Mexico‘s Baja California, Guadalupe Island (map) is a shark mecca, drawing people from around the world hoping to catch a glimpse of one of these majestic creatures.

Divers recently exploring the area weren’t disappointed.

Biologist Mauricio Hoyos Padilla posted a Facebook video of what he claims is the biggest great white shark ever filmed: An approximately 20-foot (6-meter) long female dubbed Deep Blue.

According to the California Department of Fish and Game, great white sharks can grow up to 21 feet (6 meters) long.

However, most great whites are around 12 to 14 feet (3.6 to 4 meters) long, says Christopher Lowe, a shark biologist at California State University in Long Beach. A 17.9-foot-long (5.5-meter-long) male great white was caught off Guadalupe in fall 2009. (Related: “Biggest Great White Shark Caught, Released.”)

Deep Blue is “clearly a very large shark,” he says.

There may be another reason for that: Instead of the slim, torpedo shape of most white sharks, “she’s pretty rotund,” adds Lowe. “Just by the looks of her, I’d say that she’s pregnant.”

New design could finally help to bring fusion power closer to reality

MIT ARC team

By David L. Chandler

It’s an old joke that many fusion scientists have grown tired of hearing: Practical nuclear fusion power plants are just 30 years away—and always will be.

But now, finally, the joke may no longer be true: Advances in magnet technology have enabled researchers at MIT to propose a new design for a practical compact tokamak fusion reactor—and it’s one that might be realized in as little as a decade, they say. The era of practical fusion power, which could offer a nearly inexhaustible energy resource, may be coming near.

Using these new commercially available superconductors, rare-earth barium copper oxide (REBCO) superconducting tapes, to produce high-magnetic field coils “just ripples through the whole design,” says Dennis Whyte, a professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering and director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center. “It changes the whole thing.”

The stronger magnetic field makes it possible to produce the required magnetic confinement of the superhot plasma—that is, the working material of a fusion reaction—but in a much smaller device than those previously envisioned. The reduction in size, in turn, makes the whole system less expensive and faster to build, and also allows for some ingenious new features in the power plant design. The proposed reactor, using a tokamak (donut-shaped) geometry that is widely studied, is described in a paper in the journal Fusion Engineering and Design, co-authored by Whyte, PhD candidate Brandon Sorbom, and 11 others at MIT. The paper started as a design class taught by Whyte and became a student-led project after the class ended.

Astronomers Discover “Young Jupiter” Exoplanet

Research Posts

An international research team has discovered a Jupiter-like planet 100 light-years away that could help astronomers understand how planets formed in our solar system. Called 51 Eridani b, it is the first planet detected by the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI), a new instrument that started running last year on the Gemini South telescope in Chile. Details about the new exoplanet, the lightest planet ever imaged, are published today by the journal Science.

“This discovery is of paramount importance in human exploration of the range of planets in our universe,” said Rebecca Oppenheimer, an author on the paper and curator and chair of the American Museum of Natural History’sDepartment of Astrophysics. “It marks a point where indirect detection of planets and directly seeing and analyzing their atmospheres are joining forces. We are no longer simply seeing the ‘tip of the iceberg’ of the broad diversity of planets in the Universe. Perhaps solar systems similar to ours are not uncommon.”

One of the best ways to learn how our solar system evolved is to look to younger star systems in the early stages of development. 51 Eridani b shares many of the characteristics of an early Jupiter and shows the strongest methane signature ever detected on an alien planet, which should yield additional clues as to how it formed.

Nasa astronauts take first bites of lettuce grown in space: ‘Tastes like arugula’

NASA/Gioia Massa

By Alan Yuhas

It was one small bite for man, one giant meal for mankind.

On a gustatory adventure never attempted by humanity, astronauts have for the first time dined on a harvest sown in space. The verdict from astronaut Scott Kelly: “Tastes good. Kinda like arugula.” It was a strangely appropriate comment, given that arugula is also known as rocket.

Kelly was one of three American astronauts who tried lettuce grown on board theInternational Space Station as part of a Nasa experiment on Monday.

The crew members of Expedition 44 harvested space-grown red romaine lettuce heads on Monday. They first cleaned them with sanitizing wipes, then tried them raw, then dressed the roughage with a bit of extra virgin olive oil and Italian balsamic vinegar.

“If we’re ever going to go to Mars someday, and we will,” Kelly said, “we’re going to need a spacecraft that is much more sustainable.

“Having the ability for us to grow our own food is a big step in that direction.”

Anti-discrimination law enacted across UAE

By National Staff

The law criminalising all forms of discrimination on the grounds of religion, caste, creed, doctrine, race, colour or ethnic origin was enacted on Monday.

The Anti-Discriminatory Law, issued following a decree by President Sheikh Khalifa, criminalises any acts that stoke religious hatred and/or which insult religion through any form of expression.

