Verily, verily, let’s not forget the brave souls who rose against the Catholic Church in risk of their precious lives.

Actually, and in all honesty, I don’t believe this is the most proper or the smartest way to go about spreading the word of anti-religion, but you got to admire this man’s balls. Brass balls indeed. During the high Easter mass in the Notre-Dame and dressed in the garb of a Dominican monk, he waited for an opportunity to climb the rostrum and declare the following message to the hundreds gathered and many thousands more at home who watched it on television or listened to it on the radio:

Today, Easter day of the Holy Year here, under the emblem of Notre-Dame of Paris I accuse the universal Catholic Church of the lethal diversion of our living strength toward an empty heaven I accuse the Catholic Church of swindling I accuse the Catholic Church of infecting the world with its funereal morality of being the running sore on the decomposed body of the West. Verily I say unto you: God is dead We vomit the agonizing insipidity of your prayers for your prayers have been the greasy smoke over the battlefields of our Europe. Go forth then into the tragic and exalting desert of a world where God is dead and till this earth anew with your bare hands with your PROUD hands with your unpraying hands. Today Easter day of the Holy Year Here under the emblem of Notre-Dame of Paris we proclaim the death of the Christ-god, so that Man may live at last.

April 9th this was 58 years ago. The man had to be rescued by the police from an ensuing angry mob that would probably have ripped him to shreds if they got their hands on him. More on that whole affair here.

Slayer

Drones since the dawn of time
Compelled to live your sheltered lives
Not once has anyone ever seen
Such a rise of pure hypocracy
I’ll instigate I’ll free your mind
I’ll show you what I’ve known all this time

God Hates Us All, God Hates Us All
You know it’s true God hates this place
You know it’s true he hates this race

Homicide-Suicide
Hate heals, you should try it sometime
Strive for Peace with acts of war
The beauty of death we all adore
I have no faith distracting me
I know why your prayers will never be answered

God Hates Us All; God Hates Us All
He Fuckin’ hates me

Pessimist, Terrorist targeting the next mark
Global chaos feeding on hysteria
Cut throat, slit your wrist, shoot you in the back fair game
Drug abuse, self abuse searching for the next high
Sounds a lot like hell is spreading all the time
I’m waiting for the day the whole world fucking dies

I never said I wanted to be God’s disciple
I’ll never be the one to blindly follow

Man made virus infecting the world
Self-destruct human time bomb
What if there is no God would you think the fuckin’ same
Wasting your life in a leap of blind faith
Wake the fuck up can’t ignore what I say
I got my own philosophy

I hate everyone equally
You can’t tear that out of me
No segregation -separation
Just me in my world of enemies

I never said I wanted to be God’s disciple
I’ll never be the one to blindly follow
I’ll never be the one to bear the cross-disciple

I reject this fuckin’ race
I despise this fuckin’ place

“There are no transitional fossils”

“Darwin himself admitted there were no transitional fossils”

This is one of the main arguments an evolutionist gets from non-evolutionists. It’s always something like this: “If land animals evolved from fish, then where are the transitional forms- the fish with feet? Or where are the half-human apes?”

Of course Darwin was one of the first biological evolutionists living at a time when the field was yet newborn and he made mistakes because of that. But Darwin did not know about punctuated equilibrium. This was only “discovered” and developed in the 1970s:

“Evolution is characterized by geologically long periods of stability during which little speciation occurs, punctuated by short periods of rapid change, species undergoing most of their morphological changes shortly after breaking from their parent species.”

This was a major advance in evolutionary science that was spun by its opponents as being proof Darwinists were clinging to straws. Darwin himself thought of speciation as pretty much of a gradual process - like a child growing into an adult is gradual - but what 150 years of fossil-digging has shown us is that speciation is more like driving a car with a faulty gearbox. Darwin could not know this, nor could any of his contemporaries. What has happened here is called: “gaining knowledge about a subject through test and theory.” You cannot quote Darwin or his colleagues in the context of disproving transitional forms, much in the same way as not quoting Galileo Galilei on the nature of comets.

