Science

Foams have long baffled scientists because liquid drains from them far sooner than theory predicts. New research shows the reason: the bubbles don’t stay put—they rearrange, opening pathways for liquid to escape. The key factor is the pressure needed to shift bubbles, not just push liquid through them. This insight reshapes how we understand foams and could improve everyday products.

For the first time, scientists have reconstructed the full history of a galaxy outside the Milky Way using chemical clues. By analyzing oxygen across NGC 1365 and comparing it with simulations, they traced its growth over 12 billion years. The findings show how its core formed early while its outer regions were built through repeated mergers. This new approach could transform how astronomers study galaxy evolution.

When we think of asteroids, we almost immediately think of giant rocks bouncing around like the iconic chase scene in Empire Strikes Back, and we often hear how they are remnants from the birth of the solar system. While the asteroids that comprise the Main Asteroid Belt of our solar system are not only spread far apart from each other, they are also not all made of rock. One asteroid approximately the size of the State of Massachusetts called 16 Psyche is made of metal, which planetary scientists hypothesize could be the remnants of a protoplanet’s core that didn’t build into a full-fledged planet. But how did such a unique asteroid form?

What happens in a protoplanetary disk to create planetesimals around a star? We know the general story -- the material begins to clump together and eventually grows from dust grains to rocky bodies capable of sticking together to make planets. But, how does that dust begin the aggregation journey? That's what a research team from the Switzerland wanted to know. So, they did experiments aboard parabolic micro-gravity flights to find an answer.

NSF NOIRLab has completed end-to-end runs of its ecosystem for following up on alerts from NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory. The runs demonstrated how multiple NOIRLab-developed software tools, plus a network of telescopes around the globe, will enable quick follow-up observations of the countless transient objects that Rubin will uncover during its ten-year survey.

To understand the Universe we see around us today, we have to understand its past. Some hard-to-find ancient stars, called Population II stars, preserve evidence from the ancient Universe. Astronomers finally found one.

The Neanderthal population shrank during a cold spell around 75,000 years ago, and the loss of genetic diversity may have contributed to their eventual extinction

Since 2016, Antarctic sea ice extent has been declining sharply – now scientists are piecing together how strong winds and warm deep water have played a part in this abrupt transition

Reader Thomas from Marginal REVOLUTION sent me the linked article piece, which shows a video of the 1957 doo-wop hit “Little Darlin'” by the Diamonds. If you’re my age, you’ll remember it.  I always thought it was a serious song, and apparently so did most Americans, but the first comment says this:

From what I recall, the Diamonds were a conventional vocal group who recorded “Little Darlin'” at the end of a session as a kind of joke song – a parody of the Ink Spots and Mills Brothers. Fortunately for them, the studio musicians joined in with perfectly irresistible beat and the song became a rock and roll hit. Early rock and roll was born as parody as much as anything else, like Elvis’s Jokey rendition of Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky” turning out to be the founding document of rockabilly.

Really? And then they present the video, which, unlike any music video I know from that era, shows the group clowning around. Have a look at the video for a hit song (more cowbell!). But yes, this is the original song. which went to #2 on the Billboard charts.

To get to the bottom of this, I sent to AI, in particular Grok. Sure enough, the bot pronounced it a parody after scanning what’s published about it.

“Was “Little Darlin'” by the Diamonds a parody song?”

Yes, “Little Darlin'” by The Diamonds (1957) is widely regarded as a stylistic parody/satire of the doo-wop genre—not a lyrical parody like a Weird Al track (the words and melody are the same), but a deliberately exaggerated, campy cover that poked fun at the over-the-top clichés of the style.Here’s the story, straight from music historians:

• The song was written by 16-year-old Maurice Williams and first recorded in January 1957 by his group The Gladiolas (on the Excello label). Their version was a straight, heartfelt R&B/doo-wop track with a Latin-tinged rhythm, falsetto, spoken bridge, and percussion. It charted modestly (#11 R&B, minor pop crossover).
• The Diamonds (a Canadian quartet) rushed out their cover just a month later on Mercury Records. It was reportedly a last-minute, end-of-session lark—they had about 15 minutes left, no drummer, so they improvised with castanets. Lead singer Dave Somerville and the group leaned hard into the nonsense syllables (“ai-ya-yi-yai-yai-ya,” “wella-wella,” etc.), hamming it up with theatrical flair. They even performed it in an over-the-top way on TV (like The Steve Allen Show).

AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine noted that the vocal phrases “verge on self-parody… which may be why The Diamonds’ version is superior.” Radio historian John Gilliland (on the Pop Chronicles series) explicitly stated that their recording “was in fact a parody of the genre.” Other sources describe it as a “joke song,” “satire of doo-wop,” or “intended as a satire” with “campy vocal delivery.”Despite (or because of) the tongue-in-cheek approach, it became a monster hit: #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 for eight weeks (behind only Elvis’s “All Shook Up”), the biggest version by far, and now the definitive classic. The original Gladiolas take is respected by R&B fans but far less known.It’s a classic example of a white cover version (common in the 1950s) that amplified the style for mainstream appeal—here with humor that stuck. Later, Elvis Presley covered the Diamonds’ arrangement on his final album Moody Blue, and Joan Baez even recorded an actual lyrical parody.

From Wikipedia, we learn that the hit version was actually a re-recording of a song recorded just a month earlier by a black group, the Gladiolas, one of whose members wrote the song. There’s also a brief not about the parody aspect:

It was written by a 16-year-old Maurice Williams with both melody and doo-wop accompaniment strongly emphasizing a calypso rhythm. First recorded in January 1957 by Williams’ group the Gladiolas, it was quickly released as a single on Excello Records, a small swamp blues label owned by Nashville record man Earnie Young, who was responsible for creating the song’s Latin feel, naming the group and ensuring Williams would retain the song’s publishing.

The recording, inspired by a book Williams was writing, and originally called “Little Darlin’/ The Beginning,” is noted for its trademark doo-wop falsetto by Fred Mangum and its spoken bridge by Williams (“My Darlin’ I need you …”). The Gladiolas were from Lancaster, South Carolina, where they had been together since high school.

The Diamonds‘ successful cover version followed a month later. The Diamonds were a Canadian pop group that evolved into a doo-wop group. The Diamonds’ version reached number two in sales for eight weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. Billboard ranked this version as the No. 3 song for 1957. In Canada, the song was No. 11 on the premiere CHUM Chart, May 27, 1957.

The Diamonds’ version is generally considered superior. AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine argues that the Diamonds “Little Darlin'” is an unusual example of a cover being better than the original:

[T]he Diamonds’ take remained the bigger hit, and over the years, the better-known version. Normally, this would have been an outrage, but there’s a reason why the Diamonds’ version has sustained its popularity over the years: it’s a better, fiercer recording. Both versions are good, even if they’re a little silly, because it’s a good doo wop song, giving each member of the quartet a lot to do. At times, the vocal phrases verge on self-parody — the “ai-ya-yi-yai-yai-ya”‘s or the “wella-wella”‘s — which may be why The Diamonds’ version is superior.

On the Pop Chronicles, host John Gilliland claimed that their version was in fact a parody of the genre. Nonetheless, “Little Darlin'” (primarily the Diamonds’ version, but to some extent the Gladiolas’ version) remains an all-time rock ‘n roll R&B classic.

Here’s the original version by The Gladiolas, and sure enough, it’s pretty much like the parody (or cover), including the talking interlude. It was not a hit. Is this cultural appropriation?

Do we all see the same red? Or feel joy and sadness alike? Mapping how our inner experiences relate to one another could finally reveal how physical processes in the brain give rise to consciousness

We can now use the gravitational waves of black holes to test general relativity and look for evidence of alternative theories of gravity.

Sam Harris is widely demonized by the know-nothings, and I’m not quite sure why. Yes, he discussed the possibility of torture in certain circumstance, but this was a philosophical rumination which is perfectly justifiable if you have a utilitarian or consequentialist view of ethics, and in fact a similar discussion appears in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. His view are speculative and nuanced, and he thinks the torture by the American government should remain illegal. Nevertheless, over and over again I’ve seen him damned for advocating willy-nilly torture, as if he were some kind of latter-day Josef-Mengele.  And that is what I’ve seen people emphasize, though Sam has also discussed the possibility of American preemptive nuclear strikes, the nature of Islam (he’s been deemed an “Islamophobe”), and for profiling groups of people for airline security. That has been more fodder for going after him, though people always neglect the nuance.

I myself have criticized his position on “objective morality,” but that would never make me dismiss Sam, as his writings are always measured and thoughtful—and largely philosophical. They promote thought, and that is, after all, the goal of philosophy. But I guess when an avowed atheist dips into philosophy, he’s almost automatically damned.  So be it; I will continue to read him.

Yesterday Sam posted his views about our war with Iran, and his overall take is summarized in the title of this post. You can read his discussion by clicking on the link below, or reading the the piece archived here.

