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.
About two weeks ago I reported favorably on a book, Persepolis, that was new to me. It was a graphic novel, a genre I don’t often essay, but it was excellent. And that book had a sequel (Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return), which I finished yesterday and I’ll mention today. First, here’s some of what I wrote about the first part:
The other day I reported on the death of Marjane Satrapi, comic book creator (she preferred that term to “graphic novel”), film producer, and author. She was only 56, and her family reported that she became depressed and “died of sadness” about a year after her partner, Mattias Ripa, died of cancer. Wikipedia outlines her accomplishments, headed by the comic book Persepolis, which came in two volumes:
The success of Persepolis established Satrapi as one of the most widely read Iranian authors in the world, and her role in co-directing the film adaptation led to her becoming the first woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
Yesterday I finished the first volume of Persepolis, and was greatly moved by the illustrated account of Satrapi’s life in Iran, both under the Shah and thereafter. Her disillusionment with 1979 Iranian Revolution is the centerpiece, and the illustrations are instrumental in conveying her feelings.
Here are the two volumes together from the Wikipedia site. The English translations came out in 2003 and 2004, respectively. Together they constitute a graphic autobiography of Satrapi from birth up to the age of 25, when she left Iran for good. She died on June 6 of this year.
The first volume ends when Satrapi is in Austria, sent by her parents to escape from political oppression endemic to Iran under the Revolution. She had a hard life in Vienna, essaying the idea of boys (the thought of romance without marriage was verboten in Iran), encountering xenophobes suspicious of Iranians, falling in with a group of drug-taking punks, becoming depressed, and then finally living on the streets for two months in the winter and contracting a near- fatal case of bronchitis.
She finally returns to Iran seeking solace but finding only more oppression. Marjane meets a fellow artist Reza, the two get married, and the marriage falls apart after two years. She finally returns to Europe, leaving Iran behind for good.
The story is simple but revealing as we get to know a rebellious, outspoken girl who cannot tolerate the theocracy, the veil it imposes on her, and the government Diktats that penalize people for any attempt to find pleasure or simply be themselves. Her tortuous search for love is also highly constrained by a morality imposed by Islam.
I recommend reading both books, which I see are available on Amazon pretty cheaply (volume 1 here, volume 2 here). I’ve been posting tweets daily from Masih Aminejad, whose life is devoted to freeing Iranians (especially women) from Islamic oppression, and this book gives you an excellent idea of what it’s like to grow up female in that country. It’s a shame that Western feminists don’t make more to-do about this kind of oppression.
Here’s a sample page from the Amazon preview:
Satrapi also co-wrote and co-directed (with Vincent Paronnaud)an eponymous 2007 film based on the books, a film that won a ton of prizes, including an Oscar nomination.
[Satrapi and Paonnaud] received numerous awards including the Jury Prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and the César Award for Best First Film as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature.
In this clip from the movie, Satrapis is stopped by the morality police for running, an act that is supposedly lewd because it makes her butt wiggle. There’s also a scene in which the officials of her school try to cover up the women students.
Please send in your good wildlife photos if you have any.
‘Today’s batch comes from UC Davis ecologist Susan Harrison, who’s been birding in Scandinavia. Her captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them,.
Further Finnish Fowl
Just after I sent Jerry the recent post titled “Midsummer in the Åland Islands,” a few more scenes of waterfowl families brightened my trip to Finland.
The first three are from Lake Kallavesi, near the town of Kuopio in the heart of Finnish Lakeland. My friend’s family has a classic lake cabin here, tiny and perfectly built, complete with flower garden, sauna, and dock. Once my kind hosts had settled me in, I hopped in their rowboat in search of birds.
Whooper Swans (Cygnus cygnus) are Finland’s national bird and are featured on the country’s Euro coin. With wingspans up to 9’ (2.75 m) and weighing up to 30 lb (14 kg), they are the world’s second largest waterfowl (right after their close North American relative the Trumpeter Swan, Cygnus buccinator). Even the cygnets in these photos are the size of Thanksgiving turkeys!
Whooper Swan parent and cygnets:
Arctic Loons, aka Black-throated Loons or Black-throated Divers (Gavia arctica) can often be heard making their musical calls, but are less often seen as they are shy and tend to vanish underwater. These two adults were slowed down enough by their youngster that I managed a distant photo.
Arctic Loons:
Red-necked Grebes (Podiceps grisigena), like other grebes, carry stripey black-and-white chicks on their backs (see, for comparison, the Great Crested Grebes in the recent post). This little passenger was so tiny that I noticed it only when processing the photos.
Red-necked Grebes:
Back in Helsinki on my way home, various geese and ducks were abundant along the shore in Kaivopuisto city park. Most enjoyable was a family of Common Mergansers, aka Goosanders (Mergus merganser), in which the young foraged for themselves under a parent’s supervision.
Welcome to The Cruelest Day: Tuesday, June 30, 2026, and my sister Susan’s birthday. Happy birthday, Sis! (It’s also my half-birthday as I was born on December 30). Here’s my sibling:
Click on the Google Doodle below to see the footy scores and upcoming games:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 30 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
Footy news: In the knockout round of 32 yesterday, Brazil beat Japan 2-1, so the South American team goes into the round of 16. This was expected, but Japan came very close. . .
Gabriel Martinelli scored five minutes into stoppage time to seal a 2-1 win for Brazil against Japan in Houston after the five-time FIFA World Cup winners fought back from potential humiliation following Kaishu Sano‘s first-half opening goal.
Sano’s 29th minute goal stunned Carlo Ancelotti’s team and raised the prospect of Brazil losing a competitive game against Asian opposition for the first time and leading to one of the World Cup’s biggest-ever shocks. But a Casemiro header on 56 minutes hauled Brazil level and set up a second-half onslaught as the Seleção chased a winning goal.