But what are the implications of punctuated equilibrium in the search for transitional fossils? Well, mainly: expect them to be hard to find. If life on earth evolved in (relatively) short spurts, chances are you will be finding a lot of fossils from the much, much longer periods of gradual evolution.

That is not to say there are no transitional forms found, museums are filled with them. In a broad sense every creature that has ever lived and every organism that is alive today is transitional species. But if you want fish with feet: here is one:

This is tiktaalik, read up on it here and here. Here is an interview (video) with the co-discoverer of tiktaalik: “Neil Shubin.” (Note that he doesn’t like the term “missing link”)

Of course the anti-evolutionists follow suit with denying it’s transitional:

“However, the claim of a transition from water to land is no more than a dream, because the physiological gulfs between terrestrial animals and fish cannot be overcome by any of the fictitious mechanisms of the theory of evolution. The latest attempt to make Tiktaalik roseae fit this scenario, which is supported out of blind devotion to the theory of evolution and rests on no scientific evidence whatsoever, is based on preconceptions and intentional misinterpretation.”

I don’t have a mind to go debunk the entire article, suffice to say it shows a shocking lack of what is actually out there. The depth of ignorance is staggering.

Here’s an apeman:

To be precise: here is Australopithecus Anamensis

Here’s a dinosaur bird:

All of these (and there are many, many more, musea filled with them) aren’t convincing to the anti-evolutionists. They might say the fossil isn’t transitional but either one or the other. They might also claim it’s a sick animal or human, deforming by say: “arthritis” (the first ever found Neanderthal Man had arthritis, which was spun by some as meaning: all Neanderthal specimens ever discovered were normal modern humans with arthritis. Which makes me wonder why my arthritic neighbor doesn’t look like a Neanderthal Man.)

In the end, what it boils down to is misinformation and ignorance. Groups and individuals claiming there are no transitional fossils always show a lack of knowledge of what has actually been discovered and how these discoveries were actually interpreted. To remedy this I can only recommend two things: teach every child from any cultural background evolutionary science and fact and - if it’s too late for that - read up on the scientists’ side of the issue.

Volgens de website van de “Bond tegen het vloeken” is dit de achterliggende gedachte van deze poster:

De Bond tegen het vloeken is deze week gestart met een nieuwe postercampagne. De campagne met de slogan ‘Als er een vloek valt, breekt er iets’ richt zich op het kwetsende karakter van vloeken.

Een vloek wordt vaak in een opwelling, onnadenkend geuit. Toch kan zo’n enkel woord mensen in de omgeving pijnlijk raken en meer teweeg brengen dan je je bewust bent. Doel van de campagne is mensen hierover aan het denken te zetten. De aanpak van vloeken begint bij bewustwording.

En dan dit:

Dit staat op de website van de Bond, onomwonden:

Doel: Uit diep respect voor de Naam van God wil de Bond een eerbiedig en juist gebruik van Gods Naam in de samenleving bevorderen. We stellen echter niet alleen vloeken, maar ook schelden aan de kaak. De Bond zet zich in voor respectvol taalgebruik in de meest brede zin van het woord.

Vloeken gebeurt vaak onnadenkend. Vandaar die papegaai in het logo. De Bond streeft ernaar dat mensen zich meer bewust worden van wat ze zeggen en wat ze hiermee God en medemensen kunnen aandoen.

Motivatie:

De motivatie voor ons werk vinden we in de Bijbel. Bijvoorbeeld in het Onze Vader, waarvan de eerste bede luidt: ‘Uw Naam worde geheiligd’. Liefde en hoogachting voor God zijn drijfveer voor ons werk. Maar we weten ons ook gesteund door opvattingen die breed gedragen worden in onze samenleving. Vrijwel iedereen vindt vloeken en schelden onbeschaafd.

