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Today we have a lighthearted change of pace: reader Athayde Tonhasca Júnior is writing not about pollination, but about aging.  His captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

In banana years, we are bread

I think it’s safe to assume that a good many WEIT readers, like me, have already accrued many miles on their personal odometers. Or, as Brazilians say it, dobraram o Cabo da Boa Esperança (have rounded the Cape of Good Hope): our odyssey  is almost completed, the distance to the end is much shorter than to the starting point. We can fall into anguish about it, despair, deny, ignore, fight back to slow the rate of decrepitude, or be philosophical regarding the inevitable outcome. Because, as Maurice Chevalier quipped, old age isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative.

Here are some thoughts about ageing and some assorted images lifted from Private Eye magazine (hopelessly lefty but unbeatable with their cartoons), or sent by fellow old codgers.

Some quotes:

There are three deaths: the first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time. David Eagleman

Death does not make us equal. There are skulls with all their teeth. Mário Quintana

At my age, I don’t even buy green bananas. Often credited to Claude Pepper

First you forget names, then you forget faces. Next you forget to pull your zipper up and finally, you forget to pull it down. George Burns

Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory. Franklin P. Adams

Tom Smith is dead, and here he lies, / Nobody laughs and nobody cries; / Where his soul’s gone, or how it fares, / Nobody knows, and nobody cares. Grave epitaph, Newbury, England, 1742

You start off irresistible. And, then you become resistible. And then you become transparent – not exactly invisible but as if you are seen through old plastic. Then you actually do become invisible. And then — and this is the most amazing transformation — you become repulsive. But that’s not the end of the story. After repulsive then you become cute – and that’s where I am. Leonard Cohen

I refuse to spend my life worrying about what I eat. There is no pleasure worth forgoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward. John Mortimer

There is still no cure for the common birthday. John Glenn

She said she was approaching forty, and I couldn’t help wondering from what direction. Bob Hope

Happiness is good health and bad memory. Ingrid Bergman

Older people shouldn’t eat health food: they need all the preservatives they can get. Robert Orben

An autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last instalment missing. Quentin Crisp

About the only thing that comes to us without effort is old age. Gloria Pitzer

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. Hector Berlioz

Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened. Terry Pratchett

In the long run, we’re all dead. John Maynard Keynes

The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now. Anon

The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted. Bertrand Russell 

The fluffy newborn chick of hope tumbles from the eggshell of life and splashes into the hot frying pan of doom. Humprey Lyttleton

A doctor is seeing an old millionaire who had started using a revolutionary hearing aid:

– So, Mr Humphrey, are you enjoying the new device?

– Very much so.

– Did your family like it?

– I don’t know, I haven’t told anyone yet. But I’ve already changed my will three times.

And for the final image: my wife suggested that I should hang a sign like this by my desk. I declined because it is not truthful: I am not on a diet.

Let’s talk about climate change and life on Earth. Not anthropogenic climate change – but long term natural changes in the Earth’s environment due to stellar evolution. Eventually, as our sun burns through its fuel, it will go through changes. It will begin to grow, becoming a red giant that will engulf and incinerate the Earth. But long before Earth is a cinder, it will become uninhabitable, a dry hot wasteland. When and how will this happen, and is there anything we or future occupants of Earth can do about it?

Our sun is a main sequence yellow star. The “main sequence” refers to the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (HR diagram), which maps all stars based on mass, luminosity, temperature, and color. Most stars fall within a band called the main sequence, which is where stars will fall when they are burning hydrogen into helium as their source of energy. More massive stars are brighter and have a color more towards the blue end of the spectrum. They also have a shorter lifespan, because they burn through their fuel faster than lighter stars. Blue stars can burn through their fuel in mere millions of years. Yellow stars, like our own, can last 10 billion years, while red dwarfs can last for hundreds of billions of year or longer.

Which stars are the best for life? We categorize main sequence stars as blue, white, yellow, orange, and red (this is a continuum, but that is how we humans categorize the colors we see). Interestingly, there are no green stars, which has more to do with human color perception than anything else. Stars at an otherwise “green” temperature have enough blue and red mixed in to appear white to our color perception. The hotter the star the farther away a planet would have to be to be in its habitable zone, and that zone can be quite wide. But hotter stars are short-lived. Colder stars last for a long time but have a small and close-in habitable zone, so close they may be tidally locked to their star. Red dwarfs are also relatively unstable and put out a lot of solar wind which is unfriendly to atmospheres.

So the ideal color for a star, if you want to evolve some life, is probably in the middle – yellow, right where we are. However, some astronomers argue that the optimal temperature may be orange, which can last for 15-45 or more billion years, but with a comfortably distant habitable zone. If we are looking for life in our galaxy than orange stars are probably the way to go.

What about our humble yellow sun? Our sun is about 4.6 billion years old, with a total lifespan of about 10 billion years. So it might seem as if we have another 5 billion years to go, which is a comfortable chunk of time. While main sequence stars are relatively stable, they do subtly change, and can significantly change toward the end of their life. So the question is – when will our sun change enough to threaten the habitability of the Earth? The 5 billion years figure is how much longer our sun can burn hydrogen. After that it will start burning its helium at the core, and that is when it will start expanding into a red giant. However, we will run into problems long before then. As the sun burns hydrogen and collects helium at its core, it heats up, by about 10% every billion years. When will this slow heating spell doom for life on Earth?

There are two other variables to consider. The environment of the Earth depends on three main things – the sun, the orbit of the Earth (and anything else in the solar system that might affect Earth), and conditions on Earth itself (the atmosphere, the biosphere, geologically, our magnetic field). When you think about it, having a stable environment for billions of years is pretty amazing.

