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.
Welcome to Friday, April 24, 2026. Today I fly back to Chicago. Normally I would look forward with joy to returning, ready to help Vashti rear her brook of seven ducklings to maturity. This is not to be, however, and I am heartbroken to know that I’ll face an empty pond.
To some it may sound stupid that I’m mourning the loss of our brood of ducklings, but, as the old Jewish saying goes, “Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.” What that means is that if you save the life of any creature, you have saved the world for that creature, who now gets to experience a world it would otherwise lose. That is our situation—seven times over.
Truth be told, I am not energized to write today, and it may be a while before I am. As always, I do my best.
Here, in memoriam to our brood, are three photos taken by Peggy Mason and one by another student. They were sent to me as I didn’t see the brood myself. Whatever happened to them, I hope they found safe harbor.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 24 Wikipedia page.
The 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, due to expire Sunday, will be extended for three weeks, President Donald Trump said Thursday during the second round of peace talks at the White House.
The announcement of an extension, which had been requested by Lebanon, came as Trump and Vice President JD Vance joined participants of the talks in the Oval Office. Led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and State Department Counselor Michael Needham, Israel and Lebanon were represented by their ambassadors to the U.S. The U.S. ambassadors to Lebanon and Israel also participated.
Israel and Lebanon had agreed to the extension of “an additional three weeks of, I guess no firing, ceasefire, no more firing. And we’re going to be working with Lebanon to get things straightened out in that country. I really believe it’s something we can do pretty easily,” Trump told reporters admitted to the Oval Office where participants were seated on sofas.
The Israel-Lebanon ceasefire has been only tenuously observed, with reduced but continued attacks by Israel and Hezbollah.
Hezbollah has not officially recognized the pause in hostilities and on Thursday launched its first missile attack on northern Israel since the ceasefire went into effect April 16. The Israel Defense Forces said the missiles had been intercepted.
Israel has continued sporadic bombing attacks in what it says is “self defense” permitted under the ceasefire, and tens of thousands IDF troops occupying southern Lebanon have continued attacks against alleged militants and their infrastructure.
Each side has accused the other of violating the ceasefire.
Note that the talks are with Lebanon, not Hezbollah. The Lebanese government cannot stop the terrorism of Hezbollah, which is why Iran wants these negotations to be part of its own cease-fire settlement. The negotiations will not be successful because Hezbollah’s aim is to destroy Israel, and, Hezbollah has ignored the UN Security Council’s Resolution 1701 from 2006, ordering the group to cease hostilities and disarm. What is Trump thinking? Until Lebanon gets control of Hezbollah—a very slim possibility—there will be no peace between the two countries.
For the first time in the history of the IDF, a part of the defense budget had to be devoted to buying a statue of Jesus. But it was the right thing to do.
The first point is the most obvious: it is a blatant moral failure to desecrate another faith’s holy items. As a matter of history Jews should know how that feels. The conduct of an IDF soldier destroying a statue of Jesus in southern Lebanon is entirely unacceptable, particularly for a military operating as an occupying force.
But if morality didn’t stop this soldier’s actions, I should think practicality would.
If you were to ask any Jew to identify the single most lethal antisemitic trope in history, the answer would undoubtedly be the accusation of being “Christ killers.” Knowing that history, how any Jewish soldier could think that taking a sledgehammer to a statue of Jesus—and filming it—was in any way a good idea simply baffles me.
Thankfully, out of both moral necessity and practical reality, the IDF has taken swift action. The soldier who smashed the statue, along with the soldier who photographed the act, have been dismissed from combat duty and sentenced to jail. Six other troops who were present at the scene and did not act to stop the incident or report it are also under investigation. The IDF has also organized a replacement for the broken statue, which it has returned to the village.
The unfortunate truth is that soldiers will inevitably do destructive, foolish things. That cannot always be prevented. The ultimate measure of an army’s morality is not whether bad actors exist within its ranks—it is how the system holds them accountable.
