Science

Surveys that ask thousands of people how they spend their time have revealed some surprising activities that seem to make any given day a good one

Even as quacks and antivaxxers take over our federal government's health apparatus, let's not forget why we need stronger, not laxer, regulation of "unconventional" medical practices.

The post Quackery (still) kills: A five-year-old boy dies in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

When Beetlejuice goes off, it's going to be the show of a lifetime. But it’s not going to hurt us.

Despite their overall similarities, asteroids are usually pretty distinct from one another. Vesta has a very different spectroscopic profile than Psyche, for example. So it might come as no surprise that another of the main asteroids - Pallas - is in a class all its own except for the 300 or so members of its "family" with similar orbital profiles and spectroscopic lines. A new paper from researchers who were then Visiting Astronomers at NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) in Haiwi'i took a look at members of that family in the infrared for the first time and compared them to a particular Near-Earth object that might have a similar make-up.

I’ve dissected many crazy papers over the years—just to show what passes for “scholarship” in some of the humanities. Yes, of course there’s good scholarship there, too, but I have a feeling that in STEM you won’t find anything as inconclusive or incoherently written as this paper (h/t: Luana for finding it). And nearly all science papers at least reveal a tentative fact or two about nature. In contrast, many “studies” papers like this one seem like wheel spinning, and are baffling. They seem to be vehicles not for finding knowledge, but getting tenure and promotions. If there is a contribution to human knowledge from this effort, I can’t find it. This one was published in the Journal of Lesbian Studies.

You can read the paper by clicking on the title below, or find the pdf here.

I scanned it once and then read it more carefully a second time, and I swear I still can’t figure out what it’s trying to say. Some AI analysis given below didn’t help much.. Not only is the paper’s thesis obscure, but it is written so poorly, and with the use of so many jargon words (“attending to,” “becomings,” “intersectional ecoqueer feminist perspective,” “disrupt normative ideas,” etc), that it would kill George Orwell if he wasn’t already dead.

The paper notes that Dr. Diamond-Lenow “(she/they) is an Assistant Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at SUNY Oneonta,” but on the list of faculty in that department I cannot find her.

Knock yourself out (and you will):

Below is the abstract, and I hope you can get something out of it. All I can remember is that lesbians seem to have a special relationship with dogs (and machines like iPhones), and this tells us something about the “the rich complexity of dyke culture and its processes of continually processing and becoming.” (“Becoming” is a favorite word in the paper, and “dyke” is a word used by Diamond-Lenow). And the author decries the misuse of dogs as tools of racism, white supremacy, and militarism.

Abstract:

This article offers a queer lesbian feminist analysis attuned to lesbian-queer-trans-canine relationalities. Specifically, the article places queer and lesbian ecofeminism in conversation with Donna Haraway’s work on the cyborg and companion species to theorize the interconnected queer becomings of people, nature, animals, and machines amidst ecologies of love and violence in the 2020s. It takes two key case studies as the focus for analysis: first, the state instrumentalization of dogs and robot dogs for racialized and imperial violence, and second, quotidian queer and lesbian-dog relationalities and becomings. In the first, the article traces how dogs are weaponized as tools of state violence and proposes a queer lesbian feminist critique of white supremacy and militarization that can also extend to a critique of the violence committed through and toward the dogs. In the second, the article analyzes how, within lesbian, non-binary, and trans-dog intimacies, dogs help articulate queer gender, sexuality, and kinship formations, and as such, queer worlds for gender, sexual, and kin becomings. The entanglements of violence and love in these queer dog relationalities provide insights into the complexities of queer and lesbian feminist worldbuilding. Lesbian and queer feminist cyborg politics can help theorize the potentials and challenges of these interspecies entanglements.

Some dog-dissing from the paper, giving a flavor of its content:

As companion species, dogs have been deeply entwined with the gendered and sexual formations of white supremacy and heteronormative domesticity. They play a foundational role in symbolizing the white bourgeois heteronormative nuclear family and the U.S. home. At the same time, dogs are often used to stigmatize and police “improper” homes and communities. For instance, breed-specific bans in the U.S. disproportionately target Black and Brown dog owners, functioning as a form of racialized criminalization (Weaver, Citation 2021).

