News Feeds

About half a dozen readers sent me the article below, which appeared on Colin Wright’s Substack site Reality’s Last Stand.  This piece, however, was written by Elizabeth Weiss, professor of anthropology at San Jose State University. She’s a brave woman, for after her own university banned her from accessing the ancient human remains she was studying, or publishing pictures of them, she sued the University. This was because the remains were presumably those of Native Americans, who saw them as sacred relics of their ancestors and demanded them back. (The lawsuit is, as far as I know, still pending.) Weiss is, like me, wary of allowing indigenous American peoples full possession of any remains dug up on “their” land, for we don’t often know if the remains are really those of a tribe’s ancestors, and, also like me, she argues that scientists should be allowed to study them before and if they are returned to any tribe.

The post below is related to that view, but is mostly concerned with an issue we’ve seen in New Zealand: governments and scientists bowing to the religious and supernatural beliefs of indigenous peoples. In this case, museums are validating or being forced to mouth the religious beliefs of Native Americans, resulting in some crazy (and unpalatable) mixtures of science and faith.

Click to read (“the American Museum of Supernatural History” is a jab at the American Museum of Natural History, or AMNH, involved in many of these incidents).

Elizabeth’s thesis, also giving one of several examples in her piece:

In the past two decades, science institutions have faced challenges from another source: indigenous religions. Unlike Christian fundamentalist beliefs, these indigenous beliefs often receive enthusiastic support from academics, scholars, and mainstream media journalists. This support might stem from a desire to oppose Western civilization and align with the “victims” of modernity as part of an effort to “decolonize” museums. Alternatively, it may also be linked to a trend of virtue signaling, which has allowed the misconception that “indigenous knowledge is science” to take root in academic circles.

I recently reported on this trend in City Journal, discussing New York City’s American Museum of Natural History’s Northwest Coast Hall. One exhibit features a display case with a warning label about the “spiritually powerful” objects contained in the case. This exhibit blurs the line between fact and fiction by presenting creation myths as history. It also asserts that artifacts are imbued with spirits that release “mist” visible only to elders, implying that the objects should be repatriated.

Weiss notes that other scholars didn’t find anything objectionable to the deference given these artifact, apparently bowing to what’s been called  “the authority of the sacred victim.”  That’s instantiated in this regulation:

Are museum staff actually buying into these beliefs, or are they appeasing their indigenous partners to continue curating and studying artifacts? The influence of repatriation ideology, movements, and laws, notably the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, are increasingly depleting museums and universities of Native American “human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony.”

And here are a few more examples in which museums apparently give in to the claims of indigenous people, even though those claims don’t involve human remains and are often imbued with religious beliefs.

The Willamette Meteorite Agreement of 2000 resulted in the American Museum of Natural History “recognizing the spiritual relationship of the Grande Ronde Community to the Willamette Meteorite.” This agreement allows the tribe to perform ceremonies in the museum, celebrating this spiritual connection. Additionally, it forbade the museum from removing any part of the meteorite for trade with other museums, a practice once common for diversifying collections for exhibition and research. These scientific exchanges benefited both museumgoers and researchers. However, indigenous religious beliefs have restricted these practices. Moreover, the publicity and support for this agreement has led other museums to adopt similar practices. For instance, the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon handed over their piece of the meteorite to the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde.

Since when do meteorites belong in any sense to Native Americans?  That would only be the case if it fell on their tribally owned land.  But if they come into the possession of scientists, who might buy them or get them because they fall on public land, then those have a right to study them or trade them for other items. Remember, lands ancestrally inhabited by Native Americans don’t often belong to native Americans, so meterorites which fall on them belong to either the new owner, the finder, or, if on public land, to the Smithsonian.

Here’s another example with a snarky (but accurate) remark by Elizabeth:

The negative influence of indigenous beliefs on science is also evident during tribal visits, such as when the Tohono O’odham Nation visited the American Museum of Natural History in 2021. During their visit, the tribe reviewed the items that were being curated, discussed the history of the collection, and “ritually cleansed ceremonial pieces” at the museum, which was closed to the public during the visit. Additionally, in November 2021, David Grignon, the tribal historic preservation officer from the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, “ceremonially cleansed sacred items” in the museum’s Division of Anthropology “smudge room.” For a scientific museum to have a “smudge room” is akin to a chemistry lab having an alchemy room. Museum spaces should be dedicated to scientific research, curation, and exhibits–not to religious activities.

