Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science

Destructive plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients have been rapidly cleared by researchers testing a cancer drug on mice.

The US study, published in the journal Science, reported the plaques were broken down at "unprecedented" speed.

Tests also showed an improvement in some brain function.

Sections of Alzheimer's, left, and healthy brain tissue showing brain shrinkage with the condition

Specialists said the results were promising, but warned that successful drugs in mice often failed to work in people.

The exact cause of Alzheimer's remains unknown, but one of the leading theories involves the formation of clumps of a protein called beta-amyloid. These damage and kill brain cells, eventually resulting in memory problems and the inability to think clearly.

Clearing protein plaques is a major focus of Alzheimer's research and drugs are already being tested in human clinical trials.

In the body, the role of removing beta-amyloid falls to apolipoprotein E - or ApoE. However, people have different versions of the protein. Having the ApoE4 genetic variant is one of the biggest risk factors for developing the disease.

Helping hand Scientists at the Case Western Reserve University in Ohio were investigating ways of boosting levels of ApoE, which in theory should reduce levels of beta-amyloid.

They tested bexarotene, which has been approved for use to treat cancers in the skin, on mice with an illness similar to Alzheimer's.

After one dose in young mice, the levels of beta-amyloid in the brain were "rapidly lowered" within six hours and a 25% reduction was sustained for 70 hours.

In older mice with established amyloid plaques, seven days of treatment halved the number of plaques in the brain.

The study said there were improvements in brain function after treatment, in nest building, maze performance and remembering electrical shocks.

Researchers Paige Cramer said: "This is an unprecedented finding. Previously, the best existing treatment for Alzheimer's disease in mice required several months to reduce plaque in the brain."

Read on

Thanks to Steve Zara for the link.

The Pope has performed an exorcism, according to claims made in a new book Photo: GETTY

In a new book, Father Amorth, the exorcist for the diocese of Rome, gives a bizarre account of how he and two assistants brought a pair of "possessed" Italian men to one of the Pope's weekly audiences in St Peter's Square in May 2009.

In his book, "The Last Exorcist – My Fight Against Satan", he claimed the mere presence of the pontiff cured the men of their demonic afflictions.

Father Amorth said his two female assistants escorted the two men into St Peter's Square as the Pope was driven between crowds of faithful in the white "Popemobile" jeep.

The women managed to obtain seats for the two men in an area of seating normally reserved for the disabled.

As the Pope approached them, the men, identified only as Marco and Giovanni, began to act strangely, Father Amorth wrote.

He described how they trembled and how their teeth chattered.

When one of the assistants asked Giovanni to control himself, he said "I am not Giovanni" in a voice that was not his own, Father Amorth claimed.

As soon as the Pope stepped down from the "Popemobile' the two men flung themselves to the floor.

"They banged their heads on the ground. The Swiss Guards watched them but did nothing," the priest wrote.

"Giovanni and Marco started to wail at the same time, they were lying on the floor, howling.

"They were trembling, slobbering, working themselves into a frenzy.

"The Pope watched from a distance. He raised an arm and blessed the four of them. For the possessed it was like a furious jolt - a blow to their whole bodies - to the extent that they were thrown three metres backwards," he continued.

Read on

St. John Chrysostom once said, "The road to hell is paved with the skulls of bishops."

Here's proof that he was right.

In an interview this week with Connecticut Magazine, Cardinal Edward Egan, withdrew his 2002 apology for the Church's handling of the sex-abuse scandal, which was once read in all New York parishes.

A decade after that letter, the former archbishop of New York, and former bishop of Bridgeport, now describes the handling of the priest-abuse crisis under his watch as “incredibly good.” He said of the letter, "I never should have said that,” and added, “I don’t think we did anything wrong.”

“I never had one of these sex abuse cases.” he said, before adding pompously, “If you have another bishop in the United States who has the record I have, I’d be happy to know who he is.” He also claimed that the Church had no obligation to report abuse to the civil authorities.

