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.
Two shots by Garry VanGelderen from Ontario:
Here are three shots of a red fox (Vulpes vulpes) that visits our back yard almost daily. They are a little off on colour as they are taken through glass.
The same fox was seen catching a squirrel just this afternoon [December 2]:
And four photos by Stephen Barnard from Idaho.
Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) in flight, a Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus), and a shot over the creek on a cold morning.
It’s December, a month that celebrates two odious holiday concoctions (National Fruit Cake Month and National Egg Nog Month), but the fourth, which is today, is also National Cookie Day. Sadly, I have not a cookie on hand—only White Cheddar Cheez-Its (a delicious and underrated snack). And it’s Navy Day in India.
It’s a big day of the year for Chicago, for on December 4, 1674, missionary Jacques Marquette founded a mission on the shore of Lake Michigan to convert members of the Illinois Confederation of Native Americans. That mission later became the nucleus of the city of Chicago. (Marquette also founded Sault St. Marie.) On this day in 1909, the Montreal Canadiens, now the oldest surviving hockey team in the world, became part of the nascent National Hockey League. And on December 4, 1945, the United States joined the United Nations, an organization that seems increasingly irrelevant, mired in squabbling and inaction. Finally, on this day in 1954 the first Burger King opened in Miami.
Notables born on December 4 include Samuel Butler (1835), Wassily Kandinsky (1866; I place him on my list of the best painters of all time [see below]), Rainer Maria Rilke (1875), Alfred Hershey (1908, Nobel Laureate who, along with Martha Chase, gave evidence supporting the idea that, in viruses, the ability to replicate was carried not by the viral protein coat but by the DNA [Hershey didn’t really accept the implications of his experiments, though, and the Nobel was awarded for general work on viruses; see below]), Anna McGarrigle (1944,♥), Jane Lubchenco (1947), and Jeff Bridges (1949).
Below: Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase (you can read about their famous “Waring Blender experiment” here.
Composition VII by Kandinsky (1913):
Those who died on this day include Cardinal Richelieu (1642), Thomas Hobbes (1679), Thomas Hunt Morgan (1945, Nobel Laureate, father of Drosophila genetics, and my academic great-grandfather), and Frank Zappa (1993). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has absconded with a pen, but has a good excuse not to ‘fess up:
A: Hili, there was a red pen here.Cyrus: She thinks that she’s asleep.
In Polish:Ja: Hili, tu był taki czerwony długopis…
Cyrus: Ona myśli, że śpi.
https://twitter.com/EmrgencyKittens/status/805392469454180352
What kind of sadist would offer spinach to his cat as a treat! That guy should be forced to eat kibble. Watch this short clip:
https://twitter.com/EmrgencyKittens/status/805120661542866944
It would clearly be bigoted, on a TV show about terrorism, to portray only Islamic terrorists. But it would also be tendentious to neglect Muslims on a show about terrorism, pretending that Islamic terrorism simply doesn’t exist. Yet PuffHo (of course) is applauding such a show in its new article: “Here’s why you’ll never see a Muslim terrorist on this TV show“. To wit:
Here’s something we can hopefully all agree on: we’ve seen enough Muslim terrorists on TV.
Whether it’s reinforcing the threat-next-door stereotype *cough “24” cough* or how far too many actors who are or appear to be Middle Eastern have played a terrorist on TV (Kal Penn, Rami Malek, etc.) representations of Muslim people as extremists only fuel Islamophobic and xenophobic sentiments.
To subvert this history of stereotyping and marginalization on-screen, “Quantico” showrunner Josh Safran has made it his mission to never feature a Muslim terrorist in the series, which follows a group of FBI recruits combating incidents of domestic terrorism.
In a New York Times article titled “Can Television Be Fair to Muslims?” featuring excerpts from a roundtable of writers and showrunners of series like “Homeland” and “Quantico,” Safran explains that his series stands in direct defiance of this kind of typecasting.
“For me, it was important to not ever put a Muslim terrorist on our show,” he said. “There hasn’t been one. This year we have the appearance of one — which is a spoiler. But it’s not true.”
Now think about this. If you know the “24” television series, you’ll also know that it was not all about Islamic terrorists; in fact, they’re in the distinct minority. It was about a panoply of terrorists from distinct countries and backgrounds. If you have a show about domestic terrorism in the U.S., it’s almost a form of censorship to leave out a group that has been responsible for several major and deadly episodes of terrorism. Even fears of “Islamophobia” must bow to reality. But the Regressive Left prefers distorting reality rather than portray the true nature of American terrorism, some of which is committed by Muslims.
There’s more:
Safran also said the result of the presidential election was a turning point for the series. In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s win, the writers of “Quantico” were at a loss as to how to depict terrorism in this moment of extreme political volatility, leading to a frank conversation with a network head.
“We had this long talk the day after the election, in the writers’ room, about how the show is about terrorism. We were there for hours. We were crying, and it was really tough,” Safran recalled. “How do you go in there and talk about what terrorists are going to do today? You just don’t want to do that. I don’t want to watch a show about terrorism now. I called the network and I said, ‘Can we change the show?’ They said yes. We’re changing the show so that it can represent, in a dark time, more hope.”
