Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
In my view, “Blackbird,” a Beatles song written by Paul McCartney and released on the Beatles’ “White Album” in November, 1968, is one of his finest works. Here we see him rehearsing it in the the EMI’s Abbey Road Studios on the very day it was recorded: June 11, 1968. (The released version is here.)
A few notes on the song from Wikipedia:
McCartney explained on Chaos and Creation at Abbey Road that the guitar accompaniment for “Blackbird” was inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach’s Bourrée in E minor, a well-known lute piece, often played on the classical guitar. As teenagers, he and George Harrison tried to learn Bourrée as a “show off” piece. The Bourrée is distinguished by melody and bass notes played simultaneously on the upper and lower strings. McCartney said that he adapted a segment of the Bourrée (reharmonised into the original’s relative major key of G) as the opening of “Blackbird”, and carried the musical idea throughout the song. The first three notes of the song, which then transitioned into the opening guitar riff, were inspired from Bach.
The first night his future wife Linda Eastman stayed at his home, McCartney played “Blackbird” for the fans camped outside his house.
. . . Since composing “Blackbird” in 1968, McCartney has given various statements regarding both his inspiration for the song and its meaning. He has said that he was inspired by hearing the call of a blackbird one morning when the Beatles were studying Transcendental Meditation in Rishikesh, India, and also writing it in Scotland as a response to the Little Rock Nine incident and the overall civil rights movement, wanting to write a song dedicated to people who had been affected by discrimination.
You can listen to Bach’s Bourréhere, but for the life of me I can’t hear the germ of “Blackbird” in it.
The sound is off at the beginning but starts 16 seconds in. There are a few other breaks in the sound.
It’s clear that the song was tweaked right up to the end, including the tempo, the pause, and the raising of the voice on the word “life” halfway into the song.
The guy speaking to John and Paul is of course George Martin, who contributed so much to the greatness of the group’s songs. Notice that Paul breaks into other songs from time to time, including Helter Skelter and Mother Nature’s Son, both also on the White Album. At about 6:15, Lennon tunes his guitar to McCartney’s, as if wanting to accompany him on Blackbird. But no accompaniment was needed.
Check out Macca’s shoes! The woman sitting in the corner and then next to McCartney is identified by a commenter:
Francie Schwartz is the lady appearing in the video alongside Paul. She was Paul McCartney’s girlfriend during the summer of 1968, which coincides exactly with the White Album recording sessions. She wrote about her time at Abbey Road in her memoir Body Count (1972), giving a firsthand account of those legendary sessions.
This is McCartney at the apogee of his powers. The song is a work of genius. In all my life I will never figure out where the ability to produce songs like this comes from. All I can guess is that there’s a kind of neuronal wiring in such people that can turn thoughts into wonderful music.
Larry the Cat recently turne 19 (and celebrated his 15th year at 10 Downing Street), but the Senior Cat is still going strong. For example, he recently caught his third mouse, though that was nominally his job as Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office. All Brits love him now (save for the miscreants), and he’s still getting into trouble, as this recent YouTube video shows:
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Quite a few readers called my attention to this Canadian cat, named Louis Vuitton (!), who lives in a town that straddles the border with the U.S. Despite new restrictions on immigration, Louis, as the CBC article below shows, repeatedly enters the U.S. illegally and then slips back to Canada. Click on the headline to read:
An excerpt:
On Zero Avenue in South Surrey, B.C. lives a cat without a care in the world, and a supercilious name to match.
Louis Vuitton has become a local legend for doing with ease what most humans wouldn’t dare.
Each day, he leaps back and forth across a narrow ditch that sits smack dab on the Canada-U.S. border.
“He hasn’t always been such a rebel, but he is extremely friendly,” Deb Tate, Louis’ owner, told As It Happens host Nil Koksal.
He just loves people, says Tate, and he doesn’t care what side of the border they’re on.
“He will walk up, greet people, get his pats and belly rubs and then continue on when he’s done.”
On one side of the ditch is a row of charming homes, including his own, on Canadian soil. On the other are the green fields of Peace Arch Historical State Park in the United States.
There aren’t any fences, just a street in between and a shallow divide. According to Tate, there are plenty of cameras and hawk-eyed border guards patrolling nearby, ready to pounce on illegal crossers.