Ik geloof niet in God. Ik geloof niet in “een” God en ook niet in aliens, engelen, telepatie of Sinterklaas. De Bond is echter een spreekorgaan voor Christelijk Nederland. Hun motieven zijn door-en-door Christelijk. Ze zeggen terecht dat iedereen vloeken en schelden onbeschaafd vindt, maar dat wil nog niet zeggen dat blasfemie onbeschaafd is. Er valt zelfs iets te zeggen voor blasfemie.

Christenen indoctrineren kinderen, ze discrimineren jegens vrouwen en homosexuelen en ze verkopen prietpraat. Dankzij de “verlichte” conclusies die ze trekken over normen en waarden zijn er op dit moment honderduizenden mensen een langzame dood aan het sterven door HIV, vooral in Afrika. Dankzij het Christendom hebben we duizend jaar “Dark Ages” gehad tussen nu en de laatste grote beschaving van de Romeinen. Voor Christenen is het belangrijker om kuis en nederig te zijn dan assertief en te werken aan je volle potentiaal.

Christenen proberen normen en waarden op te leggen gebruikmakend van een fundamenteel foute basis: een immens verouderd, bij elkaar geraapt en oneindig gereviseerd boek uit het stenen tijdperk- vol met tegenstrijdigheden, gruwelijkheden en klinkklare nonsens. Voor alle “wijze lessen” in de Bijbel staan er zeker twee maal zo veel “onwijze lessen” in.

Ben ik nu echt de enige die een godsgruwelijke hekel heeft aan De Bond? Ok, ik besef me helemaal dat het allemaal nogal onschuldig is, en dat de acties van de Bond nu niet bepaald verstrekkend zijn, maar ik vind het allemaal zo’n verspilling van geld en moeite.

Christenen verdienen geen speciale behandeling- ze verdienen respect en fatsoen net als iedereen dat verdiend. Ze hebben echter helemaal niet het recht om naar wij gepeupel te wijzen met een vermanende, patriarchische vinger over ons taalgebruik. Ze staan niet boven de rest, ze zijn deel van de rest en het wordt eens tijd dat ze zich daar naar gingen gedragen.

I can understand how this commercial seems convincing to someone who doesn’t know the first thing about the human body– but I bet that last you checked, toxins weren’t exiting your body through your feet. Unless you were talking about my smelly feet, which are highly toxic, especially at the end of a busy day. Wait… maybe this thing does work! In which case I might start thinking about developing some highly effective Kinoki armpit pads.

For a long while now, I’ve been a steady reader of PostSecret. It’s a well-known blog featuring postcards sent in by anonymous people- all of them sharing a personal message or “secret.” One returning message is people struggling with their belief in God. Or disbelief, such as the person who sent in the card above. This theme is a fairly common one on PS.

“I don’t believe in God & I believe he is punishing me for just that….”

Behold the terrible power of indoctrination. At first glance, the message of this card is almost laughable to both believers and atheists, but once you really start to think about it, the utter sadness of it becomes clear. This is a message filled with despair- a true believer whose faith is shaken and is left with… well, with what? Most religions try their very best at convincing their flock (their term, not mine) that there is no life without God. No real one at any rate– you will not have hope, love or morals. You’ll be damned to rot in Hell too, especially if you once believed. (I remember reading that there is always hope for those poor, lost souls who never came into contact with Christianity at all.)

However, in this day and age it’s becoming increasingly easier and affordable to become well-informed. Close-mindedness is under attack by the Internet (by people such as me) and elements of the mass media (unfortunately, however, large parts of the media still think small minds are right minds). Pretty soon, the inevitable will happen: the mind of a true believer will start to refuse to believe in God.

