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.
Today we have some lovely insect photos by regular Mark Sturtevant. Mark’s ID’s and captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.
Here are more pictures of insects taken two summers ago from area parks near where I live in eastern Michigan.
First up is a slightly embarrassing accomplishment, which is a decent picture of one of our Sulphur butterflies. Sulphurs are an exceedingly common group with several local species, but for some reason they are extremely wary around me. Anyway, this one was unwary, and I think it is the Orange Sulphur (Colias eurytheme):
Next up is our largest butterfly, the Eastern Giant Swallowtail (Heraclides cresphontes). They are often challenging since they tend to keep their “engines running” (meaning their wings are almost always in motion) when rapidly foraging from flower to flower, but this one paused very briefly:
One of my favorite insects is shown next. This is Anotia uhleri, or what I call the “Flat Derbid”, although this Derbid planthopper has no common name. They can be found in forests sitting on the undersides of leaves. The orange thingies sticking out of the head are stumpy antennae:
I was finding quite a few of these Lacewing egg clusters along a forest trail. Lacewings lay eggs on the ends of long stalks for protection. Having the eggs tied together in a bundle suggests that these are one of our larger Green Lacewing species, Leucochrysa insularis. This species tends to stay in forests, sitting under leaves by day, and like the Derbid above they lay their wings flat.
An occasional visitor to the porchlight at home are Mosquitos of Unusual Size, and one is shown in the next picture. I was eventually able to identify this giant mosquito as the Gallnipper, Psorophora ciliata. This one is a female. Although she will require a blood meal to reproduce, and they are described as being rather aggressive in pursuit of humans, a relatively good thing about them is that the larvae are predatory on other mosquito larvae. I have pictures coming up later that compares one of these beasts to a regular mosquito, but for now the attached picture can give some idea:
The next three pictures show a surprise, but the story starts out unremarkably. The beetles foraging on flower pollen are Brown Blister Beetles, Zonitis vittigera. Blister Beetles are a large family, and are so-named because they are chemically protected by exuding an irritating fluid if annoyed. It is relevant to point out that they have interesting biology in that they grow up as parasites on other insects, usually on bees. The mobile first instar larvae are called triungulin larvae, and they start their journey by clambering up onto flowers and wait for a bee to visit. Once the flower is visited by their intended target, they hitch a ride to the nest where they move in and eat the bee provisions and even bee larvae:
I almost did not bother processing the 2nd picture because it had motion-blur, though the composition was nice. But do you see the tiny things on the thorax of the beetle? The 3rd picture provides a blow-up. Those little things are Blister Beetle triungulin larvae! Possibly not this species, though. So, what is going on? I have sent these pictures on to a Blister Beetle Facebook group and to iNaturalist to ask for opinions. There is no answer yet, but possibly the larvae attach to any insect visitor. Although non-bee visitors would be temporary dead-ends, one can imagine that this would at least disperse them to other flowers:
Finally, here are pictures of our most common Sand Wasp, which is the Four-banded Stink Bug Wasp (Bicyrtes quadrifasciatus). Females of these highly energetic wasps will provision a burrow with paralyzed stink bugs, and these are used to raise the next generation of wasps. In the first picture you can see the spray of sand being flung out as she excavates her burrow:
Welcome to Thursday, May 15, 2025, and International Conscientious Objectors Day. I was one of these, and applied for I-O status in 1970. My draft number in 1971 was 3!. I vowed to go to jail rather than fight in Vietnam, which I saw as a useless and unjust war in which the U.S. was not defending itself. Fortunately, I got a 2-S (CO) status without evan an examination (I had a history of antiwar work). So, I did my CO work in a NYC hospital for 13 months until I found I had been “drafted” illegally (they drafted COs from the class of 1971 but no soldiers, which violated the draft law). With the help of the ACLU, I initiated a class action suit (Coyne et al. v Nixon et al,) and we won in NY federal court. We were released (the class was, as I recall, about 2500 COs all told), but of course not compensated, as we were allowed to earn no more than a GI ( about $6000 per year) but had to pay for our own food and housing. Then I was free to go to graduate school, but that is another story, and a long one. . . .
Republican lawmakers on Tuesday expressed national-security concerns over the proposed $400 million plane that the Qatari royal family wants to give to the U.S. for use as Air Force One, offering rare GOP resistance to a venture backed by President Trump.
Many of the Republicans who expressed doubts serve on congressional committees that oversee the nation’s armed services and intelligence agencies. They said that the White House would be subject to a battery of questions regarding security if the transfer goes forward. They noted that scrubbing the plane for foreign surveillance technology would be a costly and laborious process and questioned whether the Qatari plane would have necessary capabilities—like being able to refuel midair—or carry the advanced technology needed for an airborne command center.
Several suggested that President Trump and the White House might rethink the offer.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) stressed Tuesday afternoon that nothing was official yet and predicted there would be “plenty of scrutiny” around the arrangement should it move forward. “There are lots of issues around that that I think will attract very serious questions if and when it happens,” Thune said.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) stressed Tuesday afternoon that nothing was official yet and predicted there would be “plenty of scrutiny” around the arrangement should it move forward. “There are lots of issues around that that I think will attract very serious questions if and when it happens,” Thune said.
