Cyborg will not be Ronda Rouseys next opponent after record-breaking UFC 184

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Mark J. Terrill / AP

Ronda Rousey gets ready to fight Cat Zingano in a UFC 184 mixed martial arts bantamweight title bout Saturday, Feb. 28, 2015, in Los Angeles. Rousey won after Zingano tapped out 14 seconds into the firstround.

By Case Keefer (contact)

Sunday, March 1, 2015 | 1:40 a.m.

Los Angeles

One name momentarily dislodged the grins on the faces of some of Ronda Rouseys friends, family members and teammates after UFC 184.

The mention of Cristaine Cyborg Justino at the post-fight press conference elicited groans from the Rousey contingent. UFC President Dana White drowned them out along with the possibility of a bout between the two best female fighters happening any time soon.

The thing with Cyborg is making that weight, White said. I just dont know if she can make the weight. If she could make the weight a couple times, wed see what we could do.

Cyborg established herself as the greatest female fighter in the world at 145 pounds before Rousey broke into the UFC and far surpassed her perception- and visibility-wise as a dominant champion at 135 pounds.

Given the twos war of words over the years, Cyborg is the only fighter Rousey hasnt fought who could provoke a negative reaction from the champions camp. Shes also the only fighter left who wouldnt be a colossal underdog against Rousey.

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Cyborg will not be Ronda Rouseys next opponent after record-breaking UFC 184

Is Cristiane 'Cyborg' Justino signed to Zuffa? Dana White says to ask Lorenzo Fertitta

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Ronda Rousey

LOS ANGELES When it comes to Cristiane Justinos relationship with UFC parent Zuffa, the promotions chairman and CEO apparently is the guy to ask.

UFC President Dana White repeatedly dodged questions about Cyborg Justinos status with the fight promotion at the press conference for tonights UFC 184, saying he didnt know whether she has struck a deal for an eventual showdown with womens bantamweight champ Ronda Rousey.

Call Lorenzo on Monday, White told MMAjunkie after a marked pause. Talk to him.

Fertitta recently told ESPN that UFC executives assisted Justino (13-1) in negotiating a new Invicta FC contract and that the deal did not include a financial investment for her fights in the all-female promotion.

However, a source close to Justinos camp, who asked to remain anonymous as he was not publicly authorized to discuss the deal, said the Invicta featherweight champs contract is with Zuffa.

Zuffa currently acts as Invicta FCs broadcast partner, streaming events via its online network.

Any deal between Justino and the industry-leader would, of course, be in service of a future fight with Rousey (11-0 MMA, 5-0 UFC), whose ranks of logical title challengers has thinned in the two years shes held the UFC belt. On Saturday, she submitted Cat Zingano (9-1 MMA, 2-1 UFC) in 14 seconds in UFC 184s headliner.

But White stressed Justino, who on Friday defended her belt with a 46-second TKO of Charmaine Tweet at Invicta FC 12, needs to make weight at bantamweight before she even becomes a part of the title conversation for Rousey.

Its a serious weight issue here, he said. Thats the issue. If Cyborg fought last night and she was 135 pounds, yeah, wed be talking about this right now.

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Is Cristiane 'Cyborg' Justino signed to Zuffa? Dana White says to ask Lorenzo Fertitta

Alamogordo educators take flight on NASA's SOFIA

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By Jacqueline Devine

jadevine@alamogordonews.com

@DearestDevine on Twitter

NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy is a highly modified Boeing 747SP jetliner carrying a 100-inch (2.5-meter) effective diameter telescope. Fitted with instruments that collect data at infrared wavelengths, SOFIA flies at altitudes between 39,000 and 45,000 feet on 10-hour overnight science missions. Alamogordo's Jeffery Killebrew and Michael Shinabery are the first educators from New Mexico to be selected to fly on the special jetliner. (Courtesy PhotoNASA)

NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy or SOFIA, the world's largest flying telescope has selected two Alamogordo educators to join them on an educational flight as Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors to learn about infrared astronomy.

New Mexico School for the Blind and Visually Impaired science teacher Jeffery Killebrew and New Mexico Museum of Space History Education Specialist Michael Shinabery will work side-by-side with NASA astronomers to study infrared light.

According to a press release from the SOFIA Science Center, SOFIA's Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors program began in 2010 and has flown 55 educators from the United States and eight from Germany between 2010 and 2014. Killebrew and Shinabery are the first educators from New Mexico to be selected to fly on the modified Boeing 747SP jetliner.

