Holy Text Quote of the Day #18
"[Jesus] But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me." -Luke 19:27 KJV
"[Jesus] But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me." -Luke 19:27 NIV
"[Jesus] But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me." -Luke 19:27 NIV
Scientists Discover Bioluminescent 'Green Bombers' from the Deep Sea
In the latest proof that the oceans continue to offer remarkable findings and much of their vastness remains to be explored, scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and their colleagues have discovered a unique group of worms that live in the depths of the ocean.
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Towards Malaria 'Vaccine': Discovery Opens The Door To Malaria-Prevention Therapies
Malaria kills anywhere from one to three million people around the world annually and affects the lives of up to 500 million more. Yet until now, scientists did not fully understand exactly how the process that caused the disease's severe hallmark fevers began.
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Trust In A Teardrop
Medically, crying is known to be a symptom of physical pain or stress. But now a Tel Aviv University evolutionary biologist looks to empirical evidence showing that tears have emotional benefits and can make interpersonal relationships stronger.
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Creationists, Now They’re Coming For Your Children
People who reject the theory of evolution should be placed on a level with Holocaust deniers, argues an author in his controversial new book.
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Expression Study Links Gene Regulation and Evolution of Aggression in Bees
Researchers from the US, Canada, and Mexico used microarrays to compare gene expression in the brains of various European and Africanized bees under different environmental conditions. Their results indicate that the types of short-term gene expression changes in alarmed European honey bee brains resembled the baseline expression pattern in the brains of more aggressive older bees or Africanized bees.
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Hobbits Walked Out of Africa
THE identity of the tiny human-like creature discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2004 has become clearer -- and more astonishing -- thanks to a new analysis by Australian and Indonesian scientists.
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Major Insights Into Evolution of Life
Humans might not be walking on the face of the Earth were it not for the ancient fusing of two prokaryotes - tiny life forms that do not have a cellular nucleus. Important new insights about prokaryotes and the evolution of life are published by UCLA molecular biologist James A. Lake 20 August in the advanced online edition of the journal Nature.
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Harvard Primatologist Says Joys of Barbecue Sparked Evolution
Lying on his living room floor staring into the flames, Harvard professor Richard Wrangham was thinking about the next morning’s lecture on evolution when he had his “Eureka!” moment.
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Gaydar’ Is Real — For Women, Too
"Sexual orientation is perceived accurately, rapidly and automatically from women's faces," Rule and his colleagues write in the latest issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. "Deliberation and thinking too much seems to disrupt this ability."
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How to Tell If You're Poisoning Yourself With Fish
When the halibut on my hook breaks the surface, writhing in a splash of seawater off the coast of Bolinas, California, I am thinking less of this fish’s fate than of my own. Considering that I plan to kill and eat it, this might seem cruel. Yet inside the fat and muscle cells of this flat, odd-looking creature is a substance as poisonous to me as it is to him: methylmercury, the most common form of mercury that builds up inside people (and fish).
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Battle of the Nostrils?
When the nostrils sense different smells, they may be duking it out for the brain's attention, according to a study published online today (August 20) in Current Biology. Such rivalry, well-documented in other sensory systems, has never before been shown for the olfactory system.
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Evolution of the Appendix
Parker says now that we understand the normal function of the appendix, a critical question to ask is whether we can do anything to prevent appendicitis. He thinks the answer may lie in devising ways to challenge our immune systems today in much the same manner that they were challenged back in the Stone Age. "If modern medicine could figure out a way to do that, we would see far fewer cases of allergies, autoimmune disease, and appendicitis."
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What is the Difference Between an Atheist, an Agnostic and a Theist?
The difference between an atheist, an agnostic and a theist can be summarised by their responses to the question: do you have a dog?
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Rat-Eating Plant Discovered in Philippines
A carnivorous pitcher plant that eats rats and insects has been discovered in the Philippines and named after Sir David Attenborough.
Professor Richard Dawkins Wants to Convert Islamic World to Evolution
The author of The God Delusion and The Selfish Gene, whose new book, The Greatest Show on Earth, is serialised in The Times next week, has topped bestseller lists all over the world but never in a predominantly Muslim country.
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Scan of PRI Fossil May Hold Elephant Key
"Living elephants have strange anatomy compared with most other animals," Hutchinson wrote about the project. "They have long, thin thigh bones, the femur, that are almost solid without a marrow cavity, and stubby five-toed feet that are posed 'tiptoe' on squishy pads of fat and fibrous tissue... Rhinoceroses, hippopotami and other large living and extinct mammals have somewhat similar anatomy, but elephants still stand out as having extreme anatomy in these regions."
