Last WWI combat veteran dies

May 5, 2011 • 3:59 pm

I don’t know why I feel compelled to report the deaths of “last war veterans”; perhaps it’s because I feel that my own generation is moving into the front lines.  At any rate, the Washington Post reports that Claude Choules, the “only remaining veteran of World War I and one of the last people to have served in both world wars,” died today in Australia at the age of 110.

Mr. Choules and another Briton, Florence Green, became the war’s last known surviving service members after the death of American Frank Buckles in February, according to the Order of the First World War, a U.S.-based group that tracks veterans.

Mr. Choules was the last known surviving combatant of the war. Green, who turned 110 in February, served as a waitress in the Women’s Royal Air Force.

“Everything comes to those who wait and wait,” Mr. Choules told an interviewer in 2009. . . .

Despite the fame his military service brought him, Mr. Choules later in life became a pacifist who was uncomfortable with anything that glorified war. He disagreed with the celebration of Anzac Day, Australia’s most important war memorial holiday, and refused to march in parades held each year to mark the holiday.

“I had a pretty poor start,” he told a reporter in 2009. “But I had a good finish.”

RIP, Claude.

Joan Baez

May 5, 2011 • 7:13 am

For a few days we’ll have my favorite female singer/songwriters.  Here’s Joan Baez, awesome singer and okay songwriter, owner of one of the best voices of our era, performing the Bob Dylan song “I Shall Be Released” in Sing Sing Prison. This live video was made in 1972, when Baez was 31.

Dylan and Baez were, of course, lovers. Here they are in a famous picture by Daniel Kramer, taken in 1964.  Dylan was 23.  I have this on my wall to remind me of all that was lovely in the Sixties.


The strange origin of the treehopper “helmet”

May 5, 2011 • 5:38 am

Last November I posted pictures of some bizarre treehoppers (membracids, a family in the order of true bugs, Hemiptera) that had strange structures branching from the top of their bodies. Because these insects were so incredibly weird, it proved to be the most linked-to post I’ve ever written.  At any rate, go back for a minute and look at some of those things.   And here are some more, taken from a new paper in Nature by Benjamin Prud’homme et al. (click to enlarge):

We’ve seen the one at the upper left before: it’s Bocydium globulare.  The function of these “helmets” isn’t always clear: some of them may deter predators (e.g. left images, rows 2 and 3), others may serve as camouflage (last row, left and middle), and still others may mimic distasteful or dangerous insects like ants (lower right).  Regardless of their function, the Prud’homme paper has made a significant contribution to understanding where these “helmets” come from.

They are highly modified homologs of the insect’s wings: an ancient winglike structure that was long repressed but appeared again to take on a variety of new functions as a helmet.

The “helmet” appears on the first segment of the insect’s thorax (“T1”), and is the only known dorsal appendage on that segment in insects (wings of modern insects are always on the last two segments, T2 and T3).  Prud’homme et al. suggest, with good evidence, that the helmet is a pair of fused wing primordia: remnants of the early structures that gave rise to modern wings.

How do we know these are wing homologs?  Prud’homme gives several lines of evidence:

  • The helmet is not simply an outgrowth of the thorax, but is connected to it, as are the wings and other appendages, by a “complex articulation”: a flexible joint.   Here’s a cross section of a dissected treehopper: the joint between thorax and helmet (top, red box) is similar to that between the wings and thorax (bottom, blue box):
  • The development of the helmet is similar to that of the wing:  both “unfold” on emergence (many times I’ve watched the wings of newly eclosed flies unfurl from nubbins to full wings, a remarkable process that takes only a minute or two).
  • There are other morphological similarities between wings and helmets:  both consist of two layers of cells connected by columns, and both are suffused with a complex network of veins.
  • The genes that are expressed in the developing helmet are the same as crucial genes expressed in the developing wing, including Nubbin, Distal-less, and homothorax.

