Atheists have better sex!

In religious debates, a common tactic is for the theist to claim that their belief grants them a sense of well being. They claim it makes their day to day lives are better and to be without religion, there would be a gaping hole left in them. Well a study by organizational psychologist Darrel Ray, Ed.D and undergraduate Amanda Brown have determined that any 'gaping hole' would have been supported by its own weight in guilt, at least when it comes to sex.

9,500 people fully answered the survey devised by the researchers to determine if their sex lives had changed since leaving religion (14,500 people, in all, participated but not all completed the survey). What was found is after leaving religion, their feeling of guilt after sex was greatly reduced. As an added bonus, 50% claimed to have had better sex then they had while being believers. It seems when you don't believe a magic man in the sky is watching you, you won't feel bad about getting it on with your partner.

The survey took samples from 94 countries though the majority came from the United States. The sample sizes came down to 5.1% from Canada, 4.7% from the UK, 2.7% from Australia, and the remaining countries never comprised more than .75% of the sample group.

What denomination a person held affected their level of guilt rather strongly. Those who came from a more fundamentalist background felt the most relief while more open belief systems such as Unitarianism had the least guilt attached to their sex lives.

It was also found that the kind of sexual behavior people would partake in would remain the same. So losing religion did not lead to new kinds of sex, just more satisfying sex. This is important to note as many who are locked in a faith believe the would become sexual deviants without the aid of their religion.

When asked about their sexual education, it was reported that those from more conservative households were the least likely to be informed, where as the more progressive and especially non-religious tended to be more informed about sexual matters. This did not reduce the age or number of sexual events, as both had approximately the same, just those from non-religious or non-denominational houses were more informed beforehand.

One expected outcome never did show itself. After losing religion, the guilt left behind quickly faded. Most reported there being no long term affects on their sex lives from having been a part of a religion. So we can safely say that it doesn't matter how long you have been a believer as once you stop, the sex will always get more rewarding

So the next time a theist claims that religion has improved their lives, you can whip out this study (hopefully only this study) and show them the fun you are having without all that guilt.

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References:
Sex and Secularism
By Darrel Ray, Ed.D. and Amanda Brown1
IPCpress.com

The Sound Of Freethinking: #12: Big Brothel

With the song Big Brothel, Colony 5 has created an interesting bit of commentary on the pointlessness and disturbingly short attention span of the media and most of its viewers. While this song is six years old, it loses none of its poignancy to time.

We sadly live in a culture where the most moronic of us get some of the most attention (Glen Beck anyone?). Where all one has to do to gain some fame is act like an idiot on television and they will have all they could desire...at least until the masses grow bored and need something new to keep them entertained.

With so much going wrong in our world, how is it these fools can garner the most attention? Do people feel they have enough to deal with and just want an escape? If so, then all they are doing is ignoring the truth in favor for their own fantasies (a bit like religion, no?) I've heard this excuse many times and find it hollow and pathetic. It is to say that your own comfort is more important than the future of our species and the lives of others.  With thanks to the lovely Misa Akane for making the video

Those inexpressive faces
Displaying useless minds
Idiots with a tan
And one-year lifespan

I flip through the channels
I flip through different ways
of humiliation
Different freaks every week

And for us this seems
Remarkable and sad
That folk need
To be stupid, to be bad
To gain fame
A fake respect
a revotting reputation
is the key to the media nation

A famine in North Africa
Genocide in South America
Revolution in East Asia
Suppression in Malaysia

Peace process in Palestine
It's a battle of wits
There's no place in the headlines
Cause BB blonde got new tits

Adetomyrma venatrix, the Dracula Ant

For your average ant, work is grueling no matter what species you belong to. All working towards the common good and hoping the colonies lineage will be passed on, even if it takes the sacrifice of a few workers. But there is one species where sacrifice becomes a full time job.

To find it, you must search the Zombitse Forest. Yes, you are looking for ants in a forest in Western Madagascar that does not give you pause to consider the sanity of looking for something called Dracula Ants in amongst the brush which will be sure to be infested with tiny zombies. After the initial lamentations, you should be up to scowling out these tiny forest creatures.

Eventually you will find a colony of Adetomyma venatrix, the Dracula Ant. At first look you might be intrigued by the ants body form. Nearly a 'missing link', these ants resemble wasps more than ants. They have only one joint between their thorax and abdomen instead of three like other species of ants. They also have an elongated stinger as well as have lost the use of their eyes.

About now you are probably wondering why does this evolutionary curiosity have such a distinguished name as Dracula? Well this has to do with how they gain their nourishment. Normal ants have their larvae eat the food and pre-digest it for the workers and pass it along. But Dracula Ants are busy and need their nourishment a bit more...fluidic.

