Free Republic

Geographers from Kansas State University have created a map of the spatial distribution of the Seven Deadly Sins across the United States. How? By mapping demographic data related to each of the Sins. Below are screenshots of the maps in standard deviation units; red naturally is more sinful, blue less sinful.

The human species began as the hybrid offspring of a male pig and a female chimpanzee, a leading geneticist has suggested. The startling claim has been made by Eugene McCarthy, of the University of Georgia, who is also one of the worlds leading authorities on hybridisation in animals. He points out that while humans have many features in common with chimps, we also have a large number of distinguishing characteristics not found in any other primates. Dr McCarthy says these divergent characteristics are most likely the result of a hybrid origin at some point far back in human evolutionary history....

(CNN) -- Mom-to-be Maggie Baumann knew she most definitely would not be "eating for two." She couldn't. During her first pregnancy, she was extremely preoccupied with just how many calories she consumed and stuck to a very strict exercise routine. "Getting on the scale at the doctor's office was very triggering for me," said Baumann of Newport Beach, California, who is now an eating disorders specialist and trauma therapist who devotes some of her practice to pregnant women and moms suffering from eating disorders. She gained 32 pounds during her first pregnancy, which is very much in line with the...

<p>Why did all the experts get the hurricane season outlook so wrong?</p> <p>Twelve forecast teams predicted an average of 16 named storms, including eight hurricanes, four major. Yet this season, which ends Saturday, saw only 13 named storms, including two mediocre Category 1 hurricanes.</p>

After certain press criticism and a productive online backlash in the blogosphere, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) is performing a gratifying volte-face in its use of the term sexual "orientation" for paedophilia. In its fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), the APA has distinguished between paedophilic disorder and paedophilic orientation. Paedophilia-advocacy groups, like B4U-ACT, a grassroots lobby group, have long seen the declassification of paedophilia to the status of an "orientation" for “minor-attracted persons" (MAPs) to be a necessary means to their ends. The North American Man-Boy Love Association (and numerous international affiliates advocating...

I was perusing through the news and saw many articles on the horrific destruction the storm in the Philippines had wrought. As I reading through the stories at Google, yahoo News, the term 'Climate Negotiator' kept on appearing in article after article. Well, I had no idea what a Climate Negotiator is, does. I mean, trying to negotiate with the climate seems a sissyphean task if not the most mentally stable thing to attempt. I tried searching Google, Yahoo for some precise meaning, job description for a Climate Negotiator but information was far and few between. It seems it is...

(AP) FDA to ban artery-clogging trans fats By MARY CLARE JALONICK Associated Press WASHINGTON Heart-clogging trans fats have been slowly disappearing from grocery aisles and restaurant menus in the last decade. Now, the Food and Drug Administration is finishing the job. The FDA announced Thursday it will require the food industry to gradually phase out artificial trans fats, saying they are a threat to people's health. Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said the move could prevent 20,000 heart attacks and 7,000 deaths each year.

The American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) decision to once again reclassify pedophilia has led to further concerns that the professional organization is attempting to legitimize the disorder, paving the way for its defense and the recommendation of removal of age-of-consent laws.In a press release Friday, Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit organization that promotes the causes of religious liberty, the sanctity of human life, and the family observed that in its newly published Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), APA “changed the classification of pedophilia from a ‘disorder’ to a ‘sexual orientation,’ but, following the public outcry, APA released...

Ellmers: But men are required to purchase maternity coverage. Sebelius: Well, an insurance policy has a series of benefits whether you use them or not… Ellmers: And that is why health care premiums are increasing, because we are forcing them to buy things that they will never need. Thank you. Sebelius: The individual policies cover families. Men often do need maternity care for their spouses and for their families, yes. Ellmers: A single male, aged 32, does need maternity coverage. To the best of your knowledge, has a man ever delivered a baby?

