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.
This Priochilus wasp has paralyzed a spider and is carrying it back to her burrow. Paralyzed prey does not rot and stays fresh while the wasp’s grubs feed.
An amazing discovery off the coast of South Africa – a coelacanth! The divers’ excitement is infectious. Although this is deep for a scuba diver (68 metres), it is very shallow for one of these fish, found only off the coast of Madagascar and (a separate species) off Sulawesi:
As I said, I was on the picket line this morning (we are striking over pensions, pay and employment conditions – this is a national strike), before going to a rally (inside, because the weather – unusually for Manchester – is unpleasant):
It’s an overcast morning in Manchester, and I am gearing up for an 8-day strike in defence of wages, job status and pensions which will affect 60 UK Universities from Monday. I am also going through the proofs of my forthcoming book The Idea of the Brain (pre-order it now, folks!) and beginning to suffer from the usual authorial anxieties…
In Poland, Hili has no such problems, although it’s hard to tell if she’s pleased or alarmed (my cats would be terrified):
Hili: They’ve come.
A: Who?
Hili: Our guests.
In Polish:
Hili: Przyjechali.
Ja: Kto?
Hili: Nasi goście.
Leon, meanwhile, is clearly fascinated:
Leon: You can find many interesting things on a construction site.
Down on the farm, the fowl all came out in a real rush this morning, while the peahens get stuck:
As I’m sure you all know, today it is happy birthday to On the Origin of Species. My pal Jordi tweeted this:
Today 160 years ago, The Origin of the Species was published! A book that changed our view of nature and our place in it. Happy#WorldEvolutionDay ! pic.twitter.com/HswRN8X0kJ
The monologues (or monologs, if you prefer) are flying in thick and fast:
Leon: I think that even the mice have got cold feet.
Mietek is on the mend!
Mietek: I’ve sat down only to to think about the strategy of action.
Leon: Again an interloper on my territory!
A note from Jerry: According to Malgorzata, Mietek is healing well now, and has stopped licking at his surgery wound, which is now looking well. Here are two pictures of the kitten (one with his brother Leon) enjoying his new forever home:
In Poland, Hili, like all cats, is solipsistic. [JAC: the two people below are Andrzej and Malgorzata’s new lodgers, who live upstairs. Malgorzata tells me, “They are very, very nice young people. They bought treats for Hili and keep them upstairs to entice her to come to them. Both love cats!”]
When I asked her if this treat-feeding would make Hili even fatter this winter, Malgorzata responded that Hili’s regular staff is cutting down on her treats.
Hili: They are petting me but they do not talk about me.
A: You are not the navel of the world.
Hili: You may be mistaken.
In Polish:
Hili: Głaszczą, ale rozmawiają nie o mnie.
Ja: Nie jesteś pępkiem świata.
Hili: Możesz być w błędzie.
Leon, meanwhile, poses a question to which there is only one answer:
Leon: Never mind autumn colors, am I not more beautiful?
In Polish: Co tam barwy jesieni, czyż ja nie jestem piękniejszy?
Note by JAC: I was writing the Hili dialogue this morning as it wasn’t clear whether Matthew’s home internet was working. Apparently it is, as he posted the stuff above and beneath, but I’ll add what I was going to say below (indented):
As for news, it’s good vis-à-vis politics in the US, for the election for governor of Louisiana, a deeply red (i.e., Republican) state, just went narrowly to the incumbent Democrat John Bel Edwards, who got 51% of the vote. There’s no way to interpret this except as a stinging rebuke to Trump. Trump had campaigned in the state for Edwards’s Republican opponent Eddie Rispone twice in the last month, and won the 2016 Presidential vote in Louisiana by 20%. He’s got to be fuming this morning.
The governorship of Kentucky also went to a Democrat earlier this year. That, on top of the control of both legislative houses and the governorship of Virginia by Democrats after the latest elections, makes three Democratic victories in traditionally Republican states. And things don’t dire for Trump. My prediction, which I made about a month ago, is that Trump no longer stands much of a chance to be re-elected President, and so I’ll start taking bets from readers now.
On the home front, my shipboard lecture on adaptations in Antarctic animals went well, I think, though attendance was lower because people were on Half Moon Island seeing their first penguins. I hope I get to give the other two talks on this trip. After all, I have to earn my keep somehow, which I do by talking for my supper (and my penguins).
