Corneous scales are a type of skin appendage most associated with reptiles, but they are thought to have made fur and feathers possible, thus playing a big part in our own evolution. A new fossil provides evidence they evolved in the Permian era, before the first major split in land-dwelling vertebrates’ family tree.Few things are as fundamental to an organism as a way to maintain the separation between what is inside and the outer world. Fish have long dealt with the problem through a layer of scales over their skin, the strength adapted to suit their lifestyle. Among land-living vertebrates, there is more diversity, but a fossil-rich slab suggests it may all stem from common origins.The piece of Permian rock from Bieganów, Poland, is, according to a team led by Dr Sebastian Voigt of the Urweltmuseum, “remarkable in three ways.” The slab contains hundreds of footprints and impressions of bellies, some of which are so clear that the impression of scaly skin can be seen. Moreover, it provides clues allowing Voigt and co-authors to identify the maker of the prints as a diadectid, considered the ancestor of amniotes – a category including reptiles, mammals, and birds.This, in turn, suggests that corneous scales – those formed from keratin – were with us from the very start of the amniotes.Keratin has since proven a most useful and adaptable protein, one that is in our fingernails and hair, as well as the feathers, beaks, claws, horns, and hooves of other animals. The world would look a very different place without it.Although most amphibians have found a different path to maintaining structural integrity, some also have corneous scales. This has led to the question of whether these appeared separately through convergent evolution, or if scales made of keratin predate the time before amphibians and amniotes diverged.Although the authors admit the possibility the scales that made these impressions had a different composition, they argue this is unlikely. “The relief thickness and sharpness of the impressions suggest that they are owing to hard and sharply contoured scales. As most skin appendages in tetrapods, especially those used for mechanical protection, are made of hardened keratin, this is also the most parsimonious explanation in this case.”Given how recently the diadectids had broken away from the ancestors of amphibians, this appears to make the case for corneous scales being a common heritage, although even older fossils will be required to confirm it.The next task, the authors suggest, is to look for evidence that keratin was being deployed in more ways than simply scales at this point, such as claws.The study is published in Biology Letters.

The US remains a deeply religious – and deeply Christian – place, especially compared to other high-income “Western” countries. However, dig into the data and you’ll find the nation’s religiosity varies wildly from state-to-state and contains a fair amount of diversity.According to the 2020 US Religion Census, the states with the highest percentage of their population that's actively involved in religious congregations: are Utah (76.1 percent), Alabama (63.6 percent), Louisiana (63.3 percent), Oklahoma (61.2 percent), and Mississippi (59.4 percent). On the opposite end of the spectrum, the states with the lowest rates of involvement in religious congregations are New Hampshire (27.2 percent), Maine (30.8 percent), Oregon (33.2 percent), Montana (34.8 percent), and Alaska (35.2 percent).While Utah is commonly cited as the most religious state, it is also one of the least religiously diverse. Up to 65 percent of the state’s population are Adherents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as Mormons.The Mormon church is showing no signs of slowing down either. Between 2010 and 2020, the number of followers grew 11.3 percent from 1,910,504 to 2,126,216 people, according to a recent report from the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute [PDF].A 2016 poll by the Pew Research Centre asked Americans in every state if they identified as “highly religious” and reached similar, although slightly different, results. The top five states were: Alabama (77 percent), Mississippi (77 percent), Tennessee (73 percent), Louisiana (71 percent), and Arkansas (70 percent). Utah was further down the list with 64 percent of the population identifying as “highly religious”.Nationwide, the most followed religious tradition is Protestantism, which accounts for around 49.2 percent of religious people, as per the US Religion Census. This is followed by Catholicism (38.4 percent), Latter-day Saints (4.2 percent), Islam (2.8 percent), and Judaism (1.3 percent). There is evidence that the US is becoming less religious, though. In 1972, up to 90 percent of Americans identified as Christian. By 2020, that number had slipped to about 64 percent, while around 30 percent reported being religiously unaffiliated and all other religions – including Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism – accounted for just 6 percent of the population.A 2022 report by the Pew Research Centre looked into how different demographic changes could drive this trend in the decades ahead. If “religious switching” – whereby people don’t identify with the religion they grew up with – among young Americans continues at current rates, Christians would slip below 50 percent of the population by 2060, accounting for 46 percent of the population in 2070.If the rate of switching increases, the percentage of Christians in the US could fall to between 35 and 39 percent by 2070. The proportion of religiously unaffiliated Americans could rise to around 52 percent. 