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President Obama's Health Care Plan
I am only discussing this on here because a lot of religious type people seem to be distorting the facts, so I am gonna provide some information to clear up things.
Read the Health Care Bill that has been introduced to the House
Read all of Obama Agenda without any bias from his own site.
Why Health Care Needs Reform
President Obama Himself Putting Health Care Myths To Rest
Read the Health Care Bill that has been introduced to the House
Read all of Obama Agenda without any bias from his own site.
Why Health Care Needs Reform
President Obama Himself Putting Health Care Myths To Rest
Curing Human Genetic Disease at the Salk Institute
A pluripotent cell can create all cell types, with the exception of extra embryonic tissue. Using iPS technology, Belmonte’s team corrected a defective gene in cells taken from patients with Fanconi anemia, a disease that can lead to bone marrow failure, leukemia and other cancers.
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Fish Show Why All Men Aren't Brad Pitt
Females may be picky when it comes to choosing a mate for a very good reason.
Research, published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, has shown that some female fish find different male traits attractive from year to year.
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Research, published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, has shown that some female fish find different male traits attractive from year to year.
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Is Postpartum Due to Not Breastfeeding?
Postpartum depression has been linked to choosing bottle feeding over breastfeeding, according to an evolutionary psychologist's research.
The fields of evolutionary study goes beyond how birds got their wings. Evolutionary psychology, one subfield, tries to understand humanity’s instinctual actions based on a long view that goes back to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. And new moms, one new theory goes, may be hard-wired to go into a mourning period if breastfeeding does not follow delivery of a child.
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The fields of evolutionary study goes beyond how birds got their wings. Evolutionary psychology, one subfield, tries to understand humanity’s instinctual actions based on a long view that goes back to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. And new moms, one new theory goes, may be hard-wired to go into a mourning period if breastfeeding does not follow delivery of a child.
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The Speedy Evolution of the Fastest People on the Planet
A GIANT, standing more than two metres tall, will eventually smash the nine-second barrier in the 100 metre sprint for men.
Kevin Norton, a professor of exercise science at the University of South Australia, admitted yesterday he may not live to see such a race, but he is sure it will happen, with sprinters growing ever taller and faster.
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Kevin Norton, a professor of exercise science at the University of South Australia, admitted yesterday he may not live to see such a race, but he is sure it will happen, with sprinters growing ever taller and faster.
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Why Humans and Their Fur Parted Ways
One of the most distinctive evolutionary changes as humans parted company from their fellow apes was their loss of body hair. But why and when human body hair disappeared, together with the matter of when people first started to wear clothes, are questions that have long lain beyond the reach of archaeology and paleontology.
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Robots Evolve To Deceive One Another
In a Swiss laboratory, a group of ten robots is competing for food. Prowling around a small arena, the machines are part of an innovative study looking at the evolution of communication, from engineers Sara Mitri and Dario Floreano and evolutionary biologist Laurent Keller.
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Blue Brain Project
The Blue Brain Project is the first comprehensive attempt to reverse-engineer the mammalian brain, in order to understand brain function and dysfunction through detailed simulations.
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Lucky Sleep Mutants Need Fewer Zzzzzs
No one knows why some lucky folks thrive on five or six hours of sleep per night, while the rest of us suffer if we don’t get eight hours of shut-eye. But now scientists have discovered a genetic mutation that could be responsible for the eternal perkiness of short-sleepers.
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Survey: School Instruction On Human Evolution 'Abysmal'
More state school standards include evolution, finds a nationwide report card, but coverage of human evolution is "abysmal."
Nationwide, 40 states receive passing grades, compared to 31 in 2000, finds the Evolution Outreach & Education journal report led by Louise Mead of the National Center for Science Education in Berkeley, Calif. But only 7 states adequately cover human evolution, the survey finds.
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Nationwide, 40 states receive passing grades, compared to 31 in 2000, finds the Evolution Outreach & Education journal report led by Louise Mead of the National Center for Science Education in Berkeley, Calif. But only 7 states adequately cover human evolution, the survey finds.
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Evolving A.D.: After Darwin, Science Exploded
In the 150 years since Charles Darwin's landmark book, the knowledge that species evolved through natural selection has opened the door to tremendous advances in science. University of Arkansas professors discuss evolution in a variety of fields.
