The falling cost of genome sequencing is allowing scientists to begin studying the complete genomes of sufferers of genetic diseases.

(4) comments | Read the full article.

I honestly think the wheels are coming off our picture of the way the universe works at the moment. We don’t know what 96% of the universe is made of – that tells us that we don’t understand something fundamental. It reminds me of the start of the 20th century when quantum mechanics and relativity were about to appear.

(1) comments | Read the full article.

Professor Vlatko Vedral is a quantum physicist at the universities of Oxford and Singapore who grapples with the behaviour of energy and matter at subatomic scales, and this has led him to ask some bigger questions including why are we here? And what does it all mean? The 39-year-old, originally from Belgrade, passionately believes units of information – not particles – are the building blocks of humanity and everything that surrounds us. Information, he maintains, is what came before everything else. It is akin to God.

(1) comments | Read the full article.

HERE’s a fact to flatter the unbelievers among you: the bright young things at the University of Oxford are among the most godless groups ever studied in the UK. Of 728 students surveyed in 2007, 48.9 per cent claimed not to believe in any god, with 49.6 per cent claiming no religious affiliation. And while a very small number of Britons typically label themselves as “atheist” or “agnostic” (most surveys put it at about 5 per cent), an astonishing 57.3 per cent of the Oxford sample did.

(12) comments | Read the full article.

A large cross-sectional study discovers that atheism is correlated with higher IQ.

(15) comments | Read the full article.

For the first time, the White House will meet with representatives from a non-theist organization.

(7) comments | Read the full article.

Lose a tumour, gain self-transcendence.

Removing part of the brain can induce inner peace, according to researchers from Italy. Their study provides the strongest evidence to date that spiritual thinking arises in, or is limited by, specific brain areas.

(2) comments | Read the full article.

The finding that religion scarcely influences moral intuition undermines the idea that a godless society will be immoral, says Philip Ball. Whether it ‘explains’ religion is another matter.

(7) comments | Read the full article.

Our genome is an unmitigated mess. The replication and repair mechanisms are inadequate, making mutations commonplace. The genome is infested with parasitic DNA that often wreaks havoc. The convoluted control mechanisms are prone to error. The huge amount of junk, not just between genes but within them, wastes resources. And some crucial bits of DNA are kept in the power factories - mitochondria - where they are exposed to mutagenic byproducts.

Lesch-Nyhan syndrome causes compulsive self-mutilation. Children eat their lips or fingers, and stab their faces with sharp objects. They feel the pain, but they cannot stop themselves. Why would a loving, all-powerful creator allow anyone to be born with such an awful disease?

(9) comments | Read the full article.

More coverage of the Global Atheist Convention to be held in Melbourne in March.

(4) comments | Read the full article.

There has been a swathe of dubious reports recently about the supposed benefits of religion – how it makes you healthier, happier, less anti-social and ensures that you grow better tomatoes.  Now we are seeing the opposite claims beginning to emerge. A new study published in Trends in Cognitive Science finds that religion may have evolved as a by-product of non-religious, cognitive processes, dispelling a competing theory that religion served as an adaptation to help unrelated individuals cooperate.  The findings, published on Monday, suggests that people’s gut instinct for what is right and wrong operates independently of religious upbringing.

(6) comments | Read the full article.

There has been a swathe of dubious reports recently about the supposed benefits of religion; how it makes you healthier, happier, less anti-social and ensures that you grow better tomatoes.

Read the full article.

Sikhs should be allowed to carry ceremonial knives in schools and other public places, says Britain’s first Asian judge. But can religion ever justify loopholes in the law?

(9) comments | Read the full article.

Football star Tim Tebow stars in a Superbowl ad that will tell us that doctors recommended his mom to abort him but she didn’t.  Slate discusses why this ad is misleading and potentially dangerous.

(8) comments | Read the full article.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda have said they will donate $10bn (£6.2bn) over the next 10 years to develop and deliver new vaccines.

(7) comments | Read the full article.

Dutch-Somali writer and activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali speaks out against Islam at a book fair in India.

(1) comments | Read the full article.

There is a slow realization of the need for non-religious “chaplains”.

(3) comments | Read the full article.

In a New York Times Op-Ed, author James Wood discusses theodicy in the context of the Haitian earthquake.

(7) comments | Read the full article.

Richard Dawkins is spearheading a fundraising drive for Haiti.

(30) comments | Read the full article.

A new study published in Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences rejects the theory that the origin of life stems from a system of self-catalytic molecules capable of experiencing Darwinian evolution without the need of RNA or DNA and their replication. The research has demonstrated that, through the analysis of what some researchers name “compound genomes,” these chemical networks cannot be considered evolutionary units because they lose properties which are essential for evolution when they reach a critical size and greater level of complexity.

(3) comments | Read the full article.