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.
by Matthew Cobb
All tetrapods have kneecaps, although it appears that they evolved more than once. Even tuatara have kneecaps (it was long thought they did not). And here’s a kneet biomechanics demonstration of why they are so useful, and what you can and can’t do without them.
https://twitter.com/PainSci/status/702601079792410624/photo/1
Courtesy of animal-lover and reader Diane G. we have two videos today, both showing the release of an orphaned or trapped animal back to the wild.
First, courtesy of KSL.com, the release of a large cougar whose front paw was caught in a bobcat trap in Utah (and why, exactly, are they trapping bobcats?)
DWR conservation officer Mark Ekins said he often responds to help trappers release cougars, which are accidentally caught in traps meant for coyotes or bobcats. Ekins said it is illegal to intentionally trap a cougar in Utah, and so when trappers discover a mountain lion in their trap, they are legally required to release the animal and report it to DWR officials within 48 hours
. . . Ekins said he responded to a call to help release a cougar in the Pine Valley Mountains Dec. 17. He said it was one of the largest cougars he has ever had to release from a trap, and so he decided to film the incident.
“Anytime we do something that the public doesn’t see all the time, I will video some of it,” he said.
Ekins and the trapper used several catch poles on the cougar’s head and back foot to get it to lie down and stretch out so they could release its front foot from the trap. The 6-minute video shows the intense scenario, but the cougar was eventually released and ran off after resting for a moment. Ekins said releasing a large animal is always slightly nerve-wracking.
There’s more of the story at the site.
Would you even attempt this? That cat is mad!
And. . . a squirrel rescue in Malaysia:
Here’s a new video from Vox that demonstrates several vestigial traits in humans. Most of these are in WEIT, but this is a great short video to show students. I don’t have a palmaris longis on either arm, but I can wiggle my ears. Still, I didn’t know that you can detect futile attempts to move your ears by looking for activity in the ear muscles, which is really cool.
Two years ago I put up a post on the palmar grasp reflex, with videos as well as photos of my friends’ babies demonstrating the trait (it’s in both hands and feet). Go over and see the fun.
I was never able to persuade anybody to try suspending their babies from a stick, even with lots of pillows underneath. Think of the science!
h/t: jsp
It’s long been my opinion, as was that of Thomas Jefferson, that theology schools are useless parts of universities. Jefferson refused to have a school of theology at the University of Virginia, which he founded, for he was at best a deist who disliked organized religion.
Theology schools are the wisdom teeth of academia: useless and sometimes injurious remnants of earlier times. If you want to teach comparative religion in college, you can do it in sociology departments, and if you want to teach the history of religion or of how scripture was confected, you can do it in history departments. There is no rationale for a modern secular university to teach theology, for it is the study of a nonexistent being and its supposed wants. Nevertheless, good universities still have them, including Harvard and (sadly) my own.
One would thus expect, given the secularization of America, that schools and departments of theology would be moribund. And, according to a comment from reader Michael Scullin, who called my attention to an article in yesterday’s New York Times about how theology schools are dealing with waning enrollments:
According to a study released this week by the Association of Theological Schools, 55 percent of its member schools have declining enrollments. The students are aging, too — by 2020, “there may be more 50+ students than 20-somethings.”
Curiously, the article doesn’t discuss the reasons for declining enrollments, but it’s surely because few Americans want to go into the ministry any longer, and that, in turn, is because America is becoming less religious. What other reasons could there be?
And here’s what the schools are doing:
“Next fall, Christian Theological Seminary, in Indianapolis, which is affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) denomination, is starting an option for its master’s of divinity program that will be in-person but not fixed in one place. While half the classes will be on campus, students will also meet for weeklong intensive classes in different cities, wherever the professor lives or decides to teach the class.”
“One course will happen in L.A. because we have a few professors there,” said Doug Pagitt, an evangelical pastor who is helping to design the program. “Four months later, that same cohort will be in New York, then Indianapolis, or Dallas, because that’s where a church or professor is located.” The classes will be held in local schools or churches that offer or rent space.
“Rabbi Daniel L. Lehmann, the president of Hebrew College, said that the interfaith relations offered by a consortium were integral to his school’s mission.