Historically, dogs have been tools of settler colonialism and enslavement mediating racialized naturecultures (Johnson, Citation 2009, Boisseron, Citation 2018). They are also instrumentalized for racialized securitization in policing, border patrol, and carceral systems—they are in this sense, part of the violent cyborg offspring Haraway discusses. Police have long used dogs to intimidate and attack marginalized communities, as seen in numerous documented incidents: during civil rights protests in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963; against anti-police violence protests in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 (Wall, Citation 2016); against Indigenous activists opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota in 2016 (Democracy Now!, Citation 2016); during Black Lives Matter protests in Baltimore and elsewhere (The Marshall Project, Citation 2020); and most recently, in 2024, against student protests over the genocide in Gaza on college and university campuses (Most, Citation 2024).

Look! Dogs are also vehicles for racial criminalization!

. . . . As companion species, dogs have been deeply entwined with the gendered and sexual formations of white supremacy and heteronormative domesticity. They play a foundational role in symbolizing the white bourgeois heteronormative nuclear family and the U.S. home. At the same time, dogs are often used to stigmatize and police “improper” homes and communities. For instance, breed-specific bans in the U.S. disproportionately target Black and Brown dog owners, functioning as a form of racialized criminalization (Weaver, Citation 2021).

And military dogs are tools of sexualized colonization and dehumanization!:

In the military, dogs are used as cyborg weapons, used to detect Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), patrol bases, police detainees, and target enemies. They played key roles in U.S. interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the killings of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011 (Bumiller, Citation2011) and ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi in Syria in 2019 (Rogers, Citation2019). Dogs were also involved in abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad in 2004 (Schmitt, Citation2006). These deployments reflect a logic of heteronormative nationalism and sexualized colonization, dehumanizing Arab, Muslim, and Middle Eastern men within necropolitical formations of war (Diamond-Lenow, Citation2020).

There are lots of neologisms like “natureculture”. But here is the paper’s conclusion:

The article thus contributes a queer trans feminist perspective on human-dog becomings to queer ecological critique, highlighting the significance of lesbian queer feminism in analyzing more-than-human relationalities, particularly with dogs.

For some reason the last three words make me laugh out loud.

At any rate, Luana found a site where you can enter the URL of an article like this one, and it will give you both an AI summary and a podcast. I haven’t tried it, but you can if you wish. At any rate, when she put in the URL of this paper, here’s what AI spit out. I must say that it merely reiterates the paper’s language in a way that a cheating student might copy, but doesn’t shed much further  light on this black hole of scholarship:

1. What is the central focus of this article?

This article centers on the interconnectedness of queer (specifically lesbian, non-binary, and trans) identities, human-animal (primarily canine) relationships, and technology (drawing on cyborg theory) within contexts of both affection and oppression. It aims to analyze how these entanglements contribute to the formation of queer worlds and how they are shaped by and respond to societal structures of power, particularly white supremacy and militarization.

2. How does the article connect queer ecofeminism with cyborg and companion species theories?

The article brings queer and lesbian ecofeminist perspectives into dialogue with Donna Haraway’s concepts of the cyborg (as a hybrid of machine and organism challenging traditional boundaries) and companion species (highlighting the co-evolution and interdependence of humans and domesticated animals). By doing so, it seeks to understand how the relationships between queer individuals and their dogs, in their technologically mediated and ecologically situated contexts, challenge and redefine categories of nature, culture, human, and animal.

3. What are the two main case studies used in the article’s analysis?

The article examines two primary case studies: firstly, the ways in which dogs, including robotic dogs, are utilized and instrumentalized by the state for purposes of racialized and imperial violence. Secondly, it analyzes the everyday intimacies and relational experiences between queer (lesbian, non-binary, and trans) individuals and their dogs, focusing on how these relationships contribute to the articulation of queer gender, sexuality, and kinship.

4. How does the article critique the state’s use of dogs and robot dogs?

The article offers a queer lesbian feminist critique of the state’s deployment of dogs and robot dogs, particularly in the context of racialized and imperial violence. It argues that this instrumentalization of canines as tools of militarization and control is intertwined with white supremacist ideologies and inflicts violence not only on targeted human populations but also through and toward the dogs themselves. The critique aims to expose the underlying power structures and ethical implications of such practices.