And so you might end up torn apart, with a heart that belongs to God and a mind that belongs to reason. No wonder religions force upon the masses that true faith is blind faith. There truly is no other way to believe. The only way the cardwriter’s split being can be healed is to allow himself to see that the notion of God almighty isn’t the only thing that’s awry- the doctrine that a life without God is a life wasted is equally false. There is beauty, love and above all: honesty and truth beyond God and dogma.

Intelligent Design… [insert huge sigh here]

Now you have got to credit these folks: they never give up. Their fanaticism seems to have no bound!

In theatres 2008: “The Playground For The Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”

Watch the trailer.

Now I’d like to start off my criticism with this message: all pretense gone! They seem to have come out of the closet when it comes to the role Creationism plays in their ideas. Not that there was any doubt about it since the Dover trial. With a film endorsed by the Intelligent Design movement and with interviews with prominent I.D. front-men, the case seems clear.

With that out of the way… well, honestly, I can feel nothing but contempt for the message and tone of this trailer. It’s all: “boo-hoo-hoo, the Neo-Darwinists are oppressing us for no other reason than us righteously questioning their theory.” This awesome lie is bound to fail of course.

First of all, it is common knowledge now that Intelligent Design is a farce. No playing martyr is going to change that. The only thing that could only ever change the pitiful status of Intelligent Design as a scientific theory is evidence. Rock-hard, ice-cold evidence. And don’t think of bringing on the vertebrate eye or the bacterial flagellum once more, like you did in Dover. In fact, don’t bring any examples at all- bring testable, structurally sound theories. And stop this conniving and scheming.

This trailer is a new low in outrageous Creationist propaganda, second only, maybe, to The Way Of The Master. Check that out for some gruesome twists in the fabric of reality.

Of all the foolish things people believe, God is one of the most extraordinary. I think it’s alright to have the personal belief that your life is being guided by a divine being, but it’s not alright to fight about it to the death – or at least utter tediousness – without having sufficient proof for it.

And there is no proof for God, folks, it’s time to face up to that fact. The time when the world was an almost wondrous affair are all but gone, thanks to science. What came in place of God is the beauty of the real world. Isn’t the natural world amazing and breathtaking enough, do you really even need to throw a supernatural being in the mix to be awed by reality? Isn’t life on Earth incredible enough- just look at all the incredible shapes of life! What about quantum mechanics? Astronomy? Psychology? All that science uncovers in these fields inspires in me the same awe that miracles would- all without need of a God. In fact: don’t you agree the “revelation” that all of this came about without a maker is even more inspiring than explaining it away by means of a mysterious Creator?

That said, there are millions of people around the world who claim to have evidence of said Creator. One of the themes of this weblog will be presenting these various forms of evidence and dismantling them. Yes: dismantling. As yet, there is no evidence for the existence of God or even the suggestion of the existence of God, as I will show you. Until I get down to penning about this, I’d like to present one of the strongest arguments against God I’ve heard so far, by the great George Carlin.

Several days ago, the news got out that several Dutch Christian organisations filed official complaints at the address of the Dutch “bureau for codes of conduct in commercials” (honestly, I don’t know what the official translation ought to be, so here’s the literal one) due to franchised electronics warehouse “Dixons” disrespecting Christian faith.

The franchise distributed commercial prints depicting the Three Wise Men navigating by TomTom and baby Jesus listening to ‘I’m dreaming of a white Christmas’ on an iPod in his crib. According to spokesman Bert Dorenbos these depictions are: “Dangerous, especially during Christmas time.” If you can read Dutch, here’s the original article.

Now, I’d like you to consider this and ask yourself how this is different from Islamic outrage over comic portraits of Muhammad in a Scandinavian newspaper. The only difference I can think of is the intensity in the revulsion felt by the offended religion. In fact, I think there is no difference at all. Both situations are equally outrageous and truthfully: the only “dangerous” thing in the whole situation is giving these Christian organisations credulity.