Japan held firm, though, with goalkeeper Zion Suzuki making a series of crucial saves to keep his team on level terms. But Brazil snatched victory and a place in the round of 16 in the final seconds when Arsenal forward Martinelli scored from close range after being released by Bruno Guimarães.
Brazil will now face the winners of Tuesday’s tie between Norway and Ivory Coast in New Jersey on Sunday.
Here are the highlights. Japan’s first scoring play is at 3:38 on the tape, and Brazil’s two goals are in plays starting at 8:30 (a header) and 14:00.
President Donald Trump said Monday that Iran had requested a meeting with U.S. counterparts, though one of Iran’s top negotiators said no further talks had been scheduled after attacks across the Persian Gulf over the weekend challenged negotiations to end the war.
The U.S. president has tried to preserve a fragile interim deal, but hostilities mounted in recent days in the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil had been shipped before war began. After four days of trading strikes, both sides appeared to pause their attacks Monday.
Trump said on social media that a meeting with Iran would happen Tuesday in Doha, Qatar. Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, are flying to Qatar for the meeting, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News’ “Fox & Friends.”
But Kazem Gharibabadi, a senior negotiator for Iran, denied any talks had been scheduled.
The U.S. and Iran agreed to an interim deal earlier this month that calls for Tehran to dilute its stockpile of enriched uranium. It also waives U.S.-backed sanctions on the country while opening the Strait of Hormuz and giving each side 60 days to hammer out broader agreements.
. . . .Pezeshkian offered praise for the interim deal in comments published Monday by the state-run IRNA news agency, calling it “a great victory for the Iranian people.”
“Based on the plans made, $6 billion out of the total $12 billion of Iranian resources in Qatar will be released and returned to the country, and necessary follow-ups are being carried out,” he said. He did not elaborate.
Pezeshkian, a reformist within Iran’s theocracy, is the highest-ranking official within Iran to reference the release of the funds held by Qatar, a key mediator along with Pakistan in the negotiations.
So far, U.S. officials say no frozen Iranian assets have been released. Qatar as well as has not acknowledged any such transfer.
Conflicting word on the negotiations, conflicting word on the release of Iranian assets: who can we believe—Trump or Iran? That’s like asking whether you believe Satan or the Devil?
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected President Trump’s bid to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook with little legal scrutiny.
In a second decision, the court gave Trump free rein to fire officials at other independent agencies for any reason. The pair of rulings effectively delivers a split verdict on Trump’s second-term effort to exert maximal control over the executive branch.
By a vote of 5-4, the court in the Cook case dealt a stinging blow to Trump’s mission to remake the Fed, which he has repeatedly criticized for not lowering interest rates more aggressively. In a separate case involving the Federal Trade Commission, the court in a 6-3 ruling gave the president broad latitude to oust leaders of regulatory agencies that Congress sought to insulate from political pressure.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote both decisions.
The court had repeatedly made clear in recent months that it was poised to expand presidential sway over the agencies that regulate areas like consumer protection, collective bargaining and nuclear reactors. At the same time, some justices had signaled that they believed the Fed was entitled to special protections from political interference.
“Under our precedents, Cook was entitled to notice and some opportunity to respond prior to her termination,” Roberts wrote.
Accepting Trump’s position “would allow the president to remove a member of the Federal Reserve at any time, for any reason, without any notice before, and without any judicial check after,” the chief justice said. “That would turn for-cause protection into little more than at-will employment.”
Roberts was explicit that something larger than Cook’s job was at stake. Allowing a president to fire governors at will would threaten the central bank’s ability to set policy free from political pressure, the core reason Congress made the Fed independent in the first place, he wrote.
Here we see the separation of powers at work in that the judiciary ruled what the executive branch can do. My only question—and I have not read the decisions, is whether appointing heads of agencies must have Congressional approval. I suspect it does not, for in that case the Supreme court would not have given Trump the power to unilaterally name them.
Senator Susan Collins and Graham Platner are locked in a neck-and-neck Senate contest in Maine, according to a New York Times/Portland Press Herald/Siena poll, as voters weigh a desire for Democratic control of the Senate against Ms. Collins’s record and controversy around Mr. Platner’s past conduct.
Mr. Platner leads the race by two percentage points among likely voters, capturing the support of 49 percent, compared to 47 percent for Ms. Collins. It is a slight advantage, but one that is considered too small for polls to measure reliably, and which could easily grow or shrink as campaigning ramps up.
An oysterman who has never held elected office, Mr. Platner, 41, rode a populist message to the Democratic nomination despite reports about offensive online posts, a tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol and his treatment of women. But the poll found that he is failing to attract some voters who otherwise want to see Democrats take power in Washington.
Fifty-four percent of voters said they would like to see Democrats control the Senate next year, a notably higher percentage than the percent of respondents who said they supported Mr. Platner. In fact, Ms. Collins, the Republican, is winning 10 percent of voters who prefer Democratic control.
I doubt that I’d vote for Platner; I’d probably write in another Democrat, but fortunately I’m not a Mainer and don’t have to vote. However, for those who say that Collins talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk (i.e., doesn’t vote with Democrates in the Senate), well, Grok said this when I asked it if Collins ever votes with the Democrats in the Senate:
Yes, frequently on certain issues—more so than nearly any other current Republican senator. Her moderate profile and low party unity scores mean she regularly supports positions favored by Democrats or bipartisan coalitions, especially on appropriations, some social/moderate issues, and procedural or targeted matters. However, she still votes with Republicans on the large majority of high-stakes party-line votes (nominations, core fiscal/tax priorities, etc.).Notable examples of alignment with Democrats or against GOP majorities:
Healthcare/ACA: Voted against the “skinny repeal” of the Affordable Care Act in 2017 (one of only three Republicans to do so). She has supported elements of stabilization and opposed some aggressive repeal efforts, though she backed the 2017 tax bill that repealed the individual mandate.
Guns: Supported the 2013 Manchin-Toomey amendment to expand background checks (bipartisan but failed).