Researchers have finally figured out who might own the skull that was recently found in China. Scientists believe that the skull of an unknown human ancestor found in China may be the fruit of love between two different species, reports the Daily Mail. The 900,000-year-old skull is believed to have belonged to a hybrid of Homo sapiens and Homo longi, also known as the “Dragon Man.” The skull, called “Yunxian Man”, has baffled scientists due to its strange shape and other features. A new study was able to recreate a complete 3D model of the skull. She revealed that the hybrid had the facial bones of a human, but a denser skull, bulging eyes, and a thicker brow bone, like the “Dragon Man”. Thus, scientists believe that the found “Yunxian Man” refers to our “long-lost sister line.” “It is reasonable to assume that the hybrid is morphologically and chronologically close to the last common ancestor of the lineage of Homo sapiens and Homo longi,” the study authors write. Over the past 50 years, two more similar skulls have been found in China, the origin of which was unclear. According to Boston University archaeologist Anna Goldfield, comparing bones from different species might not seem like a difficult task. But the fact is that science has yet to determine how many human-like species there were in our recent archaeological history. There are generally recognized two archaic species of humans – Neanderthals and Denisovans, who lived on Earth in separate groups approximately 30 thousand years ago. The skull of the “Yunxian Man” was difficult to attribute to one of these species. Based on its physical characteristics and location, the researchers suggested that it could be a member of the Denisovan family, which appeared in Asia about 500 thousand years ago. Although “Yunxian Man” had an elongated skull like Denisovans, it also had distinct bulging eyes, which Denisovans did not have. But later, researchers suggested that the hybrid could have received Denisovan traits from the “Dragon Man,” since both of these groups lived on Earth at about the same time. After analyzing the new skull, the researchers concluded that “Yunxian Man” is a descendant of “Dragon Man” and Homo sapiens. The post Million-year-old skull found in China belongs to “dragon man” appeared first on Anomalien.com.

In a heartwarming video, viewers are introduced to Caesar, a bear who endured unimaginable suffering in a Chinese bile farm. This video chronicles Caesar’s harrowing journey from captivity to freedom, shedding light on the cruel practices humans often employ for profit. It also showcases the incredible transformation Caesar underwent after being rescued by the dedicated... The post Bear forced to wear awful steel vest most of his life finally gets it removed appeared first on Animal Channel.

