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.
After security forces abandoned the Ukrainian presidential palace amidst street-fighting in Kiev, protesters seized control of the opulent mansion and its grounds (which include a zoo and a pirate-themed restaurant). The protesters, who seem well organized, did not loot the palace, but have opened the grounds for the people to tour, and have opened the house for limited guided tours. One of the tours was given to the NY Times, which posted a video of the tour here.
Stuffed cat in the Ukrainian presidential palace.
At 2:17, it shows two little cat statues playing golf, then a bronzish cat statue, and then, finally, the cat above, apparently sleeping on a couch. A voice is heard to ask “Is he alive?”, to which a slightly accented voice replies, “No. It was alive.” Full video below.
There’s been a lot of mediaattention the last few days about the prospect of a derelict Russian passenger ship, the Lyubov Orlova, crossing the Atlantic from Canada (where it was last berthed) and crashing into Ireland or Britain, spilling disease-ridden, inbred, cannibal rats on their shores. The ship was being towed to the Dominican Republic when it broke away and floated off last year. The Sun has had perhaps the most dire take on the story, headlining their piece “Ship of Ghouls“.
A scary picture from the Sun.
That the ship, laden with cannibal rats, might fetch up on shore, however, seems very unlikely. As the Guardian reports, both the Irish and British coastguards downplay the possibility. In particular, Irish officials note that they have looked for it, can’t find it, and suspect that it may have sunk.
But there’s another reason that it is highly unlikely, having nothing to do with whether or not the ship is still afloat, and because it reveals an important biological principle, it’s worth a mention here at WEIT: an ecosystem without primary producers cannot be sustained except for very brief periods of time. Unless those rats have been raising crops on the ship, the last one, cannibal or not, died some time ago.
There are very few “laws” in biology in the strong sense with which the term “law” is used in physics. Mendel’s “laws” of heredity, for example, have numerous exceptions and limiting conditions. When I teach genetics, I refer to them not as “laws”, but as Mendel’s “useful generalizations”. But one of the biological principles that does have law-like status is that primary producers must be at the base of every food web, and that energy is lost at every step in the food chain. Perhaps the reason these principles are law-like is because they derive so directly from the laws of thermodynamics: energy must be put in to a system to avoid entropy increase (so we must have producers to capture energy) and no energy transfer is 100% efficient (so there’s less energy available further up the food chain than at the bottom).
These ecological principles are often expressed in terms of a “trophic pyramid“, a visual representation of the fact that primary producers (usually green plants that capture energy by photosynthesis, but also photosynthetic and chemosynthetic bacteria) outnumber herbivores (primary consumers), who outnumber carnivores (secondary consumers), who outnumber top carnivores (tertiary consumers; there are rarely more than four or five levels in a food chain).
Trophic pyramid.
The exact shape of the pyramids depends on the efficiency of energy transfer between levels, and whether the pyramid is based on number of individuals, biomass, or energy flow units. As a rough guideline, efficiency of transfer between levels is often estimated at about 10%; the efficiency of capture of solar radiation is much lower. These important details can be investigated here and here, for example, but they do not alter the fundamental principles.
Viewing ecosystems in this manner owes much to an extremely influential paper, “The trophic-dynamic aspect of ecology“, by the young limnologist Raymond Lindeman, who tragically died of an obscure form of hepatitis a few months before the paper was published. The very interesting story of how the paper was almost not published, first being rejected by Ecology for being too theoretical, but finally accepted, has been told by Bob Cook.
Raymond Lindeman (1915-1942). He could have told you why there are no cannibal rats threatening Ireland and the UK.
So, what does this all mean for the people of Ireland and Britain? You can relax. Although rodents will resort to cannibalism when food supplies run low (though I’ve never seen it in rats myself, which, by the way, are much friendlier and make better pets than mice), an ecosystem based on cannibalism cannot persist, because there is no energy input to the system, and there cannot be a 100% efficient transfer, so the rat-level in the “food chain” will continually decrease in number and biomass. How long a bunch of rats resorting to cannibalism would last depend on details such as the number of rats, their caloric needs, etc., but suffice it to say that no reasonable numbers for those details could get the rats to last nearly a year. The caloric needs of mammals are quite high, and they need to eat a lot. (This may not be a comforting thought, but a ship full of anacondas and reticulated pythons could last a year or more at sea, without even having to eat one another, because of their low caloric needs. They would come ashore hungry, though.) The reason I say “probably”, rather than “definitely”, is because it is conceivable that large stores of food were left behind, and depending on the quantity, these could support a rat population for some time (recall that in most zombie movies the survivors rely on canned goods for survival, although in the last season of the Walking Dead they did begin farming). But since the ship was being towed for salvage, I doubt the kitchens and larders were full.
