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.
Sandara Tang is an artist in Singapore who specializes in fantasy artwork, but also reports that she is an avid reader of this site (and my book), and was in part inspired by them to create some large coins or medallions in honor of Darwin and evolution. And so she has. Sandara has produced two coins, one in red and the other in amber, and she sent me one of each. My photos of the two are below; they are solid bronze with enamel overlay, and are very beautiful:
You can buy these, and other coins and artwork from Sandara, at her etsy shop, “sandara3”. [Note: the coins have sold out for now, but a new batch will be available on Monday, Sept.. 29]. Here is her description, which for some reason I couldn’t cut and paste, so I included a screenshot.
My photo of the back of the red coin:
I suspect they’ll sell out, as there are a limited number of them, but at only $17.90 (plus shipping) they’re a bargain, and, as a unique fusion of art and science, might be a nice gift for the evolution-ophile in your life.
Here is part of her letter, which I reproduce because she drew a cat!:
Well, this just goes to show that literally anything, including wife-swapping, can be justified by the Bible. We learn via reader Barry from an article in yesterday’s HuffPo that a new Christian swingers’ group, one aimed at bodybuilders (!) has arisen. And of course because they’re Christians, and having sex with a bunch of other people besides your spouse seems distinctly un-Christian, they’re forced to justify it by citing scripture. The justification goes beyond, “Well, the Bible doesn’t say anything against it (of course the phenomenon of “swinging” didn’t really exist among the Israelites), and into the ground that it’s actually something that God wants. It’s God’s plan. After all, as Dean says in the video below, it’s a way of spreading God’s word among swingers. (That’s not the only thing it spreads!)
Frankly, I don’t care who does what to where, or when, so long as they’re all consenting adults and nobody gets hurt. But it’s funny to see how Christians have to rationalize it. Here’s an excerpt from HuffPo, but the video below it is a real gem.
If you like Jesus, pumping iron and pumping/getting pumped by acquaintances bound by holy matrimony, there’s a website just for you.
It’s called Fitness Swingers, and it’s the brainchild of Cristy Parave and her husband, Dean, who dreamed up the site after reportedly having a threesome with this wife and her female friend. Apparently, the sex was just heavenly.
The Florida couple, who met at a bodybuilding competition, are interested in sharing their beliefs and their spouses with others who feel similarly. They started their online network 7 years ago, and haven’t looked back. The pillars of their relationship: A commitment to their faith, to fitness, and to the ideals of the swinger lifestyle.
I meant to post this yesterday, but there is so little time. . . Still, it must be recorded so that the full horrors of ISIS’s behavior can be known. Both Thursday’s New York Times and Reliefweb (summarizing a condemnation by a UN envoy) report that an Iraqi lawyer, Sameera Salih Ali al-Nuaimy, was taken from her home in Iraq by members of ISIS, tortured, and then executed by firing squad. Her crime? Apostasy.
From the NYT:
Ms. Nuaimy had posted comments on her Facebook page condemning the “barbaric” bombing and destroying of mosques and shrines in Mosul, a northern Iraqi city, by the Islamic State, the militant group also known as ISIS or ISIL. She was convicted of apostasy by a “so-called court,” Mr. Zeid said, adding that her family had been barred from giving her a funeral.
The killing follows the execution of a number of Iraqi women in areas under Islamic State control documented by United Nations monitors, including two candidates contesting Iraq’s general election in Nineveh Province, who were killed in July. A third female candidate was abducted by gunmen in eastern Mosul and has not been heard from since.
And, like Pol Pot and Mao before them, ISIS targets the group most likely to make trouble: educated and literate people, especially women, whose acts of criticizing Islamic society are especially odious to devout Muslims:
United Nations monitors in Iraq have received numerous reports of executions of women by Islamic State gunmen, some after perfunctory trials, the organization said. “Educated, professional women seem to be particularly at risk,” it added.
These killings, together with abductions and the enslavement of women and children, illustrate the “utterly poisonous nature” of the extremist group, Mr. Zeid said, drawing attention to the plight of hundreds of women and girls of the Yazidi religious minority and other ethnic and religious groups sold into slavery, raped or forced into marriage after the group overran large areas of northern Iraq.
The thought that someone would be tortured for five days before being shot boggles my mind. It’s a return to medieval barbarism. And Karen Armstrong tells us this has nothing to do with religion: it’s due to enforced secularism (what??). Now tell me how execution for “apostasy” could exist without religion. And every country where that’s a crime is Islamic. From Wikipedia:
In 2011, 20 countries across the globe prohibited its citizens from apostasy; in these countries, it is a criminal offense to abandon one’s faith to become atheist, or convert to another religion.All 20 of these countries were majority Islamic nations, of which 11 were in the Middle East.
Here’s the map, with the penalties in each of the countries. Can one seriously make a case that in every one of those countries the laws against apostasy stem from colonialism, or from religion that, coopted by a malicious state, was once benign and is now odious? After all, both the Qur’an and the hadith specify punishment for leaving the faith, and in the hadith that punishment is death. Punishment for apostasy was part of the faith from the beginning.