What’s more: where is the danger in these depictions anyway? What’s offensive? I don’t get it. Because it is blasphemous that Jesus might listen to a Christmas song on an iPod? Give me a break! It’s not as if he is trying to get friendly with the mule or anything. Now that would be a decent reason to take offense.

Why did I say it was dangerous to give these Christians credulity? Well, for the plain reason that they are trying to establish that Christianity needs to have a special place in Dutch society. Such a special place, in fact, that it is deemed to be a major breach of common decency to harmlessly depict a Shepherd playing a video-game. What these organisations are lobbying for in this manner, is that society should not be critical of Christianity, however trivially, because it would hurt their personal feelings. And hurting anyone’s feelings is bad thing, don’t you agree?

Well, Bert Dorenbos, you are hurting my personal feelings. Even though I am not too fond of Dixons, I feel offended by the organisations you speak for, for trying to insert small-mindedness into society. For trying to stop us from being critical of a religion that needs to be criticised like never before. For trying to promote Christianity as a clique beyond reproach and mostly– for playing on people’s fears by playing the card that says: “criticizing religion breeds hatred in society.” After all, people, wasn’t Theo van Gogh killed for his blatant critique on religion (Islam), wasn’t Ayaan Hirshi Ali forced to flee the country for the same reason?

For these reasons, I want to hurt your feelings. I want to be critical of you, so that hopefully, it will dawn on you that you are being small-minded and patronising. I don’t mind you and your Christian conviction, however, what I do mind is that you can not keep it to yourself. Instead, you try to tell me, an atheist, and any other person who might ever get the idea to say something “dangerous” about your faith should keep their “blasphemy ” to themselves. I will not shut up. I repeat: I will not shut up. I will never stop criticizing people with small minds and hypocritical agendas.

Amen.

Merriam-Webster (Open dictionary section!):

chemtrail (noun) : chemtrail/chem-trail reference to extensive contrail-like atmospheric appearances that happen in unexplainable and numerous patterns that are created in continuous succession in the sky by unmarked aircraft and thought to have a toxic composition.

The “chemtrail” patterns in the sky were more inexplicable then ever. On a clear day the “chemtrails” are sometimes more visible then usual. —WillPWilson, Many years of Worldwide News reports., www.bariumblues.com, around the year of 2000 and many other published sources.

The crux of the theory is this: the government, or at least a very powerful political force, is spraying airborne toxins and pathogens over populated areas all over the world, in order the “cull the herd.” That is: solve the overcrowding of the lands by killing as many people as possible.

At first this may sound absurd (it is), but then the subliminal power of this theory kicks in. As you walk outside you do something you probably don’t do very often: you study the sky. And what you see are contrails. And yes they really are contrails, not chemtrails. Normally you’d just look past them and look at the clouds instead, but hey, don’t contrails dissipate after a maximum of twenty minutes? (not necessarily) And what if it’s true?
The video above is one of two major “documentaries” freely available on the Internet. The other one is so long and tedious I can’t be bothered to critique it.

OK- now watch the video with my following points of critique in mind.

First off: the documentary starts at 04:35- all what happens before is scary drama, with lots of frightening music, sound effects and unrelated evil things like Adolf Hitler, George W. Bush, Bible burning, atomic bombs exploding and to top it all- a supremely malevolent anti-gravity helicopter. These matters should serve as a filter: general viewers go in, but only paranoid viewers go out. During the rest of the documentary, it’s more scary images as well as a distorted, God-like voice that serves only to irritate and make it hard to understand what’s being said.

The actual content of the video isn’t any better. The time spent on evidence for chemtrails is about two minutes, and extremely circumstantial. All the rest is extrapolation from this weak premise (as well as being presented extremely poorly and tediously.) For the record: in science, circumstantial evidence is wholly secondary to direct evidence from a controlled experiment that can be reproduced by peers.