These are lies, strutting around with pride.

The Church is required to report abuse, according to laws on the books since the 1970s.

Bishop Egan ran a diocese that was notoriously dangerous for children. Contrary to his claim, during his twelve-year enthronement at Bridgeport, Egan repeatedly failed to investigate priests where there were obvious signs of abuse, according to The Hartford Courant. His diocese had to settle the cases and awarded victims some $12-15 million in damages.

Read on

Three US citizens who lost their sight in childhood have reported a dramatic improvement in vision after having gene therapy in both eyes.

There was some improvement after the genetic fault in one eye was corrected four years ago.

Now, one woman has described her joy at seeing her children's faces, after her second eye was treated.

Tami Morehouse: 'It's just incredible to see'

The research increases hopes that gene therapy can be used in a range of eye conditions, said a UK expert.

The three have Leber's Congenital Amaurosis (LCA), a rare inherited disease caused by defects in a gene encoding a protein needed for vision.

It appears at birth or in the first months of life, leading to severely impaired vision, involuntary eye movements and poor night vision.

The disorder, which can be caused by 'mistakes' in more than 10 different genes, prevents normal function of the retina; the light-sensitive layer of cells at the back of the eye.

Several teams around the world are carrying out early trials of gene therapy in blindness, including experts at the Philadelphia Children's Hospital and the University of Philadelphia, US.

Only a handful of patients worldwide have received the treatment to boost a faulty gene underlying an inherited form of blindness.

Read on

The team placed the sticky model horses in a fly-infested field

Why zebras evolved their characteristic black-and-white stripes has been the subject of decades of debate among scientists.

Now researchers from Hungary and Sweden claim to have solved the mystery.

The stripes, they say, came about to keep away blood-sucking flies.

They report in the Journal of Experimental Biology that this pattern of narrow stripes makes zebras "unattractive" to the flies.

They key to this effect is in how the striped patterns reflect light.

"We started off studying horses with black, brown or white coats," explained Susanne Akesson from Lund University, a member of the international research team that carried out the study.

"We found that in the black and brown horses, we get horizontally polarised light." This effect made the dark-coloured horses very attractive to flies.

It means that the light that bounces off the horse's dark coat - and travels in waves to the eyes of a hungry fly - moves along a horizontal plane, like a snake slithering along with its body flat to the floor.

Dr Akesson and her colleagues found that horseflies, or tabanids, were very attracted by these "flat" waves of light.

"From a white coat, you get unpolarised light [reflected]," she explained. Unpolarised light waves travel along any and every plane, and are much less attractive to flies. As a result, white-coated horses are much less troubled by horseflies than their dark-coloured relatives.

Having discovered the flies' preference for dark coats, the team then became interested in zebras. They wanted to know what kind of light would bounce off the striped body of a zebra, and how this would affect the biting flies that are a horse's most irritating enemy.

Read on

America and Eurasia will crash into each other over the North Pole in 50-200 million years time, according to scientists at Yale University.

They predict Africa and Australia will join the new "supercontinent" too, which will mark the next coming together of the Earth's land masses.

The continents are last thought to have come together 300 million years ago into a supercontinent called Pangaea.

Details are published in the journal Nature.

An impression of the "supercontinent of Pangaea" some 300 million years ago

The land masses of the Earth are constantly moving as the Earth's tectonic activity occurs. This generates areas such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where Iceland has formed, and areas such as that off the coast of Japan, where one plate rides over another.

Geologists believe that, over billions of years, these shifting plates have driven the continents together periodically, creating the hypothesised supercontinents of Nuna 1.8 billion years ago, Rodinia a billion years ago, and then Pangaea 300 million years ago.

The next supercontinent has already been given the working title of Amasia, as it is expected to involve the convergence of the Americas and Asia.

What the researchers have set out to do is predict when and where it will form by looking back at where its predecessors emerged.