We already know that ISIS is poisonous, and somehow—I don’t know how—it must be destroyed. Although other Muslims have condemned the group as “un-Islamic,” it’s a charge I find ludicrous, for this killing, rape, and abduction of women is merely an extension of the more moderate Islamic doctrine of marginalizing and oppressing women. Though you can face charges of “Islamophobia” for saying so, we must incessantly condemn the “moderate” Muslim practice of not allowing women to achieve their full potential. A large proportion of these “moderates” may not engage in beheadings, rapes, and tortures, but they still treat half of their population as second-class citizens—if you can even call them “citizens.” “Breeder cattle” is more like it.
Reader Michael from the UK sent two videos of a cat-food commercial involving a very complicated machine that dispenses cat food. He noted that the machine is similar to those designed by the British illustrator Heath Robinson and his American counterpart Rube Goldberg.
The ad is for Felix brand “Crunchy Crumbles” (I haven’t seen this in the US), a felid meal that involves adding a packet of crunchy bits to an attached sachet of wet food. The machine used in the first commercial is real; there is no human intervention once it’s started. It’s a really nice commercial, and stars a cute tuxedo cat also named Felix. The second video, a longer one, tells how the commercial was made, and how long it took (months!):
Michael’s notes:
The ad itself has more cat [than the “making of” video below]:
Felix enters halfway through this video on the making of the ad—has an enjoyably “luvvy” English director wearing a scarf indoors (not a spoof):
*******
From reader Su, a cat gif. Note that a dog couldn’t be either this acrobatic or this clever:
*******
From the I Can Haz Cheezburger site, via reader Ginger K., comes this compilation of the winners in the four categories of the Friskies Awards, given to the best cat videos. The video below is an introduction, but be sure to click on all four links below it to see the winning entries (out of 2000!):
Funny: Cat vs. Flipflop starring Buddy; Palm Coast, FL Buddy likes order in the house and when he sees something unfamiliar, he gets quite curious. In this playful video, Buddy is exploring a strange object on the floor and becomes the ultimate scardey cat!
Res-cute: Cat and Baby Play Peekaboo starring Howie; Liverpool, OH In this absolutely adorable video, Howie plays a game of peekaboo with baby Joy. A cute cat coupled with a cute baby is impossible to beat!
Epic: How Bob Gets His Exercise starring Bob; Atlanta, GA Bob enjoys getting his exercise in a unique way. The technique and speed with which he chases his tail is really impressive. Maybe he’s practicing to be a break dancer!
Strange: Dumpster Kitty starring Cole and Marmalade; Tampa, FL In this peculiar video, Marmalade puts on disappearing act for Cole. Mesmerized, Cole is left wondering where his feline friend goes!
Let’s start off with a lovely Idaho landscape by reader Stephen Barnard, which he labeled, “My Maxfield Parrish impression.” And sure enough, it is (Parrish is one of my favorite popular illustrators.)
He labeled it an “HDR” landscape, and when I asked what that was, he replied, “It’s three shots on a tripod at +/- 1ev. I put them together with an app. It’s easy. Your stormy Chicago skylines would be an excellent subject.”
Click to enlarge:
If you’re unfamiliar with Parrish (1870-1966), here’s one of his illustrations (“Romance,” 1922). He was known for his pastel-ish hues and grandiose, romantic imagery:
Some nest parasitism by birds, photographed by reader Brian Peer, who explains:
I have some photos of my “real” area of research: avian brood parasitism. A couple weeks ago Bruce Lyon mentioned the parasitic cuckoos he photographed in China. Here in North America, we have only one widespread interspecific avian brood parasite, the Brown-headed Cowbird. [Molothrus ater]. Cowbirds, like many of the cuckoos, never build their own nests and lay their eggs in the nests of other birds. When these “hosts” are parasitized by a cowbird they typically raise fewer of their own young, and in some instances they raise only the cowbird and none of their own young. I’m particularly interested in why so few hosts (~10%) reject cowbird eggs in spite of the costs to their reproductive success. [JAC: This goes to show you that some selective pressures don’t elicit a response: nature isn’t perfect. Any case of parasitism, like this one, is a failure of natural selection (in this case on the part of the host bird.]
I’ve attached photos of parasitized host nests. The lack of egg rejection by some hosts is likely due to the similarity of cowbird and host eggs, including the Northern Cardinal. However, there are other hosts that have eggs clearly distinguishable from cowbird eggs (Wood Thrush and Red-winged Blackbirds) yet they accept parasitism.
The cowbird eggs are white with brown and gray spots. The catbird is a “rejecter” meaning that it removes cowbird eggs laid in its nest, whereas the blackbird and wood thrush are “accepters” which accept most parasitic eggs.
