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.
According to a piece on the NPR site, Sarah the cheetah has died at the age of 15 at the Cincinnati Zoo. Or, rather, she was euthanized, for she was old and her health was failing. The site notes that the average age of a cheetah is 12-15 years, but that appears to be longevity in captivity, as the Smithsonian says that nobody has studied longevity of this species in the wild. Sarah, also called “Sahara”, was clocked as the fastest known land mammal, a record you can see in the video below:
Sarah (also named Sahara) was famous for her astonishing speed. We blogged about her on the Two-Way in 2009, when she set the speed record for land mammals: 100 meters in 6.13 seconds.
Three years later, she smashed her own record and set a new one: 100 meters in 5.95 seconds. (For context, Usain Bolt’s best time — and humankind’s best effort — is 9.58 seconds.)
A NatGeo editor said the animal looked like “a polka-dotted missile.
Here’s Sarah breaking the record. I may have posted on this before, but it’s worth seeing again:
If you like cheetahs, watch this video, too. Listen to them purr!
Finally, for d*g lovers, NPR adds this:
Sarah was also notable as one of the first cheetah cubs to be raised with a puppy companion — an Anatolian shepherd named Alexa, or Lexi.
The two animals were “lifelong companions,” writes Cathryn Hilker, the founder of the zoo’s Cat Ambassador program and the woman who hand-raised Sarah as a cub.
This is just not right!:
The cheetah Sarah and the Anatolian shepherd Alexa were raised together and became lifelong companions. Cincinnati Zoo
Now I’ll ask you to guess what the fastest known land ANIMAL is; put your answers below, and no Googling!
My book event at Blackwell’s last night—a conversation about Faith versus Fact and the five science-vs-religion books I picked for the Five Books site—went very well, I thought. The moderator was Sophie Roell, editor of Five Books,who interviewed me on my quintet of good anti-faith books as well as on five popular evolution books when Why Evolution is True appeared earlier. (Do read the latest selections by Tim Radford on science writing and James Randi on skepticism.) Although Sophie and I had two long telephone interviews and intervening correspondence over the years, I hadn’t met her till yesterday, when she treated me to a pint and fish and chips (with mushy peas) at one of my favorite Oxford pubs, the Turf Tavern. Sophie is of Dutch ancestry, so she’s tall:
The audience, being British, was not very religious, so I didn’t get a lot of pushback, but did get many good questions, and the audience seemed interested.
This morning, after working in the Oxford University Press library (and learning that they’re reissuing WEIT in October with a new cover as part of their “classic science” series, my editor Latha and I went for lunch at The Royal Oak, a pub that has been on that site since 1670. It’s a lovely place, with fires, wooden beams, and NO televisions or “fruit machines” (slot machines to us Yanks). If you see a t.v. or a fruit machine, it’s a bogus pub.
A rabbit-themed ale tile on the outside:
Now this is a pub. The critical item is the rank of gravity pumps on the bar, denoting real ale.
There is no equivalent to the pub in America. There are fake pubs, but the beer you get will be served at refrigerator temperature, and there will probably be televisions. The pub is perhaps my favorite British institution, and began as a warm place for bibulous people to congregate, for the average person’s home was small, dark, cold, and dirty. I’ve also visited what is said to be the oldest existing pub in England, Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem in Nottingham, reportedly founded in 1189 though the current building dates to the late 17th century.
Only three of the four ales were on at The Royal Oak; I had Sharp’s Doom Bar, a just-okay session pint, though not nearly as good as Landlord. I should have tried the Harviestoun (I allow myself only one pint at lunch):
Lunch was a lot better than my pint. A three-course lunch for £13 started off with a crock of duck rillettes with toasted bread and chutney. The layer on top is congealed fat, which you can remove as a solid disk.
Main course: sausage and mash with gravy and a perfunctory watercress topping:
Dessert: sticky toffee pudding with dates and vanilla bean ice cream. A good meal! Sticky toffee pudding is one of the great delights of England.
A postprandial walk through Oggsford (the name comes from Meyer Wolfsheim in The Great Gatsby) revealed several architectural treasures. This is the Radcliffe Observatory, Oxvford’s astronomical observatory from 1773 until 1934:
Right next door is the huge new Andrew Wiles building of Oxford’s Mathematical Institute, one of the largest mathematics groups in Europe.
The Institute is well known for its space-filling “Penrose tiles”, named of course after Roger Penrose. Here’s a movie of the tiling:
Near the Royal Oak is perhaps Oxford’s most famous pub, the Eagle and Child. Its fame comes from its being the local of the “Inklings,” a group of Oxford literari who met there for drink and high-powered Brain Talk. The Inklings included C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. The group also met at a pub across the street that I like better, the Lamb and Flag. But the Eagle and Child is most famous now as “the Tolkien pub.”