But none of that seems to concern Louis, who trapezes across whenever he wants, with the air of someone who knows the rules, and chooses to ignore them.
Louis, who turns six on Canada Day,has been lapping up all the attention from locals since he caught the eye of Instagram user @pnwdaily360, who posted a now viral video about “the border-hopping kitty.”
There’s a cat that doesn’t really give a f–k about borders,” says the user in the video. “And he comes over and hunts in the ditch. There he is. What’s up buddy?”
The video has since garnered over 220,000 likes and three million views on Instagram.
Tate says Louis even has a habit of smuggling things across the border, dropping it ever so thoughtfully on her doorstep.
“He’s been known to bring home a treat or two from his adventures,” said Tate. “We’ve received everything from snakes and mice and squirrels, much to my chagrin.”
As for his name, Tate says it wasn’t given to him because he has a penchant for luxury goods at duty-free prices.
“He’s a rescue kitty, and we decided that coming from humble beginnings, he deserved a designer name,” said Tate. “We just named him Louis and … he has just grown in to fill the personality, and more.”
Click the video below to see a two-minute video of Louis in action. I wonder if ICE will go after him. After all, he not only enters the U.S. illegally, but commits crimes (murder!) in our country, bringing mice, snakes, and even squirrels back to Canada.
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Finally, from 1000 Libraries Magazine we hear about a cat who got an honorary doctorate from a university in Vermont, so he is now known as “Dr. Max Dow.” Click the screenshot below to get the details:
An excerpt:
That’s Dr. Max Dow, to you. Max Dow, a once feral kitten, has been granted an honorary PhD from Vermont State University Castleton. After making a name for himself around campus for the last five years, Max has become a staple on the grounds and a famously friendly mascot for the school. He is beloved by students and faculty alike — so much so, the university bestowed an honorary doctorate of ‘litter-ature’ to him at this year’s commencement ceremonies.
Much like many other great scholars, Max’s life started with humble beginnings. He was living on the streets of a neighboring city in Vermont as a feral kitten before being adopted by his loving family and owner, Ashley Dow. Dow and her family live in a neighborhood shared with Vermont State University Castleton, and about a year after moving into their new home, Max began to explore the campus for the first time.
In an interview with USA Today, Ashley Dow shares the first memories of Max making his way to campus. She and her family were worried when he hadn’t returned home. They went searching for Max and quickly found that he was exploring the university and was familiarizing himself with curious students and staff.
Max is well taken care of by students, much to the relief of his owner. Students have been responsible for looking out for Max’s well-being and regularly check in with his owners about his health and safety. Many residents on campus have Dow’s number and will send her update texts when Max is seen or is being cared for by a student or faculty member. After a run with some not-so-friendly stray cats in the neighborhood, Max was injured.
In response, Dow asked the school’s faculty and students to be vigilant about returning Max home by 5:00 PM so his family could keep an eye on him during the night. She shared that everyone has complied with her request on numerous occasions and goes out of their way to make sure he is looked out for when he’s around campus.
. . . Max has benefited from the many perks of being a ‘student’ on campus. According to Vermont State University, Max can be seen hitching rides across school grounds in students’ backpacks and has even been the artistic muse and subject of many photography major projects.
. . . After five years of dedication to Vermont State University and its students, the school decided it was time for Max to earn his degree. During the Spring 2024 commencement, Max was celebrated and met with applause when he earned his doctorate in “Litter-ature” alongside over 1,000 other students.
. . . Vermont State University shared their feelings about Max in one quote saying, “We are incredibly proud of Max and deeply grateful for the role he plays within the culture of our University and for his part in elevating VTSU’s reputation for academic excellence and outstanding commitment to animal welfare.”
Here’s Max’x doctoral diploma from the site:
. . . and a short video about Max—I mean Doctor Max.
Today’s we have photos from Ephraim Heller of hummingbirds from Trinidad and Tobago. Ephraim’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.
On my February visit to Trinidad and Tobago I managed to photograph 13 of the 18 hummingbirds that are sometimes present on the islands. Previous posts were devoted to my new favorite bird, the tufted coquette (here) and to photos of six other species (here). This post covers the remaining six species. The species that I did not photograph either do not visit feeders or are only present seasonally in the country.