And now, back to Matthew:
Down on the farm, Sunday rush hour is exactly the same as every other day, except it is also completely different:
Ok everybody stop describing other animals – @Ento_Allan has just shown me this Lordotus spp (bee fly) and NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING will ever be as good as this!! It’s got socks on 🤗🤗🥰🥰🥰 #Yearofthefly#beefliespic.twitter.com/FYQFgtAU0P
Incredible demonstration of hover control and head stabilization from a kestrel surfing the breeze along the top of South Stack Cliffs, Wales, captured by @ZedAnthonypic.twitter.com/VfsA1aqAGr
Just spend the next 56 seconds listening & watching this huge group of humpback whales. Absolutely breathtaking. Taken today in Skjervoy, Norway 🇳🇴🐋 pic.twitter.com/4ewoX212g2
And finally, I don’t know why this is surprising, but it is. Rod Stewart insists that he has made 90% of this extraordinary model railway lay-out. Click here to see more pics – it is quite the work of art. He particularly liked making the buildings, he said, which he often did in his hotel room while on tour. Ah, that rock and roll lifestyle!
Arriving at Pyongyang Station after a 17 day rail journey from Liverpool Lime Street via London, Brussels, Cologne, Berlin, Moscow, Ulaanbaatar, Beijing and Dandong. Mostly made possible thanks to the fantastic @seatsixtyone website pic.twitter.com/9xaLgtYNf7
This is actually pretty interesting. Leaving aside the creepy filters, and the way the cats look, some of these cats clearly understand what a mirror does. However, before you go thinking this shows they are self-aware (the mirror self-recognition test is often used as a proxy of this), remember that B. F. Skinner trained pigeons to use mirrors to locate objects they couldn’t see. HIs whole point was that this was merely a conditioned reflex, just like our self-awareness… Anyway, these cats may realise that the things they see in the mirror are behind them, without necessarily realising that the cat-shaped thing they see is them…
This is simply astonishing. When was the first US woman train driver signed up?
The first woman to be accepted to train as a driver on Britain's railways was born on this day in 1960. Karen Harrison drove for 20 years before re-training as a human rights lawyer.#OTD#OnThisDay
Strashila incredibilis – a strange Jurassic insect. Long assumed to be an early flea, parasitising pterosaurs or feathered dinosaurs. Now thought to be a fly, the aquatic or amphibious adults shedding their wings after emergence and mating in the water #insectofthedaypic.twitter.com/ezQxHfkgpM
Hili: I don’t know but I hope my claws will find it.
Hili: Coś mnie ugryzło.
Ja: Ale co?
Hili: Nie wiem, mam nadzieję, że mój pazurek na to trafi.
Nearby, Leon is on the lookout for mushrooms. Malgorzata explains:
It’s an exceptionally “mushroomy” year in Poland and people are filling huge baskets with them. I got one basket full of beautiful mushrooms. Part are now pickled in jars the rest are deep frozen for soups, sources etc.
Leon: I don’t see any mushrooms.
In Polish: Nie widzę żadnych grzybów.
From Twitter: A glorious autumn spectacle in the UK
WOW! A big group of pink footed geese from Iceland flew in to the reserve around an hour ago – the noise is incredible 📣 They're currently resting on the reserve after a long flight 😴 🥔 Nature is just the best ❤️ @WWTworldwide @infocusWWTMM #migration#wetlands#wildlifepic.twitter.com/GCMYYLhGqQ
And a couple of sad tweets about the state of England’s chalk streams. England has 80% of the world’s chalk streams, but many of them are dying, because of over-subtraction of water. Nothing is being done about this by the relevant agencies, except to turn a blind eye. There is a one-man campaign led by Feargal Sharkey – one-time lead singer of Belfast punk band The Undertones – and here are a couple of his tweets, the first showing what has happened, the second being interviewed on the BBC. Remember that even if the water does eventually come back, the invertebrates and many of the fish will not. This is ecological vandalism – if it were being carried out in the Amazon there would be an outrage:
Finally, to remind you that the world is still wondrous, a gorgeous ray, filmed in the Caribbean:
Incredible mobula ray and remora spotted off Trinidad and Tobago. Not sure source of video but looks like it was filmed from an oil and gas platform. https://t.co/gyiwARx6As
Well, a week from today I’m off to Chile and then Antarctica. Remember that posting will be almost nonexistent for over a month, but, barring my ingestion by an orca or leopard seal, I’ll be back.
There are supposed to be three animated Google Doodles today, but I see only one, and it’s not even animated (maybe it’s my browser). If you click on the picture below, you go to a bunch of links honoring Joseph Plateau, a physicist born on this day in 1801. In 1832, Plateau invented the phenakistiscope, an animation device that produced an illusion of movement. What I see is the first picture.
But The Verge has a gif showing what’s supposed to happen if the disk was in a phenakistiscope:
Lots of stuff happened on October 14, which includes these things:
1066 – The Norman conquest of England begins with the Battle of Hastings.
