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Nineteen undergraduates at Brown University are fasting to help Palestine, but, as noted in the tweet below, the school’s President, Christina Paxson, refuses to meet their demands. (The tweet includes an inevitable chant, but it’s a new one). Because the students say their hunger strike is “indefinite,” and because the President won’t pass on their demands to the relevant investing body, this looks to me like a standoff, ergo a “fast unto death.”

The difference between this fast and the famous fasts of Gandhi is that these students will not come close to death (I’ll make anybody a bet), and in that way are different from Gandhi’s hunger strikes, which laid him low (he once fasted for 21 days) and often worked when the British saw that Gandhi was (pardon the pun) dead serious, and they’d better give in lest India riot. However, even Gandhi’s fasts failed more often than they succeeded.

And here we have a President with a spine, who’s simply not going to give in to the student demands, which of course require that she abandon institutional neutrality in favor of a political position.

UPDATE: Brown President Christina Paxson has informed the hunger strikers that she will not meet their demands.

At the end of her email to the students, she “highlighted University mental health and well-being resources.” https://t.co/XewA9Tf0aQ pic.twitter.com/d0B7CilAEU

— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) February 3, 2024

An earlier report from the Brown Daily Herald, the student newspaper, gives the reason for the hunger strike, which involves 19 students:

The Students announced the hunger strike during a Friday afternoon “rally for divestment” organized by the Palestine Solidarity Caucus and Jews for Ceasefire Now on the Main Green, at which approximately 350 were in attendance. Rally attendees flooded the campus center shortly after the announcement. Protestors also called on Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) to support a ceasefire in Gaza.

The divestment resolution, the strikers say, should mirror the 2020 report released by the University’s Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Practices that recommended divestment from “companies which profit from human rights abuses in Palestine.” The committee has since been renamed the Advisory Committee on University Resources Management.

. . .The hunger strike — led by “students from several allied affinity and organizing (campus) groups” — is set to be the United States’ largest since Oct. 7, according to the strikers. Upon review of previous hunger strikes related to the Israel-Palestine war, The Herald corroborated this claim.

Students are also calling for the University to promote an “immediate ceasefire in Gaza” and fully divest its endowment “from specified companies enabling and profiting from Israel’s genocide.” But they will only refuse to accept food until the Corporation hears their resolution.

And from the latest Daily Herald, (click to read):

The President’s refusal:

On Sunday, 19 student protestors entered the third day of their hunger strike, despite the refusal of President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 to meet their demand that the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, “hears and considers a divestment resolution,” during its meetings that begin this week.

The protestors demand that any divestment resolution be consistent with the 2020 report compiled by the Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Policies, which recommended the University divest its endowment from “companies which profit from human rights abuses in Palestine.”

This advisory committee comprised faculty, staff, alumni, and both undergraduate and graduate students.

Paxson previously refused to adhere to the report, saying that “the recommendation did not adequately address the requirements for rigorous analysis and research as laid out in ACCRIP’s charge, nor was there the requisite level of specificity in regard to divestment.”

In her recent letter to the protestors, Paxson wrote that the first step toward requesting divestment “is not a Corporation resolution, but rather to submit a proposal to the Advisory Committee on University Resource Management” — the successor to ACCRIP.

Paxson also wrote that she will “not commit to bring a resolution to the February 2024 Corporation meeting or any future meeting of the Corporation.”

This the corportation will not hear the students’ demands, ergo they have to keep fasting. But it’s weird, because they could submit a proposal but refuse to do so. It’s confusing, but perhaps the protestors are demanding not just that the proposal be seen but be voted on.

The strikers have not submitted a proposal to ACURM, nor do they plan to do so, according to strike spokesperson Sam Stewart ’24.

The protesting students also wrote that they “will continue (the) hunger strike as long as President Paxson refuses to engage with our demands.”

In response to the students’ continuation of the strike, University Spokesperson Brian Clark reiterated that the 2020 proposal will not be brought forward for a vote, but that student protesters can submit a divestment proposal through ACURM.

One issue is if the students really continue fasting until their lives are in danger, the university, to avoid liability, will disenroll them (see my bolding below), or perhaps arrest them. This has happened before:

In a December sit-in, Paxson refused to revisit her decision not to adhere to a 2020 report compiled by ACCRIP. During this demonstration, 41 students demanded full divestment from “Israeli military occupation” and were subsequently arrested on trespassing charges and referred to ACURM.

In Friday’s letter, Paxson encouraged the protestors to look after their mental and physical well-being throughout the duration of the strike and shared University health resources available to students. She added that “protest is also unacceptable if it creates a substantial threat to personal safety of any member of the community.”

The University previously disenrolled four students participating in a hunger strike protesting the University’s partial divestment policy of South African apartheid in the 1980s. The then-administration cited health and liability concerns for the disenrollment, according to a 1986 article by The Herald.

I suspect nobody died in this one.

Two questions. First, does the University really invest in companies that “profit from human rights abuses in Palestine”?  That itself is a slippery notion; does it mean any Israeli companies? The article says this:

The University is not directly invested in any weapons manufacturing companies, but a substantial portion of its endowment is invested through manager portfolios, The Herald previously reported. The University is contractually obligated not to disclose the companies in these portfolios, but told students that none have a focus in the defense industry.

“We are confident that our external managers have the highest level of ethics and share the values of the Brown community,” Clark wrote in a Sunday email to The Herald, “including the rejection of violence.”

The University of Chicago wouldn’t even go that far, but would simply say that the contents of its portfolio are confidential.  I’m not sure whether the statement above will satisfy the students, but it apparently has not, for it’s not specific enough for the students.

Second, are the students really determined to fast unto death? I doubt it, for they’d be disenrolled (and that would be soon), and that would go on their record. Also, do they really want to die on this hill? Readers can speculate how long they’ll go without food before they give up.

At any rate, it’s good news that the Brown President will not accede to the students’ demands. If she did, there would be no limit to what students could demand in the future.

h/t: Luana

Today we have the second part of a two-part post on Australian trees, the eucalypts, contributed by Reader Dean Graetz. (Part 1 is here.) Dean’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

The Trees that identify Australia

Australia is one of many countries that include plants as part of their identity.  The national floral emblem is the Golden Wattle (Acacia pycnantha), one of more than 1000 Acacia species found on the continent.  The two colours of the plant represent the essence of the continent.  The golden flowers represent its beaches, mineral wealth, grain, and wool harvests.  The green of the (leathery) leaves imitates the continent’s forests and productive landscapes.

Sparsely located in the arid heart of the continent is this visually striking tree.  Commonly known as the Ghost Gum, it was recently renamed with an appropriate Aboriginal Australian species word (Corymbia aparrerinja).  A much more impressive image is here.

Similarly, sparsely located in the drier areas of the continent is this tree.  Evocatively named Bloodwood (Corymbia opaca), there appears no external colouring which supports that name.\

However, if you manage to find a seeping wound, then the reason for its name will be obvious, the colour of the exuding sap (Kino) is a vivid.