Black-throated mango (Anthracothorax nigricollis). Some individuals have been documented to migrate over 1,000 miles:
Brown violetear (Colibri delphinae). An aggressive species that zealously defends its nectar sources:
The copper-rumped hummingbird (Saucerottia tobaci) is the most common hummingbird on both islands. An individual amused me over several days as it vigorously defended three feeders from all species, regardless of the fact that food was plentiful:
When light hits the male ruby-topaz hummingbird (Chrysolampis mosquitus) just right it lights up like a neon sign. As in many other hummingbird species, the male’s crown and throat produce color not through pigment but through the physical structure of the feathers: stacked layers of melanin granules in the barbules:
Welcome to CaturSaturday, April 11, 2026, shabbos for Jewish cats and, in Canada, it’s National Poutine Day, the tastiest and unhealthiest of all comfort foods. Here are several orders of poutine waiting to be served at La Banquise, perhaps Montreal’s most famous poutine shack. The photo, taken in March of 2016, shows two orders with guac amd sour cream. One person has unaccountably ordered a salad:
Here are the Kingsmen lip-synching to the song. I can still remember the first time I heard it, and it was on a transistor radio.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 11 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Did you watch the Artemis re-entry and splashdown yesterday? Everything worked fine: it was, as they say, copacetic.
Floating in the Pacific Ocean on Friday, the four astronauts of NASA’s Artemis II mission had achieved more than just a historic return to human spaceflight around the moon.
“From the pages of Jules Verne to a modern-day mission to the moon, a new chapter of the exploration of our celestial neighbor is complete,” Rob Navias, who provided NASA commentary during the re-entry, said after splashdown.
The successful conclusion of Artemis II sets NASA on a path to extend the agency’s achievements in space exploration, and, for now at least, the United States is ahead of China in a 21st century space race.
Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch of NASA and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency were the first people to leave low-Earth orbit since 1972. Their journey captivated space enthusiasts and may have created new ones.
I’ve put an 11-minute video below; the moment of splashdown is at 7:42.
I’m told that this mission is partly to prepare for creating a U.S. base on the Moon. I’m not sure, however, what that will accomplish? Will we claim the moon, in the same way that countries have made faux claims in Antarctica?
*In a post on It’s Noon in Israel,” author and journalist Amit Segal interviews Israeli Minister Aryeh Deri and also gives some exclusive statements from Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. First I’ll give Segal’s bullet points and take on the war, and you can read the Q&A for yourself:
It’s Friday, April 10, and before we dive into today’s headlines, we have exclusive statements from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. During our conversation last night, he highlighted three key points:
On Iran he asserted that without the two recent operations, Iran would have already acquired nuclear weapons by 2026.
On U.S. relations he argued that Israel’s standing in the United States is only an issue among those who have a problem with America itself. He stressed that this is not a new development, nor is it related to the current war.
On the northern front he claimed that Hezbollah has been begging for a ceasefire for a month, and teased that there will be further ‘interesting developments’ in the negotiations with Lebanon.”
As early as the second week, it became clear that the regime would not fall from airstrikes alone. The U.S. and Israeli strategy pivoted: hit them hard, then allow internal pressure to build while the U.S. military remains in the region as a passive deterrent against mass repression. The recent prospect of negotiations complicates that signal to the Iranian public, but the core strategy may still hold.
While the Iranian threat has been at least temporarily defanged, a new long-term threat is rising: U.S. public opinion.
There is a two-part problem.
First, the United States has not yet achieved its stated objectives. Second, as long as those objectives remain unmet, the finger of blame will inevitably point toward Israel. We can already see the narrative forming: Israel gave the U.S. false intelligence that the regime was on the brink of collapse, deceiving Trump into wasting American resources and lives in pursuit of its own interests. Ignoring the likely fact that Donald Trump hasn’t been led into doing anything he didn’t want to do since he was an infant, this is the story that’s being told.
Israel cannot afford to be seen as the party that overpromised. It cannot be left holding the proverbial bag for an Iranian version of Iraq’s nonexistent WMDs.
Moving forward, Israel must urgently invest in rebuilding its own infrastructure devastated by the war: public support in the U.S.