Hungary queens, drones, and workers need only chew open the head of one of their own young to find all the nutrients they could need. Their larvae have an abundance of blood, well actually, Hemolymph, which the adults of the colony can just drink their fill of.

When observed it is noted that the larvae are not fond of the arrangement in the least, as they try to crawl away when workers are present and tiny ant screams can even be detected as the adults drink their younger's vital fluids. The survivors then pupate into adult ants and continue the cycle of work and "nondestructive cannibalism".

Pseudacteon

What child was not given an ant farm at one point in their lives (or if you were poor, just played with the ants that undoubtedly crawled throughout your kitchen stealing what little food you had)? Spending hours watching them make their endless tunnels only to eventually grow bored and end up shaking the whole thing to destroy their painstaking work to prove that you were the superior species.

The ant farm: bringing out the sadist in children since 1956.

But when nature looks down on the tiny any, she doesn’t see hours of discovery and wonderment. No, she sees a seemingly endless supply of potential zombies. In fact nature loves infecting the insect world’s tireless little laborers, proving that even the universe looks down upon dutiful workers as nothing more than a disposable resource. From the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, a fungi that forces its host to climb up a plant stalk above the colony and grab onto the plant with its mandibles until it dies and a stalk grows from its head to rain down its zombifying spores upon the hapless colony; to Dicrocoelium dendriticum, a lancet fluke that also causes ants to climb up plant stalks (but only at night while the rest of the colony is sleeping so as not to be noticed, like some sort of horrible were-ant) so that it may be eaten by grazing sheep and cows, its primary hosts. But the absolute most terrifying has to be Pseudacteon, a genus related to the harmless but ever annoying fruit fly. As we all know, evolution is not content to keep anything harmless when there is a way to turn it into a source of our deepest fears. The female of these tiny flies (about the size of an ant’s head) search for colonies of only one species of ant (the species depends on the species of Pseudacteon). When it finds a suitable host, it dive bombs the ants until it can grab one and stab its thorax with its ovipositor, injecting it with a single egg before flying off. At this point the ant is probably freaking the hell out, but other than having a crazy story to tell the rest of the colony that must be reminiscent of hillbillies and their stories of alien abduction, the ant is mostly unharmed.

As the ant is being told that it was just a crazy dream by its nest mates, the egg hatches and migrates to the head of the ant. It is here that it begins to feast on everything around it. As more and more of its brain is eaten away, the ant begins to wander away from the colony in a rather aimless fashion. A few days in, the entire contents of the head are eaten yet the body continues to wander at behest of its new master. At this point the ant is a zombie in the traditional sense, a dead body wandering about, and yes, only a head shot can ‘kill’ it.

Years of survival horror games have prepared you for this very moment.

Eventually the larvae is ready to pupate, but having the zombie body would just be a hassle, so it does what any self respecting source of terror does, it causes the head to fall off and uses the empty skull as a cozy metamorphosis chamber. It then emerges a fully developed fly and buzzes off to find a mate and continue the cycle anew. I’m sure this is exactly what Disney had in mind with that “Circle of Life” song from “The Lion King”.

To make sure you don’t sleep ever, I should let you in on a little secret. These tiny abominations that would give Ridley Scott nightmares are being bred in captivity en mass. You see, a particular species preys only on Fire Ants, a species of ant that has been invading vast areas of land throughout the Americas. To combat this, certain groups in the Unites States have decided it would be a good idea to raise huge amounts of these face-hugger flies and see if they might help control the spread of Fire Ants. Thus far, the project has shown no noticeable change in the spread of these invasive ants. But when the tiny zombie apocalypse occurs, we will at least know who to blame, we’re looking at you University of Texas at Austin. Why are we not surprised that Texas would be the one to doom us all.

Tennessee, protecting kids from the evil gays

Now I wish I had come across this sooner, as the news about it came out on the 21st of last month, but I had to mention it as it is a real threat to sanity. Tennessee, that ever so progressive state, has passed a bill from a committee to the state senate floor that would make it illegal to mention homosexuality in any way in schools before the ninth grade.

This bill is one that has been fought for by Republicans for the last six years. Created by Senator Stacey Campfield, and known as the "Don't say gay" bill, it states that:

"No public elementary or middle school shall provide any instruction or material that discusses sexual orientation other than heterosexuality."

Because we all know, if you just ignore something you don't like (or make it illegal) it will go away. Have a kid who is coming to terms with their sexuality? To bad, you better hide it because Tennessee doesn't want to hear about it or help you. This is the kind of idiocy created by people who honestly think sexual orientation is a choice and roving bands of homosexuals are out to corrupt their children.