Trump also has faced some criticism over the deal from conservative commentators: Ben Shapiro characterized the idea as “skeezy,” and influencer Laura Loomer took aim at Qatar via social media saying “we cannot accept a $400 million ‘gift’ from jihadists in suits.”
The objections voiced by GOP lawmakers also are noteworthy given that Trump is currently on an overseas trip to the Middle East. He is set to be in Qatar for a state visit on Wednesday, and the blowback at home about the gift threatens to overshadow the trip.
And it looks as if the plane will sort of belong to Trump after his term is over, as it reverts to the Trump Presidential Library. What will happen then? Will it no longer fly? Will it be used to ferry documents and books back and forth? No, this is very bad optics, and you know it’s bad when even Republicans criticize it. And to prevent eavesdropping, they’d have to take the whole damn plane apart to see if the Qataris have put listening devices in it. It’s not like they’re even a friendly state, though they pretend to be.
*Here’s Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Pretty clear, no?
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
That looks like Trump’s “birthright ban” for children of immigrants is palpably unconstitutional. But yet. . . . .
Shortly after the Supreme Court announced in April that it would consider the nationwide freeze on President Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship, he gleefully spoke to reporters in the Oval Office.
Mr. Trump said that he was “so happy” the justices would take up the citizenship issue because it had been “so misunderstood.” The 14th Amendment, he said — long held to grant citizenship to anyone born in the United States — is actually “about slavery.”
“That’s not about tourists coming in and touching a piece of sand and then all of the sudden there’s citizenship,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “That is all about slavery.”
For more than a century, most scholars and the courts have agreed that though the 14th Amendment was added to the Constitution after the Civil War, it was not, in fact, all about slavery. Instead, courts have held that the amendment extended citizenship not just to the children of former slaves but also to babies born within the borders of the United States.
. . . The story of how the theory [that it was about slavery] moved from the far edges of academia to the Oval Office and, on Thursday, to the Supreme Court, offers insight into how Mr. Trump has popularized legal theories once considered unthinkable to justify his immigration policies.
“They have been pushing it for decades,” said John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and a top lawyer in the George W. Bush administration. “It was thought to be a wacky idea that only political philosophers would buy. They’ve finally got a president who agrees.”
The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
So far, courts have agreed. Judges in Washington State, Massachusetts and Maryland quickly instituted nationwide pauses on Mr. Trump’s policy.
Attorney General Andrea Campbell of Massachusetts spoke out in February against Mr. Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship. Massachusetts joined Maryland and Washington State in instituting nationwide pauses on the policy.Credit…David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe, via Getty Images
In oral arguments this week, the justices will primarily consider whether federal judges have the power to order these temporary pauses, known as nationwide injunctions. But the question of birthright citizenship will form the backdrop.
If the Supreme Court can’t rule on the Constitution like this, but merely throws the case back to federal judges, it’s a total abnegation of their task: to rule on the constitutionality of law. Individual states can’t make conflicting criteria for citizenship. Trump was wrong, and I’m betting he loses this one.
*The IDF has been trying to get Muhammad Sinwar, the younger brother of now-extinct Yahya Sinwar, who was the military head of Hamas. Muhammad is a top Hamas official, if not the top Hamas official, and has eluded numerous attempts to kill him:
Like his elder brother, Muhammad Sinwar has long been wanted by the Israeli authorities. He is said to have been targeted in six assassination attempts by 2021.
In 2014, the Israeli military believed that it had killed the younger Mr. Sinwar, only to discover that he had survived. In late 2023, the Israeli military said on social media that it had searched his office in a raid on a Hamas military post and training compound in Gaza, “where military doctrine documents were located.”
But both Sinwar brothers continued to elude Israel, until Yahya, then the political leader of Hamas, was killed by the Israeli military in October.
In a 2022 interview with Al Jazeera, it was reported that Muhammad was so elusive that he would not be recognized by most people in Gaza, and had even missed his father’s funeral to maintain secrecy about his whereabouts.
He is believed to have spent much of the war underground in an effort to escape Israeli airstrikes. But in recent months, he had been seen aboveground in Khan Younis, including at Nasser Hospital, according to a Middle Eastern intelligence official.
The Jerusalem Post and BBC both report that the IDF struck a meeting in a hospital in Khan Younis, a meeting reportedly involving top Hamas officials.
The IDF on Tuesday attempted to assassinate Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar in a strike on the European Hospital in Khan Yunis in Gaza, sources told The Jerusalem Post.
The military may have used a bunker buster bomb in their attempted attack against Sinwar, defense sources told the Post.
Following the initial attack, the IDF reportedly struck the area where Sinwar was allegedly located a second time, with the objective of preventing the evacuation of casualties, Israeli public broadcaster KAN reported.
Israel reportedly did not update the US prior to the assassination attempt, a source familiar with the details told Ynet. According to the report, the strike was the result of a “sudden opportunity,” leading to no time to inform the Americans or consider the timing of US President Donald Trump’s speech in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
“We will not allow the Hamas terrorist organization to use hospitals and humanitarian facilities in Gaza as shelters and terrorist headquarters,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said. “We will pursue them and their leaders and strike them everywhere.”
