Month: June 2018

The cognitive science of religion

Published by Sam

The cognitive science of religion (CSR) is a scientific approach to the study of religion that combines methods and theory from cognitive, developmental and evolutionary psychology with the sorts of questions that animate anthropologists and historians of religion. Specifically, CSR explores causal explanations of religious phenomena (thoughts, ideas, practices and experiences) across peoples and populations. It asks ‘How does ordinary human psychology inform and constrain religious expression?’ Four current prominent topics in CSR are introduced here: teleological reasoning about the natural world; children’s acquisition of God concepts; ‘minimal counterintuitiveness theory’; and religion and prosociality. Why is religion so common around the world? Why do some religious ideas and practices out-compete others? Why do religious practices take on common characteristics across cultures, and how deeply imbedded in human history and nature is religion? The cognitive science of religion (CSR) tackles questions such as these, attempting to understand the reasons for initial acquisition, recurrence, and continued transmission of religious concepts and behaviour. Psychologists – particularly scientific psychologists – have the training and tools to address such issues, …

How Many Genes Do Cells Need?

How Many Genes Do Cells Need?

Published by José

By knocking out genes three at a time, scientists have painstakingly deduced the web of genetic interactions that keeps a cell alive. Researchers long ago identified essential genes that yeast cells can’t live without, but new work, which appears today in Science, shows that looking only at those gives a skewed picture of what makes cells tick: Many genes that are inessential on their own become crucial as others disappear. The result implies that the true minimum number of genes that yeast — and perhaps, by extension, other complex organisms — need to survive and thrive may be surprisingly large. About 20 years ago, Charles Boone and Brenda Andrews decided to do something slightly nuts. The yeast biologists, both professors at the University of Toronto, set out to systematically destroy or impair the genes in yeast, two by two, to get a sense of how the genes functionally connected to one another. Only about 1,000 of the 6,000 genes in the yeast genome, or roughly 17 percent, are considered essential for life: If a single …

How different parts of the UK will suffer from Brexit more than others

How different parts of the UK will suffer from Brexit more than others

Published by Sam

Impact studies have revealed how different parts of the UK will suffer from Brexit more than others. One irony, as many have pointed out, is that a lot of these regions voted for Brexit. Another irony, which is less talked about, is that these are also regions that benefit a great deal from EU regional policy. The UK is an unevenly developed state. Some territories (such as London) are much more well off than others (such as the northeast of England) as a result of decades of investment (or under-investment) in their economies. Others benefit from varying levels of devolution, which gives them a relatively greater autonomy to tailor policy to their own needs, and stronger political representation within Britain and the EU. Over recent decades, when the UK government has fallen short in terms of regional policy to address the needs of less economically favoured regions, the EU has provided much-needed support. So the key question now is what will happen to the regions which have relied on this in the event of any Brexit? So far this remains …

Social media can be used used as an evidence against you

Social media can be used used as an evidence against you

Published by Jenni

As we increasingly use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp to communicate with each other, many of us are unaware of the ways in which our posts might later resurface – and get us into trouble with the law. There are numerous examples of social media being used as evidence in the criminal justice system, leading to convictions and sometimes prison sentences. Peter Nunn from Bristol, England, was imprisoned in 2014 after MP Stella Creasy and feminist Caroline Criado-Perez were subjected to a string of abuse on Twitter. And after the London riots of 2011, two men were imprisoned for incitement after posting messages on Facebook inviting those who read them to meet the next day and wreak havoc in their local town. Police were able to trace the messages back to the defendants, leading to successful prosecutions. Messages and media on WhatsApp, Snapchat and the like, have been used in evidence to show that defendants have committed offences, such as selling drugs, possession of firearms(as in the case of R v Noble and Johnson, where WhatsApp messages …

Disadvantaged family living in the United Kingdom

Disadvantaged family living in the United Kingdom

Published by Daniella

The UK has one of the widest attainment gaps in education within the developed world. This effectively means that if you are born in the UK to a family living in disadvantaged circumstances, you are much less likely to achieve your potential than your peers. And research shows it may take another 50 years to close this gap. Many young people who grow up in an area that is considered a “cold spot” of social mobility – like many of the UK’s seaside towns and former coal mining communities – are caught up in cycles of deprivation. This affects their aspirations, academic self-confidence and adult life choices. My recently published research looks at the realities of what it’s like to grow up in one of these areas. I spoke to 89 schoolgirls living in a former mining community – designated by the government to be within the UK’s worst 10% in terms of deprivation. In the community I looked at in my study, most men work locally, while women marry local men young, have children …

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Alzheimer’s, insulin is a new suspect