Here, courtesy of Amit Segal at the site, is an IDF photo of their replacement statue, which has been installed. Although the entire world, including the MSM, has been tarring the whole IDF, and by extension Israel, for breaking the statue, please read the last paragraph above.
And a bit from today’s report, suggesting that Iran’s titular leader may in fact be dead, an ex-ayatollah:
In early April, a joint U.S.-Israeli diplomatic memo, reported by The Times, claimed that Mojtaba is physically incapacitated, completely unconscious, and hidden in a specialized hospital. The memo also noted ongoing preparations for a massive mausoleum in Qom—a subtle hint that the regime is preparing for a funeral.
This week, The New York Times published a detailed investigation based on leaks from “senior Iranian insiders,” claiming the Supreme Leader is sequestered in a highly secure medical hideout. These officials concede he is severely mutilated—awaiting a prosthetic after three leg surgeries and suffering from facial burns that render him largely mute—but insist he remains “mentally sharp.” Conveniently, because all modern electronics are banned around him to prevent Israeli tracking, he is entirely isolated, relying on a slow human chain of motorcycle couriers to communicate with the IRGC generals who are now effectively running the state.
But within Israeli intelligence, a much colder, simpler theory is taking root: Mojtaba is already dead. All that fantastic, detailed intel—even the candid admissions of severe injury in The New York Times—is carefully calibrated Iranian disinformation.
*Over at Quillette, Belgian philosopher Maarten Boudry writes about his awakening on October 7, 2023 in a piece called “What do you think decolonization meant?” (article is archived here).
I was terribly wrong to be so insouciant, as I discovered when 7 October happened. I’m not Jewish and don’t have a personal connection to Israel, so initially I didn’t follow the news very closely. I had relegated the attack to the—regrettably vast—mental category of jihadist terrorist attacks across the globe, failing to grasp that this was, in fact, a full-blown invasion. In my naivety, I assumed that after the massacres in Paris, Brussels, Nice, Berlin, and countless other Western cities, everyone had finally woken up to the true nature of jihadism. When a bunch of Allahu Akbar-chanting fanatics slaughtered innocent young people at a music festival, just as they had done at the Bataclan in Paris, it seemed inconceivable to me that any of my colleagues and friends would condone, rationalise, or even celebrate such acts. And yet that is precisely what happened.
To my horror, within days—even hours—of the attack, when the Israeli army was still fighting off the invaders, I started seeing reactions of excitement and gleeful jubilation on social media. Not from the usual religious maniacs praising Allah, but from left-wing activists at prestigious universities. Academics started breathlessly applying the same framework of decolonisation that I had foolishly brushed aside as amusing but harmless virtue signalling. As the writer Najma Sharif famously posted on X that day, racking up tens of thousands of likes and reposts: “What did y’all think decolonization meant? vibes? papers? essays? losers.”
It was as though she was talking about me. I was one of those “losers” who had been foolish enough to think that decolonisation amounted to little more than papers and essays, along with some harmless but well-intentioned proposals to diversify the philosophy curriculum. If only. What I came to see in the wake of 7 October was something far less benign. Decolonisation operates as a rigid, almost Manichaean ideology that neatly divides the world into evil perpetrators (Western colonisers) and innocent victims (the colonised, indigenous peoples). In this worldview, there is no room for moral ambiguity. Those on the wrong side of the divide are irredeemably rotten and deserve everything that’s coming to them, while those on the side of the angels are completely absolved of any wrongdoing. If they appear to commit atrocities, these are reframed as understandable—perhaps even inevitable—responses to prior injustice. In fact, the more extreme the violence, the greater the wrongs they must have endured.
At one point, many on the Left considered Israel an admirable success story of decolonisation—of an indigenous people driving out the Western colonisers and achieving self-determination in their historical homeland. For a variety of complex historical reasons, however, the Jewish state is now firmly relegated to the side of the oppressors. In fact, Israel is regarded as the settler-colonialist enterprise par excellence, and Palestinians as paragons of victimhood. And that is all the latter-day activists need to know to reach their moral verdicts—which explains why those verdicts came rushing in mere hours into the unfolding event.
