Best Friends says “Happy Thanksgiving”

November 27, 2014 • 8:09 am

Don’t expect anything substantive today as the good Professor will be occupied, and nobody in America will be (or should be, if you are) reading websites.  And, as it’s a holiday,  I’ll even allow videos showing d*gs that aren’t getting pummeled by cats.

This one is a heartwarming two-minute Thanksgiving video from the Best Friends Animal Society, described on YouTube as an estimable organization (TRIGGER WARNING: D*gs):

Best Friends Animal Society is a national animal welfare organization focused on ending the killing of dogs and cats in America’s shelters. An authority and leader in the no-kill movement, Best Friends runs the nation’s largest no-kill sanctuary for companion animals, as well as lifesaving programs in partnership with rescue groups and shelters across the country. Since its founding in 1984, Best Friends has helped reduce the number of animals killed in shelters nationwide from 17 million per year to about 4 million. Best Friends has the knowledge, technical expertise and on-the-ground network to end the killing and Save Them All®.

Think of all the strays today who don’t having loving homes, and, if you’re so moved, make a donation at the Best Friends web page. 

 

 

h/t: Blue

Readers’ wildlife photos: Happy Thanksgiving!

November 27, 2014 • 4:41 am

Apropos the holiday, we have just one species to show, America’s wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo). Happily, these turkeys won’t be eaten, for they’re wild and were photographed by readers.

First, we have three photos by reader Al Blazo, who is surrounded by the birds:

My wife and I live in an urban area of NE Ohio, adjacent to a large park.  Until about five years ago, seeing a turkey in this area was a very rare experience.  During the past five years, however, the turkey population seems to have exploded.
At the beginning of this spring we had two turkeys visit us on a semi-regular basis.  They produced a couple of offspring and then four turkeys were regular visitors.  As the summer rolled on, more joined the pack.  They come to feast on the whole and crushed corn that I put out for the ducks and bush birds that spend their afternoons in our back yard.  Now, 13 turkeys show up every day to chow down, sometimes two and three times a day! They are getting really huge.
Al blazo turkeys
The second photo shows one of the parents walking right up to me and the kitties looking for corn that I place at our bird feeding area.
photo 2
Turkeys and deer seem to have reproduced in abundance this year in the urban park where our house is situated. I’ve never seen as many as I’ve seen this year.  They’re actually starting to cause traffic jams as they mosey about the small 2-lane street in front of our house!
I was sitting in the garage this afternoon when I heard something walking on the roof.  Whatever it was, I thought, it sounded way too huge to be a squirrel or pigeon!  I walked into house so I could peer out the window at the garage roof.  And there it was. The other day I witnessed a turkey larger than the one shown here effortlessly fly, in literal helicopter fashion, straight up from the street (in front of my house) to the top of a dead tree.  The top of the tree was approx. 50′ above the street.  I had no idea that turkeys could fly so effortlessly, and so precisely.
Al blazo Turkey on roof
Reader Gregory James adds another photo:
This is probably not the quality you are looking for in terms of posting on WEIT, but it is cool nonetheless. I took it out my kitchen window earlier today, on the East Side of Milwaukee where we have had quite a number of local wild turkeys in the neighborhood for several years. They are quite tame and local kids can be found playing among them on the boulevard.  So, while our foxes are long gone, we still have interesting wildlife.  (We have a lot of human turkeys, too, of course. But they aren’t as much fun.)
GregorY James turkey
It’s a common belief among Americans that Benjamin Franklin proposed that the turkey and not the bald eagle become the national bird of the U.S. This turns out to be false, but he did denigrate the eagle in favor of the turkey. Here’s an excerpt from a letter from Franklin to his daughter, reprinted in Smithsonian magazine:

“For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.

With all this injustice, he is never in good case but like those among men who live by sharping & robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district. He is therefore by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America who have driven all the King birds from our country…

“I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America… He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.”

 

Thursday: Hili dialogue

November 27, 2014 • 4:23 am

It’s the Thanksgiving holiday in America, nominally designed for us to proffer gratitude for our “blessings,” but really a chance to gorge ourselves on turkey, watch American football, and then fall asleep in a food-induced stupor. I hope to engage in two of these, and posting will be light. Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Cyrus discuss politics.

Hili: Do we return to international affairs or go sniff at the local ones?
Cyrus: The local ones smell better.

P1010986
In Polish:
Hili: Wracamy do spraw międzynarodowych, czy idziemy obwąchiwać lokalne?
Cyrus: Lokalne jednak lepiej pachną.