5. In what ways do dogs contribute to the lives and identities of queer individuals, according to the article?

The article suggests that dogs play a significant role in the lives of lesbian, non-binary, and trans individuals, contributing to the formation of queer gender, sexuality, and kinship structures. Through intimate relationships with dogs, queer individuals can articulate and experience their identities in ways that challenge normative understandings of these categories. These interspecies bonds help in the creation of queer social worlds and facilitate unique forms of becoming.

6. What does the article mean by “queer canine becomings”?

“Queer canine becomings” refers to the ongoing and mutual shaping of identities and ways of being that occur within the relationships between queer individuals and their dogs. It emphasizes that these relationships are not static but rather involve processes of co-creation and transformation. The “queer” aspect highlights how these becomings often challenge and expand conventional understandings of gender, sexuality, and species boundaries.

7. How do love and violence intertwine in the queer dog relationalities discussed in the article?

The article posits that queer-dog relationships exist within “ecologies of love and violence.” This means that these intimate bonds are not immune to broader societal forces of oppression and violence. The article explores how the potential for both deep affection and the awareness of systemic violence against both queer individuals and animals shape these interspecies connections, offering insights into the complexities of queer feminist worldbuilding in a non-ideal world.

8. What is the significance of lesbian and queer feminist cyborg politics in understanding these interspecies entanglements?

Lesbian and queer feminist cyborg politics, as proposed in the article, provide a theoretical framework for analyzing the potentials and challenges inherent in the entanglements of queer identities, dogs, and technology. This perspective allows for a nuanced understanding of how power operates within these relationships, how boundaries are blurred and renegotiated, and how new forms of resistance and world-making can emerge from these complex interspecies intimacies in the face of both love and violence.

This may be the wackiest paper I’ve ever covered here, though it has had some tough competition.

UPDATE: The right-wing College Fix also found this paper, and proffers its own summary:

Basically, the professor’s argument seems to boil down to this: Dogs provide a positive relational experience for many LGBTQ people. However, the government also uses dogs and robo-dogs, or cyborgs, to commit unjust violence against marginalized people. Therefore, the relationships between dogs and humans are complex.

LOL! But although that seems satirical, it also seems accurate.

The Jewish holiday of Purim was on the 13th and 14th of March, and on the 14th a breeding pair of mallards appeared at Botany Pond, and they’re still there. The main heroes of the Purim legend were Queen Esther and Mordecai, the advisor to the King (both Jewish), both of whom saved the Jews of Persia from total annihilation. The names of our ducks were thus obvious: the hen is Esther and the drake is Mordecai.

Aren’t they beautiful? (Click photos to enlarge them.)

Esther swimming:

The pair in the open pond (see below):

In the channel; ducks on the rocks, with Esther preening herself:

Mordecai on the rocks. It looks as if he got pecked on the breast, perhaps in a fight for Esther:

More Esther. Notice that her bill is not heavily decorated with black, as was the case with our favorite ducks in previous years:

Ducks are at their cutest when they tilt their heads, which, given the placement of their eyes, they must do to look upwards (hawks, other potential predators, etc.):

Swimming and drinking in the channel:

This is the new remodeled pond, very different from the previous version. Sections of the pond have been blocked off with netting to protect the plants, but we are trying to get the netting reduced as right now the ducks don’t have full access to the pond, and ducklings can’t fly over nets.  I am worried that, if they fix the nets as they’ve promised, the men running around in the water will permanently drive away Esther and Mordecai.  We want them to nest. Another anxious duck season begins. . . .

Oh, and we’ve asked for the duckcam to be turned back on. Stay tuned.

And a bonus gray squirrel, named Shmeul, in a nearby trash can. He is just finishing noshing on a piece of pizza someone discarded.

Send in your photos, please!

It’s Sunday, so John Avise is back with a selection of North American butterfly photos. John’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge your photos by clicking on them.

This week continues my 18-part series on butterflies that I’ve photographed in North America.  I’m continuing to go down my list of species in alphabetical order by common name.

Polydamus Swallowtail (Battus polydamas), upperwing:

Polydamus Swallowtail, underwing:

Propertius Duskywing (Erynnis propertius):

Purplish Copper (Lycaena helloides), female upperwing:

Purplish Copper, female underwing:

Queen (Danaus gilippus), male upperwing:

Queen, male underwing:

Queen, female upperwing;

Queen, female underwing;

Question Mark (Polygonia interrogationis), upperwing:

Question Mark, underwing;

Question Mark, another specimen underwing:

Question Mark, another specimen upperwing:

Earlier this week, the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) announced the science objectives for the fourth cycle of the James Webb Space Telescope's (JWST) General Observations program - aka. Cycle 4 GO. In keeping with Webb's major science objectives, many of these programs will focus on the study of the earliest galaxies in the Universe.

You wanna know why I’m depressed? Stuff like this:

Today, the Harvard Law School student body (72%) voted to boycott, divest, and sanction Israel.

The Harvard Law School student government voted last year to do the same thing.

No other international issue has ever been voted on.

The Harvard Law School Alliance for Israel… pic.twitter.com/jm17dNfc6P

— Shabbos Kestenbaum (@ShabbosK) March 14, 2025

Yep, the Law School at my Ph.D. alma mater is showing a bit of antisemitism (I no longer believe that this is completely about Israel’s actions, because the Law School never had any resolutions about Hamas or its actions). As it says above, “no other international issue has ever been voted on.” Why, then they’re singling out the world’s only Jewish state? No resolutions about Syria, where there was far more carnage? Not on your life.

Here’s the article about it from the Harvard Crimson (click headline to read).

An excerpt:

The Harvard Law School student body voted on Thursday to call on the University to divest from Israel — delivering a decisive endorsement of language that Law School administrators harshly criticized before it went up for a vote.

The resolution, which called on Harvard to “divest from weapons, surveillance technology, and other companies aiding violations of international humanitarian law, including Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its ongoing illegal occupation of Palestine,” passed with 72.7 percent of votes in favor, with 842 students participating. Nearly 2,000 students attend HLS.

The results — announced late Thursday night — mark the second vote by a Harvard student body in favor of divestment. Students at the Harvard School of Public Health voted in June to urge Harvard to divest from Israel, and governments at the Law School, Harvard Divinity School, and the Graduate School of Design have all urged divestment. But its passage is unlikely to result in change from Harvard, whose leaders have rebuffed calls for divestment at every turn.

All those misguided students, uninformed about the war but bent on flaunting their virtue! Fortunately, the people who have the power to divest, the administration, aren’t having it. They’re institutionally neutral, like Chicago:

The Law School moved swiftly to distance itself from the referendum outcome.

HLS spokesperson Jeff Neal wrote in a statement that “although it has historically administered leadership elections for student government, and offered to do so again this year, the law school administration played no role in the referendum conducted by student government.”

“As explained in a message to students, the administration expressed deep disappointment with student government’s leadership’s decision to proceed with a needlessly divisive referendum which runs contrary to student government’s stated objectives of ‘fostering community’ and ‘enhancing inclusion,’” he added.

Sadly, Mr. Neal doesn’t know that Jews don’t fall under DEI protection. We are “white adjacent.”

The referendum was first proposed in a petition by Law Students for a Free Palestine, an unrecognized student group, which passed the 300-signature threshold to trigger a Student Government referendum Feb. 18.

Of course Harvard is one of the schools (there are nine total) under investigation by the Department of Justice for allowing a climate of antisemitism to arise (a Title VI violation, I believe). This won’t make it any easier on the school.

More depressing news. My new academic home, The University of Chicago, is one of 45 schools being investigated for racial discrimination. Click below to see the Chicago Maroon article:

An excerpt:

The University of Chicago is one of 45 schools under investigation by the Department of Education for alleged violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits race-based discrimination in programs receiving federal financial assistance.

The announcement alleges that the University has engaged in “race-exclusionary practices in [its] graduate programs” through its partnership with the PhD Project, an organization that works to expand diversity in business school Ph.D. programs. Booth School of Business’s Stevens Doctoral Program is included on the Project’s website as a university partner.

The PhD Project, the Department of Education’s announcement reads, “purports to provide doctoral students with insights into obtaining a Ph.D. and networking opportunities, but limits eligibility based on the race of participants.”

By “race-exclusionary,” of course, they mean “violation of DEI strictures”, and, indeed, some of that has been going on here. But since those violations are kept quite quiet, with phone calls used instead of emails (or so I hear), so it’s hard to know what’s going on.  As far as I can see, DEI initiatives are still pervasive at Chicago, (here’s the main website), but I don’t know if they rise to the level that would cause the government to withhold federal money—as they did for Columbia University.

A bit more. The link at “has quietly removed” below tells you how DEI sites are being muted here. However, if we follow the model of other schools, they’re not being shelved but just put into a file cabinet with a different name.

The investigation follows a February 14 letter sent by Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor, which informed educational institutions and agencies that they had 14 days to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs or “face potential loss of federal funding.”

In the letter, Trainor wrote that universities’ “embrace of pervasive and repugnant race-based preferences and other forms of racial discrimination have emanated throughout every facet of academia.”

Since President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, the University has quietly removed many mentions of DEI from its websites.

In a statement, the University informed the Maroon that it had received notice of the Department of Education’s investigation.

“The University has been notified that a complaint was filed with the Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights (OCR), and an investigation was opened. The University prohibits unlawful discrimination and will cooperate with OCR on its investigation,” the statement read.

The list of schools being investigated.

Ingenuity proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that a helicopter can operate on another planet. Over 72 flights, the little quadcopter that could captivated the imagination of space exploration fans everywhere. But, several factors limited it, and researchers at NASA think they can do better. Two papers presented at the recent Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, held March 10-14 in The Woodlands, Texas, and led by Pascal Lee of NASA Ames and Derric Loya of the SETI Institute and Colorado Mesa University, describe a use case for that still-under-development helicopter, which they call Nighthawk.

From the Times of London we have the story of a tuxedo cat appropriately named Mischief, who’s become famous for his wide-ranging perambulations around the city of Plymouth. Click headline below to read, or find article (archived here):

Some excerpts:

You might think Tonie Blackmore would get worried when her pet cat Mischief goes missing for days on end, but thanks to his friendly nature he has the city of Plymouth tracking his every move.

The appropriately named feline has been making himself at home across the city for the past three years, and developing thousands of committed Mischief megafans.

Ever since he was old enough to leave his house in the centre of the city, he has been searching for strokes, suntraps and catnap spots in schools, shops, pubs, colleges, sports halls, youth clubs and strangers’ homes.

Mischief, a distinctive black and white tuxedo cat, can often be found lazing in hotel receptions, churches, supermarkets, railway stations and regularly visits HMS Drake naval base — where staff had to be reminded not to take and upload photos of him on site as it could threaten national security.

One woman was escorted home by the cat, while others have had him join them for car journeys, trick or treating outings and walks along the seafront.

One of his favourite haunts is Devonport High School for Boys, where he can often be found lazing in a staff room, sleeping through double physics or watching the netball and football teams compete on the weekend.

. . .Barry Hardman, the school sports co-ordinator, outlined a typical weekend visit from Mischief: “Inspected the toilets, got cuddles from two little girls, fell asleep in girls coat, sat by a window until netball girls left, followed the netball girls, and with that he’s gone again. Such a flirt.”

Rachel Fisher, a local jeweller, said it was “such a pleasure when he wandered into our house one day for a look around, a bit of a tickle under the chin, a sit by the fire and then he asked if he could leave to continue his wanderings”.

When he’s been away from his family for too long or found his way miles from home, he has a group of dedicated followers willing to drive across the city to pick him up and return him home.

. . . He has been microchipped and neutered and Blackmore’s family love to see what he gets up on his adventures, through the regular updates posted by locals on his Facebook fan page.

Here’s where Mischief has been spotted–as far as three miles from home!

And now he’s famous!

Mischief’s fame went global this week [March 7], after an admirer posted videos on TikTok about his affectionate antics and received more than nine million views.

Now the curious cat has fans declaring their love for him on his Facebook page — Mischief’s adventures in Plymouth — from across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Italy, Switzerland, Romania, Georgia, Trinidad and Tobago, Kenya, the Philippines and Panama.

You can find Mischief’s Facebook page here; it’s temporarily paused for a day. Here are a few snaps of the wandering moggy:

Mischief as a kitten:

Mischief hitting the bars:

Mischief and his staff:

Of course outdoor cats have lives much shorter than feral cats or all-indoor cats, so I worry aboui Mischief. However, so many people are looking out for him that I hope he’ll be okay.

Mischief away from home for 3 days!