Now, let me put forward my main question: how on Earth would the American government be able to pull this massive operation off? In all fairness, the U.S. government has an extremely poor reputation when it comes to large-scale military operations. Basically, the last well-executed large campaign was the war against Hitler in Europe and to a lesser extent the war in the Pacific against imperial Japan. After that it was all down-hill, ending with the current occupation of Iraq - which even the staunchest proponents can’t deny is being executed disastrously.

Also, reality check: if this is all secret, how do they plan on keeping it that way? It’s absolutely impossible to keep a gargantuan operation like this secret from anyone not involved. It only takes one single anti-American secret service agent - abroad or at home in the States - to expose the entire cover-up. What will happen next is complete annihilation of anyone involved, as well as all the political parties and corporations that support it. It’s just to risky too even contemplate.

Decimating the civilian population like this would be virtual suicide for your person, your company, your political party if you happen to be a high-ranking political official, since history and common sense insist that this cannot be kept secret, certainly not for twenty-plus years as the video proposes. This is something to be kept in mind for most conspiracies- if they involve huge, secret governmental operations, they are probably bogus and can be safely ignored.

As you see, the theory of chemtrails took less time to dissipate than the average contrail.

You’d think Intelligent Design would be utterly dead by now, as for years and with increasing accuracy it has been exposed for what it really always was: an unscientific and politically scheming practice. However, there will always be people who’ll stick to a belief no matter what counter-evidence ends up thrown in their faces.

Take this chap, John H. Calvert, who published this excellently deluded article (pdf) on the Intelligent Design Network. It’s effectively a cry for justice in the world of science teaching. That is: allow theories of origins of life other than Darwinism into the science classrooms. And Intelligent Design is the best suited alternative of course.

I am not going to mention that whatever Intelligent Design is, it can not be science, because it advocates explaining every unknown factor away to miracles - hence you will never learn anything new, which happens to be the reason science exists. Just as I am not going to say the Dover Trial revealed without a shadow of doubt that I.D. is deeply rooted in Christian Creationism, which has been tried and banned indefinitely from the classrooms before. I am not going to mention these things because it would take the fun out of debunking this article, which would seriously spoil my evening.

“any origins story unavoidably affects religion, ethics, morality and even government. Materialistic theories support religious views such as atheism, humanism, scientism, Buddhism, Taoism, etc“

Darwinian Evolution is - according to Mr. Calvert - inherently biased towards the religions of “atheism, humanism and scientism.” It doesn’t matter that none of these are actually religions, I gather. Just as it doesn’t matter that the core epistles I.D.-theory rests on, turned out to be Creationist literature with “God” crossed out and replaced with “Intelligent Designer.”

What’s more: Calvert argues the existence of a Darwinistic, materialistic ”dogma” he calls the Rule, which is deliberately limiting the scope of science in order to exclude rival scientific theories. He claims this Rule is permeated through the whole of society.

“Its advocates use rhetoric and deception rather than candid scientific analysis to make their case for an origins story that has an enormous impact on Religion, ethics, morals and government.The key to the deception is the lack of awareness among the public of the use and effect of the Rule. Because of the non-disclosed use of the Rule the public is led to believe that the scientific alternative to evolutionary theory fails because of a lack of evidence, when the failure is actually due to the use of an unsubstantiated Rule. Since “mainstream science” is not regulated by an SEC, a major focus of my work has been to expose the use and effect of the Rule.”

Congratulations, Calvert: you’ve just exposed yourself for what you really are: a conspiracy theorist. Sometimes I hope all conspiracy theorists would gather themselves into one huge meatball  of pseudo-scientific discipline. Then Calvert and other I.D. followers could come along and explain all of them using their Intelligent Design theory! “Of course the Giza pyramids were built by Gods, the sciences haven’t explained how the Egyptians hauled all that limestone on top of each other, so there’s no other option!”

Here’s to all I.D. followers: if you want your theories taught in science class it means you have to present strong evidence for your claims. You have no such theories as yet, they have all been refuted. Furthermore, and this is to Calvert and anyone who might believe him, take a good critical look at yourself and your own movement before you go about accusing others of using deception and political rhetoric to further their goals.

