Cuttlefish mimics hermit crab

June 13, 2017 • 12:30 pm

I talk a lot about mimicry on this site, and I’ve explained why: it’s good evidence for natural selection, poses testable hypotheses, and, not least, provides some amazing examples of the power of natural selection—especially because in many cases of mimicry we can identify the “target of selection”: the optimum phenotype that provides the greatest fitness. And these cases often show that the target is pretty well hit: see many examples here.

Here’s a pretty amazing one I didn’t know about, but was spotted by Matthew Cobb on Twi**er. It’s a cuttlefish that mimics a hermit crab. Or at least that’s what it seems to be doing.

Here’s a longer video from National Geographic, clearly showing that the cuttlefish mimics the crab’s shell, its antennae, and its claws. The last minute of this 2-minute video offers the hypotheses (camouflage from prey or prdators) and the situations in which the mollusks do this. But is it learned or in the genes? The video doesn’t tell us.

 

It’s the Pharaoh Cuttlefish, Sepia pharonis. Wikipedia explains how they change color:

Pharaoh cuttlefish often show a solid color when resting on a solid color background, alternating from a pale white to all dark brown. Additionally, they can show a mottled white and brown color, with a center circle of brown. The mechanism for color is the same in the Pharaoh cuttlefish as it is in other cuttlefish. This colour-changing function is produced by groups of red, yellow, brown, and black pigmented chromatophores above a layer of reflective blue and green tinted iridophores and leucophores, with up to 200 of these specialized pigment cells per square millimeter. These sacs of color are controlled by rings of muscle around the sac. The cuttlefish expands and contracts these muscle rings in order to show different colors.

Israeli Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman poses a dilemma for regressives: feminism vs. Israeli “genocide”?

June 13, 2017 • 11:30 am

The enormous financial success of the “Wonder Woman” movie has created another dilemma for regressive leftists. On the one hand, it’s a highly rated action movie that stars a woman and was directed by a woman. Chalk one up for feminism, and I’m glad for that. But on the other hand, it was soon ferreted out that Gadot is not only Israeli, but served (as all non-Orthodox Israelis save Arabs must) in the Israeli Defense Forces, (IDF). Not only that, but Gadot has the temerity to be proud to be an Israeli, and she has criticized the terrorist organization Hamas.

Well, that just won’t do to that part of the Left (most of it, I suppose) that is pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel. What is a Lefty to do when there’s a conflict of this sort? As with the dilemma of supporting Muslims who oppress women, gays, and apostates, many side with religion and ignore its antifeminist bits. Slate explains the problem:

Gadot herself has proudly discussed her experience in the IDF, touting her combat training in interviews as helpful in preparing for the role. (A decade ago, she participated in a Maxim feature on women of the IDF, “the world’s sexiest soldiers.”) She has also been outspoken in her political support for her country. In 2014, as the Gaza conflict escalated, she posted a message of support to her official Facebook page. “I am sending my love and prayers to my fellow Israeli citizens,” she wrote, next to a photo of herself praying with her young daughter. “Especially to all the boys and girls who are risking their lives protecting my country against the horrific acts conducted by Hamas, who are hiding like cowards behind women and children…We shall overcome!!! Shabbat Shalom! #weareright #freegazafromhamas #stopterror #coexistance #loveidf.”

The movie was banned in Tunisia and Lebanon because Gadot is Israeli (Lebanon is still formally at war with Israel); and various social media outlets, like Al-Jazeera, sees the movie as a metaphor for Israeli colonialism. Click on the screenshot:

A quote from that piece (my emphasis):

But Gaza is not just the largest open air prison in which Israelis have incarcerated some 1.8 million human beings. Gaza is also the moral measure of our humanity at large. If you are utterly enjoying this particular Wonder Woman as a role model for your daughters in a theatre near you and could not care less about a young Palestinian girl mourning her family in Gaza whom the woman portraying your superhero helped kill, then all the power to you. You need not bother to know that in this film Gal Gadot does not just personify Wonder Woman, but alas Wonder Woman disappears into Gal Gadot.

The time that Hollywood could shove its superheroes down the world’s throat and perpetuate delusion of truth in purposeful lies is over. Today, the world talks, walks, defies, imagines, and stages back against Hollywood and its dysfunctional mythologies that try to normalise the colonial thieveries of reason and decency. It was a strategic blunder to cast a settler colonial officer as a superhero woman who cares about humanity. 

These days, it seems, every actor is vetted for Political Purity when they play a role.