A bit of the Q&A with Deri:
Q: Will we see a regime change in the near future?
“I believe so. By the way, Trump believes the current regime is far more measured and responsible than what came before. In a certain sense, I agree. The diplomatic figures there effectively forced the ceasefire because of the constraints, not because of any genuine change of heart. They understood that within two weeks Iran would go bankrupt.”
Q: “And aren’t you worried that Israel’s gains come at a cost – a growing sense in America that we dragged them into a war that wasn’t theirs?”
“That has nothing to do with Iran. We have a problem with the Democrats, and somewhat with some Republicans, too. But precisely because of that, this period with Trump in power is a major opportunity for Israel to cement its regional standing. In the end, the Americans – whatever administration – will understand that their real ally is us.”
*As always, I’ll steal a few items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news-and-snark column in the Free Press, called this week, “TGIF: MMIWG2SLGBTQIA+” (yes, that’s a group; read on).
→ To study the forest, you must have a limp: A new job posting for a tenure-track position—Canada Research Chair in Forestry and Environmental Stewardship at the University of British Columbia—has an interesting requirement. “For this position, applicants must identify as having a disability.” Actually, more ideally, they must identify as disabled women or indigenous people of color:
In accordance with UBC’s CRC Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Action Plan, and pursuant to Section 42 of the BC Human Rights code, this search is restricted to people with disabilities. We welcome applications from disabled scholars who are also members of the following federally designated groups: Indigenous Peoples, racialized people, and women, and gender equity-seeking groups. Applicants to CRC positions are required to complete this equity survey.
To study the forest, you must have a limp. And be gay. Are you gay and are you limping? (Me, yes, frequently.) Now you may apply to be a professor of the forests. Also, this confirms my theory that the longer the job title, the more ridiculous the job. CanadaResearchChair in Forestry and Environmental Stewardship?
And elsewhere in Canada, a major political conference devolved into chaos as everyone fought over “equity cards,” differently colored little cards that let certain speakers cut in line according to their level of oppression. “I was standing here with my gender equity card before you called on the previous speaker. That’s my point of privilege,” one person said. Another: “Yesterday, this card was used in an inappropriate matter. And while I understand in Ontario, we note this as equity, even if that, this was also used inappropriately in terms of gender. I want everyone to be mindful that these cards for individuals like myself, who identify as a black woman, have no value outside of this space.” Okay, fine, one more: “I said, ‘Hey, this pertains to multiple intersecting parts of my lived experience, I’d like to speak.’ I was rejected when I talked. It’s frustrating when it’s—these are my rights being directly under attack right now in Alberta. A cisgender woman had spoken over me.” The delegates weren’t the only ones complaining, however. The chair had some words after their pronouns were tread upon: “I’ll again thank delegates not to call me ‘Madame Chair.’ I am a nonbinary person. My pronouns are they/them/their. Chair is sufficient.” I’d also like to thank my coworkers not to call me Nellie Bowels. Which they have multiple times this week, and which is (I swear to G-d) how my name is spelled on my official Paramount ID card. I thank you not to call me that. Chair is sufficient.
On my last Canadian note—it’s a 20! I’ll be here all week!—New Democratic Party MP Leah Gazan expressed her frustration at budget cuts by saying: “They provided $0 to deal with the ongoing genocide of MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+.” Them’s a lot of letters. I thought that surely had to be a joke. So I googled the phrase and sure enough, it’s real. I really try not to make too much fun of the alphabet soup stuff. It’s too easy. It’s played out. I’m better than it. But then a member of parliament drops MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+ on us. What are we supposed to do here, guys? When will the letters end? Is there pi of letters? Why two Q’s?
Here’s the answer. There’s other mishigas from Canada at the article. Note that this isn’t really a “genocide” since most of the perps are indigenous people themselves, and I suspect that domestic violence is a major contributor:
→ Updates on Jewish life: What a time it has been! Sixty percent of American adults now largely dislike Israel, according to a new Pew Research Center survey and also my entire Instagram feed, and everyone else in the world minus the people I work and associate with.
