ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 186

Study: It’s easier to be a ‘none’ in Canada than in the US

By John Longhurst Nearly a quarter of Canadians today say they have no religious affiliation — about the same as in the U.S. But a forthcoming book by two Canadian researchers says that it is easier to be a “none” in Canada. “It’s more normal in Canada to say you have no religion,” said Sarah …

IL Megachurch Founder Accused of Wanting to Hire Hitman to Murder Son-in-Law

By Hemant Mehta A megachurch pastor allegedly asked his personal bodyguard to murder his former son-in-law during a motorcycle trip to the Creation Museum. That’s both a winning Fundamentalist Christian Bingo card and the allegation made by the bodyguard, Emmanuel “Manny” Bucur, against the founder of Illinois’ Harvest Bible Chapel church, James MacDonald. MacDonald was a prominent preacher, …

‘Earthworm Dilemma’ Has Climate Scientists Racing to Keep Up

By Alanna Mitchell Cindy Shaw, a carbon-research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service, studies the boreal forest — the world’s most northerly forest, which circles the top of the globe like a ring of hair around a balding head. A few years ago, while conducting a study in northern Alberta to see how the forest floor was …

China set to introduce gene-editing regulation following CRISPR-baby furore

By Nature.com China is poised to introduce a new regulation on gene editing in humans. A draft of the country’s new civil code lists human genes and embryos in a section on personality rights to be protected. Experiments on genes in adults or embryos that endanger human health or violate ethical norms can accordingly be …

The “Save Chick-fil-A” Bill in Texas Is So Much Worse Than People Think

By Hemant Mehta The Texas State Senate just passed a bill, SB 1978, that is better known as the “Save Chick-fil-A” bill. On the surface, the bill would prohibit cities from taking “adverse actions” against companies based on their owners’ religious beliefs. It was proposed after San Antonio City Council members rejected a slate of new restaurants …

Scientists Create E. Coli With Entirely Synthetic Genome

By Ryan F. Mandelbaum Scientists created a variant of the E. coli bacteria with an entirely synthetic genome, according to a new paper. Building and replacing the large entire genome yet was just one goal of the team from the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. They hoped that the resulting bacteria would …

Octopuses May Go Blind As Climate Change Sucks Oxygen Out of the Ocean

By Brandon Specktor Turning light particles into visual information is hard work, and your body relies on oxygen to get the job done. This is true whether you walk the land on two limbs or swim through the sea with eight. In fact, according to a recent study in the Journal of Experimental Biology, the amount of oxygen …

Missouri Republicans Rush to Criminalize Abortion Care

By Auditi Guha Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) praised Alabama Republicans’ passage of the country’s most restrictive abortion ban and said that he would sign a Missouri bill placing draconian new limits on abortion. The anti-choice omnibus bill, known as the “Missouri Stands for the Unborn Act,” contains a cascade of abortion bans at various …

Support for Same-Sex Marriage is Highest Among the Non-Religious. (As Usual.)

By Hemant Mehta According to a new survey from the Pew Research Center, the majority of Americans (61%) support same-sex marriage and the number remains virtually unchanged from 2017. That’s not too surprising — more people have accepted it as a reality and the issue hasn’t changed much over the past two years — but what’s …

Could a Single Live Vaccine Protect against a Multitude of Diseases?

By Melinda Wenner Moyer The heat of the sun, a blazing basketball in the West African sky, was softened by a breeze one afternoon last spring. Every so often the wind whisked a mango off a tree branch and dropped it with a thud on the corrugated iron roof that covered the health center in …