The facade of St John’s College (founded 1555), which happens to own the Lamb and Flag.
The famous Oxford “Martyr’s Memorial”, built in 1843, memorializes the three Oxford Martyrs (Nicholas Ridley, Hugh Latimer, and Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury), burnt at the stake in 1555 for heresy and treason. They were Anglicans, and when Mary I, a Catholic, became queen, the three became heretics. Nicholas Ridley is a distant relative of both Mark and Matt Ridley, two distantly related biologists who wrote popular books on evolution.
And finally, a lovely medieval house in downtown Oggsford, now converted into a Pret a Manger (oy!):
Twitter has formed a “Trust and Safety Council” to “ensure people can continue to express themselves freely and safely” on their network. In principle, I think there should be some monitoring to prevent personal threats and incitement to violence, but this seems to go farther. Have a look at their page on this, which states, among other things,
In developing the Council, we are taking a global and inclusive approach so that we can hear a diversity of voices from organizations including:
Safety advocates, academics, and researchers focused on minors, media literacy, digital citizenship, and efforts around greater compassion and empathy on the Internet;
Grassroots advocacy organizations that rely on Twitter to build movements and momentum;
Community groups with an acute need to prevent abuse, harassment, and bullying, as well as mental health and suicide prevention.
We have more than 40 organizations and experts from 13 regions joining as inaugural members of the Council. We are thrilled to work with these organizations to ensure that we are enabling everyone, everywhere to express themselves with confidence on Twitter.
And here are their inaugural members:
Twitter Trust & Safety Council – Inaugural Members:
What worries me is that I know of some of these organizations, and realize that they aren’t simply trying to prevent incitement to violence or threats to personal safety, but to suppress the form of “hate speech” which often amounts simply to criticism of an organization’s or a person’s views. The Anti Defamation League (ADL), for instance, combats anti-Semitism and racism. That’s an admirable goal, but should sentiments like that be prohibited on Twitter? And, if so, who is to decide what counts as anti-Semitism? The ADL? The Dangerous Speech Project, for instance, equates inflammatory speech with violence:
Inflammatory public speech rises steadily before outbreaks of mass violence, suggesting that it is a precursor of, or even a prerequisite for violence.
You can see where this will lead: someone has to decide what “inflammatory public speech is.”
And, from my experience on the Internet, criticism of people’s views is often construed as “bullying,” so there are anti-bullying organizations involved here too. There is a fine line here, for excessive name-calling, particularly of children, can lead to trauma and even suicide, but even adults who promulgate controversial views—and get pushback—often claim they’re being “bullied.” “Bullying” is often a code word for “strong criticism.”
In the end, some restrictions are necessary on Twitter, but this proposal appears to go way too far. Who will decide what speech is “hate speech” or “bullying speech”? Where on the list are organizations like FIRE or the American Civil Liberties Union that are dedicating to protecting freedom of speech? I see none. It’s a totally one-sides list, comprising organizations that will censor.
This is a very bad move on the part of Twitter. By implying that they’re creating a space where organizations can express themselves “freely and safely”, they’re in effect going along with the “safe speech” crowd. And what, exactly, does “safely” mean? If it means freedom from threats of violence, I agree. If it means—and I think it does—freedom from unwanted or strong criticism, then goodbye to free speech on Twitter.
As always, the best remedy for offensive or unwanted speech is not censoring your opponents, but counterspeech. Apparently Twitter hasn’t learned that lesson. They have a right to control their commercial platform as they wish, but I don’t think they realize that this kind of thought control is positively Orwellian.
Today’s Jesus and Mo cartoon, “beard2” appears to be missing from the site, but the author notes that it’s a recycled cartoon from 2008. I found one from that year labeled “beard”, and here it is:
Yep, he’s a wimp, and he reminds me of someone whose name I can’t recall.
We have some photographs out of Africa today, all taken by reader Richard Bond. Lots of felids, too! His report:
I am somewhat intimidated by the outstanding quality of many of your wildlife photo contributions, but there have been no big wild cats for a while, so these might interest you. They were taken in one afternoon and early evening in the Masai Mara.
First, though, on our way there we flew over the southern end of Lake Magadi, the southernmost alkaline lake of the Kenyan Rift Valley. We were about 3000 metres above the lake, which is about two kilometres wide at this point. The surface of large parts of the lake is formed by precipitated sodium sesquicarbonate, within which the “wildlife” comprises vast numbers of several species of archaea. Some of these cause the pink colour. The sectors of clear water are centred on two of the hot springs that feed the lake along its margins.
In the first photo of the lions, the markings on the back of their ears show that the cubs on the right do not belong to the lioness on the left. The next photo shows the same markings on their actual mother. Apparently these markings are very variable between families and are inherited, so that they are useful to people studying lions.