Student loans/education: Backed some Democratic-backed refinancing proposals.
Impeachment and Trump opposition: Voted to convict Trump in the second impeachment (Jan. 6-related). She has opposed certain Trump administration spending priorities and some judicial or policy moves in both terms.
Other cross-aisle work: Frequent collaboration on appropriations bills, disaster relief, and targeted legislation (e.g., HAVANA Act, electoral count reform). She has cosponsored or supported bills with Democrats on health, education, and infrastructure-related matters.
Recent examples: Occasional breaks on spending, foreign policy (e.g., Iran-related), and specific nominations or amendments where she sided with Democrats.
On many close or party-line votes, especially judicial confirmations and major conservative priorities, she aligns with Republicans. Critics on the left argue her breaks are often symbolic or on votes where her side already has the numbers; critics on the right say she is insufficiently conservative.
If you think that’s wrong or misleading, weigh in below.
A Michigan couple have been charged with murder, child abuse and torture in connection with the death last year of their 7-year-old son, who at the time weighed 255 pounds, according to court filings.
The boy, Casper O’Brien, died on Nov. 4, 2025, after the authorities responded to a 911 call earlier that day that he was not breathing at the Flint Township home he shared with his parents, Damien and Jessica O’Brien, according to the authorities.
An autopsy report from the Genesee County medical examiner concluded that Casper had died of dilated cardiomyopathy — an enlarged and weakened heart — brought on by morbid obesity.
Casper was bedridden at the time of his death, and subsisted on little more than snack foods, the Genesee County prosecutor, David S. Leyton, said in an interview on Saturday.
The child was not enrolled in school and received little to no medical care despite having a history of nonverbal autism, according to prosecutors and the autopsy report from the medical examiner, John Bechinski.
“This was a sad and horrific case involving the wanton and willful neglect by two parents for the care, welfare and medical needs of their son,” Mr. Leyton said in an emailed statement. “Their neglect led to their child suffering severe bed sores, various rashes and other physical health disorders.”
Prosecutors charged the parents with second-degree murder and three counts of second-degree child abuse. They were also charged with torture.
If convicted of the murder and torture charges, they face the possibility of life in prison.
In a statement, Mr. O’Brien’s lawyer, Elias Fanous, said that it would be “premature to comment on the allegations and charges that Mr. O’Brien is facing.”
“As in all criminal matters, Mr. O’Brien is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law,” Mr. Fanous said.
Yes, the “presumed innocent” trope, which is true, is what defense attorneys always say when they don’t have a good case. In fact, how did a 7-year-old get to weigh 255 pounds and get no medical care unless his parents neglected him? I’d like to see what tactics the defense uses if the parents plead “not guilty”. It’s this kind of thing that further erodes my faith in humanity; how could somebody act like that, especially knowing that they’d get caught?
*From Williams; a short video about European young folk’s ignorance of the Holocaust. It’s appalling.
Astronomers have uncovered a pair of giant planets that are lighter than cotton candy — super-puffs the size of Jupiter.
The featherweight pair — orbiting a star 1,110 light-years away — are the biggest exoplanets found to have less density than cotton candy.
That makes them the lightest known planets of their size, said the University of Oxford’s George Dransfield.
“These two planets have densities comparable to a nice blob of shaving foam, fresh from the can,” Dransfield said in an email. She and her team reported their findings Wednesday in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Dransfield suspects these fluffy, wispy worlds are probably white or blue, depending on whether the skies there are cloudy — no shades of cotton-candy pink. The planets are probably mostly hydrogen and helium, although it will take follow-up observations by NASA’s Webb Space Telescope to confirm their chemical makeup.
AD
Detected by NASA’s Tess satellite over the past decade, these two especially puffy-puffs orbit a star in the southern constellation Volans, known as the flying fish. The researchers studied the planets’ orbits using telescopes on Earth to determine their density, from 1,110 light-years away. A light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles (9.7 trillion kilometers).
Grok looked up the density of cotton candy for me and then calculated how much Jupiter would weigh if it were made of cotton candy, compared to what astronomers think it weighs now:
Real Jupiter: ~1.898 × 10²⁷ kg (~318 Earth masses)
Cotton-candy Jupiter: ~7.155 × 10²⁵ kg (~12 Earth masses)
The real Jupiter is about 26.5 times more massive than the cotton-candy version.
The cotton-candy version would have only about 3.8% of Jupiter’s actual mass.
That’s more than I thought such a planet would weigh!
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the editor is not doing her job:
Hili: You were supposed to go shopping, but instead you’re back at the computer again.
Andrzej: I just have to check something real quick.
In Polish:
Hili: Miałeś pojechać na zakupy, a tymczasem znowu siadasz do komputera.
Ja: Muszę szybko coś sprawdzić.
From Luana, who think that Mamdani’s proposed rent controls in NYC will be counterproductive, leaving rent-controlled apartments purchased by rich people largely vacant:
I haven’t studied it in detail, but from what I have seen, the natural experiment that Buenos Aires ran over the past six years seems like yet more clear evidence that rent control limits supply and (ironically) raises rents. pic.twitter.com/CAWAdUFY85
This is funny, but Rowling should know that jumping spiders are totally harmless. They should be coddled and appreciated.
What kind of maniac lists ‘often watches before it jumps’ as a mitigating circumstance? You think I find it cute that it might be peering at me from a dark hole, calculating the best moment to make its big entrance? pic.twitter.com/Bi8lbfG0hG
One from my feed, a lovely rescue story (my favorite type). Be sure to read the whole tweet.
A baby elephant named Ellie was discovered alone in the wild in South Africa, having been rejected by his herd due to a severe umbilical abscess and hernia.