Amber Lavigne's 13-year-old daughter had gender dysphoria. At least that was the diagnosis the teen came up with; how better to explain her persistent anxiety and depression? When she went to her counselors at the Great Salt Bay Community School in Damariscotta, Maine, they agreed. They began a simple treatment protocol. Daily use of a chest binder (they instructed her in its proper use), as well immediate adoption of a a new name and pronouns, to be used by all staff and students at the school. They neglected to inform Lavigne; this was a private mental health matter between Lavigne's daughter and school authorities. Lavigne found out anyway and sued the school. While the judge in the case acknowledged that it was reasonable for Lavigne to expect the school to keep her in the loop about the decision to "trans" her child, he could find no legal basis to hold the school liable and dismissed the lawsuit. Yesterday Lavigne filed an appeal. In the meantime she has begun to homeschool her daughter. Lavigne's case is far from unique and is a cautionary example about the limited legal resources parents have once school or government has usurped their authority. While the school overstepped its bounds, where did Lavigne's daughter get the idea that she was the wrong gender in the first place? It's not hard to imagine potential sources. Take Scholastic books. Any parent of young children is familiar with the company's colorful book order forms, which are sent home with students every quarter or so. The latest such form comes with a "Read with Pride Resource Guide" highlighting “LGBTQIA+ children’s and young adult literature." The guide features children's books like "Llama Glamarama," which depicts the titular character's "coming out" party, and "The Beautiful Something Else," about a girl's realization that she is "nonbinary" after being sent to live with her transgender aunt. Subscribers to the American Parents Coalition's new, free text-based notification service, the Lookout, were quick to learn about this latest incursion of ideology into children's education. It featured in the service's inaugural alert. According to APC founder Alleigh Marré, the Lookout is meant to be "an informative tool to keep parents up to speed on the latest threats to parental involvement, state and local school policies, social media trends, and more." The Lookout is just the latest tool APC has created to help parents protect their right to oversee their children's education and health. Last month, Align spoke to Marré about "TikTok is Poison," the nonprofit's guide advising parents how to fight the influence of TikTok, which arguably does more than any other platform to amplify and disseminate gender ideology to children. TikTok's Chinese-owned parent company, ByteDance, has fought back against a potential ban recently signed into law by President Biden. The company claims that as an "online publishing platform" incorporated in the United States, it is protected under the First Amendment. Contacted by Align, Marré scoffed at such claims: "TikTok is flat-out lying to the American public. Counting celebrities and elected officials among its users does not erase the fact that Chinese-owned TikTok manipulates millions of Americans every day and is particularly harmful to children."

“A liberal,” the poet Robert Frost once said, “is someone too broad-minded to take his own side in a quarrel.” The brouhaha over Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker’s commencement address at the seriously Catholic Benedictine College in Kansas was a clarifying moment for traditional religious people and other ostensible “conservatives.” Whatever their own particular place within the right’s broad array, too many looked at the ritualistic denunciations of the football player and decided that where Frost’s two roads diverged in a wood, they would take the one less criticized — whether it was their own road or not. In this public struggle session, they, too, would be Frostian liberals. It's not that one couldn’t criticize the speech. Nobody believes Butker is a theologian, a philosopher, or even a poet. He’s a traditionalist Catholic and a football player. Looking at it as a text to study, one could surely find a few small errors of fact, a few bad phrasings, things that might be easily misunderstood outside the conservative Catholic community to which he was asked to speak. Maybe even something to disagree with. It’s an intellectual and rhetorical war out there. When the battle is going, don’t be a liberal too broad-minded to take your own side. But — and let me be as nuanced as possible — who cares? Butker didn’t deliver an inspired text or infallible pronunciation of dogma. He delivered a commencement address received by everybody at the ceremony (except a few malcontent graduating seniors) with a standing ovation. The people present, and most normal people, understand that a speech isn’t going to be perfectly phrased or calibrated even by serious academics, intellectuals, or writers. They understand that when anybody talks about the challenges of living a serious Catholic Christian life and hot-button challenges such as abortion, in vitro fertilization, and transgenderism, he won’t be perfect. It’s the thought and heart that count. Butker had them in spades. Yet what did supposedly conservative sources say? On CNN, conservativish Jonah Goldberg labeled the speech “reactionary,” implying it would have been hard to make the speech in the days before social media provided an amplification of such views. At Goldberg’s old stomping grounds National Review Online, the first piece published was an attempted takedown. Haley Strack’s “Harrison Butker Misses the Point” made a few worthy observations but needed some misinterpretation and uncharitable accusations to finish the job. Butker’s reference to “diabolical lies” women are told about career and promotions and titles being the most important thing in life was taken by Stack to mean that women should never value career or accomplishment. In fact, he said they weren’t the most important and not most valued by young women themselves. He also told the young men that putting career and work ahead of the vocation of father and husband was a mistake that his wife helps him avoid. Strack also claimed Butker promoted a view of women in which the time before marriage and motherhood was “a period of limbo” because Butker said his own wife “would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.” An incredibly wooden reading. Strack closed her piece by mentioning Butker’s wife, Isabelle, and saying some lines of Pope Paul VI about loving one’s spouse for his or her own sake were “worthy of reflection.” The rather gross implication was that Butker doesn’t love his wife for herself. NRO was, thankfully, smart enough to follow up with Rich Lowry’s column, “Harrison Butker Is Right About Men and Women,” which backed up some of the kicker’s points with social science data. There were plenty of other “conservative” criticisms of Butker issuing on X (formerly Twitter) and elsewhere. Lots of “I generally agree” combined with laments about “tone,” “nuance,” and “culture warring.” Such nitpicking showed that too many on the right don’t understand the way in which media mobs work. Or maybe they do and simply have given in. If a person on the right is being crucified for saying something that you generally agree with, the right thing to do is support that person. “Nuanced” critiques will be taken as surrender by the leftist enemies of all you believe who don’t want you to say certain things with or without nuance. They will be taken as betrayal by the people on your side who will see you — probably correctly — as trying to curry favor with the ruling class and keep your social and professional status. We do live in polarized times. We can’t help that. It’s an intellectual and rhetorical war out there. When the battle is going, don’t be a liberal too broad-minded to take your own side. Wait till the smoke is cleared and then make your critiques. You’ll be less likely to make it seem as if you’re on the other side and less likely to misinterpret the people speaking for your own.

