ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 534
March 19, 2016
Baby Colobus Monkeys Grow Faster To Avoid Being Murdered By Older Males
Photo credit:
A group of colobus monkeys with their gray-coated younglings. Nick Fox/Shutterstock
The natural world is sometimes cruel and heartless, and infanticide isn’t as rare as you might think. Polar bears, for example, sometimes turn on and eat the young cubs of others. Now, a new piece of research has highlighted the plight of young male black-and-white colobus monkeys, who are sometimes hounded and murdered by older males looking to control the reproductive females in the area.
New Massive Stars Spotted by Hubble
Photo credit:
A Hubble Space Telescope image of the R136 super star cluster. HST/NASA/ESA/F. Paresce/R. O'Connell
Most of the biggest and brightest stars we have ever observed are packed in a cluster not even 170,000 light-years away from us. And now, Hubble has spotted even more giant stars in the group.
Iron Age Burial Ground Discovered In Northern England
Photo credit:
One of the many weapons found with the burials, some of which are thought to have been of warriors. Anna Gowthorpe / PA
The remains of over 150 skeletons dating to the Iron Age have been excavated in a small village in northern England. The significant discovery, which dates to around 2,500 years old, was found when a local property developer broke ground to start building houses on the site in the east Yorkshire town of Pocklington. The find is being hailed as one of “international importance,” and one of the most important dating from this period to have been found in the U.K.
New Cases Of Ebola Reported In Guinea
Photo credit:
The outbreak was mainly focused in three countries: Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone (pictured). Corporal Paul Shaw/MOD/Flickr CC BY 2.0
Two months after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Ebola outbreak over, Guinea has just reported that more cases of the disease have been found in the southern region of the country, near where the original outbreak is thought to have started in 2013.
Catholic hospital—in U.S.—risks woman’s life by refusing to terminate her pregnancy
Photo credit: The Irish Times
By Jerry Coyne
Most of you probably remember the tragic and preventable death of Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year old dentist who died in Ireland in 2012, killed by the policies of the Catholic Church.
The story is well known: Halappanavar contracted a serious infection at 17 weeks of pregnancy, one that would kill both her and the fetus if it were not removed. Grania’s post gives more details:
Her husband recounts that repeated requests for termination (in reality, an evacuation of the uterus) were refused because the fetal heartbeat was still present, and they were told, “this is a Catholic country”. She was left with a dilated cervix for three days until the fetal heartbeat ceased. Four days later [Halappanavar] died.
It wasn’t until a year later that it became legal in Ireland to abort a fetus to save the mother’s life!
This almost happened in 2010 in the U.S., to a Michigan resident named Tamisha Means, who now tells her story in The Guardian. Means was 18 weeks pregnant and started to miscarry, but was refused admittance to Mercy Health Muskegon, a Catholic hospital. Bleeding copiously and in terrible pain, Means went back to Mercy (an inappropriate name!) the next day, and was once again refused admission.
The next day she returned to the hospital for the third time, and only then, when she started going into labor on the spot, was she admitted. The baby died, but, no thanks to Mercy, Ms. Means survived. Apparently, doctors could have told her that her child had no chance of survival and terminated her pregnancy, but they didn’t. They withheld crucial information. As Means writes in her article:
Mercy Health Muskegon is a Catholic hospital required to follow policies drafted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. As the Guardian recently reported, they have religious directives that guide their medical treatment and decision-making, which includes prohibiting healthcare workers from administering any treatment or information that could result in pregnancy termination. That includes decisions where the woman’s life is at risk, as mine was, and the baby could not yet live outside of the womb, as mine couldn’t.
I was not seeking to end my pregnancy. I was seeking proper medical care. I didn’t have control over my miscarriage, but the hospital had control over the care I would receive at that devastating time. Instead of acting in my best interest, religious beliefs were used to deny me the right type of medical care.
This is insupportable. As the Guardian reports at the link above, five different women had their lives endangered in a year and a half by Mercy’s refusal to terminate their pregnancies. In all five cases, the babies died. The religious directives governing such cases are ambiguous, and it looks as if Catholic health workers simply make judgment calls.
Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam will fight extradition
Photo credit: DSK/AFP/Getty Images
By Kim Willsher and Jennifer Rankin
Salah Abdeslam, the prime suspect in the Paris attacks, will fight his extradition to France, a legal challenge that could delay his trial over the massacre.
Abdeslam’s lawyer, Sven Mary, said his client had been formally charged in connection with the Paris attacks and was “collaborating” with Belgian investigators but would challenge his extradition to France.
After spending 10 minutes with the suspect, a 26-year-old former tram driver, Mary said: “France has demanded his extradition. I can tell you that we will refuse extradition to France. We will first see whether the European arrest warrant is legal.”
Legal experts cautioned that Abdeslam’s refusal did not mean extradition would fail as under the European arrest warrant anyone who commits a serious offence in the EU can be sent back to face justice in the country where the crime took place.
Florence Rouas-Elbazis, a French lawyer, told Agence France-Presse: “It is not because he refuses that he cannot be handed over, but it could lead to an additional delay.”
Abdeslam was arrested on Friday in the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek where he grew up. He became the most wanted man in Europe after going into hiding shortly after the bombings and shootings in Paris on 13 November that left 130 people dead.
An accomplice arrested with him, believed to be Amine Choukri, has been similarly charged with “terrorist killings and participating in the activities of a terrorist group”.
The French prime minister, Manuel Valls, welcomed Abdeslam’s arrest but said the terror threat remained “very high”. “As high as, if not higher than, we had before 13 November,” Valls added.
“Other networks, other cells, other individuals in France and in Europe are getting organised to prepare new attacks. We must remain mobilised at a national as well as European level.”
Abdeslam was officially charged with “with participation in terrorist murder” and in the activities of a terrorist organisation.
Planned Parenthood defund bill cites dentists as reproductive care alternative
Photo credit: Leah Hogsten/AP
By Jennifer Gerson Uffalussy
A bill passed in the Florida legislature this week would effectively defund Planned Parenthood and other reproductive rights clinics by preventing state agencies from working with any organization that provides abortion care other than that for victims of rape, incest, or if the life of the woman is at risk.
As the bill heads to governor Rick Scott for his signature, several state lawmakers who have insisted that plentiful alternatives exist for reproductive and sexual healthcare have cited a list of health centers that includes dentists, optometrists, and elementary schools.
“I don’t understand how they put this list together,” said Kheyanna Suarez, a student at Florida Atlantic University who first started visiting Planned Parenthood when she was 16. “Were they blind and mashed everything from Google on to one list? A dental office, a Salvation Army, an elementary school – I can’t go and get care at those places. If I have to leave my healthcare up to the places on that list, I am scared. I don’t think an elementary school can prescribe me birth control.”
During the 2 March hearing on the proposal, state lawmaker Lori Berman asked bill co-sponsor Colleen Burton to elaborate on alternative resources for birth control, pap smears, breast exams and other reproductive services.
Burton replied: “We have 52 federally qualified health centers, the counties have health departments, physicians’ offices, independent clinics would be eligible if they applied and met the requirements.”
Berman then asked: “Are some of those FQHCs school board health clinics?”
“Not to my knowledge,” Burton said.
“Are some of those FHCs podiatrists’ offices?” Berman continued.
“Are you asking me if FCHCs are podiatrists’ offices?” Burton responded.
“I have seen the list of the groups,” counters Berman, “And some of those groups include podiatrists, correctional facilities, healthcare, school-based healthcare clinics. So I am just wondering if that is the list you are referring to?”
“No, FQHCs provide family planning services throughout the state of Florida,” said Burton.
“Would it be possible for me to get a copy of the list you’re referring to?” asked Berman.
“Certainly, we’ll ask the staff to provide you with that list,” Burton tells her.
The state list of federally qualified health centers that Berman received the next day includes 67 schools ranging from the elementary to high school level.
During the hearing, the bill’s supporters also repeatedly noted that there are 29 federally funded public health centers for every one Planned Parenthood health center in the state, implying that the defunding of Planned Parenthood would have little impact on patients. The anti-choice Florida Family Policy Council, an affiliate of Focus on the Family, and Americans Defending Freedom repeatedly cited this 29:1 ratio in their lobbying for HB 1411.