A recent paper considers the interaction between the slowly warming sun and the biosphere. Using a supercomputer to model what may happen, they conclude:

Our results suggest that the planetary carbonate–silicate cycle will tend to lead to terminally CO2-limited biospheres and rapid atmospheric deoxygenation, emphasizing the need for robust atmospheric biosignatures applicable to weakly oxygenated and anoxic exoplanet atmospheres and highlighting the potential importance of atmospheric organic haze during the terminal stages of planetary habitability.

In other words, the increasing heat will lead to chemical reactions that will reduce atmosphere CO2, this in turn will limit oxygen production through photosynthesis. Oxygen levels will crash, making the Earth uninhabitable to anything dependent on CO2 or oxygen. This will happen in about 1 billion years – 4 billion year sooner than our red giant phase. Eventually the Earth will continue to heat anyway, burning away all our water and resulting in a dry lifeless desert.

Is there anything we can or should do about this? I will leave a deep discussion of “should” to philosophers, and only say keeping Earth habitable to life for as long as possible seems like a good idea to me. Assuming we want this, what can we do? First let me say that I think the question is irrelevant from a practical perspective. Even in a million years, humanity will have changed significantly, definitely technologically, but also probably biologically. In 20 million years or 100 million years, still long before the Earth becomes uninhabitable, other technological species may evolve on Earth. Many things can happen. It’s massively premature to worry about things on that timescale.

I also think its very likely that long before this becomes an issue humanity will either be extinct, or (hopefully) we will be a multi-planet species. We will likely settle many parts of our own solar system, and eventually travel to the nearest stars. Even still, the future technological inhabitants of Earth may want to preserve its ecosystem for as long as possible.

Assuming we cannot change the sun (barring some ridiculously advanced stellar engineering) we could try to manipulate the other variables. We could, for example, put objects into orbit that will reflect away part of the sun’s light and heat to compensate for its increased output. Another option seems more radical but may be easier, and even necessary – we could slowly move the Earth further from the sun to precisely compensate for the sun’s increased temperature. We could use spacecraft flybys to take some angular momentum from Jupiter and give it to the Earth, pushing it a tiny bit further from the sun.  By one calculation, such a flyby would only need to occur once every 6,000 years in order to compensate for the warming of the sun (hat tip to Warwick for sending me this link).

But it seems likely that if we have a robust space presence within our solar system over the next billion years (seems likely), there will be countless Earth flybys by spacecraft. What we will need to do is track all the flybys, and/or their effects, and then calculate a compensatory flyby schedule, which can include moving the Earth slowly further from the sun.

It’s interesting, and daunting, to think about such long time scales. It reminds me of a science-fiction story (I forget which one) in which a tourist planet started to run into the problem of tourists carrying away net mass. Over hundreds and thousands of years, the planet was losing mass. So they had to pass and strictly enforce rules that no visitor could leave with more mass than they came with. If you wanted souvenirs (or even gain a little weight, which people on vacation often do) you had to pack your suitcase with some rocks to leave behind.

It seems like it will not be overly difficult for future Earth inhabitants (whether humans or something else) to keep Earth habitable for the full 5 billion years left in our sun’s main sequence life. So we have that going for us. But seriously, while all this is a fun thought experiment informed by our current scientific knowledge, it is also a reminder of how fragile our ecosystem is, especially when you think long term. We should respect our current stability, and we shouldn’t mess with it casually.

The post End of Life on Earth first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

Using human cells, researchers were able to create a novel cervix-on-a-chip model to study how the vaginal microbiome affects pregnancy

Welcome to the top o’ the week: it’s Monday, May 19, 2025, and National Devil’s Food Cake Day (remember, there’s also Angel Food Cake). The origin of the name is obscure, for this is simply a chocolate cake, usually darker than a normal one and frosted with chocolate, comme ça:

Maggio7 from Troy, MI, US, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Wikipedia says this:

The name probably had several sources of inspiration, including the culinary term deviled to describe flavorful foods like deviled eggs and the contrast of this dark, dense, flavorful cake with the light and airy angel food cake. The name has inspired humorous comments; one of the first printed recipes declares it to be “Fit for Angels”, and another early recipe recommends topping it with divinity frosting.

But if you look up the culinary term deviled, you get “grilled with a piquant sauce”!

It’s also World Family Doctor Day, but not much else.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 19 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, and it’s metastasized to his bones. As they said on the news last night, “It’s not curable, but it’s treatable.”

The diagnosis came after Mr. Biden reported urinary symptoms, which led doctors to find a “small nodule” on his prostate. Mr. Biden’s cancer is “characterized by a Gleason score of 9” with “metastasis to the bone,” the statement said.

The Gleason score is used to describe how prostate cancers look under a microscope; 9 and 10 are the most aggressive. The cancer is Stage 4, which means it has spread.

“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management,” according to the statement from Mr. Biden’s office, which was unsigned. “The president and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.”

This is very sad to hear, especially given that two of his children also died, one of brain cancer and the other in an accident that also killed Biden’s first wife. He’s also had two dangerous brain aneurysms.  The guy has been through a lot.

*Boss vs. Boss: Trump is trying to get Bruce Springsteen to shut up. It isn’t working (article archived here).

President Trump warned Bruce Springsteen to “keep his mouth shut” until he gets back to the U.S. The rock icon is showing no signs of backing down, delivering a fiery performance from a stage in this city Saturday that reflected the stark political divide in America.

Springsteen echoed earlier criticism of the Trump administration Saturday, saying a “rogue” government was rolling over U.S. lawmakers and institutions designed to keep authoritarianism in check.

“Things are happening right now that are altering the very nature of our country’s democracy,” Springsteen told the audience. To drive the point home, he dedicated one of his songs to our “Dear Leader,” an allusion to the honorific set aside for former North Korean ruler Kim Jong Il.

A similar broadside last week prompted Trump to take aim at Springsteen in a social-media post: “I see that Highly Overrated Bruce Springsteen goes to a Foreign Country to speak badly about the President of the United States. Never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he’s not a talented guy.”