This covers speech and the written word, books, pamphlets or via online media. The law also includes provisions for punishing anyone for terming other religious groups or individuals as infidels, or unbelievers, according to state news agency Wam.The law is intended to provide a “sound foundation for the environment of tolerance, broad mindedness and acceptance in the UAE and aims to safeguard people regardless of their origin, beliefs or race, against acts that promote religious hate and intolerance”.

Penalties for violation of the provisions of the law include jail terms ranging from six months to more than 10 years and fines from Dh50,000 to Dh2 million.

Fight over who merits a Boy Scout uniform an ongoing battle

Photo courtesy of Richard W. Rodriguez, AP

By Williams Cummings

The vote by the Boy Scouts of America’s board to lift the organization’s ban on gay scout leaders is just the latest chapter in a long history of controversy over who merits the right to wear the scout uniform.

Even as it shifts its policy on homosexual scout leaders, there are still millions of Americans today who do not meet one of the basic requirements to become scouts. Namely, those who does not hold religious beliefs.

Religion has always been at the center of the Boy Scouts, whose oath includes a pledge “To do my duty to God and my country.” And although the Boy Scouts of America is closely tied to the Protestant-based YMCA, the organization describes itself as “absolutely nonsectarian” and welcomes all faiths.

Those with no faith are a different matter.

Husband and wife ‘use Bible as excuse to keep teenager as sex slave for five years’

Photo courtesy of SLCO Brookings Photos

By Alexandra Sims

A Florida couple have been arrested for allegedly turning a 13-year-old girl into their sex slave and sealing her off from the outside world for more than five years.

Rob Johnson, 44, and his wife, Marie Johnson, 43, from Port St. Lucie, took in the then 13-year-old girl to live with them after her mother died.

Soon after her arrival the teenager was told that she could only be part of the family if she had sex with the couple, according to the Port St. Lucie Police Department.

The pair were arrested on Tuesday and charged with felony sexual assault charges.

Thursday, 13 August 2015

Kriseman: Thanks, Glenn Beck, for labeling St. Pete among ‘least religious’ cities in U.S.

Photo Courtesy of Margie Manning

By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer

St. Petersburg on Tuesday was labeled one of the ” least religious cities” in the U.S. by conservative radio commentator Glenn Beck — a distinction that thrilled Mayor Rick Kriseman.

“Woke up, sun shining, & @glennbeck lumping #StPete in w/ Portland-San Fran-Seattle-Denver-Phoenix as cities to avoid. An honor! #ThanksGlenn,” Kriseman, a Democrat, tweeted.

Beck certainly didn’t mean the label as an honor.

“This is the list of the top 15 least religious cities in America,” Beck said. “These are the cities to avoid like the plague. And if you look at that list, these are the cities that [are] already having trouble. We haven’t even hit the road bump.”

Glenn Beck Warns Religious Listeners to Avoid Tampa-St. Pete

Photo courtesy of Patch

By Greg Hambrick

Glenn Beck, a radio host known for stoking controversy among conservatives, warned his listeners Tuesday to avoid the Tampa area.

“Sorry to break it to you, St. Petersburg,” Beck said on air, according to the St. Petersburg Tribune. “These are the cities you don’t want to live anywhere around when things get worse and worse.”

Beck’s list of cities to avoid comes from a new study by the Public Religion Research Institute that looked at religious affiliations in 30 top metro areas.

In Tampa-St. Petersburg, “unaffiliated” accounted for 25 percent of the population. That’s more than any one religion in Tampa and ranks 6th among the unaffiliated in the 30 metro areas.

St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman shared his response on Twitter: “An honor! #ThanksGlenn”

Tuesday, 11 August 2015

“Protosuns Found Teeming with Prebiotic Molecules” –The Precursors to Life

One of science’s greatest challenges is learning about the origin of life and its precursor molecules. Formamide (NH2CHO) is an excellent candidate for helping to search for answers as it contains four essential elements (nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon and oxygen), and can synthesize amino acids, carbohydrates, nucleic acids and other key compounds for living organisms.

Complex organic molecules such as formamide, from which sugars, amino acids and even nucleic acids essential for life can be made, already appear in the regions where stars similar to our Sun are born. Astrophysicists from Spain and other countries have detected this biomolecule in five protostellar clouds and propose that it forms on tiny dust grains.
However, this molecule is also abundant in space, mainly in molecular clouds or the concentrations of gas and dust where stars are born. This has been confirmed by an international team of researchers, including Spanish investigators, after searching for formamide in ten star-forming regions.

“We have detected formamide in five protosuns, which proves that this molecule (in all probability also true for our Solar System) is relatively abundant in molecular clouds and is formed in the very early stages of evolution towards a star and its planets,” explains Ana López Sepulcre, lead author of the study and researcher at the University of Tokyo (Japan).