That mindset was on full display in a joint open letter at my own Ghent University, published just three days after 7 October. It pointedly refused to condemn Hamas, shifted all blame for the massacre onto “Zionists,” and praised Palestinians for their “tenacity and fierce resistance to racism and settler colonialism,” which the signatories found immensely “inspiring.” The ideological rationale is right there in the letter: “Decolonization is not a metaphor, nor is it only a theory to be used for intellectual clout. It is about supporting the right for self-determination of Palestinians to live freely and with dignity.” It was signed by two thousand academics and students.
An even more revolting open letter at the University of Amsterdam, again with hundreds of signatories, rejoiced that 2023 “will no doubt be the year admired, recorded and studied for the way in which Palestinians steadfastly resisted colonialism, occupation and survived genocide.” The text echoes the same jargon and turns of phrase, as if its authors’ minds had been hijacked by the same zombie virus: “We must stress that decolonisation is not an abstract theory, it is an action, it is a way of being. […] Decolonisation is not a metaphor. […] It is the UvA’s ethical duty to support decolonial endeavors that aim to end colonialism.”
Every one of these academics would describe themselves as “progressive” or “left-wing.” And yet here they were, rallying to the defence of a reactionary death cult that had just committed the largest antisemitic pogrom since the Holocaust, livestreaming their atrocities with GoPro cameras, sadistically calling family members on the victims’ cellphones, ecstatically calling home in triumph to boast of how many Jews they had killed with their bare hands.
If there are two words that describe this species of “progressive”, they are “anti-Enlightenment” and “Manichean”.
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved a gene therapy that can cure a rare, inherited form of deafness. The treatment is the first to restore normal hearing in children who were born deaf.
The maker of the therapy, Regeneron, plans to provide it free to any child who needs it. “We wanted to make a statement,” Dr. George Yancopoulos, Regeneron’s chief scientific officer said on Thursday morning.
The therapy called Otarmeni, is intended for children with otoferlin deafness, a rare form of hearing loss caused by a mutation in a single gene. The mutation destroys a protein in the inner ear that is needed to transmit sound to the brain.
. . . Although otoferlin deafness accounts for just 2 percent to 8 percent of congenital hearing loss, the new treatment “is groundbreaking,” Dr. Dylan Chan, a pediatric otolaryngologist at the University of California, San Francisco, said.
He added, “This is the first time in history that there has been a medical therapy that has enabled deaf children to hear.”
. . .Researchers chose to focus on otoferlin deafness because its cause was straightforward. The otoferlin gene is expressed only in the hair cells of the inner ear. The inner ear structures, including the hair cells, are intact. So to allow patients to hear, doctors simply needed to deliver a working copy of the otoferlin gene.
Otolaryngologists had long thought that injecting a medicine into the inner ear would inevitably damage the delicate cells and membranes of the cochlea.
But children with otoferlin deafness are already unable to hear. Even if an attempt at gene therapy damaged their inner ears, they could still receive cochlear implants.
. . .Kerri M., whose baby, Miles, had otoferlin deafness, said gene therapy “completely changed our lives.” She spoke on condition of anonymity because she wanted to protect her son’s diagnosis from appearing on the internet.
Dr. Shearer said Miles’s hearing loss was so profound that he could not hear a jet engine if it were next to him.
Miles was given the Regeneron therapy on May 19, 2025, when he was 13 months old. At his last visit, his hearing was normal.
. . .Most children who received the gene therapy have had hearing restored, but not all have been as fortunate as Miles. So far, Dr. Chan said, about 80 percent of the patients who have been treated successfully in clinical trials were able to hear well without needing cochlear implants.
Most still needed a hearing aid, but about 30 percent of those who could hear after the treatment were like Miles — their hearing was in the normal range.