I think the moral confusion about the war, which I see as the conflict between feeling it’s a just war and the despair at the rationalizations for the war by our administration and Trump’s repeated lies about what’s going on and what he intends to do—all of this is the cause for the increasing anomie many of us feel about our engagement, as well as for the widespread opposition to the war by Americans. As Sam says, “To think clearly about this war, we need to hold two sets of ideas in our minds at the same moment: the Iranian regime is evil, and the Trump administration is dangerously amoral, corrupt, and incompetent.”

I’ll give a few quotes from Sam (indented). Text that is flush left is mine, as are the bold headings:

Why it’s a morally just war

The Islamic Republic has tormented its own people for forty-seven years. It has hanged dissidents from cranes, crushed peaceful protests with live ammunition, tortured political prisoners, and funded jihadist proxies throughout the Middle East and beyond. When Salman Rushdie was nearly killed by a knife-wielding fanatic, after living for thirty-three years under the shadow of the Ayatollah’s imbecilic curse, this was a direct export from the theocracy in Tehran—which has grown increasingly unpopular with the Iranian people. The protests of 2025 and 2026 reminded the world, yet again, of the Iranian majority’s desperation to be free. The assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei on the first day of this war was greeted with celebrations in Tehran, Isfahan, and among the Iranian diaspora in Los Angeles and New York. Whatever else one thinks about the decision to strike Iran, it is obscene to pretend that there was no moral or pragmatic argument for doing so.

Note that a credible figure for civilians killed by the Iranian regime for protesting is 30,000+.  The regime apprehends political prisoners for protesting the war, including the families of protestors, and tries to assassinate critics of the regime even when they are overseas (e.g., Masih Alinejad).  There’s no doubt that the Iranian people, overall, want to acquire the freedoms they had before the Revolution. All this, and the determination of Iran to export terrorism throughout the Middle East, makes this a just war.

The lame criticism of this war. (Sam sees this as a failure to recognize moral evil (or recognizing it and ignoring it), as he did when he wrote about the Gaza War)

And yet, most critics of the war speak as though Iran was a peaceful nation attacked by foreign aggressors. Notions of “sovereignty” and “international law” are invoked as though the Islamic Republic were Sweden. Almost no prominent critic of this war has anything cogent to say about the decades of misery the mullahs have inflicted on their own citizens, the threat that Iran’s network of proxy militias poses to the entire region, or the inconceivability of establishing deterrence once a jihadist death cult acquires nuclear weapons. If your opposition to this war cannot acknowledge the evil we are facing, your opposition is not morally sane.

I’ll add to this something that Sam takes up later: some of the motivation for criticizing this war comes from the fact that we’re allies with Israel, seen as a settler-colonialist and evil apartheid regime,and of course a Jewish state.

The justified criticism of this war.

But there is a serious case to be made against this war. One might believe, along with Damon Linker, that the risk of Iran becoming a failed state—a larger, more dangerous version of post-invasion Iraq—far outweighs the benefits of toppling the regime today. One could point to the apparent absence of a credible plan for what comes next, or to the fact that three weeks of bombardment haven’t produced anything resembling the “unconditional surrender” that Trump once demanded. Iranian state media has reported that the conflict has already killed more than 1,500 people, including over 200 children. Whatever the actual numbers, there can be no doubt that the humanitarian toll is real and mounting. These are intelligible concerns, and they deserve to be taken seriously.

But this is not the argument that most opponents of this war are making. They are making a much lazier set of claims—and often treating any American use of force as inherently unjust. Most critics are simply ignoring the question of what the world should do about a jihadist regime that has spent decades aspiring to commit genocide, views any peace as a temporary interval in which to gain the upper hand, and happens to be on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons.

Admittedly, it is difficult to separate the ethics of destroying the Iranian regime, and seeking to liberate the Iranian people, from the staggering incompetence and callousness of the reality-television stars who are now sit atop our vast machinery of war and wield it for no clearly stated purpose.

Sam then recounts a lot of Trump’s lies (or confusions), including his back-and-forth on whether we’ve destroyed the regime and its nuclear program, whether or not he’ll demand “unconditional surrender”, his failure to include Congress in his deliberations, and his failure to prepare the American people for the conflict.  This leads to feelings of both anomie and impotence:

Congressional Democrats now face the agonizing reality that they cannot stop a war that is already underway—the question is whether they can impose constitutional oversight on an administration that started it without asking anyone’s permission.