‘When I came to Hebrew College, I felt so strongly about the desire to be part of an interreligious theological consortium that I requested we become members of Boston Theological Institute,” Rabbi Lehmann said. “They ultimately invited us to join but had to change their mission statement because it had been specifically Christian-focused.'”
“Most of its 70 students do not plan to be members of the clergy, and while the university offers classes called “Mindfulness,” “Collaboration” and “Dialogue,” it has none on, say, the Old Testament, the Gospels or the Quran. Instead, the classes are intended to “develop capacities for compassionate leadership,” according to its mission statement.”
“They tend to eliminate tenure and job security for the professors, who are hired on a per-class basis; both Dr. Aranda, at Claremont Lincoln, and Mr. Pagitt said their teachers would be paid above typical adjunct rates. For many students, meeting online or in short, intensive bursts may not promote the kind of long-term friendships that residential students forge. A professor with whom one has spent only a week, if that, may be less likely to offer career-long mentorship.”
Well, I feel bad for faculty who turn into wage slaves, but on the other hand I have a tad of Schadenfreude for those who have spent their lives studying, as Dan Barker puts it, “a subject without an object.”
Last night the campus got the welcome news that the two JNU students arrested and jailed for sedition had been released on bail. The judge ruled that the students had no criminal record, had spotless records in school (both are grad students in history), and didn’t pose a flight risk. I read the judge’s order, and he added, without having to, that he didn’t consider the students’ behavior to pose an immediate incitement to violence, which is apparently (at least in that judge’s mind) the criterion for “sedition”—as it is for “non-free speech” in the U.S. That augurs well for the students’ fate.
The students went wild when they heard the news of bail. First, soon after the announcement was made, the students joyously erupted in a Holi-like celebration, that Indian spring holiday when people throw colored dye and water on each other. Here’s a photo from the Indian Express with the dyed students:
Later on last night, the students marched, chanting, through the campus streets, and then 5,000 of them assembled in “Freedom Square,” where there was a huge demonstration at which both freed students spoke. I got one photo of the march:
I couldn’t understand the Hindi at the evening demonstration, but the atmosphere was electrifying, with loud chanting, slogans, and shouts of glee. You can read more about it at the Indian Express, which also has a video by a reporter:
I have my own video of the chanting last night, which I’ll post when I get back to the States.
I was told that the released students, who spoke for about an hour in total, talked not about their own ordeal of arrest and jail (isn’t that a refreshing change from the complaining U.S. students?), but about continuing injustices in Indian society, like the rape and mistreatment of women, the continuing caste system, and so on. It was like being back in the Sixties again, and I was so heartened by the students’ peaceful but joyous behavior, and their commitment to justice for all Indians, that I had trouble sleeping.
Now, on to the food. Here’s dinner last night at my hosts’: From left to right, daal (lentils), chicken biryani, spicy eggplant (brinjal), a Bengali dish with pumpkin and chickpeas, and salad. A raita (yogurt with chopped veg) is below, and each plate bears a chappati (I have to admit that my taste run toward the north Indian breads rather than south Indian and Bengali rice.
The biryani, one of my favorite Indian dishes, was terrific:
Today we went downtown for a bit of shopping, including presents for me (another bronze Ganesha for my collection) and for friends. I bought bangles (bracelets) for the first time, and the selection was huge, for almost all Indian women wear them. Here’s what I was faced with. Can you spot Professor Ceiling Cat (Emeritus) in the mirror?
Then to an old favorite, the south Indian restaurant Saravana Bhavan on Janpath, near Connaught Place (I posted a picture of my thali lunch there last winter). We went early as it’s nearly always packed, for the food is terrific and cheap. This time I decided to have an onion rava dosa (a crispy pancake made with semolina flour; regular dosas are made with fermented lentil flour. Making them requires a fine touch and a hot griddle. They start by spreading out the fermented and liquid dough in a thin spiral (the griddle is regularly spritzed with water).
They’re then filled (you can also have them plain):
And, before you know it, they’re done: done when the upper side is still whitish. They’re shoveled onto the plate and immediately served hot, along with sambar (a spicy soup) and several types of chutney:
My dosa lunch, with a bowl of sambar and three chutneys (the coconut on far left is my favorite). A fresh banana leaf is always below your food at the restaurant. This lunch cost two dollars:
My host, Shubhra, had a mixed tiffin for lunch, with a mini-dosa, sambar, a bowl of idlis (rice cakes) floating in spicy sauce, pongal (a rice and daal mixture with consistency of mashed potatoes) and the yellow sweet, kesar bhat, whose color comes from saffron.