Jerry and I have written about the plight of science at Chicago’s Field Museum, both here at WEIT, and with several colleagues in a letter to Science. In an editorial, Nature, the leading scientific journal of the English-speaking world, has also spoken out in support of science at the Field. In the editorial, Nature decries the imbalance in funding in the biological sciences, and points specifically to the Field Museum:
Solutions to many of the world’s problems will demand intensive research in many disciplines that are too-often excluded from even broad definitions of the life sciences. Efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change will require a detailed inventory of the world’s species (biodiversity, zoology, botany, taxonomy, microbiology, marine biology and so on) and their interactions with one another (ecology) and the environment.
Research into many of these areas is undertaken in museums. At the time the Breakthrough Prize was announced, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois, was facing tough decisions over a major shortfall in income. It is in the process of disbanding its separate research departments, reducing both the museum’s capacity for research into biodiversity and its high quality of educational outreach — crucial in a nation in which the very idea of evolution is perpetually under threat.
The occasion for the editors to make this plea was the announcement last month of the awarding of the “Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences“, a new and extremely generous prize ($3 million per person for 11 people!) funded by several Silicon Valley billionaires. Nature laments that even one of these awards going to a research museum like the Field would have a huge impact, not just on one recipient’s lab, but on entire scientific departments.
Further cuts will be necessary; the museum announced in December that it will have to slash $3 million from its research budgets (see Nature http://doi.org/j6q; 2012): an amount, coincidentally, that is equivalent to just one Breakthrough Prize, given to just one researcher in life sciences as defined by the Breakthrough Prize Foundation. It is a laudable aim to work for ways to prolong lives, even those that are already long and luxurious. To work for a world that can harbour billions of human beings in tolerable comfort is also worthy of recognition.
Grrl Scientist and Jack Stilgoe, both at the Guardian, raise similar concerns about the misdirection and imbalance of funding in the life sciences. Grrl Scientist notes that giving the prize to individuals ignores the collaborative nature of much science, especially in the award recipients’ fields; the parochial and narrow nature of its understanding of the “life sciences”; and the mistaken notion that scientists are motivated by the same kind of get-lucky-and-strike-it-rich mindset as are technological entrepreneurs. Stilgoe asks, “What’s the point of the Breakthrough science prize?”, answering, “It’s not clear if Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg and Yuri Milner’s award will add to scientific discovery or just Silicon Valley’s ego”. Grrl Scientist summarizes
… this prize is flawed and seriously misguided and thus, I don’t think it will accomplish its stated goals.
In fairness to the prize founders, they were explicit about their limited vision of what the life sciences are in setting up the prize, stating their goal was “to recognize excellence in research aimed at curing intractable diseases and extending human life,” so the fact that the recipients (one of whom, Lew Cantley, was an outstanding shooting guard on my grad school basketball team!) would be limited to biomedical fields could have been predicted. But that they were upfront about their limited and misguided vision does not vitiate its limitations.
A piece in yesterday’s New York Times, the American House of Representatives has overwhelmingly approved a bill (see link below) to allow government money to be used for repairing houses of worship damaged by Hurricane Sandy.
The bill, approved last week by a vote of 354 to 72, had support from Roman Catholic and Jewish organizations. It was opposed by 66 Democrats and 6 Republicans.
(Passage in the Senate, which is necessary to bring the bill to Obama for signing into law, isn’t yet assured.)
The disparity in political parties here is no surprise: Republicans are more often faith-heads. But what happened to religious organizations favoring the separation of church and state? Oh, right—that goes out the window if every faith can benefit equally.
This is, indeed, a violation of the First Amendment, for it uses taxpayer money to fix churches, and that’s a benefit to the church. Churches already enjoy benefits that I consider a violation of the Constitution: ministers’ housing for instance, is tax free, while Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, though they run a nonprofit secular organization, don’t get tax-free housing. And neither should I, as an atheist, have to pay to fix up a storm-damaged church. Isn’t such damage, after all, an “act of God”?
The House bill adds houses of worship to the list of private nonprofit organizations eligible for disaster relief. Federal law already allows such aid to museums, zoos, performing-arts centers, libraries, homeless shelters and other private nonprofit entities that provide “essential services of a governmental nature to the general public.”