What is the “hope” here? That Muslims won’t commit any more acts of terrorism? That hope is vain. To partially quote Richard Feynman, “. . . Reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.”
Then there’s this:
Maybe this will be a case of life imitating art, because even FBI Director James Comey noted in 2015 how the cast of “Quantico” is far more diverse than the overwhelmingly white, male makeup of FBI employees
What the sentence above says is pretty true, but what PuffHo omits is that the FBI is making a big push to diversify its staff. The problem is finding qualified minority employees. As The Marshall project notes,
“The FBI is overwhelmingly white and male among my agent force,” FBI Director James Comey told an audience at Georgetown University last month, Politico reported, after a speech lamenting mistrust between white police and black communities. “I have to change the numbers.”
The bureau is in the midst of a new “targeted” recruiting strategy, says James Turgal, Comey’s new head of personnel. According to Turgal, the agency has expanded the list of schools where it recruits to include dozens of colleges with large minority enrollment. He also sends staff to black, Latino, and Asian organizations that cater to lawyers, MBAs, and other professionals.
Finally, one hopes that Arab Muslims cast on TV shows get to play roles that aren’t going to be clumsily defined by other stereotypes—like the hijab-wearing Joanna in Bloomers (ironically played by a Hindu actress).
Science fiction has always been ahead of the curve in this sort of thing. Star Trek DS9 cast Siddig El Fadil (a.k.a. Alexander Siddig) as the station’s Doctor Bashir, a young, naive and nerdy scientist who was in no way stereotyped or defined by either his ethnic origins or religion.
Perhaps “showrunners of 2016” should emulate what sci-fi was doing back in 1993, that would be nice.
In the end, we won’t end Islamic terrorism by pretending it doesn’t exist. You can be absolutely sure that the FBI knows this, and is monitoring Muslim groups, websites, and phone traffic to stave off potential terror attacks.
h/t: Grania
Last June the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Texas laws that would have placed severe restrictions on abortion clinics in that state—laws that were intended to limit access to abortions by severely reducing the number of qualified clinics. (The law made clinics conform to standards of “ambulatory surgical centers”.) In response, the woman-controlling Texas legislature has now done an end run around the decision. At the end of last month, they approved a new regulation that fetuses, unlike other forms of medical waste, must be buried or incinerated like a human body, regardless of the stage of abortion. As the New York Times reported:
According to the rules, aborted fetal tissue must be handled like a deceased person and treated “using the process of cremation, entombment, burial, or placement in a niche or by using the process of cremation followed by placement of the ashes in a niche, grave, or scattering of ashes as authorized by law.”
Here are the new regulations, showing the unwarranted distinction between fetuses and other forms of medical waste, including body organs:
And fetuses? See below, and here it is in larger type:
(B)The products of spontaneous or induced human abortion shall be subjected to one of the following methods of treatment and disposal:
(i)fetal tissue, regardless of the period of gestation, except as provided by §1.133 of this title (relating to Scope, Covering Exemptions and Minimum Parametric Standards for Waste Treatment Technologies Previously Approved by the Texas Department of State Health Services):
(I)incineration followed by interment;
(II)steam disinfection followed by interment; or
(III)interment;
In other words, fetuses, even if very early in development, must be buried as if they were humans. This can only reflect the view that a fetus, no matter how far along, is equivalent to an already-born human. That, of course, is a religious view, but it also makes more trouble for abortion clinics, which must now cover the extra expense of burial or cremation/burial. Will the patient be required to pay more to cover these costs?
Further, it’s palpably clear that this rule is meant to shame women who have had abortions, forcing them to treat their fetuses as if they were their already-born children. That is clearly a psychological burden: “My fetus is going to be buried like a person.”
There is no medical or biological justification for treating aborted fetuses differently from animal carcasses (after all, we are animals) or from organs removed from people. The only justification is a religious one, and Texas just can’t stop trying to put obstacles in the way of women seeking abortions.
Donald Trump has already sworn to ensure that the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade, placing abortion laws back in the hands of the states—and you know what that means. The only consolation is that the Supreme Court voted 5-3 to overturn the Texas law in the first place, and a new Trump appointee won’t change that balance. But several of the Justices are old, and it’s likely that Trump will get another appointment even if he has only one term.
A late addition: reader Pliny The in Between has a cartoon editorial comment on the new Texas law at his/her site:
From Smithsonian Magazine, we have an easy-to-digest list of ten scientific studies of cats with one-paragraph summaries. Here’s one of them:
Studying the many, many factors that contribute to rampant house cat obesity, feline nutritionists have concluded that human denial is a hefty part of the problem. When 60 German owners of clearly Garfield-esque felines were interviewed, there were “striking” differences between how they perceived their cats and how the scientists saw them. “Only a small percentage readily indicated that their cat was overweight,” according to a 2006 Journal of Nutrition paper. “The majority preferred euphemisms like ‘a little bit too big,’ or did not perceive or admit anything extraordinary about the weight of their cat … some even likened their cats to underweight silhouettes.” Fat cat owners were far more in need of a reality check than the masters of paunchy dogs, perhaps because “cats appear less often in public … where other people might comment.”