Jeffery Killebrew

Killebrew said starting Monday he and Shinabery will take a 10 week graduate level astronomy course from Montana State University before embarking on their flight. Exact flight dates have not been announced.

"It's an exciting opportunity and we're very honored to have been chosen," Killebrew said. "We were told it was a highly competitive selection process, so just to know that, it's truly an honor."

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Alamogordo educators take flight on NASA's SOFIA

India needs more scientists

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Thousands of students thronged the Radio Astronomy Centre (RAC) of the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) at Muthorai near here on Saturday to celebrate National Science Day.

Inaugurating the celebrations Siraj Hasan, Honorary Professor and former Director of Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru, said that career opportunities were on the rise in the field of science.

Pointing out that a number of scientific projects like the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) and the National Large Solar Telescope were coming up, he said that lots of scientific hands are needed to run those facilities.

The Head, RAC, P.K. Manoharan, who presided, said that the objective of the celebrations was to create awareness about science among the people. The RAC operates the Ooty Radio Telescope which was one of the biggest in the world. It was being used for several important astronomy and astrophysical studies.

Stating that over 5000 students from about 64 educational institutions in various parts of the district had turned up for the celebrations, he said that it reflects the growing interest in science.

Activities like observing the functioning of the ORT, observing the Sun and sunspots with an optical telescope, demonstrations by other scientific and research organisations of the district and display of models by schools and colleges marked the occasion.

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India needs more scientists

Skywatch: Venus and Jupiter continue to accentuate the night heavens

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By Blaine Friedlander Jr. February 28

In winters waning weeks, Venus and Jupiter continue to accentuate the night heavens, we change our clocks forward and we grab spring with no intention of letting go.

Check the west-southwestern heavens at dusk to spy the vivacious Venus and the dim Mars. In late February, the two planets met for a sweet cosmic waltz, but in March, they appear to separate. Venus approaches negative fourth magnitude (very bright) while Mars makes do at magnitude 1.3 (dim, hard to find in urban light pollution). With a clear sky, Mars looks like a red pinpoint.

A young, waxing crescent moon visits Mars on the evening of March 21, and on the next evening the crescent flirts with Venus.

Robust Jupiter ascends the evenings eastern sky. Find this gas giant at a -2.5 magnitude, very bright, in the constellation Cancer. The lion in the constellation Leo appears to stare at the planet. By the Ides of March, find it south around 10:30 p.m.

The waxing gibbous moon drops by the dazzling Jupiter on March 2, days before the moon itself becomes full on March 5.

Catch the ringed Saturn rising after midnight in the east-southeast now, hanging out near a gang of constellations, Scorpius, Ophiuchus and Libra. Its a zero magnitude object, bright enough that it can be seen under urban skies. The waning moon loiters near Saturn before dawn on March 12. On that morning, the reddish star below them is Antares.

We adjust our clocks to Daylight Saving Time at 2 a.m. March 8. Spring forward, moving the clock ahead one hour.

Winter is almost over. Spring is weeks away. The vernal equinox brings springs official arrival on March 20 at 6:45 p.m.

Also on March 20 the day a new moon the North Atlantic and the Arctic waters get a short total eclipse. We wont see it here, but Slooh.com will carry it live. Totality will start seconds after 5:44 a.m. and end at 5:47 a.m., according to Geoff Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory. For details, visit http://www.eclipsewise.com.

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Skywatch: Venus and Jupiter continue to accentuate the night heavens

Canadian School Join World's First Elementary-School Space Mission

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Canadensys Aerospace is partnering with St. John Paul II Catholic School in Bolton, ON to provide a Canadian mission control centre for the worlds first ever elementary-school built satellite.

The spacecraft, named STMSat-1, was built by St. Thomas More Cathedral School in Arlington, Virginia. The tiny satellite will fly in an orbit 400km above the Earth, similar to that flown by Chris Hadfield aboard the International Space Station (ISS), taking pictures every 30 seconds and transmitting them via radio waves back to the ground. St. Thomas More School won a NASA competition to have their satellite launched into space from the ISS in June 2015. The satellite is the first ever in the world to be built and designed entirely by grade school students, supported by technical advisors from NASA.

A central Mission Operations Centre (MOC) will be based on site at the St. Thomas More School in Virginia, augmented by a network of supporting Remote Mission Operations Centers (RMOCs) in various parts of the U.S. and around the world. Canadensys is providing St. John Paul II School with the technology and support required to build and operate an RMOC in Canada.