Ellie remained lethargic and deeply depressed, showing no will to live. Recognizing that elephants are intensely social… pic.twitter.com/druq8eWDel
A mosaic and a fish in the submerged part of the ancient Roman town of Baiae:
For #MosaicMonday this fantastic photo of a mosaic (and a lovely fish 🐟) that was discovered in the submerged ruins of #Roman Baiae.📷 Parco Archeologico Campi Flegrei
I must have signed up without remembering for a subscription to the Jewish quarterly journal Sapir, which comes in a spiffy thick version on quality paper and nice formatting. (You can sign up too for free, or access it online.) Sapir is edited by NYT op-ed writer Bret Stephens, who has an article on “A Lesson in Resilience for America” in the latest issue, whose them is “Fixing America”. Click the screenshot below to access all the articles
In Hebrew, by the way, “Sapir” means “sapphire,” but can refer to anything precious and shiny.
Here’s the table of contents for this issue:
I’ve read three of the articles so far, the ones by Stephens, Caroline Bryk, and Yasha Mounk. Unlike the other themed journals I get for free (like Dadalus, which I recycle as soon as it arrives), it looks as if this quarterly is worth getting. It’s a pleasure to hold in your hands given the quality of production, and at least some of the articles are good. I’ll excerpt a bit from Stephens’s piece after I expatiate a bit (click below to read):
Stephens’s point is that Americans, by and large, want an end to the war with Iran, while Israelis don’t. He sees Israelis as being more rational in this belief, even though America isn’t as threatened by Iran as is Israel. But we are threatened, of course, for Iran spreads terror throughout the world, and some of that not only endangers America, but works to turn some misguided “progressives” towards the side of the IRGC and Hamas. The Democratic Party is becoming infused with antisemitism.
This difference, argues Stephens, is that America has lost its resilience to fight for what is right: we’ve grown soft, unwilling to take on long-term projects that require individual sacrifice, and self-interested as a nation, even if our American principles of freedom are under attack in our democratic allies. He prescribes American “unlearning”—unlearning of the mantra that our country was born mired sin and bigotry and unlearning of our self-interest and the notion that “our ideals count for nothing against our material needs or commercial advantages.” We should also relearn rhe real founding principles of America: equality, freedom, universalism, and the rule of law. That does not, he asserts, mean forgetting the bad parts of America’s past, but remembering the ideals on which America is founded. To Stephens, Israel serves as an exemplar of resilience as it still walks the walk, embracing the ideals on which a nation is founded. (This does not of course mean that Israel is perfect!)
This may seem like a lecture from your grandfather, but we’re supposed to be celebrating the 250th anniversary of America’s founding. Stephens’s words remind me of a bit of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
. . . . The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Here are a few quotes from Stephens’s article:
Maybe it’s to be expected that Israelis, for whom the threat from Iran and its proxies is immediate and existential, should be willing to sacrifice so much for the sake of prospective security. Maybe it’s to be expected, too, that Americans see the threat from Iran as distant and notional, even among those who know that Tehran is responsible for the death of hundreds of U.S. citizens. That sense of distance is surely compounded by the bitter memory of two Mideast wars that cost thousands of American lives without delivering on their promises.
But there’s something deeper at work. Israelis — by necessity, circumstance, and self-selection — largely tend to be tenacious, self-disciplined, resilient people. Americans — through good fortune and a penchant for ease and convenience — tend not to be. That is a long-term threat to America’s safety and well-being. We could stand to take a lesson or two on it from our Israeli friends.
He notes the changes in America since WWII:
Scores of books have been written about how that culture fell by the wayside. Reserve gave way to self-revelation. The old virtue of delaying gratification was replaced by the habit of demanding and getting it — immediately. Material plenty led to an expectation of physical comfort, which later morphed into a demand for emotional cossetting. The word parent went from noun to verb, from a role to an activity, infantilizing adults while coddling children. Safety became a legal requirement; risk-taking, a legal liability; “safetyism,” a state of mind. The status of victim was valorized, and often monetized, at the expense of moral responsibility and personal agency. Ideas such as “microaggressions” and “unconscious bias” took hold; instead of trying to make our skins a little thicker, we discovered new ways to take offense. When things went poorly, we no longer asked, self-reproachingly, “Where did we go wrong?” Instead, we looked, conspiratorially, for a culprit: “Who did this to us?” And while fierce individualism has always been a part of America’s character and creed, we now have a kind of cancerous and metastatic individualism that cannot recognize occasions in national life that call for collective sacrifice.
. . .Now turn to Israel.
Israeli resilience is proverbial — so much so that the idea of it is sometimes resented. “No country should be expected to live indefinitely in a state of managed danger,” writes Joshua Hoffman in his excellent Substack newsletter, Future of Jewish. “When that reality is reframed as ‘resilience,’ something deeply dangerous happens: The abnormal begins to be framed or at least is expected to be normal.”
Hoffman is right that what Israelis must endure just to live should not be normalized to the point of being forgotten. But resilience is a virtue, however one comes by it. And it’s a mistake to ascribe Israeli resilience solely to the forms of adversity that it faces. It also comes from the purposes for which the state was created in the first place.
You can read for yourself about the founding principles of Israel (which were not, by the way, to drive out the Arabs). Stephens ends this way:
Finally, we could stand to learn something from Israel.
That isn’t much in evidence today. On the contrary, polling data show that more Americans are souring on the Jewish state. It would be easy to read that as a bad omen for Israelis, and perhaps it is. But it would be much wiser to see it as a warning sign about us — about our diminished capacity for critical thinking and moral reasoning. How have we in the United States managed to confuse perpetrator and victim in this war? When did we lose the capacity to use the word terrorist? Why have we so easily fallen for the baldest and most blatantly dishonest Palestinian propaganda? Why are we so beguiled by conspiracy theories plainly rooted in antisemitism? And since when do we malign an immensely capable and brave ally that fights by our side?
Most important, how do we fail to see in Israel a model of what a democratic people, which for 78 years has been battling for survival while still managing to thrive, can be capable of achieving through self-belief and the ability to recover its strength after taking blow after blow? Americans cannot hope to regain our old resilience unless we know what resilient looks like. The sooner we learn from the Israelis, the faster we might save ourselves from what, increasingly, we risk becoming.