We are all familiar with the image of the ‘mad scientist,’ or the ‘crazy genius.’ However, did you know that there have been scientists who were so consumed with their work that it really drove them into insanity?

The BBC4 documentary below focuses on four scientists who each had a defining role to play in the history of mathematics.  They drove themselves into madness and suicide by such seemingly silly questions as: ‘what are the limits of infinity?’ and ‘how to proof that which can’t be proved?’

It’s an interesting documentary, but in the end it’s a sad story, really… Four genius so obsessed with answering the unanswerable that they descended into schizophrenia, manic-depression and ultimately: a premature rendezvous with the absolute.

Let’s face it: conspiracy theories are incredibly entertaining. They make the appealing promise to completely throw your life upside down. Do you feel unsatisfied with your job, family or society as a whole? Well, then let us blame someone else for it!

To me, that’s what conspiracy theories are: escapism. Escape from common sense, and escape from the responsibility for making your own life work well. I could never take them seriously. Whether we’re talking about UFO’s, government-planned terrorist attacks, or – the latest big thing – chemtrails, the main motive behind their popularity seems to be wishful thinking. Not wishing sectas thrust anal probes into hapless abductees. Not wishing the United States government sent thousands of people into a fiery and violent end. Not wishing for global chemical brainwashing. But wishing that, geez, there’s something more in this life than suburbia, eternal boredom and science.

That said: they entertain me immensely. Sometimes they make me sad (9/11 conspiracies), sometimes they make me shake my head with disbelief (chemtrails) and sometimes they give me belly laughs (people mistaking the moon for a flying craft). And so I keep track of them.

Everyone’s entitled to a couple of guilty pleasures, right?

Was it only five or six years ago that I was browsing online shops for books with comprehensive maps of celestial bodies other than our own blue sphere- only to find a scarce amount of books with big pricetags attached to it?

Today, thanks to the wonderful Google, we have a very detailed map of our moon, which we can zoom into or out of at will, for the price of an internet connection and with features no printed page can offer. Needless to say, I love it.

Apollo 11 Landing site on Google Moon

Now, to make the whole situation even more wonderful, Google has unleashed Google Mars, using data provided by the Arizona State University’s Mars Space Flight Facility.

It is a breathtaking site.

The famous Cydonia region, home of the Face On Mars.

Viking I landing site.

Google proves you can get lost in a map.

The world-wide use of the English language has long been an advantage for British and other native English speaking countries. However, with more people becoming fluent in English as a second language this power is gradually waning. It would not be so bad if only more native English speakers were fluent in more than only their mother tongue.

Quote:
“In China, 60 per cent of primary school children learn English and more people in India and China speak the language fluently than anywhere else in the world, the report added.

The British Council said the report was a “call to action for the UK”. “

(Link- The Times Of India)

Scientists have managed to successfully sequence the genome of the long-extinct wooly mammoth.

This the oldest genome yet sequenced- and quite a feat it is: the wooly mammoth in question is 33,000 years dead and the entire species has been extinct for about 10,000 years.

The reason why this find is important is for our understanding of the elephant evolution. There is a long-standing discussion whether the mammoth was more closely related to the present-day Asian -or African elephants. This research is suggesting it might be the Asian in the end.
(Link)

Quote:

“Although previous studies have shown that the problem with using ancient DNA in evolutionary studies is that DNA modifications can lead to artifact mutations accumulating in postmortem material and, therefore, produce errors in sequences; the strategies and data provided by Rogaev et al demonstrate that their long genomic sequence is essentially free from such artifacts and that the mammoth genome is authentic. Further, they have demonstrated that large DNA fragments can be isolated from ancient specimens recovered from permafrost conditions and that the complete genes can be directly cloned or reconstructed for animals that disappeared from the earth many thousand years ago.”