The next target for the scientists working on gene therapies to correct deafness is mutations in the GJB2 gene. It causes the most common form of congenital hearing loss in children and accounts for about 20 percent of cases.
This is remarkable, and heartening that the company that created the cure is supplying it for free. Of course most genetically-based diseases are not this easy to remedy, but we are on a thresh0ld of successful gene therapy.
*As usual, I’ll steal a few items from Nellie Bowles’s news-and-snark column in The Free Press, called this week “TGIF: We live in the world we’re in.” The first story about bannng tobacco sales in the UK is true:
→ New job opportunity for Americans: The United Kingdom passed a bill this week to ban the sale of tobacco to anyone born after 2008. The goal is to create a “smoke-free generation.” Anyone born after 2008 will never be able to buy cigarettes or vapes or any tobacco product in the United Kingdom. Ever. Might as well call them the loser generation. Taking cigs away from Brits is like grabbing spaghetti out of an Italian’s mouth. If there’s no cigarette, what are young Brits meant to do with their hands after making a wry and devastating observation? Wave? That’s for the Yanks.
For a kid from the UK, coming to New York and trying a vape is going to be the equivalent of an American going to Amsterdam to try crack and prostitutes. Me, I’m going to travel to London with strawberry vapes sewn into my Levi’s, like an American hero. They said artificial intelligence would take all our jobs, but they didn’t consider that cigarette smuggling would employ 15,000 Americans each year. British teens: Call me!
→ What’s going on with Ilhan Omar’s net worth?: Rep. Ilhan Omar has revised her net worth. Earlier, she filed paperwork reporting her and her husband’s net worth at between $6 million and $30 million. Now, she’s filed new paperwork reporting their net worth to be between $18,004 to $95,000. An easy enough mistake to make! Zeros are confusing. Responding to a letter from the Office of Congressional Conduct, her lawyer said: “As the busiest of people, it is very common for members and their spouses to rely on learned professionals like accountants to make calculations and determinations that appear on public filings. While the error is, of course, unfortunate, there is nothing untoward, and nothing illegal has occurred.” The busiest of people. So busy, somewhere between the personal training and CAIR meetings, they forgot how many more millions they made. Apparently the confusion comes from her husband being involved in so many businesses. All you need to know is that there was some backlash and the husband is worth nothing now. As a scholar of LLCs, my wild guess, if there is a noncriminal explanation, is that the money was put into a new trust or something. So it’s not hers anymore, per se, not exactly.
→ Carrying knives “for a good reason”:
A Kuwaiti man, on trial for allegedly trying to break into the Israeli embassy in London while armed with two knives, regaled the court with tales of his treacherous boat crossings in which he put his “life on the line.” As noted by the BBC: “His defense case is likely to be that he was not trying to enter the embassy for a terrorist purpose, and that he was carrying the knives ‘for a good reason’ unrelated to his activities that day, jurors have been told.” Unless there’s a fish market inside that embassy, I got a few questions about what constitutes a “good reason” in the UK.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej sounds a familiar note:
Hili: We have to work again?
Andrzej: That’s our lot.
From Masih, with the President mis-sexed in the English translation (there are subtitles):
The President of the German Bundestag [Julia Klöckner] declared with clarity and courage: [S]He does not recognize a regime that blinds women and pierces the bodies of protesters with buckshot. And he made this statement from the podium of the President of the German Bundestag. These remarks were made in tribute to the efforts of Masih Alinejad, for raising global public awareness of the fully armed governmental violence, through which she has become the extension of the voice of millions of Iranians who do not recognize this regime.
The original:
رئیس مجلس آلمان، با صراحت و شجاعت اعلام کرد:
او رژیمی را که زنان را نابینا میکند و بدن معترضان را با ساچمه میدرد، به رسمیت نمیشناسد.
و این حرف را از جایگاه رییس مجلس آلمان زد.