Without doubt I’ll be called a Zionist—or even a promoter of genocide—for singling out Sapir and this article. Too bad. In my view, America is being weakened not only by the autocracy and mendacity of Trump, but by the “safteyism”, victimhood mentality, antisemitism, and sacralization of theocracy from the Left (see the new Free Press article, “How the Left abandoned the Jews“) . No wonder many of us, including but not limited to Jews, feel that we have no political home.
Today we have photos from Jan Malik taken at Cape May, New Jersey emphasizing the bizarre horseshoe crabs, which are not crustaceans but chelicerates, more closely related to spiders and scorpions than to real crabs. Jan’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can click on the photos to enlarge them.
People visit Cape May, NJ, in spring, mostly to see the migrating birds, but what makes the high density of animal migrants and residents possible in that area is in large part hidden in the water. Delaware Bay is home to a large population of the Atlantic horseshoe crab(Limulus polyphemus) which spawn around the time the migrating birds pass through. Horseshoe crabs’ eggs, along with crabs themselves, are an important link in the food chain that fuels the spring migration.
Early morning visitors to the Delaware Bay side of Cape May are welcomed by the ruckus made by Laughing Gulls (Leucophaeus atricilla). These birds nest locally but also depend on the crabs as a major food source:
Walking onto the beach in the morning after a high tide, a visitor will see these animals stranded helplessly on their backs, flipped by the waves:
Here is a larger female with a male still attached. All three parts of a crab are visible: the main body (prosoma) with mouth and legs, an abdomen (opisthosoma) with book gills and a tail (telson). What can be also seen here are male’s pincers, modified forelegs used to grasp the carapace of the female:
The crabs are not blind thanks to their pair of compound eyes. They also have 8 other simple eyes and ocelli distributed on top of their carapace and additional photosensors underneath and on the telson. These organs are sensitive to UV and visible light and are used to detect phases of the lunar cycle and determine when to come out of water onto the sand to mate and lay eggs:
The primary function of a telson is to help the animal steer and to right itself in water. On dry land, however, it is of little help and a flipped crab, if left on its own, usually succumbs to desiccation or is preyed upon by other animals:
A human visitor to the beach has to decide whether to save the crab or leave it to die and let birds have their fill. In my case I usually flip them back on, giving them a chance to live another day. They are used by the medical industry to develop a test for the presence of bacteria in medical devices, which involves catching them, drawing about a quarter of their blood and then releasing them, but such a crab is then greatly weakened and mortality is high:
A Sanderling (Calidris alba) eating a horseshoe crab egg. For some evolutionary reason, these marine arthropods must leave the water in order to lay eggs. They prefer to do the laying at high tide, hence the lunar phase detection. The eggs may be then uncovered by waves and spread far and wide on the beach:
The waves may also uncover a whole cluster of eggs which is then found by shorebirds patrolling the ecotone between the sea and the land:
This is what the washed up eggs look like; eggs are 1.5 mm to 2 mm in diameter and they grow as the embryos inside them grow. This is the main fuel for the thousands of plovers, sanderlings, turnstones, red knots and others on their way toward the Arctic:
Using a macro lens, one can make out an embryo inside, complete with legs, telson and tiny eyes:
I think it was only at the beginning of this century that the significance of these “crabs” (which have a common ancestor with spiders and scorpions) for migrating birds was properly recognized and some harvesting bans were put in place in NJ and Delaware. Before, they would be harvested in excess as crab bait or just for fertilizer. This picture shows how they can be a host to barnacles and limpets:
Even though they can and do come onshore during daytime, they prefer nighttime at high tide, at new or full moon. In the Delaware Bay, many thousands of them come out then, males crowding around the females to claim the best spot and be first to fertilize eggs. They must have been doing similar things for many millions of years – earliest fossils with similar body plans date back to Paleozoic era, 450 mya, which was well before the dinosaurs. Fossils quite similar to the Atlantic crab date back 200 mya. There were many species but now only four are left, this site presents a neat diagram illustrating their evolutionary history:
Just to give a sense of scale, here is a “scrum” of crabs around human feet:
Spring migration attracts many visitors to Cape May, benefiting local businesses. I think it is just to also count humans as dependent on these “crabs”, to an extent. Note that the forefront crab has a tag from the US Fish and Wildlife Services, allowing it to track the animal:
Welcome to another damn week; yes, it’s Monday, June 29, 2026, and National Darts Day. Here’s the finals of the 2026 World Darts Championship, with the winner, getting a million pound. And that winner was Luke “The Nuke” Littler, making his last three throws at 17:56 on the video below. These guys are amazing! And this is one sport in which you don’t have to be in shape to be the best in the world.
Click on the screenshot below to see the World Cup scores and today’s schedule of games:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 29 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
Footy news: In the only World Cup game played yesterday, Canada beat South Africa 1-0, winning their first match in the knockout round and advancing to the round of 16.
Stephen Eustáquio scored in the second minute of second-half stoppage time, and Canada beat South Africa 1-0 on Sunday for their first knockout match victory in a World Cup.
A tense match at SoFi Stadium appeared to be headed for extra time until Eustáquio — who plays professionally for Los Angeles FC several miles away — put a stunning volley from outside the penalty area into the bottom corner of Ronwen Williams‘ net.
Co-host Canada hung on with strong defensive play in the final minutes and advanced to face the Netherlands or Morocco in Houston on Saturday, July 4.
Coach Jesse Marsch gathered his players in a huddle after the whistle and gave a spirited speech, declaring: “You guys are Canadian heroes! Canadian heroes!”
Here are about 13 minutes of highlights; the play that scored the winning goal begins at 10:04:
Lionel Messi became the first player in history to score in seven consecutive World Cup games.