So, maybe the whole tradwife lifestyle isn’t so good for women after all.This is certainly the main takeaway from writer Mary Harrington’s recent essay in UnHerd, which analyzes the story of Lauren Southern, a popular anti-feminist influencer who followed her own advice and became a tradwife — only to be utterly ruined by the experience.Mutual sacrifice and humility are what will ultimately empower both sexes and make them happy.At the height of her fame, Southern married at 22 and gave up everything for her husband. The relationship soon became toxic as he grew to be more demanding and abusive. Eventually, they had a child and moved to Australia shortly before officials imposed extreme COVID lockdowns. Depressed and alienated, Southern flew to Canada to visit her family. Her husband divorced her over this, leaving her and her child destitute and living in a cabin in the woods.Fortunately, by the end of it, she has emerged from the experience happier and stronger.No doubt, many will interpret Southern’s experience as indisputable proof that the tradwife trend and anti-feminist movement in general are inherently misguided and dangerous. Harrington, herself an expert on feminism, argues that Southern’s misfortunes have more to do with oversimplifying the debate on the feminine ideal: “It seems to me, I tell her, that condensing millennia of religious belief and real-world domestic praxis into viral memes has produced a right-wing gender ideology every bit as over-simplified, dematerialised, and radically disconnected from the complexities of life as the disembodied Left-wing version.”Online media discourages nuance and instead casts every argument as a battle between unrealistic extremes. In this case, women can either be girlboss feminists or conservative tradwives.Harrington concludes that women of both the political and cultural left and right need to abandon these extremes, come back to reality, and work on cultivating a deeper understanding of modern femininity. One hopes they can do all this without the hardship and heartbreak that both she and Southern endured.Far be it from me, a husband and father, to disagree with any of this, much less speak to any woman’s lived experience. Nevertheless, at the risk of being accused of mansplaining, I believe it’s worthwhile to consider how men figure into this equation of modern womanhood.Doomed to failToo often, people have contradictory assumptions about men and their attitudes about modern feminism. On one hand, men are automatically anti-feminists because they are instinctively drawn to the idea of weaker women who want to have babies and stay home. On the other hand, men are also automatic feminists because they are just as instinctively drawn to the idea of obligation-free sex with empowered women who can take care of them. In both cases, the man is essentially a self-interested predator seeking to exploit the opposite sex.But this is both wrong and unfair. Like most women, most men are neither natural anti-feminists nor feminists, nor are they predators. Men are corrupted and become predators only when they take sides and establish extremes. Put simply, being the spouse of a girlboss or a tradwife is bad for men and turns them into massive jerks.Southern’s experience is illustrative. However one feels about it, her decision to put her ideas of traditional femininity into practice pressured her husband to embody some form of traditional masculinity. He needed to be the breadwinner and patriarch so that she could be his domestic goddess. Josh Edelson/Stringer/Getty ImagesThis is a tall order for any man, and it’s not surprising that Southern’s husband collapsed under the pressure. Here was a beautiful and famous young woman naively relying on his leadership and strength to make her happy and fulfilled. Moreover, he needed to make this fairytale happen in a deeply liberalized, progressive environment that routinely stigmatized traditional values. Not only would he inevitably fall short and fail in some way, but he would also become a pariah living on the margins of what was socially acceptable. Nothing in his education or upbringing prepared him for this.Thus, it makes sense that he immediately asked Southern to stop posting content online so that he could fit in at his job and be on good terms with his neighbors. It also makes sense that he had fights with his wife, who was likely disoriented and depressed by this radical change in lifestyle.Furthermore, if there were any hope of saving the marriage, both would have to admit that they failed to live up to their ideals and make some serious changes. Instead, she would “pray by his bed when he was angry with her, hoping that if she gave him grace one more time he’d realise the depth of her love and be kinder,” and he would resolve to become even more controlling and cruel.Striking the right balanceNone of this excuses Southern’s husband, who ends up acting like a loser and coward by abandoning his wife and child. Rather, it’s to show how the unrealistic expectations of being a tradhusband can easily turn an otherwise normal guy into an immature creep. So much of it amounts to roleplaying rather than authentic living and relating.This was true even in supposedly more traditional times. In his autobiography, former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass argued just how corrosive and harmful the ownership of human beings was to both the slave and the slaveowner. Even in the best of times, the slave would be exploited and abused, and even with the best of people, the slaveowner would turn into a monster. Specifically, he describes one of his owners, a kind woman who had her own business and originally taught Douglass how to read, gradually degenerate into a vicious tyrant because of the newfound power and authority she had as a slaveholder.Although Harrington largely treats the pitfalls of feminism and anti-feminism as products of online media consumption and thus encourages her readers to reengage with reality, I would also suggest that men and women seek more balance in their romantic relationships, neither submitting to nor overpowering their loved ones.Whether it’s the man or woman, no one wins in a relationship that is unnaturally lopsided, no matter what the circumstances might be. In my experience, mutual sacrifice and humility are what will ultimately empower both sexes and make them happy.