When sedentary farmers and graziers were added to Australia’s population, substantial areas of eucalypt woodland, about 13% of the continent, were transformed.  Trees were either clear-felled and burnt for cropping, or just thinned for pastures.  This satellite image shows a large area of mallee, a eucalypt woodland type (dark), cleared in part for growing (wheat) on the bright sandy soil.  The sharp boundary on the LHS is a state border.  Multiple millions of eucalypt trees have been removed here and elsewhere for the reality of it is ‘Either Them or Us’.

Snow Gum woodlands lie on the snow line and are episodically burnt by lightning-induced bushfires, as here.  The many tall stems of each tree have been killed and have bleached white in the high UV environment.  However, the trees are not dead.  Each tree had developed a lignotuber, and from this a ring of new shoots have sprouted and will replace the tree’s burned canopy in about 5 years, or so.  Even so, the sea of bone white, dead stems is eye catching.

An ephemeral dry-country watercourse with three tall River Red Gums (Eucalyptus camaldulensis), the most wide spread Eucalypt, from lining the banks of permanent rivers to tapping the subsurface water of this small dry creek.  Never visually elegant or symmetrical, these trees, with their scrabbling roots and scarred stems, suggest one word: Survivor.

As does this extraordinarily large River Red Gum, possibly the largest and oldest known.  Residing in a cleared paddock, it is still healthily growing and supporting a large canopy.  Eucalypts do not annual ring, so its age cannot be measured, just guessed at 300+ years.  The gap in the trunk was likely generated centuries ago by a small fire lit close to it sheltering from the wind.  Repeated often enough to burn through the sapwood and into the heartwood, thereafter the weather and dry rot eventually hollowed the stem but left the sapwood continuing to thrive today.

All Eucalypts produce very hard, dense wood, which when dried after death, is difficult to saw or cut.  A few species are known ‘branch droppers’: large living branches just drop off, for no obvious reason.  Such species are also known as ‘Widow Makers’ for the fatalities of sleepers and sitters under the canopy.  The River Red Gum – see above – is well-known Widow Maker’.  However, branch shedding usually leaves large openings into the stem to be eventually hollowed out and occupied by parrots, such as this Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita).  Because all Australian parrot species are hollow nesters, dead and holed Eucalypts are much sought after trees.

For an Australian away from the built environment, the visual presence of familiar gum trees reinforces your identity: you are home.  There is another personal experience that builds on this.  And that is the smell of burning gum leaves.  In the past, and still today, whenever a small fire was lit ‘to boil the billy’, the fragrance of the fire was associated with friendship, convivial tea-drinking, and conversation.  Dried gum leaves were the perfect one-match fire starter.  The smell of burning gum leaves is pleasant, readily recognised, and soon becomes a deeply held memory.

“The families back home heard and understood this and sent gum leaves with their letters to those at the front.  Nurses wore gum leaves pinned to their capes.  Soldiers sometimes burned the leaves in small piles at the front line so the smell would drift along the trenches and others could be reminded of their country’s distinctive smell.

The smell of Eucalyptus is the smell of home.”

There were 69 unprovoked shark attacks on people and 10 fatalities in 2023 worldwide, with four of the deaths occurring in Australia

Is this sonar image taken at 16,000 feet below the surface about 100 miles from Howland island, that of a downed Lockheed Model 10-E Electra plane? Tony Romeo hopes it is. He spent $9 million to purchase an underwater drone, the Hugan 6000, then hired a crew and scoured 5,200 square miles in a 100 day search hoping to find exactly that. He was looking, of course, for the lost plane of Amelia Earhart. Has he found it? Let’s explore how we answer that question.

First some quick background, and most people know Amelia Earhart was a famous (and much beloved) early female pilot, the first female to cross the Atlantic solo. She was engaged in a mission to be the first solo pilot (with her navigator, Fred Noonan) to circumnavigate the globe. She started off in Oakland California flying east. She made it all the way to Papua New Guinea. From there her plan was to fly to Howland Island, then Honolulu, and back to Oakland. So she three legs of her journey left. However, she never made it to Howland Island. This is a small island in the middle of the Pacific ocean and navigating to it is an extreme challenge. The last communication from Earhart was that she was running low on fuel.

That was the last anyone heard from her. The primary assumption has always been that she never found Howland Island, her plane ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean. This happened in 1937.  But people love mysteries and there has been endless speculation about what may have happened to her. Did she go of course an arrive at the Marshall Islands 1000 miles away? Was she captured by the Japanese (remember, this was right before WWII)? Every now and the a tidbit of suggestive evidence crops up, but always evaporates on close inspection. It’s all just wishful thinking and anomaly hunting.

There have also been serious attempts to find her plane. However, assuming she was off course, and that’s why they never made it to their target, there could potentially be a huge area of the Pacific ocean where her plane ended up. Romeo’s effort is the latest to look for her plane, and his approach was entirely reasonably – sonar scan the bottom of the ocean around Howland Island. He and his crew did this starting in September 2023. After the scanning mission was over, while going through the images, they found the image you can see above. Is this Earhart’s plane?

There are three possibilities to consider. One is that the image is not that of a plane at all, but just a random geological formation or something else. Remember that Romeo and his team poured through tons of data looking for a plane-like image. It’s not all that surprising that they found something. This could just be an example of the Face on Mars or the Martian Bigfoot – if you look at enough images looking for stuff you will find it.

The second possibility is that the sonar image is that of a plane, just not Earhart’s Lockheed Electra. There are lots of known missing aircraft. But more importantly perhaps, how many unknown missing aircraft are there? How many planes were lost during WWII and unaccounted for? There could be private unregistered planes, even drug smugglers. And of course, the third possibility is that this is Amelia Earhart’s plane. How can we know?

First, we can make some inferences from the information we have. Is the image that of a plane? I think this is a coin toss. It is reasonably symmetrical, has things that can be wings, a fuselage, and a tail. But again, it’s just a fuzzy image. It could just be a ledge and a rock. Neither outcome would shock me.

If it is a plane, could this be Earhart’s plane? The one data point that is in favor of this conclusion is the location – 100 miles off Howland Island. That is within the scope of where we would expect to find her plane. But there are two big things going against it being the Lockheed Electra. First, the Electra had straight wings, while, if this is a plane, the wings appear to be swept back. If this image is accurate, then the answer is no. But it is possible that the plane was damaged by the crash. Perhaps the wings broke and were pushed back by the fall through the water.

Also, the Lockheed Electra was a twin engine plane, with one large engine on each wing. They are not apparent in this image, and they should be. So we also have to speculate that the engines were lost in the process of the plane crashing and sinking, or that the image is too distorted to see them.

As you can see, speculation from the existing evidence is pretty thin. We need more data. What we have with the sonar image is not confirmatory evidence, just a clue that needs follow up. We need better images, hopefully with sufficient detail to provide forensic evidence. This will require a deep sea mission with lights and cameras, like the kind used to explore the wreckage of the Titanic. With such images it should be easy to tell if this is a Lockheed Electra. If it is, then it is almost certainly Earhart’s plane. But also, we may be able to read the registration numbers on the side of the plane, and that would be definitive.

Romeo is in the process of planning a follow up mission to investigate this sonar image. Unless and until this happens, we will not be able to say with any confidence if this is or is not Earhart’s plane.

The post Did They Find Amelia Earhart’s Plane first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

A year ago, I noticed that COVID-19 quacks were touting the "repurposing" of ivermectin to treat cancer. Now, familiar COVID-19 antivaxxers—cough, cough, FLCCC—have turbocharged this quackery.

The post COVID-19 antivax quacks are now “repurposing” ivermectin for cancer first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

It’s a long way to the nearest star, which means conventional rockets won’t get us there. The fuel requirements would make our ship prohibitively heavy. So an alternative is to travel light. Literally. Rather than carrying your fuel with you, simply attach your tiny starship to a large reflective sail, and shine a powerful laser at it. The impulse of photons would push the starship to a fraction of light speed. Riding a beam of light, a lightsail mission could reach Proxima Centauri in a couple of decades. But while the idea is simple, the engineering challenges are significant, because, across decades and light-years, even the smallest problem can be difficult to solve.

One example of this can be seen in a recent arXiv paper. It looks at the problem of how to balance a lightsail on a laser beam. Although the laser could be aimed directly toward a star, or where it will be in a couple of decades, the lightsail would only follow the beam if it is perfectly balanced. If a sail is slightly tilted relative to the beam, the reflected laser light would give the lightsail a slight transverse push. No matter how small this deviation is, it would grow over time, causing its path to drift ever away from its target. We will never align a lightsail perfectly, so we need some way to correct small deviations.

How a small deviation can send a lightsail off course. Credit: Mackintosh, et al

For traditional rockets, this can be done with internal gyroscopes to stabilize the rocket, and engines that can dynamically adjust their thrust to restore balance. But a gyro system would be too heavy for an interstellar lightsail, and adjustments of the beam would take months or years to reach the lightsail, making quick changes impossible. So the authors suggest using a radiative trick known as the Poynting–Robertson effect.

The effect was first studied in the early 1900s and is caused by the relative motion between an object and a light source. For example, a dust grain orbiting the Sun sees light coming at a slight forward angle due to its motion through sunlight. That little forward component of light can slow down the asteroid ever so slightly. This effect causes dust to drift toward the inner solar system over time.

In this paper, the authors consider a two-dimensional model to see how the Poynting–Robertson effect might be used to keep our lightsail probe on course. To keep things simple, they assumed the light beam to be a simple monochromatic plane wave. Real lasers are more complex, but the assumption is reasonable for a proof of concept. They then showed how a simple two-sail system can use the effects of relative motion to keep the craft in balance. As the sails tilt off course slightly, a restorative force from the beam counters it. Thus proving the concept could work.

However, the authors noticed that over time the effects of relativity come into play. Earlier studies have taken the Doppler effect of relative motion into effect, but this study shows the relativistic version of chromatic aberration would also come into play. The full relativistic effects would need to be accounted for in a realistic design, which would require sophisticated modeling and optics.

So a lightsail still seems like a possible way to reach the stars. We just have to be careful not to make light of the engineering challenges.

Reference: Mackintosh, Rhys, et al. “Poynting-Robertson damping of laser beam driven lightsails.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.16924 (2024).

The post How Could Laser-Driven Lightsails Remain Stable? appeared first on Universe Today.

I mentioned this article this morning, but wanted to give a bit more detail because it’s important in two ways. First, it’s a good and objective assessment of gender transitioning in America, giving both the upsides and downsides. Second, it’s in the New York Times, which has, until recently, taken the “affirmative treatment” side of gender transitioning, staying away from the topics of harmful puberty blockers and those who reverse transitioning (“detransitioners”) or those who avoid medical transitioning after thinking about it (“desisters”). Recently, however, the paper has become more objective on transitioning (this started with Emily Bazelon’s 2022 article “The Battle Over Gender Therapy“, for which Bazelon got a lot of pushback from her colleagues). Pamela Paul’s article takes that even farther. It’s well worth reading. For more plaudits, read Eliza Mondegreen’s short UnHerd piece about Paul’s article, “The New York Times Gets Braver With Gender Coverage“. An except from Mondegreen:

This is a deeply moving piece that goes much further in its implications than anything the New York Times has run before. There are, however, also curiosities surrounding Pamela Paul’s piece, like the editorial decision to relegate her reporting to the opinion pages, and to run an apologia of sorts by Times opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury, in which she suggests, in the mildest possible terms, that more conversation is a good thing for “humanity, nuance and empathy,” and that gender medicine is full of “complexities.”

If you read that apologia, by the editorial page editor, it’s pretty worthless, trying not to denigrate what Paul said but simply urging “more discussion.” Yes, of course, but all of us have said that all along. But more important, we need more research!

To read Paul’s piece, you can click below, or find it archived for free here if you’re not a subscriber.  This is definitely not an op-ed, however it’s labeled. At nearly 5,000 words, it qualifies at least as “news analysis”.

In short, Paul’s thesis is that America is dealing poorly with adolescents who wish to transition (nobody seems to have any issue with those over 25 who want to change gender), forcing them into an “affirmative treatment” program that affirms their “wrong body” feelings without question, gives them hormones to halt puberty, and then goes on to prescribe hormones that change your secondary sex characteristics, as well as surgery. Rarely do children with gender dysphoria get longer-term, objective care that explores their feelings rather than hustling them on to adopt another gender presentation.  Further, Paul makes three claims—all supported by evidence—that gender activists hate (this is my summary):

1. There is indeed evidence for a form of “rapid onset gender dysphoria” (ROGD), in which children, without prior indication, suddenly claim they’re in the wrong body and want to change gender.  Gender activists have long claimed that ROGD is a fictional syndrome, one wrongly supported by Abigail Shrier in her readable but much-criticized (by gender activists) book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. This book is still causing controversy, but it seems that, in the main, Shrier’s claims were correct. ROGD does seem to be a real syndrome.
2. It appears that ROGD may be promoted by social media and the urging of peers, who, perhaps having transitioned themselves, urge others to do so. Gender activists have long denied that social pressure plays a significant role in the transitioning of children and adolescents. Given social media and what I’ve read from those who have transitioned, I think social pressure is important.
3. The majority (80%) of gender dysphoric children, if they don’t transition, resolve their identities by the time they reach puberty, often coming out as gay—a much less intrusive result. Further, about a third of people who take hormone therapy stop the procedure within four years, though by then permanent physiological damage, including infertility, might have been done.

Paul will undoubtedly be demonized for this, but I give her many encomiums. She’s a brave woman, who, like John McWhorter, isn’t afraid to tackle “antiwoke” topics in the NYT op-ed section. (Paul used to be the Sunday book-review editor.) She is a woman who is doing good, and I sugggest subscribi9ng to her columns if you take the NYT.

I’ll give a few quotes from Paul (indented) under each topic.

Improper treatment of gender dysphoria:

At 17, desperate to begin hormone therapy, Powell broke the news to her parents. They sent her to a gender specialist to make sure she was serious. In the fall of her senior year of high school, she started cross-sex hormones. She had a double mastectomy the summer before college, then went off as a transgender man named Grayson to Sarah Lawrence College, where she was paired with a male roommate on a men’s floor. At 5-foot-3, she felt she came across as a very effeminate gay man.

At no point during her medical or surgical transition, Powell says, did anyone ask her about the reasons behind her gender dysphoria or her depression. At no point was she asked about her sexual orientation. And at no point was she asked about any previous trauma, and so neither the therapists nor the doctors ever learned that she’d been sexually abused as a child.

“I wish there had been more open conversations,” Powell, now 23 and detransitioned, told me. “But I was told there is one cure and one thing to do if this is your problem, and this will help you.”

. . .In May 2017, Emerick began searching “gender” online and encountered trans advocacy websites. After realizing she could “pick the other side,” she told her mother, “I’m sick of being called a dyke and not a real girl.” If she were a man, she’d be free to pursue relationships with women.

That September, she and her mother met with a licensed professional counselor for the first of two 90-minute consultations. She told the counselor that she had wished to be a Boy Scout rather than a Girl Scout. She said she didn’t like being gay or a butch lesbian. She also told the counselor that she had suffered from anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation. The clinic recommended testosterone, which was prescribed by a nearby L.G.B.T.Q. health clinic. Shortly thereafter, she was also diagnosed with A.D.H.D. She developed panic attacks. At age 17, she was cleared for a double mastectomy.

“I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’m having my breasts removed. I’m 17. I’m too young for this,’” she recalled. But she went ahead with the operation.

Gender activists and their drive for “affirmative care”:

Progressives often portray the heated debate over childhood transgender care as a clash between those who are trying to help growing numbers of children express what they believe their genders to be and conservative politicians who won’t let kids be themselves.

But right-wing demagogues are not the only ones who have inflamed this debate. Transgender activists have pushed their own ideological extremism, especially by pressing for a treatment orthodoxy that has faced increased scrutiny in recent years. Under that model of care, clinicians are expected to affirm a young person’s assertion of gender identity and even provide medical treatment before, or even without, exploring other possible sources of distress.

Many who think there needs to be a more cautious approach — including well-meaning liberal parents, doctors and people who have undergone gender transition and subsequently regretted their procedures — have been attacked as anti-trans and intimidated into silencing their concerns.

Activists’ resistance to objective care:

Laura Edwards-Leeper, the founding psychologist of the first pediatric gender clinic in the United States, said that when she started her practice in 2007, most of her patients had longstanding and deep-seated gender dysphoria. Transitioning clearly made sense for almost all of them, and any mental health issues they had were generally resolved through gender transition.

“But that is just not the case anymore,” she told me recently. While she doesn’t regret transitioning the earlier cohort of patients and opposes government bans on transgender medical care, she said, “As far as I can tell, there are no professional organizations who are stepping in to regulate what’s going on.”

Rapid onset gender dysphoria:

Most of her patients now, she said, have no history of childhood gender dysphoria. Others refer to this phenomenon, with some controversy, as rapid onset gender dysphoria, in which adolescents, particularly tween and teenage girls, express gender dysphoria despite never having done so when they were younger. Frequently, they have mental health issues unrelated to gender. While professional associations say there is a lack of quality research on rapid onset gender dysphoria, several researchers have documented the phenomenon, and many health care providers have seen evidence of it in their practices.

“The population has changed drastically,” said Edwards-Leeper, a former head of the Child and Adolescent Committee for the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the organization responsible for setting gender transition guidelines for medical professionals.

For these young people, she told me, “you have to take time to really assess what’s going on and hear the timeline and get the parents’ perspective in order to create an individualized treatment plan. Many providers are completely missing that step.”

. . . . In a recent study in The Archives of Sexual Behavior, about 40 young detransitioners out of 78 surveyed said they had suffered from rapid onset gender dysphoria. Trans activists have fought hard to suppress any discussion of rapid onset gender dysphoria, despite evidence that the condition is real. In its guide for journalists, the activist organization GLAAD warns the media against using the term, as it is not “a formal condition or diagnosis.” Human Rights Campaign, another activist group, calls it “a right-wing theory.” A group of professional organizations put out a statement urging clinicians to eliminate the term from use.

Social pressure:

Many parents of kids who consider themselves trans say their children were introduced to transgender influencers on YouTube or TikTok, a phenomenon intensified for some by the isolation and online cocoon of Covid. Others say their kids learned these ideas in the classroom, as early as elementary school, often in child-friendly ways through curriculums supplied by trans rights organizations, with concepts like the gender unicorn or the Genderbread person.

The suicide trope (the tactic of warning parents that their kids will commit suicide if not allowed to transition, often expressed as “do you want a dead daughter or a live son?”, or vice versa):

After Kathleen’s 15-year-old son, whom she described as an obsessive child, abruptly told his parents he was trans, the doctor who was going to assess whether he had A.D.H.D. referred him instead to someone who specialized in both A.D.H.D. and gender. Kathleen, who asked to be identified only by her first name to protect her son’s privacy, assumed that the specialist would do some kind of evaluation or assessment. That was not the case.

The meeting was brief and began on a shocking note. “In front of my son, the therapist said, ‘Do you want a dead son or a live daughter?’” Kathleen recounted.

Parents are routinely warned that to pursue any path outside of agreeing with a child’s self-declared gender identity is to put a gender dysphoric youth at risk for suicide, which feels to many people like emotional blackmail. Proponents of the gender-affirming model have cited studies showing an association between that standard of care and a lower risk of suicide. But those studies were found to have methodological flaws or have been deemed not entirely conclusive. A survey of studies on the psychological effects of cross-sex hormones, published three years ago in The Journal of the Endocrine Society, the professional organization for hormone specialists, found it “could not draw any conclusions about death by suicide.” In a letter to The Wall Street Journal last year, 21 experts from nine countries said that survey was one reason they believed there was “no reliable evidence to suggest that hormonal transition is an effective suicide prevention measure.”

Leave our kids alone: All kids who have serious problems about their sexuality or gender deserve therapy. But they should get good, objective therapy, not “affirmative therapy”.

To the trans activist dictum that children know their gender best, it is important to add something all parents know from experience: Children change their minds all the time. One mother told me that after her teenage son desisted — pulled back from a trans identity before any irreversible medical procedures — he explained, “I was just rebelling. I look at it like a subculture, like being goth.”

“The job of children and adolescents is to experiment and explore where they fit into the world, and a big part of that exploration, especially during adolescence, is around their sense of identity,” Sasha Ayad, a licensed professional counselor based in Phoenix, told me. “Children at that age often present with a great deal of certainty and urgency about who they believe they are at the time and things they would like to do in order to enact that sense of identity.”

Ayad, a co-author of “When Kids Say They’re Trans: A Guide for Thoughtful Parents,” advises parents to be wary of the gender affirmation model. “We’ve always known that adolescents are particularly malleable in relationship to their peers and their social context and that exploration is often an attempt to navigate difficulties of that stage, such as puberty, coming to terms with the responsibilities and complications of young adulthood, romance and solidifying their sexual orientation,” she told me. For providing this kind of exploratory approach in her own practice with gender dysphoric youth, Ayad has had her license challenged twice, both times by adults who were not her patients. Both times, the charges were dismissed

And I find this statistic, which is stable, to be pretty telling:

. . . Studies show that around eight in 10 cases of childhood gender dysphoria resolve themselves by puberty and 30 percent of people on hormone therapy discontinue its use within four years, though the effects, including infertility, are often irreversible.

I could go on with Paul’s stories of “detransitioners” and “desisters,” but you can read the article yourself, especially since it’s archived. But for writing this story, and especially for calling attention to the problems of “affirmative therapy” and for telling stories of those who de-transition, Paul will be called a “transphobe”. She is not, nor are any of us who simply want gender-dysphoric kids to be treated properly.

And good for the NYT  for publishing this. Now we’ll know they’re really serious when they start questioning whether trans women should be competing against natal women in sports, or put in women’s prisons.

This is absolutely unbelievable, but I suppose if you realize that the “Woke Kindergarten” program was implemented in the Bay Area of California, you can sort of believe it. In fact, according to the San Francisco Chronicle (article archived here), this is real, because the Chronicle story links to the woke website below.

“Woke Kindergarten” is just what it sounds like: a “progressive” program (hired by the school) that politically indoctrinates elementary-school students into dismantling nearly everything about America (in this way it comports with Douglas Murray’s thesis in his recent and recommended book, The War on the West.).  The program was implemented because the students, 80% of which are Hispanic, were performing below par in math and English.  But not only did this teacher training program not improve math and English scores, but they also dropped even more.  The school officials, however, claim that it’s a success because attendance rose and suspension rates dropped marginally. But what good is that if student performance dropped?

But read the article below (the headline links to the archived site), and then go to the Woke Kindergarten site and have a look around. Unless you’re Bernie Sanders or Rashida Tlaib, you’ll be absolutely appalled:

First, a summary from the Chronicle.

A Hayward elementary school struggling to boost low test scores and dismal student attendance is paying $250,000 for an organization called Woke Kindergarten to train teachers to confront white supremacy, disrupt racism and oppression and remove those barriers to learning.

The Woke Kindergarten sessions train teachers on concepts and curriculum that’s available to use in classrooms with any of Glassbrook Elementary’s 474 students. The sessions are funded through a federal program meant to help the country’s lowest-performing schools boost student achievement.

But two years into the three-year contract with Woke Kindergarten, a for-profit company, student achievement at Glassbrook has fallen, prompting some teachers to question whether the money was well-spent given the needs of the students, who are predominantly low-income. Two-thirds of the students are English learners and more than 80% are Hispanic/Latino.

English and math scores hit new lows last spring, with less than 4% of students proficient in math and just under 12% at grade level in English — a decline of about 4 percentage points in each category.

Efforts to reach the organization were not successful, with an automated response saying the founder, who also provides the training, was recovering from surgery.

District officials defended the program this past week, saying that Woke Kindergarten did what it was hired to do. The district pointed to improvements in attendance and suspension rates, and that the school was no longer on the state watch list, only to learn from the Chronicle that the school was not only still on the list but also had dropped to a lower level.

Click below to go to the site and browse.  I’ll interpolate some of the “woke wonderings” and “teach palestine” (yes, it’s political!) in the Chronicle text, which I’ve indented.

Here are the links (don’t click below); just go to the site and browse:

Woke Wonderings from the program (pictures) with excerpts from the Chronicle interpolated:

Some anti-Israeli propaganda:

Defund the police!

From the paper:

The decision to bring in Woke Kindergarten, rather than a more traditional literacy or math improvement program, aligns with the belief by some parents and educators that the current education system isn’t working for many disadvantaged children.

The solution, these advocates say, is for educators to confront legacies of racism and bias in schools, and to talk about historic white supremacy, so that students feel safe and supported. As such anti-racism programs have spread, several more conservative state legislatures have moved to restrict or ban them.

At the same time, some education experts say struggling schools need research-based literacy and math interventions that ensure all students have the basic skills to succeed. Examples of success include San Francisco’s John Muir Elementary, which has piloted a math intervention program that has led to a more than 50% proficiency rate, up from 15% prior to adopting the coaching and student-led coursework.

That, of course, is the way to go: educationally rather than politically. As for which education programs actually work, well, that’s above my pay grade.

It is surprising that proficiency and math didn’t improve? The students are too busy being politically indoctrinated. From the paper:

Woke Kindergarten, aimed at elementary-age students, is founded on the relatively new concept of abolitionist education, which advocates for abolition, or “a kind of starting over,” said Zeus Leonardo, UC Berkeley education professor. The idea is that certain things can’t be reformed, tweaked or shifted, because they are inherently problematic or oppressive. It’s not about indoctrinating or imposing politics, “but making politics part of the framework of teaching,” Leonardo said.

But some Glassbrook teachers have questioned the decision to bring in the program, saying Woke Kindergarten is wrongly rooted in progressive politics and activism with anti-police, anti-capitalism and anti-Israel messages mixed in with the goal of making schools safe, joyful and supportive for all children.

This tension is reflective of the nation’s ongoing culture wars, where the right and the left battle to influence what happens in classrooms.

The Woke Kindergarten curriculum shared with schools includes “wonderings,” which pose questions for students, including, “If the United States defunded the Israeli military, how could this money be used to rebuild Palestine?”

In addition, the “woke word of the day,” including “strike,” “ceasefire” and “protest,” offers students a “language of the resistance … to introduce children to liberatory vocabulary in a way that they can easily digest, understand and most importantly, use in their critiques of the system.”

Teacher Tiger Craven-Neeley said he supports discussing racism in the classroom, but found the Woke Kindergarten training confusing and rigid. He said he was told a primary objective was to “disrupt whiteness” in the school — and that the sessions were “not a place to express white guilt.” He said he questioned a trainer who used the phrasing “so-called United States,” as well as lessons available on the organization’s web site offering “Lil’ Comrade Convos,” or positing a world without police, money or landlords.

If you look at the program, it appears to be aimed almost entirely at black people, so I’m wondering how it’s used in a school that’s 80% Hispanic.  Do the educators assume that both groups are equivalent in both how they identify with the curriculum and how they learn?

On to Woke Words of the Day:

You know what this next one is about:

From the paper:

Hayward Superintendent Jason Reimann said the decision to hire Woke Kindergarten, which was approved by the school board, was made by the school community, including parents and teachers, as part of a federal improvement plan to boost student achievement by improving attendance.

The school community, including parents, teachers and staff, identified a provider to help them do that, Reimann said. He noted a subsequent improvement in student attendance, with 44% of students considered chronically absent last year, down from 61% the year prior. A similar improvement  was seen districtwide.

Well, they boosted attendance a bit, but “student achievement” dropped. Is that a surprise?  And there are books in the curriculum, like the one below! (Never mind if it teaches the kids to dislike Jews). I’d like to see this one:

A video to introduce children to pronouns. Presumably the teacher explains this. Remember, these children are five years old and up (I gather this is for elementary schools, not just kindergartens.)

From the paper:

The superintendent said Woke Kindergarten wasn’t hired to improve literacy and math scores, but that “helping students feel safe and whole is part and parcel of academic achievement.” He added, “I get that it’s more money than we would have liked to have spent.”

Woke Kindergarten was founded by former teacher Akiea “Ki” Gross, who identifies as they/them and describes themselves as “an abolitionist early educator, cultural organizer and creator currently innovating ways to resist, heal, liberate and create with their pedagogy, Woke Kindergarten.”

Here is Gross, the sole identified person under the “who we are” link:

And the Chronicle‘s money quote:

Julie Marsh, a professor of education policy at the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education, cautioned that it can be “problematic when teaching strays too far into the political ideology realm. It’s just a big distraction from some of the bigger purposes of education and what we should be focusing on.”

Well, the school and Ms. Gross have obviously decided that what we should be focusing on instead is progressive ideology, including pro-Palestinian politics as well as abolition of the police, landlords, money and the military. Truly, the purpose of this program is to inculcate kids with a mindset to destroy much of America as it is and replace it with. . . . what?  Perhaps the “Capitol Hill Occupied Zone” (CHAZ) of Seattle, an area taken over by the woke in 2020 after the death of George Floyd? It adopted many of the precepts of Woke Kindergarten.  Since cops were prohibited, crime rose and there were several shootings. CHAZ lasted a month.

Woke Kindergarten shouldn’t last more than it’s already lasted. It’s a travesty and an embarrassment for Hayward, California.

All power to the little people!

Answer: Barter, I guess. h/t: Luana

It’s Sunday, and today we continue with John Avise‘s series on African birds. John’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photo by clicking on it:

South Africa Birds, Part 6 

This week’s post is Part 6 of a 9-part mini-series on birds I photographed in South Africa during an extended seminar trip in 2007.  It shows another batch of species from that avian-rich part of the world.

Hamerkop (Scopus umbretta):

Hartlaub’s Gull (Chroicocephalus hartlaubii):

Helmeted Guineafowl (Numida meleagris):

White-browed Robin-chat (Cossypha heuglini):

Kurrichane Thrush (Turdus libonyana):

Laughing Dove flying (Spilopelia senegalensis):

Southern Double-collared Sunbird (Cinnyris chalybeus), male:

Levaillant’s Cisticola (Cisticola tinniens):

Lilac-breaster Roller (Coracias caudatus):

Little Egret (Egretta garzetta):

Malachite Sunbird (Nectarinia famosa):

Marabou stork (Leptoptilos crumenifer):

Mosque Swallow flying (Cecropis senegalensis):

Namaqua Dove (Oena capensis):

A man who experienced the pandemic entirely from his laptop, explains what he would have done had he actually done anything.

The post Science Based Satire: What I Would Have Done first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Good Lord! I had no idea that there were so many songs about money these days. In this eight-minute segment from Bill Maher’s new show, he decries what the desire for goods and dosh has done to the younger generation and their music. He quotes a lot of old rock lyrics about being poor (I remember ’em all!), and compares them to modern ones extolling Gucci, Givency, Rolex, and so on..  Let’s just say that if I wrote this, I’d be called a “get off my lawn” geezer. But Maher is right, and as funny as usual.

Money quote: “Vomiting an inventory of your possessions doesn’t make you a poet.”

h/t: Enrico

Over 100 universities have adopted some version of the University of Chicago’s Principle of Free Expression, also called the “Chicago Statement”: a strong version of free speech, pretty much adhering to the First Amendment. But the same doesn’t hold for another mainstay of our free-speech program: the Kalven Principles. This is the principle of institutional neutrality: that the University is, with very few exceptions, is to make no public statement about politics, ideology, or morality. (The exceptions involve issues which directly affect the mission and workings of the University.)

“Kalven,” as we call it, is an important part of ensuring free expression, for it avoids “chilling” our community’s speech by avoiding official positions that might inhibit opponents from expressing themselves. For example, any statement taking a position on the Mideast War, if it were to come from the President of the University or from a department, might inhibit junior professors or students from arguing contrary positions for fear of losing their job, angering their department, or losing tenure. Thus our statement on the Mideast war is lean and anodyne, merely saying that it might cause people difficulties and giving a list of resources for help.

Kalven holds not just for the administration, like deans, the President, and the Provost, but for all official units of the University, including departments. (Note that, as expected, faculty and students are encouraged to excercise freedom of speech as individuals, or even as unofficial groups, so long as they don’t express an “official” university position.) Likewise, our investments are kept secret from the community so that people can’t demand that we take a political position on how the University endowment is handled.

Although some units can’t seem to avoid trying to make Kalven-violating statements, they are prohibited from doing so officially, and it’s worked pretty well. People speak freely and we don’t get in the Congressional trouble that Penn, Harvard, and MIT did. (Had they adhered to a Kalven statement instead of sometimes making political statements and sometimes avoiding them, their waffling wouldn’t have caused such a fracas.)  In contrast, we got in no trouble because we hardly make any statements about anything. Ergo we’ve lost no donors, for all potential donors know that we’re not going to take positions that will anger them.

Why, then, have only a few universities followed our Kalven principles while over 100 have followed our free expression principles? After all, they are mutually reinforcing: both parts of a unified program to keep expression free and flowing.  The only universities that have adopted Kalven-esque principles, besides us, number two: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Vanderbilt University. (Vanderbilt’s Chancellor, Daniel Diermeier, is a free-speech advocate who was Provost here before he moved south.)  Some professors at Northwestern University have urged adoption of institutional neutrality, but so far little seems to have happened.

Why have universities resisted institutional neutrality? I think it’s because some people, in or out of a university, think that it’s immoral for an institution of higher learning not to weigh in on politics or ideology if they think the “moral” position is clear.  During the Red Scare of the Fifties, the University held to institutional neutrality despite calls for us to denounce communism and fire communist professors (this was before Kalven, but the principle, though uncodified, began with president Robert Maynard Hutchins). It seemed clear to many at the time that Communism was bad, but of course not to everyone, and taking an anti-Communist stand would simply inhibit discussion. Try to think of any political position that can be held by a University without potentially inhibiting speech!

But I digress. I want to note that another university has just joined the three having official institutional neutrality. And that is Columbia University, as I learned from this announcement:

From the Columbia Academic Freedom Council:

The Columbia University Senate today passed a resolution for the University to adhere to a standard of institutional neutrality as envisioned by the Kalven Committee. The specific language is attached and is as follows: The University and its leaders should refrain from taking political positions in their institutional capacity, either as explicit statements or as the basis of policy, except in the rare case when the University has a compelling institutional interest, such as a legal obligation, that requires it to do so. This language heavily mirrors the language on our Statement of Responsibilities. If you read the resolution above, and go to page 40, you’ll see this affirmation of neutrality:

Now this isn’t yet perfect, but it’s very close to Kalven. Columbia still needs to clarify what they mean by “The University and its leaders”.  Do departments count? Presumably. What about other units, like Museums and the like? We enforce Kalven for them, too, but that was clarified only through challenges.

Finally, (d) is unclear. What does it mean to “permit inquiry into whether the University’s corporate activities remain compatible with paramount social values”? What are those values? Does this mean that the University can take political positions on investments (“corporate activities”)? That needs clarification.

Still, this was adopted by Columbia’s University Senate, and it’s a good start.

I’m not sure if this new principle applies to Barnard College, which is affiliated with Columbia University but still somewhat independent. Still, surely Barnard should follow Columbia by adopting institutional neutrality. If it does, it wouldn’t be able to make statements like the following, which is a clear violation of institutional neutrality.  I won’t go into detail why it does violate neutrality, but such a statement would be prohibited at the university of Chicago. This one is from Barnard’s Africana Studies Department. Click to read, and if you see the problem affecting free speech here, put it in the comments:

I haven’t prowled Columbia’s website looking for violations, but this site came into my hands via a reader.

Another thing Columbia needs to do, which caused a bit of an issue here, is how, exactly, violations of institutional neutrality will be reported, adjudicated, and dealt with. Still, all universities should take heed. The benefits of institutional neutrality far outweigh its few problems.

Trappist-1 is a fascinating exoplanetary system. Seven worlds orbiting a red dwarf star just 40 light-years away. All of the worlds are similar to Earth in mass and size, and 3 or 4 of them are potentially habitable. Imagine exploring a system of life-rich worlds within easy traveling distance of each other. It’s a wonderful dream, but as a new study shows it isn’t likely that life exists in the system. It’s more likely the planets are barren and stripped of their atmospheres.

The Trappist system has gained a lot of attention since its discovery in 2017, because at first blush it seems to be a perfect system for alien life. Plenty of warm terrestrial worlds, similar to our inner solar system. But one question was whether red dwarf stars are suited for habitable worlds. Red dwarfs are much cooler than the Sun, so any habitable world would need to orbit the star very closely. Red dwarfs are also known to have intense solar flares, which can bake nearby planets in X-rays and other dangers. Could life survive these threats over a span of billions of years? If Trappist-1 is typical, the answer seems to be no.

Apparent sizes seen from a Trappist-1 planet. Credit: NASA/Brian Koberlein

This new work looks at the potential atmospheres of the Trappist planets. Observations from JWST have confirmed that the two innermost planets lack any meaningful atmosphere, but that was expected. In our own system, Mercury has no atmosphere. But it has been generally thought that the cooler and more distant worlds of Trappist-1 could maintain atmospheres. So the team looked to computer simulations.

Given observations of Trappist-1 and other red dwarf stars, the authors calculated the amount of high-energy radiation the star likely emits over time. They then simulated the effects of that radiation on the possible early atmospheres of the outer Trappist exoplanets. From that, they modeled the rate of atmospheric evaporation. All planets lose a bit of atmosphere over time, even Earth. The question is how much and how quickly. The team found that for the Trappist worlds, the answer is a lot and fast.

Based on the current radiation levels of Trappist-1, even its outer planets would lose an Earth’s atmosphere worth of gases within a few hundred million years. Planets such as Earth, Mars, and Venus had very thick atmospheres in their youth, so we could assume the Trappist worlds would have as well. But young red dwarfs give off even more high-energy radiation, so atmospheres would evaporate at an even faster rate. Since Trappist-1 is a bit older than our Sun, about 8 billion years old, any atmosphere the Trappist worlds might have had is likely long gone.

So the Trappist-1 system is likely little more than a collection of warm, dry rocks. And this could be true for most other red dwarf systems. That has some pretty serious implications for the possibility of extra-terrestrial life. Red dwarfs make up about 75% of stars in our galaxy, compared to only 8% for Sun-like stars. If red dwarfs strip the atmospheres of their worlds, then most planetary systems are lifeless.

So look around. The vibrant living you see may be much more rare than we thought.

Reference: Van Looveren, Gwenaël, et al. “Airy worlds or barren rocks? On the survivability of secondary atmospheres around the TRAPPIST-1 planets.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.16490 (2024).

The post Atmospheres in the TRAPPIST-1 System Should be Long Gone appeared first on Universe Today.

Interview with Justin Bates of Starset; News Items: Neuralink Implant, Love on the Brain, Amelia Earhart Plane Evidence, Hiding Sickness, Cicada Double Brood; Who's That Noisy; Your Questions and E-mails: Moon Timeline, Long Acting Insulin; Science or Fiction

From Politico, we hear and see the stalwart War Cats of Ukraine. Click the headline to read:

Excerpts and text (indented) from the article. There are also videos, but I can’t embed them:

Wars are fought by soldiers using bullets, shells and missiles, but also with ideas and propaganda — which explains why cats have become the latest battlefront in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s social media are full of felines, showing how they help soldiers as emotional support animals, attract donations to the military with their fluffy cuteness, and also fight invaders — in this case mice.

Russia is fighting back by humanizing its invading soldiers — often used in “meat wave” attacks against Ukrainian positions and accused of atrocities against civilians — by showing them with their own cats.

Cats usually arrive at Ukrainian army positions from nearby villages or towns destroyed by war. Abandoned by their owners, the pets seek human protection from the constant shelling, drone strikes and minefields.

“When this scared little creature comes to you, seeking protection, how could you say no? We are strong, so we protect weaker beings, who got into the same awful circumstances as we did, just because Russians showed up on our land,” explained Oleksandr Yabchanka, a Ukrainian army combat medic.

They mention and show several cats. Here are two:

Shaybyk the lover

Oleksandr Liashuk, from the Odesa region in southwest Ukraine, gave a purr-out to Shaybyk — one of four stray kittens living with his unit on the southern front in 2022.

“Shaybyk had the biggest charisma. It was getting cold, so I took him with me one night into my sleeping bag. And that’s when I fell in love with that cat,” said Liashuk, 26. “He’s not just my best friend, he’s my son.”

Since then, Shaybyk has moved to different positions with Liashuk, with the pair becoming a viral sensation for their joint patrol videos.

Liashuk describes his cat as the perfect hunter. “Once we were at the position in the forest and he caught 11 mice in one day. Sometimes [he] brings mice to my sleeping bag,” he boasted.

Despite their bond, Shaybyk remains a free cat, but he has always returned to Liashuk. In June he disappeared for 18 long days until he was found by Ukrainian soldiers at a position several kilometers away, chilling with the local felines. “He just needed some love. I call it a vacation,” Liashuk said.

