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.
Today’s photo come from reader Jan Malik, who took them in New Jersay. Jan’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
As an appendix to the earlier Tree Swallow pictures, here are a few more from the New Jersey Botanical Garden. A walk in that park on the first day of spring is a ritual of mine—to ensure all observable phenomena related to spring are happening again and that the thermal death of the Universe is postponed for yet another year.
Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) pausing mid-search for food. This is a female; in this species, the red plumage is restricted to the nape and the area above the bill, whereas males sport a continuous red cap:
Spring Snowflake (Leucojum vernum, possibly var. carpathicum), a Eurasian transplant. It looks succulent, but this perennial defends itself against mammalian browsing by producing bitter, poisonous alkaloids:
Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) hiding in bearberry brambles. Against this notorious garden destroyer, only the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch offers a true degree of protection:
Forsythia (Genus Forsythia) in bloom—the unmistakable sign that spring has arrived:
White-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis). Like the woodpecker, it is a connoisseur of arthropods hiding in bark. however, by being equally adept at feeding head-down or head-up, it finds insects that a woodpecker might miss:
Common Water Strider (likely Aquarius remigis) emerged from its winter hiding. These are predators and scavengers of insects trapped on the surface of slow-flowing streams. As a “true bug,” it has evolved to exploit surface tension. However, surface tension alone doesn’t keep it dry; the secret lies in the dense, hydrophobic hairs on its tarsi. These trap air to act as tiny “dinghies,” preventing the legs from being wetted by capillary action:
Crocus flower (likely a Woodland Crocus, Crocus tommasinianus). The flowers emerge before the leaves, which then die back in late spring after accumulating enough biomass for the year. This adaptation to montane meadows and early forests allows them to bloom early, while withdrawing underground provides a defense against browsing:
Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) picking bittersweet fruit (likely the introduced Oriental Bittersweet, Celastrus orbiculatus). The fruit is indeed slightly sweet—a fact I confirmed before spitting it out, as they are reportedly toxic to humans. As they say: don’t try this at home; try it in nature instead:
After the meal, the mockingbird sits quietly in a nearby bush. They mimic other birds’ calls, possibly to fool rivals into thinking a territory is already occupied. It doesn’t work on me, though—I can always tell the original bird from the imitation:
Snowdrop (Genus Galanthus), another Eurasian immigrant. Most of the plants in these pictures were introduced from Eurasia to the Americas; however, with the exception of the Bittersweet, they are generally not considered invasive:
A Jumping Spider. I can’t vouch for the exact ID, but it resembles Phidippus princeps. While not my best shot, it’s worth noting that, like all others in this series, it was taken with a single lens (Canon RF 100-500mm)—a blessing for a lazy photographer.
An Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), looking lean after winter and digging for roots and grubs in the lawn. This species is an unwelcome sight in Europe, where its introduction is displacing the native Red Squirrel. But can we really blame them? They are simply good at being squirrels. It is entirely a human fault that geographical barriers are collapsing. In this “Homogecene” era of a connected world, the total number of species will inevitably decline:
Carbonara (Italian:[karboˈnaːra]) is a pasta dish made with fatty cured pork, hard cheese, eggs, salt, and black pepper. It is typical of the Lazio region of Italy. The dish took its modern form and name in the middle of the 20th century.
A photo of spaghetti carbonara:
Mattes Boch (Mboch on English Wikipedia), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Siamese cats are LOUD. For example, listen to the racket this pair makes when their staff is taking a shower (turn sound up and watch your own cats go nuts—report their reaction in the comments):
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 6 Wikipedia page.
It’s Sunday, April 5, and the thirty-seventh day of Operation Roaring Lion. The global price of oil has reached $109, up seven percent since Friday. Here are the latest developments while you were asleep:
Both crew members of the F-15 shot down over Iran on Friday have been rescued. President Donald Trump called the rescue of the second airman on Saturday night one of the “most daring” operations in U.S. military history, involving dozens of aircraft and hundreds of special forces troops. U.S. forces also destroyed at least one transport aircraft on the ground to prevent it from falling into Iranian hands after it became stranded at a remote site during the mission. They struck Iranian convoys heading toward the search area, and a firefight broke out between U.S. rescuers and Iranian search parties.
The Telegraph reports that five Chinese shipments of sodium perchlorate—a key ingredient in solid missile fuel—have arrived in Iran. China has previously supplied the same chemical to support Iran’s ballistic missile program. The deliveries come even as U.S.-Israeli strikes have specifically targeted Iran’s missile production infrastructure, including fuel and propellant facilities.
U.S.-Israeli forces struck the border crossing between Iran and Iraq for at least the second time since the war began, prompting Iraq to close the crossing. The crossing served as a transit point for at least 1,000 Iraqi proxy fighters now deployed to Basij bases inside Iran—a mobilization analysts believe is partly aimed at suppressing potential domestic unrest.
. . . the president also shared new details about the dramatic rescue of two U.S. airmen whose F-15E was shot down over Iran. Trump said the Friday rescue of the first airman was kept quiet so a search could continue for the second pilot, who was wounded but climbed up to a mountain crevice where he was rescued.
“We didn’t play up the first one, because then they would have found out about the second one,” Trump said. “You know, normally this is not done. When airmen go down, you can’t get them in very tough countries.”
The two pilots were in the same plane but landed a long distance apart because of the speed at which the jet was flying when the airmen evacuated, Trump said.
“Even though they’re only separated by five or six seconds, five or six seconds when you’re going 1000 miles an hour, so that’s many miles, right?” he said.
Here’s the device used by the airman to give US forces his location. (Click on screenshot or here to read more.)
Now, on to the details from INiI:.
Tomorrow, Iran’s extension on Donald Trump’s ultimatum will expire. Last night, Trump reiterated his threat initially made in March: within the next 48 hours, make a deal, open the Strait of Hormuz—or “all hell will rain down” on Iran. Trump’s version of hell, in this case, would look a lot like the real thing: flammable, as Iran’s energy infrastructure is likely in his crosshairs.
In Israel, the assessment is that the regime will allow the ultimatum to expire. So far, few positive signals have come out of Islamabad, where negotiations are supposed to take place. None have even reached the level of vague optimism of “good progress” that came out of the Geneva talks preceding the war. A senior official told Pakistan’s Dawn on Friday that “Tehran has so far not conveyed its readiness to take part in the dialogue.” Reports from The Wall Street Journal tell a similar story: Iran is “unwilling to meet U.S. officials in Islamabad in the coming days and considers U.S. demands unacceptable.”
On March 26, Trump extended Iran’s nuclear negotiation deadline to 10 days, partly because Tehran sent 10 Pakistani-flagged oil tankers as a goodwill gesture. Another delaying gesture is possible—but unlikely. . . .
President Trump threatened to destroy all of Iran’s power plants if the country’s leaders don’t agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday evening, ratcheting up pressure on Tehran.
“If they don’t come through, if they want to keep it closed, they’re going to lose every power plant and every other plant they have in the whole country,” Trump said in an eight-minute interview with The Wall Street Journal on Sunday.
Pressed on when he thinks the war will end, Trump said, “I will let you know pretty soon.”