The escalating confrontation between the president and Springsteen is part of a broader clash between Trump and some pop-culture icons that goes back to the president’s first term. Trump has repeatedly assailed Taylor Swift, who endorsed Kamala Harris in last year’s election but hasn’t engaged in the sort of sharp-tongued criticism delivered by Springsteen.

Trump lashed out at Swift in a separate post Friday: “Has anyone noticed that, since I said ‘I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,’ she’s no longer ‘HOT?’”

. . . . few artists have been as blunt as Springsteen, who for decades has cast himself as a champion of the working class and, in recent decades, has regularly campaigned with Democratic Party presidential candidates.

Still, Springsteen has generally been able to straddle the partisan divide in America. His 1984 anthem “Born in the U.S.A.” was widely embraced by Republicans including Ronald Reagan, despite its lyrics’ searing criticism of U.S. foreign and domestic policy. Springsteen also counts New Jersey’s former Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican and longtime presidential aspirant from Springsteen’s home state, among his biggest fans.

Still, despite Springsteen’s support, the Democratic Party has seen its longtime strength among blue-collar workers eroded by the rise of Trump. The president has transcended his own gilded upbringing to become a hero to many voters across the Rust Belt states that Springsteen has made a career of singing about—including Youngstown, a working-class city in Ohio that was the eponymous subject of one of the songs Springsteen played on Saturday.

Keep on speaking your mind, Bruce!  Trump can’t do anything to you, because you have freedom of speech. It’s clear that Trump has no ability to ignore criticism, but always answers it with juvenile name-calling.

*From the NYT: “Hollywood couldn’t imagine a star like this one” (archived here). Who is the star? Why, it’s Desi Arnaz from “I Love Lucy”, a show I regularly watched as a kid.

Seventy-five years ago, a fading redheaded movie star and her itinerant bandleader husband were searching desperately for a way to save their careers — and their marriage. She was starring in a network radio show in Hollywood and he was a musician on the road all the time, so they rarely saw each other. In their 10 years together, she’d already filed for divorce once, and was nearing her wits’ end.

The movie star was Lucille Ball and the bandleader, of course, was Desi Arnaz. In 1950, a glimmer of hope appeared for the couple: CBS intended to transfer Ball’s radio show, “My Favorite Husband,” to the untested new medium of television. But there was a problem: Ball wanted to make the move only if Arnaz — who’d helped start the conga dance craze in nightclubs in the 1930s and fueled America’s demand for Latin music after World War II — could play that husband on TV. The network and prospective sponsors believed the public would never accept a thick-accented Latino as the spouse of an all-American girl. “I was always the guy that didn’t fit,” Arnaz would later tell Ed Sullivan.

Arnaz, a Cuban immigrant and self-taught showman, had an idea: The couple would undertake an old-fashioned vaudeville tour of major cities around the country. He and Ball would demonstrate the real-life chemistry that he knew would click with Americans if they only had a chance to see the act.

Miracle of miracles, it worked. Critics and audiences from coast to coast raved at the couple’s onstage antics, as Lucy clowned with a battered cello while Desi sang and drummed his heart out. A.H. Weiler of The Times pronounced the pair “a couple who bid fair to become the busiest husband-and- wife team extant.” Soon enough, they were.

. . . Arnaz’s differences — the very elements that made network chiefs hesitant to feature him — became his greatest strengths, as his charming portrayal of the solid, bread-winning paterfamilias of an intermarried family broke new ground in television and made Ricky Ricardo a beloved figure to the 30 million people who watched his show each week. He was the one TV star who did not look or sound like any other — he was forever telling Lucy she had some “’splainin’ to do” — an immigrant who became the all-American man. The show’s sponsor had been so skeptical about Arnaz’s appeal that the contract with Desilu stipulated that Ricky could sing only if it was absolutely necessary to the plot. The audience’s near-immediate embrace of Arnaz and his music made that a moot point and the clause was eventually dropped.

The title of the inside article is “What Desi Arnaz could teach Hollywood today,” and the lesson is obvious:

He looked and sounded nothing like the preconceived notion that the entertainment business had of a successful star. So he changed the way Hollywood did business, and whom we can imagine as stars. Anyone who can’t understand that has some ’splainin’ to do.

Indeed (and remember Fred and Ethel?)!  I loved that show and knew none of the above. Here’s a short clip of scenes featuring the pair:

*On his Substack site, the well-known physician and writer Eric Topol discusses the first human to be treated for genetic disease with in vivo “CRISPR 2.0 personalized genome editing.” (h/t reader Gingerbaker).  The genetic disease was “severe carbamoyl-phosphate synthetase 1 deficiency, a disease with an estimated 50% mortality in early infancy.”  After determining the infant’s defects, they developed an infusion that was targeted at the prcise base pair that was defective, and then gave it repeatedly to the one-year old. From Topol’s report:

This was unique in many respects. KJ Muldoon was born in August 2024 with lethargy, rigid muscles and other worrisome symptoms. Genome sequencing revealed this was due to a severe urea-cycle disorder that leads to accumulation of ammonia and death in about half of infants affected, and short of death, the high levels of ammonia cause lethargy, seizures, coma, and brain damage. The disease-causing gene was CPS1 (carbamoyl-phosphate synthetase 1 deficiency), a 1 in a 1.3 million births genetic (ultra-rare) disease. KJ was hospitalized and awaited a liver transplant, listed at 5 month of age, if a donor organ became available. In the meantime, therapy consisted of a low protein diet and ammonia lowering (“nitrogen scavenger”) medications.

To get to the basis of KJ’s genomic defect and attempt a cure, the team at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and Penn Medicine (led by Drs. Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas and Kiran Musunuru) sequenced KJ and his parents. The father had a truncating CSP1 variant (Q335X) and the mother a different variant, E714X). They developed an adenosine base editor (called K-abe, schematic below) to specifically correct KJ’s defective CPS1 gene. The approach taken was particularly rigorous and comprehensive. Within 6 months they tested the editor in cells with the genomic variants, in mice (bred to specifically have KJ’s CPS1 mutation), in non-human primates, and got FDA approval to give it. It was administered intravenously using delivery via mRNA + nanoparticles beginning in February 2025 and then with 2 subsequent doses. The base editor used was directed against the paternal mutation (a G→A stop variant) at the Q335X site of the CSP1 gene.

