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.
On his RDF site, Richard now has posted a 7-minute audio “postcard” reporting on the genesis of his stroke and his prognosis, which is very good. You can hear it by clicking on the screenshot below and then clicking on the arrow.
You can hear that his voice isn’t completely back to normal, but only in terms of volume rather than lucidity. And given his quotation of Steve Pinker, it seems that his cognitive functions are as keen as ever. Notice that even in his ill state, he’s still musing about natural selection and, as many scientists do, is taking a curious and scientific view of his malady.
We all wish Richard well, and I’m confident he’ll be better soon. Do go listen to his report; there are some interesting twists, including the fact that he was re-invited to the NESSC conference that had previously “no-platformed” him.
From Bored Panda we have the story and photos of Manny the Cat (is he Jewish?), a moggie who learned to take selfies after accidentally touching a GoPro camera. I’m wondering whether he’s really trained to do this regularly, or whether the photographer puts a treat up next to the shutter button. At any rate, Manny has produced masterpieces like these (more at the site):
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U-Pet Products is producing a series of New Generation Cat (and small d*g) carriers. There are four lines, shown in the screenshot below (click to go to the page):
The “Backpack A series” is $129, and is profiled at My Modern Met, probably because of its spacey, New Age design:
Your indoor cat will never be an astronaut (let’s face it), but with the right accessories, your furry friend can feel like one. New York-based company U-Pet has created a special backpack that affords a feline the opportunity to experience the world at large. The well-ventilated tote has the functions of an average pet carrier, except it features a prominent bubble window—reminiscent of a cosmonaut’s helmet—that provides the cat a clear view of the passing scenery. [JAC: you can also get flat windows and screens].
U-Pet has created two distinct style of catpacks. One is a soft, rectangular shape while the other is an oval with a shiny plastic coating. Both include a built-in security leash, mesh panels, washable pad, and are available in a variety of bold colors. They’ll undoubtedly make a statement as your tote your cat around town.
Here are the two types in action. I suppose this is a good way to take your cat to the vets, but not so sure about using it to travel with it:
All the photos were taken at a cat show in Vilnius, and are on Burba’s Facebook page.
Below is a short video showing how the photos were made. The cats don’t seem to like it, and it’s no wonder: they’re plucked from their cages and expected to stand still on a sheet of glass!
Reader Jonathan Wallace sent some lovely photos of dragonflies and damselflies. (Do you know the difference? See here.)
A pair of White-legged Damselflies, Platycnemis pennipes in tandem. The male is clasping the female behind the head with his anal claspers. This position is preliminary to the actual copulation when the female bends her abdomen round underneath to bring her genitalia into contact with the male’s secondary genitalia to be inseminated. The pair then remain in tandem after copulation and during egg laying (an insurance on the male’s part against another male mating with the female before she has laid eggs) so I am not sure if this pair is pre or post copulation.
A male Blue-tailed Damselfly, Ischnura elegans. One of the commonest European damselflies.
A male Orange White-legged Damselfly , Platycnemis acutipennis. This species does not occur in the UK but is endemic to Portugal, Spain and France (this one was photographed in France).
A male Scarce Chaser Dragonfly, Libellula fulva. When freshly emerged, males of this species have an orange abdomen with a longitudinal black stripe but – in common with a number of other dragonfly species, they develop a powdery blue pruinescence as they age. The individual here shows black scraping marks on the abdomen that indicate that it has mated. All Odonata show distinctive copulatory behaviour in which the pair form a wheel or heart shape as the female, with her head clasped by the male, brings her abdomen forward and beneath the male to reach his secondary genitalia. Whilst doing this her legs clasp against his abdomen and rub off some of the powdery coating, thereby creating these scraping marks .
It’s the weekend, and my talk is over. As Grania notes in the post below, it went very well, and so my job here is done and now I can relax. I hadn’t slept well since I’ve been here, but last night I crashed and dozed like a log. Now I’m about to tuck into a Big British Breakfast; afterwards I’ll go to the British Museum, have lunch with Anthony Grayling (whose New College is nearby) and quaff a pint or so at the Princess Louise, a fine Victorian pub whose centerpiece, besides the great assortment of real ales, is the men’s room, which preserves the original Victorian urinals (I promise photos). I fly back to the U.S. tomorrow afternoon. Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the nefarious Hili is already looking forward to snacks of spring birds.