As an RMOC partner school within the STMSat-1 mission, Canadian students from ages 4 to 14 will have the opportunity to experience real-life space mission operations from tracking the satellite as it passes overhead and receiving the transmitted images, to archiving them and interpreting the data received. Students will then upload their captured images to the primary MOC at St. Thomas More School in the U.S. for broader distribution to the global network.

The goal of STMSat-1 is to inspire school children in science, technology and mathematics as alluded to by the double acronym. The project is part of Canadensys Aerospace Corporations commitment to Accessible Space, providing broadened participation options in space missions across public and education sectors, and leveraging the unique potential of space to inspire and engage.

We are thrilled to be partnered with St. John Paul II School, and our American colleagues at St. Thomas More School and NASA, to provide Canadian grade school students with the first-hand experience of a real space mission said Christian Sallaberger, President of Canadensys Aerospace. Missions such as STMSat-1 have the unique potential to engage, inspire and teach about international cooperation. It is a privilege to be able to bring this experience to children.

George Consitt, Principal of St. John Paul II School added All of our students, from Kindergarten through Grade 8, will have a chance to participate in an actual space mission in various ways. This is a truly unique experience that has fired the imaginations of teachers and students alike. We are happy to partner with St. Thomas More School and the engineers and staff at Canadensys Aerospace to make this possible.

We are delighted to announce Saint John Paul II School in Canada as our first international Remote Mission Operations Centre (RMOC) for the STMSat-1 mission. Our hope is that STMSat-1 can help inspire children around the world to pursue careers in science and engineering, said Joseph Pellegrino, the STMSat-1 Mission Manager at St. Thomas More School, following a recent visit to the RMOC in Canada.

About Canadensys Aerospace Canadensys Aerospace Corporation (Canadensys) is a space systems and services company based in Toronto, Ontario with a focus on accessible space. The company is founded on heritage and expertise from 3 decades of international flight programs spanning large and small space, combined with modern, commercially focused models for effective space program and mission development.

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Canadian School Join World's First Elementary-School Space Mission

Center for Drug Delivery and Nanomedicine (CDDN

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The need for the discovery and development of innovative technologies to improve the delivery of therapeutic and diagnostic agents in the body is widely recognized. The next generation therapies must be able to deliver drugs, therapeutic proteins and recombinant DNA to focal areas of disease or to tumors to maximize clinical benefit while limiting untoward side effects. The use of nanoscale technologies to design novel drug delivery systems and devices is a rapidly developing area of biomedical research that promises breakthrough advances in therapeutics and diagnostics.

Center for Drug Delivery and Nanomedicine (CDDN) serves to unify existing diverse technical and scientific expertise in biomedical and material science research at the University of Nebraska thereby creating a world class interdisciplinary drug delivery and nanomedicine program. This is realized by integrating established expertise in drug delivery, gene therapy, neuroscience, pathology, immunology, pharmacology, vaccine therapy, cancer biology, polymer science and nanotechnology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), the University of Nebraska at Lincoln (UNL) and Creighton University.

CDDNs vision is to improve health by enhancing the efficacy and safety of new and existing therapeutic agents, diagnostic agents and genes through the discovery and application of innovative methods of drug delivery and nanotechnology. CDDNs mission is to discover and apply knowledge to design, develop and evaluate novel approaches to improve the delivery of therapeutic agents, diagnostic agents and genes.

The COBRE Nebraska Center for Nanomedicine is supported by the National Institute of General Medical Science(NIGMS) grant 2P20 GM103480-07.

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Center for Drug Delivery and Nanomedicine (CDDN

'Apocalyptic ideology' to blame?

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Story highlights Bangladeshi-American blogger Avijit Roy was killed Thursday Frida Ghitis: Root cause of Islamist extremism is not poverty

Roy and his wife, Rafida Ahmed Bonya, now in critical condition after also being attacked Thursday, were in Bangladesh to attend the national book fair, where Roy was promoting his books advocating tolerance, education and secular humanism.

Frida Ghitis

Why was he killed? At the time of writing, the perpetrators had not been caught, but there seems little doubt he was killed by Islamist radicals, who were likely angered by his devastatingly critical writings. Just last month he wrote about the Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris and the December 16 massacre in Peshawar, Pakistan, in which Pakistani Taliban opened fire inside a school, killing 145 people, including 132 children. "To me," he wrote, "such religious extremism is like a highly contagious virus."

Roy strongly disagreed with President Barack Obama's statements distancing the so-called Islamic State from Islam. "ISIS," he said, "is what unfolds when the virus of faith launches into action and the outbreak becomes an epidemic."