What is missing to date is a liver biopsy, due to risk to the infant, to prove the targeted CSP1 editing. There is also lacking evidence of a cure—”just” a reduced need for medications and the restrictive diet. But also encouraging is that KJ is now reaching developmental milestones and although he sustained two viral infections, both were without an ammonia crisis. Further doses of the base editor can be administered with the mRNA approach (rather than a virus vector that can induce an immune response). Regarding uncertainties, we also don’t know about the durability of the editing, any mosaicism impact (only some liver cells edited), and the potential of any off-target effects (rigorously assessed in the 6-months sprint of lab experiments but not yet in KJ).

It seemed to work, though of course fixing a genetic disease by changing some of the cells isn’t guaranteed to be a permanent fix, as there are other, unfixed cells that keep replicating. I’m not sure whether the infant will require lifelong infusions, or whether the disease has bad effects only in infancy, but it’s remarkable that you can target liver cells and change a single base pair in the DNA (out of 3 billion bases) in an attempt to cure a genetic disease. Topol adds this:

This case of KJ represents a human first—-personalized, N-of-1 genomic intervention with base editing (CRISPR 2.0), in the body (in vivo), to directly fix a pathogenic (disease-causing) gene mutation. This bespoke intervention was accomplished in a remarkably compressed timeline that included rigorous assessment in cell and animal models, along with regulatory approval to proceed. It embodies something in medicine we have not and could not have done previously. It involved a dedicated team at CHOP and Penn and collaborators spread out around the world.

There are many specific aspects of the case that deserve attention. The fact that this work culminated from many years of NIH supported research, including the current report, at a time when we’re seeing profound and indiscriminate cutting of such funds

Here’s the paper from NEJM:

There is a lot more of this to come, and it’s amazing that we’re living in an age in which gene editing (which arose as a fortuitous byproduct of pure scientific curiosity about hot-spring bacteria) can be used to ameliorate or cure genetic diseases.

*The Times of Israel reports that the body of Hamas leader Muhammad Sinwar, the target of an attack about a week ago, has (according to a Saudi report) been found in a tunnel in Gaza. The third Sinwar brother, Zakaria, was killed by an airstrike on Sunday night. (Some time ago Yahyta Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, was also killed by the IDF).  The IDF reported the strike, but they don’t take a kill for granted unless they’re sure, and I’m accepting this Saudi version.

A series of Israeli airstrikes last week killed Muhammad Sinwar, the de facto commander of Hamas in Gaza, according to reports on Sunday that said his body was found in a Khan Younis tunnel.

Muhammad Sinwar was the younger brother of the former Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by the IDF in southern Gaza last October.

According to a separate report, Zakaria Sinwar, another brother, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Saturday night. [JAC: I’ve heard rumors that Zakaria was in the morgue, showed signs of life, and has been taken to the hospital. Stay tuned.]

A series of Israeli airstrikes last week killed Muhammad Sinwar, the de facto commander of Hamas in Gaza, according to reports on Sunday that said his body was found in a Khan Younis tunnel.

The strikes that reportedly killed Muhammad Sinwar on Tuesday targeted an underground command compound below the European Hospital where he was believed to have been sheltering.

The IDF later bombed the area several more times, in an apparent attempt to prevent anyone from approaching the tunnel.

According to the Saudi channel Al-Hadath, his body was recently recovered along with the remains of 10 of his aides.

The report said that there was evidence that the commander of the Rafah Brigade in Hamas’s military wing, Mohammad Shabana, was also killed in the strike.

What effect, if any, these strikes will have on Hamas remains to be seen. After all, some predicted that Hamas would give up after Yahya Sinwar was killed. It did not. But it’s clear that Israel’s big push now is designed to finish the job, and may have led to the proposal in the next item.

*In addition, Israel and the Qataris (and, “indirectly,” Hamas) are pondering one war-ending plan that would return all the hostages (dead or alive) and get Hamas to give up:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office says Israel’s hostage negotiation team in Doha is exhausting “every possibility” for a deal, including a potential agreement that would see the end of fighting, in an apparent shift in approach.

The PMO says that the team is working toward the possibility of either US special envoy Steve Witkoff’s proposal for a short-term ceasefire and limited hostage exchange, or an agreement to end the war through a comprehensive release of all hostages in Gaza and the complete surrender and exile of Hamas.

“Under the prime minister’s direction, even at this hour, the negotiating team in Doha is working to exhaust every possibility for a deal — whether according to the Witkoff outline or within the framework of ending the war, which would include the release of all hostages, the exile of Hamas terrorists, and the disarmament of the Gaza Strip,” writes the PMO in a statement.

. . . . Israel has consistently said that the war will not end without the destruction of Hamas as a military and governing power. Netanyahu has previously insisted on only agreeing to a temporary ceasefire of roughly 45 days, which would begin with Hamas releasing about 10 hostages.

