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by Ryan Bell In January of 2014, after a long, 19-year career as a Seventh-day Adventist pastor, three theological degrees, and the slow liberalization of my belief system, I began a personal exploration of atheism that I called, Year Without God. I set out to understand the world without my āgod glassesā on. In short, …
By REBECCA NEWBERGER GOLDSTEIN The philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser, beloved by generations of Columbia University students (including me), was known for lines of wit that yielded nuggets of insight. He kept up his instructive shtick until the end, remarking to a colleague shortly before he died: āWhy is God making me suffer so much? Just because …
In the mid-19th century, researchers claimed they could tell the sex of an individual just by looking at their disembodied brain. But a new study finds that human brains do not fit neatly into āmaleā and āfemaleā categories. Indeed, all of our brains seem to share a patchwork of forms; some that are more common …
BY AHMED BENCHEMSI Last December, Dar Al Ifta, a venerable Cairo-based institution charged with issuing Islamic edicts, cited an obscure poll according to which the exact number of Egyptian atheists was 866. The poll provided equally precise counts of atheists in other Arab countries: 325 in Morocco, 320 in Tunisia, 242 in Iraq, 178 in …
After decades of relentless rise, the number of new cases of diabetes in the United States has finally started to decline. The rate of new cases fell by about a fifth from 2008 to 2014, according to researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the first sustained decline since the disease started to …
Fresh analysis of a reptile fossil is helping scientists solve an evolutionary puzzle — how snakes lost their limbs. The 90 million-year-old skull is giving researchers vital clues about how snakes evolved. Comparisons between CT scans of the fossil and modern reptiles indicate that snakes lost their legs when their ancestors evolved to live and …
Researchers from North Carolina State University have discovered a new phase of solid carbon, called Q-carbon, which is distinct from the known phases of graphite and diamond. They have also developed a technique for using Q-carbon to make diamond-related structures at room temperature and at ambient atmospheric pressure in air. Phases are distinct forms of …
by Richard Dawkins I once tried to persuade an American atheist conference that the slogan, Ā āIn God We Trustā, on banknotes was a cosmetic trivium. We should stop bellyaching Ā about it and concentrate our fire on more substantive issues such as the tax free status of churches. I was kicked around the room by the …
Source:Linkƶping University Researchers at Linkƶping University in Sweden have created analog and digital electronics circuits inside living plants. The group at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics (LOE), under the leadership of Professor Magnus Berggren, have used the vascular system of living roses to build key components of electronic circuits. The article featured in the journal …
Source:Columbia University Medical Center Most people probably think that we perceive the five basic tastes — sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami (savory)–with our tongue, which then sends signals to our brain ‘telling’ us what we’ve tasted. However, scientists have turned this idea on its head, demonstrating in mice the ability to change the way …
This is a collection of the 10 best and most popular stories from science and technology over the past 7 days. Click the individual images below to read the stories and follow the This Week in Science on wakelet (here) to get these weekly updates straight to your inbox every Sunday.
An Ontario father has lost custody of his children in part because he refused to stop trying to cure their autism through homeopathy. āNot only were these treatments not effective, but they had negative effects,ā reads a court decision granting sole custody to the childrenās mother. The father, a 48-year-old computer programmer in the Greater …