Godless Rachel

It used to be the case that strong men who were a bit on the dangerous side got all the attention. Our Evolution was based on survival of the fittest. It happens to be the reason that so many people carry the DNA of Gangus Khan, that and the fact men could steal women, like they stole horses. If you wanted the ladies, all you had to do was show a little muscle and a large ego. Thankfully times have changed. The new sexy man does not come in spurs, toting an ego the size of Texas. He usually just comes dressed in casual clothes and blue jeans. He also has some new and remodeled ideas. And they look mighty good on him. He does not feel like women are second place, or stupid. He does not tell them their place is in the kitchen or making babies. There is nothing hotter than a feminist man. A man who is educated, and sensible. He helps his wife with the house, and sees that it is not just her place but both or their places to help raise the kids. He does not believe that he owns his ...

Skin, it is an important covering for your body. The whole job of our somatic cells is to protect our skin from damage to DNA by UV rays. Contained in our genetic structure are genes with a determinate amount of melanin. It determines the amount of pigmentation expressed in our phenotype. This has caused the separation of many nations. The question here is why? Looking into our ancestral ties, going back to the chimp-like ancestor, we were likely all very dark pigmented. The ones who carry the largest mutation of inactive genes are those of us with light skin, and blue eyes. For every eye color, and skin color, and hair color that is less than black to dark brown is an inheritance of genes that do not function. This is likely the reason that people who marry a blue eyed person have more brown eyed offspring. Because the DNA will use the functioning genes and pass over the non functional one. When it comes to blue eyes, the lighter they are the more genes that are non functional fo...

I am the kind of atheist who does not believe in a soul. I don't believe that there could be anything to consider a god. I don't buy the bible even as a history book. I dispute that any of it is divine, or holds any moral lessons. I am a thinking rationalizing atheist. I get my truth from facts, and nothing less. But how do you deal when everything is a spiritual battle ground? My mother is one of those Christians who believe that nothing bad will happen to you as long as you think positive. She is convinced that everywhere around her are spirits listening to her thoughts. Some places would label that as schizophrenia. Here we call it religion. These beliefs are so ingrained into her that she does not dare to listen to a word otherwise. She is not alone though, and that is what scares me. It is hard to talk sense and rational thoughts to people who refuse to listen. It does not matter what side of the coin you are on. We can all be a little stuck in our ways, and mostly t...

In 1944 Shlomo Venezia became a prisoner of Auschwitz. One of the most notorious death camps in Germany. During this time he was in a special area of the camp called Sonderkommando. The Sonderkommando was responsible for the gas chambers. Their job was to help usher people into the chamber, after they had gotten undressed, and then drag their bodies out. They were kept away from the other prisoners, and were only allowed to interact with other Sonderkommando. This was to keep other camp prisoners from knowing the mass genocide that took place in the gas chambers. After the people were gassed, and drug out from the chamber, their bodies were burned in ovens that operated twenty four hours a day. Sonderkommando worked twelve hour shifts removing bodies, and cleaning the gas chamber for the next group. For them it became nothing but a job, a way to survive. The endless death and horrors became common place. During his eight months in the Sonderkommando Shlomo saw hundreds of thousand...

What is it about Vagina? You would think that everyone loves vagina since we all came out of one. Only those that came by Cesarean can escape this fact. But you got there by someone having a vagina. They are important things, so it is only right I am proud of mine. My vagina is one of the things that makes me different from men. It is an important fact in who I am. It being part of me has made me me. I like the fact I have one, and so I ask for it to be respected. And I will tell you what respect means to me. Respect is when I can talk about having a vagina without the fear of men calling me a whore for saying it. Respect is when I don't have to make sure no one notices that I have one. Respect is when I get to choose freely what happens to it, and not feel guilty for my choices. Because no woman should have to feel bad about her vagina, or what she does with her vagina. I enjoy being a woman. It feels good attracting the opposite sex, and it is not my fault if you are in...

The power of Neurons and what makes me, ME! Inside of our skull there is a whole world. Interactions so fast moving, we don't even know they have happened before we react. Professor Gerbig once told me that a neuron can fire off 25 times in one second. Yet it does so faster than I can think about what it is doing. In fact as I think what to write my neurons have already fired out commands for my fingers to move and my eyes. The brain is a well organized machine. So mysterious and complex, that studying it often leaves us more perplexed than when we started. Neurons are a mass of Dendrites, and Axons. They all group together and fire off in the same direction. It is by having these specialized cells we are able to think, and be aware of the world around us. They are hungry and hard working cells. Just a few minutes without air leaves them dying. They are faster than any computer and work from birth to death. In fact scientists are starting to find that when neurons do not fire...

