It’s a big step for evolution, going from a single cell focused solely on its own survival to a multicellular organism where cells coordinate and work together. Creationists often cite this jump as evidence of God’s influence, because it seems impossible that creatures could make such a brazen leap unaided. But scientists have shown that multicellularity can arise in the lab, given strong enough selective pressure.

Are those damned Yankees trying to claim a Canadian saint for their own?

With the impending canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha, the 17-century Mohawk woman will be among the 12 Americans who have ascended to sainthood.

At least if you ask some south of the border.

Here, we know Tekakwitha as the soon-to-be first Canadian aboriginal saint, who tended to the sick and elderly at Jesuit missions outside Montreal.

At The New York Times:

Christopher Hitchens, a slashing polemicist in the tradition of Thomas Paine and George Orwell who trained his sights on targets as various as Henry Kissinger, the British monarchy and Mother Teresa, wrote a best-seller attacking religious belief, and dismayed his former comrades on the left by enthusiastically supporting the American-led war in Iraq, died on Thursday in Houston. He was 62.

With 2.18 billion adherents, Christianity has become a truly global religion over the past century as rapid growth in developing nations offset declines in Christianity's traditional strongholds, according to a report released Monday.

Billed as the most comprehensive and reliable study to date, the Pew Research Center's "Global Christianity" reports on self-identified Christian populations based on more than 2,400 sources of information, especially census and survey data.

 

The immigration and retention of Jews is now and always has been a major priority for Israel. But a recent government campaign in the US targeting Israeli expatriates infuriated a broad swath of American Jews.

By some estimates, 2 million Israelis live in the United States, and the Immigration Ministry apparently decided to do something about it.

Hebrew billboards in at least five US cities warned Israelis to come home before they lose their identity, and a series of slickly produced videos drove the point home.