It’s not yet clear if they got Sinwar, and it’s won’t be believable until the IDF reports it (they haven’t). And even if they did, it’s not at all sure that Hamas will be appreciably weakened with his death, for if he does go to the Virgins in the Sky, another leader may step forward to replace him. But it’s now seems clear that Hamas is losing, and will be clearer when the IDF conducts its promised intensified warfare after Trump leaves the Middle East.
There were 30,000 fewer U.S. drug overdose deaths in 2024 than the year before — the largest one-year decline ever recorded.
An estimated 80,000 people died from overdoses last year, according to provisional Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data released Wednesday. That’s down 27% from the 110,000 in 2023.
The CDC has been collecting comparable data for 45 years. The previous largest one-year drop was 4% in 2018, according to the agency’s National Center for Health Statistics.
All but two states saw declines last year, with Nevada and South Dakota experiencing small increases. Some of the biggest drops were in Ohio, West Virginia and other states that have been hard-hit in the nation’s decades-long overdose epidemic.
Experts say more research needs to be done to understand what drove the reduction, but they mention several possible factors. Among the most cited:
— Increased availability of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone.
— The growing impact of billions of dollars in opioid lawsuit settlement money.
— The number of at-risk Americans is shrinking, after waves of deaths in older adults and a shift in teens and younger adults away from the drugs that cause most deaths.
Still, overdose deaths are still higher than they were during the pandemic, and death rates have fluctuated before. Still, we now have Naloxone, which every first responder should be carrying:
Experts note that there have been past moments when U.S. overdose deaths seemed to have plateaued or even started to go down, only to rise again. That happened in 2018.
But there are reasons to be optimistic.
Naloxone has become more widely available, in part because of the introduction of over-the-counter versions that don’t require prescriptions.
Meanwhile, drug manufacturers, distributors, pharmacy chains and other businesses have settled lawsuits with state and local governments over the painkillers that were a main driver of overdose deaths in the past. The deals over the last decade or so have promised about $50 billion over time, with most of it required to be used to fight addiction.
If you want to see how serious the opioid crisis is, how addictive they are, and how some pharma companies tried to make them more addictive, read Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe: It’s really about one family’s nefarious deeds pushing opioids, but I found it a fantastic read. And the Sacklers still didn’t suffer much for all they did.
*Finally, Matthew brought my attention to a Guardian article about a duck being caught by a Swiss speed camera, and it was likely a repeat offender. Yes, ducks can fly quickly, and this was a mallard drake.
A radar image of a speed offender caught in central Switzerland last month has revealed that the culprit was not only a duck but probably a repeat offender, local authorities have said.
Police in the town of Köniz, near Bern, were astounded when they went through radar images snapped on 13 April to discover that a mallard was among those caught in the speed trap, the municipality said on its Facebook page at the weekend.
The duck was caught going 52km/h (32mph) in a 30-km/h zone, the post said.
That’s reckless flying!
The story, first reported by the Berner Zeitung newspaper on Monday, got even stranger.
It turned out that a similar-looking duck was captured flying in the same spot at exactly the same speed, on exactly the same date seven years earlier, the Facebook post said.
The municipality said it had considered whether the whole thing might not be a belated April Fool’s joke or a “fake” picture.
But the police inspectorate said it was impossible to doctor images or manipulate the radar system.
The computers are calibrated and tested each year by Switzerland’s federal institute of metrology, and the photos taken are sealed, the municipality said.
Lock him up! Here’s the photo, credited to: Gemeinde Köniz/Facebook:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the boys have a botanical exchange:
Masih is still recovering from her operation, but here’s a tweet retweeted by JKR. I can’t embed it but you can go to it by clicking on the screenshot, and you can read the letter here. The BBC is accused of being homophobic!
Simon says this is “hilarious if true”, but I simply can’t believe it. Readers–help!
From my feed. Turkey loves its cats, and this vending machine apparently dispenses cat food when it hears a meow. Now seagulls are trying to game the system.
There is a food vending machine for cats in Turkey, the seagulls meow pretending to be cats pic.twitter.com/F0mhnqY2Pg
Two posts from Dr. Cobb, who is recovering from both a chest infection and respiratory virus. But he’s getting better! First, a little crab stole some food from the big one. Sound up to hear the Spanish:
Libidoclaea granaria 🦀 from @schmidtocean.bsky.social dive 741 #ChileMargin2024 #MarineLife
Matthew says this about the tweet, which starts a thread: “I briefly felt well enough last night to pen this Wodehousian thread (inspired by listening to a lot of BBC Jeeves dramatisations, which is only vaguely droll if you know the Jeeves books and also UK WW2 literature
What did Bertie Wooster get up to in WW2? He was 24 when he employed Jeeves (20 years older?) who later said he had “dabbled to a certain extent” in WW1. That must have been in 1920ish. In 1939 he would have been in his early 40s, slightly liverish, but still a game old bird. 1/n
This post reports a new form of life that is clearly a member of the archaea, with characteristics of that group, but also lacking a vital feature of other archaea as well as other bacteria and all eukaryotes: metabolism: the pathways (mostly involving enzymatic proteins) that keep an organism going and reproducing by converting nutrients into energy. Its lack of genes for metabolism makes it resemble a virus, what hijacks its nutrients from the cells it infects. But viruses can’t completely self-replicate like this new critter, for viruses also partly hijack the DNA/RNA replication system of their hosts.