“But we are in a position that’s very strong, and that country will take 20 years to rebuild, if they’re lucky, if they have a country,” he said. “And if they don’t do something by Tuesday evening, they won’t have any power plants and they won’t have any bridges standing.”
. . . Asked if he is concerned the people of Iran, a country of 93 million people, could suffer if civilian infrastructure is hit, Trump said, “No, they want us to do it,” arguing that Iranian people are “living in hell.”
In a social-media post on Sunday morning, Trump threatened to destroy Iran’s power plants and bridges on Tuesday if the Strait of Hormuz isn’t reopened. But the post offered few details about how expansive the attacks might be.
Under international law, the military is allowed to strike civilian power plants and other key infrastructure only if it contributes to a military operation and civilian harm is minimized.
The Wall Street Journal previously reported that aides to Trump have said these types of narrowly focused strikes are allowable because they are meant to hamper Tehran’s ability to build missiles, drones and nuclear weapons. Widespread strikes on power plants and bridges, regardless of military value, raise legal and humanitarian questions.
Here’s his threat, with the gravitas and dignity we’re accustomed to from our leader:
Iran is not Gaza, not a country in which the military is deeply embedded in civilian structure, nor one in which the people support the theocracy. If we want regime change, we can’t simply take out all the civilian infrastructure for nothing more than revenge. And that is a war crime.
We cannot soft-soap the damage to the global economy. From that perspective, this war is a catastrophe. It is far more serious than simply an oil shock. Hormuz handled about one-fifth of the global LNG trade in 2025, with no alternative route for most Qatari and Emirati volumes. Conflict-related damage has reduced Qatar’s LNG capacity by 17% for up to five years. Qatar also produces nearly one-third of the world’s helium, and supply disruptions have already begun to impact semiconductor supply chains and significantly increase helium prices. Hormuz transports about 30% of globally traded fertilisers. Fertiliser prices are rising rapidly; FAO’s food price index increased by 2.4% in March, and the IMF warns that poorer countries could face higher food insecurity if the shock continues. J.P. Morgan suggests oil could reach $120 to $130 in the short term, and exceed $150 if disruptions persist into mid-May.
That leaves four plausible options for Trump moving forward (and, of course, Israel—but let us not forget who the junior partner is in this Coalition. Strategy for Israel here is easy: keep bombing things until told by Washington to stop.)
Option one: stop now and declare victory
Financially, this is the most affordable direct US option. It halts the expenditure on sorties, tankers, carriers, munitions, and reduces escalation risk. Politically, it is always accessible because the White House has already set the rhetorical groundwork, with official claims of “clear and unchanging objectives” and a televised assertion that the campaign is on track to conclude “very shortly.” Strategically, however, it leaves the core issue unresolved. The regime would still be in control in Tehran, and Hormuz would remain a point that Tehran can block, ration, or permit. The cost-benefit only makes sense if Washington decides that the domestic value of ending the war now outweighs the strategic humiliation of striking Iran hard without actually re-establishing free navigation.
Option two: keep the air war going at roughly the current level
This is the current situation. US forces have already targeted over 10,000 locations and, according to CENTCOM, destroyed 92% of Iran’s largest naval vessels while significantly reducing missile and drone launch rates. Since then, the pattern has not shifted towards de-escalation but towards coercive punishment. Trump has threatened bridges, power plants, and other infrastructure (even threatening desalination plants—essentially a threat to impose drought on 90 million people heading into a Middle East summer). A major bridge near Tehran-Karaj was hit this week. Financially, this involves ongoing direct military expenses, as well as continued macroeconomic damage from oil, insurance, and freight costs. Strategically, it can further weaken Iran and increase bargaining leverage. However, the benefits are diminishing. Bombing can punish and wear down, but it cannot, on its own, ensure a lasting reopening of Hormuz while Iran retains the capacity to control access and keep markets unsettled.
Option three: escalate with ground troops
This is the most expensive and riskiest option by far. It is the only route that might plausibly try to force Hormuz open, seize islands, or control key maritime points. It also has the highest risk of casualties, political backlash, and prolonged escalation. Current signals strongly oppose it. Rubio stated on 27th March that US aims could be achieved without ground troops and that recent deployments were contingency measures, not plans for invasion. Reuters/Ipsos polling published on Friday shows that over three-quarters of Americans oppose sending American ground troops to Iran. At the UN, even a revised Bahrain-backed resolution on protecting commercial shipping faces Chinese opposition to authorising the use of force, with Russia and France also objecting. Regarding cost and benefits, a ground intervention offers the greatest strategic potential, but the cost would be extraordinary with no guarantee of success.
Option four: strike a deal with the regime
On paper, this represents the most advantageous economic deal. If a settlement genuinely restores shipping, stabilises energy flows, and imposes real limits on missiles or the nuclear programme, it would reduce macroeconomic costs more quickly than any military option. Washington has already submitted a 15-point proposal through intermediaries, and Iran has been reviewing it even as it publicly dismisses direct negotiations. Since then, selective ship passages and Iran’s discussions with Oman about a future Hormuz protocol demonstrate that negotiations over access are ongoing, even if formal talks remain stalled. Strategically, the cost is evident: Trump would need to engage with the very regime he continues to describe as defeated or nearly finished. The benefit is equally clear: a deal is the only feasible way to reopen the Strait without a much larger conflict.
And his assessment of the likelihood:
My analysis, based on the currently available signals, is this: the least likely option is a major ground escalation; the most probable immediate action is continued air strikes and infrastructure coercion; the most likely eventual outcome is a mediated deal that the White House will package as a complete victory. The emergency fallback, if markets and politics worsen more quickly than forecast, is a unilateral ceasefire-and-spin. In brief, the short-term path seems to be option two, with option four as the intended destination.
None of these guarantees, much less makes it likely, that the Iranian people will have a democratic government rather than an oppressive theocracy. And I don’t trust any deal that Iran will abandon its quest for nuclear weapons; it simply cannot be trusted without rigorous and unannounced inspections. This seems unlikely to happen, so yes, option two seems the most likely.
→ You’re getting drafted: Describing our approach to Iran, Pete Hegseth stood before the press and put his hand on a pretend throttle and said: “We’re keeping our hand on that throttle,” clenching the invisible throttle, “as long and as hard as is necessary.” Standing behind him was Trump, who never misses a penis joke, and who simply raised his eyebrows. Unusual self-control. Restraint. Quite presidential not to make a dick joke there, if you ask me.
Also this week, the Army raised the maximum enlistment age from 35 to 42. That’s right, 42! When the ground war with China begins, there will be a draft of middle-aged millennial men begging their platoon leader for the Wi-Fi password so that they can watch Breaking Bad on their iPads. I see this lasting about two weeks. See, 52-year-old Gen-X men would be better fighters than the millennials.
→ Just for a little taste of the streets: You should probably know what is being said in those fun progressive pro-peace protests happening all over the place. Here’s a great example from a protest in Philadelphia this week. A man stands in front of a boisterous crowd: “Until we have done everything in our power to bring the United States to its knees, let us not lose sight of the enemy!” Okay, me too, peace and love,man. He continues: “For every U.S. soldier who comes back in a casket, we cheer!” The crowd cheers.