این سخنان در تقدیر از تلاشهای مسیح علینژاد بیان شد، برای آگاهسازی افکار عمومی جهان از خشونتهای… pic.twitter.com/kPQyKTzCHE
— United Against Gender Apartheid (@UAGApartheid) April 23, 2026
From Luana, though the community notes say the quote was mistranslated. The apparently correct translation, which you can see here, is even better.
The first recorded appearance of a cat in Japan is described arriving as an imperial gift, written down on March 11, 889 AD by 22-year-old Emperor Uda on his diary: pic.twitter.com/fw1MsR4PSY
And a turkey named JERRY who loves and protects ducks:
The turkey you see here is Jerry. He never seemed to like living with other turkeys but LOVES the ducks, so we let him move in with them a few years ago. They all get along, in fact Jerry puffs up to protect them whenever a raptor is in the neighborhood. Sometimes found family is the best family! ❤️
Gene therapy really is coming on leaps and bounds, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce35x8759zzo relates a story from a couple of days ago about a young girl with Leber’s Congenital Amaurosis receiving life changing treatment. Impressive stuff.
Kudos to the IDF for taking swift and visible action regarding the despicable behavior of the two soldiers for desecration of a religious symbol of another faith.
Sympathy for our cousins in the animal kingdom is part of our humanity.
Nature is “red in tooth and claw”, as Jack London wrote. It is still hard for me when I see the results, especially if it is animal with which I am familiar.
I still hope that the ducks are alive and well, and that. Jerry hears good news
Jews hold life in high regard, hence the belief that within each life resides an entire universe. It’s not that the universe resides within each life, it’s that each life is itself a universe. Very thought-provoking statement about the uniqueness of the individual.*
Regarding the negotiations between Israel and Lebanon, it’s true that the Lebanese government does not control Hezbollah. But in Hezbollah, Israel and the government of Lebanon have a common foe. Shared interests are the foundation of alliance, so I am provisionally regarding the negotiations as a good thing. They strengthen the legitimate—and still weak—Lebanese government and may be one pathway toward marginalizing Hezbollah. There has even been talk of eventually normalizing relations between Israel and Lebanon, which would be a positive development.
It’s interesting that Ilan Ohmar’s net worth miraculously went from $30 million to $95 thousand (at most) in one year. Even a member of Congress cannot possibly make a mistake like that. Where did she park the money?
The neurotic border collie is hilarious. Better yet is the cat which, in its James Bond-like nonchalance, knows that if he just waits a bit longer, that canine circle being drawn around him will evaporate without a trace. No claws required.
*That phrase is an homage to Peter Medawar who wrote a book with the same name.
Wiki: “Pikuach nefesh (Hebrew: פיקוח נפש), which means ‘saving a soul’ or ‘saving a life’, is the principle in Halakha (Jewish law) that the preservation of human life overrides virtually any other religious rule of Judaism. In the event that a person is in critical danger, most mitzvot become inapplicable if they would hinder the ability to save oneself or someone else.”
My developmentally disabled son Aaron also suffers Type 1 diabetes. At a Jewish group home where he lived for 17 years, we used to joke that his Novo Nordisk insulin, made in khametz yeast cells, was allowed during Passover by this rule, even though not kosher for Pesach.
In regard to deafness, permit me to recommend a very fine film which portrays the world of the deaf with humor and thoughtfulness: “Jenseits der Stille” (1996), in German and sign. It was directed by Caroline Link, received numerous awards. Interestingly, the film also involves music, and includes a little good klezmer.
The imbecilities that Maarten Boudry summarizes were evident 20 years ago when Prof. Judith Butler welcomed Hamas to the “global Left” and “progressive” side. No doubt why 7th century fanaticism and “queer theory” are both admired by those performing “global Left” tropes.
Kudos to Regeneron in making their gene therapy free to anyone needing it.
At the same time – what degree of clinical trials were required beforehand? Is administration of the therapy a topical application, requiring less scrutiny and expensive compliance costs? Also, to what degree is the therapy just a matter of synthesizing the right sequence of DNA bases (cheap vs. many drugs) and administering it in the right combination of other relatively innocuous ingredients? It thus may qualify as cost-effective advertising.