If the helmet is a re-expression of a repressed wing structure, does that mean that early insects had more than two wings? Well, even some modern insects have more than two wings: dragonflies and bees, for example.  But these wings are always, as I mentioned, on the second and third thoracic segment.  We know that insect flight evolved about 350 million years ago (insects are the only flying invertebrates), but fossils are scanty. One theory, espoused by Jarmilla Kukalova-Peck and supported by more recent genetic work, suggests that wings evolved from gill plates in early insects (I’ve written before about the likelihood that the ancestors of modern insects were closely associated with water).  In one of her papers, Kukalova-Peck gives a reconstruction of a Paleozoic mayfly nymph (an aquatic life stage), showing winglike structures—gill plates—on every segment of the thorax and abdomen:

From Kukalova-Peck, J., J. Morphology 156:53-125 (1978)

Another theory is that wings arose from branches of the ancestral insect limb.   Both theories, though, posit that there were more than one or two ancestral structures that were winglike, and that the evolution of the two or four wings in modern insects involved genetic repression of these ancestral features.  The gene Scr (sex combs reduced) seems to be involved in this repression: when it’s inactivated in some insects, extra wing primordia form on T1.

The authors thus posited that somehow, in the last 100 million years (the time when membracids arose), the Scr gene lost its ability to repress wing promordia in the membracid lineage, allowing the helmet to evolve.  To test this, they actually inserted the membracid Scr gene into Drosophila (which has a normal, “repressive” Scr), expecting that perhaps wing primordia would then arise on the first segment of the fly thorax. They didn’t.  They thus suggest that other genes—genes normally repressed by Scr in membracids—have lost their ability to be repressed, and these genes are involved in making the helmet.

Here are the authors’ conclusions from the paper. Even if you’re not a biologist you should be able to understand them, for if you haven’t, I have not written clearly enough!

Our results show that treehoppers have evolved a T1 dorsal appendage, thereby departing from the typical winged-insect body plan, by expressing a developmental potential that had beenmaintained under the repression of a Hox gene for 250Myr. This argues that the constraint preventing extra dorsal appendage formation in insects is not developmental but rather selective. We submit that morphological innovations can arise from the deployment of existing but silenced developmental potentials, therefore requiring not so much the evolution of new genetic material but instead the expression of these potentials.

The breadth of morphological diversity in helmets that has evolved in less than 40 Myr (ref. 27 and C. Dietrich, personal communication) is unusual for an appendage. The pace of appendage evolution is generally slow, probably because of the strong selective pressure associated with their role in locomotion. This is particularly true for the wings, and we speculate that, initially alleviated from functional requirements, the recently evolved helmet was free to explore the morphological space through changes in its developmental program.

As your reward for reading this far, here’s another really weird membracid (Heteronotus sp., from Ecuador), photographed by Alex Wild and taken from his wonderful website, Myrmecos.  You can see both the helmet and the wings.

__________________

Prud’homme, B. et al. 2011.  Body plan innovations in treehoppers through the evolution of an extra wing-like appendage.  Nature 473: 83-86.

Gayle’s new cat

May 4, 2011 • 2:27 pm

There was a lot of sadness here when reader Gayle Ferguson, a biologist at Massey University in New Zealand, lost her beloved tabby Huxley to a marauding dog.  I’m pleased to report that she has adopted a new kitten.  Meet Lucy:

Lucy is a sweetie.  She loves cuddles, is friendly to everybody, has a very loud purr, and is fond of food and vocalising.  She would love to play with her big step-sister Millie, but Millie will have none of her 🙁   Lucy loves playing ping-pong and hunting for cicadas.  Lucy and her brother are 5 months old and both had to be rehomed due to one of their carers being allergic to cats.  Maybe one day she will fill the void left by Huxley, whom we miss so much.

When nature calls in space

May 4, 2011 • 9:47 am

I know you’ve wondered how astronauts relieve themselves in zero gravity.  National Geographic’s “Known Universe” has the answers in this video.  No worries: it’s actually a marvel of engineering, and you won’t see anything gross.

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Once again: does religion produce knowledge?

May 4, 2011 • 9:06 am

Patrick McNamara is the “Science, Religion, & Politics Examiner” for the Examiner site, and has a long history of atheist-bashing and accommodationism.  His philosophy can be summed up in a line from one of his articles:

Religion itself needs to be studied and treated with respect, not just because it sometimes serves positive purposes but also because it may allow us to access truths otherwise unavailable to the Human Mind-at least that is what its adherents believe.