The 39-year-old scored with a free kick after coming off the bench as Argentina won 3-1 against Jordan. It was Messi’s sixth goal of the 2026 World Cup and he leads the Golden Boot race by two goals.
Iran and the United States traded new attacks and threats on Sunday, the fourth straight day of hostilities, with little sign of a de-escalation that would get their two-week-old cease-fire back on track.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said in a statement carried by Iranian state media that it had targeted a U.S. naval base in Bahrain and the Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait in retaliation for American attacks.
The governments of Kuwait and Bahrain said the attacks had not caused any casualties. There were also no reports of American casualties or of major impact or damage to U.S. assets, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations.
But the persistent attacks further eroded hopes for a speedy return to normalcy in the Middle East after the initial truce that the United States and Iran agreed to this month.
The new hostilities began on Thursday, when Iran fired attack drones at a commercial ship in the Strait of Hormuz, according to U.S. officials. American forces responded with a wave of attacks Friday, prompting drone strikes Saturday on another ship and on Bahrain, a U.S. ally, that were widely blamed on Iran.
Iranian officials have not claimed responsibility for attacking ships in the strait, which Tehran was supposed to fully reopen as part of the cease-fire. But the attack came hours after Iran had warned ships that they could travel only through its waters; many had been using an alternate route along the coast of nearby Oman.
. . . The U.S. military said that its latest attacks had hit air-defense sites and other military infrastructure. Iran’s state broadcaster reported explosions in three cities near the strait, and the U.S. official said that the U.S. airstrikes were more expansive than the previous day’s.
And so it goes, with the U.S. and Iran trading attacks, each in retaliation for another. I’m wondering why Trump haasn’t even threatened to hit Kharg Island, which handles 90% of Iran’s crude oil exports. That would surely cripple the nation’s economy and seems to me a good bargaining chip, since we could destroy the facilities at will. And what would be the objection of America, since that doesn’t require “boots on the ground”?
On Friday, Israel announced a framework agreement with Lebanon, its first accord with the country since the short-lived 1983 treaty. The two sides commit to formally end their state of war and pursue normal relations through later negotiations. The engine is a reciprocal, sequenced process: Lebanon pledges the complete, verified disarmament of all non-state armed groups—Hezbollah is named—and the restoration of Lebanese Armed Forces control over all its territory, while, in exchange, the IDF redeploys zone by zone as disarmament is verified. Two initial “pilot zones” are agreed, with the rest left to a forthcoming Security Annex. Lebanon affirms Israel’s right to exist and that only the Lebanese state may authorize force on its soil; Israel disclaims any territorial ambitions.
In short: Lebanon sublets its own territory to Israel so Israel can evict the problematic tenant, Hezbollah, and hands the keys back once the premises are cleared—with normalization as the reward at the end of the eviction. On paper, it’s a phased withdrawal. In practice, it’s an admission that Israel stays in southern Lebanon until Hezbollah is gone. The price of that presence was paid again early this morning, when Captain David Hazut, 21, fell in a firefight with a Hezbollah operative in southern Lebanon. For the past four months, Iran has been demanding Israel withdraw from sovereign Lebanese soil; Lebanon’s own government has effectively answered, “You first.”
Even if the ultimate goal of normalization goes unmet, this is a genuine achievement for Israel because it upends the entire conception that has governed Lebanon until now. The old arrangement was simple: If Israel wanted to stay, the authority it had to consult was Washington, while Hezbollah took its marching orders from Tehran. The Lebanese government, meanwhile, oscillated between the roles of Hezbollah cutout and impotent failed state.
Now the United States has pulled the Lebanese government itself into the anti-Iran camp. And unlike Israel’s first treaty with Lebanon, this one is built to require America as a partner. Lebanon isn’t merely choosing a future without Hezbollah; it’s choosing a new Lebanon—rebuilt and bankrolled by the United States. Put plainly: It needs Trump to hold its spine straight for the confrontation with Hezbollah, and it needs Israel to do the dirty work to win that confrontation.
The agreement is a godsend for Netanyahu. Hezbollah won’t be eliminated by Election Day even if it’s pushed to the last possible day, but if the Israeli public reads southern Lebanon as a story of progress rather than an attritional swamp, he has a chance. Internationally, the framework isn’t about to get his face taken off the dartboard—but it has validated a strategy that drew enormous criticism. It turns out you don’t always need to know the “day after” before you launch an operation. As in Gaza, if you focus on degrading capabilities and keep your options open, opportunities may materialize on their own.
Segal lists several negatives, foremost among them is Hezbollah’s resolute opposition to this agreement, and its ability to mobilize supporters in Lebanon to oppose it. Further, opponents say the agreement is unlawful, and Iran may not sign a ceasefire if Hezbollah is stripped of power, even in a treaty. However, Segal is hopeful, and ends this way:
As we have experienced recently, history in this region is written and rewritten by the week, and there is every chance this agreement ends up where so many others have: abandoned, unenforced and simply a footnote to the next war. But should it hold, June 26 may be remembered as the date a broken country began the long climb back to being the Paris of the Middle East. For now, that possibility alone is more than Lebanon has had in decades.
*Many folx spurn James Carville as an outdated curmudgeon irrelevant to the Democratic Party. But I love the old guy because he often speaks sense (that said, he did endorse Kamala Harris for the Presidency though, after the election, said that choosing her as a candidates was a mistake). Here he is in two short videos ranting about the victories of the Democratic Socialists in New York (h/t Enrico).
The YouTube notes on this one: “Democratic strategist James Carville discusses the socialist takeover of the Democratic Party on ‘Saturday in America,’ stating he has nothing in common with candidates who want to abolish prisons.”
As the following YouTube video notes, “Speaking with Elizabeth Vargas on Wednesday, he said the two Democratic socialists and the self-styled liberal Zionist would be better off starting their own movement.”
Craig Paulette’s hair was already dyed neon green, thank you very much.
But the toxic slime hue came in handy when the Reflecting Pool became filled with algae, and Paulette and his friends became filled with the urge to protest.