. . . A politician from Britain’s Labour Party made and posted a video with the words Jew and kike spelled out over different Tories’ faces. But don’t worry—he was just quoting a song, just a random line that happened to be transcribed randomly. Must be AI’s fault. A total accident, he says, of the word kike spelled out over his oppositions’ faces. Happens all the time, I’m sure. I’ve been there, man, hang in there, says the rest of the country.
In a vestigial twitch of fairness, NPR’s public editor did note that it was odd how the news outlet covered the attack on a Michigan synagogue and preschool. See, NPR sent a reporter to a Lebanese village to help contextualize why the suspect in that Michigan attack might have been so upset (Israel killed his relatives, one of whom was reportedly a Hezbollah commander, so you see, blowing up a Jewish preschool is fair). The public editor notes: “I couldn’t find any stories that quote rabbis, congregation members, or the families of the children who had to flee the building.” Seems bad! Alas, not really that bad. The piece ends: “NPR has given Americans what they need to understand their government’s motivations and to hold their elected officials accountable for this war.” All’s well. Nothing to see here.
Meanwhile, a NYT piece on the youth these days defines the term J-pilled as simply “far-right slang for skepticism of Israeli influence.” J-pilled. Interesting; does Israel start with J? Does it have a J? Maybe it stands for Jabba the Hutt? Oh, right. It means Jew-pilled, and the NYT is trying to soften it. Like how the mainstream media always translates the Arabic wordYahud to Israelis instead of Jews, which is what it means. But the people saying J-pilled speak English! They’re literally calling themselves Jew-pilled, and our greatest newspaper is desperate to make it go down smoothly. Some days I’m ready for the human-alien hybrids to reveal themselves.
*John McWhorter responds to both AI and DEI in a new NYT column, “What A.I. and D.E.I. have in common” (article is archived here). The commonality involves casting suspicion on people and their work.
I never thought A.I. would get me thinking of D.E.I.
I’ve reached a depressing turning point as a college professor. With A.I. now entrenched in academic life, when a student submits a wonderful essay, I will never again be sure that it was purely a work of the student’s initiative, intelligence and talent.
Some essays will be. But there will be no way to really tell. Technology could allow me to determine only what was likely. And would an essay count as original if the student used A.I. to begin the paper but then built upon those prompts?
Let’s face it: From now on we will have to revise our sense of what is original and authentic. There is no way to adjudicate where to draw the line, and few professors will be up for submitting every essay they receive to this kind of evaluation.
. . .And there is something else gloomy about A.I. making it unnecessary to write an essay from the ground up. A.I. will put more people under the sort of suspicion that D.E.I. does.
A.I. will put artistic and intellectual achievement under a cloud of doubt, a sense that the creator did not do it all on their own, and possibly could not have. And this is the burden that D.E.I. policies often saddle its intended beneficiaries with.
Call it diversity, equity and inclusion or affirmative action or racial preferences, it is rooted in a quest to give people an opportunity to compete more easily against straight white people, especially men.
Adjusting standards for admission or hiring in view of a group’s past handicap is a unique moral advance.
But it should be applied for as limited a time as possible because of the side effects. Under a policy that allows certain people to be judged even partly on who they are rather than what they bring to the table, people of color are often suspected of being “D.E.I. hires,” brought on with lesser qualifications than their white equivalent would be permitted to have.
Sometimes, the charge is false. From what I see, and from what people with law degrees whose opinions I trust tell me, the Supreme Court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is clearly qualified for her position.
But the interviews Karine Jean-Pierre gave during her book tour last year gave credence to the idea that when President Joe Biden made her White House press secretary her race, gender and sexual orientation were more important criteria than her ability to convey policy, positions and ideas clearly.
I haven’t seen Jean-Pierre’s interviews, but here’s a video from the Left-wing site The Young Turks arguing (at the start) that her book tour was a “disaster”:
*If you want to hear about the sex binary for its expert, as well as rebuttals of several widespread criticisms of the (real) sex binary, there’s an interview with Colin Wright published on his substack called “One reality, two sexes, and endless debates.” You can read for free; it’s a transcript of a interview he did with the German rationalist/skeptic organization Die Gesellschaft zur wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Parawissenschaften (GWUP),(The Society for the Scientific Study of Parasciences). Here are two of many Q&As:
Q: Your paper identifies five main models used to argue against the sex binary. Could you briefly outline them?