"We're all pretty familiar with the concept of Pangaea, but there hasn't been much convincing data to suggest how the supercontinents take shape," Ross Mitchell of Yale University told BBC News.

"In our model, we actually have North America and South America joining by closing the Caribbean Sea and the Arctic Sea closing and connecting the Americas and Asia."

Read on and view animation

Dr Caroline Smith, Natural History Museum: Meteorite "most exciting in my career"

A Martian meteorite, an incredibly rare object, has been given to science to help unravel the Red Planet's secrets.

The Natural History Museum in London has acquired a 1kg piece of the Tissint rock thanks to an anonymous benefactor.

It was seen to land in Morocco last July and retrieved quickly, resulting in minimal contamination with Earth.

Researchers hope Tissint's geochemistry will provide insights into past conditions on Mars and the possibility that it may once have hosted life.

Just 61 out of the 41,000 meteorites known to science come from Mars. To get here, they would have been blasted off the surface of the Red Planet by a mighty impact and then travelled through the Solar System before crashing to Earth.

There have only been four other witnessed Martian meteorite falls, the last one in Nigeria in 1962.

"This meteorite is the most important meteorite to have landed on Planet Earth in the last 100 years," explained Dr Caroline Smith, meteorite curator at the NHM. "Tissint fell in a dry area, and was picked up soon after it fell and has absolutely minimal contamination. It is as if it has just been blasted off Mars. It is effectively a pristine sample of Mars."

Read on and view video

On March 24th at the National Mall in Washington D.C., the largest gathering of secular men, women and youth will take place. It's free, and people are traveling from across the nation (and even overseas) to attend. Featured speakers include Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, James Randi, Taslima Nasrin, Adam Savage of Mythbusters. Greta Christina, music by Bad Religion and an incredible day that will make history.

Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins discussed "Something from Nothing" on Feb 4, 2012 at ASU. The event (posted here on rd.net) will be rebroadcast on Friday 10 February at 1pm EST (GMT-5). Lawrence Krauss will answer questions live after the broadcast.

The Simon and Schuster USTREAM link is http://www.ustream.tv/simonandschuster

Technicianonline.com, which appears to be the student newspaper from North Carolina State University, has a new editorial called “Evolution: theory not fact” by deputy viewpoint editor Madison Murphy. It not only mischaracterizes evolution, but makes the crucial mistake of dismissing evolution as not a fact but “only a theory” (not her words, but an accurate characterization).  Murphy begins with a somewhat misguided definition of evolution:

The theory of evolution can be explained simply: Complex creatures evolved from simplistic creatures over time. All creatures come from a common ancestor. Over time, mutations in genetic codes were maintained as they aided in survival. This process of mutation is called natural selection. Eventually, these mutations build up until a complex creature is the result.

Leaving aside the hilarious misuse of the word “simplistic,” this paragraph gets natural selection wrong in several ways: mutations aren’t “maintained”, but increase in frequency; the currency of selection is reproduction, not survival alone; and selection is not just a “process of mutation”, but a process that involves the selective disposition of mutations via a deterministic process of gene sorting.

She then appears to favor teaching alternative creationist views, a deeply misguided notion, but in the process also conflates those views:

There are opposing theories to evolution, however, and they are also some of the most controversial theories to ever be discussed in science, politics, religion and education. These opposing theories are creationism and intelligent design. Some people lump these two together, but they are slightly different.

The theory of intelligent design states that the creation of a complex being could not have happened randomly or by chance. There had to have been a higher power that created this complexity. However, according to intelligent design, this “designer” could have been anyone.

The theory of creationism, on the other hand, states the designer was God. The extremes of creationism vary as well. Some people believe in what is strictly stated in the Bible in Genesis without any room for other possibilities. Others, such as Catholics, believe evolution could have occurred the way Darwin describes, but by the power of God. This belief also says evolution cannot account for the creation of the human soul.

Read more