The House bill would apply to property damaged by the storm and damage from future disasters.
Under the bill, “a church, synagogue, mosque, temple or other house of worship, and a private nonprofit facility operated by a religious organization,” would be eligible for federal disaster assistance “without regard to the religious character of the facility or the primary religious use of the facility.”
Museums, zoos, libraries, and homeless shelters are public goods, to which we all should contribute. Religion is not. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in charge of helping finance restoration of areas damaged by natural disasters, has historically refused to fix up houses of worship, except for those parts that provide social services. FEMA is opposed to this bill, too, on the ground that it would force them to make impossible decisions between “worship space” and “secular space”. Does fixing up a roof, for example, protect only the secular parts of a church?
And here’s a distinction without a difference:
The speaker of the New York City Council, Christine C. Quinn, had unsuccessfully urged FEMA to change its regulations without legislation, writing in a letter to the agency: “Recovery from a natural disaster like Hurricane Sandy isn’t a matter of state sponsoring religion. It’s a matter of helping those in need after one of the worst natural disasters our country has ever seen.”
Well, can’t churches and synagogues buy insurance like the rest of us?
In the end, it comes down to this:
But Representative Jerrold Nadler of Manhattan, the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, said: “This bill would direct federal taxpayer dollars to the reconstruction of houses of worship. The idea that taxpayer money can be used to build a religious sanctuary or an altar has consistently been held unconstitutional.”
The American Civil Liberties Union agreed, saying it was a bedrock principle of constitutional law that “taxpayer funds cannot go to construct, rebuild or repair buildings used for religious activities.”
This is just another attempt to breach the American wall between church and state, and give unconscionable and unconstitutional privilege to religion.
If you choose to write or call your Senator, who will be voting on the bill soon, you can find his/her contact information here; the bill is H. R. 592. I expect that the Freedom from Religion Foundation will have something to say about this.
The intertoobz has spoken: kittehs rool! By an online poll, a cat has replaced the iron as a new Monopoly playing piece. The Scottie dog’s nemesis now joins him in battle on the board itself, and a cosmic imbalance has been rectified. (I never knew why an iron was a playing piece– makes no sense to me.) Thanks to all WEIT readers who helped make this sensible and long overdue action a reality.
It is my sad duty to report to you that Stewie, the Guinness-certified world’s longest cat (1.23 m, nose to tail tip; also the longest tail, 41.5 cm) has died of cancer at the age of eight. He was a therapy cat, and I’m sure will be missed by his owners and patients.
Thank goodness I have loyal readers who call my attention to heartwarming animal stories, like that of a curious English tabby named Alphie who swallowed a television antenna. And thank goodness as well that Alphie is fine. As the Guardian reports:
A kitten has survived after swallowing a 15cm (6in) TV aerial.
Alphie required emergency surgery when the metal antenna became lodged in his oesophagus and stomach.
Vanessa Waite, of , Sheffield, had only owned the young tabby for a few days when he started his love affair with the TV. She said he would sit for a long time, mesmerised by the moving pictures on the screen, but she had no idea he had developed an unhealthy obsession with the aerial.
“One night I heard a loud bang and went upstairs to investigate, but I assumed Alphie had fallen off the window sill. He seemed OK and was just hiding under the bed. However, during the night he was being sick so the next morning I took him to the PDSA. It wasn’t until later that I realised that one of the aerial antennas was missing from my TV.”
The aerial would have proved fatal if it remained inside the kitten, so surgeons removed it through his stomach.
The X-ray evidence:
Photo by PDSA/PA.
The PDSA, whatever that is, saved Alphie’s life:
Liz Airey, senior veterinary surgeon at the PDSA Sheffield PetAid hospital, said it was one of the most unusual cases she had come across.
“It’s very rare,” she said. “We did have a case a few years ago when a dog ate a tent peg but it’s very unusual for such a solid object to be swallowed in this way. It seems as though the kitten had been playing with the antenna and inadvertently swallowed it which is a very unusual accident.
“It’s fortunate that he didn’t swallow it the other way round as the sharp broken end could have punctured his stomach and caused damage to his intestines, which could have been fatal.”
Lucky Alphie with the removed antenna:
But this moggie is bad! As his owner said:
“When he came home it was like nothing had happened – it definitely hasn’t taught him any lessons. He’s a real handful and I have to watch him all the time because he’ll try and stick anything in his mouth. He still loves the TV too but I don’t leave him alone with it anymore.”