“That ratio number is based on this list,” Berman told the Guardian, “which is a fallacious list since many of the providers on that list are in no position to provide women’s healthcare.”
Per data compiled by the Guttmacher Institute, as of 2010, there were 126 federally qualified health centers in the state that provide contraceptive services, relative to 25 Planned Parenthood health centers in receipt of public funds, or approximately five federally funded centers that provide contraceptive care for every one Planned Parenthood health center.
March 18, 2016
What We’re Reading
What is actually going on in classrooms when it comes to climate change? I’m so glad you asked. This week, we recommend NCSE’s own latest report detailing the results of our national survey of middle and high school science teachers. Plus starfish, plus neanderthal sex, plus super clear climate change graphics. And eagles—finally a web site for people who don’t care about March Madness. Enjoy!
Mixed Messages: How Climate Change is Taught in America's Public Schools (PDF), National Center for Science Education, March 2015 — Hey, we’re allowed to read our own publications! And it’s worth reading, since Mixed Messages presents the details of the first rigorous national survey of what and how public school teachers in the United States are teaching about climate change.
The Ecologist Who Threw Starfish, Nautilus, March 10, 2016 — Sean B. Carroll describes “one of the most important experiments in the history of ecology,” in which Robert Paine hurled starfish into a bay. Adapted from Carroll’s book The Serengeti Rules: The Quest to Discover How Life Works And Why It Matters (2016). Hat tip to John Kwok for the link.
Solving the Mystery of the Tully Monster, The Atlantic, March 16, 2016 — What’s a foot long, with eyes on stalks and a jointed proboscis, and is the state fossil of Illinois? For 50 years, no one was quite sure what Tully’s monster—officially known as Tullimonstrum gregarium—actually was. But new research at the Field Museum has finally figured out what the bizarre critter’s relatives are, Ed Yong reports.
Stunning Global Heat Wave Pushes Planet into Uncharted Territory, Bloomberg, March 17, 2016 — Tom Randall puts this year’s extraordinary heat into the perspective of ongoing climate change with excellent animation and quality explanations, all aimed at the business community.
Ancestors of Modern Humans Interbred With Extinct Hominins, Study Finds, The New York Times, March 17, 2016 — It’s amazing what you can discover from ancient hominin DNA, isn’t it? Including the fact, as Carl Zimmer reports, that “[t]he ancestors of modern humans interbred with Neanderthals and another extinct line of humans known as the Denisovans at least four times in the course of prehistory.”
Worst Mediterranean Drought in 900 Years Has Human Fingerprints All Over It, The Guardian, May 18, 2016 — At the Climate Consensus—the 97% blog, John Abraham reports on a new study that used paleoclimatological data to find that “the recent drought in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean is likely worse than any comparable period of the last 900 years.”
Anything Having To Do With the DC Eagles, right now, 2016 — Need a new excuse not to do anything but stare at your computer or phone screens? There is a mated pair of bald eagles at the National Arboretum. Two cameras are primed on the nest as they await the hatching of their two eggs. Baby eaglet #1 hatched out Friday morning, and now all eyes are on egg #2. Warning! Your productivity will crash if you engage. On the plus side, BABY EAGLETS!
Deadly Outbreak In Wisconsin Mystifies Health Officials
Photo credit:
Elizabethkingia is a common bacteria that rarely causes illness. Dr. Saptarshi via Wikimedia Commons
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) has confirmed that 17 people have now died from a bacterial infection that has so far affected 54 patients, yet the source of the outbreak remains unknown. While there is nothing mysterious about the identity of the microbe responsible for the deaths, the extent of the current situation is unprecedented, and massively surpasses all previous outbreaks involving this particular microorganism.
How To Make Your Voice Sound Horrifyingly Demonic
Photo credit:
KIGENTS/YouTube
Everybody knows the end-of-the-night party trick of inhaling a helium balloon to make your voice go squeaky and high. But did you know it is possible to do the opposite with another type of gas?
This video with Mythbuster’s Adam Savage from 2008 shows the effects of inhaling the gas sulfur hexafluoride.
ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog
- ريتشارد دوكنز's profile
- 106 followers