“You get to be a troll, and it’s so great,” Paulette said while standing by the pool on a recent evening. “This is the best way to spend your time.”
Since last week, Paulette and a small group of others — dubbed Team Algae — have spent almost every evening at the Reflecting Pool, chanting, they said, in support of the algae that has thrown a high-profile wrench in President Donald Trump’s multimillion-dollar plans to beautify the landmark.
Paulette may have green hair, but Nadine Seiler is the one that passersby want to take photos with. That’s what happens when you wear a pink blow-up frog costume emblazoned with the word “AMPHIFA” across the belly.
“I’m an all-or-nothing kind of person,” said Seiler, 61.
The demonstration is absurd — and that’s the point. The protesters — Paulette, Seiler, Karen Irwin and Michelle Peterson — said they care about algae, but what they really care about is drawing attention to what they said the algae represents: the ludicrousness of the president’s Reflecting Pool project.
. . . .“The Reflecting Pool is a reflection of the incompetence of this administration,” Seiler said.
Paulette said the group has faced its fair share of heckling from Trump supporters, but most onlookers have been in on the joke. “It’s wild how much people are embracing it. I think that’s because it’s ridiculous. The cost of entry is really low,” said Paulette, 52.
Somebody told me the algae is not gone, and hooray for that. We could use a good removal system in Botany Pond, as it’s spreading like wildfire here.
Here are the demonstrators, which the NY Post doesn’t like because they’re mocking Trump:
One of the biggest events of the summer has been a mystery: When and where are Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce getting married? And when does everyone get to celebrate?
New details confirmed by The New York Times suggest a multiple-day event at Madison Square Garden, which an entertainment industry executive said Ms. Swift had rented.
The entertainment industry executive and another person with knowledge of the matter described the anticipated festivities: On July 2, the plans call for an intimate gathering of about 100 people at the Garden. The next day on July 3, about 1,000 guests would gather there for a splashier celebration, with possible stage appearances.
The preparations extend beyond the arena: A permit was filed with New York City to close the streets around Madison Square Garden from July 2 to midday July 4 for the events, according to three people who have knowledge of the matter. Several members of the Kansas City Chiefs have booked hotel rooms for dates around July 3 at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, according to a person told of the accommodations. Amtrak police officers, who patrol the station beneath the arena, have been told to expect a Swift wedding the weekend of July 4.
Since Ms. Swift and Mr. Kelce first announced their engagement last August, their relationship has garnered outsize attention. America does not have royal weddings, but the union between, arguably, the biggest pop star in the world and the Chiefs three-time Super Bowl champion comes close.
Go ahead and bet on Polymarket, though you’re not going to win much! What I want to know is why somebody would rent out Madison Square Garden for “an intimate gathering of about 100 people” when the Garden holds about 20,000 people! And I wonder if some day there will be a Taylor Swift song about Kelce, which assumes they would break up. That might not be a good assumption, and I’m not hoping for it, but it would give us another bad song.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Editor Hili is broiling, but I bet it’s hotter in Chicago (today’s high will be 90ºF or 32ºC, but it will be several degrees higher than that until Friday):
Hili: It’s so hot, even deep in the shade. Andrzej: It’s cooler indoors.
Hili: But they expect you to work there.
In Polish:
Hili: Strasznie gorąco nawet w głębokim cieniu.
Ja: W domu jest chłodniej.
Hili: Ale tam każą pracować.
Masih is posting repeatedly about the hypocrisy of Iran and other Islamist countries. But she’s right.
When you Westerners visit Iran, the Islamic regime say: “Our country, our rules.” Wear the hijab. Cover your hair. No handshakes.
But when they come to the West, somehow it’s still their rules. Cover the nude statues. Hide the wine. Tone down your traditions. Don’t offend Islam.… pic.twitter.com/RlIY76ek7Y
— Кефирный алк⭕г⭕лик (@sekretnyy_igrok) June 27, 2026
Not all Muslims, but many. . .
A 9-year-old girl cries as she is being sold by her own family and forced into an arranged marriage with a 60-year-old man. This is Islam. pic.twitter.com/CoReh1mhix
And a video tweet from Dr. Cobb. Look at this deep-sea isopod. I bet it plays a good game of ping pong:
This is a deep-sea isopod. Dr. Johanna Weston, deep-ocean biologist and guest investigator at @whoisryosuke@mastodon.gamedev.place is confident this is Bathyopsurus nybelini, one of her favorite animals. http://www.youtube.com/@SchmidtOcea…@SchmidtOcean #gloobalmuseum #marinescience #biology
Carl Zimmer and Catrin Einhorn are the authors of a new article in the NYT about our old friend Colossal Biosciences, which you’ll remember as the outfit in Texas that has promised to “de-extinct” the woolly mammoth, the thylacine (marsupial “wolf”), the dodo and the moa, after having claimed that they’ve already de-extincted the “dire wolf”.
As I’ve written at length here (and in an article in the Boston Globe), Colossal has not de-extincted anything. It simply edited 14 genes in a gray wolf cell, and then put that cell into the nucleus of a domestic dog egg. What came out were three slightly tweaked gray wolves, white in color and, Colossal says, larger than normal wolves. But 14 changed genes in a genome of about 20,000 protein-coding genes, and having 2.5 billion DNA bases, does not turn a gray wolf into a dire wolf. Their response was that a dire wolf is anything that you think resembles a dire wolf, no matter how much. That is disingenuous.
I lost respect from Colossal when they decided to double down on their claim that they’ve brought something back from extinction, which they surely have not. And their claims that they will release these things into the wild—their ultimate aim—is ridiculous. The three faux white dire wolves (I doubt the original was even white) are kept secretly on an enclosure somewhere in the West, with only a few toadying journalists or donors allowed to visit them.