Here’s the Battle of Hastings as depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry, supposedly embroidered only a few years after the battle. This bit is supposed to depict the death of Harold II, the last Anglo-Saxon King of England. He was supposedly done in by an arrow in the eye, and the Latin above him says, “Harold the King has been killed”.
And, just for grins, here is the whole tapestry, scheduled to be on exhibit in England next year—the first time it’s left France in 950 years! It’s 68 meters long and was “owned” by Heinrich Himmler during World War II.
1322 – Robert the Bruce of Scotland defeats King Edward II of England at the Battle of Old Byland, forcing Edward to accept Scotland’s independence.
1586 – Mary, Queen of Scots, goes on trial for conspiracy against Queen Elizabeth I of England.
1656 – Massachusetts enacts the first punitive legislation against the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).
The film runs for only 2.1 seconds, and here it is several times over:
1908 – The Chicago Cubs defeat the Detroit Tigers, 2–0, clinching the 1908 World Series; this would be their last until winning the 2016 World Series.
1912 – Former president Theodore Roosevelt is shot and mildly wounded by John Flammang Schrank. With the fresh wound in his chest, and the bullet still within it, Roosevelt delivers his scheduled speech.
1926 – The children’s book Winnie-the-Pooh, by A. A. Milne, is first published.
I loved Milne’s books, which I was given on a childhood visit to London on the way to Greece. Here is my spirit animal:
1943 – World War II: Prisoners at the Sobibór extermination camp in Poland revolt against the Germans. [JAC: read the story at the link]
1947 – Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to exceed the speed of sound.
1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis begins when an American reconnaissance aircraft takes photographs of Soviet ballistic missiles being installed in Cuba.
1964 – Martin Luther King Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolence.
1968 – Jim Hines becomes the first man ever to break the so-called “ten-second barrier” in the 100-meter sprint with a time of 9.95 seconds.
1977 – Anita Bryant gets a pie thrown in her face at a news conference in Des Moines by gay rights activist Tom Higgins for her anti LGBT commentary.
Here’s a video of the homophobe Bryant getting pied. I object to this kind of thing, of course, but I also object to her homophobia. Note how Bryant prays after she gets smacked. (She’s still alive at 79.) Curiously, the pie-thrower didn’t face charges:
1994 – Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres receive the Nobel Peace Prize for their role in the establishment of the Oslo Accords and the framing of future Palestinian self government.
It didn’t work, like all the peace initiatives. Very sad.
Notables born on this day include:
1644 – William Penn, English businessman who founded Pennsylvania (d. 1718)
1882 – Éamon de Valera, American-Irish rebel and politician, 3rd President of Ireland (d. 1975)
1888 – Katherine Mansfield, New Zealand novelist, short story writer, and essayist (d. 1923)
1890 – Dwight D. Eisenhower, American general and politician, 34th President of the United States (d. 1969)
1893 – Lillian Gish, American actress (d. 1993)
1894 – E. E. Cummings, American poet and playwright (d. 1962)
1906 – Hannah Arendt, German-American philosopher and theorist (d. 1975)
1938 – John Dean, American lawyer and author, 13th White House Counsel
1946 – Craig Venter, American biologist, geneticist, and academic
1974 – Shaggy 2 Dope, American rapper and producer
Those who died on October 14 include:
1944 – Erwin Rommel, German field marshal (b. 1891)
You probably know that Rommel, implicated (perhaps wrongly) in the plot to kill Hitler, was given the choice of being tried (and of course convicted and his family shamed), or committing suicide with a cyanide capsule, followed by a state funeral and no damage to his family or staff. He chose the latter. Here’s the announcement of his death in the Nazi paper “Bonzer Tagblatt” on October 16 of 1944. It says that he died of head injuries following a car accident, and that Hitler ordered a state funeral:
And four tweets from Professor Cobb. This one gets Tweet of the Week, as the Brits counted cats and dogs in their 1911 census. Enlarge and check out the cats!
🐈 Tomcat Tobit Crackitt of Birkenhead, who did not let the infirmity of being 'speechless' hold him back in life. Married with 16 children, he had a successful career as a professional mousecatcher & thief pic.twitter.com/txOAcSXNil
😺 Bobs the black cat was born "in a stable in Ipswich" before being brought into his human's shop. By the age of just one was already forging a successful career as a "nomad" and mouse hunter. He conducted his work "At home, mostly" pic.twitter.com/zQ94Nn4y1H
Well, actually, this one is a tie for Tweet of the Week. Read the thread to see a nefarious malefactor mutt. It pushed kids into the Seine repeatedly and then rescued them, all to get beefsteaks!