(You can also see from that sentence that he’s not a very good writer.)  McNamara has previously gone after the Four Horsemen, and in his latest column he’s after one of the Stableboys: “Jerry Coyne’s ‘No dialogue is possible’ stance.”  It’s a short column that doesn’t warrant a long response, but I do want to mention two of McNamara’s accusations. Both are based on a statement I made in my Guardian piece about Martin Rees and his Templeton Prize, to wit:
And although science and religion are said to be “different ways of knowing”, religion isn’t really a way of knowing anything – it’s a way of believing what you’d like to be true. Faith has never vouchsafed us a single truth about the universe.

MacNamara responds in two ways:

1.  Religion does not involve believing things that you’d like to be true.

I find it bizarre that Coyne can believe that religion is a way of believing what you’d like to be true. This is a very common mistake and misconception of religion by aggressive atheism. Religion is a crutch to avoid looking at the stark realities of the world etc etc  It is tiresome to have to deal with this sort of view of religion as it has been falsified so often by scientists and scholars who study religion on a full time basis. For every religious belief that might be characterized as wish fulfillment there are a thousand religious beliefs that do not. Did pre-modernized African tribesmen want to believe in the literal reality of demons? Do the ancient Jewish purity regulations and rituals seem like a wish fulfillment exercise to you? Do catholic [sic] beliefs regarding ‘sex only in a marriage’ seem like a ‘way to believing what you’d like to be true”?  Do Calvinist and Lutheran beliefs in the fundamental sinfulness of humankind sound like something we wish were true? I could go on but you get the point. All this characterization of religion as child’s play and wishful thinking is mere distraction.

My response: there’s a difference between “wish fulfillment” and “believing what you would like to be true.”  Yes, I have read Pascal Boyer and other anthropological discussions of religion, and I know perfectly well that in some cultures “religion” doesn’t involve going to heaven or other wonderful fates, but represents instead a personification of unknown forces—a turning of the unknowable into supernatural agents.  But even in those cases the explanations give one a way not just to explain events, but to avoid the bad ones. I doubt that their adherents would prefer not “understanding” things than to have their own supernatural explanations.

“Belief in what you’d like to be true” is most evident in the Abrahamic religions, particularly Christianity and Islam, where there are explicit rewards—eternal afterlife—for good behavior.  (Jews aren’t so clear on this, but many do believe in eternal rewards.)  As for the bad stuff—threats of eternal damnation and the like—we’ve covered these before, and they can be seen as both things that people want to believe as fates for others (i.e.,  eternal damnation for people who behave badly), or as forms of control by religious authorities, perhaps those that evolved from earlier strictures for regulating societies (no adultery or wanton fornication, and so on).

Religions have both carrots and sticks, but the whole package is certainly one that many adherents swallow as a whole.  Can anyone deny that the thought of a benevolent sky father, one who, if you behave yourself,  will take care of you and help you obviate death, is something that people want to be true?  And although MacNamara characterizes the human construction of faith as a “mere distraction,” it’s the central point of Gnu Atheism and of the sociology of religion: if religion is a human construction, and its tenets not true, what purpose does it serve?  Are those essential purposes? And, if so, can they be fulfilled by secular institutions. (I tend to think “yes” based on widespread atheism in Europe.)  Regardless, however, MacNamara avoids the question that all accommodationists avoid: are the tenets of faith true?  If not, should we avoid pointing that out lest we damage the fragile psyches of the faithful?

2.  Religion can too produce knowledge.  

But surely it is POSSIBLE that religion MIGHT yield some sort of worthwhile knowledge for humankind. After all would not Coyne agree that music yields a form of knowledge for humankind or that poetry does? What about novels? Surely science is not the only reliable way to knowledge that there is? If poetry, novels, music and the arts more generally can be said to POSSIBLY yield some form knowledge for humankind why can’t religion do so also? Why the preculiarly [sic] aggressive animus against religion?