The new creature, whose appearance is unknown since it was identified from DNA alone, must get its metabolites through association with other species. Finally, the new creature does have something that viruses lack—a complete system for replicating its genome: ribosomes, DNA, genes for transfer RNAs, and so on. In other words, in important ways it’s different from viruses, but also different from other archaea as well as bacteria and eukaryotes (organisms with “true cells” that have their DNA in the nucleus and have membrane-covered organelles like mitochondria and chloroplasts). The DNA of this creature is in a single circular chromosome like that of bacteria and archaea. Its unique features appears to make it a member of a new domain of life.
The question is this: is this new organism even alive? Viruses are regarded by many biologists as “not alive” because they can’t grow, they have no metabolism to sustain themselves, and are completely dependent for reproduction on the replication machinery of other organisms (bacteria or eukaryotes) they parasitize.
Well, read about this new organism below, discovered by sequencing DNA inside of a singe eukaryotic cell tell me if you think it’s “alive.”
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s review:
There are three domains of life: the bacteria, the archaea (discovered only in 1977 by Woese and Fox), and the eukaryotes (everything else, all having membrane bound nuclei and organelles). Together, the bacteria and archaea are called “prokaryotes” (i.e., single celled microorganisms), and everything else besides viruses comprise the “eukaryotes.”
The phylogeny (family tree) of these domains is shown below. It was realized only recently that all organisms with true cells (e.g., us) descended from archaea, as shown below. That means three things. First, we are more closely related to the archaea (which often live in weird places like hot springs or hyper-salty water) than we are to bacteria. Eukaryotes did not evolve from bacteria.
Second, eukaryotes like us could be thought of as archaea, since we are nested within that group. In the same way, we could be thought of as fish, and birds as reptiles.
Finally, archaea are considered paraphyletic: the group does not contain all the descendants of its common ancestor. The eukaryotes are not considered archaea, but ARE descendants of the common ancestor of archaea; they just branched off later into a new domain of life.
Now this family tree was constucted from DNA sequence similarity, but archaea also share certain traits with eukaryotes that bacteria don’t have, including “shared metabolic pathways, similar enzymes involved in transcription and translation, and DNA replication mechanisms.” That is what a query to Google tells me. Remember, this area is far from my own biological expertise, so if you see an error, let me know!
This tree is from Sadava et al. 2020. Life. The science of biology. 12th edition. Oxford Univ. Press)
Here is a comparison of the traits of the groups (there are overlaps),from Wikipedia.
Note that all three groups have metabolism (pathways to produce energy and grow), and cell walls, but eukaryotes have a special cell wall with two layers of lipids and a layer of protein. Viruses, not shown in this comparison, have only a protein capsule around them. (Bacteria and archaea have more complicated cell walls.)
Viruses do not metabolize and are widely regarded as “nonliving particles”. Bacteria and most archaea have metabolism.
The paper describing the new finding is apparently not yet published, but you can find it at bioRχiv by clicking the title below or downlading the pdf here.
How did they find this thing? In a weird way. The researchers took a single individual of the dinoflagellate Citharistes regius and amplified and sequenced all the DNA it contained. Besides the DNA of the dinoflagellate, it also found DNA from three other types of organisms: cyanobacteria (photosynthetic bacteria once called “blue-green algae”), two species of gamma proteobacteria (a well-known group) and then the weird species under consideration, which they call Candidatus Sukunaarchaeum mirabile. This apparently means it’s a candidate species that hasn’t been formally described. We’ll call it CSM in this post. We don’t know what it looks like or what its ecology and behavior is, except we know it must be parasitic, commensal, or symbiotic with some other species. It cannot live on its own because it can’t metabolize.
Here is its genome shown in the paper. This is all we know of the organism’s biology:
(From the paper) Figure 1. The genome map of Sukunaarchaeum. From outermost to innermost circle, the positions of protein-coding genes and rRNA genes on the +/- strands, tRNA genes, GC content, and GC skew are shown. Color codes for the outermost and 2nd outermost circle: Blue, genes of unknown function; light blue, genes of known function; yellow, rRNA genes.
It is in the Archaea as the DNA certainly shows its affinity. But, as shown below, its lineage originated very soon after the archaea branched off from their common ancestor with bacteria.
It has a very small genome: 238,000 base pairs, though that is not the smallest genome known of any organism in the three domains of life (note I’m using “life” here, though this thing may be more virus-like and hence “not alive”).
The chomosome is circular, presumably because sequencing it, one arrives back at the beginning again.
It has 222 genes, most of which are devoted to the machinery for making copies of itself. These include transfer RNAs and ribosomal RNAs, which are not found in viruses, all of which hijack that stuff from the cells they infect.