(Just asking this as background, for the next time I tangle with the Pharma Can Do No Good cabal.)
Meanwhile, as I think I said a few days ago, I’ve thought since almost the start that claiming that an actually-dead Mojtaba was alive and issuing statements from a committee in his name would be convenient for the regime.
Also, I saw somewhere last night that during the negotiations in Pakistan, the Iranians asked the US group how guarantees would work, should they give up their nukes. Would it work the same way things did for Ukraine after their 1994 agreement with the US when they gave up their nukes. Supposedly, the US team made no reply.
1) All drugs regardless of route of administration have to submit convincing evidence from clinical trials showing efficacy and at least a first pass on safety. (Rare side effects won’t show up in clinical trials powered to demonstrate efficacy.) In this case the clinical trial used historical controls, and this was provisionally acceptable to the FDA, because the deafness in this condition never resolves on its own. Giving the experimental gene therapy to all subjects allowed all of them to potentially benefit without sacrificing scientific validity.
2) The route of administration is quite involved. A neurosurgeon has to get into the petrous temporal bone of the baby’s skull (through the mastoid as for cochlear implants) and insert a catheter into the cochlea of the inner ear. Then the virus vector (an adeno-associated virus) carrying the new gene is instilled into the cochlea where it transforms the hair cells and restores the gene function. How the product is made is described in the NEJM article below. (You have to open at least a free subscription to read it.)
3) The price of this therapy that would be required to recover the investment and make a profit spread over the small number of patients who could benefit is estimated by observers at around a million dollars per patient. Other therapies in this price league have failed because they are just too expensive for any health system to buy (and here for a condition that while disabling is not fatal.) Providing it free to a handful of patients would actually then not cost the company all that much money as long as it can obtain benefits, concessions, or profits in higher-volume parts of its business, as Peggy Mason points out below.
There is simply no moral equivalence between some wayward (and punished) soldiers vandalizing a statue vs pretty much anything the other side do every damn day.
And yet our media (and the whole head injury ward of “Palestinian ally” watermelon useful idiots) can’t shut up about it.
Evidence of their moral bankruptcy.
“To some it may sound stupid that I’m mourning the loss of our brood of ducklings…”
Nothing stupid about it at all, Jerry. Even those of us who have never fed those ducks can feel some of the loss. But it cannot approach that of someone who has cared for a living creature with his own hands.
Regeneron is providing Otarmeni for free as part of an agreement with the administration. Part of the payoff for Regeneron is to avoid tariffs for 3 years.
Don’t buy the milk of human kindness routine from Dr. Yancopoulos. This is a strategic move. It is fantastic that some congenitally deaf children will benefit.
I will add that reportedly there are 3 other companies working on drugs to restore otoferlin function to those with congenital conditions marked by a non-functional otoferlin. One of these is Eli Lilly. Why? What future profit does this hold for the companies? I am confused.
So I guess we don’t have all the facts about Ilhan Omar’s financial situation, but based on what Nellie has reported, something really stinks. There appears to be some farcical duplicity going on there.
Funny how the people who are the most self-righteous are often the most blatant, unrepentant hypocrites you can find. But she’ll probably be reelected. Republicans aren’t the only ones who vote for morally bankrupt people so long as they push the agenda the voter supports.
The “bored-er collie” and cat clip is utterly hilarious. Especially the cat’s complete ignoring of the dog – the cat just stares into the distance not giving the slightest acknowledgement of the dog’s antics. I can’t stop looking and laughing.
For some reason the “decolonization” morons never apply their paradigm to all those people from Arabia, and their corresponding states, that are spread all across the Middle East and North Africa – people whose ancestors conquered and colonized in the name of their great war god Allah.
Sorry about the duckings, Jerry.
Gene therapy really is coming on leaps and bounds, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce35x8759zzo relates a story from a couple of days ago about a young girl with Leber’s Congenital Amaurosis receiving life changing treatment. Impressive stuff.