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Dolphin Speak Relies on Brevity
Among the words we use most often, short ones like "I," "a" and "the" top the list. It turns out we're not the only ones who strive for this type of efficiency in the way we communicate. Dolphins, found a new study, do it, too.
It's the first evidence that another species follows one of the basic rules that defines all human languages: the law of brevity.
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It's the first evidence that another species follows one of the basic rules that defines all human languages: the law of brevity.
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Mosquitoes Hitch Ride on Planes, Threaten Galapagos
Mosquitoes are riding airplanes to the Galapagos Islands from the South American mainland, threatening to bring new illnesses to an archipelago whose unique wildlife inspired Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
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Chicago Scientist Finds Evidence of High-Speed Evolution
Evolution takes place over long stretches of time: millennia and epochs. But some new research shows that animals may be changing much faster than nearly anyone thought. And those changes seem to be linked to humans.
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Evolution Pulls Another Surprise
The gigantic ocean-dwelling whale may have evolved from a land animal the size of a small raccoon, new research suggests.
What might be the missing evolutionary link between whales and land animals is an odd animal that looks like a long-tailed deer without antlers or an overgrown long-legged rat, fossils indicate.
The creature is called Indohyus, and recently unearthed fossils reveal some crucial evolutionary similarities between it and water-dwelling cetaceans, such as whales, dolphins and porpoises.
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What might be the missing evolutionary link between whales and land animals is an odd animal that looks like a long-tailed deer without antlers or an overgrown long-legged rat, fossils indicate.
The creature is called Indohyus, and recently unearthed fossils reveal some crucial evolutionary similarities between it and water-dwelling cetaceans, such as whales, dolphins and porpoises.
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Extinction Hits 'Whole Families'
Whole "chunks of life" are lost in extinction events, as related species vanish together, say scientists.
A study in the journal Science shows that extinctions tend to "cluster" on evolutionary lineages - wiping out species with a common ancestor.
The finding is based on an examination of past extinctions, but could help current conservation efforts.
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A study in the journal Science shows that extinctions tend to "cluster" on evolutionary lineages - wiping out species with a common ancestor.
The finding is based on an examination of past extinctions, but could help current conservation efforts.
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Humanity’s Upright Gait May Have Roots In Trees
Gorillas' wrist bones, shown at right, form a column, illustrated in center drawing, that supports a distinctive mode of knuckle-walking, a new study suggests. Chimps' wrist bones, illustrated at left, allow for bent wrists better suited for tree climbing.
Chimpanzees don’t knuckle under like gorillas, and that may explain how people ended up walking on two legs, a new study suggests.
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Chimpanzees don’t knuckle under like gorillas, and that may explain how people ended up walking on two legs, a new study suggests.
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‘The Wilderness Warrior’
Chapter One: The Education of a Darwinian Naturalist
At a very early age, Theodore Roosevelt started studying the anatomy of more than 600 species of birds in North America. You might say that his natural affinity for ornithology was part of his metabolism. As a child Roosevelt became a skilled field birder, acquiring a fine taxidermy collection while recording firsthand observations in notebooks now housed at Harvard University. And it wasn't just birds.
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At a very early age, Theodore Roosevelt started studying the anatomy of more than 600 species of birds in North America. You might say that his natural affinity for ornithology was part of his metabolism. As a child Roosevelt became a skilled field birder, acquiring a fine taxidermy collection while recording firsthand observations in notebooks now housed at Harvard University. And it wasn't just birds.
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10 Things We Don't Understand About Humans
We belong to a remarkably quirky species. Despite our best efforts, some of our strangest foibles still defy explanation
But as science probes deeper into these eccentricities, it is becoming clear that behaviours and attributes that seem frivolous at first glance often go to the heart of what it means to be human.
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But as science probes deeper into these eccentricities, it is becoming clear that behaviours and attributes that seem frivolous at first glance often go to the heart of what it means to be human.
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Creation Museum: Is This How World Began?
Exhibits in the Creation Museum, which cost $27 million to build and opened in May, 2007, present a history of the world based on literal interpretations of the Book of Genesis. Adam and Eve share the Garden of Eden with dinosaurs; the beaks of Darwin's finches are explained by God's will, not evolution; and mankind spread from continent to continent by walking across the floating trunks of trees knocked down during the Biblical Flood.