It has NO genes for metabolism (no genes for it), so CSM must grow and divide using resources from cells that it hijacks. Other bacteria and archaea (and of course eukaryotes) have the genes for metabolic processes, making CSM more virus-like. But, as I said, it differs from viruses by having a complete set of “self-replication core machinery” and genes that are like those in archaea.
189 of its 222 genes make proteins. All but five of these are devoted to self-replication. Several are very large and strongly suggest that they constitute part of the cell wall (they call it “membrane”), though the researchers are not sure about this.
Here’s a summary of the organism. Note that its unique character, lacking metabolism, makes it distinct from other domains of archaean life.
And a figure from the paper (just look at “a” on the left side) showing where it fits in the family tree of prokaryotes. It branches off from the rest of the archaea early, and then evolves very fast, as you can see by the long branch of its lineage, probably reflecting strong natural selection on the lineage.
(From paper) Figure 2. Phylogenetic placement of Sukunaarchaeum within the Archaeal domain. a, Maximum likelihood (ML) phylogenetic tree based on a concatenated alignment of 70 conserved archaeal marker proteins. The tree was inferred under the LG+C60+F+I+R10 model, based on a dataset of 150 taxa and 18,286 sites. The scale bar represents the estimated number of substitutions per site.
To summarize:
CSM is an Archaea as seen from its DNA sequence. Of this there is no doubt.
But unlike other Archaea or even bacteria, it has NO metabolic machinery. In this way it’s similar to a virus.
But it is dissimilar to viruses because it has the complete machinery for self-replicating its genome, which viruses lack.
Ergo, it must be associated in some way with other organisms to be able to replicate.
We have no idea what it looks like, though it almost certainly is a cell rather than a virus.
Here’s how the authors highlight CSM’s uniqueness:
The discovery of Sukunaarchaeum not only expands the known boundaries of archaeal diversity but also challenges fundamental concepts of cellular life. The extreme metabolic simplification raises fundamental questions about the minimal requirements for cellular life. Sukunaarchaeum, focused almost entirely on genetic self-perpetuation, represents a compelling example of how far metabolic reduction can proceed within a cellular framework. Its minimal genome, absolute host dependence necessitated by profound metaboliceduction, rapid evolution, and significant investment in large, membrane-associated proteins potentially mediating host interaction constitute a unique combination of characteristics that are collectively reminiscent of viruses. Nonetheless, Sukunaarchaeum remains fundamentally cellular – a key distinction from viruses, which typically lack their own core replication machinery genes and rely on host systems. It possesses ribosomes and the core transcriptional and translational apparatus inherited from cellular ancestors. Thus, while clearly cellular, its extreme metabolic dependence and specialization for self-replication are virus-like in nature, suggesting that Sukunaarchaeum may represent the closest cellular entity discovered to date that approaches a viral strategy of existence.
The authors found this organism by sequencing a single eukaryotic cell; CSM was likely inside this cell, like a virus in a human cell, but we don’t know if CSM damages its host(s) in any way. It is likely that many more organisms like this exist but aren’t known because people don’t do DNA sequencing of entire single-celled eukaryotes very often. Dinoflagellates are aquatic organisms, but there may be more stuff like CSM found by sequencing DNA in the soil.
I’ll add that this organism might give us an idea of how viruses originated because, if it loses some of its core replication machinery and genes for making membranes, it would become a virus. It is unlikely to be a virus that might develop into an archaean, as it already is an archaean with a membrane, but would have to evolve a tremendous amount of new metabolic machinery to be able to fuel itself, and that metabolic machinery would have to be genetically similar to the metabolic machinery of already-existing archaea. That would be an unheard-of event of convergent evolution, thus very unlikely. This thing, so far, is sui generis.
Finally, IS IT ALIVE? That, as you might guess, depends on your definition of “life”.
If you count the ability to self-replicate on its own, CSM is alive. In that sense viruses are not alive, and most of us think they’re not. (Bur remember that it needs to be assocated with another species to self-replicate.)
But if you count the ability to sustain itself by metabolizing and fueling its own replication, then it is NOT alive.
In the new Jesus and Mo post, “draw,” Mo draws a self-portrait. Apparently, though pictures of Mohammed are prohibited by nearly all Muslim sects, that prohibition doesn’t hold for Mo himself. He seems to have a bit of a gut, doubtlessly from drinking too many pints with Jesus at the local bar. There’s also this note:
Deadline for entry in to the annual Draw Mohammed Day Contest is May 16. Find out more here https://exmuslims.org/
Deadline is close: Draw Muhammad Day Contest closes May 16!
Got blasphemy skills? Put them to paper (or pixels) for a shot at: $1st & 2nd place cash prizes EXMNA merch for runner-ups Bonus points for humor and satire AI entries welcome—just label them!
Email your entry to info@exmuslims.org with “Draw Muhammad Day Contest” in the subject line. Don’t forget to follow IG/FB [Instagram/Facebook] guidelines.
Today’s photos from the Pacific Northwest come from reader Jim Blilie. Jim’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.
Spring has sprung in the Pacific Northwest after a long, cool tapering off of winter. We have finally hit the 70°s our area (20+°C), in May. This is a set of spring flowers (mostly). We live in Klickitat County, Washington, at the extreme southern edge of Washington state, just east of the Cascade mountain range. These photos, except the last two, are taken in Klickitat County.
