Sunday, 26 June 2016

Gay Men 2% of Population But 67% of All New HIV Cases

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/cdc-gay-men-2-population-67-all-new-hiv-cases

(CNSNews.com) – Although homosexuals, or men who have sex with men (MSM), make up about 2% of the U.S. population, they account for 67% of “all new HIV diagnoses,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In addition, there are about 1.2 million people in the United States with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and an estimated 647,700 (54%) of those people are homosexuals, or MSM.
The 67% of all new HIV cases is for 2013 and the 54% living with HIV is for 2011, the latest years, according to the CDC, for that particular data.
Among some of the other facts about HIV/AIDS, reported by the CDC, are:
-- About 50,000 people become newly infected each year in the United States.
-- “More than 14,000 people with AIDS in the United States die each year.”
-- “More than 650,000 people with AIDS in the United States have died” since the epidemic started in the early 1980s.


-- “Men who have sex with men (MSM) remain the group most heavily affected by HIV in the United States.”
-- “White MSM continue to represent the largest number of new HIV infections among MSM (11,200), followed closely by black MSM (10,600)and Hispanic MSM (6,700).”
-- “The number of new infections among the youngest MSM (aged 13-24) increased 22 percent, from 7,200 infections in 2008 to 8,800 in 2010.”

The World Health Organization
recommends that MSM take anti-
HIV even if they do not
have HIV.  (AP) 
-- “There was a 12 percent increase in HIV incidence among MSM overall, from 26,700 in 2008 to 29,800 in 2010.”
-- “Transgender individuals are also heavily affected by HIV. A 2008 review of HIV studies among transgender women found that, on average, 28 percent tested positive for HIV.”
As for reducing the risk of being infected with HIV, the CDC states:

-- “Sexual risk behaviors account for most HIV infections in gay and bisexual men. Most gay and bisexual men acquire HIV through anal sex, which is the riskiest type of sex for getting or transmitting HIV. For sexually active gay and bisexual men, the most effective ways to prevent transmitting or becoming infected with HIV are to be on antiretroviral medications (to either treat or prevent infection) and to correctly use a condom every time for anal or vaginal sex.”
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Wednesday, 22 June 2016

Food Waste: The Facts

http://www.worldfooddayusa.org/food_waste_the_facts

When we scrape off our dishes after a large meal, too full to finish the remaining scraps on our plate, we rarely pause and think about the significance of our action. It seems routine to us: if we have leftover food scraps that are unfit for eating, shouldn’t they be thrown in the garbage? Our routine practices, unfortunately, make it difficult for us to conceptualize the magnitude of global food waste.  The problem is bigger than we think.
According to a recent report by UNEP and the World Resources Institute (WRI), about one-third of all food produced worldwide, worth around US$1 trillion, gets lost or wasted in food production and consumption systems. When this figure is converted to calories, this means that about 1 in 4 calories intended for consumption is never actually eaten. In a world full of hunger, volatile food prices , and social unrest, these statistics are more than just shocking:  they are environmentally, morally and economically outrageous.
Let’s start with some basic statistics about food waste in North America and around the world.
Worldwide Food Waste Facts
  • Every year, consumers in industrialized countries waste almost as much food as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa (222 million vs. 230 million tons)
  • The amount of food lost and wasted every year is equal to more than half of the world’s annual cereals crops (2.3 billion tons in 2009/10)
  • More facts
North American Food Waste Facts
  • In the USA, organic waste is the second highest component of landfills, which are the largest source of methane emissions
  • In the USA, 30-40% of the food supply is wasted, equaling more than 20 pounds of food per person per month
  • More facts
Needless to say, the numbers are not promising. But don’t be disheartened! As consumers, we can do a lot to change the situation.   
UNEP_photo-_needs_to_be_resized.jpg
Think. Be a smart shopper and think about what you are buying and when it will be eaten. Wasting food is often a subconscious act – become aware of how much food you throw away. Plan meals and use shopping lists. Bring your leftovers home from restaurants in reusable containers.
Eat. Become a more mindful eater.  Eyes bigger than your stomach? Request smaller portions and become a leftovers guru.
Save. Save your food, save your money and save the environment. Donate to food banks and become a conscious consumer.
If you want to read more about the Think.Eat.Save food waste campaign, follow thislink and get involved!

