A couple of weeks ago today, we had the pleasure of meeting John Lennox, author of “God’s Undertaker - has science buried God?”

This was an event we (the University of Southampton Atheist Society), co-organised with Christians in Science. A quick look around their website gives a fairly promising impression - that of Christians with a genuine interest in accepting science rather than running away from it or objecting to it.

Anyhow, CiS organise talks by people like Lennox, and they offered us the chance to meet with Lennox over lunch on the same day as his evening talk. We jumped at the chance, as well as planning to go along to the evening talk as well.

It was always my plan to blog about the days events, but I’ve held off. Firstly because I left the event feeling pretty disappointed and angry, so wanted to put a bit of emotional distance between myself and the events of the day, but also because there really wasn’t that much interesting to say.

No, this is for real.

I am speechless

Saw this on the news recently, and wanted to share.

The Office of Government Commerce have produced a new logo, which, when rotated 90 degrees…. well, see for yourselves

I just received an email from a ‘friend’. It’s one of those funky ‘here are some awesome optical illusions’ messages.

Most of them are standard Necker Cube type stuff (if you look at the image a certain way you see something different), but actually, a couple of them are quite cool. The final one is trumpeted as the ‘Amazing illusion ever’… and I am told in the email that it is “the best”. I think you can probably guess what it is from the title of this post……

For F. Happy Birthday!

Aquaculture is often seen as an important way to address the growing food needs of human populations, without the environmental costs of harvesting from wild populations (such as habitat destruction and overfishing). Unfortunately, ‘farming’ of marine species for food often has significant environmental impacts of it’s own, for example the destruction of large swaths of mangroves for the construction of shrimp farming ponds, and the organic enrichment of marine habitats by wastes from fish farms.

Aquaculture has other problems to contend with, aside from the potential environmental effects. Rearing of large numbers of individuals of a single species, in close quarters, inevitably raises the risk of disease – which can lead to significant economic costs: lost production, administration of antibiotics, treatment of infected animals, etc.

One species which is under consideration for aquaculture is the European shore crab, Carcinus maenas, which is used as bait by anglers and (apparently) as a food in continental Europe (those crazy continentals….. I can’t say that I find myself tempted to eat this particular species). However, there seem to be some problems with culturing this particular species – one of which is a previously unknown disease which is seen to infect a significant proportion of crabs under aquaculture conditions (present in less than 1% of wild individuals). Scientists at Swansea University (Eddy et al., 2007) investigated this previously undescribed disease, which they call ‘milky disease’ due to the fact that the haemolymph (crab blood, to the uninitiated) of infected crabs takes on a milky appearance, and to find out what the disease agent is, what effect it has on infected crabs, and how it is transmitted.

Is it just me, or are these people missing the blindingly obvious?

Yes, alright, I’ll get in on it as well.

Expelled

Marine anemones are often admired for their colourful beauty (although some are, admittedly, rather drab), but people are often surprised to hear that they are actually animals. They are in fact members of the cnidarians, a group of animals which all possess a cell type known as cnidocytes – cells which can fire barbed stingers into any prey which brush against them – hence the stings of jellyfish, who are also members of this group (you might think of an anemone as being something like an upside-down jellyfish, attached to a solid substrate). Like jellyfish, they are muscular, and can move about to an extent, depending on the species. Their behaviour can be fascinating. Some species even engage in vicious (if slow-motion) combat with other members of their species when they come into contact.

Many anemones are omnivorous suspension feeders, meaning that they obtain their food from suspended particles in the water column as they are washed over their tentacles, but they will take all manner of organic detritus when they can get it. Some will also consume any small organisms unfortunate to blunder into their stinging tentacles, such as amphipods and other small crustaceans. Two such anemone species are Cereus pedunculatus, which lives partly buried in sediment with its tentacles projecting from the surface, and Calliactis parasitica, which lives attached to the shells of hermit crabs and gastropods. Under normal conditions, these two species are typical mild-mannered suspension feeders, but once the level of dissolved oxygen in the water begins to drop, things start to change……..

Recently I wrote a post on gut reactions and how we should treat them, at the very least, sceptically. Well, there’s a very good editorial in this week’s Nature , that covers similar ground, as well as talking about concepts of ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ upon which people place rather too much weight. Everyone should read it

In case you can’t get through the subscription wall, the text is quoted below the fold:

H₀ = The universe in which we exist is not significantly different from one in which no god or gods exist

H₁ = The universe in which we exist is significantly different from one in which no god or gods exist, and therefore god(s) of some form must exist.

There is insufficient evidence for H₀ to be rejected.