First, two photos from a hike we take on local ranch land (the landowners are kind enough to allow public access to their land, except during calving season). These are Grass Widows (Olsynium douglasii).
Next are two photos of some ornamental flowers that were originally planted but now run wild in our yard in the early spring. Empress Lilies (Fritillaria imperialis), which smell almost exactly like skunk cabbage, which is probably why the deer don’t eat them.
Next are two photos from our local daily exercise walk, down the gravel road we live on. Again, from early Spring: Calypso Orchids (Calypso bulbosa) and Trillium (probably: Trillium ovatum)
Next are three photos of Balsam Root (probably: Balsamorhiza sagittata) and Lupine (probably: Lupinus latifolius) flowers on a local hillside that we like to hike especially during the Spring and winter (it’s much too hot in the summer as it faces south). In the third photo, you can see Mount Hood (highest peak in Oregon) and Mount Jefferson (second highest in Oregon) at the top.
Next are three photos that show the prize view for hiking up this local hillside (aside from the beautiful flowers in the Spring): On this day (5-May-2025), it was as clear as we’ve ever seen on this hike. To get the view to the north (Mount Adams, Mount Rainier, Goat Rocks), you have to ascend 1200 feet (366m) to the top of the ridge.
Mount Adams near and large and Mount Rainier over the northern shoulder of Mount Adams.
Mount Jefferson, second highest in Oregon:
Three Sisters in central Oregon:
These are shot at the 35mm equivalent of only 200mm, so you can see how clear the day was. We could see almost every Cascade volcano from South Sister to Mount Rainier (some were hidden from our viewpoint), a span of about 190 miles (306 km).
Finally are two photos taken yesterday (7-May) in neighboring Skamania County on a hike. Pacific Dogwood (Cornus nuttallii), which is in full bloom in our woods now. And finally, Oregon Anemone (Anemonoides oregana):
(Written at about 5 a.m.) We lost another duckling yesterday, and we’re down to five. I suspect it was a bird predator as crows were mobbing something nearby in the morning. I am absolutely heartbroken.
UPDATE from above.. I just fed the ducks/ducklings at 6 a.m. and the missing duckling has reappeared! In all my years of tending these birds, I have never seen a duckling disappear and then reappear. They are always around their mother, but the straggler was not to be seen for hours yesterday afternoon, and after a close inspection of the pond, I could not find it. I have no idea where it went, but I am SO happy that we have six again! I would name the straggler “Lazarus” if I knew which one it was. I gave them extra mealworms as a treat.
Welcome to a Hump Day (“Hari Punuk” in Indonesian): Wednesday, May 14, 2025, and National Buttermilk Biscuit Day, perhaps the greatest indigenous breadstuff ever created in America. There is nothing to match a good biscuit, and below shows some I consumed at the Loveless Motel and Cafe outside Nashville on March 26, 2012. It’s no longer a motel but still famous for its food—especially biscuits.
The sign (note “Hot biscuits and country ham” at the top, always worth stopping for:
Carol Faye Ellison, the “Biscuit Lady”, now deceased but replaced by another excellent biscuit maker (I believe the white-haired lady is the owner, but I’m not sure:
The biscuits with homemade jam. They come before breakfast, so it’s too easy to fill up on these wonderful things:
And the full Monty: biscuits, country ham with red-eye gravy (left), grits, and fried eggs. This is what the gods eat for breakfast. Anybody saying they don’t like grits will kindly keep their sentiments to themselves.
It’s National Brioche Day and International Dylan Thomas Day, celebrating “the anniversary of the first reading of Under Milk Wood, which took place on May 14, 1953, at the 92Y Poetry Center in New York City.
Thomas is one of my favorite poets. When I was in Wales, I visited his home and writing shed in Laugharne, as well as his grave. Here are both. The shed is apparently how it was left when he died in 1953.
Dylan Thomas
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 14 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Trump is cozying up to yet another terrorist/dictator in the Middle East, this time the new ruler of Syria, who was a member of Al-Qaeda but then formed his own terrorist group that overthrew al-Assad. That new government is now bent on destroying all minorities in the country, including the Druze and Christians (the IDF is actually in Syria trying to protect them). But Trump wants to help these new rulers:
President Trump announced on Tuesday that he would end sanctions on Syria, saying at the start of his four-day tour of the Middle East that he had decided to do so after consulting with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and the President of Turkey.
Mr. Trump’s announcement drew rousing applause from the crowd at an investment forum in Riyadh, where he spoke before some of the world’s business elite and members of the Saudi royal family. “There is a new government that will hopefully succeed in stabilizing the country and keeping peace,” he said, referring to the rebel alliance that ousted the dictator Bashar al-Assad in December. “That’s what we want to see in Syria.”
Mr. Trump intends to meet with Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Shara, on Wednesday in Saudi Arabia, according to a White House official and a regional official with knowledge of Mr. Trump’s plans. The lifting of sanctions on Mr. al-Shara’s newly formed government would allow for international aid and investment that would help the country recover from a devastating 13-year civil war.
