ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 212

The CRISPR-baby scandal: what’s next for human gene-editing

By David Cyranoski In the three months since He Jiankui announced the birth of twin girls with edited genomes, the questions facing the scientific community have grown knottier. By engineering mutations into human embryos, which were then used to produce babies, He leapt capriciously into an era in which science could rewrite the gene pool …

Five times guilty: how George Pell’s child-abusing past caught up with him in courtroom 4.3

By Melissa Davey It was at 3.45pm on Tuesday 11 December that Cardinal George Pell, one of Pope Francis’s most trusted officials and the third most senior Catholic in the world, found out that he would, in all likelihood, be going to jail. Room 4.3 at the county court in Melbourne was silent as the jury foreman …

In Bladensburg Peace Cross case, Supreme Court’s Elena Kagan could have pivotal role

By Robert Barnes Justice Elena Kagan has emerged as one of the Supreme Court’s most powerful voices on the separation of church and state, often rebuking conservative colleagues for allowing government actions that she says favor one religion over another. But the last time the justices considered the fate of a cross constructed on public …

Trump Administration Releases Final Text of Domestic ‘Gag Rule’ Restriction on Title X

By Katelyn Burns The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released the final version of its new regulations for Title X programs, which will ban federal family planning funds from going to health providers who perform or refer patients for abortion services. This amounts to a domestic “gag rule,” reproductive rights advocates say. The …

Trump admin files more briefs in religious liberty cases than Obama, Bush

By Adiel Kaplan, David Mora, Maya Miller, and Andrew R. Calderon When a small South Carolina town decided against renting its civic center to a Baptist church, town officials did not expect a confrontation with the Trump administration. Edisto Beach, a vacation community with a year-round population of 600, leased its civic center twice last …

Trump’s next pick for U.N. ambassador is a major GOP donor who believes ‘both sides’ of climate debate

By Philip Rucker and Anne Gearan President Donald Trump announced Friday evening that he will nominate Kelly Knight Craft, the U.S. ambassador to Canada and a major Republican donor, to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Craft is set to succeed Nikki Haley, pending Senate confirmation, and is Trump’s second pick to replace Haley, who left the U.N. post …

At Vatican summit, Pope Francis calls for ‘all-out battle’ against sexual abuse but is short on specifics

By Chico Harlan and Michelle Boorstein VATICAN CITY — For four days, some of the world’s highest-ranking Catholics listened to speeches about the “outrage of the people” and the imperative of action. They heard testimony from abuse victims, including one who movingly played the violin. And on Sunday, they gathered in a frescoed Vatican hall, where …

In Search of Life’s Origins, Japan’s Hayabusa 2 Spacecraft Lands on an Asteroid

By Jonathan O’Callaghan Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft has successfully landed on the surface of the asteroid Ryugu, a historic moment in space exploration that could provide fascinating details on the origins of life on Earth. At 7:49 am local time in Japan the spacecraft touched down on Ryugu, having descended from a stable orbit about 20 …

Four new DNA letters double life’s alphabet

By Matthew Warren The DNA of life on Earth naturally stores its information in just four key chemicals — guanine, cytosine, adenine and thymine, commonly referred to as G, C, A and T, respectively. Now scientists have doubled this number of life’s building blocks, creating for the first time a synthetic, eight-letter genetic language that …

Secret Video Shows Kentucky Biology Teacher Promoting Christianity to Students

By Hemant Mehta A high school pre-AP Biology teacher in Kentucky has been accused of promoting Christianity in the classroom, and you don’t have to take my word for it, because there’s video evidence. Where there are apparently multiple instances of this happening, one particular incident was caught on tape. It began when the teacher …