Thank you, as always, Maarten.
Though when I go to archive, the full article is still not available…
The full article is here:
https://quillette.substack.com/p/what-did-you-think-decolonisation
Thanks, peter!
Kudos to the IDF for taking swift and visible action regarding the despicable behavior of the two soldiers for desecration of a religious symbol of another faith.
Sympathy for our cousins in the animal kingdom is part of our humanity.
Nature is “red in tooth and claw”, as Jack London wrote. It is still hard for me when I see the results, especially if it is animal with which I am familiar.
I still hope that the ducks are alive and well, and that. Jerry hears good news
FWIW, “red in tooth and claw” was Tennyson.
Welcome home Jerry. So sorry about the ducklings.
Jews hold life in high regard, hence the belief that within each life resides an entire universe. It’s not that the universe resides within each life, it’s that each life is itself a universe. Very thought-provoking statement about the uniqueness of the individual.*
Regarding the negotiations between Israel and Lebanon, it’s true that the Lebanese government does not control Hezbollah. But in Hezbollah, Israel and the government of Lebanon have a common foe. Shared interests are the foundation of alliance, so I am provisionally regarding the negotiations as a good thing. They strengthen the legitimate—and still weak—Lebanese government and may be one pathway toward marginalizing Hezbollah. There has even been talk of eventually normalizing relations between Israel and Lebanon, which would be a positive development.
It’s interesting that Ilan Ohmar’s net worth miraculously went from $30 million to $95 thousand (at most) in one year. Even a member of Congress cannot possibly make a mistake like that. Where did she park the money?
The neurotic border collie is hilarious. Better yet is the cat which, in its James Bond-like nonchalance, knows that if he just waits a bit longer, that canine circle being drawn around him will evaporate without a trace. No claws required.
*That phrase is an homage to Peter Medawar who wrote a book with the same name.
Wiki: “Pikuach nefesh (Hebrew: פיקוח נפש), which means ‘saving a soul’ or ‘saving a life’, is the principle in Halakha (Jewish law) that the preservation of human life overrides virtually any other religious rule of Judaism. In the event that a person is in critical danger, most mitzvot become inapplicable if they would hinder the ability to save oneself or someone else.”
My developmentally disabled son Aaron also suffers Type 1 diabetes. At a Jewish group home where he lived for 17 years, we used to joke that his Novo Nordisk insulin, made in khametz yeast cells, was allowed during Passover by this rule, even though not kosher for Pesach.
Herding cat(s) looks easy.
In regard to deafness, permit me to recommend a very fine film which portrays the world of the deaf with humor and thoughtfulness: “Jenseits der Stille” (1996), in German and sign. It was directed by Caroline Link, received numerous awards. Interestingly, the film also involves music, and includes a little good klezmer.
The imbecilities that Maarten Boudry summarizes were evident 20 years ago when Prof. Judith Butler welcomed Hamas to the “global Left” and “progressive” side. No doubt why 7th century fanaticism and “queer theory” are both admired by those performing “global Left” tropes.
Kudos to Regeneron in making their gene therapy free to anyone needing it.
At the same time – what degree of clinical trials were required beforehand? Is administration of the therapy a topical application, requiring less scrutiny and expensive compliance costs? Also, to what degree is the therapy just a matter of synthesizing the right sequence of DNA bases (cheap vs. many drugs) and administering it in the right combination of other relatively innocuous ingredients? It thus may qualify as cost-effective advertising.
(Just asking this as background, for the next time I tangle with the Pharma Can Do No Good cabal.)
Meanwhile, as I think I said a few days ago, I’ve thought since almost the start that claiming that an actually-dead Mojtaba was alive and issuing statements from a committee in his name would be convenient for the regime.
Also, I saw somewhere last night that during the negotiations in Pakistan, the Iranians asked the US group how guarantees would work, should they give up their nukes. Would it work the same way things did for Ukraine after their 1994 agreement with the US when they gave up their nukes. Supposedly, the US team made no reply.