Will Hamas give up and go into exile? This doesn’t seem likely, as they always say they value death more than the IDF values life, and many truly believe that if they die while “resisting,” they will go to heaven and get those virgins. But surely some members of Hamas don’t want to die. See also this archived article about the IDF’s “excpanded ground operations” in the NYT.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is impatient:

Hili: I’m sitting here and waiting. A: What for? Hili: For somebody to come and fill the water bowl. In Polish: Hili: Siedzę tu i czekam. Ja: Na co? Hili: Aż ktoś przyjdzie i uzupełni wodę w tej misce. And a picture of Szaron, the Dark Tabby:

 

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

From the 2025 Darwin Awards!!/Epic Fails!!:

From Annie:

From Cats:

Masih is posting again, though they’re mostly reposts since she’s recovering from surgery. Here’s an old one but of course still relevant to the patriarchal Iranian regime:

#چهارشنبه_های_بدون_اجبار #چهارشنبه_های_سفيد
second week of #WhiteWednesdays one day, instead of feeling scared of the morality police… pic.twitter.com/8j6b6QYVlf

— My Stealthy Freedom (@mystealthyorg) May 31, 2017

Another instance of deplatforming tweeted by Nicholas Christakis at Yale. Salman Rushdie was scheduled to give the commencement speech at Claremont-McKenna College. From the link in the tweet:

The cancellation came as student and local Muslim advocacy groups called the author’s presence “disrespectful” after he said pro-Palestinian protests across college campuses were akin to supporting “a fascist terrorist group,” The Guardian reported last year.

“I’m surprised, relieved and happy,” Claremont Colleges Muslim Students Association president Kumail Afshar said about Rushdie’s decision.

Rushdie, an Indian-born British and American atheist, was forced into hiding by the outrage over his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, in which he suggests Islam’s Prophet Muhammad may have entertained polytheism.

The College supported Rushdie, but I suspect he was scared of being attacked again:

When you are happy that you have cancelled the incredible Sir @SalmanRushdie from giving a talk at your college, you really have lost the plot. https://t.co/MBqFpcPVjH

— Nicholas A. Christakis (@NAChristakis) May 17, 2025

Talking about losing the plot, look what Naomi Wolf said (“Tim Onion” is Ben Collins, owner of The Onion):

“Since I’ve rearranged my whole identity to call most people unclean and filled with vampire blood, their hugs seem less sincere. Separately, I have discovered the vampire-blooded have a new disease called Soft Hug Disease.”

— Tim Onion (@bencollins.bsky.social) 2025-05-17T17:56:07.455Z

From Simon:

When you post the same thing on X and Bluesky

— Oded Rechavi (@odedrechavi.bsky.social) 2024-11-12T19:52:01.542Z

From my feed; I hope this cured the mantis and it was let go. But crikey, look at that thing!

Lowering a Praying Mantis in water to entice the parasite living within to come outside. pic.twitter.com/Ld2QsdglaL

— Nature is Amazing (@AMAZlNGNATURE) May 17, 2025

From the Auschwitz Memorial; one that I reposted:

A Dutch Jewish girl was gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz. She was 11, and woiuld be 94 today had she lived.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-05-19T09:39:28.249Z

From Matthew via Phil Plait; a bad joke. My own personal version, which is mine, is opening a fusion Caribbean-Jewish restaurant called “Bermuda Schwartz.”

I'm gonna open a fusion Italian-Peruvian-Jewish restaurant called Matzah Pizzu

— Phil Plait (@philplait.bsky.social) 2025-01-07T15:25:53.020Z

And a relatively newly discovered jellyfish:

The pink meanie jellyfish was only described in the year 2000 (they even got their own new family!) and we’re totally here for it. The pink meanie hunts the moon jellyfish and helps keep their blooms in check! #coralcitycamera

— Coral City Camera (@coralcitycamera.bsky.social) 2024-11-12T14:37:17.997Z

Mounting concerns about Brazil's approach to the COP30 climate summit have observers asking whether the meeting will be able to tackle the difficult choices involved in curbing emissions

Since becoming HHS Secretary, RFK Jr. has been deceptively weaponizing principles of evidence-based medicine against vaccines. Will weaponizing research ethics be next? It might if the ideas of one of his advisors, James Lyons-Weiler, are any indication.

The post Attacking vaccines through the misunderstanding of medical ethics first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Spacecraft orbiting Mars can reveal small features on the planet's surface, but there are only so many things you can see from above. When a meteor strikes the surface of Mars, it can excavate sub-surface material, allowing scientists to study what lies beneath. Researchers have simulated various impacts on Mars, changing the sub-surface material from bedrock to water-ice glaciers, and then calculated what should be visible after an impact, enabling new science.

Today is Day 11 since Esther’s ducklings hit the water, and it’s time to share some photos and video of her, Mordacai (yes, he’s still here) and their brood.

But first, we were lucky enough to get a video, courtesy of an undergraduate, of the ducklings hatching underneath Esther, whose nest, you may recall, was on the ground. This video was taken on May 6, and you can see, peeping from beneath her, newly hatched ducklings. One who just hatched is still wet from the egg, while others, a bit older are dry. There were seven total, though one disappeared the first night to unknown causes.  Be sure to listen to the gasps from the students as they see the babies: “Holy cow!”  “Oh, my god!” (I’ve shown this video before, but put it up again because it’s lovely.)

They stay under mom for the first day, and hit the water the second day, which they took to. . . well, like ducks to water. (See the photo of their first moment in the water here.)

The remnants of Esther’s rather crude nest; you can see the broken eggshells. Despite being a rather incompetent nest-builder, she’s a great mom in the water.

Click on all photos to enlarge them.

It wasn’t long before Esther took them on a tour of the pond so they could learn the surroundings.  They quickly learned to use the duck ramps so they could get out of the water and dry off in the sun. In this photo she looks proud to me, but of course that’s anthropomorphizing.

This looks like the brood of five when one duckling went missing for a day but, mirabile dictu, returned the next day. I have no idea where it was.

This video shows how they swim purposefully with the mother when Esther has decided to swim to a definite place. At other times she lollygags about and the ducklings spread out over much of the pond.

The whole family on the edge of the pond (they went up via the ramp). The faithful Mordecai is standing guard to the right.

Esther and the babies. It’s warm beneath her: I’m told about 100°F.

Mom and most of the babies napping:

Mordecai napping. He is an excellent dad, driving off alien drakes who try to make time with Esther. You can see that he’s well fed by his belly hanging over the edge. We call such individuals “Dali ducks.”