A SIMPLE idea underpins science: “trust, but verify”. Results should always be subject to challenge from experiment. That simple but powerful idea has generated a vast body of knowledge. Since its birth in the 17th century, modern science has changed the world beyond recognition, and overwhelmingly for the better. But success can breed complacency. Modern scientists are doing too much trusting and not enough verifying—to the detriment of the whole of science, and of humanity. Too many of the findings that fill the academic ether are the result of shoddy experiments or poor analysis

The Los Angeles Times is giving the cold shoulder to global warming skeptics. Paul Thornton, editor of the paper’s letters section, recently wrote a letter of his own, stating flatly that he won't publish some letters from those skeptical of man’s role in our planet’s warming climate. In Thornton’s eyes, those people are often wrong -- and he doesn’t print obviously wrong statements.

It’s worth offering a bit more context on a point I raised in my morning post on the new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Will the fresh assessment of global warming from the panel matter where it counts, in the realm of environmental and energy policy and diplomacy? In the short run, no. And this is not only because of disinformation campaigns, as some would assert. Just as the trajectory for climate change at the moment is substantially determined by emissions of greenhouse gases emitted in decades past, prospects for climate legislation or a new international treaty...

LONDON, October 1, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – As pornography pervades the culture, porn addicts are getting younger and younger. According to a new survey in the UK, 20 percent of boys in their late teens say they are “dependent on porn.” According to the University of East London, one-fifth of boys said they could not become sexually stimulated without watching pornography. In all, 97 percent of boys and 80 percent of girls who responded to the survey said they had viewed porn. Nearly a quarter of boys and eight percent of girls said they have tried to stop watching pornography but...

Comments can be bad for science. That's why, here at PopularScience.com, we're shutting them off.It wasn't a decision we made lightly. As the news arm of a 141-year-old science and technology magazine, we are as committed to fostering lively, intellectual debate as we are to spreading the word of science far and wide. The problem is when trolls and spambots overwhelm the former, diminishing our ability to do the latter.That is not to suggest that we are the only website in the world that attracts vexing commenters. Far from it. Nor is it to suggest that all, or even close...

No excerpt from IHE allowed, story here. To summarize, an engineering education magazine publishes a letter by a professor critical of homosexuality, and many are appalled.

At the weekend my old mucker David Rose reported in the Mail On Sunday the shocking news that there is 60 per cent more sea ice at the Arctic than there was this time last year. So too did Hayley Dixon in the Telegraph. The implication of both pieces was that perhaps this global warming thing we've been hearing about ad nauseam this last couple of decades isn't quite the deadly threat the 'scientists' have been telling us it was; that indeed, maybe the more pressing worry ought to be global cooling.Luckily the Guardian's token Big Oil employee and environmental...

'Marco Rubio threatens everything in his path'

UPDATE: 8/23/13 1:00PM PDT Its seems there’s blunders to go around. The Washington Post now says they “misquoted” Gore. Given his penchant for saying and doing dumb things in the past related to his views on climate, color me “skeptical”, especially when he makes ugly comparisons about people like he did below. It may be more of a case of some deal was worked out behind the scenes to salvage Gore’s waning credibility. I suppose we’ll never know, but I have asked WaPo to put the relevant audio of the tape recorded session online so we can verify that Gore...

Shifts in climate are strongly linked to increases in violence around the world, a study suggests. US scientists found that even small changes in temperature or rainfall correlated with a rise in assaults, rapes and murders, as well as group conflicts and war. The team says with the current projected levels of climate change, the world is likely to become a more violent place.

... A new study comes to a startling conclusion: Among primates, including perhaps humans, monogamy evolved because it protected infants from being killed by rival males. Living in pairs, what researchers call social monogamy, has repeatedly evolved among animals, although in widely varying proportions among different groups. Thus, about 90% of bird species are socially monogamous, probably because incubating eggs and feeding hatchlings is a full-time job that requires both parents. But in mammals, females carry the babies inside their bodies and are solely responsible for providing milk to young infants—and only about 5% of species are socially monogamous.