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We begin today’s cat trifecta with the in comparable Kiffness, who often makes songs out of cat noises. Here he presents a song called “Look I’m Gay (Why Are You Gay?” I suppose the answer is, “I was born that way.”

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This article from ZME Science (click screenshot to read) gives you an opportunity to participate in a citizen-science project about can ancestry and behavior, even getting a DNA sample from your cat (that costs extra);

An excerpt:

“Cats are one of the least-studied companion animals in genomics, and as a result we are missing out on all that genetics can tell us about their ancestry, behavior, and health,” said Dr. Elinor Karlsson, Chief Scientist at Darwin’s Ark and Director of the Vertebrate Genomics Group at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. “That’s why I’m so excited about Darwin’s Cats’ fur-based DNA collection. It’s easy on the cat and easy to scale, making it possible for us to level up cat genetics research.”

Warning: clicking on the link above takes you to a post on the de-extinction of the woolly mammoth. The “Darwin’s Cats” page is here.

Darwin’s Cats was launched in mid-2024 and has already analyzed genetic data from over 3,000 cats. Traditionally, collecting an animal’s DNA required either a cheek swab or, worse, a blood draw — both of which cats tend to resent. Darwin’s Cats is bypassing the battle with claws and fangs by introducing a revolutionary, stress-free method: DNA extraction from fur.

Joining is simple. Any cat owner can sign up for free. You then share details about your cat’s appearance, health, and behavior. Those who wish to go a step further can order a DNA sequencing kit with a tax-deductible $150 donation, which covers the cost of sequencing and analysis. Once 1,000 samples have been processed, participants will receive insights into their cat’s genetic background.

. . . Cats have lived alongside humans for thousands of years, yet they remain, in many ways, an enigma. Unlike dogs, whose domestication was carefully shaped by human breeding, cats largely domesticated themselves. Understanding their genetics could reveal not just the hidden history of our housecats, but also help us figure out ways to keep them healthier for longer.

And while this project is about unraveling feline DNA, it’s also about something bigger: bringing everyday people (and cats) into the world of genetic research. By crowd-sourcing data from thousands of cats, researchers can finally fill the gaps in our understanding of feline evolution and domestication. In short, this study could help cats live longer, healthier, and happier lives.

Researchers who weren’t involved with the study also praised the initiative. A spokesperson for the charity International Cat Care (iCatCare) told The Guardian: “We’re really interested in the collaborative approach of Darwin’s Ark, particularly in encouraging pet owners as community scientists to help advance the collective scientific understanding of cats as a species.”

You have to sign up to do this, and yes, you can take research surveys, but the main point seems to be to squeeze money out of you to get your cat’s DNA sequenced. What will that tell you? “50% alley, 10% Persian, 40% Ashkenazi Jew”?  But there are other sites that do this too. Here’s one that will sequence your cat’s entire genome for $499.  The Guardian has an article on this project that makes it seem more serious (click to read):

 

An excerpt:

Cat owners are being asked share their pet’s quirky traits and even post researchers their fur in an effort to shed light on how cats’ health and behaviour are influenced by their genetics.

The scientists behind the project, Darwin’s Cats, are hoping to enrol 100,000 felines, from pedigrees to moggies, with the DNA of 5,000 cats expected to be sequenced in the next year.

The team say the goal is to produce the world’s largest feline genetic database.

“Unlike most existing databases, which tend to focus on specific breeds or veterinary applications, Darwin’s Cats is building a diverse, large-scale dataset that includes pet cats, strays and mixed breeds from all walks of life,” said Dr Elinor Karlsson, the chief scientist at the US nonprofit organisation Darwin’s Ark, director of the vertebrate genomics group at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and associate professor at the UMass Chan medical school.

“It’s important to note, this is an open data project, so we will share the data with other scientists as the dataset grows,” she added.