He also says: “Hamas, Hezbollah, Ansar Allah, all of the resistance forces we celebrate. These popular forces on the ground spend every waking moment in direct confrontation with Zionism and they rely on a strong Iranian state to maintain their fighting capacity.”
→ Wrong place, wrong headline: A Venezuelan migrant who was allegedly detained at the border in 2023 but released into the U.S. has been charged with murdering 18-year-old Loyola University Chicago freshman Sheridan Gorman. She was shot in the back along the lakefront. Hmm. That’s a little too perfect for the Republican narrative. Is there any way we can blame the student for being shot? Chicago electeds and local media are trying.
Chicago alderwoman Maria Hadden said it sounded like Gorman was in the “wrong place, wrong time,” and that the victim and her friends “might’ve startled this person,” i.e., the shooter. When I get startled I usually commit first-degree murder too. Wrong place, wrong time. Someone made a lot of mistakes, and it’s Sheridan Gorman, who is dead. No other mistakes here. No one else in the “wrong” anything.
In fact, the only mistake acknowledged was that of Loyola University Chicago’s student newspaper, which apologized for having called the accused killer of freshman Sheridan Gorman an “illegal immigrant” in a subsequently deleted Instagram post. I’m a lefty here, truly. Like, I believe in mass amnesty. But if someone shoots into a crowd and kills a girl, we do not blame the girl simply because she’s the citizen and he’s the immigrant. . .
I was amazed at how the local media tried to blame the victim for her own shooting. And that, of course, is that the alleged killer was an undocumented immigrant, a status considered sacred by progressives.
The San Diego Zoo Safari Park announced its four male cheetah cubs, born in January, now have names: Nyasi, Owadgi, Ohani and Nkala.
First-time mother Kelechi gave birth to the cubs on Jan. 24, becoming the first cheetah to give birth at the zoo since 2020.
Here are the cheetos:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili i referring to the d*g now owned by the upstairs lodgers:
Hili: These steps have lost their entire charm.
Andrzej: Maybe with time they will recover it once more.
In Polish:
Hili: Te schodki straciły cały urok.
Ja: Być może z czasem odzyskają go ponownie.
*******************
The cover of the University of Chicago magazine shows Botany Pond with ducks in it next to Erman Hall, where students who should be doing science are sitting at their computers. And the ducks are white Pekin ducks, not wild mallards. Well, you can’t have everything. There’s an article on the renovated pond that mentions the ducks, but leaves out the Duckmeister because Facilities doesn’t like him. Eventually that story will be up here.
Masih criticizzes Trump for hurting the people of Iran by threatening to bomb them into the Stone Age and falsely promising help.
We are going to send Iran back to the Stone Age?
President @realDonaldTrump! Stop targeting ordinary Iranians and Iran’s infrastructure, the Islamic regime’s officials you call “less radical leaders” in Iran, the ones you are willing to negotiate with are exactly the ones with a… pic.twitter.com/xVSFwyzhHP
From Luana; the article with the data (from Finland) are in the link:
“Among adolescents who underwent medical gender reassignment, psychiatric morbidity increased markedly during follow-up—rising from 9.8% to 60.7% in feminising gender re-assignment and from 21.6% to 54.5% in masculinising gender reassignment.”
Ruuska 2026 https://t.co/iJ6gBLwrgA
From Brian, a “math clock” (there are others in the thread:
One of the best tests of an AI is the “Clock Test” prompt I developed. Below are results from Grok (left) and from ChatGPT (right). Can your AI do better?
Prompt: “Draw a math clock. It looks like a traditional clock with hands; however, instead of 12 numbers on the clock… pic.twitter.com/IBkLZ8pTsj
This Yugoslavian Jewish boy was gassed as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He was three years old, and would be 85 today if he had lived. https://t.co/KJRosA52tT
And two from Dr. Cobb: First, more explanation of that famous Earth photo taken by Artemis II:
You'll have seen this – Earth from #Artemis II en-route to the Moon.But look again – it's Earth's *nightside*, lit by the near-full Moon, not the Sun 🌕️The aurorae, airglow, stars, & city lights in Europe, Africa, & the Americas give the game away. Cool.NASA/Reid Wiseman#Space #Photography
I guess the Torygraph is considered “mainstream media” in the UK, and, like American MSM, seems to be touting religion in a way we didn’t see a few years ago. In this short article, which I found through the disparaging tweet below (an accurate, tweet, it seems), Baron David Frost, a conservative political bigwig in the UK, tells us why we should be going to church this Easter. He seems to love “full-fat supernatural Christianity,” which apparently means the whole Catholic hog, from snout to tail. No “skim Christianity” for him!
Click the screenshot below to go to an archived version of the Torygraph piece, which describes Lord Frost (is that the same thing as a Baron?) this way:
Lord Frost led the negotiations that finally took Britain out of the EU in 2020. A Cabinet minister in the Boris Johnson government, he resigned in protest at the handling of Covid lockdowns, and has since been a persistent advocate of a more fully conservative approach to policy on the Right. He is a non-affiliated peer in the House of Lords.
Wikipedia adds this:
David George Hamilton Frost, Baron Frost (born 21 February 1965) is a British diplomat, civil servant and politician who served as a Minister of State at the Cabinet Office between March and December 2021. Frost was Chief Negotiator of Task Force Europe from January 2020 until his resignation in December 2021.
Frost spent his early professional career in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), becoming Ambassador to Denmark, EU Director at the FCO, and Director for Europe and International Trade at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. He was a special adviser to Boris Johnson when the latter was Foreign Secretary in Theresa May’s government.
And yes, I have to say, although it’s Easter, the guy is mental, for he thinks that anybody who has had an elevating aesthetic or emotional experience is providing evidence not just for God, but for the God of Rome.
I’ll put a few topics under bold headings (mine). The indented parts are from the article by Baron Frost.
The evidence for a revival of Christianity is weak. First, Frost makes this admission:
The Quiet Revival – the view that people are coming back to church and the long years of decline might be over – has been much discussed in ecclesiastical circles this last year. A YouGov poll in a Bible Society report seemed to vindicate it by asserting the number of 18 to 24-year-olds attending church monthly had jumped from 4 per cent in 2018 to 16 per cent in 2024.
It’s fair to say that these figures were a bit controversial right from the start. And the doubts were justified last week, when YouGov, in its latest polling flop, had to admit it had made an error and had not applied proper quality control to its sample.
So are we back to square one? Is the whole thing just confirmation bias and wishful thinking?
So he gives the “evidence” for the revival, which he has to find in places other than the polls. One is in hearsay, another his own behavior:
I don’t think so. Something is definitely happening, if not exactly what the Bible Society described. There is too much other evidence. Numbers coming into the Catholic Church each Easter, here and across the West, are increasing (I was one in 2025). Footballers are open about their faith in a way that didn’t happen a decade back. Sales of printed Bibles have doubled. There is even a mini boom in the Greek Orthodox Church going on.
