ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 761

Religious freedom debate now includes atheists — a.k.a. the least-accepted group in politics

Image via WISCTV

By Hunter Schwarz

The same week Indiana lawmakers introduced LGBT protections as a response to outrage over their so-called religious freedom bill, Madison, Wis., added another group to its own protected class.

Atheism will now receive the same protections for employment, housing, and public accommodations as other groups after the city council there voted unanimously for the addition to the ordinance, according to WISC-TV. The protected class list in Madison previously included the usual sex, race, religion, and age specifications, but it also protects for things like physical appearance and if someone declines to disclose his or her social security number.

No group faces more discrimination in politics than atheists, according to a 2012 Gallup poll. The poll found 43 percent of voters said they would not vote for an atheist candidate for president — a higher percentage than Muslims or gays and lesbians.

There are currently no openly atheist members of Congress. Maggie Ardiente of the American Humanist Association claimed there are 24 who told her group privately they were closet atheists, during an interview with Religion News Service last year, but there’s no way to confirm that number. And although it’s not enforced, there are eight states in which atheists technically cannot hold office: Arkansas, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South, Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.

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SciShow Quiz Show: With the Brain Scoop’s Emily Graslie!

Hank goes head-to-head with the Brain Scoop’s Emily Graslie to match wits about springs, hoaxes, and human evolution!

Hosted By: Michael Aranda

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Sources:

http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/photos/15-of-the-biggest-scientific-hoaxes/perpetual-motion-machine

http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep/25-modern-humans-smart-why-brain-shrinking

http://humanorigins.si.edu/education/fun-facts

http://listverse.com/2009/01/05/top-10-signs-of-evolution-in-modern-man/

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/science-of-natural-history/the-scientific-process/piltdown-man-hoax/index.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2284783.stm

http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/redheffers_perpetual_motion_machine

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/permot2.html

Darwin’s finches highlight the unity of all life

Credit: Paul Krawczuk/Flickr, CC BY

By Frank Nicholas

When Charles Darwin visited the Galapagos Islands in October 1835, he and his ship-mates on board HMS Beagle collected specimens of birds, including finches and mockingbirds, from various islands of the archipelago.

At the time, Darwin took little interest in the quaint finches, making only a one-word mention of them in his diary. As painstakingly shown by Frank Sulloway and more recently by John Van Whye, it wasn’t until two years later that the finches sparked Darwin’s interest.

By then he had received feedback from the leading taxonomist of the time, John Gould, that the samples comprised 14 distinct species, none of which had been previously described! Gould also noted that their “principal peculiarity consisted in the bill [i.e. beak] presenting several distinct modifications of form”.

So intrigued was Darwin by this variation in size and shape of beaks that in the second (1845) edition of Journal of Researches he included illustrations of the distinctive variation between species in the size and shape of their beaks. He added a comment that:

Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small, intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends.

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Orthorexia Nervosa: When Righteous Eating Becomes An Obsession

Health and Medicine





Photo credit:

If intrusive thoughts of kale get between you and a good conversation, it’s time to reassess how you think about food. Food Thinkers/Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA

Orthorexia nervosa, the “health food eating disorder”, gets its name from the Greek word ortho, meaning straight, proper or correct. This exaggerated focus on food can be seen today in some people who follow lifestyle movements such as “raw”, “clean” and “paleo”.

How To Make Galaxy Themed Easter Eggs

Space





Photo credit:

Allison Murray

Alisson Murray of Dream A Little Bigger decided to celebrate the holidays with a twist - creating these absolutely beautiful galaxy themed eggs.

 

 

What kid wouldn't want to hunt for these on Easter morning?

 

Nearly there. Author given

Why Babies Love (And Learn From) Magic Tricks

Len Turner, Dave Schmelick and

Deirdre Hammer/Johns Hopkins University Office of Communications

By Cory Turner

To survive, we humans need to be able to do a handful of things: breathe, of course. And drink and eat. Those are obvious.

We’re going to focus now on a less obvious — but no less vital — human function: learning. Because new research out today in the journal Science sheds light on the very building blocks of learning.

Imagine an 11-month-old sitting in a high chair opposite a small stage where you might expect, say, a puppet show. Except this is a lab at Johns Hopkins University. Instead of a puppeteer, a researcher is rolling a red and blue striped ball down a ramp, toward a little wall at the bottom.

Even babies seem to know the ball can’t go through that wall, though not necessarily because they learned it. It’s what some scientists call core knowledge — something, they say, we’re born with.

“Some pieces of knowledge are so fundamental in guiding regular, everyday interactions with the environment, navigating through space, reaching out and picking up an object, avoiding an oncoming object — those things are so fundamental to survival that they’re really selected for by evolution,” says Lisa Feigenson, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at Hopkins and one of the researchers behind this study.

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Porpoises, whales and dolphins use ‘sound searchlights’

By Victoria Gill

Researchers in Denmark have revealed how porpoises finely adjust the beams of sound they use to hunt.

The animals hunt with clicks and buzzes – detecting the echoes from their prey.

This study showed them switching from a narrow to a wide beam of sound – “like adjusting a flashlight” – as they homed in on a fish.

Researchers think that other whales and dolphins may use the same technique to trap a fish in their beam of sound in the final phase of an attack.

This could help prevent porpoises, whales and dolphins’ prey from evading their capture.

By revealing these acoustic secrets in detail, researchers are hoping to develop ways to prevent porpoises, and other toothed whales, from becoming trapped in fishing nets.

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Geographic Tongue: The Mysterious Condition That Makes Maps In Your Mouth

Health and Medicine





Photo credit:

What in the world ..? Jbarta, CC BY-SA

Geographic tongue (GT) is a medical condition in which the upper layer of the tongue, which consists of tiny hair-like protrusions (called papillae), is damaged due to an expanding inflammation. As a result, red patches devoid of papillae can be observed on the surface of the tongue. A noticeable characteristic of the condition is an evolving map-like appearance of the affected tongue (hence its name).

New DNA Technique Means Pointing The Finger At The Right Identical Twin Just Got Easier

Technology





Photo credit:

Won’t get fooled again (posed by models). twins by iofoto/www.shutterstock.com

DNA profiling (or genetic fingerprinting) has proved a revolutionary tool for forensic investigators as a means to identify potential suspects, exonerate the innocent and convict the guilty. But, like any forensic technique, it has its limitations. One limitation is in cases involving identical twins, something that has raised technical, legal and ethical problems – until now.

Some Shape-Shifting Animals That Can Morph To Fool Others

Plants and Animals





Photo credit:

Pretty impressive, mimicry octopus, but you don’t fool us. Klaus Stiefel/flickr, CC BY-NC

Animals come in all different shapes and sizes, but only a few can change their shapes. Researchers in Ecuador recently reported a new species of frog that can change its skin texture from spiny to smooth – the first ever case of a shape-shifting vertebrate.