Free Republic

Bat Evolution? Still Looking May 8, 2020 | Jerry Bergman Evidence for Bat Evolution? Still Looking After All These Years Smithsonian Magazine Attempts to Explain Away the Problem by Jerry Bergman, PhD The headline of a new Smithsonian magazine article tells it all: “Why Bats Are One of Evolution’s Greatest Puzzles. Paleontologists seek the ancestors that could explain how bats became the only flying mammals.”[1] Bats have been in the news much lately because they are the main suspect in the spread of many zoonotic diseases into humans, including Ebola and the COVID-19 virus. I have been writing about many...

A police shooting at a crowded Walmart in San Leandro, California, fatally wounded a man brandishing a baseball bat. Graphic cellphone video of the officer-involved shooting, which circulated widely online, shows responding officers tasing suspect Steven Taylor, 33. He then refused to drop the bat and was shot, leaving a trail of blood on the floor as he stumbled away. Despite life-saving measures, Taylor died from his injuries at the scene. The use of deadly force is under investigation.

People with blood type A might be more vulnerable to the coronavirus, while those with type O blood could be more resistant, according to a new preliminary study from China. Researchers studying COVID-19 in its outbreak epicenter, Wuhan, and the city of Shenzhen found the proportion of Type-A patients both infected and killed by the disease to be “significantly” higher than those with the same blood type in the general public.

hai villagers scouring a dark cave for bat guano, sought after by farmers as a nutrient-rich crop fertilizer, are undaunted by scientists’ suggestion that it could be behind a coronavirus that has infected more than 150,000 people worldwide.

The first people who contracted the deadly new coronavirus sweeping through Asia were infected when the virus jumped from animals to humans, and a new report points to the original animal source: bats. Scientists from the Wuhan Institute for Virology — located in China’s epicenter of the outbreak, now under quarantine — published a paper Thursday that confirmed the fast-spreading virus is in the same family as the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus that hit Asia in 2003 and killed almost 800 people, and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). Based on oral swabs, anal swabs, and blood collected from...

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — A local business owner told authorities he shot a former employee in self defense after the man attacked him with a nail-spiked baseball bat, according to Sheriff's Office records. Deputies arrested Matthew Thomas Shaler, 38, of the 5600 block of 38th Place, around 8 a.m. Dec. 25 and charged him with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and felony armed trespassing. According to an arrest affidavit, the incident occurred seven days before Shaler's Christmas arrest. The owner of the local flooring business said on Dec. 18 around 11 a.m. he was inside his 39th Street office...

House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff, D-Calif., sought Wednesday to keep the fire burning over Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report with the latest in a series of hearings on the Russia controversy -- as Republicans voiced frustration over what they described as a “grotesque spectacle” on Capitol Hill.

At a cursory glance, the only relationship you may notice between BAT, the Basic Attention Token, and the Brave browser is that both are related to advertising. When you take a closer look, however, the two are very much connected. You can use the BAT token with the Brave browser to support websites, and the two were created to seamlessly integrate. Because of this, an understanding of one requires a comprehension of the other, as well.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, accused Democrats of going "bat-crap crazy" during a speech to a gathering of conservative activists on Friday in which he assailed the other party for its views on abortion, border security, and the environment. “I think there is a technical description for what’s going on, which is that Democrats have gone batcrap crazy,” Cruz told National Review editor Rich Lowry at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Md. “They are getting more and more and more extreme on every issue,” Cruz said.

Missing a Father in Iran Daniel Levinson June 22, 2008 It has been 471 days since my father, Robert "Bob" Levinson, went missing in Iran -- more than the 444 days that 52 American diplomats were held hostage after they were seized in Iran in 1979. These past 15 months have brought my mother, four sisters, two brothers and me nothing but grief and sadness. We are no closer to finding answers than we were when our father disappeared March 9, 2007, on Kish Island, Iran. He was on a private business trip, and I emphasize "private" because, although he...

Authorities have located the woman they say picked up a live, potentially rabid bat from the floor of a South Jersey supermarket and took it home. The Elsinboro woman and her family went to The Memorial Hospital of Salem County late Wednesday to seek "medical consultation," according to Salem County Spokeswoman Brenda P. Banks. Authorities were aggressively searching for the woman because they feared because of the bat's erratic behavior, witnessed by many in the market, it could be rabid. Bats are nocturnal mammals and their appearance during daylight hours and erratic behavior can sometimes be a sign they are...