Except, that is, when the religious activities are performed by Native Americans. I doubt that Museums would be allowed to let a priest sprinkle holy water on old Catholic artifacts to sanctify them.

But the worst is the AMNH’s procedures in dealing with Native American “objects of power”, which have to be treated specially because they supposedly possess supernatural powers—powers that dictate how researchers and scientists must deal with them. Get a load of this:

However, none of these examples are as shocking as the protocols established to curate so-called “objects of power.” These protocols were introduced at the 2021 annual joint conference of the American Institute for Conservation and the Society for Preservation of Natural History Collections. Developed in collaboration with Northwest Coast cultural advisors at the American Museum of Natural History, Amy Tjiong and colleagues outlined the necessary steps for curators and researchers when handling these “objects of power,” defined as objects “used in association with traditional/spiritual healers’ practice, sacred ceremonies, or warfare.” The new protocols include the need to “greet” the object and “explain” to it that permission has been granted from community representatives. The objects must also be clearly tagged, covered with “muslin,” and glass cabinets should be “covered with brown paper to prevent disturbance and unintentional encounters.” Lastly, bundles of “Devil’s Club (Oplopanax horridus, a shrub used to contain power)” should be hung in doorways and cabinets where these “objects of power” are stored.

That is palpably absurd.  Museum staff are supposed to procure a special shrub to prevent objects from exerting their special power?  But the rules continue:

To further promote the myths that surround these objects, museum staff decided to heed warnings by their indigenous partners. For instance, museum staff were told to “Be wary of any object that incorporates human hair.” This guidance influenced the handling of a Haida orca headdress: “Community members instructed the museum not to put this headdress on view. Museum professionals were warned that handling can be dangerous.” Consequently, this object is not currently on display.

Click on this poster heading to see the protocols developed in the 2021 online conference described above. It lays out how museum workers and scientists are supposed to deal with spiritually “powerful” objects:

From the poster above, presumably an object lesson in how to display powerful sacred objects.

Caption on poster “Warning sign on cabinet door that also appears on all doors to this room, brown paper obscuring objects behind glass, devil’s club bundle suspended at top.”

And, from the poster, the rules that museum workers and scientists must obey vis-à-vis those objects, taken from the poster above (click to enlarge). Don’t forget to greet the object and explain your permissions before you handle it! And check out the first point about pregnancy and menstruation:

This itself is an object of power, power exercised by indigenous people to control the behavior of museum workers.  Note the ludicrous claims of this poster about the “power” of these objects. As Elizabeth notes:

Perhaps museum staffs know or suspect that if they don’t play along, their indigenous partners will suddenly demand everything back. Regardless of the reason, it seems difficult to trust any science coming from people who take seriously the concept that whistles can be used to summon “supernatural beings.”

Perhaps most offensively, they caution, “DO NOT APPROACH” objects of power “if you are feeling discomfort, i.e., if you are in a physically or emotionally vulnerable state (including menstruation and pregnancy).” This clearly sexist warning abandons science and implies that women, particularly during menstruation and pregnancy, are emotionally unstable and weak. Allowing religious beliefs to be taken seriously in a place of science hinders scientific progress, enables discrimination, obstructs the teaching of science to those who partner with museums, and casts considerable doubt on the quality and objectivity of the research coming out of these institutions.

That’s all true, and here scientists and museum staff are being forced to obey supernatural beliefs of Native Americans,—beliefs that are not only false, but also misogynistic and offensive. But this is what happens when science mixes with the supernatural; the former is diluted and the latter is given credence—and perhaps credibility.