Published by Daniella

Johnson and Johnson recently announced that it was halting a clinical trial for a new Alzheimer’s drug after safety issues emerged. This latest failure adds to the dozens of large, costly clinical trials that have shown no effect in treating this devastating disease. The growing list of failures should give us pause for thought – have we got the causes of Alzheimer’s all wrong? In the first analysis of the disease, the German physician, Alois Alzheimer, noted odd changes in the brain of a patient who died of the condition. Alzheimer identified two kinds of protein aggregates that are not found in younger brains: plaques that are found between brain cells and tangles that are found inside brain cells. Later research identified the proteins that made up the plaques as amyloid and those that form the tangles as tau. What these structures actually do is still under debate. Unheeded warning Alzheimer advised scientists not to jump to the conclusion that these proteins caused the disease. Unfortunately, his caution was ignored, and over the years it has become gospel …

Your body, when stressed

Your body, when stressed

Published by skeptic

Stress is great. It makes us faster, stronger, more agile and our brains have better recall and flexibility. That’s why people are willing to put themselves in stressful work situations or engage in extreme sports. The problem is that uncontrolled, stress can leave us frozen to the spot and unable to think – something all too familiar for people having to speak in public or students sitting in the exam hall. Stress developed because it gives an evolutionary advantage. For early man, and with predators everywhere, food could be scarce and diseases prevalent. By understanding what is happening inside our bodies and why, we can learn to control stress and use it our advantage. Your body, when stressed When you’re feeling stressed, it’s a sign that your body is going into emergency mode. The turbo button is pressed, the engine of your body has roared into overdrive and you become superhuman. This means becoming ultra vigilant, able to react quickly and increase memory recall, and to remember every aspect of what you are seeing, hearing …

Catalonia’s independence referendum

Catalonia’s independence referendum

Published by skeptic

An old refrain often used about Spain is that in the country “everything is politicised”. This became apparent following the terrorist attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils in mid-August 2017. As the nation sought an explanation for the attacks, the debate rapidly became wrapped up in the ongoing dispute between Madrid and the regional Catalan government in Barcelona. The blame game became framed in Catalan or Spanish terms. For some, the Catalan police became national heroes, while for others they had, through negligence, apparently failed to prevent the attacks. The disagreement is only partially about the aftermath of the attacks. It’s also part of the push for independence in Catalonia, which has become a permanent feature of the political landscape in Spain. The Catalan parliament passed a measure in September officially announcing its plan to hold a referendum on October 1. If Yes won on the day, the parliament said, it would declare independence from Spain within 48 hours. The Madrid government responded by declaring the vote illegal. The Spanish government is now attempeting to prevent …

It Gives Me A New Strength

Published by Sam

What follows is the story of one of the people helped by Secular Rescue, a secular blogger who is going by the pseudonym Himu Brown to protect his identity. Himu tells us in his own words how he came to realize his life was in danger, and how CFI and other nongovernmental organizations helped to bring him and his family to safety. This has been very slightly edited for clarity. I received death threats over the phone several times for being an atheist and blogger, and also for my involvement with Gonojagoron Moncho (2013 Shahbag protests) during the time of 2012- 2015. My name was on a hit list in Barisal city, prepared by local Islamic fanatics to be attacked and killed. Feeling vulnerable, I stopped my writing and activities and hid my atheist identity. I took a job in a local non-governmental Madrasa as an English lecturer, but I could not escape. Somehow my identity was leaked to the locals as well as to the people of my own village. After the killing of Avijit …

New government in Spain and what it means for Catalan's

New government in Spain and what it means for Catalan’s

Published by skeptic

Spain’s new prime minister Pedro Sanchez rose to office against a backdrop of unprecedented drama. But now he could capitalise on the circumstances that landed him the top job to resolve the conflict with Catalonia. Sanchez successfully ousted his predecessor Mariano Rajoy by passing a motion of no confidence against the Partido Popular government. Seizing on the unique opportunity offered by the sentencing of several prominent PP officials in a long-running corruption trial, the opposition leader moved quickly. Sanchez needed at least 176 votes but his Socialist party (PSOE) only had 84 seats and Ciudadanos, a centrist-liberal formation with a strong Spanish nationalist rhetoric, wouldn’t endorse a new left-wing government. So, Sanchez needed to muster the support of all other parties in the Spanish parliament. This included the left-wing party Podemos, and several nationalist parties from the Basque country and Catalonia, such as Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC). Sanchez takes office after his bold move in parliament. EP/Emilio Naranjo At the same time, in Barcelona, Quim Torra – a Catalan nationalist hand-picked by the exiled …