The sanctions announcement was a surprise at the start of the first major international trip of Mr. Trump’s second term. The tour is expected to focus mostly on signing wide-ranging business deals with some of the region’s wealthiest economies, although some of the agreements his administration hailed were in the works before he took office.
“The United States is the hottest country, with the exception of your country,” he told the crowd, name-checking Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler.
Ending sanctions on Syria (especially with Turkey’s approval) constitutes tacit approval of a terrorist government. President al-Shara may now be wearing a suit instead of a military uniform, but he’s still a terrorist inside, and, as far as I can see, no substantial improvement over al-Assad. Why is Trump helping him? I think that our “President” fancies himself The World’s Great Peacemaker, which is a recipe for disaster.
*I suspect that this new HHS report on pediatric gender medicine will be dismissed because of its source, it was commissioned by the Trump administration. However, the summary in the City Journal was written by Colin Wright, whom I consider reliable, and of course he has read the report (you can also read the same summary on his website, which is a useful but brief account of what the HHS found)
One of President Trump’s first executive orders was the provocatively titled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.” The order directed federally funded insurance programs to end coverage of pediatric sex-trait modification and barred hospitals receiving federal funds from performing such interventions. It also instructed the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to conduct a review of the evidence and ethical considerations surrounding pediatric gender medicine.
This report is long overdue. While European health authorities in countries like Sweden, Finland, Norway, and the U.K. have moved away from the “gender-affirming” model and toward cautious psychological support for gender-dysphoric children, American institutions have only become more entrenched in the model despite growing evidence of the harm and weak benefits.
The HHS report breaks this trend, providing a comprehensive and sober reevaluation of the science, ethics, and clinical practices in pediatric gender medicine. At more than 400 pages, with chapters on history, terminology, evidence, ethics, and clinical realities, it is the most thorough and ambitious document of its kind in the United States.
The report’s central findings are clear and direct: gender-affirming interventions such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries are supported only by low- or very low-quality evidence, while the potential for irreversible harm is substantial. Risks include sterility, sexual dysfunction, impaired bone-density and brain development, psychiatric comorbidities, and surgical complications. The report rejects claims that gender transition reduces suicidality, finding no high-quality evidence to support this oft-repeated assertion. In line with international reviews, it concludes that psychotherapy should be the first-line treatment for youth with gender dysphoria.
Some of the report’s most powerful contributions are found in areas not typically emphasized in such documents. The chapter on terminology is especially significant. Unlike most U.S.-based clinical guidelines, which adopt ideologically loaded terms like “assigned sex at birth,” the HHS report rejects euphemistic language and insists on terminological clarity. It calls out the concept of “gender identity” as scientifically ill-defined, noting that it lacks a stable, observable referent and is inconsistently used even within affirming literature. The report also critiques the classification of children into “cis” and “trans” categories, arguing that this framing falsely reifies identity claims into diagnostic categories and forecloses open exploration. It rightly points out that describing a child as “trans” presupposes the correctness of the gender-identity claim and biases all subsequent treatment decisions.
. . .Despite this omission, the HHS report is a landmark document. It does what no American medical body has had the courage to do: assess the state of pediatric gender medicine without ideological blinders. It does not bend to euphemism or advocacy language. It does not inflate poor-quality studies to preserve consensus. It does not equate policy with science. Instead, it re-centers the debate on the core question: What does the evidence actually say?
For too long, American medicine has been governed by slogans: “trans kids know who they are,” “affirmation saves lives,” “trust the experts.” The HHS report is a long-overdue invitation to move past slogans and return to science. Let’s hope the medical community has the courage to accept it.
We’ve discussed the medical conclusions before, and in general they’re correct, and have been adopted by most of Europe. Now I haven’t read the report, but you have the link above so you can determine whether it’s “transphobic,” for it will surely be characterized that way buy gender activists no matter what it says. Colin goes on to describe the other results, including a harsh treatment of WPATH, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health—a misguided and harmful organization if ever there was one. If this really is the Cass Review for America, as Colin says, then it’s a good thing, for it will slow down the unnecessary medicalization of gender-dysphoric kids. Yes, some of them will need hormone treatment, and maybe even surgery, but remember that over 85% of gender-dysphoric cases resolve on their own without surgery or hormones, usually with kids becoming gay.
The Trump administration is cutting another $450 million in grants to Harvard in its escalating pressure campaign against the nation’s most prominent university.
“Harvard University has repeatedly failed to confront the pervasive race discrimination and anti-Semitic harassment plaguing its campus,” the administration wrote in a letter Tuesday signed by members of the government’s antisemitism task force, which has been leading the charge against elite universities.
The letter singled out the Harvard Law Review for alleged race discrimination when evaluating articles for inclusion in its journal.
A Harvard spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Harvard has been locked in a battle with the Trump administration since late March when the government said it was reviewing nearly $9 billion in federal funding over antisemitism concerns.
The government demanded oversight of Harvard’s admissions, faculty hiring and governance to address what it said was the school’s failure to stop the harassment of Jewish students on campus.
Harvard filed a federal lawsuit last month arguing that the government has violated the university’s constitutional rights as well as due process. The administration has responded by threatening Harvard’s tax-exempt status and its ability to enroll international students. It has also said it will review Harvard’s reporting of foreign gifts.
