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.
Nyad, 64, was “really hurting” as she neared her destination of Key West some 48 hours after she set off from Havana, according to blog updates on her website.
“I am about to swim my last two miles in the ocean,” she said this morning on her blog. “This is a lifelong dream of mine and I’m very very glad to be with you. Some on the team are the most intimate friends of my life and some of you I’ve just met. But I’ll tell you something, you’re a special group. You pulled through; you are pros and have a great heart. So let’s get going so we can have a whopping party.”
The marathon swimmer had said this would be her final attempt, this time using a protective silicone mask to better protect her from potentially deadly box jellyfish that forced her to end one of two attempted crossings last year.
Her doctors aboard a support vessel said Nyad’s tongue and lips were swollen causing her speech to be slurred, and raising concern about her breathing, the blog reported. Nyad was also “very cold” and had cancelled scheduled feeding stops overnight “in the hopes that swimming would keep her warm.”
I’m really happy for her; achieving a dream requiring such stamina, and at the age of 64, has got to be immensely fulfilling.
Maybe there’s hope for me yet to fulfill my own dream: climbing Mount Everest.
My CNN News alert has just emailed me to say that swimmer Diana Nyad, who is 64, is only two miles shy of finishing her swim from Cuba to Florida. The journal is 103 miles, she’s not in a shark cage, and this is her fifth attempt.
Now she’s not the first person to do the swim: it was done in 1997 by Susie Maroney (aged 22). But Maroney used a shark cage, so Nyad’s achievement is a real first.
But Nyad is nearly three times that age, and, as a relative oldster, I have to say that I’m pleased as punch at Nyad’s success. (I’m assuming she’ll make it, of course.)
Thanks to the readers’ interest in cats, I’m being literally (not figuratively) inundated with feline-related items. I have three for today.
The first is a report that the famous internet cat Colonel Meow, one of the most bizarre-looking cats I’ve ever seen, has won the Guinness Book of World Records prize for having the longest measured fur of any domestic cat (nine inches!). The Colonel was actually a stray who was rescued from the side of the road. PuffHo reports on Meow’s award:
Guinness World Records has officially recognized the two-year-old Himalayan-Persian crossbreed as the cat with the longest fur.
In order to get the hair-raising honor, three independent vets each meticulously measured 10 strands of kitty fur and came up with an average length that was submitted to Guinness.
When the fur was done flying around, the experts said Colonel Meow’s average hair length was a whopping nine inches.
As you might expect, most of Colonel Meow’s record-setting fur ends up on the floor, furniture and his owners Anne Marie Avey and Eric Rosario.
“Literally everything in the house has hair on it, including us!” Avey said, according to Guinness World Records. “I feel like I’m always vacuuming!”
Here he is with his certificate.
Reader Butter Cat (aka Anonypuss), although also long of fur and green with envy, sent these images of the Colonel:
Here’s a heartening bit of news to which we all contributed. As announced by Yahoo.com, the Monopoly game is finally debuting its new CAT TOKEN. You may remember that, in January, I asked readers to vote for the cat over the other tokens in contention, including a stupid diamond ring, robot, helicopter, and guitar.
Thanks to your votes, and especially to Butter Cat, who has an amazing ability to vote repeatedly in these contests (remember when we won the internet “who-is-cuter:-kittens-puppies-or-babies contest”?), the sleek and stylish cat token won, replacing the dowdy old iron token.
Nearly seven months after winning a worldwide vote, the cat token is finally making its debut in the classic board game. Hasbro has officially begun rolling out the new gamepiece, which will permanently replace the iron token.
In addition to being packaged in new Monopoly boxes, the cat will also be making a public appearance at the 2013 Internet Cat Video Festival at the Minnesota State Fair later today.
The cat won the coveted spot in early February. Players were asked to choose between a cat, a helicopter, a diamond ring, a robot, and a guitar. Given the fact that Internet votes were accepted, it’s no big surprise that the cat won, capturing 31 percent of the vote.
As for the iron, it ends an impressive 78-year run in the game (it was one of the original metal tokens in Monopoly). It almost managed to extend that run, as the boot and wheelbarrow were also at risk of being sent to game token jail. In the end, though, they managed to edge out a win among voters.
Here’s the new token. Isn’t it lovely?
,***
Finally, this story has been all over the place, which goes to show you that the arc of morality bends towards justice. Here’s the report from the GlobalPost, in its entirety:
In what has to be one of the cutest travel snafus in New York City history, two rogue kittens shut down Brooklyn’s B and Q subway lines for over an hour Thursday, as staff staged a successful rescue mission.