Here’s a tw**t calling for a boycott:

And from Middle East Eye, the home of C. J. W*rl*m*n (my emphasis):

However, in most cases, the actor must be separated from the character they are playing. Nevertheless, even as we distinguish between actor and character, one can criticise the actor for their personal politics. And it is time to let actors know we will hold them accountable for normalising anti-Palestinian violence, regardless of their nationality.

Beyond the criteria for BDS, one is free to boycott products or individuals one disapproves of. Consumers do that every day, by choosing not to shop at certain stores, because of their labour practices, by choosing to be vegetarian because of the inhumane treatment of animals, or by choosing not to drive certain cars that are gas guzzlers, out of concern for the environment.

Explaining the reasons for such choices is critically important. As such, one can explain that one does not wish to view Wonder Woman because the central character, a hero out to save the world, is played by a woman who cheers on genocide.

There are other tw**ts and the like, but I’ll let you find them, and they will eventually cause huge cognitive dissonance: a feminist icon who served in the Israeli army? What’s a Leftist to do? Grania sent me her thoughts:

Yeah, I’ve noticed this story brewing. Part of me has a quiet dark chuckle at the existential angst from those who have been championing this superhero flick as the new feminist icon of the year only to find that *gasp* she is badly tainted in the eyes of the school of Intersectional Purity. What’s a woke fem to do?

The joyous adulation from the usual suspects about the film makes one think that these young ‘uns were literally born last year and genuinely can’t remember EVER having seen a woman in a movie before y’all.

Gadot has in the past uttered anti-Hamas sentiments (seriously, when did Hamas become the victim?). See here  or here.

Sometimes a movie is just a movie. If this one inspires girls, more power to it. But since there’s an Israel connection, it simply has to be more than a movie. It must be an endorsement of “genocide.” God forbid that Lebanese children might see it; what would they think?

The New Republic goes down the rabbit hole: argues that Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Asra Nomani as “worst possible ‘experts’ on Islam”

June 13, 2017 • 10:15 am

I used to write a lot for The New Republic (TNR), and enjoyed it. Then they changed ownership (with most of its staff resigning), reduced the frequency of the paper edition, and became, well, boring. . . just another political site (granted, a left-wing one), lacking the cultural and literary pieces that help give it its reputation. (Remember that the great literary critic Edmund Wilson was once TNR’s literary editor,  helped popularize figures like James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and was a major figure in refining America’s literary tastes and increasing its appetite for good literature.)

That’s no more. The magazine has become almost irrelevant (when was the last time you looked at a New Republic piece?) and has acquired regressive leftist tendencies.

Some of these are on view in Sarah Jones’s untitled “Minutes” column in yesterday’s TNR. (Remember that, unlike HuffPo bloggers, this magazine actually pays people to write, so there should at least be some editorial oversight.)

Jones doesn’t consider either Nomani, a practicing Muslim who fought against women’s inequality at her mosque, and Hirsi Ali, an ex-Muslim raised firmly in the faith (which she left with enormous courage and force of will) qualified to testify on violent extremism. Remember too that Hirsi Ali is the victim of that extremism, and still lives under bodyguard. But Jones says this:

The Senate is about to hear from two of the worst possible “experts” on Islam.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Asra Nomani, who typically refer to themselves as proponents of Muslim “reform,” will testify at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee hearing on “Ideology and Terror: Understanding the Tools, Tactics, and Techniques of Violent Extremism.” This apparently only refers to extremism of the Muslim variety—one wonders when we will get a hearing on the alt-right—and the presence of Hirsi Ali and Nomani sends a disturbing message about the motivations of the committee’s Republican members.

Well, not everybody is an expert in every form of religiously-motivated extremism. Who do they want to testify: Karen Armstrong and Reza Aslan, who simply deny that religion plays a role in violence? Or do they want one of those bearded, Qu’ran-clutching imams in the West who talk out of both sides of their mouths—one way to their followers, another to the press? Or maybe Linda Sarsour, the hijabi who pushes sharia law as a good thing?

No, for Nomani voted for Trump, which completely disqualifies her as able to say anything about extremism. And doesn’t Jones know that Hirsi Ali’s latest book, Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now,  offers five peaceful and rational (though not very workable) solutions on how to tame the extremist form of the faith?

