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.
The Crested Caracara (Caracara cheriway), a member or the Falcon family, is T.M. Goodwin’s “feel good” character. One cannot but smile broadly when viewing this incredible bird. It looks like a hawk with its talons and sharp beak, behaves like a vulture with its taste for carrion, and yet is a large black and white falcon. This individual is a juvenile which I imaged alongside a Turkey Vulture over a small piece of carrion.
American Kestrel
In my opinion, the most beautiful raptor is the American Kestrel (Falco sparverius). I developed a one-way relationship with an individual I could depend on appearing at a particular location when making my weekly visit to T.M. Goodwin. It would migrate north every spring but return to the same location every autumn. I actually mourned when he did not show up this year after 3 years.
Merlin
A rarity at Goodwin, the Merlin (Falco columbarius) is a small but fierce raptor. A favorite of female medieval falconers, Merlins have been known to team up with other individuals to hunt waxwings. One attacks from below while the other waits to take advantage of the confusion. Unfortunately I have never been able to get closer than 40 meters to any individual. These images are from 45- 50 meters.
Swallow-tailed Kites
Late August and September bring the easily identifiable Swallow-tailed Kite (Elanoides forficatus) to Goodwin’s Broadmoor Marshes. They breed in swamps, lowland forests, and marshes—primarily in South Carolina and Florida. Swallow-tailed Kites hunt on the wing for tree frogs, lizards, small fish and flying insects. At Goodwin they are known for picking caterpillars off the vegetation.
With its deeply forked tail and black-and-white plumage, it is hard to miss over Goodwin. It glides through the sky using a twist of its forked tail to maneuver. In the air, it chases dragonflies and other flying insects. After rearing its young in a treetop nest, the kite migrates to wintering grounds in South America.
One more day before the weekend begins, as today is Thursday, April 11, 2019: the 101st day of the year. It’s National Cheese Fondue Day, another instance of cultural appropriation, but I haven’t had the dish and years and would love some, despite my transgression. And it’s International Louie Louie Day, celebrating that hard-to-understand song made famous by the Kingsmen’s version in 1963. But it was written by Richard Berry in 1955, and he was born on this day in 1935.
Berry’s version was in a calypso style, and others reworked it without giving him credit. After the Kingsmen’s version made the song famous, Berry sued and got over a million dollars in recompense. Here’s Berry’s original, recorded in 1957. If you’re as old as I, you’ll remember that the words in the Kingsmen’s version, which were nearly impossible to understand, were often interpreted as obscene.
Today’s Google Doodle is a cool gif of. . . .well, you can see for yourself (click on screenshot if you don’t know):
In other news, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London yesterday after Ecuador withdrew its offer of asylum. He’s now in British custody facing bond-violation charges, but will almost surely be extradited to the U.S. to face charges of leaking classified documents. He’s been inside the embassy since 2012. I believe he has a cat, but that doesn’t exculpate him.
On this day in 1727, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion premiered in Leipzig. On April 11, 1945, American forces liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. Here’s a picture taken after liberation; it’s famous because Elie Wiesel (writer and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate) is in it (he’s in the second row of bunks, seventh from the left, next to the vertical beam).
On this day in 1951, during the Korean War, President Truman fired General of the Army Douglas MacArthur from his command in Korea, as MacArthur had made statements contradicting the administration’s war policy. That same year MacArthur gave his “Old Soldiers Never Die” speech and retired. Exactly six years after MacArthur’s firing, the UK agreed to allow Singapore to have self-rule. And four years after that, in 1961, the trial of Adolf Eichmann began in Jerusalem.
On April 11, 1976, the Apple 1 computer was created. Here it is—a version in the Smithsonian that’s undoubtedly worth a pile of money. And how far we’ve come! At the time it cost $666.66 (was that a bizarre joke), which was the equivalent then of $2,935. Prices have dropped!
Finally, it was on April 11, 1979, that Ugandan dictator Idi Amin was deposed. He was given refuge in Saudi Arabia, where he lived until his death in 2003.
Notables born on this day include Leo Rosten (1908), Ellen Goodman (1941), John Krebs (1945), and June and Jennifer Gibbons (“The Silent Twins”, 1963). The twins are a very bizarre story that you can see in this hourlong documentary. If you have time, it’s well worth watching:
Those who expired on April 11 include Joseph Merrick (the “Elephant Man”, 1890), Luther Burbank (1926), Primo Levi (1987), Kurt Vonnegut (2007), Jonathan Winters (2013), and J. Geils (2017).
