ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 223

Faith on the Hill

By the Pew Research Center The new, 116th Congress includes the first two Muslim women ever to serve in the House of Representatives, and is, overall, slightly more religiously diverse than the prior Congress.1 There has been a 3-percentage-point decline in the share of members of Congress who identify as Christian – in the 115th …

Astronomers Glimpse a Luminous Object Born From a Star’s Death

By Marina Koren Working the night shift can be pretty boring, even if you’re a telescope. You stare at the same section of sky for hours. Every night, you take in light from the same distant points in the abyss. There’s that asteroid you observed last night, and the night before that, and before that. …

Earth’s Magnetic Pole Is Wandering, Lurching Toward Siberia

By Laura Geggel Earth’s north magnetic pole is on the move, unpredictably lurching away from the Canadian Arctic and toward Siberia. It’s wandered so much, that the current representation of the entire globe’s magnetic field, just updated in 2015, is now out of date. And so, geologists have come up with a new model. This …

‘In God We Trust’ – the bills Christian nationalists hope will ‘protect religious freedom’

By David Taylor Christian hardliners on the religious right have introduced new bills to impose their values in at least six American states in the opening days of 2019. The early legal moves have been tracked from Alaska to Florida as mostly Republican legislators make use of off-the-shelf ‘model bills’ generated by Christian nationalists in …

Rep. Jamie Raskin: The Republican Party Is “Now Operating Like a Religious Cult”

By Hemant Mehta Earlier this week, as the new Congress was sworn into office, the Congressional Freethought Caucus hosted a reception for members. There are currently 10 members of the House in the CFC, though hopefully more will join soon. Rep. Jamie Raskin, one of the co-chairs of the CFC along with Rep. Jared Huffman and Rep. Jerry McNerney, gave …

Oceans Heating Up 40 Percent Faster Than Thought, 2018 Expected To See Record Temperatures, Scientists Say

By Kashmira Gander Ocean heating—which could trigger potentially devastating weather events including hurricanes and storms—is happening 40 percent faster than previous thought, scientists have warned. And if nothing is done to slow the warming, sea levels could rise by around 12 inches in addition to that caused by melting ice, said the authors of the …

A Mirror Image of Our Universe May Have Existed Before the Big Bang

By Erik Vance Like a mountain looming over a calm lake, it seems the universe may once have had a perfect mirror image. That’s the conclusion a team of Canadian scientists reached after extrapolating the laws of the universe both before and after the Big Bang. Physicists have a pretty good idea of the structure of …

‘Smiling face’: Saudi teen fleeing family is granted asylum in Canada

By Wilawan Watcharasakwet and Timothy McLaughlin A Saudi woman who fled her family, claiming fear for her life, and used social media to amplify her calls for safe haven was granted asylum by Canada on Friday, an official in Thailand said. The decision to give haven to the 18-year-old Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun capped a nearly …

FL Democrat Introduces Bill Requiring Public High Schools to Offer Bible Classes

By Hemant Mehta Florida State Rep. Kimberly Daniels, a Democrat, has a history of promoting Christianity throuigh the government and looking like a fool in the process. Last year, she condemned witches and warlocks while calling on everyone to pray for Donald Trump. (It didn’t help.) She responded to the Parkland massacre by getting public schools to put up “In …

Atmospheric Mystery on Saturn’s Largest Moon

By Erik Larson Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, is bigger than the planet Mercury and has the thickest atmosphere of any known planetary satellite. Its blanket of gases is incredibly similar in some ways to our own: it is made predominantly of nitrogen, for example, and the surface pressure—roughly 100 times greater than that of Mars …