Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
This is a question I’ve entertained for a long time, probably because I’m preoccupied with death. But I was curious about what would happen if astronauts, like the ones going around the Moon now, found themselves stranded in space with no way to get home, facing death from oxygen depletion or starvation. Or what would happen if the astronauts who were on the Moon years couldn’t start up the Lunar Module to get back to the Command Module and then back to Earth? Would they have been carrying something that would allow them to commit suicide quickly, avoiding a prolonged death?
I asked Jim Batterson, our resident NASA expert, and he didn’t know the answer. I then turned to the AI bot Grok, which I got for free when X (“Twitter”)—for reasons unknown—gave me a free blue checkmark.
My question to Grok is in bold below, and the short answer (indented) is that no, American astronauts don’t carry anything to do themselves in, though one Russian astronaut did. Grok went though the data in 11 seconds, and spat out the following. Note that there are references (the bot gives you the links, which I haven’t included) to check the statements.
Do the astronauts carry cyanide capsules or anything they can use to commit suicide if they are stuck in space?
Thought for 11s
No, astronauts do not carry cyanide capsules or any dedicated suicide pills as standard equipment.
iflscience.com
NASA has never issued suicide pills (sometimes called “L-pills” or cyanide capsules) to its astronauts, including during the Apollo lunar missions or on current ISS and Artemis programs. Astronaut Jim Lovell (Apollo 13 commander) explicitly debunked this long-standing rumor: “Since Apollo 13 many people have asked me, ‘Did you have suicide pills on board?’ We didn’t, and I never heard of such a thing in the eleven years I spent as an astronaut and NASA executive.”
iflscience.com
The idea appears to stem from spy-movie tropes, urban legends, or sci-fi (e.g., the film Contact), but it has been consistently denied by NASA and astronauts. Multiple sources, including direct statements from astronauts, confirm that no such pills have ever been part of U.S. spaceflight medical kits.
quora.com
Why the rumor persists, and why pills aren’t needed anywayIn a worst-case scenario of being stranded in space with no rescue possible (e.g., a failed re-entry or detached during a spacewalk), astronauts have pointed out that the vacuum of space itself provides a relatively quick way to end life if someone chose to—by simply opening a suit valve or venting the spacecraft’s atmosphere. This would cause unconsciousness in seconds and death shortly after, making a pill unnecessary.
theguardian.com
NASA’s focus is on prevention and survival: rigorous psychological screening, crew training, rescue protocols (e.g., multiple docked return vehicles on the ISS), and detailed medical kits. Those kits contain painkillers, anti-nausea drugs, antibiotics, etc., but nothing lethal like cyanide.
nasa.gov
If an astronaut were to experience a mental health crisis in space (e.g., becoming suicidal or psychotic), NASA has written procedures: crewmates are instructed to restrain the person with duct tape and bungee cords, monitor them, and administer sedatives like Haldol or Valium (orally or by injection if needed). The goal is stabilization, not euthanasia.
cbsnews.com
One historical exception (Soviet side) The only verified case involves Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov (the first person to spacewalk, in 1965 on Voskhod 2). He stated that he was issued a suicide pill for that specific high-risk mission—in case he couldn’t re-enter the spacecraft and his crewmate had to leave him behind in orbit. His suit ballooned during the walk, and he barely made it back inside after partially depressurizing it. This was not standard practice for the Soviet program overall, and no evidence exists of it being routine for cosmonauts then or now.
iflscience.com
In short, modern astronauts (NASA, ESA, Roscosmos, etc.) rely on engineering, training, and international rescue plans rather than personal suicide options. No agency equips crews with cyanide or equivalent for “stuck in space” scenarios.
The ten-day around-the-Moon mision launches at 6:26 pm Eastern US time, about 26 minutes from when this is posted. Actually, that is the start of a 2-hour launch window. Stay tuned!
Welcome to a Hump Day (“Haftanın Ortası” in Turkish): Wednesday, April 1. Don’t worry, I’m not going to fool you even though it’s April Fools’ Day. Instead, I’ll show below the lovely April page from the fifteenth-century Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, showing elegant people at The Château de Dourdan. A University of Chicago site describing the depictions says this about the page:
The arrival of spring, hope and new life – the grass is green and a newly betrothed couple are exchanging rings in the foreground, accompanied by friends and family. The chateau is another one of the Duc’s, that of Dourdan.
Here’s a short video of my favorite jazz trombonist, Jack Teagarden, playing “Basin Street Blues” with his band:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 1 Wikipedia page.