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is obsessed with a bizarre idea. Malgorzata explains:
Hili got this strange idea that tigers have hollows in the trees , exactly like woodpeckers do. Nothing we say can convince her otherwise. She is looking for tiger hollows all over the garden and the orchard.
The dialogue (note that her two front paws are in the air):
A: What are you looking for?
Hili: A tiger’s hollow.
In Polish:
Ja: Czego tam szukasz?
Hili: Dziupli tygrysa.
A tweet from reader Barry (also sent by Gravelinspector), showing that mountain lions aren’t nearly as good as cats at playing the shell game:
Tweets from Grania, a special edition featuring the black hole photo announced yesterday. All I can say is that I’m glad I was alive to see this: a long-standing prediction that was confirmed visually yesterday. (Of course, the press was wrong when they said that it was just a hypothesis until we saw the photo.)
In a historic feat by @EHTelescope & @NSF, a black hole image has been captured for the 1st time. Several of our missions observed the same black hole using different light wavelengths and collected data to understand the black hole's environment. Details: https://t.co/WOjLdY76vepic.twitter.com/4PhH1bfHxc
As a student at MIT and then a postdoc at Harvard, Katie Bouman developed the algorithm that made this image possible. The Guardian reports that it took HALF A TON OF HARD DRIVES shipped to her to get the final image (see here). Bouman now has a well deserved assistant professorship at CalTech.
The Ironclad beetle (Zopherus jansoni/jourdani) from the cloud forest of Costa Rica. Their exoskeleton is extremely hard, permeated with calcium carbonate, iron oxide, and other minerals. BTW, thank you all for reviews of my book "Hidden Kingdom" https://t.co/1Zo7jf4r1fpic.twitter.com/J79RTqDFNU
And do check out these books recommended by Jim Al-Khalili (I’ve read only two):
"Quantum mechanics is hugely accurate but says an atom can be in two places at once. We’ve learned to live with that" Professor of theoretical physics @jimalkhalili explores the best books on the atom: https://t.co/tlDb6ySuvC
I guess Spring has come to Idaho, for Stephen Barnard, on his big plot of land on Silver Creek, reports an influx of mallards. He sent some lovely photos, and his notes are indented:
Some photos of your favorite duck species: Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos)
A small flock flew into the creek in pretty good light (for a change). There were seven ducks: six drakes and one hen. The hen was obviously paired with a single drake. I name them Bubba and Sheila. (first photo)
The other five drakes were obviously jealous of Bubba and up to no good. Bubba was having none of it, keeping between them and Sheila, even while Sheila was acting up, apparently egging on the other drakes. (Apologies for my anthropomorphism.) I expected fireworks any moment, but they swam off peacefully feeding, for the time being.
Sheila will very likely nest here. She’d better watch out for the mink.
I hope that mink minds his business! Here are the photos:
This is the way a pro-free-speech University should deal with people who try to disrupt or shut down a talk on campus. A lot of schools would have simply let disruptive protestors continue their disruption and eventually stop the talk, but, in accordance with the University of Chicago’s policy on free expression and the specified disciplinary provisions, they were removed from the venue.
This took place yesterday when visiting professor Eugene Kontorovich, a professor of law at George Mason University, a staunch opponent of boycotts of Israel, and a defender of the legality of Israel’s West Bank Settlements, came to our Law School to talk about—and oppose—the BDS movement. Kontorovich’s views would naturally rile up many on the anti-Israel Left, and so some protestors (apparently not students) disrupted his talk.
You can read the story in the student newspaper, The Chicago Maroon (click on the screenshot below):
Here’s how the University handled the situation (“Todd” is Charles Todd, the Dean of Students at the Law School) :
The protesters—who identified themselves as part of Jewish Voice for Peace—entered the public event and sat in the back of the room, according to law students attending the talk.
The protesters handed out pro–BDS literature calling for political action in response to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Minutes later, several more protesters entered with a Palestinian flag and and a sign that read “No occupation, end apartheid, right of return.” They began chanting, “Free, free Palestine, protesting is not a crime.”
Todd then arrived and repeatedly asked the protesters to stop chanting or to leave the room, he said in his e-mail.