The project follows on the heels of Darwin’s Dogs, a similar endeavour that has shed light on aspects of canine behaviour, disease and the genetic origins of modern breeds.

Darwin’s Cats was launched in mid-2024 and already has more than 3,000 cats enrolled, although not all have submitted fur samples.

Participants from all parts of the world are asked to complete a number of free surveys about their pet’s physical traits, behaviour, environment, and health.

However, at present, DNA kits – for owners to submit fur samples – can be sent only to US residents, and a donation of $150 (£120) for one cat is requested to cover the cost of sequencing and help fund the research.

Karlsson added the team had developed a method to obtain high-quality DNA from loose fur without needing its roots – meaning samples can simply be collected by brushing.

The researchers hope that by combining insights from cats’ DNA with the survey results they can shed light on how feline genetics influences what cats look like, how they act and the diseases they experience.

But of course if they’re building a genetic database they need genetics, and that means they need that $150 out of your pocket. If you’re willing to do that, fine, but do you get any information back about your cat, or are you just funding another group’s research project? I don’t know, but if you’re helping them, you shouldn’t have to pay!

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Finally, from Instagram, a “1970s vintage psychedelic disco cat ballet”.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Psychedelic Archives (@psychedelicarchives)

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Lagniappe: Cats react to mice shown on t.v.: a “Whak-A-Mouse” game that seems to keep the cat entertained.

h/t: Debra, Ginger K.

Scientists have unveiled a groundbreaking chemical process that could streamline the development of pharmaceutical compounds, chemical building blocks that influence how drugs interact with the body.

To make a warp drive you have to arrange spacetime so that you never locally travel faster than light but still arrive at your destination…faster than light. And in 1994 Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre figured out how.

Researchers are leveraging machine learning to improve additive manufacturing, also commonly known as 3D printing. The team introduces a new framework they've dubbed the Accurate Inverse process optimization framework in laser Directed Energy Deposition (AIDED). The new AIDED framework optimizes laser 3D printing to enhance the accuracy and robustness of the finished product. This advancement aims to produce higher quality metal parts for industries, such as aerospace, automotive, nuclear and health care, by predicting how the metal will melt and solidify to find optimal printing conditions.

From laundry detergent to dishwasher tablets, cleaning products are an indispensable part of life. Yet the chemicals that make these products so effective can be difficult to break down or could even trigger ecosystem-altering algal blooms. Now, researchers have addressed those challenges with an environmentally compatible detergent made of tiny wood fibers and corn protein that removes stains on clothes and dishes just as well as commercial products.

A researcher has conducted an experimental demonstration of intricate and previously theorized behaviors in the fundamental patterns that govern oscillatory systems in nature and technology.

The European Space Agency is considering a mission to a metal-rich asteroid. The target is Kleopatra, an M-type asteroid with two moons. These asteroids are relatively common, but they're difficult to observe because they're in the middle and outer regions of the main asteroid belt.

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost 1 has completed its brief lunar mission. The lander spent two weeks conducting operations on the surface of the Moon before witnessing its final sunset as the Sun dipped below the horizon. This sunset marked the end of the mission, as Blue Ghost lacks the capability to maintain warmth during the freezing cold lunar night. Despite its short operational period, the lander accomplished its objectives, successfully testing all ten NASA payloads, gathering valuable data, and transmitting the findings back to Earth.

It's not a just a revolutionary and safe vaccine technology – mRNA could help make the best and most expensive drugs in the world affordable for everyone

The Mpemba effect, in which hot systems cool faster than cold ones under the same conditions, was first described by Aristotle more than 2,000 years ago. In 1963 it was rediscovered by Tanzanian student Erasto Mpemba, who observed it when preparing ice cream in a cooking class at school. Mpemba later collaborated with a British physicist on a paper that described its effect on water. Since this influential research, further studies have demonstrated that the effect extends beyond simple liquids and can be observed in a variety of physical systems --even microscopic ones.