His assassination came the same day we learned the identity of the man known as Jihadi John, infamous for narrating in English as Western hostages of ISIS were decapitated. He has been identified as the London-raised, university educated Mohammed Emwazi.

Taken together, these two tragedies help shed light on what motivates people to conduct these brutal acts.

The revelations about Emwazi's life story were pieced together with the help of an organization that wants to make us believe Jihadi John's radicalization is the fault of the British security services, not of a murderous, apocalyptic ideology that helped make 2014 the deadliest year for terrorist attacks on record.

According to the Washington Post, which relies partly on information from a group called CAGE, Emwazi was described by some as a perfectly normal young Londoner, showing no signs of becoming the barbaric murderer he is alleged to have become, until security services started harassing him. The problems began, friends referred to in the article would have us believe, when he tried to go on safari to Tanzania with a couple of friends. He was stopped in Tanzania, and according to the article, he claims he was accused of planning to travel to Somalia, where the al Qaeda affiliate al Shabaab has been conducting its reign of terror.

An official from CAGE, which is described by the Washington Post as a "rights group," described Emwazi as "extremely kind, extremely gentle," before Britain's MI5 started making his life hell for no apparent reason other than that he was a Muslim.

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'Apocalyptic ideology' to blame?

53 & Grateful

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Given the length and complexity of my previous posts this week, which was necessitated by the subject, I am going to give myself and the readership a break and keep todays post lighter.

Today is my 53rd birthday, more than halfway home, decidedly middle-aged, not a landmark birthday like 50 or 60, a just-getting-older birthday. Normally, I would be in Puerto Rico this week but this year, my sister is bringing my dad to the island and I am taking him to Rome in the autumn. So, we can add cold, wet feet to the experience of this birth anniversary. Still, the overpowering emotion I feel this morning is gratitude.

I am grateful, first of all, for my faith and for the Church that brought me to the faith. If, in the night, I had through some unhappy occurrence, lost my faith, my life would be unrecognizable. The friendships I cherish are largely, though not exclusively, born of a common commitment to and interest in the Church. The books that mostly fill my library have some connection to the life of the Church. The thoughts that occupy my mind, these are mostly thoughts about our faith and what it means and what it demands and how it consoles and how it challenges.

I am grateful for my parents. I have always liked a line by e.e. cummings: I am first the son of my parents, and whatever is happening to him. My parents, who were instrumental in bringing the faith to me, also gave me a wonderful, nurturing, inquisitive home. My mother was a champion of personal and fiscal responsibility and, regrettably, in these regards I take after my dad. My father is a paragon of kindness and forgiveness in his personal relations and, regrettably, in this regard I take after my mom. My mom has gone to God, but I call my dad every night and we talk, this time of year mostly about UConn basketball (our mens team is not having a good year but our womens team is again dominant), and, at 87, he still relishes his independence and cherishes his grandchildren. He cuts articles out of the local Connecticut papers and sends them to me, which helps me stay informed about the town where I grew up. He is a holy man.

I am grateful for my friends. Here, I can scarcely count the blessings. So many wonderful, interesting, thoughtful people in my life. I am at that strange age when some long-time priest friends have become bishops and long-time bishop friends have become archbishops and cardinals. I like it when this happens - a lot. But, what I like even more is when you meet someone you have known of for some time, but never met, and you meet and almost immediately can finish each others sentences. That happened a couple of times this year. Or, when you have the chance to spend real time with an acquaintance who, at the end of that time, has become not just a friend, but a great friend. That happened this year too.

I am grateful for my work, both here at NCR and at the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies. Ten years ago, when I decided not to return to restaurant work and, instead, try and chart a course as a writer, I did not realize I was entering the publishing and news business at the worst possible time. Book advances were shrinking and are now nothing you can live on unless you are already famous. Newsrooms are down-sizing. But, NCR has become a natural fit for me I think. Not many journals are thrilled to have writers who challenge orthodoxies held by colleagues, but NCR celebrates that. At the Institute at Catholic University, I work on organizing conferences that are consequential. Last year, our conference Erroneous Autonomy: The Catholic Case Against Libertarianism, really touched a chord with many people in the Church, in the academy, in labor and we will be continuing that conversation this year. Next month, we are doing a conference on immigration, past and present, drawing lessons from the past and comparing ecclesial approaches then and now. It is fun to be a part of such events.