Summing it up, the Rev Daniel French, chaplain at Greenwich University and Irreverend podcaster, said: “I see considerable curiosity about faith, particularly from young adults, often men. The old assumptions that religious conversations are taboo have evaporated. My week is filled with impromptu chats about God in a way it wasn’t ten years ago.”
Why is the West becoming more Christian? It isn’t, but this is what the sweating Baron says: it’s the Internet and the stagnation of society, Jake!
Why might this be? It’s speculative, but my experience suggests several different reasons. One is the simple availability of different Christian voices on the internet. If your only exposure to Christianity is in your school religious studies class with a dull and inexpert teacher, as it might have been in the past, it could turn you off for good. But if you can hear Glen Scrivener or Bishop Robert Barron online, you are more likely to think: “I need to take this seriously.”
There is also the collapse of the narrative of inevitable progress, the belief that young people will always be economically better off than their parents, the growing dysfunction in society starting with the pandemic, all may be generating a tendency to look beyond economics for life satisfaction.
Of course we know that there is a negative correlation between religiosity and well-being, a correlation that holds across both nations and U.S. states. The worse off you are, the more religious you are. Further, there’s a positive correlation between income inequality (measured by the “Gini index”) and religiosity: the higher the inequality, the more religious people are. That the former produces the latter, so it’s not a spurious correlation, is supported by the fact that religiosity rises a year after inequality rises. Likewise with falls of inequality and falls of religiosity. That’s not proof, but is support for the connection made famous by Karl Marx, a quotation that is often truncated to distort its meaning:
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
What Marx was saying was not that religion was good for people because it soothed them, but that it was bad for people because it was what people did when they could not find relief from their suffering and oppression through means that could actually improve their situation. They thus have to turn to the opium of belief.
The Baron sees evidence for God every time people have an aesthetic or spiritual experience. Not just evidence for God, apparently, but evidence for Catholicism!:
Reflect on the experiences in your life where you feel, for a moment, you might have had an experience of something beyond this world, a moment in the English countryside, a phrase of music that tugs at the heartstrings, and ask yourself why you feel that, if material reality is really all there is. Consider too that most people in history, and indeed most people in the world today, have not had that belief, and maybe aren’t all wrong. Maybe western secular society doesn’t know everything about everything.
But of course people throughout the world have this kind of experience, people including atheists like Richard Dawkins and me. And not for a minute do we think that emotionality is evidence for gods. Is it evidence for Allah, and also for Xenu and Vishnu?
The evidence that these emotions and epiphanies are the product of material reality can be seen, for one thing, because you can have them simply by taking drugs. I remember once when I was in college, doing a science fellowship during the summer, I took LSD and walked through the quad (the “Sunken Garden”) at William and Mary. There were high-school brass bands having some kind of competition, and, in my psychedelic daze, their ragged, dissonant music seemed like the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. Was that evidence for God? Had I not been tripping, I would have run away in horror.
The Baron admits that Christianity is meaningless unles you believe its foundational truths. You don’t often see this kind of admission since “sophisticated” believers don’t like to admit it, nor will they say explicitly what they believe:
After all, the important thing about Christianity is not whether it makes you feel better or whether it is good for society, but whether it is true. If it is, we should all want to know that, and if it isn’t, we are right to reject it. The one thing we should not do is not properly consider it. And in Western society that is all too easy.
I’ve considered the “evidence”, which of course is almost entirely what’s in the Bible. And I don’t buy it, as I suspect most of the readers here don’t. And what about the gazillion other faiths of the world. Why does Frost reject Mormonism, Hinduism, Islam, and cargo cults but accept the “truth” of Christianity? (Like Christians, adherents to cargo cults keep waiting for a savior who never comes.) I’d like the Baron to tell me how he knows not just the Resurrection and Jesus’s “miracles” were true, but why the writing of the Quran is a bogus story. And why, among Christian religions, are the dictates of Catholicm true? (The Baron touts the revival of religion as involving mainly Catholicism and “Protestant evangelicals.) Gimme that full-fat religion!
The Baron tells us why we should go to Church.
In an essay entitled Man or Rabbit?, CS Lewis gently mocked those who didn’t reject Christianity but tried to ignore it, not from disbelief, but from a suspicion that it might be true after all and that acknowledging it would be inconvenient – rather like someone who doesn’t open their bank statements for fear of what might be in them. Don’t be like that person. Face the issue head on. At least give Christianity a fair hearing. Show up to church this Easter. You never know what might happen.
I ignore Christianity because it’s a full-fat superstition supported by no evidence. I’m amused that he quotes C. S. Lewis, who I admit I find hilariously stupid about religion even though his Mere Christianity is probably the most influential work of popular theology ever. I’ve read it, of course, and I always have to laugh when I read “Lewis’s trilemma“—an argument for the divinity of Jesus and truth of his message. Lewis actually stole this argument from others, as several people had made it before him. Here’s Lewis’s version:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. … Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.
Of course there are alternatives to “liar, lunatic, or Lord”; I’m sure you can think of at least one: people made up what Jesus said in the Bible. You can read alternative criticisms here.
But the real question is whether Frost himself is a liar, lunatic, or Lord. And we already know the answer: he’s a Lord.
I guess I’m just splenetic on this day when people go to Church to worship something for which there’s no evidence. And, contra Frost, I won’t be showing up to church this Easter. Instead, I’m writing this post.
The Cambrian Period, beginning at 538.8 Ma (million years ago) and lasting about 52 million years, is famous for marking the transition from simple and largely unicellular animals to, beginning at the period’s inception, representatives of modern groups. This apparently rapid onset of modern forms of multicellular animals constitutes the famous “Cambrian Explosion.”
The Cambrian was preceded by the 96-million-year-long Ediacaran period, extending from 635 million years ago to the beginning of the Cambrian. The Ediacaran fauna, consisting of some multicellular animals of unknown affinity and things looking like members of some modern groups like cnidarians (represented today by jellyfish, corals and anemone). But most of the Ediacaran groups appeared to have died out at the end of the Ediacaran, and for unknown reasons.
The boundary between the Ediacran and the Cambrian thus marks a major transition in animal life. Many of the “modern” groups that first arose during the Cambrian don’t have apparent ancestors in the Ediacaran, and so those modern groups were thought to have evolved almost instantaneously (in geological time!). But surely modern groups had ancestors during the Ediacaran: unless you’re a Biblical fundamentalist, you realize that ancestors of modern groups had to have existed well before the Cambrian explosion.
Now a paper in Science, based on a fossil group called the Jiangchuan Biota that spans the period from 559-534 million years ago, shows that representatives of “modern” groups seen in the Cambrian explosion were indeed present in the late Ediacaran, pushing back the time of origin of modern phyla 4-5 million years. This conclusion was possible because of the remarkable preservation of the animals (and some algae), all present as carbonaceous films on rocks—the same kind of films (presumably due to rapid burial) that enabled us to see the remarkable Burgess Shale fauna of the middle Cambrian. The new find was in the province of Yunnan in Southwestern China.
I won’t go into all the terminology involved in identifying the groups but will show a few fossils from the paper strongly suggesting that some “modern” groups arose in the late Ediacaran.