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Darwinian Evolutionary Theory Is Under Siege, Intelligent Design Notwithstanding


By David Klinghoffer | April 25, 2016 | 10:41 AM EDT

Don't let anyone tell you the evolutionary paradigm isn't in serious turmoil. Just in time for DNA Day today,Science Magazine announced on Friday an $8.7 million project by the Templeton Foundation seeking an “evolution rethink." I'm trying to think of the last time I heard Science reporting on support for a "gravity rethink," or a "heliocentrism rethink." The gist of it:
“For many evolutionary biologists, nothing gets their dander up faster than proposing that evolution is anything other than the process of natural selection, acting on random mutations. Suggestions that something is missing from that picture – for example, that evolution is somehow directed or that genetic changes can't fully explain it – play into the hands of creationists, who leap on them as evidence against evolution itself.”
Oh, those dreaded "creationists" and evolution deniers.
“No wonder some evolutionary biologists are uneasy with an $8.7 million grant to U.K., Swedish, and U.S. researchers for experimental and theoretical work intended to put a revisionist view of evolution, the so-called extended evolutionary synthesis, on a sounder footing. Using a variety of plants, animals, and microbes, the researchers will study the possibility that organisms can influence their own evolution and that inheritance can take place through routes other than the genetic material.”
Whatever the outcome, the news has yanked Jerry Coyne's chain. He complains in the article:
“Evolutionary biologists shouldn't accept its money, says Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago in Illinois, who has been a persistent critic of the foundation for linking science and religion. ‘It really slants the way science is done,’ he told Science.”
And again:
“Some prominent evolutionary biologists have pushed back against this seeming rebellion. ‘It's a mixture of old ideas that aren't novel and reasonable ideas that haven't been shown to be of any importance,’ Coyne says. He and others insist that evolutionary biology has already incorporated some of these ideas or is in the process of doing so – meaning no ‘extension’ is necessary.”
The scope is impressive – "49 researchers from different fields and ... 22 interconnected projects across eight institutions." Coyne's dyspeptic reaction gives you an idea of what a huge deal this is.
Oh, so you want to dismiss Templeton because its perspective isn't rigidly materialist enough? They aren’t the only ones “rethinking” Neo-Darwinism. This coming November, the Royal Society plans a conference on "New trends in evolutionary biology: biological, philosophical and social science perspectives." Despite the subdued title – reflecting British understatement, perhaps – this is more big news, a gathering of major mainstream voices from the world of biology and other fields to hash out the merits of the call for a Third Way for evolution – not classic Darwinism, not intelligent design, but something ... else:
“Scientific discussion meeting organised in partnership with the British Academy by Professor Denis Noble CBE FMedSci FRS, Professor Nancy Cartwright, Sir Patrick Bateson FRS, Professor John Dupré and Professor Kevin Laland.
“Developments in evolutionary biology and adjacent fields have produced calls for revision of the standard theory of evolution, although the issues involved remain hotly contested. This meeting will present these developments and arguments in a form that will encourage cross-disciplinary discussion and, in particular, involve the humanities and social sciences in order to provide further analytical perspectives and explore the social and philosophical implications.”
When it comes to "hotly contesting" the "standard theory of evolution," the timing couldn't be better. Today we are celebrating two significant anniversaries – that of the description of the structure of the DNA molecule by Watson and Crick (DNA Day 2016) (they published on April 25, 1953), and the fiftieth anniversary of the Wistar Institute conference on "Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution."
Note the conference's title. It wasn't about "rejecting" or "denying" evolution but searching for a justified interpretation of the agreed scientific evidence. The Philadelphia meeting, spurred on by MIT's Murray Eden and planting a seed for what would become the modern ID movement, which offers its own positive interpretation, convened on April 25-26, 1966.
If you'll forgive a morbid metaphor, Wistar was like the ominous spot first seen on the X-ray of a vital organ – the beginning of the end for unguided Darwinian processes as the sole, satisfactory explanation of how complex biological features evolve.
Intelligent design, obviously, is one source of the current challenge to Darwinism, but it's only one source. You could erase ID advocates entirely from the battle map, and Darwinian theory would still be under siege. Evolution's smug cultists are in denial about that, but it's true.
David Klinghoffer is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute in Seattle and the editor of  Evolution News & Views.
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Tuesday, 14 June 2016

