Putting biology in perspective

This is some nice art illustrating the relative number of species in each clade in a particular environment. Insects, illustrated by a ginormous beetle, are the most diverse group, but spiders and other arthropods make a good showing, with that colorful mite on the left. Tetrapods are relatively insignificant — I suspect part of the reason for that is that we have exterminated so many of our fellow terrestrial vertebrates. Molluscs are surprisingly successful, but I’m not at all surprised at the size of those fungi.

I do not begrudge the insects their dominance, because after all, that’s spider food.

Our government has officially gone full TERF

Never go full TERF. Here’s another Trumpian declaration:

(a) “Sex” shall refer to an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female. Sex” is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of “gender identity
(b) *Women” or “woman” and *girls” or “girl” shall mean adult and juvenile human females, respectively
(c) “Men” or “man” and “boys” or “boy” shall mean adult and juvenile human males, respectively.
(d) ‘Female’ means a person belonging) at conception;to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.
(e) “Male” means a person belonging, at conception; to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.

I disagree, though. He’s not declaring all Americans female; he’s instead declaring that we’re all trans, because we changed from an undifferentiated state to whatever sex we’re assigned at birth. Unfortunately, his argument is built on a falsehood, because obviously sex is not immutable, it changes during fetal development, and we get another major shift at puberty (why do all the TERFs ignore puberty? It’s right there in our faces, everyone goes through it, and we definitely change at the cellular and gross morphological level). We can also trigger profound changes with hormones, and more subtly, brains can have properties of either, both, or no sex. You cannot reduce complex human identities to a single cell type produced by a single organ, although these regressive dimwits will try desperately.

Do I need to mention that you are not producing any reproductive cell, small or large, at conception?

Tearing stuff down is easier than building them up

Man, it sure is easy to walk into the office and shred all past agreements, burn down policies that have been in place for a generation, and not bother to replace them with anything. Trump is firing people left and right and sweeping away useful programs.

U.S. President Donald Trump ‘s administration moved Tuesday to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off.

The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs that could touch on everything from anti-bias training to funding for minority farmers and homeowners. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and insisted on restoring strictly “merit-based” hiring.

The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by U.S. president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients.

Sure, let’s tear down all the progress made since the 1960s. Dismantle the Great Society programs, since we’re now a small, mean, nasty society. Also, don’t you dare try to preserve them by renaming them.

Agencies must also cancel any DEI-related training and end any related contracts, and federal workers are being asked to report to Trump’s Office of Personnel Management if they suspect any DEI-related program has been renamed to obfuscate its purpose within 10 days or face “adverse consequences.”

I’m at a state university, so this doesn’t affect us yet, but I know people involved in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs at the University of Minnesota; I’ve taken DEI training on several occasions. They’re good people and it’s useful information. How can you have “merit-based” hiring if you don’t recognize the existence of policies and attitudes and social pressures that work against merit? I think that’s the problem — they don’t recognize the existence of bigotry and bias while they practice them to the maximum degree.

While they’re taking a wrecking ball to our institutions, here’s another one: the US is pulling out of the World Health Organization.

The World Health Organization regrets the announcement that the United States of America intends to withdraw from the Organization. WHO plays a crucial role in protecting the health and security of the world’s people, including Americans, by addressing the root causes of disease, building stronger health systems, and detecting, preventing and responding to health emergencies, including disease outbreaks, often in dangerous places where others cannot go. The United States was a founding member of WHO in 1948 and has participated in shaping and governing WHO’s work ever since, alongside 193 other Member States, including through its active participation in the World Health Assembly and Executive Board. For over seven decades, WHO and the USA have saved countless lives and protected Americans and all people from health threats. Together, we ended smallpox, and together we have brought polio to the brink of eradication. American institutions have contributed to and benefited from membership in WHO. With the participation of the United States and other Member States, WHO has over the past 7 years implemented the largest set of reforms in its history, to transform our accountability, cost- effectiveness, and impact in countries. This work continues. We hope the United States will reconsider and we look forward to engaging in constructive dialogue to maintain the partnership between the USA and WHO, for the benefit of the health and well- being of millions of people around the globe.

The Trump administration is listening to RFK jr, a notorious crank and quack. We’re slowly emerging from a pandemic (one could argue that it’s not at all over), one that first emerged in Asia, and here we are, tearing down connections to the rest of the world and blinding ourselves to diseases outside of our little country. It’s stupid and short-sighted.

What happens in four years (we hope)? Do we just go crawling back to these international societies, hat in hand, and beg to be let back in? These betrayals are going to permanently damage our relationship with the rest of the world; they know we can’t be trusted, so every international relationship is going to be organized with the understanding that the USA is an unreliable partner.

Busy day of making the younguns happy

Think about how you can make young people happy: give them a puppy. I can’t afford to hand out puppies, but today is the day the students will come into my lab and I hand out fruit flies. Swarms of Drosophila! and I’ll tell them they have to feed them and take care of them and love them for the next three months. It will be a joyful afternoon for the student body.

I also have to explain sex to them, which I’m sure is going to be a total surprise to this group of 19-20 year olds.

It’s going to be an enlightening day, especially when all the men in the class look at their own elbows and realize they must be trans because they lack sex combs.

I just got back from setting up the lab in preparation for this big day. It’s like an icebox in there! Temperature regulation must be very complex in this building, because I can go from my office to the hallway to my research lab to the student lab, and the temperature can vary by 5°C in each transition. The student labs are just plain frigid — I’m going to have to send an email announcement to everyone in my class that they need to dress warm, wear a sweater, maybe bring those heating flasks you use when deer hunting or ice fishing, because jesus, at least the flies won’t try to escape their incubator.

Either it was a Nazi salute, or he is very very stupid

I like James O’Brien’s take on the recent contretemps.

I would also argue that if you’re claiming it was not a Nazi salute, then you are either a Nazi-sympathizer or so stupid you don’t recognize the significance of what you’ve done.

One interesting thing about it all, though, is that Musk has managed to steal all the attention from Trump. That’s the greatest sin anyone can commit.

That wasn’t an accidental Hitlergruß

A scene from the inauguration:


Some elections are important, some are not. But this one, this one really mattered and I just want to say thank you for making it happen…

then a bold unmistakeable Nazi salute.

Don’t try to tell me that was a slip of the entire goddamn right arm. That was a massive call out to the American fascist community. He knew what he was doing.

I have got to turn off the news now

I have learned that the Asshole-in-chief has lined up a series of executive orders — he loves EOs, they allow him to bypass the pretense of democracy — to militarize the border. There will be more coming, no doubt to begin rounding up and throwing into cages anyone with brown skin and an accent.

Donald Trump will sign 11 border-related executive orders, including one authorizing the deployment of US troops to the border, Fox News reports.

The outlet reports that in one order, Trump will immediately direct the federal government to resume construction of the border wall, end Biden-era parole policies including the CBP One app, and bring back the so-called Remain in Mexico policy, under which asylum seekers were forced to wait in dangerous border cities while their applications were processed.

Another second order will order American troops to be deployed to the border under US Northern Command and “instruct the military to prioritize our own borders and territorial integrity in strategic planning for its operations,” according to Fox.

A third order will designate international cartels and organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) and Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT), which will allow for targeted action against members, including financial penalties.

The main thing he’s about, though, is grifting. They announced a new memecoin, named after Melania, to steal more money from American citizens. Jesus. It’s just a naked cash grab out there.

OK, I’m going to get my shoes on and dress up in many warm layers — it’s really, really cold out there — and shuffle over to the lab and spend the morning with my spiders, who have been refusing to lay any eggs for me. Even the spiders are refusing to bring more children into this awful damned world.

Oh, wait. There’s more.

Direct the military to prioritize the US border and territorial integrity

End the “catch and release” policy

Move to end birthright citizenship

End asylum and close the border to immigrants entering illegally

Reinstate “remain in Mexico” policy and building the border wall

10 executive orders on the border to be issued on Monday

Sign an executive order declaring a national energy emergency

Sign a memorandum on inflation which envisions an ‘all of government response’ to inflation

Sign an executive order saying that US policy will recognize two sexes: male and female

Will ensure official government documents, such as passports and visas, reflect sex accurately

Establish Department of Government Efficiency (Doge)

Restore death penalty in public safety

Has no specific target for the oil price

Sign an executive order ending federal government DEI programs

Will suspend refugee resettlement for at least four months

Will put an end to the electric vehicle mandate

Designate criminal cartels as global terrorists

Close the border, end DEI, the death penalty, ignore climate change, and declare by government fiat that there are only two sexes.

OK, now I’m closing my browser and getting the hell out of the house.

It’s inauguration day

We are so totally screwed.

If you’re curious to know what the future holds for us, here’s a demonstration by Candace Owens.

She babbles about how the moon landing and dinosaurs were all conspiracies by satanists to destroy our faith in a god, based entirely on disconnected factoids floating like rotten little raisins in the pudding of her brain. I fear that this kind of thing is what the world sees when they look at Americans.

Have any of you foreigners popping in here got any good American jokes? We’ll probably affirm them all for you.

An homage

I opened up You’re All Just Jealous of my Jetpack this morning, and this cartoon leapt out at me.

I felt so smart, like a classically trained art historian, because I knew instantly that this was a reference to a famous cartoon from Gary Larson’s The Far Side. I even remember seeing it in the newspaper back in the 1980s, and puzzling over its profundities.

It’s become the painting of a pipe for our age.