And there’s a Google Doodle today marking the expected launch of the Artemis 2 crewed moon-circling voyage, expected to launch at about 6:24 Eastern US time today. The mission has a two-hour luanch window with backup windows through April 6. The mission will last ten days. Click below to see where the Doodle takes you:
A notice: AT 85, Richard Dawkins refuses to slow down. He’s traveling to both New Zealand and Australia in November, and his schedule is below. Click on the screenshot to go to the page where you can buy tickets:
It’s Tuesday, March 31, and the thirty-second day of Operation Roaring Lion. The global price of oil has reached $113, up less than one percent since yesterday. Here are the latest developments while you were asleep:
Last night, Donald Trump shared a clip of a massive strike on Isfahan on social media. According to Ynet’s Ron Ben-Yishai, what initially appeared to be a strike on ballistic missiles may have in fact been the burial of enriched uranium deep underground in a way that will prevent the Iranians from accessing it. The U.S., it seems, has given up on prolonged ground action that would also entail many casualties.
According to the AP Lebanon has requested that Ukraine’s embassy in Beirut hand over a Syrian-Palestinian man with Ukrainian citizenship suspected of working for the Mossad. The man was originally detained by Hezbollah in September after allegedly parking a motorbike rigged with an explosive device near Beirut airport. He escaped to the Ukrainian embassy on March 6 after an Israeli airstrike on an adjacent building gave him an avenue of escape.
Four soldiers from the Nahal Reconnaissance Unit were killed yesterday evening after their force engaged terrorist cells in close-range combat in southern Lebanon. Capt. Noam Madmoni, 22, from Sderot, was the team commander. Sgt. Maj. Ben Cohen, 21, was from Lehavim; Sgt. Maj. Maksim Antis, 21, was from Bat Yam; and Staff Sgt. Gilad Harel, 21, was from Modi’in-Maccabim-Re’ut all fell in the engagement. IDF fatalities rise to 11.
Internal Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s law supposedly mandating the death penalty for terrorists convicted of deadly attacks passed the Knesset 62–48 last night. In reality, the law achieves little and is more a political stunt than a meaningful step toward the implementation of capital punishment.
Now, on to the details.
“If you had a time machine,” I ask the senior Israeli minister, “and you knew a month ago that this is what would happen, would you still vote in favor of war?”
“First of all, yes,” he replies. “You have to understand, this was a cold and calculated gamble. The Iranians were planning to move their entire nuclear and missile industry underground, in a way that would have made it nearly impenetrable. In any case, we would have attacked this year—but with the Americans by our side, there was no dilemma.”
“The main achievements of the war are the severe damage to ballistic missiles and their production. This time, after hitting the entire production chain, it will be much harder for them to recover.”
“It’s also worth remembering,” the official added, “that for years, the nightmare scenario in Israel was a multi-front war with hundreds of casualties on the home front. Last year, in ‘Rising Lion,’ in 12 days of war against Iran alone, there were 30 fatalities. Now, in a war with three times as many fronts and three times as many enemies, there are 20. What is that if not proof that ‘Rising Lion’ was not in vain—and neither was ‘Roaring Lion’?”
. . .According to IDF intelligence, the regime’s political leadership now believes there is no way to repair the war damage; Iran simply lacks sufficient funds.
It reportedly has broken the spirit of many in the regime. The assessment is that, given a prolonged economic recovery after the war that will inevitably consume the vast majority of state budgets, massive protests will erupt.
It appears that Trump is reading the same intelligence, which may explain why the threats in his ultimatums have shifted from military targets to the gray area of civilian/military infrastructure, specifically Iran’s energy and oil facilities.
Still, as the minister told me regarding regime change at the outset of the war, “there were more optimistic and less optimistic assessments, but no one could guarantee that while bombs were falling on Tehran, the masses would take to the streets. There is no doubt that the war has brought the regime closer to its end—but I cannot tell you whether that will happen before Trump finishes his term, or before Netanyahu finishes his.”
I suspect we all want a regime change in favor of more democracy, but it’s certain that we differ in whether we think that will ever happen. I don’t think the people will take to the streets so long as the government threatens to kill them if they do, and that is still an active threat.
*Given that the negotiating positions of Iran and the U.S. are far apart, and apparently widening, the Free Press prepares us for what’s to come in a piece called, “The Battle of Hormuz Approaches.”
. . .And should it refuse to agree to terms acceptable to Trump, the president could conceivably attempt to declare victory while leaving Iran with de facto control of the Strait of Hormuz and in possession of its “nuclear dust,” as he likes to put it. But after all his past rhetoric about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the idea of allowing Iran to retain a nuclear stockpile will be a hard sell—and leaving Tehran in effective control of the Strait is simply not strategically feasible. After all this, the Iranians would retain the ability to torture the global economy with mischievous glee.