First, an anomalous animal that appears to be some kind of worm, but one with a “holdfast” disc on its butt. We don’t know what this one is, but it has oral projections or tentacles. The disc is very clear:
Another wormlike animal (note that these are small: a few millimeters) having a clear oral region. Again, we’re not sure what this is, but the preservation as a carbon film is remarkable:
A deuterostome (animals where the first opening in the embryo becomes the anus rather than the mouth), a group thought to have appeared in the Cambrian but here seen in the Ediacaran: this one resembles Herpetogaster, known from the early Cambrian which, according to Wikipedia, “possessed a pair of branching tentacles and a tough but flexible body that curved helically to the right like a ram’s horn and was divided into at least 13 segments”. This one, like Herpetogaster, has tentacles (at leat four) and a stalk. It’s interpreted as a relative of acorn worms, relatives of modern echinoderms which are hemichordates, the closest living group to modern chordates (animals with notochords and a dorsal nerve chord, which include all vertebrates).
The one below,described in the paper as “Margaretia-like animal now known as a dwelling tube for an enteropneust hemichordate worm”. It’s also described as having “regular, oval-shaped holes running along its length”. Again, we see what is likely an early hemichordate, showing that the relatives of modern chordates seem to have been present several million years before the Cambrian explosion began.
The one below is identified as a ctenophore, or comb jelly, a phylum of early animals previously known only from the mid-Cambrian. “OS” stands for “oral skirt”, described as “a specialized, often scalloped, muscular, or rigid structure surrounding the mouth, primarily found in Cambrian-era fossil comb jellies such as Ctenorhabdotus and Thalassostaphylos. Unlike modern ctenophores, these ancient species used the skirt for feeding, potentially to engulf large prey.”
Finally, this animal is thought to be an early cnidarian with tentacles and a holdfast (HF). Although one form identified as a cnidarian had already been recognized from the Ediacaran, here we have another that’s different, showing a radiation of cnidarians before the Cambrian.
These fossil data support already-existing molecular data suggesting that animal groups had already evolved and diversified before the Cambrian, though until now no fossils, or only a few suggestive fossils, were known.
The authors’ summary below, though written in scient-ese, basically says that a major radiation of animal phyla had already begun before the Ediacran/Cambrian boundary, but we did not know about it because the conditions for forming this kind of trace fossil, requiring rapid burial in marine sediment (and subsequent finding by investigators!) were infrequent:
The new Jiangchuan animal fossils, dominated by bilaterians of apparently diverse affinities, with rarer fossils more typical of late Ediacaran deposits, could be described as a “Cambrian-type” assemblage from the late Ediacaran. A dominantly bilaterian assemblage from the late Ediacaran may not have been discovered until now as a result of the paucity of carbonaceous compressions from this time, hinting at a broader taphonomic bias (51).
If you want a short, readable summary of the importance of this fine, click below to read a shorter summary from Oxford University.
Welcome to Sunday, April 5, 2026, and it’s Easter, which gives me a chance to tell my Jewish Easter joke. My records say “It comes from the site Southern Jewish Humor, which gets the story from Eli N. Evans, who wrote The Provincials: A Personal History of Jews in the South: Evans said he searched for the best example he could find of Southern Jewish humor. ”
He told the story of a Jewish storekeeper in a small town who was approached by the Christian elders to show solidarity for their Easter holiday.
Mr. Goldberg was chagrined but when Easter came, after sunrise services on a nearby hilltop, the mayor, all the churchgoers, and the leading families in the city gathered in the town square in front of his store. The store had a new sign but it was draped with a parachute.
After an introduction from the mayor, at the appointed hour, the owner pulled the rope and there it was revealed in all its wonder for all to see: “Christ Has Risen, but Goldberg’s prices remain the same.”
And, since it’s still Passover (until April 9). I hope you get this:
An Air Force officer whose fighter jet had been shot down in Iran was rescued by U.S. Special Operations forces in a risky night mission deep inside Iranian territory, President Trump said on social media early Sunday.
The rescue followed a life-or-death race between U.S. and Iranian forces that stretched over two days to reach the injured airman, a weapon systems officer, officials said. The operation took commandos deep inside Iran and involved hundreds of special operations troops.
There were no U.S. casualties among the rescue team, Mr. Trump said. The rescued officer had “sustained injuries, but he will be just fine,” Mr. Trump added.
Finding the downed airman had been the U.S. military’s top priority since Friday, when Iran’s military shot down the F-15E Strike Eagle. It was the first known instance of a U.S. combat aircraft being shot down by Iran since the war began more than a month ago. The two members ejected from the cockpit and the pilot was quickly rescued.
Of course the NYT, which wants America to lose the war, had to qualify the above by adding this right after:
The incident underscored Iran’s ability to fight back despite weeks of attacks on its military arsenal. On Sunday, Israel and Gulf nations reported attempted drone and missile strikes they attributed to Iran. Kuwaiti officials said Iranian drones significantly damaged two power and water desalination plants, and sparked a fire at the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation’s oil complex.
This is excellent news for several reasons: the man is alive and apparently well, and Iran, who was using hundreds of forces to find him (plus offering a $60,000 bounty), would have used him as a bargaining chip to settle the war, much as the Palestinians do when they capture an IDF soldier or take civilian hostages.
The U.S. military was racing on Saturday to find an American airman who ejected from a fighter jet that was shot down over Iran, even as President Trump said time was “running out” on his ultimatum to escalate U.S. attacks unless a deal was reached in two days.
The White House has mostly been silent about the downing of the U.S. F-15E fighter jet by Iranian forces since it was first reported more than a day ago, as well as about the attempts to recover its two crew members. U.S. officials said one had been rescued, but the status of the second was unknown as of Saturday.
In a social media post on Saturday morning, Mr. Trump did not address the airman’s status. Instead, he reiterated that the deadline for his threat to massively bombard Iranian power plants would expire in 48 hours unless Iran agreed to stop blockading the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for Persian Gulf oil and gas.
Mr. Trump has already delayed the ultimatum twice, saying that there were ongoing talks between the United States and Iran. Iranian officials have publicly dismissed U.S. demands, however, and continued to voice defiance after the two airmen were shot down on Friday.
. . . The downing of the fighter jet on Friday was the first time U.S. personnel and combat aircraft have been shot down in Iran since the U.S.-Israeli war began in late February. Iranian forces were also seeking to capture the missing American, Iranian officials said, speaking anonymously to discuss ongoing operations.
I can’t help but imagine what that pilot, who is likely still alive, is doing. The television news last night said he had been trained in how to survive in enemy territory, and I presume he has at least some food and water with him (I’m presuming that it’s a male). But Iran has offered a $60,000 bounty for anyone who turns the pilot over to the police, and I can only imagine what they’d do to him if they caught him. (Do no presume that Iran adheres to the Geneva Convention for POWs!). Sometimes I fantasize that he’ll be taken in by anti-regime civilians, who will forego the bounty, and endanger their own lives, by harboring an enemy airman.
*The Wall Street Journal discusses Trump’s attempts to open the Strait of Hormuz, a task that the WSJ calls “mission impossible”:
President Trump has called on allied nations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, to allow a fifth of the world’s oil to flow again through the passageway that Iran has effectively shut since the war started.