This is not the first bit of nuttery from Campfield. Previously, he made an attempt to pass a bill that would require death certificates to be given for aborted fetuses. He was also behind attempts to force women getting an abortion to look at ultrasound images, eliminate the state's pre-kindergarten program and also make it legal to carry a firearm onto a college campus. Yet he still has quite a bit of support from many Republicans, which just shows how bat-shit insane they really are.

Upon hearing this, George Takei made a comment on his twitter once again proving his brilliant wit:

TN bill will prevent teachers from using the word "gay" in class. In response, I'm lending them my name: "It's okay to be Takei."

Symbion pandora

Today, over at Carl Zimmer's blog, The Loom, he posted a video created by CreatureCast. CreatureCast is a site devoted to spreading information on various critters and concepts in Biology. Often, the organisms mentioned are a bit on the odd side, so you know I absolutely love it.

In this instance, the organism featured is Symbion pandora, an odd little critter that lives solely on the mouth-parts of the Norway Lobster (Nephrops norvegicus). They were discovered only in 1995 and were so unique they had to be given their own phylum, Cycliophora. Between then and now, two other species have been discovered, all three of which are within the same genus and all having similar life cycles.

Symbion pandora, and its two relatives, are commensal symbiotes with their lobstery homes. This means that they benefit from the relationship while the lobster is unaffected. These creatures simply live on the mouth-parts and filter bits of food and not much else. They have no known predators (other than those who feed on their host lobster) and have only one real worry, the lobster's molting process. It is during this time that the more complex of Symbion pandora's two modes of reproduction comes into play. At this point, I shall let the creative minds behind CreatureCast take over and explain to you this rather interesting process.

The Curiously Complex Lifecycle of Symbion Pandora from Casey Dunn on Vimeo.

Callorhincidae, the Plough-Nose Chimaeras

A juvenile Callorhinchus milii.

Callorhincidae is a family of Chimaeriforms more commonly known as Plough-Nose Chiaeras, the Elephant Sharks and even occasionally the Ghost Shark (a name which is frowned upon outside of colloquial use as this term is generally used to describe the closely related family Chimaeridea). While all Chimaeriforms are known to be a bit odd in appearance, members of this family of deep water fish have taken things just a step further. As their common name sake suggests, they have evolved a unique proboscis (known as a rostrum) that functions much like a metal detector. But in this case, the bits of treasure it is seeking are hidden morsals of food buryed within the sea floor.

The Chimaeras, are among the oldest group of living fish with known fossils dating back as early as the Devonian. A member of the class Chondrichthyes (the cartilaginous fish) and sub-class Holocephali (of which the order Chimaeriformes is the only extant order), the family Callorhincidae contains only one genus, Callorhinchus which in turn is composed of three known species: Callorhinchus callorynchus, Callorhinchus capensis and Callorhinchus milii.

These fish are often found around 200-500 meters (656-1640 ft), although they have been known to come into shallower water to lay their eggs. They range in size from 90 cm to 125 cm (3 to 4.10 ft). But as I have said, their most prominent feature is their rostrum that is filled with sensory nerves. It functions much like the broadened head of the various species of hammerhead sharks by detecting the electrical signals given off by other organisms. With this tool, the Plough-Nose can simply swim along the sea floor until its 'nose' picks up the faint signals of previously hidden critters.

A close up of the sensitive rostrum of the Plough-Nose Chimera.

While the unique nose of this fish has granted them an easy way to find a meal, it has also attracted many deep sea fishers who are hoping for a unique catch and for its flesh (which supposedly, has a taste simimilar to Cod and has become quite popular in many restaurants in Australia and New Zealand). Though unwary fishers and researchers may encounter a defensive feature shared by all extant Chimaeriforms, a spine at that base of the dorsal fin. Thankfully this family does not seem to be threatened by such human actions.

Another odd feature about the Plough-Nose and other Chimaeriforms can be found in their reproduction. They share many features with their closest relatives, the sharks and rays, internal fertilization and the laying of protected eggs known as 'mermaid purses' (though some sharks are viviparous). However, the Chimaeriforms method of fertilization differs greatly. While male sharks and rays have a pair of claspers located near the pelvic fin, Chimaeriforms have a pair of split claspers as well as a retractable structure on its forehead. Known as the tentaculum, this structure is a spiny knob like protrusion that is believed to be used to 'stimulate' the female during mating. There is an obvious joke here, but it is far to blatant to mention.

A final interesting feature about these fish has been revealed by the Elephant Shark Genome Project. The project was proposed due to the fact that Chimaeriforms have the smallest genome of any cartilaginous fish and because cartilainous fish are the oldest jawed vertebrates. Using the Australian Ghost Shark (Callorhinchus milii, the project hopes to be able to use these fish as a model which could help shed light on vertebrate evolution. One unexpected result of the inital findings is that this species has a three cone color vision system, something shared by humans.