ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 305

Artificial Chameleon Skin Is Weird and Cool

By Rafi Letzter

A team of chemists has created a substance that can change its color and stiffness, which they’re comparing to chameleon skin.

The stretchy material is made up of strands of copolymers — complex, self-assembling large molecules that in this case are shaped like long dumbbells, with spherical bulges on each end. The way those copolymers react to mechanical stress allows them to vary their stiffness and color, the researchers wrote in a paper published Friday (March 30) in the journal Science.

Like a chameleon, the substance doesn’t undergo any chemical changes when it changes color. Instead, those tiny bulges at the ends of the copolymers move closer together or farther apart, changing how they interact with light.

When the long copolymers weave together in cross-linked structures, the researchers wrote, they can “display vibrant color, extreme softness, and intense strain stiffening on par with that of skin tissue.

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David Barton: Church/State Separation Means Christians Shouldn’t Pay Taxes

By Hemant Mehta

It’s pretty easy to find examples of how Christian pseudo-historian David Barton doesn’t understand history. Or math. Or the Constitution. Or how to earn a Ph.D.

He doesn’t understand separation of church and state, either, because he claimed on his “WallBuilders Live” radio show on Friday that the concept ought to mean Christians shouldn’t have to pay taxes.

“If [supporters of church/state separation] really believe that, why do they take tax money from people who go to church?” Barton asked. “People who go to church shouldn’t have to be required to put tax money into the state if there is a separation of church and state. Religion is funding the state, so how come they don’t argue that?”

“They are saying I can’t take my kids and take them out of state education because that is religious,” he added. “If they think I’m religious, why would they take my tax dollars and put it into the state?”

How the hell is Barton the Christian Right’s “smart” guy…?

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OPEN DISCUSSION – APRIL 2018

This thread has been created for open discussion on themes relevant to Reason and Science for which there are not currently any dedicated threads.

Please note it is NOT for general chat, and that all Terms of Use apply as usual.

If you would like to refer back to previous open discussion threads, the three most recent ones can be accessed via the links below (but please continue any discussions from them here rather than on the original threads):

OPEN DISCUSSION – JANUARY 2018

OPEN DISCUSSION – FEBRUARY 2018

OPEN DISCUSSION – MARCH 2018

Scientists say we’re on the cusp of a carbon dioxide–recycling revolution

By Matt Warren

Every year, the billions of metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) we release into the atmosphere add to the growing threat of climate change. But what if we could simply recycle all that wasted CO2and turn it into something useful?

By adding electricity, water, and a variety of catalysts, scientists can reduce CO2 into short molecules such as carbon monoxide and methane, which they can then combine to form more complex hydrocarbon fuels like butane. Now, researchers think we could be on the cusp of a CO2-recycling revolution, which would capture CO2 from power plants—and maybe even directly from the atmosphere—and convert it into these fuels at scale, they report today in Joule.

Science talked with one of the study’s authors, materials scientists and graduate student Phil De Luna at the University of Toronto in Canada, about how CO2 recycling works—and what the future holds for these technologies. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

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We Should Be Concerned About Trump’s Latest Pick to Lead the CDC

By Lisa Needham

The Trump administration  virologist Robert Redfield to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—yet another in a long line of inexperienced, dangerous picks. And, worse still, the position doesn’t require confirmation by the U.S. Senate, so there’s no opportunity for a public discussion.

The previous head of the CDC, Brenda Fitzgerald, was found to have invested in tobacco stocks, an odd choice for someone who is supposed to be dedicated to anti-smoking efforts. And at first glance, Redfield doesn’t seem so bad. He’s a virologist  at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He’s done AIDS research for several decades now and heads up programs providing HIV care. But dig a little deeper into his past, and things get very bad, very fast.

Though he has very minimal experience in the administration of public health policy, this isn’t the first time Redfield has helped shape the government’s stance on HIV and AIDS. Under George W. Bush, Redfield was named to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA). Back then, he was promoting a long-discredited theory that abstinence-only education was the best way to combat the spread of the disease.

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To No One’s Surprise, the Museum of the Bible is Full of Misleading Exhibits

By Hemant Mehta

Even though the new Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. claims to be “nonsectarian,” it promotes a very clear Protestant view of the Bible. The writer Katherine Stewart called it a “safe space for Christian nationalists.”

But the people running the place have always insisted this is a museum, not a church. They may hope people come to Christ as a result of their visit, but the goal is to showcase the history of the Bible, good and bad.