Probably because Iran isn’t supposed to actually have nuke like Ukraine had.
But the Iranians won’t see it like that. The regime is determined to survive (unfortunately).
1) All drugs regardless of route of administration have to submit convincing evidence from clinical trials showing efficacy and at least a first pass on safety. (Rare side effects won’t show up in clinical trials powered to demonstrate efficacy.) In this case the clinical trial used historical controls, and this was provisionally acceptable to the FDA, because the deafness in this condition never resolves on its own. Giving the experimental gene therapy to all subjects allowed all of them to potentially benefit without sacrificing scientific validity.
2) The route of administration is quite involved. A neurosurgeon has to get into the petrous temporal bone of the baby’s skull (through the mastoid as for cochlear implants) and insert a catheter into the cochlea of the inner ear. Then the virus vector (an adeno-associated virus) carrying the new gene is instilled into the cochlea where it transforms the hair cells and restores the gene function. How the product is made is described in the NEJM article below. (You have to open at least a free subscription to read it.)
3) The price of this therapy that would be required to recover the investment and make a profit spread over the small number of patients who could benefit is estimated by observers at around a million dollars per patient. Other therapies in this price league have failed because they are just too expensive for any health system to buy (and here for a condition that while disabling is not fatal.) Providing it free to a handful of patients would actually then not cost the company all that much money as long as it can obtain benefits, concessions, or profits in higher-volume parts of its business, as Peggy Mason points out below.
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-ever-gene-therapy-treatment-genetic-hearing-loss-under-national-priority-voucher
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2400521
So very sorry about the duck family. I just wish there was something useful I could do about it.
There is simply no moral equivalence between some wayward (and punished) soldiers vandalizing a statue vs pretty much anything the other side do every damn day.
And yet our media (and the whole head injury ward of “Palestinian ally” watermelon useful idiots) can’t shut up about it.
Evidence of their moral bankruptcy.
D.A.
NYC 🗽
“To some it may sound stupid that I’m mourning the loss of our brood of ducklings…”
Nothing stupid about it at all, Jerry. Even those of us who have never fed those ducks can feel some of the loss. But it cannot approach that of someone who has cared for a living creature with his own hands.
Regeneron is providing Otarmeni for free as part of an agreement with the administration. Part of the payoff for Regeneron is to avoid tariffs for 3 years.
See https://www.pharmexec.com/view/regeneron-agrees-lower-drug-costs-us-patients-provide-otarmeni-free
and
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/04/23/3280340/0/en/regeneron-announces-agreement-with-u-s-government-to-help-lower-drug-costs-for-american-patients-and-will-provide-innovative-new-gene-therapy-for-free-in-the-u-s.html
Don’t buy the milk of human kindness routine from Dr. Yancopoulos. This is a strategic move. It is fantastic that some congenitally deaf children will benefit.
I will add that reportedly there are 3 other companies working on drugs to restore otoferlin function to those with congenital conditions marked by a non-functional otoferlin. One of these is Eli Lilly. Why? What future profit does this hold for the companies? I am confused.
So I guess we don’t have all the facts about Ilhan Omar’s financial situation, but based on what Nellie has reported, something really stinks. There appears to be some farcical duplicity going on there.
Funny how the people who are the most self-righteous are often the most blatant, unrepentant hypocrites you can find. But she’ll probably be reelected. Republicans aren’t the only ones who vote for morally bankrupt people so long as they push the agenda the voter supports.
The “bored-er collie” and cat clip is utterly hilarious. Especially the cat’s complete ignoring of the dog – the cat just stares into the distance not giving the slightest acknowledgement of the dog’s antics. I can’t stop looking and laughing.
Thanks, this made my day!
For some reason the “decolonization” morons never apply their paradigm to all those people from Arabia, and their corresponding states, that are spread all across the Middle East and North Africa – people whose ancestors conquered and colonized in the name of their great war god Allah.