Likewise, Colossal’s promise to give us woolly mammoths by 2028 is unbelievable, for they won’t be able to put an engineered Asian elephant egg into the endangered Asian elephant, much less produce a creature that has more than a minute fraction of mammoth DNA. On top of that, Colossal says their aim is to release these faux mammoths on the tundra, which won’t happen, and that when they do so, it will help with global warming since the furry elephants’ trampling on the permafrost will prevent release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, ameliorating global warming. Gullible donors like Paris Hilton, Tiger Woods, and Tom Brady have swelled Colossal’s coffers by $400 million, and it’s now worth, notes the article below, more than $10 billion.
I think that when Colossal realized it couldn’t make good on its de-extinction promises, it started investing in other projects. One of them is described in this article in the NYT (click below or find it archived here). What they propose to do, with the promised help of the Trump administration, is save the DNA from endangered species. Now this project has its good aspects, for if Colossal sequences a lot of new genomes and publishes the sequences (which it promises to make public), we could learn quite a bit about evolution. And the American taxpayer doesn’t have to foot the bill for any of it. But Colossal has no experience in “biodiversity banking” of this sort, even though nonprofit conservation organizations like the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance has been doing it for over half a century (Colossal is decidely a for-profit company). The San Diego noprofit has in fact created clones of black-footed ferrets, a highly endangered species, from biobanked material, so at least it has something useful to show for its efforts.
Further, if Colossal is doing this for “de-extinction” purposes, and will retain sole possession of the material, as it will do, then it is preventing other organizations or scientists from using what is “banked.” The U.S. government has no business partnering with such an enterprise. I don’t worry about de-extinction because that is (pardon the pun) a dead issue. But the concentration on biobanking may, as the authors note, “erode support for on-the-ground conservation,” which mainly involves saving existing habitat and keeping humans from destroying new habitat.
A few quotes from the article, which, as science journalism should, maintains a neutral viewpoint while emphasizing both pros and cons:
The Trump administration and a company that is promising to bring long-gone animals back from extinction announced a partnership on Thursday to preserve cells, tissue and DNA from threatened and endangered species.
The company, Colossal Biosciences, said its goal was to store samples from every animal and plant protected under the Endangered Species Act, which includes more than 2,300 listings worldwide.
As more species face the risk of extinction, scientists see such biobanks as a critical backup. But concerns are also growing that the rise of genetic engineering and efforts to revive extinct species will erode support for on-the-ground conservation, which often requires protecting habitat from drilling, mining and other development.
The announcement comes as the Trump administration has been rolling back protections on land and water, including through actions to weaken the Endangered Species Act, in favor of expanded oil and gas exploration, commercial fishing and other economic activities.
“This partnership brings together the scientific expertise of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the ingenuity of the private sector to develop new tools that can help recover species, preserve critical genetic resources, and strengthen the future of wildlife conservation,” Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, said in a statement.
Under a memorandum of understanding, Colossal and the Fish and Wildlife Service will collaborate to identify high-priority actions, and the government will provide a list of which species it wants to prioritize.
Well, I’d prefer that a consortium of scientists decide which species should be prioritized, and I’d prefer that the material be given to the San Diego Zoo organization rather than to Colossal, which will have sole use of the material and is a for-profit organization. The agreement is supposed to run for five years, and that Colossal gets to keep all the samples it collected with its own funding, equipment, or personnel”, which means pretty much all the samples.
Colossal has been busy doing other stuff, too:
After beginning its de-extinction efforts, Colossal branched out into biobanking. In February, the company announced a partnership with the United Arab Emirates to build what it calls a BioVault in Dubai, intended to store cell and tissue samples from more than 10,000 species.
Why Dubai? Why not store all the material in one place? Who knows? And they clone pets!
[Colossal] currently gets revenue from cloning pets and horses through a company it acquired last year, and claims to have future sources of revenue from licensing technology it develops for its de-extinction projects.
The article notes some criticism of Colossal’s proposal, too (I’m not quoting the criticism of the “de-extinction” endeavors, which the article also mentions):
But some conservation biologists expressed worries about depending so much for the long-term guardianship of precious samples on a private company.
“It seems like a bit of a risk for the U.S. government to place biomaterials in a for-profit company that doesn’t have a very long track record,” said Oliver Ryder, a conservation geneticist at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, which operates a storage effort called the Frozen Zoo that has been preserving cells for about 50 years.
and
Gabriela Mastromonaco, chief science officer at the Toronto Zoo, called the U.S. plan laid out in Thursday’s announcement hugely ambitious.
“To collect every threatened and endangered species, that is a massive endeavor,” she said. “That means tracking, trapping, immobilizing, and getting your hands on a lot of animals.”
She expressed concern that the initial announcement was short on planning details that would be standard in many other nations.
. . . Dr. Mastromonaco of the Toronto Zoo said the announcement left many questions unanswered, such as how Indigenous communities would participate in decisions about the program and the rules for who gets to use the samples for research. She said she was addressing these questions herself as Canada develops its own plan for biobanking wild species.
and
Concerns that genetic engineering would replace critical conservation work heightened when Mr. Burgum, the interior secretary, celebrated the company’s announcement on X, writing that “the marvel of ‘de-extinction’ technology can help forge a future where populations are never at risk.” The Fish and Wildlife Service is part of the Interior Department.
Colossal executives emphasize that their efforts are intended to add to conservation strategies, not supplant the important work of protecting habitat.
I guess Colossal needs government cooperation since that’s required to collect DNA samples from endangered species. But if Colossal is dong this “for public good and impact” as Colossal CEO Ben Lamm has said, why do they retain the sole right to use the material? Even if it’s collected by Colossal, the permission to do so has to come from the U.S. government, and we should not be entangled with a private, for-profit company that will store material only it can use.
I see Colossal as having provided some valuable knowledge, but also largely as a pack of grifters, making promises they cannot keep and distorting what they have done. In my view they should stick to cloning Fido and Fluffy for rich pet-owners who want to “de-extinct” their postmortem pets.