The problem: Naval escorts for tankers through such a narrow waterway in a war zone would be nearly impossible, say allied officials and military experts. Reopening the strait would more likely come after a cease-fire and through international pressure on Iran, they say.
Forcing open the strait militarily is unrealistic, French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday. “It would take forever and would expose all those crossing the strait to risks” of Iranian attack, he said.
“Iran is trying to hold the global economy hostage in the Strait of Hormuz,” U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said Thursday after convening a meeting of more than 40 countries seeking to reopen the strait. They discussed political and diplomatic steps, including potential sanctions, she said. Military intervention wasn’t on the list of options discussed.
Trump said Wednesday that strikes on Iran would continue for more than two weeks. During that time, shippers are unlikely to risk sending commercial vessels through the combat zone, analysts say. The question is what level of assurance they need to start sailing again in large numbers.
U.S. and Israeli strikes have badly damaged Iran’s regular naval assets. Yet the main threat to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz comes not from Iran’s conventional navy but from its arsenal of land-based antiship missiles, drones, swarms of small attack craft, midget submarines and various types of mines.
Geography complicates defending ships. The strait is roughly 20 miles wide at its narrowest point and divided into lanes to separate marine traffic, forcing merchant ships to travel along predictable routes. The warning time of a potential attack, and the chance to respond, would be exceedingly brief.
Iran has nearly 1,000 miles of coastline along the Persian Gulf, which it can use to launch attacks against ships, such as the drone strike that earlier this week hit a fully laden Kuwaiti oil tanker off the coast of Dubai. The coastline is dominated by mountains and coves, allowing Iranian forces to launch surprise attacks with swarms of speed boats. Tunnels under the rock, or ones hidden by mangroves and in salt caves, shelter boats that can either be launched directly into the water, or from trailers.
If we need a cease-fire and negotiated settlement with Iran to open the Strait, then everything becomes a mess, as a negotiated settlement that leaves the theocracy in power doesn’t solve any problem except the transit of oil. It doesn’t solve the oppression and murder of Iranian civilians, the dictatorial nature of the government, and the government’s drive to produce nuclear weapons. The war is a mess, and I worry that Trump will just tire of it, let Iran go the way of Venezuela (no real change in leadership), and move on to his next “project.”
Syracuse University is closing or halting enrollment in about 20 percent of its academic programs, in a move that the school’s provost said was designed to create a university that would be “more focused, more distinctive and more aligned with student demand.”
The overhaul was revealed in a letter from the provost, Lois Agnew, that was sent on Wednesday to students and faculty members. And while the letter did not list the cuts, a spreadsheet provided by the university showed that the humanities and the fine arts represented the largest share.
Classics and ceramics are out as majors, along with a host of others that had attracted few students.
In all, 93 of the 460 academic programs at the school will be closed or paused, meaning that no new students will be able to enroll in those majors. Coursework in the areas will still be offered, and minors in many of the subjects will continue to be available.
Similar changes are happening at universities around the country, as students seek out fields that they believe will more directly translate into higher-paying jobs, a recent analysis by the American Enterprise Institute showed. College administrators, following the market, have been reducing humanities offerings.
Among the 17 majors ending in the College of Arts and Sciences are the undergraduate degrees in classical civilization, classics, German, Italian, Middle Eastern studies and Modern Jewish studies, the spreadsheet showed.
Students will still be able to study German and Italian — as well as Arabic, Chinese, French and Spanish — as tracks in a new world languages and cultures bachelor’s degree program or as minors, a website detailing the changes showed.
In the College of Visual and Performing Arts, it will no longer be possible to major in ceramics, jewelry and metalsmithing, sculpture, painting or art video, though coursework in those areas will remain. Instead, students will be channeled into a broader bachelor of fine arts degree that will offer those fields as concentrations.
The University of Chicago’s Division of the Arts & Humanities is preparing for a significant reorganization to cut administrative costs, with proposed changes expected to be presented to Provost Katherine Baicker by late August.
Citing new federal policies and shifts in the “underlying financial models” for higher education, the division is considering consolidating its 15 departments into eight, reducing language instruction, and establishing minimum class and program sizes.
This is also solely in the humanities, and undoubtedly for the same reason: students aren’t majoring in those areas because you can’t get a job with a major in, say, languages or fine arts. I find this all very sad, because consolidating departments inevitably means cutting courses that were essential for a major but not sufficiently attractive to be part of a liberal education. And that inevitably means cutting faculty lines. What’s essential is to maintain courses that would be pivotal for a liberal education, and I’m sure that at least Chicago will do that. I am surprised that gender studies has not been on the chopping block, but that may be for ideological rather than for enrollment reasons.
*Elliott Abrams, who served in foreign-policy positions under three Republican Presidents, has a critique in the National Review of Trump’s latest update on Iran: “The President’s not-so-reassuring Iran address.” with the subtitle, “President Trump could have done a better job assuaging the concerns of the American public.”
. . . as a performance, it was unimpressive. The president read his lines too fast, and instead of emphasizing the key words or passages, he added comments that were sometimes irrelevant, other times disturbing, and often inaccurate. Do Americans really want to bomb Iran or anyone else “back the Stone Ages where they belong”? Does anyone believe the second-level Revolutionary Guard officers who’ve replaced those killed are actually “less radical and much more reasonable”? In what possible sense was Iran trying to build “a nuclear weapon like nobody’s ever seen before”?
It would have been far better for the president to speak more plainly about the great achievements of these four weeks of combat. And the best parts of the speech were his explanations of our purpose: to prevent the world’s greatest state sponsor of terrorism from developing a nuclear weapon and from threatening its neighbors — and us — with intercontinental ballistic missiles and other growing military assets.
What did the president say about the future? Many predictions had suggested he would announce ending the war quickly, due to fear of the political effects of high oil prices and the falling stock market. But Donald Trump is always unpredictable and always thinking about bargaining to come. In the speech, he seemed to promise two to three more weeks of even heavier bombing, and by mid-April, it appears that both we and Israel will be getting to the bottom of our target lists. In early March, the White House and the Pentagon predicted the war would take four to six weeks, so they are pretty much on schedule.
And the war may end sooner. Pakistan is sending messages back and forth about a cease-fire. In my view, there will be no peace treaty to end the war, for two reasons. The two sides are too far apart in our demands, and there’s no individual or structure now in Tehran able to make the compromises any such multi-page agreement would require. So the likely end will come in a simple deal to stop shooting.
That leaves the Strait of Hormuz, and here the president is saying “don’t look at me, it’s an international responsibility.” He’s at least partially right: Why can’t there be an international maritime force protecting the strait from Iran? The European Union navies combine in EUNAVFOR Atalanta and the Maritime Security Centre Indian Ocean, joint efforts against piracy and to enhance maritime security off the Horn of Africa, in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Persian Gulf. The Combined Maritime Force is a 46-nation effort led by the United States with similar goals.
It is regrettable that instead of urging (or leading) pragmatic, positive action, the president most often turns to insults of allies and threats to leave NATO. On Wednesday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer invited more than 35 countries to a meeting on strait security, in London. That’s a start. There is no reason why a large multinational naval coalition cannot patrol the strait once this war ends, presumably in April.