And here’s something you didn’t know (not!):
A 2005 paper, “Caregiver Perceptions of What Indoor Cats Do ‘For Fun’,” set out to answer the eternal question: Just what do cats do all day? The authors tracked all available sources of feline amusement, including playing with sponges, “spinning,” sleeping on toasters, helping to cook and looking at a variety of objects, including alpacas, parking lots, snowflakes, window awnings and the sun. But a popular activity was one that many cat owners will find familiar: “Stares at nothing.”
*********
Here’s a one-minute clip from a Turkish television show, in which a stray kitten crashes a news broadcast. The anchor doesn’t miss a beat though the kitten settles on his laptop, though he does crack a slight smile. The Turks do love their cats!
*********
Here’s more science of cat behavior: an explanation of why cats like to sit in boxes (or, in the case of Maru, in anything, including mixing bowls and wastebaskets.
Speaking of boxes, here are Maru and Hana in their respective boxes. Maru, as always, opts for the smallest box. His head is about three times that of his friend’s!
h/t: Amy, jsp, Michael
Remember to send in your photos! I have a small backlog, but more is better. Today we have pictures from two regulars, the first being Mark Sturtevant. His captions are indented:
The first picture is an odd little moth that I have probably seen on many occasions, but this one got my attention because it landed near my feet and went into this odd pose by hanging upside down and curling its abdomen up while holding its wings down. It is a Geometrid moth known as the lesser grapevine looper – Eulithis diversilineata – and its posture probably makes it look more like a bit of dead leaf. [JAC: Don’t forget that mimicry can involve the evolution of behavior as well as appearance.]
Next up is a mating pair of basswood leaf miner beetles (Baliosus nervosus). These little beetles are very common, but they are small and very shy, making it hard to get a decent picture. As their name also indicates, their larvae will be found mining inside basswood leaves.
The next two pictures are not my usual fare. Last Spring I was waiting on the grounds of a local nature center, eagerly waiting for the opening day of their butterfly house. While waiting, I came across this pair of cold mallard ducks (Anas platyrhynchos). These pictures are the first ‘serious’ pictures taken with a ‘new’ (actually very old and used) 300mm zoom lens that I had bought for myself as a Christmas present. You have already seen some of the pictures that I had taken of the tropical butterflies at that location.
Finally, one of our giant ichneumons at work. She is Megaryhssa atrata, and here she is using her extraordinary ovipositor to drill up to several inches into wood to parasitize what is probably the larva of a large stingless wasp called a horntail (often Tremex columba). This was yet another good find on my Lucky Tree Stump.
And from Stephen Barnard in Idaho, who sensed my desperation for pictures in late November (the 22nd, to be exact):
Since you’re desperate, here are some photos from this morning.
Fog in the valley.
Desi and Lucy (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) warming up in the morning sun after the coldest night of the year so far.
A hen mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) and her two suitors:
It’s December 3, and 1-2 inches of snow is predicted this week for Chicago. I am sorry to inform you that it is National Peppermint Latte Day, just one more step in the ongoing conversion of coffee to a confection. (That happened years ago with granola bars.) I have never had one of those vile flavored lattes, and hope I never will. (Apologies to those of you who like them.) It’s also United Nations’ International Day of Persons with Disabilities.
On this day in 1910, modern fluorescent lighting was first demonstrated—at the Paris Motor show. In 1960, the Lerner and Loewe musical Camelot, with many great songs (“If ever I would leave you”, etc.), opened on Broadway, later lending an informal name to the Kennedy administration. The replacement of Robert Goulet on Broadway with Franco Nero in the movie and Julie Andrews with Vanessa Redgrave, makes the original cast album far superior to the movie. In 1979, Iran officially became a dictatorial theocracy as Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was named the country’s first “supreme leader.” And on this day in 1984, a leak of methyl isocyanate from a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India killed at least 6000 people and injured more than 100,000.
Notables born on this day include Sven Nykvist, famed cinematographer for Ingmar Bergman (1922), Ozzy Osbourne (1948), Daryl Hannah (1960,♥), and Katarina Witt (1965, ♥). Those who died on this day include Oswald Mosley (1980) and Lewis Thomas (1993). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is decrying the human condition, or rather the condition of humans:
Hili: According to my feline reasoning humans have lost any common sense.A: You might be right, but why do you assume that they ever had common sense?Hili: Your answer might be showing a fallacy in my reasoning.
Hili: Na mój koci rozum ludzie stracili zdrowy rozsądek.
Ja: Możesz mieć rację, ale dlaczego sądzisz, że kiedyś go mieli?
Hili: Być może twoje pytanie wskazuje na pewien błąd w moim rozumowaniu.
