I'm not Catholic, but I really like Pope Francis

especially compared to the last one. Here's the latest from him: Pope Francis on Board With Science: Evolution and the Big Bang Are Real, God's Not a "Magician"

This is a very cool idea

that got funded on Kickstarter about an hour ago. I'd buy the finished product, and add it to my banned books collection, because it'll probably be challenged. But it also looks like a fun read and a way to introduce the concept of evolution to very young children. As Tweet points out, creationists have plenty of children's books of their own, but there isn't really much out there for the rest of us. Thanks to YKWIA who pointed me to it.

Thank the Gods this is a parody

...a hilarious one, by the way. It's based on the real interviews, in which the question, 'Should evolution be taught in school?', was asked. You can view that video at: Miss USA 2011 - 51 Delegates Interview (Q2 - Evolution taught in school).

Thanks to David Reid for sharing the parody video with me. I particularly like, 'On the one hand there's math, and on the other you have, like, "non-math".'

Neanderthals may have interbred with early Homo Sapiens

Neanderthal Genome Shows Most Humans Are Cavemen

“There are a lot of aspects of differences between species that can’t be solely obtained from DNA sequence,” said University of Michigan genetic anthropologist Noah Rosenberg, who wasn’t involved in the study. “But at the same time, the DNA sequence is a good place to start.”

Such studies will occupy scientists for years to come. In the meantime, the researchers produced a more immediately stirring result. They compared the Neanderthal genome to genomes of five people from China, France, Papua New Guinea, southern Africa and western Africa. Among non-Africans, between one and four percent of all DNA came from Neanderthals.

On a functional level, the DNA was no different from our own, but bore telltale molecular marks of Neanderthal heritage.

Scientists only found 88 hotspots of differences in our genetic code and that of Neanderthals. When more of the Neanderthal genome is sequenced, those may disappear entirely. But the differences between the species may be more in what genes are turned on or off rather than actual genome variation.

Here's another source, testing the new embeddable tweet process:

A newly-mapped Neanderthal genome provides strong evidence that humans and Neanderthals interbred. http://ow.ly/1HVo1less than a minute ago via HootSuiteDiscovery_News
Discovery_News

Rapid environmental change can have noticeable effects on species

American songbirds evolve with forests

Eastern North American songbirds are a pretty adaptable bunch, says a scientist who discovered some remarkable changes in their wings over the last 100 years.

A close look at museum collections of 851 songbird specimens belonging to 21 species shows that most of the birds evolved pointier wings after their forests were fragmented by clear-cutting. Others in re-foresting areas evolved less-pointy wings. The reason for the wing changes: nothing less than the drive to procreate.

Pointier wings can help birds who are long-distance commuters fly more efficiently. More rounded wings, however, are better over short distances.

Disturbing

Even without DNA, prions can evolve like organisms, study says

To prove his theory, Weissmann took prion populations from infected brain cells and put them in cell cultures. After being transferred, the prions outcompeted the normal prion protein. And when those prions were transferred back into animal brains, they took over again.

To confirm the findings, the researcher tested the drug swainsonine, which can inhibit the formation of prions. In cell cultures where the drug was used, a drug- resistant substrain of prion evolved to become predominant. When the drug was withdrawn, the substrain that was susceptible to the drug again grew to become the dominate strain.

"The practical implications are that prions may develop drug resistance," he said.

It is kind of scary to think that abnormal proteins without DNA could still go through natural selection and acquire drug resistance. Prions are the cause of a variety of diseases, the best known of which is mad cow disease.

I shouldn't forget to mention that today

is the 200th anniversary of the births of both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, something you should only be unaware of if you do not read political, historical, or science news. This whole year is a fest for Darwin; 2009 is also the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of the Species. Funny that these two great men should be born on the same day, eh? So anyway, the Americans and the Brits get to celebrate their native-born sons. One was a statesman who steered the country through a bitter civil war until his assassination in 1865; the other was a naturalist who brought about a revolution in science with his theory of evolution contributing greatly to our understanding of the world and how it works, despite the naysayers.

By the way, did you know Darwin was from Shrewsbury, Shropshire, the setting of the Brother Cadfael mysteries of Ellis Peters (the pseudonym for Edith Pargeter)?

I also find it amusing that many places are claiming Lincoln as their own here in the States. Illinois is known as the Land of Lincoln, but let's not forget he was born here in Kentucky, the first president born outside of the original 13 colonies (Kentucky was the 15th state, after Vermont. It was originally part of Virginia.)

Well of course we're still evolving

but scientists are realising we're evolving much quicker than pre-agrarian humans--partly in response to diseases that hit large groups of people who are living in close quarters. But pale skin and blue eyes are relatively recent mutations, for example.

Study finds humans still evolving, and quickly

Culture Speeds Up Human Evolution

Also on the scientific front, Voyager 2 has discovered a dent in our solar system due to magnetic forces.

Voyager 2 finds solar system's shape is 'dented'

I was 10 years old when the Voyager probes were launched, along with their Golden Records. An excerpt from the Voyager 1 greeting by Jimmy Carter (given in the Wikipedia article) goes like this:

We cast this message into the cosmos… Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some — perhaps many — may have inhabited planets and space faring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: We are trying to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of Galactic Civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe.

The 70s were in some ways a very hopeful time, weren't they?