As I’ve written elsewhere, the president’s kind words about those who are actually fighting on our side (he mentioned Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait, and Bahrain, though except for Israel they are actually doing nothing but self-defense) makes his coldness to Ukraine even more indefensible. Ukraine is on our side too, helping our allies defend against the Iranian drones they know so well because Iran sells them to Russia. And like Israel, they fight patriotically and effectively. It is long past time for the president to square up who’s on our side and who’s against us, and to see Ukraine as a key ally and Russia as one of our worst enemies.
The speech seemed more like an effort to silence the critics who kept asking “why doesn’t the president speak to the nation?” than an important message he felt compelled to deliver on all the networks. Given that he speaks to the press almost every day, this kind of set speech may be superfluous in getting through to the public. And reading speeches isn’t his forte anyway.
I have to say that I didn’t listen to Trump’s bombast, as I simply forgot, but I know what he said from the news. As far as defending the Strait of Hormuz as an international responsibility, I can see why European countries don’t want to put their military in service defending commercial ships, because if Israel and the U.S. had not started the war, there would be no need to defend the Strait. Trump’s performance was lame, as Abrams says, and I always worry that regime change in Iran is not a priority. For several years I’ve been posting Masih Alinejad’s tweets about public opposition to Iran’s theocracy, and Iran seems second to only North Korea in oppressing its people. If the theocracy stays in power, my verdict will have been that we lost the war—especially if Iran doesn’t promise to end it’s nuclear problem, which it won’t. But, as I always say, I’m just a simple country geneticist, not a political pundit.
*Hooray! (Not!) Yet another book on why sex isn’t binary is coming out, and the good news is that you don’t have to waste your money on it (h/t Krzysztof ). Click on the cover photo below if you want to see the Amazon blurb, which includes this bushwa:
Biological sex is as nuanced as gender. Many of us are biologically more typically masculine in some ways and more typically feminine in others. The constellation of traits that make up our sex identity are wide-ranging and often overlap. Height, strength, body hair, genitalia, hormonal balances—these are all part of the picture. How should we think about this kind of variation?
The Binary Delusion explores the actual diversity of our biological sex characteristics, from genitals to brains. Some people may have typically female genitals and a Y chromosome and testes, rather than ovaries. This anatomy is intermediate, not completely male and not completely female, and it occurs in nature all the time. Depending on how you choose to count, up to 6% of the population—about 20 million people in the US or 500 million worldwide—likely have sex traits that aren’t exactly male or exactly female.
As a biologist, Dr. Berkowitz worries that more people aren’t aware of this fundamental fact of human life. Nearly all of us manipulate our bodies in one way or another to make them appear more typically masculine or feminine. The only way to make sense of these apparent contradictions is that our society insists—regardless of our biology—that each body look a specific way from infancy until death. It’s a disturbingly limited view of self-expression, and Dr. Berkowitz argues that it’s worse than that: it’s unscientific.
We see right away a conflation between “biological sex” (yes, the term is used) and gender. A tomboy or effeminate male are still female and male respectively, though their gender presentation may differ from what we usually see. And where did Berkowitz get the inflated 6% figure? Well, it could either include homosexuals, estimated at 3-6% of the population (yes, they are binary but are attracted to people of the same sex), or of women with polycystic ovary syndrome, which is a hormonal disorder of women, and has a relatively high frequency. But those women still produce eggs, for crying out loud. The real frequency of “intersex” people, who aren’t categorizable in the binary, is about 0.018%. As Colin Wright says in a good summary of these inflated statistics and expanding terms:
Consider people with so-called “intersex” conditions—developmental anomalies that result in sexually ambiguous genitalia or mismatches between sex chromosomes and physical appearance. These conditions are genuinely rare, affecting about 0.018 percent of the population, or roughly 1 in 5,500 people. To put that in perspective, you could fill a mid-sized sports arena and expect to find maybe three or four people with true “intersex” conditions (in the same arena, you’d likely find around 500–1,000 gay/lesbian people, based on estimates that 3–6 percent of the population are homosexual).
But advocates worried that such a small number wouldn’t generate the public concern needed to protect these individuals from unnecessary medical interventions and social mistreatment. So they broadened the definition to include nearly any difference in sexual development, no matter how minor. This inflated statistic then took on a life of its own, getting co-opted by activists in the transgender movement to argue that sex exists on a continuum rather than as a binary. They use these numbers to claim that the categories of male and female are “social constructs” that should be open to self-identification, arguing that individuals should be allowed to enter any sex-segregated space they choose.
And always be wary if someone puts the title “Ph.D” after their names on the cover.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, it’s a typical holiday:
Hili: That Easter breakfast was wonderful.
Andrzej: I share your opinion, but we still have a lot of work today.
In Polish:
Hili: To wielkanocne śniadanie było wspaniałe.
Ja: Podzielam twoje zdanie, ale i tak mamy dziś dużo pracy.
From Masih, who presents another human-rights activist imprisoned in Iran:
First, Narges Mohammadi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, nearly suffers a heart attack in prison, denied proper medical care.
Now, Nasrin Sotoudeh, a lawyer and another human rights defender is arrested in Iran.
I attended a scientific conference a few years ago where we were invited to cycle at the side of the platform, to power – at least – the energy costs of the visuals.
Nobody needs to see a panting developmental biologist alongside someone who is changing the face of cancer… https://t.co/bbRfA1DjQi
While you slept last night: ~100 million birds took to the skies 🐦 The Mid-Atlantic saw heavy traffic moving north/northeast, with migration hotspots from the Southeast to Ohio Valley and Southern Plains. The overnight rush continues this weekend.Details at cwg.live
And Matthew sent me this NYT headline, saying, “If this were a UK newspaper you’d know they were taking the piss. In the case of the NYT, not.” (They’ve changed the headline to reflect that nobody at the Waffle House remembers this guy.)
We have our usual three items plus lagniappe today. Read on:
First, click below to see a recent Guardian story about how a mean local council tried to ban this British woman from feeding feral cats, and how the neighbors (and a charity) stepped up to help her.
An excerpt:
“Two ladies from York have just been in,” said Collette Boler at the till of her small cafe in Thurnscoe, near Barnsley. Her voice began to choke up.
“They came in with a box of chocolates and a card, a box of cat food, a bag of cat biscuits and just said ‘carry on doing what you’re doing, you’re absolutely fabulous’. And a man’s just given me a tenner for cat food. It’s been incredible.”
The grandmother of seven has become an unlikely icon for cat lovers everywhere after finding herself banned from feeding a colony of feral felines she has looked after for 20 years.
She had been visiting them twice a day, including Christmas Day, even spending her own money on vet bills and having some neutered, which she admitted cost “a fortune”.
But two weeks ago Boler – affectionately known as the “crazy cat lady” – was subject to what some of her supporters see as a heavy-handed and overzealous ban, after a neighbouring business complained to the council over cat faeces on its premises.
Now if Boler continues to feed the cats, she will be issued with a community protection notice – a type of antisocial behaviour order – which could result in a fine of up to £2,500.
But she has been overwhelmed with support after others stepped in to help, including neighbours, strangers and a national cat charity.