The UCPD then arrived on the scene to remove the protesters from the event. Three of the protesters were escorted from the room by UCPD officers and were held outside the doors of the event while their license information was recorded. During this time, protesters displayed [sic] continued to hold the Palestinian flag and the sign.
The protesters were then issued trespass warnings, according to Todd’s email, and asked to leave the Law School.
This is completely in accord with the University’s policy on disruptive conduct, which spells out in great detail how the school deals with disruptive conduct by both students and non-students. Student disruption can be punished by a variety of sanctions up to expulsion, something the students in general don’t like. Many have opposed any punishment for disrupting talks, something that of course would lead to chaos and the end of free speech at this university.
In fact, some students present at this event apparently wanted the disruption to proceed, and argued that removing protestors is itself a violation of free speech. This view is ridiculous, and again shows that many students have no idea what “free speech” really is:
Several students who witnessed the incident expressed frustration with the presence of police officers in the Law School and questioned the University’s application of its free speech policy by allowing the protesters to be removed.
. . . A first-year law student who spoke with Todd following the protest expressed his frustration with the UCPD presence in the Law School. He said that after talks in which administrators promised to reform their protocol, reforms were either not put in place or not carried out.
“Our takeaway was that [Todd] endorsed what happened,” the student said.
The student went on to say that given the nature of Kontorovich’s talk on the First Amendment, he felt as though, “This runs counter to the fact that all these lunch talks are open to the public, and that we are reportedly told that we should fight bad speech with good speech.”
Todd, while he didn’t call the police, did in fact endorse what happened, as he should have. In an email to law students, he said this (among other things):
“This chanting did violate the University’s policies. It is the right of any speaker invited to our campus to be heard and for all who choose to be present to hear the speaker. Moreover, it is the right of members of the audience to ask tough questions of those speakers. The heckler’s veto is contrary to our principles. Protests that prevent a speaker from being heard limit the freedoms of other students to listen, engage, and learn.”
Good for Todd!
As for “fighting bad speech with good speech” as a rationale for disruption, that’s just bogus. You give your “good speech” in another place, or outside the venue. Otherwise, the “bad speech” doesn’t even get heard. Can’t a first-year law student understand that? Or was that student disingenuous enough to try to turn the University’s policy back on itself in this tortuous way?
At any rate, it would be salutary for all universities to adopt this policy. Ask disrupting students or non-students to desist, and, if they don’t and persist in their disruption, bring in the University police and toss their sorry tuchases out. If they’re students, take names and punish them if they do it more than once. This is the only way to ensure that freedom of expression is protected on campus.
I note again, as I have several times before, that the Chicago Maroon has never taken a stand on free speech at my school; and they are a newspaper! I suspect that many of the editors are invertebrates. They should be writing editorials explaining free speech and how to engage in non-disruptive protest, but they say nothing. They should be ashamed of themselves.
I’m back from the dentist, and you’ll all be pleased to know that I’m in perfect dental health (the mental health, however, is more dubious). When I returned, I found an email that my sister Susan sent me on National Siblings Day. It’s the two of us as kids, and I suspect it was taken in our garden in Kiffisia, Greece, a ritzy suburb of Athens, where we had a big house and a big garden (two gardeners!). In those lean postwar years in Greece, an Army captain could afford such digs (my dad was stationed in Athens for 2½ years).
I’d guess this would have been about 1956, when I was around six and my sister about four. And we’re wearing matching Davy Crockett tee shirts. Those were the days!
Happy Siblings Day, sis!!!
And Susan also reminded me that today would have been my mother’s 100th birthday. She sent this picture of my mom holding one of her cherry breads: our equivalent to the despiséd fruitcake. My sister’s comment:
Today would’ve been Mom’s 100th birthday!! What does that make us??!! Remember the big hair and the damn cherry breads?!
It makes us OLD, of course, but although I miss my mom, I don’t miss big hair and I especially don’t miss the cherry breads!
As I mentioned yesterday, today is the day that the Event Horizon Telescope team will announce “a major discovery”, which will almost certainly include the first photographic image of a black hole.
The announcement will be livestreamed at 9 a.m. Eastern Time in the US or 1300 GMT. Sadly, I’ll be on my way to the dentist’s for my semiannual tooth cleaning, and will have to miss this, but you don’t have to. Just go to the YouTube site below just before the times noted above, and you’ll see this exciting announcement.
I’ll watch it afterwards, but it won’t have the emotional impact of the live announcement. So it goes.