Here’s one more example and a photo:

Most absurdly, museum staff and indigenous partners debated over whether to display a whistle. According to Clyde Tallio from the Nuxalk Nation, “Whistles are so powerful they have caused intercultural conflicts.” Museum protocols explain that, “Nuxalk elders say whistles would not normally be on display, but instead are traditionally stored in boxes.” Because of this, Tallio advises that whistles should not be observed directly, but should instead be placed in closed boxes with an accompanying photo and text explaining its sacredness. However, museum staff decided to take extra precautions: one Nuxalk Kusiut whistle was “removed from display entirely, as it is a summoning tool for supernatural beings.”

From the poster; the removed whistle is the photo on top:

In my view, any object in a museum should not be displayed as if it had supernatural powers, though it’s okay to say that this is what the indigenous people believe. Nor should museum staff have to genuflect and respect the “power” of items that, after all, are just stuff used by Native Americans.

2023 Year in Review; Best Science of the Year; Best SGU Moments; Best Interviews; Skeptical Heroes and Jackasses of the Year; In Memorium; Science or Fiction

Myt favorite wild cat is the Pallas’s Cat, (Otocolobus manul) also known as the manul. It happens to be the fluffiest cat in the world, but with short ears that are also adaptive in its chilly habitat.  There are sixty zoos that keep them for captive breeding programs, and on manul, in Poland, has been declared the World’s Best Manul (winner of the “Manul World Cup”) after an online voting campaign. Click the article below to go to the piece from the Notes from Poland:

The nooz and a tweet:

A wild cat named Magellan (pictured above) from a zoo in Poland has been named the world’s best manul – the species to which he belongs – following a viral online campaign in Poland that saw a leading politician and even the army join efforts to help him win over 125,000 public votes.

“WE HAVE A CHAMPION!!!!! You are great! Magellan the most important and beautiful manul in the world 2023!!!!!!!!” wrote Poznań Zoo on Facebook.

The Winner is… #Magellan #Poznan #Zoo #Manul #PallassCat https://t.co/uoiDtIvVvx

— Zoo Poznan (@PoznanZoo) December 12, 2023

They were celebrating Magellan’s victory in the Manul World Cup, an informal online contest organised to find the most popular member of the species, which is also known as Pallas’s cat and is native to Central Asia.

Magellan – who is named after the famous Portuguese explorer because he escaped from the zoo in 2020 – received around 127,000 votes in the final, narrowly defeating his rival Bol from Japan, who got around 113,000.

“Now we have to fund him a ship,” Poznań Zoo wrote after the animal’s victory, encouraging people to help raise money for a new enclosure. They noted that among Magellan’s talents is “pretending to be a stone” but that “the rest of the world annoys him”.

Among those to lend their support was Radosław Fogiel, an MP and former spokesman for the Law and Justice (PiS) party that ruled Poland until this week.

Ahead of Magellan’s semi-final against Stubsi, a rival from Germany, Fogiel tweeted: “Magellan needs you! Here’s our chance to beat the German furball in the vote!”

The 1st Warsaw Armored Brigade also encouraged people to vote while STS, the largest Polish betting company, opened online bets on the event.

Malgorzata’s translation of the post above: (with her comments in italics):

Well, it’s a bit stupid plea for donations. As you probably know, this cat, named Magellan, has won an international competition and now the ZOO where he lives wants people to donate money. Here is the translation of the words under his picture: “I will give you exceptional thanks. Because I need a ship. Magellan without a ship is like …. Magellan without a ship. I’m wise. I know how to pretend to be a stone. The rest of the world irritates me. If I’m now the Best, I now need a ship most of all. For me not to sulk you, my faithful subjects, can exchange your votes into gold*here. Otherwise I will escap[e again.” And underneath is a bank account where the money can be paid. I think they wanted to make it funny but, frankly, it’s not funny. Just stupid. I wonder whether anybody will make a donation to the ZOO.

But the zoo loves Magellan. Another tweet, apparently during the voting), translated by Google:

*********************

Here’s a seies of cats in nativity scenes, sent in by reader Grant Palmer. Every such scene needs a cat Jesus!

*************************

And a Dodo story about the rescue of three tiny frozen kittens. In Dodoland, everything always comes out good in the end.