The untimely decline of Anthem and no real news on Borderlands 4 has me craving some classic looter shooter action, and The First Descendent beta showed enough real promise for that blend of Mass Effect style sci-fi and Diablo brand gear grinding that I’ve been keeping close tabs on its imminent launch. As we prepare for one final public beta for the multiplayer RPG before release, Nexon Games reveals that we’ll be able to “pre-experience” the first battle pass during the test run. Continue reading Final The First Descendant beta lets you try its battle pass early MORE FROM PCGAMESN: The First Descendant system requirements, The First Descendant release date, Best free games on PC

A new Meta Quest 3 lite is reportedly on the way, and this new leak gives us our first look at what to expect. The idea of a new, cheaper Quest headset is nothing new, but this is the first time we've seen specs listed, and it looks like more of a Quest 2 replacement than a Quest 3 competitor. As the best VR headset currently available, the Meta Quest 3 sets a high bar for standalone quality. Ultimately, though, Meta now appears to be trying to avoid embroiling itself in an awkward battle where a cheaper headset potentially threatens the Quest 3. Instead, this new Quest 3 lite appears to be a Quest 2 with an improved SoC and color passthrough system. Continue reading Meta Quest 3 lite specs have leaked, and they’re not good MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best graphics card, Best gaming PC, Best SSD for gaming

When you imagine what some former Grand Theft Auto and Assassin's Creed developers are doing now, I doubt an eerie 2.5D metroidvania is the first game that comes to mind. That's exactly what Venture to the Vile is, though, and the debut game from Cut to Bits has just launched on Steam. There's even a demo if you want to try before you buy. Continue reading Steam metroidvania from ex GTA and Assassin’s Creed devs finally here MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best Metroidvania games, Best platform games, Best puzzle games