The weekly report on the SPI Fellows
by Johnny Monsarrat
SPI Fellow Thure Cerling, a professor at geology, geophysics, and biology at the University of Utah, has found that African mammals diets have switched over time. Some mammals switched between grazing on grass to grazing on trees and shrubs, or went extinct in the attempt to switch diets. Learn more at Phys.org.
Did you know that one of our fellows is a major science fiction author? SPI Fellow Gregory Benford is not only a two-time winner of the Nebula Award and winner of the John W. Campbell Award, he also won the 1990 United Nations Medal in Literature.
Dr. Benford is faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine.  He is also a contributing editor of Reason magazine.
Taslima Nasreen
And see the video posted this week of SPI Fellow Taslima Nasrin’s speech,┬áWhy Secularism is Necessary for Women’s Freedom, at the┬áWomen in Secularism III conference┬áin Alexandria, Virginia, USA. She┬áis a Bengali author and former physician who has lived in exile since 1994, due to threats coming from her criticism of religion.