All of these things are sources of gratitude each and every day, and a birthday is about the passage of time. In a culture that celebrates youth, it is almost subversive to note the vast and varied ways that middle age is preferable. Youth can be an age of discovery but so is middle age; I still encounter people and ideas and works of art that I did not know about previously. But, middle age also provides something youth cannot, the capacity for re-evaluation, and it does so in ways that are every bit as fun as discovery. A few weeks back, a friend objected to one of my blogs because I had written auto-de-fe and he asserted it should have been auto-da-fe. Turns out, that both are acceptable. But, in finding that out, I came across a video from the song of that name in Bernsteins Candide. Here opened a trip down memory lane. I encountered this music in 1989 when Leonard Bernstein recorded it shortly before his death. The original play, in the 1950s, had bombed on Broadway. I knew the overture from All-State Band, but nothing else. The libretto was, of course, based on Voltaires tale of the same name a tale that yielded the wonderful adjective Panglossian and was written by Bernstein, Dorothy Parker and Lillian Hellman. Whats not to love? The humor is so sophisticated. The music glorious. The story, and the music, is a celebration of humanism, a decidedly secular humanism, and the final song Make our garden grow could be the anthem of secular humanism. In 1989, having left seminary, I was not allergic to the appeal of the secular.

Now, so many years later, I realize that Leibniz was not as ridiculous as Voltaire thought he was, Voltaire still relied heavily on the Christian faith for the categories in which he thought, even while he denounced the faith that had provided these. I realize that Bernstein really was a great composer and conductor, all emotion and power but great nonetheless. I realize, too, that the phrase daily bread in the lyrics demonstrates, as if it needed demonstrating, the inability of even the most hardened secularist to escape the Wests Christian cultural inheritance. I realize, too, in ways I did not then, that the lines we draw, of necessity, between the religious and the secular, the modern and the ancient, the arts and the sciences, all these lines are crossed more easily than a youth thinks, that one can have feet in both camps, in all camps, with work but without compromise, though I suspect that it is actually easier to effect such lower-case catholic cultural sensibilities if your strongest foot is planted firmly in the upper-case Catholic camp. In middle age, you realize that re-discovery and first discovery are almost equally exciting but that the former is a richer, multi-layered experience, like the second sip of a rich, complex, earthy red wine.

Chesterton captured some of this sensibility, in Charles Dickens, the Last Great Man, where he wrote:

It is currently said that hope goes with youth, and lends to youth the wings of a butterfly; but I fancy that hope is the last gift given to man, and the only gift not given to youth. Youth is pre-eminently the period in which a man can be lyric, fanatical, poetic; but youth is the period in which a man can be hopeless. The end of every episode is the end of the world. But the power of hoping through everything, the knowledge that the soul survives its adventures, that great inspiration comes to the middle-aged: God has kept that good wine until now. It is from the backs of the elderly gentlemen that the wings of the butterfly should burst.

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53 & Grateful

U.S. writer hacked to death in Bangladesh

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Story highlights Roy yearned for an age of reason without religious dogma Islamist extremists resented him, threatened to kill him

He had no place for religious dogma, including from Islam, the main religion of his native Bangladesh.

Extremists resented him for openly and regularly criticizing religion in his blog. They threatened to kill him if he came home from the United States to visit.

On Thursday, someone did.

As usual, Roy defied the threats and departed his home in suburban Atlanta for Dhaka, where he appeared at a speaking engagement about his latest books -- one of them titled "The Virus of Faith." He has written seven books in all.

As he walked back from the book fair, assailants plunged machetes and knives into Roy and his wife, killing him and leaving her bloodied and missing a finger.

Afterward, an Islamist group "Ansar Bangla-7" reportedly tweeted, "Target Down here in Bangladesh."

Investigators are proceeding on the notion that Roy's murder was an extremist attack. His father, Ajay Roy, filed a case of murder with the Shahbagh police Friday without naming suspects.

No one came to their aid as they were hacked down, a witness said. "I shouted for help from the people but nobody came to save him."

But at night, secularist sympathizers marched through a street holding torches; by day, others held a sit-in to protest Roy's killing. The government condemned the attack.

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U.S. writer hacked to death in Bangladesh

American religion critic killed, wife wounded in Bangladesh

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In his writings, author Avijit Roy yearned for reason and humanism guided by science.

He had no place for religious dogma, including from Islam, the main religion of his native Bangladesh.

Extremists resented him for openly and regularly criticizing religion in his blog. They threatened to kill him if he came home from the United States to visit.

On Thursday, someone did.