Here’s a video of the ducklings (7) discovering that there are rocks they can climb on, get some sun, and dry off.

Mother and babies:

Esther in a formal pose:

Two babies:

Ducklings looking up:

. . . and one flapping its tiny wings:

Finally, a passel of ducklings (the formal name for such a group is a “flock,” a “waddling”, or a “raft”).  Needless to say, on a nice day the pond is crowded with onlookers oohing and aahing over the babies and taking pictures of them. Right now, in the absence of any turtles or fish, the ducks and ducklings are the major attraction at Botany Pond:

Secretary Kennedy's reckless insistence on undermining confidence in vaccines and reckless elevation of the wholly unqualified David Geier to a potentially influential role at HHS

The post Senator Hassan Sets Secretary Kennedy Straight first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Earth's magnetosphere channels particles from solar storms into stunning auroras. Mars lacks a planet-wide magnetic field and has patchy auroras barely detectable with instruments. Or so we thought. New images captured by NASA's Perseverance Rover with its Mastcam-Z instrument show green auroras in visible light. When humans finally walk on Mars and look to the skies, they could possibly see faint auroras there, too.

For a brief period in 2022, Dr. Vinay Prasad faked a concern about routine vaccines to infect unvaccinated children with COVID.

The post I Am Calling on Dr. Vinay Prasad, the Medical Establishment, to Break His Silence on Vaccines as Measles And Pertussis Spread Under His Watch first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Here’s the comedy bit from Bill Maher’s latest “Real Time”, and it’s called “New Rule: Don’t be a hypocrite.”

A few examples:

Trump touting electric cars (Teslas) after he appropriated Elon Musk.

Republicans buying Tesla cybertrucks after most saying they’d never buy an electric truck

The American Academy of Pediatrics reversing its position on getting kids into schools after Trump agreed with them

Republicans denigrated Michelle Obama’s program, “Let’s get American healthy again”, simply because it was from Michelle Obama.

Republicans now love Russia (so Maher said) when it was previous their nightmare country.

There are lots of examples of people accepting or rejecting programs or propositions simply because of who advocated them, and that is a form of hypocrisy. Most of his examples are anti-Republican, so take that, those people who consigned Maher to hell because he had dinner with Trump and found him a gracious host. (That denigration of Maher by those who dislike Trump—and those people include Maher—is itself a form of hypocrisy. If you dislike Trump, it’s impossible to ever find him gracious.)

As he says, we should “not to automatically rush to the opposite viewpoint based solely on who said it. But until we get to where we can do that, and I just hope the Democrats come out strongly next week for a dictatorship, coal mining, and making pot illegal.”

It’s a plea for comity, but nobody seems to be in that mood these days.

If you’ve read about the various pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protests across American campuses, one thing you’ll notice is a general reluctance to punish demonstrators when they violate university rules. Of course protests are usually fine if they conform to First Amendment principles (though some schools don’t hold those principles), but they’re never fine when they violate campus rules.  These latter rules are usually called “TPM rules”, meaning that universities can regulate the “time, place, and manner” of demonstrations in a way that doesn’t impede the mission of the institution: teaching, learning, and research.

So at the University of Chicago, for example, we’ve laid out the rules for protests and demonstrations at this website, which gives information about noise levels permitted, building occupancy (not permitted at all) and the like.  In 2024, I gave four examples of pro-Palestinian demonstrators violating University regulations without any punishments meted out. The only sanction levied was a tepid warning to Students for Justice in Palestine that they disrupted a Jewish gathering, a warning that they’d better not do it again or else. . . .

As I always say, rules that aren’t enforced are not rules at all. Even our encampment, which involved several hundred people—both students and outsiders—which was declared in violation of university rules, was dismantled by the university police, but none of the demonstrators faced any punishment.

Is it any wonder, then, that the anti-Israel demonstrators feel empowered to break any campus rules they want? And they did—two weeks ago when the pro-Pals, a consortium called “UCUP”, for “UChicago United for Palestine” held a week of demonstrations commemorating last year’s encampment, which, not coincidentally, also included Alumni Weekend. (One wonders what mindset thinks that these loud and obnoxious intrusions will change peoples’ opinions.)

At any rate, the Chicago Maroon, which loves nothing more than an anti-Israel demonstration, had an article about a week of protests that included several violations of University rules, all of which seem to have been unpunished. Oh, well, there’s one exception: the police confiscated one megaphone being used illegally. I suppose they arrested it for “excessive loudness.”

Click below to read the article. I’ve bolded the bits where illegal actions went unpunished. The cops and deans-on-call showed up, but the former are constrained by the administration and can’t take action without permission from above, and deans-on-call are, to me, a joke; mere observers who can’t enforce anything and barely want to report anything. In fact, some of the deans-on-call are blatantly pro-Palestinian, and so can’t be objective. Here’s a photo of the “watermelon” (Palestinian colors) fingernails of one of those deans-on-call taken by a student during the encampment last year:

I’ll give some excerpts showing how the U of C ignores violations, as well as giving the article’s introduction. Click headline below to read; unpunished violations are in bold.

Marking the one-year anniversary of the 2024 pro-Palestine encampment, UChicago students and community members launched a week-long protest and installation outside Swift Hall. The students, organized as the “Popular University for Gaza,” called for solidarity with Palestine and the divestment of University funds from institutions tied to Israel.

Between Monday, April 28, and Friday, May 2, the group held teach-ins, workshops, and demonstrations—some resulting in confrontations with the University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD) and deans-on-call—as they sought to maintain public pressure on University leadership.

Shortly after 1 p.m. on April 28, protesters gathered on the quad outside of Swift Hall, raising a banner reading “Free Palestine, Bring the Intifada Home.” UCPD officers and deans-on-call observed from a distance as the group began a series of chants over a megaphone. Deans repeatedly informed the protesters that they were in violation of University policies regulating the use of amplified sound on campus.

Did anybody stop the violations? Are you kidding me?