Northern cardinal nest with cowbird egg:
As you can see, cowbird eggs are very similar in appearance to cardinal eggs. Cardinals rarely reject cowbird eggs and occasionally reject their own eggs from parasitized nests by accident.
Wood thrush nest with cowbird egg [JAC: note that the woodthrush accepts and broods these eggs even though they’re completely different from their own.]
This photo is a Field Sparrow nest with two sparrow eggs (smaller) and two cowbird eggs. Again, other than the size difference, these eggs are similar in appearance:
Reader “pyers” called my attention to a Torygraph article about an upcoming BBC documentary, “Wonders of the monsoon,” that is a must-watch. But the Torygraph piece has a title more suited to the Daily Mirror, to wit (click on the headline to go to the article):
Indeed, that’s just what happens, and for those of you who like nature red in tooth and claw, by all means read the piece and then watch the movie at the bottom of the article. You can also go directly to the BBC clip (which also plays in the US) by clicking the screenshot of the carnage just below:
From the Torygraph:
It resembles a monster from a b-list horror film but deep in the forests of Borneo this giant leech really exists and is a deadly predator.
The creature is so new to science that it does not yet have a taxonomic name. It is known to the tribes of Mount Kinabalu as the ‘Giant Red Leech.’
It was filmed for the first time by BBC filmmakers for the new series ‘Wonders of the Monsoon.’
The Giant Red Leech is one of the biggest in the world. The specimen captured on camera was around 30cm long but experts believe they could grow larger.
They have grown so big that they no longer simply suck blood but now actively hunt giant blue worms and suck them down like spaghetti. The worm it is eating is a whopping 78cm.
That’s about 31 inches to you non-metrics—more than twice the length of the leech. How does the leech find room?
Finding the species on Mount Kinabalu, the biggest mountain in Borneo, was a huge challenge and the team worked with ecologist Alim Bium to locate the leech.
“If you want to film a predator the best thing to do is to find its prey” said Williams, but it took the team several weeks of searching before an extremely heavy rainstorm eventually brought worms out in huge numbers. The red leeches were not far behind.
“By working with Alim we were able to sufficiently light the area of forest to record the predation as it unfolded” said Paul.
“It was exciting and fascinating, as he was making his new scientific discovery, we were documenting the behaviour for the very first time”
That last quote is the kind of thing that gives biologists a bad reputation!
There’s a lot more in the article about the show, including filming a colony of 300,000 flying foxes. Be sure to watch it if you’re in the UK! Info:
Wonders of the Monsoon will air on BBC 2 at 8pm on Sunday October 5th
In about three weeks I’ll be giving a popular lecture on evolution in Bulgaria—that’s right, Bulgaria! I’m very excited, for who ever gets to go to that country? I will, and will spend a week travelling about, seeing the sights, consuming the local comestibles (including the famous yogurt), and, of course, meeting the local biologists.
They wanted a talk that would interest a general audience (it’s part of a public lecture series) but also teach them some evolution. Since I’m tired of the evidence-for-evolution talk, I decided to talk about mimicry. You know from my (and Matthew’s) many posts on the topic that I have a keen interest in it, as mimicry is not only one of the nicest examples of evolution by natural selection (no, Larry Moran, it can’t be due to genetic drift!), but one that shows how far natural selection can take an animal (or plant), despite various developmental and ecological constraints, to its “optimum”: looking like something else that you know. How close can it get? We know from the leafhoppers and frogmouths we’ve seen that it can get pretty damn close, not to mention Matthew’s blasted nightjars. There are other lessons about evolution to be learned from mimicry, too: things about frequency-dependent selection (polymorphic Batesian mimicry, failure to adapt (the hosts of cuckoos), and so on.
Mimicry is also a good topic for a show-and-tell talk, because there are so many stunning cases of it, which will wow an audience if they have the least interest in biology (just keep reading this site and you’ll see lots more).
And selection can take a species pretty damn close to where it “should” be. Case in point: the leaf fish Monocirrhus polyacanthus from Amazonia, an example I came across while preparing my talk. The fish has evolved both its appearance and behavior to mimic a floating leaf, all to get its prey. They are voracious hunters, and lightning fast in their nomming.
An incredibly-adapted species, this fish is camouflaged to mimic a dead leaf, both in body shape and pattern. It can change colour to match its surroundings and has a projection from its bottom lip that resembles a leaf stalk. When hunting, it stalks its prey in a head-down stance, appearing to drift towards it like a dead leaf drifting in a current. When it strikes at an item of prey the entire mouth protrudes outwards, forming a large tube into which the prey is sucked, usually head first. This happens so quickly it is often difficult to see. It can swallow prey almost as big as itself in this way.
A video of their behavior in an aquarium, which is anything but fishlike:
Here’s a video (with very annoying music) showing them hunting and eating:
And a photo of some specimens. The photos on the web show a variety of colors for this species. Notice that not only the mouth but the tail has evolved a point, so that the whole thing looks like a leaf:
I bet you didn’t know that there were leaf-mimicking fish.