'Humans evolved after a female chimpanzee mated with a pig': Extraordinary claim made by American geneticist

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2515969/Humans-evolved-female-chimpanzee-mated-pig-Extraordinary-claim-American-geneticist.html

  • Dr Eugene McCarthy points to features that distinguish us from primates
  • He says that the only animals which also have these features are pigs
  • Controversial hypothesis has been met by significant opposition
By DAMIEN GAYLE
PUBLISHED: 09:45 GMT, 30 November 2013 | UPDATED: 10:16 GMT, 5 December 2013

The human species began as the hybrid offspring of a male pig and a female chimpanzee, an American geneticist has suggested.
The startling claim has been made by Eugene McCarthy, who is also one of the world's 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.
Domestic Pig
Louis, the chimpanzee who starred as 007 in TV adverts for PG Tips tea
The origin of the species? A remarkable new theory advanced by a leading geneticist suggests that human beings may have originally emerged as the hybrid offspring of a male pig and a female chimpanzee
Dr McCarthy says these divergent characteristics are most likely the result of a hybrid origin at some point far back in human evolutionary history.
What's more, he suggests, there is one animal that has all of the traits which distinguish humans from our primate cousins in the animal kingdom.
'What is this other animal that has all these traits?' he asks rhetorically. 'The answer is Sus scrofa, the ordinary pig.'
Dr McCarthy elaborates his astonishing hypothesis in an article on Macroevolution.net, a website he curates. He is at pains to point out that that it is merely a hypothesis, but he presents compelling evidence to support it.
Scientists currently suppose that chimpanzees are humans' closest living evolutionary relatives, a theory amply backed by genetic evidence.
However, as Dr McCarthy points out, despite this genetic similarity, there are a massive number of divergent anatomical characteristics distinguishing the two species.
These distinguishing characteristics, including hairless skin, a thick layer of subcutaneous fat, light-coloured eyes, protruding noses and heavy eyelashes, to name but a few, are unmistakeably porcine, he suggests.
There are also a number of less obvious but equally inexplicable similarities between humans and pigs in the structure of the skin and organs.
Indeed, pig skin tissues and heart valves can be used in medicine because of their similarity and compatibility with the human body.
Similarities: Dr Eugene McCarthy suggests that humans' hairless skin and subcutaneous fat could be explained by porcine ancestry
Dr McCarthy says that the original pig-chimp hook up was probably followed by several generations of 'backcrossing', where the offspring of that pairing lived among chimps and mated with them - becoming more like chimps and less like pigs with every new generation.
This also helps to explain the problem of relative infertility in hybrids. Dr McCarthy points out that the belief that all hybrids are sterile is in fact false, and in many cases hybrid animals are able to breed with mates of the same species of either parent.
After several generations the hybrid strain would have become fertile enough to breed amongst themselves, Dr McCarthy says.
Unsurprisingly, Dr McCarthy's hypothesis has come in for substantial criticism from orthodox evolutionary biologists and their Creationist opponents alike. 
One important criticism, which dubs his theory the 'Monkey-F******-A-Pig hypothesis', is that there is little chance that pigs and chimps could be interfertile. The two orders of creatures, according to evolutionary theory, diverged roughly 80million years ago, a ScienceBlogs post points out.
'[J]ust the gradual accumulation of molecular differences in sperm and egg recognition proteins would mean that pig sperm wouldn’t recognize a chimpanzee egg as a reasonable target for fusion,' PZ Myers writes.
Furthermore, the blogger explains, while chimps have 48 chromosomes, pigs have just 38.
He adds: 'Hybridizing a pig and a chimp is like taking half the dancers from a performance of Swan Lake and the other half from a performance of Giselle and throwing them together on stage to assemble something. It’s going to be a catastrophe.'
Finally, he suggests rather impudently that Dr McCarthy do the experimental work himself and try mating with a pig to see how far he gets.
But Dr McCarthy believes that, in the case of humans and other creatures, his hybrid modification to evolutionary theory can account for a range of phenomena that Darwinian evolution alone has difficulty explaining.
Despite the opinions of some peer reviewers that Dr McCarthy's work presents a potentially paradigm-shifting new take on conventional views of the origins of new life forms, he has had difficulty finding a publisher, so he has chosen to publish a book-length manuscript outlining his ideas on his website.
In its conclusion he writes: 'I must admit that I initially felt a certain amount of repugnance at the idea of being a hybrid. The image of a pig mating with an ape is not a pretty one, nor is that of a horde of monstrous half-humans breeding in a hybrid swarm.
'But the way we came to be is not so important as the fact that we now exist. As every Machiavellian knows, good things can emerge from ugly processes, and I think the human race is a very good thing. Moreover, there is something to be said for the idea of having the pig as a relative.
'My opinion of this animal has much improved during the course of my research. Where once I thought of filth and greed, I now think of intelligence, affection, loyalty, and adaptability, with an added touch of joyous sensuality — qualities without which humans would not be human.'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2515969/Humans-evolved-female-chimpanzee-mated-pig-Extraordinary-claim-American-geneticist.html#ixzz4BZ1u00zy
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India Has 12 Million Married Children Under Age Ten