Chemists reveal method for differentiating PCET mechanisms -- a key step for steering fundamental energy conversion and redox catalysis processes.

Researchers developed a scalable interconnect that facilitates all-to-all communication among many quantum processor modules by enabling each to send and receive quantum information on demand in a user-specified direction. They used the interconnect to demonstrate remote entanglement, a type of correlation that is key to creating a powerful, distributed network of quantum processors.

Researchers developed a scalable interconnect that facilitates all-to-all communication among many quantum processor modules by enabling each to send and receive quantum information on demand in a user-specified direction. They used the interconnect to demonstrate remote entanglement, a type of correlation that is key to creating a powerful, distributed network of quantum processors.

A study found that when people were told to imagine their virtual bodies in pain, their brains resisted the illusion of ownership. Their findings could provide insights into why some people may struggle with feeling connected to their own bodies, particularly in contexts involving depersonalization or negative physical states.

As I wrote on February 13:

. . . . the Presidents of three organismal-biology societies, the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE), the American Society of Naturalists (ASN) and the Society of Systematic Biologists (SSB) sent a declaration addressed to President Trump and all the members of Congress. (declaration archived here)  Implicitly claiming that its sentiments were endorsed by the 3500 members of the societies, the declaration also claimed that there is a scientific consensus on the definition of sex, and that is that sex is NOT binary but rather some unspecified but multivariate combination of different traits, a definition that makes sex a continuum or spectrum—and in all species!

You can see the tri-Societies’ announcement, published on February 5 on the SSE’s website, by clicking on the headline below:

On Feb. 13,, 23 biologists wrote to the Presidents of the three societies (our letter is at the link above), correcting their view that sex is a “construct” and is multidimensional. (Our response was largely confected by Luana Maroja of Williams College.) We emphasized that biological sex in humans (and in other animals and vascular plants) is as close to a binary as you can get (exceptions in humans range from 0.005% to .018%). We noted as well that biological sex is defined by the nature of the two observed reproductive systems in nature: one designed to produce large, immobile gametes (females) or small, mobile gametes (males). In some species of plants there are individuals of both sexes (“hermaphrodites”), but there are only two separate sexes, and each species has only two types of gametes.

We later got more people to sign the letter to the societies, ending up with 125 signatures of people willing to reveal their names.

The Presidents of the three Societies did not answer us at first, though eventually they did respond, though we cannot publicize their private email.  I’ve outlined the tenor of their response here, saying that they largely conceded our points:

 I will say that [the Society Presidents] admitted that they think they’re in close agreement with us (I am not so sure!), that their letter wasn’t properly phrased, that some of our differences come from different semantic interpretations of words like “binary” and “continuum”(nope), and that they didn’t send the letter anyway because a federal judge changed the Executive Order on sex (this didn’t affect our criticisms). At any rate, the tri-Societies letter is on hold because the organizations are now concerned with more serious threats from the Trump Administration, like science funding.

So the letter was never sent, and is still sitting on the SSE website, an embarrassing and biologically misleading example of virtue signaling. Nor did they answer Luana Maroja’s subsequent email asking whether they would remove the announcement from the SSE website and inform the Societies’ members of the change.  They have been notably unresponsive, and, although admitting problems with their announcement about sex, they have neither changed the letter nor explained how it is misleading.

You can see all my posts about this kerfuffle here. Besides our weighing in, Richard Dawkins put up two relevant posts on his website, one mentioning the kerfuffle and explaining very clearly why there are only two sexes, and the other showing that even the three Presidents who wrote the declarations implicitly accepted the binary nature of sex in their own published research.

Given that the three Society Presidents who wrote the letter never sent it, and have backed off on its assertions, I call on them to either retract the letter or clarify and qualify it. Right now it stands as an embarrassment to not just the Societies, but to biologists in general—people who are supposed to be wedded to the truth and not to woke ideology. It goes without saying that the claim that sex is nonbinary is made simply to make people who feel that they’re neither male nor female feel better about themselves. But someone’s self-image should not depend on biological definitions and realities. It does not “erase” non-binary people, nor diminish their worth, to note that biological sex is binary.