A: First, there’s the conflation of mating types with sexes. Some fungi and slime molds reproduce sexually using gametes of the same size—we call these isogamous species. They have chemical compatibility types between gametes, sometimes thousands of them. Articles about ‘the slime mold with 30,000 sexes’ are based on a fundamental misunderstanding. Sexes refer only to males and females, which are defined by different-sized gametes. Species with same-sized gametes don’t have males and females—they have mating types.
Second, there’s the chromosomal or karyotype model. You’ll hear people say, ‘if you’re XX you’re female, if you’re XY you’re male.’ But this conflates how sex is determined in humans with what sex is. Many crocodilians and turtles don’t have sex chromosomes at all—their sex is determined by egg incubation temperature. People with Klinefelter syndrome (XXY) aren’t a third sex; they’re biologically male. These are chromosomal variations within the two sexes.
Third, there’s the sex spectrum model, which holds that sex is a continuous variable based on genital morphology. Some proponents think males and females aren’t real entities but exist only in a statistical sense—you can be varying degrees of male or female, but not definitively male or female. This ignores gametes entirely and has circular problems: how do you know what genital shape is ‘male’ unless you already know what males are, rooted in gametes?
Fourth, there’s the polythetic categories model—like family resemblance, in which members share overlapping characteristics, with no single feature necessary for membership. They try to apply this to sex, saying it’s a combination of chromosomes, hormones, height, and voice pitch, and many other sex-related traits. But how do you define which chromosomes or hormone profiles are ‘male’ without presupposing what males are, rooted in gametes?
Fifth—and most influential—is the multi-level model, which says we can’t talk about bodies having a sex. Instead, you’d say someone is ‘genetically male’ or ‘hormonally female’ or has a ‘male height.’ But again, how are they determining which chromosomes are male without presupposing that males and females exist apart from chromosomes, inevitably rooted in gametes?
and:
Q: What evidence would you need to change your view that there are only two sexes?
A: That’s a crucial question. In the skeptic community, you always need to have something that could convince you you’re wrong. If you don’t, you’re just a zealot, not doing science.
For me, it’s really easy: we define sexes by the type of gamete an individual is biologically capable of producing. You’d need to present a third novel gamete type—in addition to or intermediate between sperm and ova—that an individual’s reproductive system could have the function to produce. That’s the only thing that could make there be more than two sexes.
*Chimp wars! The WSJ describes a lethal war between a previously amiable group of chimpanzees. We’ve long known that chimpanzees can engage in lethal intergroup violence, sometimes tearing apart an outsider chimp limb from limb. But in an article called “Inside the deadly civil war that tore apart a group of chimpanzees in Uganda“, the paper describe fractionation of a previously harmonious group, and a big group, too. I’ve put the original article from Science below, which you can also click to read. The article’s conclusion is that fractioning a group doesn’t require “cultural markers” like ethnicity, religion, or language, since chimps don’t have those.
A rare and deadly “civil war” has broken out between two factions of chimps in Africa, according to new research.
The dispute erupted in what was once a cohesive group of about 200 chimps whose ties stretched back two decades. It took just three years for them to turn on each other, according to a new study in the journal Science.
“We’ve known for a long time that chimpanzees will attack and kill their neighbors,” said primatologist John Mitani, professor emeritus at the University of Michigan and a study co-author. “It turns out they will do this even when those neighbors are former friends and allies.”
For 20 years, the Ngogo chimps of Uganda’s Kibale National Park “were living the good life by being together,” Mitani said. They helped one another, dominated and killed apes from neighboring groups, expanded their territory and boosted their babies’ chances of survival.
But in 2015, the group started splitting into two clusters. Several male chimps who had bridged cliques within the larger group died from disease, weakening social ties. Around the same time, a new alpha male rose to dominance.
Changes in the dominance hierarchy can fuel more aggression and tension, said Aaron Sandel, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin and study co-author. As aggression escalated, the factions drifted into separate areas of the park.
By 2018, the split was complete. The two groups had no remaining social or reproductive ties between them; the last chimp infant with parents from different groups was born in 2015. What was once the center of the group’s territory became a border, which chimps patrolled, the researchers found.
Then the hostilities began in earnest.