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P.S. - Silly Creationists!
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P.S. - Silly Creationists!
Scientists Find Early Evolution Maximized The 'Spellchecking' Of Protein Sequences
As letters of the alphabet spell out words, when amino acids are linked to one another in a particular order they "spell out" proteins. But sometimes the cell machinery for building proteins in our bodies makes a mistake and the wrong amino acid is inserted. The consequences can be devastating, resulting in a garbled protein that no longer has the correct function, possibly leading to cancers and other diseases.
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Forced Evolution
According to the University, a film of natural geobacter sulfurreducens strain DL-1 can produce 1.4A/m2 and 0.5 W/m2 in a fuel cell.
By culturing DL-1 in a graphite electrode at -400mV (against Ag/AgCl) for five months, selective pressure produced a strain that the University claims can produce densities of 7.6A/m2 and 3.9W/m2.
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By culturing DL-1 in a graphite electrode at -400mV (against Ag/AgCl) for five months, selective pressure produced a strain that the University claims can produce densities of 7.6A/m2 and 3.9W/m2.
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Raindrops Drive Flower Evolution
A study of 80 species has revealed that flowers evolve different shapes and structures in part to prevent their pollen getting wet.
Other flowers get round the problem by evolving waterproof pollen.
The finding may help explain why so many species in rainy areas either have droopy flowers or close their petals.
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Other flowers get round the problem by evolving waterproof pollen.
The finding may help explain why so many species in rainy areas either have droopy flowers or close their petals.
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Chicken-Hearted Tyrants
Dr. Oliver Rauhut, paleontologist at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich, and his collegue Dr. David Hone surmise that giant carnivores like Tyrannosaurus preyed mainly on juvenile dinosaurs.
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Holy Text Quote of the Day #17
"Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses." -Ezekiel 23:19-20
Médecins Sans Frontières
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an independent humanitarian medical aid organisation. We are committed to providing medical aid where it is most needed, regardless of race, religion, politics or gender and also to raising awareness of the plight of the people we help.
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The Burgess Shale: Evolution's Big Bang
The fossil-hunting expedition began with a lung-busting hike, accompanied by an incessant ring-ding-ting-clank-clank-ring-ting-ding-clank. The soundtrack came courtesy of an anti-bear bell attached to the backpack of the group's leader, Jean-Bernard Caron, a curator of invertebrate paleontology at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum. After four hours of hiking up switchbacks through an evergreen forest deep in the Canadian Rockies, Caron suddenly took off like a mountain goat. As the others caught their breath, he zipped his way across loose and jagged rock up the final ascent. Eventually the team reunited at the top of the cliff and collapsed, surveying the view over the Burgess Shale.
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'Jumping Genes' May be Key to Our Individuality
The human brain contains unexpectedly high numbers of so-called "mobile elements" or "jumping genes" - small pieces of DNA that copy and paste themselves into different regions of the genetic code, US scientists discovered.
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Men Spend a Year Staring at Women
The average man will spend almost 43 minutes a day staring at 10 different women.
That adds up to 259 hours - almost 11 days - each year, making a total 11 months and 11 days between the ages of 18 and 50.
But researchers found that the males of the species are not the only ones admiring the opposite sex as women sneak a peek at six men for just over 20 minutes a day, on average.
That adds up to almost six months spent admiring men from afar between the ages of 18 and 50.
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That adds up to 259 hours - almost 11 days - each year, making a total 11 months and 11 days between the ages of 18 and 50.
But researchers found that the males of the species are not the only ones admiring the opposite sex as women sneak a peek at six men for just over 20 minutes a day, on average.
That adds up to almost six months spent admiring men from afar between the ages of 18 and 50.
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Can Culture Be Encoded in DNA? New Research Says "Yes"
Tetris The "Nature versus Nurture" debate just got more complicated. (Well, even more complicated than the original "If you really think you can reduce all of biology to such a simplistic division you're missing pretty much every point involved" complication.) Birds have been observed reconstructing cultural information in complete isolation, meaning that culture can be genetically encoded.
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Extinct Walking Bat Found; Upends Evolutionary Theory
But the discovery of fossils of a now extinct walking bat in northwestern Queensland, Australia, suggests that the modern-day bats descended from 20-million-year-old Australian relatives.
