Pope Benedict rejects Irish bishop's resignation

Big. Fucking. Surprise.

In a move that has stunned critics Pope Benedict XVI has rejected the resignations of two Dublin auxiliary bishops.

Bishop Raymond Field and Bishop Eamonn Walsh had both tendered their resignations in 2009 in the wake of the Murphy report into clerical child abuse.

Both men had come under intense pressure because they had served as bishops during the period investigated by the Murphy Commission into clerical child sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Dublin.

The Murphy Commission in Ireland found that sexual abuse was 'endemic' in boys' institutions but that the church hierarchy protected the perpetrators and allowed them to take up new positions teaching other children after their original victims had been sworn to secrecy.

'Following the presentation of their resignations to Pope Benedict, it has been decided that Bishop Eamonn Walsh and Bishop Raymond Field will remain as auxiliary bishops,' Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said in a letter to priests of the Archdiocese reported in The Irish Catholic.

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BBC: 'Sex' drove fossil animal traits

Several prehistoric creatures developed elaborate body traits in order to attract members of the opposite sex, according to new research.

The purpose of the exaggerated crests and sails found in many fossil animals has long been controversial.

Some scientists said sails helped to regulate body temperature and that head crests helped flying reptiles steer during flight.

Now a study say these traits became so big because of sexual competition.

The findings, by an international team of researchers, is published in the journal American Naturalist.

One of the prehistoric animals looked at by the researchers were pterosaurs - flying reptiles which became extinct at the time of the dinosaurs.

The study suggests the relative size of the head crest compared to the body of the pterosaur was too large for it to have been dedicated to controlling the animal's body temperature or its flight.

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