I’m guessing that Harvard will win that lawsuit, though it may take some time. And I’m betting that if they try to remove Harvard’s tax exemption (a selective move since virtually all American colleges and universities, public and private, are exempt from federal taxation), that will also be declared unconstitutional.
When Cassie Ventura filed her November 2023 lawsuit againsther former boyfriendSean Combs, her storyof exploitation and abuse became a road map, charting a course for dozens of people to come forward with their own allegations of sexual assault against one of the most powerful music producers in the world. Though Ventura reached a settlement the day after her complaint was filed, her lawsuit marked the beginning of what would become a #MeToo music reckoning of sprawling proportions.
Several striking patterns emerge in the 78 sexual assault lawsuits filed against Combs as of May 1, four of which have beensettled, dropped or dismissed.Like Ventura’s, manysuits involve young artists or aspiring entertainers whobelieved Combs could make or break their careers. According to their lawsuits,many also found themselvesassaulted after being lured into his world — allegedly humiliated, abused, beaten or threatenedin settings that include lavish parties,hotel rooms andCombs’s famous Bad Boy Recordsin New York.
And many — including Ventura — recount being offered what they believed to be drugs or a spiked drink before losing consciousness.
In other ways, some of the subsequent lawsuits diverge from Ventura’s. There are almost as many male as female accusers. Aboutone-fifthof theplaintiffs allegethey were minorswhen they wereassaulted. And whereas Ventura came out publicly with her accusations, dozens of other plaintiffs havepseudonymouslyfiled lawsuits as Jane and John Does,many claiming they fear retribution.
Combs has denied all allegations against him. Here are the most prominent patterns we noticed in the sexual assault lawsuits.
Here’s a bar graph from The Washington Post, and you can see the takeaways simply from the categories:
It always amazes me how people with such wealth and clout resort to palpably illegal behaviors, like spiking drinks and forcing minors into sex. My only explanation was that Combs saw himself as invicible. With all those people involved, did he not consider that all it took was a handful of them to put him in the dock?
It is one of Alaska’s favorite Mother’s Day traditions, getting up close and personal with animals that have survived the ice age.
All moms get a daisy and free admission Sunday at the Musk Ox Farm in Palmer, about an hour’s drive north of Anchorage. Once inside they will have the chance to view 75 members of the musk ox herd, including three young calves just getting their feet under them. Also a draw is an old bull named Trebek, named after the late “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek, a benefactor of the facility.
“Who doesn’t want to celebrate Mother’s Day with a musk ox mom and the most adorable calf you’re ever going to find in your life?” said Mark Austin, the farm’s executive director.
Mother’s Day is the traditional start of the summer season for the farm, which traces its roots back to 1964 and at several locations before moving in 1986 to Palmer.
“When we opened the doors here, we started doing Mother’s Day as a grand opening every year,” Austin said.
He called it a natural decision, celebrating mothers with cute, newborn baby musk oxen on the grounds. So far this year, three baby musk oxen have been born and are on display, and more could be on the way.
Mother’s Day is the busiest day of the year, attracting more than 1,500 visitors. It is a tradition that now stretches over three generations.
“It’s a huge, just kind of rite of passage for a lot of people,” Austin said. “If we ever talked about not doing it, there’d be a riot.”
Musk oxen are ice age survivors.
“They were running around with saber-toothed tigers and mastodons, and they’re the ones that lived,” Austin said. The herd members all have diverse personalities, he added, and they are crafty, smart and inquisitive.
Of course you’ll want to see a video taken on Mother’s Day. And yes, the babies are adorable. These are some hairy critters!
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is spending time ordering her pangs of conscience, though I don’t know if its from the worst on down or from the smallest up.
A: What are you doing?
Hili: I’m putting in order my pangs of conscience.
Masih is still recovering so I’ll demonize myself by showing a tweet from JKR, which I couldn’t resist because it features a CAT. I can’t embed it for some reason, but click on the screenshot to go to the original. It’s funny, too.
From Luana, none must have prizes:
It is absurd that Palo Alto School district just voted to remove honors biology for all students & already removed honors English. They call it de-laning. I call it an assault on excellence. I took many honors classes at Council Rock High in PA.
From Simon: something I didn’t know (or didn’t remember):
Let’s break this down—because the gaslighting is wild:📌Oct 2022 – Biden signs EO to cut drug prices📌Jan 2025 – Trump takes office and kills Biden’s EO to cut drug prices📌May 2025 – Trump signs his own EO to lower drug pricesTrump canceled Biden’s plan then brought it back w/his name on it.
Give yourself points if you can find the little predators lurking among these bicolored frostweed aphids (Uroleucon verbesinae). I'm quite pleased with how this photo from today turned out. Might make a good print.
Matthew says that this animal is new to him. I’ve heard of it!
Meet the thin-spined porcupine! This nocturnal rodent, also known as the bristle-spined rat, is found only in parts of northern and central Brazil. Unlike many other porcupines, this one's quills are more like bristles than spines!Photo: ultimosrefugios, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNautralist