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

Here’s Tuna (she/her, please) in love with delivery people.  Follow her and her mate Loki on their Instagram page. She’s sort of an outdoor cat, but never leaves the yard, and mostly hangs out on the porch. 

A quote from her staff: “I think we could all learn a little bit from Tuna: about putting ourselves out there.”

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

And from the AP (click to read), we read about Aggie, a cat lost after the California wildfires and presumed gone forever, but rescued after two months. Shown is the staff Katherine Kiefer with Aggie; photo by Carolyn Kiefer for the AP):

Aggie’s tail:

It appears the tall tale that all cats have nine lives may be true for a California Maine coon named Aggie.

The beloved feline was feared dead for two months after the Palisades wildfire in Los Angeles left her family’s home in ashes. But her owner, 82-year-old Katherine Kiefer, held out some hope.

Over the weekend, Kiefer got a call from the West Los Angeles Animal Shelter. Her daughter Carolyn Kiefer shared their reunion Saturday in a TikTok video that quickly garnered more than 1 million likes. It shows tears pouring from Katherine Kiefer’s eyes as Aggie curled up in her arms.

“I was very much worried that I was going to wake up and (discover) it had been a dream,” she said.

Kiefer was at a medical appointment the day fire engulfed her neighborhood and her children couldn’t find Aggie — who was prone to hiding — when they tried to rescue her.

“The one thing my mom asked was: ‘Did you get Aggie?” Carolyn recalls.

Many pet owners struggled to reach their domesticated animals during the frantic rush to evacuate from the Palisades wildfire in January.

Aggie, who is about 5 years old, was gifted to Katherine Kiefer by a friend during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social media users have been so touched by the pair’s reunion video that many have been asking for daily updates. The family’s $30,000 GoFundMe campaign for Aggie’s vet bills had topped $21,000 by Tuesday afternoon.

The reunion from Tik Tok:

@apnews

When Katherine Kiefer, 82, lost her home to the Palisades Fire on Jan. 7, she feared she had also lost her beloved cat, Aggie. But two months later, Aggie was found alive in the fire’s ruins. Here’s the moment Kiefer and Aggie reunited.

♬ original sound – The Associated Press

h/t: Richard

We’re getting near the end again, and I ask you to think about a submission of good photos to keep the feature going (I can always make it sporadic). Today we have the last batch of Robert Lang‘s photos from the Brazilian Pantanal: birds. But we have one more post from him to come: eight videos of various creatures. Robert’s narrative and IDs are indented, and click on the photos to enlarge them.

Readers’ Wildlife Photos: The Pantanal, Part XII: Birds

Continuing our mid-2025 journey to the Pantanal in Brazil, by far the largest category of observation and photography was birds: we saw over 100 different species of birds (and this was not even a birding-specific trip, though the outfitter also organizes those for the truly hard core). Here is the final installment of the alphabetarium of common names of birds (though not quite the final installment from the Pantanal!).

Whistling herons (Syrigma sibilatrix):

White-headed marsh tyrant (Arundinicola leucocephala). Though I like to think of this one as a “baby bald eagle”:

White-rumped monjita (Xolmis velatus). The only bird that comes with a sprig of mint:

White woodpecker (Melanerpes candidus):

Wood stork (juvenile) (Mycteria americana):

Yellow-billed cardinal (Paroaria capitata):

Several yellow-billed cardinals with a saffron finch (Sicalis flaveola) sneaking into the scrum:

Yellow-billed tern (Sternula superciliaris):

Golden-collared macaw (Primolius auricollis):

The same bird, taking flight:

And that wraps up the birds of the Pantanal! This was by far the best bird-sighting place I’ve ever traveled to (both for quantity of species and ease of photography; most photos were taken with a Canon 200–400 mm zoom lens on a Digital Rebel XTi body (both now sadly contributing to global warming—recommendations from experts for their replacements gratefully accepted). But not the last of my Pantanal imagery: one more installment coming, this time with the newfangled moving-type pictures.

Researchers have developed innovative methods to control the ionization of atoms and molecules using specially structured light beams, challenging traditional limits. This breakthrough could lead to advancements in imaging, particle acceleration, and quantum computing by precisely controlling electron ejection from atoms.