*********************

Lagniappe: A calendar that you can buy here. But get it quickly, as 2024 is about to begin!

h/t: Ginger K., Grant, Malcolm

Today we have another photo-and-text lesson from Athayde Tonhasca Júnior. Athayde’s text is indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Enormous armies with countless skills

As natural history narratives go, the 1954 ant-inspired motion picture Them! was not up to David Attenborough’s standards because giant, deranged, radioactive ants don’t exist. Despite the factual liberties, the film was a commercial success and had the novelty of depicting two myrmecologists (ant specialists) as heroes who helped to save the planet from a myrmecological doomsday. Malevolent ants have a long history in Western popular culture. In The Empire of the Ants (1905), H.G. Wells tells us the story of a gunboat forced to turn around and abandon an Amazonian village overwhelmed by intelligent killer ants.

A bad ant infestation in the New Mexico desert © San Bernardino Sun, 1954. Wikimedia Commons:

Those who have witnessed an army ant raid or had the unfortunate experience of stepping (or even worse, sitting) on a fire ant mound, understand why ants elicit fear or a grudging respect; many of the 14,147 – and counting – species of ants (family Formicidae) are territorial and highly aggressive to perceived intruders, man or beast.

Lieutenant da Cunha being overwhelmed and killed by evil Amazonian ants in H. G. Wells’ The Empire of the Ants © Amazing Stories, 1926.Wikimedia Commons:

JAC: I’ve added the video of the army ant raid (narrated by David Attenborough) below; do watch it

But aggression is only one aspect of ants. They can be predators or feed on seeds, nectar, honeydew, or fungi they cultivate. They are found everywhere except Antarctica and a few remote islands, and are incredibly important in decomposing organic matter, recycling nutrients, and controlling plant-eating insects (many of them agricultural pests). Ants are essential ecosystem engineers: many species build nests and dig tunnels in the ground, increasing aeration and drainage, and improving soil fertility with their waste and food stores. Some seed-eaters are important for plant reproduction: they stock their nests with seeds that are not all eaten. The spared lucky ones germinate in a nutrient-rich, herbivore-free environment. More than 3,000 plant species depend on myrmecochory, which is seed dispersal by ants. Plant-eating by ants is not always benign; leafcutter ants (genera Atta and Acromyrmex) are incredibly destructive; in Brazil, saúvas (their local name) have been the scourge of agriculture since the beginning of European colonisation. French naturalist Augustin Saint-Hilaire (1779-1853) supposedly said that ‘Brazil must destroy the saúva or the saúva will destroy Brazil’, which was a slogan adopted in successive – and unsuccessful – eradication campaigns.

Digging a leafcutter ant nest in Brazil. Concrete was poured into the nest to create a cast of the inside. The nest covers more than 67 m2 and contains 1,920 chambers © O’Brien & Bentley, 2015:

All these ecological services and impacts are intensified by ants’ mindboggling numbers. The distinguished myrmecologist E. O. Wilson estimated that 1015 to 1016 ants crawl on Earth’s surface at any given time (that’s quadrillions, figures usually discussed in astronomy). A later appraisal fine-tuned the number to 20 × 1015 individuals, which corresponds to ∼12 megatons of carbon. This is more than the combined biomass of all wild birds and mammals, and is equivalent to ∼20% of human biomass (Schultheiss et al., 2022). Another study following a different methodology suggested a population size of 5 × 1016, excluding arboreal ants (Rosenberg et al., 2023). So Wilson wasn’t far off, as a billion here or a billion there is not that important when we are talking quadrillions. For comparison, there are some 7.9 × 109 human beings on the planet.

A representation of powers of 10 to help us grasp the magnitude of ants’ abundance: each block is ten times the size of the previous block, up to a billion (109). One quadrillion would be 1.000.000 bigger than the billion block © Cmglee, Wikimedia Commons:

Ants are everywhere and interact with a vast number of animal and plant species, but they seem to be mostly absent from one ecological process: pollination. Which is a bit puzzling, considering that bees, their close relatives, are the main pollinators of a large number of plants. Many reasons have been proposed for the dearth of ant pollination, from their grooming (self-cleaning) behaviour to scant ‘hairiness’ (body bristles), resulting in few pollen grains being transported. But bees groom themselves, and some ants are as hairy as bees. The ‘antibiotic hypothesis’ is the most accepted explanation for ants’ unsuitability for pollination. Most ant species feature a specialised gland located in the metapleuron (a thoracic plate; pl. metapleura). The metapleural gland – and to a lesser extent some other parts of the body – secrete chemicals that serve as signals for nest-mate recognition and territory marking, and especially as antiseptics that prevent the proliferation of bacteria and fungi. But these substances have a disagreeable side effect: they also inhibit pollen germination and the growth of pollen tubes.