How the war increased antisemitism

I think we all know that antisemitism is now a tenacious termite in Western democracies. Though not ubiquitous, we see it growing in America, in Canada, in Europe, and in Australia.  I’m not sure whether the conflict with Iran has actually increased it, or simply given antisemites an excuse to parade their views more openly. Sam blames Trump for his incompetence that has created an explanatory vacuum that’s fbeen filled with Jew-hating.

Finally, all of this bluster, confusion, dishonesty, and strategic incoherence has been a gift to the world’s antisemites. In the three weeks since the war began, antisemitic incidents worldwide have spiked by 34 percent. The resignation of Joe Kent, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center—who blamed “high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media” for encouraging the conflict—gave mainstream respectability to the conspiracy theory that most of our wars are fought at the behest of perfidious Jews. Far-right figures have seized on the joint U.S.-Israeli operation to push the narrative that American soldiers are dying for a foreign power. And the antiwar Left, rather than reject this framing, has amplified it. While the similarities between the far Right and the far Left may be overstated, for the Jews, “horseshoe theory” is now a daily reality.

And Trump’s chaotic messaging bears much of the blame. When a president cannot clearly articulate why his country has gone to war, he leaves a vacuum that conspiracy theories will fill. A competent leader would have made the case for this war on its merits—the destruction of a terroristic theocracy’s military infrastructure, the elimination of its nuclear program, the liberation of 88 million people from a regime that jails and tortures women for the crime of uncovering their hair. Instead, Trump has offered a jumble of contradictions: Iran’s military is destroyed, but we need more troops; the war is almost over, but we may yet put boots on the ground; Iran wants to talk, but there is no one to talk to. This moral and logical void has become a vessel for antisemitic paranoia on both the Right and the Left. Needless to say, it doesn’t help that Trump and his family have been accepting personal gifts and payments from the Gulf states—a plane from Qatar, secretive investments from the UAE—while American forces protect those same regimes. The man is simultaneously waging a war of choice and running what appears to be an extortion racket.

The resultant ambivalence.

I think the first paragraph below, which involves us believing things that seem at odds with each other, explains at least for my ambivalence about the war.  A nutjob is in charge, someone who continually contradicts himself and acts on impulse, and yet he’s in charge of a just war.

It is possible, even necessary, to believe all of the following at once: the Iranian regime is a monstrosity that should be destroyed; the Iranian people deserve to be free; the risk that this war will end in catastrophe is real, largely because of the character of those who are waging it; and the rising tide of antisemitism that this conflict has unleashed is yet another moral emergency that people on both sides of the debate have a responsibility to confront.

The tragedy of this moment is that the right war is being waged by the wrong people, for the wrong reasons. And the opponents of the war, rather than making this case, have mostly opted for blinkered pacifism and conspiracy theories, while refusing to grapple with the manifest evil of the Iranian regime. Of course, the Iranian people, caught between their own tyrants, a reckless American president, and his feckless critics, will pay the heaviest price.

Send ’em in if you got ’em.  The photo situation is dire.

But today we have whale photos by reader Ephriam Heller. His captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

The best whale watching I have experienced is observing gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) in the San Ignacio Lagoon on the Pacific coast of the Baja peninsula in Mexico. These whales are curious and “friendly,” often swimming up to boats to observe their occupants and even allowing themselves to be touched. Here is an example of an interaction between two species that each appear to exhibit curiosity and intelligence:

This is what a gray whale looks like (Image courtesy of International Whaling Commission):

They engage in numerous photogenic behaviors, such as rolling, riding the surf, waving their flippers and flukes in the air, and spyhopping to observe their surroundings.

The gray whale has longitudinal double blowholes. People claim that they form a heart shape, but think a heart with this shape needs immediate treatment:

When the sunlight hits their spray just right, one sees “rainblows”:

The gray whale has the most parasites of any whale, carrying up to 180 kg. At birth, babies have no barnacles or sea lice, but quickly acquire them from their mothers. The older the whale, the more barnacles and lice they collect. The whales rub along the seabed and piers to try to rid themselves of the parasites.

The whales carry one species of barnacle and four species of whale lice. The barnacles are Cryptolepas rhachianecti (whale barnacles) which are specific to gray whale hosts (i.e., they rarely occur on any other species), and they die when the whale dies.

There are four species of “whale lice,” which are not true lice (which are insects) but are amphipods in family Cyamidae: Cyamus scammony (the most common), Cyamus kessleri, and Cyamus eschrichtii are all found only on gray whales. Cyamus ceti is found on gray and bowhead whales. These cause minor irritation to healthy whales. Researchers view cyamid coverage and distribution (e.g., heavy clusters near blowhole, mouthline, genital slit) as indicators of stress, nutritional status, and chronic skin disease rather than as a primary cause of these problems.