Nope; both women are smeared with anecdotes, to the point where they’re simply not worth hearing. Hirsi Ali is again demonized with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s ludicrous judgment that she (along with Maajid Nawaz) is an “anti-Muslim extremist.” Jones concludes that they’re “unreliable”, though I’m not sure what that means:

Hirsi Ali and Nomani aren’t reliable witnesses, and their extreme views ought to disqualify them from any platform dependent on expertise. On Wednesday, they’ll simply tell Senate Republicans exactly what they want to hear about Islam. It won’t be factual, but for Republicans, it won’t matter.

What does it take for these women’s testimony to be taken seriously? Nothing, I suppose, for the Regressive Left has damned them as beyond consideration. They have violated the Purity Test.

Granted, many Republicans are anti-Muslim bigots, but my feeling is what these women have to say is well worth hearing and considering. Pity that they have been written off permanently by The New Republic. As one of my friends said, “The New Republic is the New Salon.”

_____________________

UPDATE: Sarah Jones is the “Social Media editor” of the New Republic, and she seems, well, a bit of a hotheaded Regressive. One of her social media emissions that disses New Atheism.

Readers’ wildlife photos

June 13, 2017 • 7:30 am

Today’s photos come from reader Karen Bartelt; her notes are indented:

In April my husband and I went to SW Texas, stopping first in Ft Davis.  Not only a good historical site with an old fort, the area had interesting wildlife.
First two photos:  Reakirt’s blues (Echinargus isola), mating and resting.  Ft Davis State Park:
Some sort of (red) lycid beetle.  I had no luck with a more specific ID.  Ft Davis SP:
Bewick’s wren (Thryomanes bewickii); Ft Davis SP.  We watched a pair of these building a nest.
Cactus flower, Sonoran Desert Botanical Garden.
Lesser goldfinches (Spinus psaltria). My only reasonable shot of the (black) male; Ft Davis State Park:
Acorn woodpeckers (Melanerpes formicivorus).  The lowest one was hollowing a nest cavity; no clue what they all were looking at!  Ft Davis SP:

Google Doodle celebrates ICC Cricket Championship

June 13, 2017 • 7:00 am

Today’s interactive Google Doodle celebrates the ICC Champions Trophy, and I have no idea what that is. (I’m sure many readers will!), You can play cricket yourself (as an animal) by simply pressing the button to swing when the ball approaches you, and score runs! I haven’t time to play a lot, but I’ll try later. Watch out for those googlys!

Here’s Google’s explanation:

Ah, summer: the sound of leather on willow, and the spectacle of cricket … cricket! As the tournament begins in the Oval cricket ground, something buzzes outside. A team of crickets sans tickets have set up their own wickets for a game of pest cricket! As they face their archrivals, the snails, it’s sure to be a match for the centuries. Don’t be fooled by their sluggish looks — these fielders can be fast on their feet!

To celebrate the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy, we’re inviting everyone to tap/click and take a swing at our pocket-size game!

We know that cricket is loved worldwide, so we wanted to make sure our Doodle works for everyone, including those on slower mobile networks. We kept the file size fly-sized, and the result is our smallest interactive Doodle ever — even snail networks can load it in seconds.

Go to the game by clicking on the screenshot below:

Curiously, Google’s map of this Doodle’s reach doesn’t reach the US, but I can see it fine. Note that it’s all cricket-loving nations, but. . . Cuba?????

Tuesday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

June 13, 2017 • 6:30 am

Good morning on June 13, 2017, and it’s Cupcake Lover’s Day. The Cupcake Fad has not yet abated in the U.S.,  though I predict it will, for its an excuse to sell cake at outrageous prices. (Mind you, I wouldn’t turn up my nose at a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting!) And, of all things, is is the Feast Day for G. K. Chesterton as ordained by the Episcopal Church.

On this day in 1898, Canada formed the Yukon Territory, decreeing Dawson as its capital, and in 1927, Charles Lindbergh got a ticker-tape parade (no longer possible!) in New York City after his successful solo flight across the Atlantic. On June 13, 1966, the U.S. Supreme court ruled, in Miranda v Arizona, that suspects must be informed of their rights before being questioned. A year later, LBJ nominated Thurgood Marshall to be the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. On June 13, 1970, the Beatles’ “The Long and Winding Road became the group’s last #1 song in the U.S. So sad that they broke up, and I’m not a fan of that song! Finally, on this day in 1971 the New York Times began publishing The Pentagon Papers.