Hili: I think that somebody is building a nest.
Cyrus: Leave those poor birds alone. After all, we’re on our way to the kitchen to get something to eat.
In Polish:
Hili: Tam chyba ktoś wije gniazdko.
Cyrus: Zostaw te biedne ptaszki, idziemy do kuchni coś zjeść.
Here’s Gus in a new Ikea box. I understand the window is a natural feature of the box, so this make it the most awesome cat today of all time:
JAC: I have little to add to what Grania wrote. It was a great time. I came early and signed every copy of Faith versus Fact in Britain (no kidding; the Humanists bought every one in Old Blighty), as well as many copies of WEIT. They all sold out, too, which was gratifying. The audience was 1000, with 400 people put on the waiting list. I don’t attribute that to my drawing power; the Humanists’ Darwin Day lectures are always sold out, which shows you the interest in science among the rationalists here. As Richard was under the weather, I was introduced by my old friend Steve Jones, who gave a hilarious spiel involving his own attempts to fuse evolution and atheism.
After my talk, Alice Roberts, a human anatomist, paleoanthropoloist, and well known television presenter, moderated about three or four questions to me from the audience, and we then repaired to the Green Room for a “drinks party” (always plural in England). But I was so knackered that I had only orange juice.
The audience seemed to like the presentation, and the talk will eventually be up on YouTube. There were a few technical glitches—for some reason the slides refused to advance a few times—but they were trivial.
Thanks to the British Humanists for inviting me here (special shout-out to Ian Scott for the logistics and Andrew Copson for the invitation) and for hosting me for the talk, which was called “Evolution and Atheism: Best Friends Forever?” (The answer was “yes”!)
by Grania
Jerry will fill us in tomorrow with the details, but for now here are some Twitter responses on his talk at the British Humanist Association‘s Darwin Day lecture. It was introduced by Steve Jones and the Q&A was moderated by Dr Alice Roberts.
You can read more excerpts from the lecture from the twitter feed of the BHA here.
My talk is over and I’m exhausted, but it went well, or so I was told (it’s hard to tell when you’re up at the podium). Tomorrow I have lunch with the Other Secularist with Famous Hair, and also a trip to the British Museum. If you know a good local in Bloomsbury, give me a shout.
In the meantime, Happy Darwin Day, and here’s an appropriate cartoon from reader Pliny the in Between. He/she told me, “I bet you are one of the few who can identify the 3 other figures in this image.” (Besides Darwin, that is.)
By the time you’re reading this, if you’re a Yank, I’ll be speaking about evolution and atheism. The End of the Week felid comes from reader Michael, and it’s from The Adventures of Business Cat, who has found paradise in his office:
If you’re interested in the stunning announcement of gravitational waves yesterday, do read Lawrence Krauss’s piece about it in the New York Times, “Beauty in the darkness.” He’s the expert here, so I’ll just give an excerpt. I should add that this observation provides evidence not just for gravitational waves, but also for black holes:
To see these waves, the experimenters built two mammoth detectors, one in Washington State, the other in Louisiana, each consisting of two tunnels about 2.5 miles in length at right angles to each other. By shooting a laser beam down the length of each tunnel and timing how long it took for each to be reflected off a mirror at the far end, the experimenters could precisely measure the tunnels’ length. If a gravitational wave from a distant galaxy traverses the detectors at both locations roughly simultaneously, then at each location, the length of one arm would get smaller, while the length of the other arm would get longer, alternating back and forth.
To detect the signal they observed they had to be able to measure a periodic difference in the length between the two tunnels by a distance of less than one ten-thousandth the size of a single proton. It is equivalent to measuring the distance between the earth and the nearest star with an accuracy of the width of a human hair.
If the fact that this is possible doesn’t astonish, then read these statements again. This difference is so small that even the minuscule motion in the position of each mirror at the end of each tunnel because of quantum mechanical vibrations of the atoms in the mirror could have overwhelmed the signal. But scientists were able to resort to the most modern techniques in quantum optics to overcome this.
The two black holes that collided, which the LIGO experiment claimed to have detected, were immense. One was about 36 times the mass of our sun, the other, 29 times that mass. The collision and merger produced a black hole 62 times our sun’s mass. If your elementary arithmetic suggests that something is wrong, you’re right. Where did the extra three solar masses disappear to?
Into pure energy in the form of gravitational waves. . .