. . .The Cat Action Trust 1977 has stepped in by writing to Barnsley council to urge it to repeal Boler’s ban.
“Feeders like Collette actually play a really important role,” said Alice Ostapjuk-Wise, a volunteer for the national charity which advocates for the “invisible issue” of cats that have never had contact with humans. “[Feeders] can alert us when a new cat arrives that might not be neutered.” The charity carries out neutering to control their numbers.
The Cat Action Trust 1977 has collected food for the Barnsley cats, which are frightened of humans and mostly stay out of sight, though the council has not made clear whether it too will face consequences for feeding them.
Ostapjuk-Wise said: “We just want to do what we can because some councils actually choose to exterminate feral cat colonies, and that’s the last thing we want.
“The path they seem to be taking so far appears to be very inhumane, basically starving the cats. That’s not going to solve the problem.”
. . .Barnsley council did not respond to a request for comment but previously told local media it recognised Boler’s “good intentions” but the community protection warning was “an early step to prevent the situation from getting worse”.
“We always aim to protect public health and safety, and we encourage anyone concerned about stray animals to work with recognised animal welfare organisations, so support can be provided safely.”
Boler said she had “never expected” so much attention. “I just wish they’d let me feed my cats,” she said. “That’s all I want. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
The Barnsley council sucks. Just because they don’t like feral cat feces, they’re starving the cats to death. There is a change.org petition with nearly 4,000 signatures that you can sign, and I just signed it. Please join me; it costs you nothing and may help save the Barnsley cats from the meanies.
And here’s a FB video with an interview of Boler, who seems very nice.
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This is a wonderful 14-minute video of the cats of Istanbul and how the locals care for them. I love that city–not just for the fact that it harbors “strays” who are effectively pets, but also because it’s beautiful and has lots of attractions.
This is really what it’s like to be in Istanbul. If you want a good commercial movie about Istanbul’s cats, do watch the movie “Kedi” (the Turkis words for cats), made in 2016. It has a 98% critics’ rating rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a rating that only the very best movies get.
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The World’s Best Cat Litter site answers a recurring question among cat owners:
There are a variety of answers. Some condensed answers:
It’s in their nature
Kneading is an instinctual trait that begins in kittenhood. When kittens are feeding from their mother, they push on her mammary glands with their paws to help stimulate milk flow. For the mother, this releases oxytocin, also known as the bonding hormone.
You might notice your cat dribbling a little when they are kneading. This is natural too! Some cats go into “milking mode” even though they are older and fully weaned. They just get in the zone and subconsciously expect the milk that would have come from their mother.
They’re claiming their territory
Did you know that cats have scent glands in their paw pads? Scent glands are a way for cats (and other animals) to mark their territory, a trait that is especially important in the wild.
Cats tend to make biscuits on their favorite human, other pets in the home, and their favorite blankets. As a cat kneads, they release their scent to mark something as theirs. So if your cat has a habit of kneading on your stomach, congratulations! You are officially their property.
They’re making their bed
In the wild, felines knead tall grass to create a comfortable space for sleeping.
At home, your cat might like to make biscuits on your blankets, clothes, or even your body. This just means they are trying to get cozy and snuggly for a long cat nap.
They love you!
Kneading is typically a behavior that happens when a cat feels happy and secure, but they aren’t necessarily expecting milk from the process.
They’re going into heat
Female, unspayed cats are known to knead their paws before “estrus,” or going into heat. The act of kneading is a sign to male cats that the feline wants and is able to mate.
There’s further information about whether you should prevent them from kneading (no!), and advice to trim their nails so they don’t do damage when they make biscuits.
Or you can watch this explanatory video:
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Lagniappe: An appropriate tweet showing a street sign in Istanbul asking people to be attentive for road cats:
We have a batch of lovely hummingbird photos today sent in by Ephraim Heller, including a hummer in her nest. His captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
On my February visit to Trinidad and Tobago I managed to photograph 13 of the 18 hummingbirds that are sometimes present on the islands. A previous post was devoted entirely to my new favorite bird, the tufted coquette. Today’s post contains photos of six other species; a subsequent post will cover the remainder. The species that I did not photograph either do not visit feeders or are only present seasonally in the country.
Trinidad and Tobago sits at the junction of South America and the Caribbean, and its unusual diversity of hummingbird species is due to its recent geological separation from the Venezuelan coast and the diversity of habitats it retains. Both Trinidad and Tobago are fragments of the South American continental shelf that were once connected to the mainland and later became isolated as sea levels and tectonics changed. Trinidad was connected to South America via a land bridge during the last glacial maximum, 10,000-12,000 years ago. The white-chested emerald population restricted to Trinidad and the white-tailed sabrewing restricted to Tobago show that measurable biological divergence can occur over relatively short timescales once island populations are isolated.
Hermits (subfamily Phaethornithinae) diverged from all other hummingbirds early enough in the family’s evolutionary history that they are sometimes described as a parallel radiation. They share several features that distinguish them from typical hummingbirds: bills that are long and strongly curved (matching the curved tubular flowers they prefer, particularly Heliconia), plumage that is brown or green rather than iridescent, and a foraging strategy — trap-lining — in which each individual follows a memorized route through the forest, visiting widely spaced flowers in sequence rather than defending a single patch. Because trap-liners visit many individual plants across a large area, they tend to carry pollen between plants that are far apart, making them important cross-pollinators over distances that territorial hummingbirds rarely cover. Male hermits do not defend territories at all; instead, they gather in loose groups (leks), where each male sings from a fixed perch to attract females. Females select mates and then nest and raise young entirely on their own.
The rufous-breasted hermit is the primary and perhaps the unique pollinator of the deer meat (Centropogon cornutus) flower:
Here is a rufous-breasted hermit on its nest, built under the leaf of a Heliconius:
Now moving on from the hermits (subfamily Phaethornithinae), the rest of my photos are of species of typical hummingbirds (subfamily Trochilinae).
The white-necked jacobin (Florisuga mellivora) has been studied extensively because a proportion of adult females look like males. In most hummingbirds, the two sexes are clearly different in appearance, with males being more colorful. In the jacobin, all juveniles of both sexes bear the same ornamented, male-like plumage. As they mature, about 80% of females change to the typical muted female pattern, but roughly 20% retain the male-like appearance into adulthood. The leading hypothesis is that this reduces harassment by territorial males: for reasons I do not understand, male jacobins tend to aggressively harass and drive off female jacobins during feeding, while ignoring other males. What makes this interesting for biologists is that it demonstrates that colorful, male-like ornamentation in females can arise through means other than sexual selection.
[JAC: I bet some chowderhead would say this bird has three sexes because of the dimorphism in females]
The white-tailed sabrewing (Campylopterus ensipennis) occurs only on Tobago and in a small area of northeastern Venezuela. When Hurricane Flora hit Tobago in September 1963, it destroyed much of the Main Ridge Forest Reserve; the sabrewing population appeared to have been eliminated entirely and the species was presumed locally extinct for eleven years, until individuals were confirmed to have survived in 1974. Current estimates for the Tobago population range from several hundred to over 1,000 birds.