I will echo Ronald Reagan, “Please, Society Presidents, tear down that announcement.”

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Finally, in a new post called “Debunking Mainstream Media Lies about Biological Sex,” Colin Wright shows that this kind of distortion is widespread in the media. Here’s how he begins his defense of the sex binary—by showing  misleading articles in the media (he mentions the SSE statement):

On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order affirming the binary nature of sex in federal law, a move that was solidified a month later by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) with a scientifically robust definition of sex and the sexes: male and female. This reaffirmation of biological reality sent left-wing media into a frenzy, unleashing a flood of articles attempting to deconstruct and redefine sex through the lens of progressive queer ideology.

The Society for the Study of Evolution quickly issued a statement, purportedly on behalf of all 3,500 of its members, claiming that the executive order’s recognition of the sex binary “is contradicted by extensive scientific evidence,” and, remarkably, even invoked the subjective “lived experience of people” as part of their counterargument. The Washington Post followed suit on February 19 with an article titled, “Trump says there are ‘two sexes.’ Experts and science say it’s not binary.” A piece in The Hill this week accused the executive order and HHS guidelines of containing “profound scientific inaccuracies,” while Science News proclaimed that “sex is messy” and that “choosing any single definer of sex is bound to sow confusion.” Similar articles challenging the definitions outlined in Trump’s executive order and the HHS guidance have also appeared in Time Magazine, The Boston Globe, Scientific American, The Guardian, and numerous other outlets.

These responses have come in waves, with new attempts to muddy the waters appearing weekly. But one recent article from NPR—“How is sex determined? Scientists say it’s complicated”—encapsulates virtually every fallacious argument and pseudoscientific distortion used in the others. As such, it serves as the ideal target to be used for a collective rebuttal.

He then proceeds with the debunking and ends with this:

The left’s assault on the binary reality of sex is not about science—it is about politics. The goal is to deconstruct and redefine fundamental biological truths to serve ideological ends, whether that be justifying the inclusion of males in female sports, allowing men into women’s prisons, or pushing irreversible medical interventions on children under the guise of “gender-affirming care.”

It’s ok, Darth Vader hasn’t got our humble planet in his sights! No this Death Star is a binary system where both stars are locked into an orbit which will lead to their collision, unleashing a powerful gamma-ray burst when they do. The object, WR104 is otherwise known as the ‘Pinwheel Star’ due to the presence of a spiral of dust engulfing the system. Recent observations have accurately measured the orientation of the stars and thankfully they’re not pointed at the Earth. When they do eventually collide, it’ll be someone else’s problem.

Chemical analysis suggests the 400-million-year-old fossil Prototaxites was neither plant, animal or fungus – hinting at a mysterious life form that went extinct long ago

Yep, it was inevitable that the greatest writer in the English language, but one who wrote several centuries ago, would have to be “decolonized.”  You know, of course, that Shakespeare’s plays are full of stereotypes, dirty jokes, and filthy words, and that can’t be allowed to stand. But it’s worse than that: he’s made out to be a white bigot: a sixteenth-century Nazi.

And so, according to this new piece in Spiked (click below to read), the Pecksniffs have decided to place the Bard in perspective for the public, including the fact he adhered to the ideology of white supremacy. But read Johanna Williams’s article below, largely riffing on a Torygraph article that seems credible:

Some excerpts:

What is it with Britain’s cultural custodians and their hatred of everything British? National self-loathing drips from curators and directors alike, revealed in a Tourette’s-like compulsion to blurt out ‘Decolonise!’ at everything they see. They are currently getting hot under the collar  [JAC: archived here] in the sleepy town of Stratford-upon-Avon, where they have Shakespeare’s birthplace in their sights.

The links above and in the three paragraphs below the next excerpt go to a Torygraph piece (archived here) that says this:

The claims were made in a 2022 collaborative research project between the trust and Dr Helen Hopkins, an academic at the University of Birmingham.

The research took issue with the trust’s quaint Stratford attractions, comprising the supposed childhood homes and shared family home of Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, his wife, because the Bard was presented as a “universal” genius.

This idea of Shakespeare’s universal genius “benefits the ideology of white European supremacy”, it was claimed.

This is because it presents European culture as the world standard for high art, a standard which was pushed through “colonial inculcation” and the use of Shakespeare as a symbol of “British cultural superiority” and “Anglo-cultural supremacy”.

Veneration of Shakespeare is therefore part of a “white Anglo-centric, Eurocentric, and increasingly ‘West-centric’ worldviews that continue to do harm in the world today”.

. . . The project recommended that Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust recognise that “the narrative of Shakespeare’s greatness has caused harm – through the epistemic violence”.

The project also recommended that the trust present Shakespeare not as the “greatest”, but as “part of a community of equal and different writers and artists from around the world”.

And as the Pecksniffs kvetch, so the Birthplace Trust follows:

. . . The trust will continue looking at updating the “current and future interpretation” of objects in its collection. It will also explore how objects could be used as the focus for new interpretations which tell more international stories, in order to appeal to a more diverse audience.

It has additionally pledged to remove offensive language from its collections information, as part of a “long, thoughtful” process.

. . . The Globe Theatre in London ran a series of seminars titled Anti-Racist Shakespeare which promoted scholarship focused on the idea of race in his plays.

Academies taking part in the series made a number of claims, including that King Lear was about “whiteness”, and that the character of Prince Hamlet holds “racist” views of black people.

Back to Spiked:

Where normal people admire timber-framed houses and marvel at the schoolroom where Shakespeare learnt the classics, our cultural elites see ‘white supremacy’. Where you and I see genius in plays like King Lear, Hamlet and Othello, they see a symbol of ‘British cultural superiority’. They seem to imagine that racist thugs have swapped sharing memes on Telegram for watching Macbeth at the local theatre. Labelling the Bard as a vehicle for white supremacy really is that insane.

With hatred comes flagellation. As such, Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust – the charity tasked with preserving Shakespeare-related heritage sites in historic Stratford-upon-Avon – is now ‘decolonising’ its vast collection. This means that, just as in practically every other museum and art gallery across the UK, exhibits will be labelled to make clear ‘the continued impact of Empire’ or the ‘impact of colonialism’. In Stratford-upon-Avon, the special twist will be to show how Shakepeare’s legacy has allegedly played a part in this litany of sin.

Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust has also warned visitors that some items in its collections may contain ‘language or depictions that are racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise harmful’. Of course they will. The past was a different time, with different attitudes and values. Shakespeare was not subjected to training in diversity, equity and inclusion. Nor was he presented with a style guide advising him as to the correct pronouns to use for his many crossdressing characters. Thank goodness.

And Williams’s conclusion, the first paragraph of which is spot on:

Just as Shakespeare is integral to being British, his work also absolutely has universal value. He portrays emotions such as joy, grief and anger, and experiences like being young, falling in love and growing old that are fundamental not to being British or even European, but to being human. This is why his legacy endures. His genius is to transcend racial, national and generational differences and point to what we have in common, rather than what divides us. That Shakespeare is English is incidental to the common humanity in his work, but it is entirely relevant to the historical circumstances that made his prodigious talent possible. To boil all this down to ‘white supremacy’ is ridiculous.

The Birthplace Trust’s real concern is to stop British people taking pride in Shakespeare and seeing his work as a symbol of ‘British cultural superiority’. It wants him to be viewed not as the ‘greatest’, but as ‘part of a community of equal and different writers and artists from around the world’. But if academics and curators really cannot say that Shakespeare’s plays are better than a Nigerian soap opera or a Brazilian drag-queen performance, then we really are in trouble. If even Shakespeare’s custodians cannot say that his work is the pinnacle of human achievement, then the Bard has no need of enemies. The barbarians are not at the gate, they are sitting in the stalls.

There is no older work that cannot be scrutinized for violations of wokeness, and they inevitably find it.  Now Shakespeare must always be put in “context” when his works are taught in schools—if they’re taught at all. After all, do we really want our kids to read plays written by a Nazi?

h/t: Ginger K.

The Odysseus spacecraft made a rough landing on the moon last year, toppling over and rendering much of its equipment unusable, but an onboard NASA radio telescope called ROLSES-1  was able to make some observations

Whether you like it or not, you’re going to look at photos of my ducks today: Esther and Mordecai. (This is the equivalent of a proud parent showing off pictures of their kid.)  They have now been here well over a week, and have settled in nicely, having learned to navigate most of the pond (except for the parts blocked by netting.)  They have also mated at least once, though mallards mate several to many times before the female finally nests.

Esther hasn’t yet started building a nest. Once she does—and I hope it’s on a windowsill instead of the ground—she will lay all her eggs, one per day, and then, when they’re all laid, she will sit tight on them, brooding them for just about 28 days, when they will all hatch within one day. And then. . . ducklings on the pond!

Although mallards are ground-nesters, somehow the Botany Pond ducks have learned to nest on the windowsills of the adjacent buildings, which affords them protection from both predators and the elements. But Esther seems to be a young and rather wild duck, and I hope she doesn’t put her nest on the ground, where predators and errant humans could disturb it.

The good news is that both ducks have learned to come to my whistle for a nosh, and when I make my characteristic call, they both come swimming towards me. This is something that’s happened only in the last two days. Ducks learn fast!  Here are some photos, all taken yesterday.

BREAKING NEWS: When I went to see the pair this morning, I couldn’t find Esther, though Mordecai was on the east side of the pond. I had a feeling, and so I looked up. Sure enough, there was Esther sitting on a ledge in a window of the second floor of Erman, the building next to the pond. She is clearly scoping out nesting spots (“nest shopping”, we call it), and so the next step in the breeding process has occurred. She will pick out a good ledge (that’s a nice one, above soft ground), build a nest, and then lay eggs. I’m glad she knows enough to nest on a ledge and not on the ground. These ducks are not dumb!  To see two films of Honey and her ducks jumping off the ledge, be sure to go here and watch the movies

Below: the pair swimming together. They are NEVER far apart, and if they get separated by too great a distance, Esther will quack loudly at Mordecai and he will come swimming to her. (He’s a good husband.)  Remember, only female mallards can make the characteristic quack that we associate with mallards.

After her swim, Esther dried off on the warm cement facing the sun:

As I’ve said, hens are particularly cute when they tilt their heads, which, given the placement of their eyes, they have to do to see above them. They often do this when a hawk or other possible predator flies overhead:

Swimming. If you haven’t seen our mallards before, the blue stripe on the wings is called the speculum, and we don’t really know why it’s there.

Mordecai swimming. His neck is stretched out because he hears something. Note his curly tail feathers:

Mordecai swimming, neck in normal position. I like the psychedelic patterns in the water:

Esther chilling (or rather, warming) on the cement edge, eastern part of pond:

Mordecai standing just a few feet away from her. He doesn’t want to neglect his reproductive investment! Note that both ducks are in good condition, healthy and plump:

As Esther jumps up onto the edge from the water, she uses her wings to assist, and you can clearly see her speculum. Each blue feather (these are called “secondary” feathers, with the “primaries” being the main flight feathers) has a white stripe on it. I still have several speculum feathers from Honey, as mallards molt and regrow all their feathers after they have babies. During this period of a few weeks, they’re unable to fly.