Anyone Notice? I did =(
Did any of you notice the downtime that The Atheist Pig had recently? I sure did. It seems that “Peppermint Farts” got posted on reddit and went viral… Like explosive diarrhea viral… that’s when Mike’s webhost shut down his site for excessive bandwidth use. On the up side, the piggy is posting again from a new provider. Go check him out right now if you haven’t aready. =) Wait – finish reading my post – THEN go check his site out. =p

Want a Taste of Dawkins?
Rohan Pethiyagoda – ichthyologist and lead researcher – found enough diversity in the populations of fish usually called Barbs to name a species in honor of Richard Dawkins. The new species is named Puntius Dawkinsia. One of the distinctive bits about Dawkinsia are the long, thin fin filaments that they grow to attract females – which also attracts predators.

The research that Rohan and his team did took eight years, leading to the genus re-classification. While Rohan might have named the Barb species for publicity, he at least had a great quote to go along with the new name, saying:

Richard Dawkins has through his writings helped us understand that the universe is far more beautiful and awe-inspiring than any religion has imagined.

We hope that Dawkinsia will serve as a reminder of the elegance and simplicity of evolution, the only rational explanation there is for the unimaginable diversity of life on Earth.

Ask An Atheist
I doubt anyone saw me, but I was part of the Ask An Atheist 24 hour video-a-thon to support & raise funds for Ref 74, here in Washington State. Proud to help out, too. Don’t forget to visit their site and donate some funds for R74! Note: We will talk some more about this on the next episode of Atheist Nomads – coming Thursday to an RSS feed near you!

~Wesley
More to come soon. Tired… so tired. ha

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