A former high school behavior counselor accused of attacking a motorist with a baseball bat in a 2016 road rage incident pleaded guilty Wednesday (June 13) to aggravated battery. Wilbert Gray, 42, pleaded guilty as charged as potential jurors assembled outside Criminal District Judge Darryl Derbigny's courtroom, according to District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro's office. Gray was involved in a minor wreck with a 37-year-old man at the intersection of Tulane and Carrollton avenues around midnight on Sept. 4, 2016, according to New Orleans police. The other driver told police he didn't see any damage and drove away. He then noticed...

The bat, found near the Como Lakeside Pavilion, tested positive for rabies, the agency said. A concerned citizen contacted the state Health Department about a woman who had handled the animal. Signs were posted in the area telling people about the rabid bat, and the woman came forward after seeing the notices circulating on social media. "If someone has been bitten or exposed to a bat, it is very important to test the bat for rabies," Dr. Joni Scheftel, state public health veterinarian, said in the news release. "If this is not possible, rabies prevention shots should be given as...

The Democratic National Committee filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit Friday against the Russian government, the Trump campaign and the WikiLeaks organization alleging a far-reaching conspiracy to disrupt the 2016 campaign and tilt the election to Donald Trump. The complaint, filed in federal district court in Manhattan, alleges that top Trump campaign officials conspired with the Russian government and its military spy agency to hurt Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and help Trump by hacking the computer networks of the Democratic Party and disseminating stolen material found there. “During the 2016 presidential campaign, Russia launched an all-out assault on our democracy, and...

A Florida woman was savagely beaten with a bat when an enraged sister-duo chased her through a shopping plaza during an alleged road rage incident. Mikaela Barboza told WSVN she hopes her cellphone video will help police capture the two women who assaulted her on Thursday. The 26-year-old said she was driving down U.S. 441 in Lauderdale Lakes when she cut a woman off. Barboza recalled another woman — said to be the sister of the woman who she initially cut off — was in a separate vehicle and began yelling at her. “You cut my sister off, that’s disrespectful,”...

The Freeman’s dog-faced bat (“Cynomops freeman”) was found in Soberania National Park near the Panama Canal. (Photo by Thomas Sattler) ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Flitting swiftly through the darkness above the tropical forest canopy in Central and South America, a group of cute little bats with dog-like faces have long been hiding a big secret. Now, their secret is out. For more than 50 years, scientists believed that only six species of the fast flying, insect-eating mammals known as dog-faced bats existed. That number has now increased to eight with the discovery of two new species, the Freeman’s dog-faced bat (Cynomops freemani), collected...

6-year-old Ryker Roque passed away in an Orlando hospital, his father said MondayA 6-year-old Florida boy who was undergoing experimental treatment after being diagnosed with rabies has died. Ryker Roque passed away in an Orlando hospital, his father said Monday. Roque had been undergoing the treatment, called the Milwaukee protocol, after he was scratched by a bat. His father, Henry Roque, had found the sick bat and put it in a bucket, telling his son not to touch it. "So, apparently he put his hand in there and touched it and he said it only scratched him, so I frantically...

An artist's impression of a New Zealand burrowing bat, Mystacina robusta, that went extinct last century. The new fossil find, Vulcanops jennyworthyae, that lived millions of years ago in New Zealand, is an ancient relative of burrowing or short-tailed bats. Credit: Gavin Mouldey. ================================================================================================================================== The fossilized remains of a giant burrowing bat that lived in New Zealand millions of years ago have been found by a UNSW Sydney-led international team of scientists. Teeth and bones of the extinct bat - which was about three times the size of an average bat today - were recovered from 19 to 16-million-year-old sediments...

Wal-Mart is recalling packaged salad mixes made by Fresh Express after a dead bat was found inside a box labeled as Organic Marketside Spring Mix, the Miami Herald reported. The recall affects stores in the Southeastern U.S., including Louisiana locations. There is a "minimal" chance of spreading rabies through dead animal body parts in food, the Herald reported, and the bat was being tested for the disease. The Herald reported that two people were eating the salad when they found the dead bat inside, but because of "the deteriorated condition of the bat," the CDC was unable to determine whether...

Anyone who believes Democrats own exclusive opposition to Donald Trump are completely ignoring the deliberate construct of the 2015/2016 republican primary. There are just as many -if not more- natural enemies within the Republican apparatus as there are within the Democrat group. “America-First” is antithetical to the UniParty.Again, prior to Donald Trump there was one party in Washington DC, “The UniParty”. President Donald Trump represented a second party, an independent approach toward legislative and economic priority. He was not a third choice, he was the second option.Within the ‘right-side’ of the UniParty you have Republicans. Within the republican party...