Members of the smaller of the two groups launched coordinated lethal attacks on the other, aiming to kill rival adult males. By 2021, these raids had expanded to target younger apes, averaging several infant deaths a year since.
The paper below says that “over the next 7 years [after fission], members of one group made 24 attacks, killing at least seven mature males and 17 infants in the other group.”
Here’s the paper’s conclusion, which contains what I think an unwarranted extrapolation to humans. It’s ok to speculate, I guess, but I’m not sure I would have written what’s below:
This study encourages a reevaluation of current models of human collective violence. If chimpanzee groups can polarize, split, and engage in lethal aggression without human-type cultural markers, then relational dynamics may play a larger causal role in human conflict than often assumed. Cultural traits remain essential for large-scale cooperation, but many conflicts may originate in the breakdown of interpersonal relationships rather than in entrenched ethnic or ideological divisions . It is tempting to attribute polarization and war that occur in humans today to ethnic, religious, or political divisions. Focusing entirely on these cultural factors, however, overlooks social processes that shape human behavior—processes also present in one of our closest animal relatives. In some cases, it may be in the small, daily acts of reconciliation and reunion between individuals that we find opportunities for peace.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej gives his opinion about philosophy:
Andrzej: Are you asleep?
Hili: No, I’m practicing philosophy.
Andrzej: Sometimes that amounts to the same thing.\
In Polish:
Ja: Śpisz?
Hili: Nie, uprawiam filozofię.
Ja: To czasem na jedno wychodzi.
From Bryan: a short but provocative interview with Dan Dennett (text and video) about consciousness:
Daniel Dennett: You don’t know your own mind as well as you think you do.
In a 1993 Dutch documentary series, A Glorious Accident, philosopher Daniel Dennett laid out one of the most unsettling ideas in all of philosophy, the possibility that we are fundamentally mistaken about… pic.twitter.com/UZ0hZuwmG0
— Big Brain Philosophy (@BigBrainPhiloso) April 9, 2026
From Luana on Biden’s immigration policy, which was no policy:
Most Americans still don’t fully understand what happened under Biden…
8% of Nicaragua entered the US in 4 years.
8% of the entire country.
— Why you should have a cat (@ShouldHaveCat) March 9, 2026
One from my feed; more evidence that the Turks love their cats (translation from the Turkish: “In Turkey, an elderly man who makes his living by shining shoes never turns away this little friend when a cat that shows up at the same time every morning asks to have its fur brushed.”
Türkiye’de ayakkabı boyayarak geçimini sağlayan yaşlı bir amcanın yanına her sabah aynı saatte gelen bir kedi, tüylerinin taranmasını isteyince amca bu minik dostunu asla geri çevirmiyor. pic.twitter.com/ktjJE66upn
Artemis II returns today, if everything works okay. As I’ve said, there are some concerns about the heat shield, but not serious concerns. The space.com article below (click on it to read) gives the details as well as several links. I’ve put its video link (the best one, I think) below. Be sure to watch it live starting about 7:40 this evening, Eastern time, as several events will occur at or during re-entry.
Jim Batterson sent this link and added a few words:
In particular item #14 talks about their egress and being carried to the Navy recovery ship by helicopter. After the crew are safe on board the ship, I think that the capsule is simply retrieved into the ship’s onboard “well”. The astronauts are then helicoptered to firmer terra firma.
A short excerpt:
The Artemis 2 Orion capsule will return to Earth tonight, April 10, at 8:07 p.m. EDT (0007 April 11 GMT) with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, California. Returning home on the ship to end a 10-day trip to the moon are NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman (commander), Victor Glover (pilot), Christina Koch (mission specialist) and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen (mission specialist). You can watch the landing live on Space.com, beginning at 6:30 p.m. EDT (2230 GMT). You can also follow the mission live online on our Artemis 2 mission updates page.
After an epic trip to the moon and back, it’s landing day for the four astronauts of NASA’s Artemis 2 mission. For the first time in over 53 years, astronauts are returning to Earth from the moon.
But returning from deep space is no easy feat, especially for the Artemis 2 astronauts, who are the first crew to fly on NASA’s Orion spacecraft. The most harrowing part of the journey lies ahead: a fiery 13-minute plunge through Earth’s atmosphere at about 24,000 mph (38,600 kph) that will subject them to temperatures of up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius) with only their heat shield for protection and parachutes to slow down.