The best accompaniment to a spicy south Indian meal: fresh lime soda served the right way, with freshly squeezed lime juice, an unopened bottle of soda water, and sugar syrup. You mix to your own specifications. The bottle is served unopened to show that it’s pure. If you value your stomach, never drink the water served to you in Indian restaurants unless you’re sure it’s boiled (and that’s rare in the kind of places I eat). I always carry iodine tablets and a bottle of iodine-disinfected water, which I also use to brush my teeth. That is why I’ve so rarely been sick in this country.
The only way to finish a south Indian meal is with a small cup of south Indian coffee (favored over tea in the south). It’s foamy, strong, flavored with a bit of spicem and always served in a metal “glass” inside a metal bowl. Yum!
This Doodle (click screenshot to go to page), has been up in India for at least two days:
Well, you know what that means: something’s going on with the national sport. And if you click on the Doodle on the original page, it goes here: a webpage giving the ICC World Twenty20 cricket scores. Don’t ask me what the hell it is, but it appears to be a big event. Pardon my ignorance (I’ve never understood cricket, but Brits and Indians are baffled by baseball), so I’ll just regurgitate the events from the International Business Times:
India takes on Pakistan in the most anticipated clash of the ICC T20 World Cup 2016 as they look to bounce back from the opening game loss against New Zealand. The hosts will be staring down the barrel if they lose against their arch rivals at the famous Eden Gardens stadium in Kolkata when the match gets underway at 2pm GMT/7.30pm IST
Pakistan, on the other hand, are coming into this game on the back of a thumping win over Bangladesh and will be confident and will be hoping that they can finally register a win over India in a World Cup event. The match is available live on TV all across the world but it is also available on a number of platforms on mobile and online. Below is a list of how you can watch it in different countries.
(Go to the site yourself for viewing information; Google has apparently removed a number of live-stream links as violating its terms of service.)
Readers who know and/or love cricket are invited to explain below.
Here, from the comedy duo of Hale and Pace, is what would happen if cats rather than dogs were used to guide the blind:
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I have never heard cat noises more ghoulish than these. They’re a pair of Siamese, of course, renowned for their disturbing voices. But jebus, imagine hearing this every time you took a shower! For that is what they do:
Our two Siamese cats go beserk whenever Sharron takes a shower….
What’s going on here? Do you suppose they’re frightened that their staff will drown? Do any readers have cats that sound like this. Remember, cats do not meow like this when they’re wild or feral.
I wonder why Siamese breeders haven’t bred this meow out of those cats, for surely nobody likes this. Or is it an irreversible pleiotropic effect of one or more of the genes that characterize Siamese cats? I don’t believe that, for, as Darwin said, “Breeders frequently speak of an animal’s organization as something plastic, which they can model almost as they please.” I know of only three selection experiments in history that have failed to produce a result, and two of them were mine.
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Being a Crazy Cat Man (albeit one who doesn’t own a cat), I dislike the stereotype of the Crazy Cat Lady (CCL). However, Chelsea Marshall of Buzzfeed, a self-described CCL, has proposed “11 Cocktails for Living Your Best Crazy Cat Lady Life,” and I have to admit that some of them look good. All of them are cat-themed, and this one’s my favorite:
Here’s another:
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And since you’ve been a good crowd, here’s some lagniappe:
h/t: Taskinm, Jim, Alan
It looks as if Grania is sleeping, and at 11 a.m. in Ireland! That means putting up today’s Hili falls to me, and at short notice! Well, without further ado, here’s the Princess, wide-eyed, bushy tailed, and getting up to mischief:
A: Hili, what are you doing?Hili: I’m trying to commit a mistake from which I will learn later.(Photo: Sarah Lawson)
Ja: Hili, co ty robisz?
Hili: Próbuję popełnić błąd, na którym będę się potem uczyć.
(Zdjęcie: Sarah Lawson)
Leon: We haven’t been there yet.
