ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 530

Charon’s Canyon-Riddled Belt May Have Formed Through Colossal Moon-Wide Cracking

Space





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The equatorial tectonic belt, marked in blue, on the enigmatic moon of Charon. NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

Thanks to New Horizon’s epic jaunt to the ends of the Solar System, new discoveries about Pluto are seemingly endless. A new study eschews this trend and instead shines some light on Charon, one of its five moons. As the preprint on arXiv reveals, the enormous network of canyons that mark its equatorial region may have been formed by a gargantuan double-whammy of contraction that spanned the entire moon.

Chimpanzee Parasites Allow Researchers To Delve Into The Evolutionary History Of Malaria

Health and Medicine





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Chimps are infected with three species of Plasmodium parasites, the same group that caused human malaria. Sesh Sundararaman/University of Pennsylvania

While causing an estimated 214 million cases of malaria every year, the parasite Plasmodium falciparum is thought to have killed 438,000 people in 2015. But the parasite is just one of a few different species of Plasmodium, and so identifying what makes P. falciparum particularly deadly is a little hard to discern.

Giant Panda Mating Calls May Be Drowned Out By Man-Made Noise Pollution

Plants and Animals





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Giant pandas use vocalizations to coordinate mating behavior. Hung Chung Chih/Shutterstock

Given that giant pandas are notoriously unprolific at reproducing, the last thing that conservationists want is for the bears’ mating capability to be compromised by human activities. In an attempt to learn more about how best to avoid disturbing pandas’ social interactions, researchers from the Zoological Society of San Diego have been investigating the range of their hearing capacity.

North Carolina’s New Anti-LGBTQ Law Is Vicious, Shameful, and Unconstitutional

Photo credit: North Carolina Department of Transportation/Flickr

By Mark Joseph Stern

On Wednesday night, in the course of just a few hours, North Carolina became the most anti-LGBTQ state in the country.

In a special session called for exactly this purpose—and which cost taxpayers $42,000 a day—the legislature passed a stunningly vicious, completely unprecedented bill stripping LGBTQ North Carolinians of their rights. The measure revokes local gay and trans nondiscrimination ordinances throughout the state, effectively legalizing anti-LGBTQ discrimination, and forbids trans people from using the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity. That includes trans public school students, many of whom will now, in effect, be barred from using the bathroom at school.

Shortly after the legislature passed the bill—over the objections of every Senate Democrat, all of whom walked out of the chamber in protest—Republican Gov. Pat McCrory signed it into law. Explaining that he was eager to nullify Charlotte’s new LGBT nondiscrimination measure, McCrory wrote, “The basic expectation of privacy in the most personal of settings, a restroom or locker room, for each gender was violated by government overreach and intrusion by the mayor and city council of Charlotte.”

McCrory should know something about government overreach. The gallingly cruel bill he just signed doesn’t just transgress basic norms of decency and morality. It also violates federal law and the U.S. Constitution.

As interpreted by the Department of Education, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 forbids discrimination against trans students in any school that receives federal funding. These schools are prohibited from excluding trans students from the bathroom consistent with their gender identity. The new North Carolina law, dubbed H2, rebukes this federal mandate by forbidding public schools from allowing trans students to use the correct bathroom. That jeopardizes the more than $4.5 billion in federal education funding that North Carolina expected to receive in 2016. Without that money, many schools in the state—from kindergarten through college—will be unable to function. McCrory should prepare to explain to North Carolina parents why their children’s access to education is less important than degrading and demeaning trans students on account of their identity.

HB 2 is also unconstitutional—not maybe unconstitutional, or unconstitutional-before-the-right-judge, but in total contravention of established Supreme Court precedent. In fact, the court dealt with a very similar law in 1996’s Romer v. Evans, when it invalidated a Colorado measure that forbade municipalities from passing gay nondiscrimination ordinances. As the court explained in Romer, the Equal Protection Clause forbids a state from “singl[ing] out a certain class of citizens” and “impos[ing] a special disability upon those persons alone.” Such a law is “inexplicable by anything but animus toward the class it affects,” and under the 14th Amendment, “animosity” toward a “politically unpopular group” is not a “proper legislative end.” Just like the law invalidated in Romer, HB 2 “identifies persons by a single trait”—gay or trans identity—“and then denies them protection across the board.” The Equal Protection Clause cannot tolerate this “bare desire to harm” minorities.

Source: Slate

New Candidate Particles For Dark Matter Are So Dense They Are Almost Miniature Black Holes

Physics





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They have the mass of 10 billion billion protons. Jurik Peter/Shutterstock

Dark matter comprises up to five-sixths of the total matter in the universe, binding much of it together. Despite its commonality, the physical nature of dark matter, as of 2016, remains elusive, with its dramatic effects only indirectly seen.

This Amazing Gravity Map Of Mars Is The Most Precise Ever

Space





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The map shows regions of high (red/white) and low (blue) gravity. MIT/UMBC-CRESST/GSFC

Scientists have used a rather ingenious method to measure gravity on Mars more precisely than ever before. Using small perturbations in the positions of orbiting spacecraft, they have been able to map out regions of high and low gravity on the surface, published in the journal Icarus.

An Exceptionally Bright Jupiter Will Be Visible Tonight Alongside A Lunar Eclipse

Space





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NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

This Wednesday will be a busy day for astronomers and stargazers.

Early risers on March 23 in areas of North America, Asia, and the Pacific Ocean will be treated to a penumbral lunar eclipse. By pure coincidence, the week’s sky will also be graced with an exceptionally bright Jupiter next to the Moon.   

New Beetle Moms Release Anti-Aphrodisiac To Repel Mating Attempts

Plants and Animals





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A burying beetle mother feeding one of her offspring on the carcass of a mouse. Heiko Bellmann

Right after her eggs hatch, a female burying beetle undergoes a temporary period of infertility, and she releases an anti-aphrodisiac hormone that signals this status to her male partner. That way, the pair work on taking care of their needy new offspring, rather than try to create more, according to findings published in Nature Communications this week. 

These Are The Areas Of The USA In Most Danger From The Zika Virus

Health and Medicine





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The Aedes aegypti mosquito is the primary vector for the virus. Tacio Philip Sansonovski/Shutterstock

The Zika virus continues to spread across the world, and medical researchers are understandably alarmed. There is strong evidence, increasing by the day, that the Zika virus is causing babies to be born with abnormally shrunken heads, called microcephaly.

The Internet Is Hilariously Renaming Animals In The Spirit Of Boaty McBoatface

Plants and Animals





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Screenshot via @WHAPA/Twitter

The Internet is notoriously amazing/horrible at naming things. Just look at the recent online poll that might end with a multi-million dollar Antarctic research ship named “.”