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Birds and Parasites Locked in 'Evolutionary Battle'
A new investigation revealed that 99% of all Eastern bluebirds surveyed in Virginia, the United States, were infected with various feather-eating parasites, which adversely affected their quality of life, as well as their ability to mate and give birth to offspring. The bugs have a considerable influence on the way the birds look and feel, and can even make them sick with relative ease, the BBC News informs. “Feather-degrading bacteria are relatively new to ornithologists. The first report of their occurrence on wild birds was published only ten years ago,” Duke University expert Alex Gunderson says.
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Why Jews Can't Believe in Jesus
In an old Jews for Jesus brochure I saved from my college days, there is a section that quotes several Biblical verses which they say foretell the life of Christ. One of these is Psalms 22:16, which they translate as "They pierced my hands and feet." This supposedly foretells the crucifixion of Jesus where his hands and feet were pierced by the nails that hung him to the cross. One problem, it doesn't work in Hebrew.
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In the Book of Deuteronomy G-d tells us that He has given us the complete Torah and that, "Lo bashamayim hee" (It shall not come from Heaven), there would be no further revelations related to the Law or amendments to the Contract. Deut. 30:12. See also Deut. 4:2 ("Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your G-d which I command you.")
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As every Jewish child learns, "Shema Yisroel, HaShem Elokeynu, HaShem Echad" ("Hear or Israel, the Lord is G-d, the Lord is One"). Deut. 6:4. This is a very simple and fundamental concept. G-d is One.
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In the Book of Deuteronomy G-d tells us that He has given us the complete Torah and that, "Lo bashamayim hee" (It shall not come from Heaven), there would be no further revelations related to the Law or amendments to the Contract. Deut. 30:12. See also Deut. 4:2 ("Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your G-d which I command you.")
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As every Jewish child learns, "Shema Yisroel, HaShem Elokeynu, HaShem Echad" ("Hear or Israel, the Lord is G-d, the Lord is One"). Deut. 6:4. This is a very simple and fundamental concept. G-d is One.
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Sources:
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1. Rylands Library Papyrus P52
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rylands_...
2. Codex Sinaiticus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Si...
3. List of New Testament papyri
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclope...
4. List of New Testament uncials
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclope...
5. List of New Testament miniscules
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclope...
6. The Qur'anic Manuscripts In Museums, Institutes, Libraries & Collections
http://www.quran.org.uk/out.php?LinkI...
Bizarre Walking Bat Has Ancient Heritage
A bizarre New Zealand bat that is as much at home walking four-legged on the ground as winging through the air had an Australian ancestor 20 million years ago with the same rare ability, a new study has found.
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The Great Unicorn Hunt
One of the most popular exercises is the invisible unicorn challenge. The children are told there are two invisible unicorns who live at Camp Quest but that they cannot be seen, heard, felt or smelt, and do not leave a trace. A book about them has been handed down through the ages but it is too precious for anyone to see.
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Human Population Expanded During Late Stone Age
Genetic evidence is revealing that human populations began to expand in size in Africa during the Late Stone Age approximately 40,000 years ago. A research team led by Michael F. Hammer (Arizona Research Laboratory's Division of Biotechnology at the University of Arizona) found that sub-Saharan populations increased in size well before the development of agriculture. This research supports the hypothesis that population growth played a significant role in the evolution of human cultures in the Late Pleistocene.
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New Creatures in an Age of Extinctions
In the inner precincts of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, along a corridor that could easily accommodate a string of bowling alleys, Kristofer M. Helgen, curator of mammals, pulled open one of the thousands of metal cabinets stacked against the walls and gestured grandly at the contents. Inside was a tray of a dozen dried rodents, chestnut-furred and with tails neatly extended, like campfire wieners on sticks.
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Mammals Beat Reptiles in Battle of Evolution
Mammals, birds and fish are among evolution’s "winners," while crocodiles and other reptiles have ended up on the losing end, a new study suggests.
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The Evolution of Religion
Did humans evolve to be religious and believe in God? In the most general sense, yes, we did.
Here's what happened.
Here's what happened.
Spider Monkeys Invent Medicated Body Scratcher
Wild spider monkeys now have a new tool under their proverbial belt: a body scratcher that may release medicinal compounds, according to a study published in the latest issue of the journal Primates.
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Lamar Sells Billboards to Hookers But Not to Atheists
Lamar Advertising sold a billboard to escort service MyPlayBunny.com in Rio Grande Valley, Texas, after refusing to take the money of an atheist group in Alabama.
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