Time for some fun with Dinosaurs. So let me explain why they could have never fit on the ark. And also why they did not die off in the "flood" and how we know. Take for instance my first pic. This guy weighed around 110 tons. (Aprox 220,000 pounds) It could have carried the ark on its back for most of the flood. Even if you had an ark as big as a country a pair of these would cause the ship to sink because 220,000 pounds getting up and laying down or throwing a fit out of hunger is going to crush wood like splinters. But lets say you could get these guys on. Well they would               make good company for. T- Rex. His massive jaws were made for crushing. His teeth were serrated for shredding, and his neck muscles would have made tearing your flesh pretty simple. Don't catch this guy when he is hungry. He may not run the fastest, but his foot steps make catching humans seem like a game of fetch with your dog. ...

If you look at the sunset, you think how perfect and amazing this world is. The simple elegant beauty of it astounds you. Then you look down and a mosquito is biting your leg. Well there went that perfect moment in time, but hey that is life. Many people believe in god. A god, or several. They believe that this world is just too perfect for all of this to be a random event. An accident, or fact of some selection process. Well then lets have a look and see how perfect our world is. It starts back in the Cambrian period. 50,000 species of Trilobites. Each of them from one extreme to another. Some with eyes in the front, others with a line of eyes. But the guy that got my attention was the one who has 5,000 eyes. Now they were not eyes like ours. They were small crystals that let him see a blurry image of light. So he was aware of predators. So imagine what would have been the drive to make 5,000 of them. If you need that many eyes, there must be serious competition. Also there must h...

Not all racism can be labeled under the same umbrella. After all some people just hate because they can.Some people hate because they hate themselves, but I challenge you to think about racism and the many factors in its existence. Could one of them be simple and biological?I am talking about mate selection and biological desire. Not the need for hate crimes and human abuses. I take racism very seriously. One of the most fascinating things about humans is mate selection. We often find ourselves drawn to someone, maybe without knowing why. When we get close to a person that peaks our interest we can sweat, get weak, feel the butterflies, and so many more things. All of this has to do with our body dealing with a change in brain chemistry. Yet some people seem to hate other races. In fact they take it so far as to have killed people from other races, just because of the color of their skin. This is a horrible thing, and I am not trying to justify this behavior. In fact I could on...

Altruism: Practice what you preach. We often hear about religious people acting in kindness. Lets face it, the volunteer to go to other countries and put up housing for the poor. The install electric, and work in hospitals. In short they are kind. It seems very warm and fuzzy on the outside. And really a good deed done is worth the respect. All that work comes at a price though. When they come in with their aid, they also bring their religion. It is one of the problems I have with religious volunteering. A good deed should be good because it was the right thing to do, not because when you are done you can sell your religion and force people to convert out of guilt. After all they were born into poverty, and you took time out of your privileged life to go and help them. I can respect the means but not the method. Christians often make trips to South America. They take bibles and translators. They go and do good deeds and then sell their god, and their hopes of a life after this...

The Pope, Africa, Aids, and acts of Genocide. Lets talk about sex, aids, and a suffering continent. Africa, oh Africa, no greater cry exists, than one that affects all of humanity. Millions of Africans are dying. The main disease is Aids. What worse human tragedy than one that can be prevented by education. So I am going to blast the pope. Someone needs to hold him responsible, and fix the horrible thing he did. I am not sure how many Africans are Catholic, but I am sure that they are dying. After all they have been told that using condoms spreads disease. Well I want to take some time and educate and spread the word that this is a tragic lie. Condoms do not cause disease, in fact they help prevent it. You have better chances of not getting aids if you use a condom. I know because I am educated in sexual diseases, I have been through sex ed classes, I study biology and diseases. I am a student of science. I know more about Aids than the pope know about sex. This is th...

Who put the X in SEX? Rachel Johnson Monogamy, we think it is our nature, but biology tells us another tale. Men and women are biologically different. No one can deny that. We are built with different sex organs, and made to do two different things. Males provide the sperm, women provide the eggs. So were we really built to mate and stay together? The answer lies on our reproductive organs. Men make billions and billions of sperms. If men were meant to be monogamous they would not be driven to be so productive of semen. In fact if one man was given the chance he could father thousands of offspring. Yet not every sperm makes a baby. Chances are most of his sperm will die before it gets close to an egg. It is survival of the fittest. Women only produce one egg per 28 days, so this must mean they were meant to be monogamous, right? Well biology is now telling another tale. After it was found that semen can actually fight inside of the vagina. That is right. It is a first co...

 Rachel Johnson Human ancestor was  a fish like creature, something that crawled out of the primordial sea millions of years ago. It changed with the environment, and over time led to other mammals. Tonight we are going to walk with Lucy. On a trail millions of years old. We can walk our way through the struggle, the hardships, the changes and what makes us human. Plus all the hidden wonders we find that tell the tale. Lucy is one of the oldest fossils, while there has been one that is yet disputed. Many places on the net have jumped to put Ardi in the line, but the scientists are still out on that one. Ardipithecus ramidus —belonged to a small-brained, 110-pound (50-kilogram) female nicknamed "Ardi. National Geographic. If Ardi is an ancestor to humans that will bring us to 3.5 million years of human evolution. This means that we have been working on that upright posture, shortening arms, and growing our brain for a very long time. As you can see there ...