Photos 5 & 6 were taken as the sun was setting. The excellent camouflage that this light provides makes it a little difficult to see that the lioness with her legs in the air is suckling three very small cubs.
The two cheetah cubs (probably male and female from their relative sizes) have been left while their mother goes hunting. They are lightly screened by knee-high grass and continually looking around as a precaution against lions, which would regard cheetah cubs as tasty snackettes.
My distant shot of the leopard is barely worth submitting. Unfortunately I entrusted the zoomed-in followup to an insistent and excited 11-year specimen of Homo sapiens, but did not realise until I saw it on a big screen that it was slightly blurred.
Can you spot the leopard? No, because it’s already spotted! (I’ll be here all week, folks. . .)
Given your interest a few years ago in flying in the copilot’s seat of a light aircraft, I have included a photo of the aforementioned H. sapiens specimen as he helped to take us back to the coast.
Good morning everyone, happy Hump Day! May the blessings of strong coffee or fragrant tea be upon you. It’s Grania here again, Jerry will join us later on in the day; at the moment he has Important Stuff keeping him occupied.
A: What are you doing here?
Hili: I’m promoting your book.
A: With such a gloomy face?
Hili: Not gloomy but wondering whether my friends have already ordered it.
In Polish:
Ja: Co tu robisz?
Hili: Promuję twoją książkę.
Ja: Z taką ponurą miną?
Hili: Nie ponurą, tylko pytającą, czy moi przyjaciele już zamówili.
If you are wondering about what Hili is talking about, as Malgorzata explains below, Andrzej has written a new book.
Andrzej thought for a long time about writing about the problem why Israel, the country not bigger than one of Poland’s voivodships, gives rise to such interest, passion, obsession, hatred, lies etc. Then about a year ago, he was recommended a blog by a known Polish female journalist who was writing about the Middle East. This very one sided writing became a trigger and Andrzej decided to write his book in the form of letters to this journalist. Now, many years ago, still under Communism, a very well known Polish writer, Kazimierz Brandys, wrote a book under the title: “Letters to Mrs. Z.”. Playing on the fact that the surname of this journalist starts with “Z” Andrzej gave his book a working title “Different letters to a different Mrs. Z.”. This is now a subtitle, while the title of Andrzej’s book means “Israel’s all faults”.
If you are interested (and can read Polish), you can read more about it here. Our best wishes to Andrzej for the success of his book!
And as a lagniappe, long-time regular Taskin sent Jerry a photo of Gus who is as concerned as I am about the cold.
See that bright sunshine and beautiful blue sky? That means it’s FREEZING here!
My long-time best friend Kenny King, who had married a British girl and moved to England several decades ago, died unexpectedly in April of 2014 (see memoriam at link). I was upset that I couldn’t make it to the funeral, as I was giving talks in Davis, California.
Yesterday I was finally able to make it to the small village of Denton (half an hour from Milton Keynes) to visit Jane, Kenny’s wife. We paid tribute to the old man the best way we knew how: enjoying his great collection of wines and toasting to his life and memory. Jane is also a terrific vegetarian cook, so during our short one-day visit we had some fantastic noms.
Below is a small part of Kenny’s collection. He was the person who taught me to appreciate wine, especially German Rieslings and the great Rhone wines of France—in my opinion, the world’s finest red wines. I have about a case of rare wines in his collection in Denton (some of the wines at lower right, including a half case of Sauternes), but couldn’t bring any back this time.
Jane making lunch, in this case homemade tomato soup from locally grown tomatoes, red peppers, and cream:
Lunch: the soup (terrific), cheese scones, Gruyere and cheddar cheese, and a selection of British crackers (not biscuits!):
First course for dinner: garlic baked in olive oil till it becomes very soft, and then spread on homemade wholemeal bread (Jane is also an excellent baker). I didn’t photograph the second course (stuffed mushrooms and celeriac with cream and rapeseed oil) because I had drunk too much wine and forgot:
Cheers to Kenny! Clockwise from left, Latha Menon, my friend and editor at Oxford University Press (head trade science commissioning editor, also a friend of Jane), Jane, and Adam, Kenny’s son, who now lives in Valencia but came up for a visit.
And the wines, selected by Jane in the knowledge that Kenny would probably have offered these. If you know wines you’ll see that these are terrific, and they were. There’s a Macon Chardonnay, a great 1989 Bordeaux (“claret”), an equally great 2006 Rhone, and then, on the extreme right, one of the bottles I bought with Kenny: a Vin de Constance from the famous Klein Constanzia vineyard in South Africa. It’s a sweet wine made from the muscat grape. The wine is historically important, having been produced since the late 17th century. This “Constantia” wine is mentioned in novels by Dickens and Jane Austen as a restorative drink. The 2007 vintage was particularly good, and proved a lovely postprandial tipple, supplanting dessert (or “pudding” as they call it here).