You would think, then, that the exhibits in the place would at least be accurate from a historical point of view.

But the Freedom From Religion Foundation says that’s not the case at all. In a letter sent by the group to the museum’s Executive Director Dr. Tony Zeiss today, they point out a number of major inaccuracies in the exhibits.

Like on the second floor, where the museum showcases the “Impact of the Bible,” there’s a ride called “Washington Revelations” where you’re given a “tour” of D.C., “stopping by” several landmarks that have been influenced by the Bible or include biblical references.

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Pakistani court ruling aims to publicly identify all religious minorities

By Naila Inayat

LAHORE, Pakistan (RNS) – A high court in majority-Muslim Pakistan has ruled that citizens must declare their religious affiliation before joining the civil service, military or judiciary. All birth certificates, identity cards, passports and voting lists must also indicate the person’s faith.

The judgment, a victory for hard-line clerics pressuring the state to single out minorities in their midst, adds that all Muslim candidates for national or provincial assemblies must swear that Islam’s Prophet Muhammad was the last of God’s prophets.

This has spread fear among Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and other religious minorities already under pressure in the South Asian nation. Ahmadis, who believe another Muslim prophet came after Muhammad, feel especially targeted because they could not take the parliamentary oath.

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NASA’s new satellite brings the search for Earthlike exoplanets closer to home

By Daniel Clery

Thanks to NASA’s pioneering Kepler probe, we know our galaxy is teeming with exoplanets. Now, a new generation of exoplanet hunters is set to home in on rocky worlds closer to home.

Over 9 years in space, Kepler has found more than 2600 confirmed exoplanets, implying hundreds of billions in the Milky Way. The new efforts sacrifice sheer numbers and target Earth-size planets whose composition, atmosphere, and climate—factors in whether they might be hospitable to life—could be studied. Leading the charge is the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a NASA mission due for launch on 16 April.

The brainchild of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, the $337 million TESS project aims to identify at least 50 rocky exoplanets—Earth-size or bigger—close enough for their atmospheres to be scrutinized by the much larger James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), due for launch in 2020. “Where do we point Webb?” TESS Principal Investigator George Ricker asked rhetorically at the American Astronomical Society annual meeting at National Harbor in Maryland in January. “This is the finder scope.”

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Beguiling dark-matter signal persists 20 years on

By Davide Castelvecchi

A group of physicists says that it is still detecting the presence of dark matter — the mystery substance thought to make up 85% of matter in the Universe — 20 years after it saw the first hints of such a signal.

DAMA, a collaboration of Italian and Chinese researchers, has announced long-awaited results from six years of data-taking, which followed an upgrade to the experiment in 2010. The findings are a boost for the multiple groups attempting to reproduce DAMA’s results, which have been controversial and contradict those of other experiments. But DAMA’s improved sensitivity also makes its results harder to explain, physicists say.

Observations of galaxies and of the Universe’s primordial radiation imply that the vast majority of matter is of a type that is invisible and interacts almost exclusively through gravity. Many theories exist for explaining the nature of this dark matter, and lots of experiments have been attempting to detect it via subtle interactions with ordinary matter.

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Here’s why atheists have to fight for their rights

By Greta Christina

“You atheists are just taking on the mantle of victimhood. There are laws protecting you — especially the First Amendment. Therefore, you’re not really discriminated against. And it’s ridiculous for you to claim that you are.”

Atheist activists get this one a lot. When we speak out about ways that anti-atheist bigotry plays out, we’re told that we’re not really oppressed. We’re told that, because we have legal protection, because anti-atheist discrimination is illegal, therefore we don’t really have any problems, and we’re just trying to gain unearned sympathy and win the victim Olympics. (I’d love to hear Bob Costas do the commentary for that!) It’s a classic Catch-22: If we speak out about oppression and point to examples of it, we’re accused of “playing the victim card,” and the oppression becomes invisible. And if we don’t speak out about oppression … then the oppression once again becomes invisible.

If you’ve ever made this “discrimination against atheists is against the law” argument, I have some really bad news for you. You may want to sit down for this, it may come as a shock:

People sometimes break the law.

Theft is against the law — but people sometimes steal. Bribery is against the law — but people sometimes bribe other people. Arson is against the law — but people sometimes set buildings on fire.

Anti-atheist discrimination is against the law; in the United States, anyway. But people still sometimes discriminate against atheists.

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