Around an hour and a half into the demonstration, the UCPD officers and deans-on-call requested identification from those who had been using megaphones. The protesters initially locked arms to prevent possible arrests, with the crowd gradually dispersing as officers continued to ask for identifying information.

And again it seems as if the protestors, who are obliged to provide identification, did not do so; nor did the cops take any IDs.

Here’s a protestor waving a Houthi flag; photo by Grace Beatty.  Love that AK-47! Note the covered faces of the protestors, indicating two things: they are cowards who don’t want to be identified, and they are not enacting civil disobedience, whereby you break a law considered immoral and voluntarily take the punishment.

On Thursday they arrested. . . .a megaphone:

Two UCPD officers, along with several deans-on-call, gathered to observe the protest.

As protesters continued to chant, UCPD officers chased after demonstrators and confiscated at least one megaphone. The demonstration, which took place after 1 p.m., was again in violation of University policy regarding amplified sound. An unidentified protester flew a flag identifying with the Houthi movement in Yemen; one UCPD officer was overheard saying “As long as they’re holding [the flag], it’s free speech.”

The cop is right about free speech; our campus police are well aware of what is a violation and what is not. But they cannot move against real violations without permission of the administration.

Finally, although again this is legal, they heckled the President and Provost. Not THAT is going to change their minds!

Here’s President Alivisatos being heckled as he walks to the alumni tent. He kept his cool and did not respond. And you have to hand it to the heckler that he didn’t cover his face. (This was published on the UC United Instagram page.)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by UChicago United for Palestine (@uchicagounited)

So the week was a mixture of legal and illegal activities by the protestors, but the only thing arrested was a megaphone.

Below you see a poster in the Quad. If you know what “Intifada” means, it’s a term in Arabic for “shaking off” and has come to mean “shaking off the Jews”, i.e., killing them. These are really congenial sentiments.

I’m not sure whether the students had permission to post such a banner, but even if they did the sentiments surely create a hostile climate for Jewish students:

Photo by Nathaniel Rodwell-Simon

These demonstrations used to bother me more, especially their implicit calls for genocide of Jews (the poster above and the “From the river to the sea. .  ” chants), but now that Hamas is losing, and the University of Chicago has made it clear that it will not divest from Israel, these demonstrators strike me as pathetic, cosplaying as Houthis and members of Hamas.  Surely a large moiety of them are antisemitic, and it’s okay to do that so long as you don’t create a climate inimical to the participation of Jewish students at the University.  Do we have such a climate? You’d have to ask the Jewish students, but some of them have, I’ve heard, said “yes.” I know some of them won’t wear their Stars of David necklaces in a way that make them visibly Jewish.

I wish only that my University would be serious about its demonstration rules. When students break those rules, they should be punished, bar none. If Columbia can do it, so can we.

We have three—count them, three—items today.  The first is the first known portrait of an individual cat, that is, a cat who is known to have existed as a pet and with a name:

From Strange Company,

tumblr:  Giovanni Reder, Portrait of the cat Armellino, 1750. Oil on canvas. The first known painting of an individual cat. The italian poetess Alessandra Forteguerra commissioned the artwork of her beloved tom cat. Museo di Roma.

The Mister Tristan site says this:

Very few cats can boast that they have actually had their portraits painted, that is, that they have been depicted without any allegorical, moralizing, religious, esoteric, or simply decorative intent on the part of the artist….Armellino, wearing an elegant little collar, has literally posed on a luxurious cushion; a sonnet by the abbot Bertazzi has even been dedicated to him.

Now, I can’t find a translation of that sonnet anywhere. If any reader can, or can speak Italian, please provide me with a translation. I will credit the translator and put the sonnet in this post. You can enlarge the text by clicking on it.

Reader Brooke supplied the necessary sonnet:

The translation of the sonnet in the painting can be found on this page (you have to scroll down the page quite a ways):

Sonnet to a Cat

by Abbott Bertazzi

This Cat painted here on canvas,
tasted a loving kiss from a beautiful goddess,
after having done the portrait from life,
The cat keeps himself well guarded and most jealous.
In order to keep himself fully intact,
like an Ermine who lives in fear
and to avoid being caught
flees rapidly to stay in the wood or in a more hidden place.
So you as well, oh adventurous Cat,
preserve your mouth intact and your heart pure,
and only think of the one who kissed you,
and allow only me to love you,
you who shoot a kiss,
and take back my lovely kiss to cool the passion.

The cat’s name, Armellino, apparently means ‘ermine’ in old Italian.

Another site has an excerpt about this painting from H.V. Morton’s A Traveller in Rome (1957).

In a picture gallery upstairs [in the museum of Rome] I found a portrait of a black and white cat. This lordly and imposing creature prowled the marble halls of some seventeenth century palace and is here seen enthroned upon a tasselled cushion, wearing a broad collar to which bells are attached. Pinned to a curtain behind the cat is a little poem which says that a great and beautiful lady once kissed the cat and bade him keep his heart and mouth pure, and to remember her kiss. No one knows who the lady was.

Wouldn’t “the lady” be the cat’s owner? It’s rather confusing.

There are earlier named cats, of course, including Pangur Bán (“White Pangur”), the subject of a poem written by an Irish monk in a 9th-century manuscript. It’s a wonderful poem, comparable to “For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry,” by Christopher Smart, but, alas, there is no portrait of Pangur.

These are the two best cat poems ever.

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The Japan Rail Club site gives us a look at a wonderful Japanese cat train (I think there are several). The article and photos are from Carlissa Loh, and go to the site to see tons of photos. If you’re an ailurophile, you’ll want to take this train.

Click below to read and see photos, alo by Carlisa Loh:

Excerpts:

Would you take a 1.5-hour train in the Wakayama (和歌山) countryside just to see a cat? Many people would, and many have! In fact, it was thanks to a beloved cat, Tama, that one railway line was revitalised and saved from closure.