Notables born on this day include W. B. Yeats (1865). Basil Rathbone (1892), Dorothy Sayers (1893), Paavo Nurmi, the “Flying Finn” (1897), Luis Walter Alvarez (1911), Ben “Sam the Lion” Johnson (1918), John Forbes Nash, Jr. (1928), and Ally Sheedy (1962). Those who died on this day include Martin Buber (1965), Benny Goodman (1986), Tim Russert (2008), and Jimmy Dean (2010).

Ben Johnson was a staple of Western movies, but when Peter Bogdanovich brought him back in the movie “The Last Picture Show” (1971; the year I graduated from college), he shone, winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance as Sam the Lion. This may be the best American film I know of. And here’s the best scene: Sam and Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) talking about old times—and old loves—at the fishing tank: a soliloquy that always makes me (a determinist!) tear up for opportunities missed:

I noticed that in his review of this film as a “Great Movie”, Roger Ebert also singles out this scene:

The best scene in “The Last Picture Show” takes place outside town at the “tank,” an unlovely pond that briefly breaks the monotony of the flat Texas prairie. Sam the Lion has taken Sonny and the retarded boy Billy fishing there, even though, as Sonny observes, there ain’t nothing in the tank but turtles. That’s all right with Sam: He doesn’t like fish, doesn’t like to clean them, doesn’t like to smell them. He goes fishing for the scenery.

“Try one?” he says, offering Sonny the makings of a hand-rolled cigarette. And then he begins an wistful monologue, about a time 20 years ago when he brought a girl out to the tank and they swam in it and rode their horses across it and were in love on its banks. The girl had life and fire, but she was already married, and Sam even then was no longer young. As he tells the story, we realize we are listening to the sustaining myth of Sam’s life, the vision of beauty that keeps him going in the dying town of Anarene, Texas.

The scene has a direct inspiration, I believe, for the writer-director, Peter Bogdanovich. I’m sure he was thinking of the monologue in “Citizen Kane” (1941) where old Mr. Bernstein remembers a girl with a parasol who he saw once, 50 years ago, and still cherishes in his memory as a beacon of what could have been.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the cherries are not coming along well because of early freezes and now cold weather. But Hili doesn’t care so long as there is an ample supply of fat mice:

Hili: Field flowers are beautiful.
A: Do you like them?
Hili: In the field you can find field mice among them.
In Polish:
​Hili: Polne kwiaty są piękne.
Ja: Podobają ci się?
Hili: Na polu spotyka się wśród nich polne myszy.​

 

In nearby Wloclawek, Leon is on a walk. Malgorzata explains his monologue:
There is a tiny, biting fly in Leon’s monologue. I’m not sure about the English name for it but according to Wikipedia (Polish) it belongs in a family Simuliidae.
Leon: We can go, I’m protecting the rear against gnats and mosquitos.

Biology question of the day

June 12, 2017 • 5:32 pm

Here it is:

Can kittens be identical twins?

Now cat litters are usually bigger than two, but that doesn’t mean that identical twins or even triplets (which result from the splitting of a single fertilized egg) can’t occur. The only way to test this, of course, is not similarity in appearance–as with Jerry Coyne the Sixth and Not Jerry Coyne, who were littermates–but using genetics: their genomes should be virtually identical.

I’ve done a brief but inconclusive Google search (only about 3 minutes) and don’t have an answer. I throw this one out to the readers–and I’d like genetic evidence.

This of course goes for other animals; some of us already know, though, that nine-banded armadillos always produce identical quadruplets, but I haven’t investigated how often identical twins occur in various animal species. Readers can weigh in here, too.

Yesterday’s lunch

June 12, 2017 • 1:45 pm

From time to time I meet reader Simon—a cancer researcher who moved here from Vanderbilt—to sample the fare of a local restaurant. Yesterday we went to an acclaimed place that specializes in the food of Macau: Fat Rice. The restaurant, on West Diversey Avenue, is hard to spot because the name is very inconspicuous: on the red-and-yellow poster on the door:

It’s a cozy and crowded restaurant. There are tables but we ate at the bar, washing down the food with a few brewskis:
Our meal started with an appetizer: boiled pork and ginger dumplings in Szechuan sauce:

And we split the house speciality, Arroz Gordo (“Fat rice”), a paella-like dish made with curried chicken, barbecued pork, linguica, chilli prawns, clams, croutons, ginger, a leaf I couldn’t identify, and a big pile of rice underneath, which was slightly charred and crunch at the bottom. Delicious! I don’t remember this dish from when I visited Macau last November, so it may be a case of cultural appropriation.