 

Pre-holiday felids: bully cats and rocket cats

November 26, 2014 • 3:07 pm

I can’t embed this, but click on the screenshot below to go to a HuffPo UK video of Cats Bullying D*gs, or The Way It Should Be:

Screen Shot 2014-11-26 at 2.31.06 PM

And another cat vs. dog video demonstrating felid superiority:

Notice in the second video that artificial selection for speedier dogs has given them to a body form similar to the world’s fastest felids, sculpted by natural selection alone. That’s an intriguing convergence between the products of natural and artificial selection.

h/t: Miss May, Robin ~

 

Playing with seal pups

November 26, 2014 • 1:37 pm

[JAC: It’s almost a holiday—Thanksgiving in the US—so it’s time to ditch the gravitas and have some fun. Here’s the first of two pre-holiday animal videos.]

by Matthew Cobb

I declare seals, like otters, to be Aquatic Honorary Cats™. In October 2013, Vimeo user ‘SuperJohnnyAdventurepants‘ went diving on the Farne Islands (off Northumberland, on the north-east coast of the UK), and encountered some lovely seal pups, as you can see here. Turn it on to fullscreen! You might want to turn the sound off if the music isn’t your thing. (Warning – I found the music grew on me with repeated viewings, so be careful.)

Here’s the blurb on Vimeo:

Come and join me and the gang as we get the seal of approval as we visit the Farne Islands in Northumberland in October 2013. We’ve been visiting here for the last six years to say hello to the seal pups and we’ve never had this much interaction before – they were everywhere and all over us!!!! After a nightmare drive there with the worst traffic coupled with the imminent arrival of the St. Jude’s storm we didn’t think this trip was going to be worth the effort but once again the seals made every second worthwhile…….

Enjoy the show!!!

Filmed on location in the Farne Islands, UK with the help of Sovereign Divers. Contact them here: sovereigndiving.co.uk

 

My “Road to Reason” interview

November 26, 2014 • 12:50 pm

If you missed it and want to see it, here’s the YouTube version of my Skype interview last Sunday with Rob Penczak and Larry Mendoza, hosts of Fairfax County’s cable-access t.v. program “Road to Reason.” After some announcements and news, the interview begins at 12:30.

I can’t bear to watch these things (Rob gave me the time marker above), but I can tell you that they wanted to talk mostly about science rather than religion or science vs. religion, which was fine with me. There was one person who called in, and that was plenty weird (see for yourself).

 

J. D. Watson to sell his Nobel Prize medal

November 26, 2014 • 11:11 am

CNN reports that James D. Watson, who in 1962 got the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (along with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins) for revealing the structure of DNA, is selling his Prize medal in an auction:

The coveted gold medal is expected to go under the hammer for up to $3.5 million in a sale at Christie’s in New York on December 4.

It will be the first time a Nobel Prize has been sold by a living recipient.

. . . The scientist’s notes for his acceptance speech at the Nobel ceremony in Stockholm and the manuscript of his Nobel lecture are also on offer at the auction.

At first I couldn’t understand why he’d sell it, as he’s 85 and isn’t exactly at the age where he needs a Ferrari (nor is he poor by any means!), but the article explains:

Watson says he intends to use part of the money raised by the sale to fund projects at the universities and scientific research institutions he has worked at throughout his career.

“I look forward to making further philanthropic gifts to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the University of Chicago, and Clare College Cambridge,” he said in a statement.

He added that the auction would mean he could “continue to do my part in keeping the academic world an environment where great ideas and decency prevail.”

Last year, Francis Crick’s “Secret of Life” letter to his son, in which he explained the structure of DNA weeks before the discovery was officially announced in the April 1953 edition of the journal Nature, was sold for $6.06 million.

The world record price — more than three times its pre-sale estimate — made it the most expensive letter ever sold at auction.

Good for him, and at least he’ll be alive when he sees the medal turned into more science. I fervently wish that some museum would buy it, so we could all see it (I’ve never seen a real Nobel medal), but I fear a private collector will snap it up.

Here’s the Medicine or Physiology medal from the Nobel Prize site, with an explanation (each of the Prizes has a different medal):

The medal of the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute represents the Genius of Medicine holding an open book in her lap, collecting the water pouring out from a rock in order to quench a sick girl’s thirst.

med_medal_intro

It’s real gold, of course. The About Education website adds this:

The exact weight of a Nobel medal varies, but each medal is 18 karat green gold plated with 24 karat (pure) gold, with an average weight of around 175 grams [JAC: a bit more than 6 ounces]. Back in 2012, 175 grams of gold was worth $9975 or about ten thousand US dollars. The modern Nobel Prize medal is worth in excess of $10,000! The Nobel Prize medal may be worth even more than its weight in gold if the medal goes up for auction.

That’s for damned sure, as the medal is also engraved with the winner’s name, and this one will have Watson’s on it. It’s the medal given for the most significant discovery in biology of our era.

Go have a look at Crick’s “secret of life” letter at the Smithsonian site. It’s pretty amazing, and lays out all the detail before the famous Nature paper was published.  Here’s one cool bit:

Screen Shot 2014-11-26 at 11.56.59 AM

I’m sure Matthew will talk about this letter in his upcoming book on the genetic code.

h/t: Bruce Grant