Shaybyk and Liashuk also collect donations for the Ukrainian army, with Shaybyk receiving a special award in September for helping to raise money to buy seven cars and other supplies.

Herych the high-bred

Unlike frontline strays, Herald, known as Herych, is a cat aristocrat. As soon as Russia invaded, Herych, a Scottish Fold, joined his human, Kyrylo Liukov, a military coordinator for the Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation, which delivers supplies to frontline units.

Herych, who lives with Liukov in Kramatorsk, a city in Donetsk region, traveled to the front more than 20 times.

“Every time he was the star of a show, with so many fighters running to us to pet him and take a picture with him,” Liukov said. “Herych was patient — though a little shocked.”

Unlike other frontline animals, Herych remains calm during Russian shelling. “At most he just turns his head to the sound and that’s all,” Liukov said.

Like Syrsky, Herych uses his online popularity to help Ukraine’s army, fronting a campaign that raised several million hryvnias (a million hryvnia is about €25,000) to purchase cars for the military.

The site also reports that the Russians have “weaponized cats for propaganda,” but we won’t talk about moggies on the wrong side of history.

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From the BBC, a coincidental recovery (click screenshot to read):

An excerpt (indented):

A South Devon couple have been reunited with their missing cat after seeing him on BBC Spotlight.

Mike and Marilyn Chard from Bovisand lost their one-eyed cat Tigger back in October.

He was taken in by Gables Dogs and Cats Home in Plymouth but because he was not micro-chipped, his owners could not be contacted.

The couple spotted Tigger on TV when he was seen being held by the general manager at the rescue centre.

When he failed to return home three months ago, Mr Chard said they thought their pet had “gone off to die”.

The couple adopted the stray 12 years ago when he walked through their cat flap with one eye and a bent tail.

Mr Chard said: “We’d gone out for the day and when we came back he wasn’t here, which is not unusual, but he never goes for more than hour.

“He hadn’t been himself for maybe ten days and was due a vet appointment but there was nothing you could put your finger on.

“Apparently when he was out that day he must have had an epileptic fit and somebody found him the next day semi-conscious and took him to the RSPCA, who gave him to Gables. That’s all we know.”

The cat had been nicknamed ‘Bovi-Mort’ during his stay at the charity, but the couple said they were “100% certain it was him from the photographs”.

Mrs Chard said: “He was called Bovi because of Bovisand and Mort because they were thinking of putting him to sleep.”

Mr Chard said: “We were there when Gables opened because we couldn’t wait. They were over the moon he was going back to his owners.

“He’s purring all the time. It’s taken four or five hours of being back here before he got used to where he was. I think he’s just about back to normal.”

Tigger has now been microchipped so he can be reunited with Mike and Marilyn if he ever goes missing again.

All’s well that ends well!

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

This story comes from NBC (Channel 4) in New York, recounting how Buffalo Bills kicker Tyler Bass (who works with a cat-rescue group) was excoriated on social media after he missed a crucial kick. Bass and cat fans rallied, donating over a quarter million dollars to the cat-rescue organization.

Click to read:

The article:

Fans found the purr-fect way to show support for Buffalo Bills kicker Tyler Bass.

The Ten Lives Club, a cat rescue organization that Bass has worked with, received more than $250,000 in donations made in his name following the backlash he received after missing a heartbreaking field goal in Sunday’s playoff game, according to The Buffalo News.

The Bills trailed the Kansas City Chiefs 27-24 with under two minutes remaining in the AFC divisional round matchup when Bass missed a 44-yard field goal that all but ended the game and the season for a Bills team seeking its first Super Bowl championship.

After the game, the 26-year-old kicker reportedly began receiving online threats that led him to delete his social media accounts.

The Ten Lives Club made a post showing support for Bass, who has previously partnered with the Buffalo-based non-profit organization to help rescue cats.

Here’s the Instagram post put up by the rescue group 10livesclub.  DON’T BULLY OUR FRIEND! Note that the organization mentions how their phones are “ringing off the hook” with donations:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ten Lives Club (@10livesclub)

More:

Donations — with the $22 amount being a nod to Bass’s No. 2 jersey — came in from Bills fans, Chiefs fans and other supporters.

The organization raised donations through its website and its social media accounts, which feature a profile picture of a cat wearing a Bills jersey.

“That money came in very, very quickly and will make a huge difference for our rescue cats here in Western New York,” Kimberly LaRussa of the Ten Lives Club told The Buffalo News.

This is very sweet:  “Leave our friend alone.”  I’m glad that although he missed a kick, the cats are the beneficiaries.

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Lagniappe: A battle royale between a Siamese cat and a sand fox (Vulpes rueppellii). What a sound the fox makes! The cat just hisses, but he seems to have the upper paw. I think the fox just wants to cuddle.

h/t: Gregory, Jez

“My name is Ozymandias, Pig of Pigs
Look on my warts ye mighty, and despair!”

—after Shelley (h/t Ant)

We have warthogs for today’s wildlife. Ozymandias is a large male common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus) who lives in South Africa and with whom I’ve become enamored. I’m contributing to his well being, and will be seeing him (but not petting him!) in August. He lives in the wild but is able to enter a fenced area around local houses since the pigs have dug under the fence.

Isn’t he lovely? His “tusks” are modified teeth, and these pigs are sometimes poached for their “ivory”.  The “warts” are protuberances containing cartilage, and are assumed to protect the pigs from damage during battle. As one site notes, “Males have four warts, two large ones beneath the eyes and two smaller ones just above the mouth; females have two small ones right below their eyes.”

All photos and videos are by Rosemary.

Ozy foraging for corn.  Warthogs are herbivores and forage with their front knees bent:

Here’s a video of Ozzy just finishing off a carrot. Keep watching to the end when he tosses his head, demanding more food. There’s a fence between him and the photographer, which ia a good thing because those head-tosses could slash you pretty good.

The locals have built a shallow pool/bathtub for the warthogs. All of them use it, including the babies, but no hog dares come near when Ozy is luxuriating in the water:

Here’s Ozy resting and showing his hugeness. Wait until the end when he raises his massive head and shakes it.

A magnificent beast, no? He’s been described as a “truck with tusks”:

And two more videos of Ozzie’s friends.  First, a female warthog suckling a baby male.  This is probably her baby, but female warthogs often engage in “allosuckling“—feeding babies other than theirs. This may reflect kin selection if the females are related, or simply cooperation evolved in small groups.

And a baby hog running around like crazy in the presence of its mom and a large male hog (possibly Ozy). Note that their tails are always held vertical when they run. A snort from the male drives mother and baby away. Adults are fast: they can run 48 km/h, or 30 mph.

For once, I beat the alarm clock by a good hour. Anxiety is better than sunrise for becoming and staying awake. I had too many things to do, and neither the time nor the skill set to accomplish them. As the week progressed, I had become increasingly aware that every hour we did not act meant more death and disease—and I could […]

The post Skeptics in the Pub. Cholera. Chapter 9a. first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.