Parts of a typical ant, highlighting the all-important metapleural gland © Mariana Ruiz, Wikimedia Commons.

Ants’ chemical defences seem to make them incompatible with the job of pollination. Which is a pity for the plants’ point of view, as ants often crawl all over them in search of nectar from their flowers and, in some cases, from specialised nectar-secreting glands. But inevitably and predictably, natural selection intervenes to fill the voids of missed opportunities.

Honewort (Trinia glauca) is an unassuming herb found on dry, rocky sites with sparse vegetation in southern England. Elsewhere, it ranges from continental Europe to southwest Asia. On some of the English sites, flowers of this rare plant are visited mostly by ants, especially Lasius alienus, which are also their main pollinators (Carvalheiro et al., 2008).

Honewort on limestone, a habitat shared with its main pollinator, L. alienus © BerndH, Wikimedia Commons.

Honewort is an addition to the ever increasing number of reported cases of myrmecophily, or pollination by ants. These ant-friendly plants may have developed tolerance to the ill effects of metapleural gland compounds. This seems to be the case for the waxy-leaved smokebush (Conospermum undulatum) in Australia: in an experimental setting, pollen from some plant species suffered substantial decreases in germination after contacting the integument (‘skin’) of Camponotus molossus and other ants. Pollen of waxy-leaved smokebush however was not affected. Not surprisingly, ants contributed significantly to the plant’s pollination (Delnevo et al., 2020).

A, B: waxy-leaved smokebush flowers. Bee visitors: Leioproctus conospermi (C) and Apis mellifera (H), which only steals nectar. Ant visitors: C. molossus (D), C. terebrans (E), Iridomyrmex purpureus (F) and Myrmecia infima (G) © Delnevo et al., 2020.

Brute force is another possible explanation for myrmecophily. A single ant may be a poor pollinator, but a mass of them visiting flowers repeatedly may end up doing the job properly. Apparently this is the scenario in high mountains and arid zones, where ants make up a substantial proportion of flower visitors (Gómez et al., 1996).

In their monumental 1991 Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Ants, Bert Hölldobler and Edward Wilson skimmed over myrmecophily, as it was viewed as a minor feature. Bees, flies and moths are by far the champion pollinators, but more and more studies suggest ants are important for some plants in some habitats. So we can add pollination to ants’ long list of ecological services – unhinged, angry and radioactive ants notwithstanding.

Edward Osborne Wilson (1929-2021), myrmecologist, environmentalist, secular-humanist, and pioneer in the fields of ecology, evolution and sociobiology. Despite underhanded attacks from some of his peers while he was alive and attempts at character assassination by the Woke Rabble after his death, Wilson remains one of the greatest and most inspiring scientists of our times © Jim Harrison, Wikimedia Commons.

While fog presents a major hazard to transportation safety, meteorologists have yet to figure out how to forecast it with the precision they have achieved for precipitation, wind and other stormy events. This is because the physical processes resulting in fog formation are extremely complex, Now researchers report their findings from an intensive study centered on a northern Utah basin and conceived to investigate the life cycle of cold fog in mountain valleys.

A research team has achieved a significant breakthrough in the field of organic semiconductors. Their successful synthesis and characterization of a novel molecule called 'BNBN anthracene' has opened up new possibilities for the development of advanced electronic devices.

Researchers have discovered that molecules experience non-reciprocal interactions without external forces. Fundamental forces such as gravity and electromagnetism are reciprocal, where two objects are attracted to each other or are repelled by each other. In our everyday experience, however, interactions don t seem to follow this reciprocal law.

A research team has unveiled a remarkable breakthrough in cancer treatment.