“Every system we’ve demonstrated over the past nine days — life support, navigation, propulsion, communications — all of it depends on the final minutes of flight,” NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya told reporters Thursday (April 9). “We have high confidence in the system, in the heat shield, and the parachutes and the recovery system that we’ve put together.”
For the first time ever, I visited Whole Foods in Hyde Park, as I was craving matzos for Passover and it was the only place that carried them. (Trader Joe’s, for instance, was sold out and wasn’t getting any until 2027.) Since Passover ended yesterday, nearly every place was sold out for the holidays.
Over my entire life, I’ve avoided Whole Foods for two reasons: it’s very expensive and also carries homeopathic remedies, which I despise as they’re totally ineffectual.
But the craving for matzos (I eat them spread with good sweet butter) drove me on. My haul is below, acquired on the advice of a friend. The matzos are not kosher for Passover, but of course I don’t care about that. And I was told that Kerrygold butter from Ireland is about the best you can buy, so I got two sticks of that to smear on the matzos. Finally, there’s a small jar of tart cherry jam made by Dalmatia and imported from Croatia, also recommended by my food-savvy friend.
Yes, the place is expensive, and walking there and back took 1.5 hours given the fact that no employee seemed to know where anything was. The jam, for instance, is not with the other jellies and jams, but for some reason was put at the cheese counter. Nobody knew where the matzos were, so I had to ask about five people. (I should add that Whole Foods employees at the Hyde Park store are not very friendly, especially when compared with workers at Trader Joe’s, who are always helpful and amiable.) Fortunately, the Irish butter was in the dairy section where it should be.
This is all the makings of a fine snack!
Whoops! I forgot to add that gas prices in Chicago seem to be about a dollar higher than the average across the rest of America. Here’s a photo from my trip to Whole Foods:
My insomnia continues, and has apparently worsened for reasons I don’t understand. Perhaps it’s anxiety about the war, but it’s definitely anxiety about something. Perhaps subliminal anxiety—after all, we can’t control what our brain does. Last night I woke up at 2 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep. When this happens nearly every night, I try to suppress the worries that arise almost—like everyone, I have a panoply of items on the worry list. But anxiety seeps in and keeps me awake. AT 4 a.m., I hauled my sorry tuchus out of bed, did my ablutions, and came to work. That is the usual situation.
If I were to guess at the items that make me most anxious (besides the worry about getting back to sleep, which is counterproductive), there are these:
The Middle East. Because I post daily about the war in Iran and other Middle Eastern matters, I seem to have gotten caught up in the roller coaster that is this region of the world, a roller coaster exacerbated by Trump’s waffling, which may be a deliberate strategy. Regardless, like the mess that is American politics now, I realize that there’s little I can do to affect matters. And given that, I should simply observe the situation, express my opinion when I can, but not get so engaged that I’m destabilized by the ups and downs of both the war and politics. But in this I’ve failed.
The ducks at Botany Pond. I should just do what I can to take care of them, including feeding the ducklings when they come, but caring for them has almost become an obsession. “No ducklings left behind” is my motto. There’s nothing I can do to stave off most predators or prevent errant mallards from entering the pond and harassing Vashti, but somehow it’s a constant anxiety until the ducklings grow up and fly away.
Death. I guess a lot of readers don’t worry about their mortality, but when you get into your seventies it’s almost inevitable. I’ve already lost several friends and classmates, and of course, as the syllogism goes, all men are mortal.
In response, some people have said that because they don’t worry about the time before they were born, which they equate with the time after they die, it’s futile to be afraid of death. In response to that I quote Christopher Hitchens, who knew he was dying of cancer but never openly admitted it:
“It will happen to all of us, that at some point you get tapped on the shoulder and told, not just that the party’s over, but slightly worse: the party’s going on — but you have to leave. And it’s going on without you. That’s the reflection that I think most upsets people about their demise.”
I once asked readers if they wanted to be immortal (with the stipulation that you don’t fall apart completely), and most said “no”—they will have seen enough of life when the Reaper comes. But I like the party too much!
