Portmanteau word of the day

Christinanity

encapsulating:

Christ

Christ nbsp; /kraɪst/ [krahyst]
–noun
1. Jesus of Nazareth, held by Christians to be the fulfillment of prophecies in the Old Testament regarding the eventual coming of a Messiah. 
2. the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament (used chiefly in versions of the New Testament). 
3. someone regarded as similar to Jesus of Nazareth.
 

+ Inanity

in·an·i·ty  /ɪˈnænɪti/ [i-nan-i-tee]
–noun, plural -ties for 2.
1. lack of sense, significance, or ideas; silliness. 
2. something inane. 
3. shallowness; superficiality.
 

Creating a compund noun for cases of senseless religiosity which do nothing to advance anyone, to whit, almost any time the pope opens his mouth, pretty much anything to come out of the 700 Club, Focus on the Family, Hillsong, Fred Nile or fucking Mel Gibson.

Luckily, there are antidotes to Christinanity, best administered regularly:

Pharyngula
The Non-Prophets
The Atheist Experience
Iron Chariots
Richard Dawkins
Christopher Hitchens
Sam Harris

 

Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi

Considering that I am a self-confessed Arachno-nerd (Arachnerd?), it would be thoroughly remiss of me not to mention the news of a newly-described species of trapdoor spider, Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi.

Numerous news outlets are picking up on this for the novelty angle that it's named in honour of Neil Young. Yahoo news, for instance, documents the discovery here. This of course dominates web coverage of the spider, so it's a little tricky to geek out on properly, but the East Carolina University, where the taxonomy work was done, has an official piece here.

One of these days, when I have time, I may try to track down the original paper and really geek out, but for now I guess the news and the picture will suffice.

UPDATE: The original paper was published by the AMNH and can be found via this link.

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