As usual, Roy defied the threats and departed his home in suburban Atlanta for Dhaka, where he appeared at a speaking engagement about his latest books -- one of them titled "The Virus of Faith." He has written seven books in all.

As he walked back from the book fair, assailants plunged machetes and knives into Roy and his wife, killing him and leaving her bloodied and missing a finger.

Afterward, the Islamist group "Ansar Bangla-7" reportedly tweeted, "Target Down here in Bangladesh."

Investigators are proceeding on the notion that Roy's murder was an extremist attack. His father, Ajay Roy, filed a case of murder with the Shahbagh police Friday without naming suspects.

No one came to their aid as they were hacked down, a witness said. "I shouted for help from the people but nobody came to save him."

But at night, secularist sympathizers marched through a street holding torches; by day, others held a sit-in to protest Roy's killing. The government condemned the attack.

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American religion critic killed, wife wounded in Bangladesh

'Nobody came to save him,' witness says

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Story highlights Victim's father says extremists backed by Bangladesh's main Islamist party killed his son Police: Avijit Roy died after being attacked on a street in Dhaka, Bangladesh

He recalled the case of another secular blogger, Ahmed Rajib Haider, who was hacked to death outside his home in Bangladesh in February 2013 by assailants with machetes.

"The virus of faith was the weapon that made these atrocities possible," Roy wrote in the article, which is to be published in Free Inquiry magazine in April.

On Thursday night, the engineer and writer known for speaking out for secular freedom died after being attacked by machete-wielding assailants in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka, a local police official said.

Roy, the founder of the website Mukto-Mona, and his wife were assaulted as they walked back from a speaking engagement, said Krishna Pada Roy, a deputy commissioner with the Dhaka police.

Police were investigating a "local hard-line religious group" that praised the killing online, the BBC reported.

Ajay Roy, Avijit's father, filed a case of murder with the Shahbagh police on Friday without naming suspects.

The father, a retired professor at Dhaka University, later told reporters his son was killed by extremist and communal groups backed by Jamaat-e-Islami, the main Islamist political party in the country. Avijit Roy had received death threats several times for posting his views on blog, his father said.

Jamaat-e-Islami, however, protested Ajay Roy's statement and demanded punishment of the killers.

Shahbagh police officer-in-charge Sirajul Islam said, "The nature of the attack suggests a fanatic group might have been behind the murder."

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'Nobody came to save him,' witness says

Terrorists murder American blogger

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On Thursday night, Avijit Roy, a well-known Bangladeshi American writer and religious skeptic, was surrounded by unidentified assailants armed with cleavers and hacked to death on a street in Dhaka. His wife, Rafida Ahmed, sustained serious wounds and is fighting for her life. On social media, you can find awful images of the immediate aftermath of the incident, with Ahmed, drenched in blood, standing stunned by the fallen body of her husband.

A previously unknown Islamist group named Ansar Bangla 7 claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the Associated Press, saying on Twitter that Roy was targeted because of his crimes against Islam.

Roy, who was based in the United States, had just arrived in Bangladesh a week before attending a book festival. An engineer by training, he had originated a popular, secularist blog and gained a reputation as a prominent advocate of humanism and tolerance. His Hindu background was less relevant than his scientific atheism. Friends claimed he had received numerous death threats from fundamentalists irked by his outspoken commentary on religion.

I have profound interest in freethinking, skepticism, philosophy, scientific thoughts and human rights of people, Roy wrote on his Facebook page, by way of biographical description. In a post on his Mukto-Mona blog, Roy, 42, questioned the credibility of the Koran, challenging the contention of some Islamic scholars that there's any scientific merit to the text.

Following the hideous terror attacks on a school in the Pakistani city of Peshawar and on the Paris offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo last month, Roy likened religion to a virus in a tweet.

Such sentiments proved too dangerous in Bangladesh's complicated milieu. The country has one of the largest populations of Muslims in the world, and Islam is enshrined as a state religion. In 2013, another secular blogger, Ahmed Rajib Haider, was killed by extremists, sparking similar free speech protests as Roy's death prompted this week.

But Bangladesh also has a deep tradition of secularism - the country broke away from Pakistan following a bloody war in 1971. Bengali nationalism, harbored also by the country's religious minorities, trumped the pan-Islamism that defined the Pakistani state. Bangladesh does not have blasphemy laws on its books.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has embarked on a controversial crackdown of Islamists, which included prominent politicians who had sided against the country's independence four decades ago.

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Terrorists murder American blogger