http://thewire.in/2016/06/01/of-12-million-married-children-under-age-ten-84-are-hindus-39885/

BY  ON 01/06/2016 • 4 COMMENTS

Representational image. Credit: Reuters/Amit Dave
Representational image. Credit: Reuters/Amit Dave
Nearly 12 million Indian children were married before the age of 10 years, 84% of them Hindu and 11% Muslim, reveals IndiaSpend analysis of recently released census data.
To put it in context, this number is equivalent to Jammu & Kashmir’s population.
As many as 7.84 million (65%) married children were female, reinforcing the fact that girls are significantly more disadvantaged; eight in ten illiterate children who were married were also girls.
Source: Census of India/IndiaSpend
Source: Census of India/IndiaSpend
The data further reveal that 72% of all Hindu girls married before ten were in rural areas, as compared to 58.5% Muslim girls, with higher levels of education correlating with later marriage.
Jain women marry latest (at a median age of 20.8 years), followed by Christian women (20.6 years) and Sikh women (19.9 years). Hindu and Muslim women have the lowest median age at first marriage (16.7 years), IndiaSpend reported earlier based on a seven-state report from Nirantar, a Delhi-based advocacy group.
Women from urban areas, on average, marry more than two years later than their rural counterparts, IndiaSpend reported earlier.
The report also noted that the level of teenage pregnancy and motherhood is nine times higher among women with no education than among women with 12 or more years of education.
Source: Census of India/IndiaSpend
Source: Census of India/IndiaSpend
80% of illiterate children married before ten years of age are girls
As many as 5.4 million (44%) married children under ten were illiterate, 80% of them female, indicating how lower levels of education correlate with early marriage.
As many as 1,403 females have never attended any educational institution for every 1,000 males who have not, IndiaSpend reported earlier.
In developing countries, girls with less access to quality education are more likely to marry early, argued Quentin Wodon, an advisor with the World Bank’s education department.
Better and safer job opportunities for girls may also reduce child marriage, as might better access to basic infrastructure (water, electricity), which frees up time spent on domestic chores for schooling, wrote Wodon.
Source: Census of India/IndiaSpend
Source: Census of India/IndiaSpend
30% girls, 42% boys married before legal ages
The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act states that a girl in India cannot marry before age 18, a boy before 21.
A Muslim girl can marry when she attains puberty or completes 15 years of age, according to Muslim Personal Law, the Gujarat High Court and Delhi High Court noted in different judgments.
As many as 102 million girls (30% of female population) were married before 18 in 2011; the number was 119 million in 2001 (44% of female population), a decrease of 14 percentage points over the decade.
Among boys, 125 million were married before 21 years of age (42% of male population) in 2011; the number was 120 million in 2001 (49% of male population), a decrease of 7 percentage points over the decade.
Source: Census of India/IndiaSpend
Source: Census of India/IndiaSpend
Source: Census of India/IndiaSpend
Source: Census of India/IndiaSpend
Devanik Saha is an independent journalist based in Delhi.
This article originally appeared on IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, public-interest journalism non-profit. Read the original article.
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