A research team has developed a new system to estimate a person's biological age -- a measure of how well their body has aged, rather than just counting the years since birth. Using just five drops of blood, this new method analyzes 22 key steroids and their interactions to provide a more precise health assessment. The team's breakthrough study offers a potential step forward in personalized health management, allowing for earlier detection of age-related health risks and tailored interventions.

Exploration of the outer Solar System may be getting a boost from the Vera Rubin Observatory (VRO). When this gigantic telescope opens its eye later in 2025, it begins a decade-long survey of the ever-changing sky. As part of this time-lapse vision of the cosmos, distant objects in the Kuiper Belt will be among its most challenging targets.

X-ray astronomy is a somewhat neglected corner of the more general field of astronomy. The biggest names in telescopes, like Hubble and James Webb, don't even touch that bandwidth. And Chandra, the most capable space-based X-ray observatory to date, is far less well-known. However, some of the most interesting phenomena in the universe can only be truly understood through X-rays, and it's a shame that the discipline doesn't garner more attention. Kimberly Weaver of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center hopes to change that perception as she works on a NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) grant to develop an in-space X-ray interferometer that could allow us to see for the first time what causes the power behind supermassive black holes.

We may be starting to get a grasp on what kick-started life on Earth – and it could help us search for it on other planets

Posting will be light today as I am embroiled in many issues and am troubled.

One question for which I’ve always received feedback is this: did a “Jesus person”—a human on which the Biblical legends of the New Testament are based—really exist? I’m not accepting that any of the deeds attributed to a “Jesus” are true, merely asking whether such a person existed around whom the legends could be woven.

Since the accounts of Jesus’s life occur in a single book that is not only hard to believe, but wrong in many details that we can test (e.g. the Exodus); and that book was surely not written by people who were Jesus’s contemporaries; and, because the four “independent” account of his life differ in crucial details, then as a scientist all I can say is that the Biblical account is flawed and gives no strong evidence for a “Jesus person.”

Yes, I know Bart Ehrman wrote a book concluding that Jesus was a real person, but not the son of God. Ehrman maintained that the “Jesus person” was an apocalyptic preacher. It’s been some years since I read that book, and so I’ve forgotten the evidence Ehrman adduced, but I can remember that I wasn’t strongly convinced.

Below are two old videos in which Christopher Hitchens addresses the issue.  In the first 7-minute one, he compares with Jesus with Socrates, and concludes that there’s not that much more evidence for Socrates as a real person than for Jesus. But because Socrates’s supposed method has persisted, and has proven immensely valuable, Hitchens doesn’t really care. In contrast, Jesus asserted that people had to believe in what he said—and what he said (“take no care for the morrow. . and just follow me”) was delusional. In other words, Hitchens takes the “lunatic” view of C. S. Lewis’s “liar, lunatic, or lord” trilemma.

On the other hand, certain falsities in the Bible (getting Jesus from Nazareth to Bethlehem under a nonexistent census), suggest to Hitchens that these tortuous fabrications wouldn’t have been necessary had there not been a Jesus person. (“Otherwise, why not have him born in Bethlehem?”)  This kind of “cobbling” may constitute for Hitchens weak evidence that there was a Jesus person.

Of course the reason why people are so invested in having hard proof that a Jesus person existed, even if we can’t document his miracles, is that if we can’t even show that a Jesus person existed, then all of Christianity falls apart—at least to those who want evidence to buttress their faith.

Here’s a 1½-minute video, Hitchens says that there’s no firm evidence he existed, even in light of Ehrman’s book. (“There’s no reason to believe that he did [exist].”)  In contrast, Hitchens says that Muhammad is a figure of history, but of course he rejects any claim that an angel dictated the Qur’an to Muhammad.

I’m sure people will have divergent opinions.  I am not bothered by being pretty agnostic on Jesus, but some of my friends, even nonbelievers, are. And that puzzles me.

Thursday brought with it a total lunar eclipse for parts of the world that could see the Moon. If you missed it (like I did) then no problem since Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost mission has got your back. The lunar lander took a break from its science duties on our nearest astronomical neighbour to capture this stunning image of the eclipse. Observers on Earth saw the shadow of the Earth fall across the Moon but for Blue Ghost, it experienced a solar eclipse where the Sun hid behind the Earth!

A newly discovered mechanism could explain the shock finding last year that oxygen is produced by metallic nodules on the seafloor – and it might be happening on other planets, too