The railway line was Wakayama Electric Railway’s Kishigawa Line (貴志川線), and in January 2007, Tama (たま), a female calico cat, became the station master of Kishi Station (貴志駅).

Here’s Tama, the subject of a Wikipedia article in Japanese that autotranslates into English. It says, among other stuff, this:

Tama ( also known as Stationmaster Tama ; April 29 , 1999 ( Heisei 11) – June 22, 2015 (Heisei 27 )) was a cat and the honorary permanent stationmaster of Kishi Station on the Wakayama Electric Railway ‘s Kishigawa Line .

She was a female calico cat kept at the station’s convenience store and became an idol , like a maneki -neko (beckoning cat), before eventually becoming the station’s official mascot (a unique stationmaster, or cat stationmaster ) with the title of ” stationmaster ” and becoming world-famous . [ 3 ] She is now the station’s honorary permanent stationmaster.

On January 5, 2007, he was officially appointed as the stationmaster by the Wakayama Electric Railway, which caused quite a stir . [ 3 ] His main job was to “welcome customers,” and he is said to have not only attracted customers to Kishi Station, but also brought about the Heisei era cat boom, ” nekonomics ,” in Japan . [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] He was employed for life with no term limit , and his annual salary was one year’s worth of cat food .

Tama died in 2015, age 16.

But the Japan Rail Club says there’s a new stationmaster cat:

Her role of station master at Kishi Station was assumed by another beautiful calico cat, Nitama (ニタマ literarally “Tama two”), for whom curious travellers and excited fans alike travel all the way to the quiet station in Wakayama Prefecture.

Here is Nitama from CNN:

Nitama — the new stationmaster of Kishi Station in Wakayama Prefecture — has been praised for her “hat-wearing” skills. courtesy Ryobi Group

Notes (indented) and 3 photos from Carlissa Loh:

As a tribute to Tama, Wakayama Electric Railway started operating the Tama Densha train (たま電車), an adorable train with an exterior decorated 101 drawings of Tama donning a station master’s hat in various poses. Affectionately called “Tamaden”, the train’s front even has ears and whiskers, how cute is that? As a self-professed noritetsu, I love riding special trains, and knew I had to make room in my trip to take a ride on this train and pay a visit to Nitama.

Inside the train, there were even more darling drawings and decals of Tama adorning the windows and walls, and since it was the New Year’s period when I visited, there weren’t many other passengers, so I could take photos to my heart’s content.

The Tama Densha is made up of two carriages, and each one is furnished with wooden seats of varying designs of shades of orange, black, and white, and just oozed comfort and cosiness. The train was designed by Mitooka Eiji (水戸岡 鋭治), who has designed many memorable sightseeing trains such as the luxury cruise train Seven Stars in Kyushu, many of JR Kyushu’s D&S Trains, Kyoto Tango Railway’s sightseeing trains, and more.

I’d surely ride this train if I went to Japan (one of my dream destinations)!

More photos and info at the site.

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

And from Defector, Alex Sujong Laughlin interviews his cat Pong about the cat’s obnoxious behaviors. Click below to read:

Excerpts by Laughlin are indented:

Like every other member of my generation who has put off traditional markers of adulthood, like home ownership and having children, I am completely, utterly devoted to my cat, Pong. In the five years he’s lived with us, Pong has evolved from the scrawny street cat we adopted in the Union Square Petco to the ruler of our household. We often quote a decade-old Adam Serwer tweet about his own cats: Management doesn’t need a union.

We’ve invented a rich mythology for Pong’s inner life over the last five years. His hardscrabble early years taught him to flirt and charm for his meals on the streets of Harlem, where he developed his taste for French fries, noodles, and pizza. He ran with a tough crew that wasn’t afraid to get into scraps if he needed to assert dominance. He inherited his asthma and anxiety from his mother (me), and he spends his days working hard (sleeping on a chair in my office) for the money to pay our rent.

In any relationship, you fall into rhythms built around each other’s quirks and scar tissue. This is true even—or maybe especially—when the relationship is with an animal who cannot speak English. We’ve come to accept his most annoying behaviors; his loafing on our backs at 5 a.m. like a sleep paralysis demon is just a part of life with Pong, as are the lost hours of sleep and frequent yelling when he can’t find us in the house. \

I got a recommendation for a pet communicator, whose identity I’m keeping private at their request, and booked a 30-minute session with them. We met on Zoom, and when they started looking for his energy, they asked if he’s a male, six to eight years old, who’s very sure of himself. Pong was sleeping next to me in a little kitty croissant but the communicator couldn’t see him on screen. I told them they had the right guy.

What follows is an interview with Pong, through the communicator, which I’ve edited for clarity.

Just two Q&A’s via the pet communicator:

Can you tell me anything about your life before you came to live with us? 

There wasn’t a loving family, but there were two or three people who took care of me on the street. There was one man who I had a strong relationship with. There was a misunderstanding, the people tried to bring me into the house, and then took me away.

(This made me think of Alex, the doorman who apparently fed him when he was a stray, and who he was named for when he was brought to Union Square. Yes, we should’ve kept that name.)

. . .I appreciate that. OK, one last question. Sometimes you’ll crawl up onto my lap and be really sweet and snuggly, and then out of nowhere you’ll start attacking me, biting me and breaking skin. It really sucks when that happens! What’s going on? 

Sometimes I feel like I’m back on the street and it just happens. It feels right in the moment, but when you get upset I feel ashamed. I saw the tissues with the blood last week and I feel bad. It’s not your fault.

There’s a lot more Q&A at the site.

h/t: Malcolm, Ginger K.

Dumbest Word of the Week: Moxibustion; News Items: Cold Plunges, The End of Life, Floating Nuclear Power, Visualizing Special Relativity, Brainspotting Pseudoscience; Who's That Noisy; Your Questions and E-mails: Ethics of Pig Hearts, Are Flat Earthers Real; Science or Fiction

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