Three responses.  First, music, literature and poetry don’t produce any truths about the universe that don’t require independent verification by empirical and rational investigation: that is, through science (broadly interpreted).  These fine arts don’t convey to us anything factual about the world unless those facts can be replicated by reason, observation or experiment.  All of the other “truths” from the arts fall into the class of “emotional realizations.”

I may, for example, feel a oneness with humanity from reading Tolstoy, or a feeling that I need to “seize the day” from watching Never Let Me Go. While one might consider these things worthwhile knowledge, with “knowledge” defined broadly, they are not what we atheists—and many of the faithful—mean by “truths.” Religious “truths” of the sort we’re talking about are statements about how the universe really is, like these: “You will find eternal life by accepting Jesus as your savior.”  Or “There is a celestial being in Heaven who answers prayers and regulates the world.”  Or “A Jewish prophet, the son of God, was crucified two millennia ago and, by so dying, redeemed us from sin.” Or “You will find virgins (aka raisins) in heaven if you die a martyr to the faith.”  Or “Mohamed flew up to heaven on the back of a white horse.”

Other forms of religious “knowledge,” like “Do unto others as you would have them to do you,” or “Thou shalt not kill,” are not facts or realities but guides for behavior, and all of them are (and have been) easily derived from secular morality.

Second, if MacNamara thinks that we can get worthwhile knowledge from religion, what is it?  Why has he never given an example?  And is that knowledge uniquely derived from religion, or is it available elsewhere? What are the eternal verities that we can get only from faith?

Finally, when you read a novel like Anna Karenina, you know it’s fiction: if from the endeavor you realize things about yourself, or about human emotions, you are not required to sign onto the genuine physical existence of Count Vronsky or Karenin.  In contrast, emotional realizations that derive from faith require absolute belief in a number of ridiculous, incorrect, or unverifiable propositions.

Christopher Hitchens has offered his challenge to the faithful, and I have offered mine:  tell me exactly what “knowledge” religion has provided that is not derivable from secular reason.  Like Hitchens, I still have not received an answer.

Laura Nyro, and a contest

May 4, 2011 • 5:18 am

UPDATE: Maurits van der Ween has provided what I consider the first correct answer. Maurits, email me with your address for your prize.

___________

When I have Weltschmerz, as I did last night, I bail on working and listen to music instead. Often I’ll trawl through YouTube, looking for songs that I once liked but haven’t heard for a while.

When I was in college, one of my favorite singer-songwriters was Laura Nyro, who I’m sure is completely unknown to the younger generation—and maybe to many oldsters as well.  Nyro, born in 1947 to Russian Jewish parents, was a prodigiously talented singer/songwriter, nearly all of whose songs were hits not for herself but for other singers.  These include “Wedding Bell Blues,” “Stoned Soul Picnic,” “Blowin’ Away,” and “Sweet Blindness” (all hits for the Fifth Dimension), “Stoney End” (a hit for Barbra Streisand), “Eli’s Coming” (Three Dog Night), and perhaps her most famous song, “And When I Die,” which was a huge hit for Blood, Sweat & Tears.  Nyro wrote that song when she was only 17 years old; many of her other hits were written before she was twenty-one.

I think her own performances (the best are on the albums First Songs and Eli and the Thirteenth Confession) are far better than the covers by others.  Here’s her singing “And When I Die,” recorded when she was twenty.  Imagine someone writing this at seventeen!

If you like these, here are links to “Wedding Bell Blues” and “Blowin’ Away” (a poorly made but live video of both performances is here).

Nyro died of ovarian cancer when she was just fifty, and has faded into totally undeserved obscurity.

Perhaps I’ll continue with great female singer/songwriters tomorrow; I have several in mind.

But—here’s a music contest.  I’m going to ask a question that won me an original poster for the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival (signed by Grace Slick, Carlos Santana, and other performers) when I asked it on a radio “Stump the DJ” contest. It stumped him.  Any reader who answers it correctly (and I reserve rights to determine whether an answer is “correct”) wins an autographed paperback of WEIT:

Name three rock songs that contain the names of American college and universities, and give the performer(s) and the line containing the name of the college/university.   The line must refer explicitly to an identifiable college or university, not simply to the name of a town where one is located.

First correct answer wins.