There are two populations. The larger Eastern North Pacific population migrates along the continental coast between its breeding grounds in Baja, Mexico and its feeding grounds in Alaska. The small Western North Pacific population migrates along the Pacific coast of Asia. Gray whales hold the record for the longest migration of any mammal, with typical round-trip distances of about 20,000 km annually (although this isn’t close to the 70,000 km migration of the arctic tern).

Whales fall into two suborders: baleen (Mysticeti) and toothed (Odontoceti). Gray whales are in Mysticeti and use their baleen to feed on amphipods and plankton on the seafloor. During the six month summer feeding season, adults consume over 1 ton of food per day. They then fast for the remainder of the year, including the migration and winter birthing / breeding season. They exhibit “handedness,” in that most gray whales feed by scooping up sediments from the seafloor with the right side of their heads, resulting in their right sides having fewer adhering barnacles and sea lice.

They live up to ~70 years. Biggs transient killer whales (orcas) kill up to 35% of the calf population annually. Based on scarring, researchers speculate that almost every gray whale has been attacked by orcas. Most attacks occur as the young calves migrate north through Monterey Bay, California and Unimak Pass, Alaska.

The Eastern North Pacific population dropped to ~1,000 individuals around 1885 due to whaling, but has since recovered to ~27,000 in 2015-2016. The Western North Pacific population is tiny, comprising just a few hundred individuals. North Atlantic populations were extirpated (perhaps by whaling at the end of the medieval warm period) on the European coast in the 12th to 14th centuries, and on the American and African Atlantic coasts around the late 17th to early 18th centuries. Remains of gray whales from the time of the Roman empire have been found in the Mediterranean Sea, and they are still rarely seen there in modern times.

The gray whale has a dark slate-gray color and is covered by characteristic gray-white patterns, which are scars left by parasites that drop off in its cold feeding grounds. Individuals can be identified by their pigmentation patterns and their scars. I got this great photo of a whale’s tail; but it was just a fluke:

In case you are the kind of person who is interested in this sort of thing, this is what it looks like when whales mate:

Anyone with a younger brother will recognize this as the “head butt” greeting, a conserved behavior across all mammal species:

And this is the view when you saddle up a gray whale (I use a western saddle):

The eyes of gray whales are unlike the eyes of any other mammal I have seen, with what appear to be tangled filaments. My AI friend assures me that this is not the case and that they do not have any “extra” organs in their eyes: “The ‘tangled filaments’ you’re seeing are structures in the gray whale’s iris and surrounding tissues that become visible because the eye is small, very dark, and strongly three‑dimensional, so you are effectively looking across folded, ridged iris and ciliary tissues rather than through a flat, open pupil as in most mammals you see up close.”

Catching a comet in the process of falling apart is difficult, but a coincidence let astronomers see one in more detail than ever before using the Hubble Space Telescope – and revealed a mystery

Researchers have created the first living synthetic bacterium made from non-living parts by killing a bacterial cell and then transplanting the genome of another species into it, blurring the boundary between life and death

Researchers identified nearly 10,000 websites where API keys could be found, exposing details that could let attackers access sensitive information

A judge recently ruled that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went too far in his drive to turn ACIP into a an antivax committee. Meanwhile, ProPublica reports on where we are heading; it's not good.

The post RFK Jr. is definitely coming for your vaccines (part 9): ProPublica reports, and a bump in the road to remaking ACIP first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Scientists in Australia have demonstrated a prototype quantum battery that could revolutionize energy storage. By harnessing quantum effects, it can absorb energy in a rapid “super absorption” event, enabling much faster charging than conventional batteries. Even more surprisingly, the system becomes more efficient as it scales up. The research opens the door to ultra-fast, next-generation energy technologies.

A decades-old superconducting mystery just took a surprising turn. Strontium ruthenate, a material that conducts electricity with zero resistance at low temperatures, has long puzzled scientists with hints of an exotic, complex superconducting state. But by carefully twisting and distorting ultra-thin crystals, researchers found something unexpected: the material barely reacted at all. This challenges years of assumptions and suggests its behavior may be far simpler—or far stranger—than previously thought.

Scientists have created a new kind of time crystal using sound waves to levitate tiny beads in mid-air. These particles interact in a one-sided, unbalanced way, breaking the usual rules of motion and creating a steady, repeating rhythm. The system is surprisingly simple yet reveals complex physics with big implications. It could help advance quantum computing and deepen our understanding of biological timing systems.