Almost certainly aware that kitten endangerment is the worst PR possible, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority decided to cut power to the entire B line and part of the Q line, so that workers could safely search for the cats near the dangerously electrified third rail.
The third rail packs a whopping 600 volts of electricity, wrote Pix11.com. “If you touch that third rail, you’re not going to make it — people and especially cats, anything that moves,” said MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz.
The kitten crisis appears to have begun early Thursday, after a woman reported that her kittens were loose in the subway system, reports the Associated Press.
Their adventure would last for seven hours, prompting many volunteers to help search for the adorable vagrants. Passengers were delayed, and a shuttle service was provided for points between the Q lines.
Two cops eventually were able to corral the kittens and whisk them to safety, reports the New York Daily News.
“The announcer said it had to stop to rescue some cats, said subway rider Sandra Polel to the New York Daily News. “I didn’t mind. I wanted to get home, but I also wanted the kittens to be safe.”
And of course there’s a YouTube video:
Now how did those kittens get there?
h/t: Michael, Steve Muth, Barry, Ginger K., and other readers who told me about the subway kittens
Only in Seattle (well, it could have happened in Portland, too). . .
On May 31, the Seattle Public library, with the help of many volunteers, successfully created the world’s largest domino chain of falling books—2131 of them. As the YouTube site notes:
The Seattle Public Library launched the 2013 Summer Reading Program by setting a new world record for the longest book domino chain!
The books used to make this domino chain were either donated or are out of date and no longer in the library’s collection. They are now being sold by the Friends of Seattle Public Library to help raise money for library programs and services.
No books were harmed during the filming of this video.
I like magic tricks, but I like even more knowing how they’re done, something that magicians are loath to reveal. Penn and Teller are an exception, and here they do a cool trick and then reprise it with transparent apparatus, exposing the ruse.
This takes good timing on the part of both magicians and substantial dexterity on the part of Teller. (I saw him at TAM, speaking just like a normal person!)
Because the Snowbird Resort (where this year’s Evolution meetings were held) is an “all in one” resort isolated from anyplace else (kind of like Jerry’s casino-in-the-desert for TAM), pretty much all of the food was produced in house. And it was generally quite good. Unfortunately, I neglected to take many pictures. So we’ll have to settle for dessert.
Apple strudel and German chocolate cake at Evolution 2013, Snowbird.
Above are the desserts from the last night (June 25) banquet, apple strudel and German chocolate cake. I had the strudel and my colleague Sher Hendrickson had the chocolate, but she gave me a taste. Both were very good, but the strudel was especially delightful. The banquet had an “Oktoberfest” theme: bratwurst, red cabbage, spaetzle, etc.
I was somewhat surprised to find that Utah, despite the predominance of the anti-alcohol Mormon Church, has a very healthy craft beer industry. Here’s the hands down favorite at the conference:
The Wasatch Brewery has a history of humorously standing up for their rights and tweaking the theocratic impulses of the Utah government. They first made their name with Polygamy Porter and one of its slogans: “Bring some home to the wives.” (For those unfamiliar with U.S. history, the Mormons had to renounce polygamy, which they had previously embraced as divinely ordained, in order for Utah to be admitted as a state. Mormons have had a hard time living this down ever since, and there are schismatic “fundamentalist” Mormon sects which still practice polygamy.)
Polygamy Porter. Is that supposed to be Joseph Smith with the beard?
To punish Wasatch for Polygamy Porter and other advertising they didn’t like, the Utah legislature increased taxes on beer. The brewers’ response? A “Salt Lake Beer Party” and a new beer, First Amendment Lager with the slogan, “Give me liberty, and give me a cold one!”
1st Amendment LagerBack label of First Amendment Lager.
In addition to the three above, I also had Provo Girl Pilsner, but on tap, so I don’t have a label to show you; it’s made by Squatters Beers, which seems to have some relationship with Wasatch, but I’m not sure exactly what. All of these beers were quite good, and although I can’t rule out that the setting and the company made everything taste better, I really think the beers were good.
Wasatch Brewery has about the only corporate “mission statement” I’ve ever seen that seems the least bit authentic or appealing:
Our Mission: To make the best ales and lagers possible. To achieve commercial profitability, while maintaining the highest level of social responsibility. To have as much fun as we can legally get away with.