Enter the Marines—and elements of the 82nd Airborne Division plus, reportedly, Army Rangers and Navy SEALs. The exact numbers of elite American ground troops being sent to the region are only beginning to come into focus, and we could see a head count in the five figures in the days to come. This is not enough troops to “invade Iran” in the sense that we invaded Iraq in 2003. It is not even enough to seize and hold terrain on the Iranian mainland for more than a limited period of time, even given conditions of near–air dominance.
But islands are a different story. The principal goal of a battle to control the Strait of Hormuz and its flanking seas will be to flip the current economic situation, where the world’s commercial traffic is restricted while Iran’s flows with few obstacles. Iran should have to fight for its economic life, while the world gets to use the Strait for free commerce.
It would be preferable, for political reasons, to accomplish such a task through air and sea power alone. It is possible that military planners have no intention of putting these troops in combat in the Gulf, and the deployments to the region are simply to provide options for emergency scenarios, or are in service of a potential raid targeting nuclear sites on the Iranian mainland. But military planners may have concluded that the Iranians must be denied the use of terrain that they have been using to control maritime traffic in the Strait, and that they need boots on the ground to accomplish that. Larak Island, a piece of rock and sand that in recent weeks has gained the nickname of the “Tehran toll booth” due to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) reported use of it to manage the Strait, is an obvious potential target. Nearby Qeshm Island is also strategically relevant to the movement of traffic, but quite large, and putting troops there would run greater risks than seizing smaller islands like Larak. And there are numerous other small pieces of land relevant to questions of sea control: Abu Musa, Lesser Tunb, and Greater Tunb to the west, and Hormuz Island itself at the top of the Strait.
There’s also Kharg Island, but destroying or attacking that could have substantial effects on world oil prices, as Kharg is the principal exit point of Iranian oil. More:
. . .Such ground deployments, should they occur, would supplement a broader naval and air campaign to reassert control of the waters stretching from Kuwait to the Arabian Sea—a major undertaking for any navy. And while the risks to American forces doing limited ground operations on islands would be less than those for operations on the Iranian mainland, there would still be very significant risks.
It is not clear that our military has yet learned the lessons of warfare being taught in Ukraine since 2022. That we are slow students is most apparent in our unpreparedness for defending economically against cheap Iranian drones, with which we can be sure any troops fighting in the Gulf will be targeted. (This, despite the fact that the drones being used by Russians in Ukraine originated in Iran.) The failure to be attentive students, tied to an ideologically driven dismissiveness of the cause of Ukraine and an arrogant belief that we will just fight differently (and better) than the Ukrainians—an oft-encountered view in the Pentagon—may not look so defensible in hindsight.
The advantages of a successful Battle of Hormuz would be the restoration of regular shipping through the Strait and some calming of markets, plus the reduction of Iranian revenue to the point where it is hard to see how the regime could survive in the middle to long run. The best-case outcome is an Iran so weakened that it can no longer cause America and its allies strategic dilemmas as we (finally? maybe?) shift our focus to China.
. . .The disadvantages of even a successful fight are that it could be costly, could produce casualties, and could have a protracted tail—the escort operation to keep the Strait of Hormuz open in the 1980s lasted over a year. And there remains the question of what to do about Iran’s nuclear stockpiles, buried deeply in the interior of the country, the military options for which are even riskier than anything involved in operating along Iran’s coast.
You can see why President Trump would prefer a deal.
To me, a deal that leaves the present Iranian regime (or even part of it) in power is not a successful outcome to the war. And I suspect Trump knows that. But what do I know: I’m just a humble country biologist, not a political pundit.
The United States is in direct talks with Iranian leaders over terms for ending the war, including exchanges with parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Ghalibaf, President Donald Trump said Monday.
Asked if Ghalibaf was someone the U.S. could work with, Trump said in an interview with the New York Post, “We’re gonna find out … in about a week.”
In a flurry of claims over the past two days, Trump also said that Tehran has agreed to many of the 15 demands he transmitted last week through Pakistani mediators.
. . .Iran denied virtually all of Trump’s assertions. There have been no “direct” talks, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said Monday in Tehran, only messages sent through intermediaries. He described U.S. demands, which include an end to Iran’s uranium enrichment program, the surrender of more than 900 pounds of highly enriched material and strict limits on ballistic missiles, as “very excessive, unrealistic and irrational.”
In a social media post, Ghalibaf, who has previously denied reports that he was speaking to the U.S., derided the president’s claims as “so-called ‘news’ or ‘Truth’” and “just a setup” to lower the rising cost of oil.
Amid widely disparate accounts of who is talking to whom about what, both sides have begun targeting each other’s energy facilities in a significant escalation of the conflict. Iranian strikes hit Israel’s largest oil refinery in Haifa early Monday, while Iran acknowledged Sunday night attacks on its electricity grid that temporarily disrupted power in Tehran and nearby areas.
As Trump continued to weave between threats to extend the war and reassurances that it was close to ending, he said in a Monday morning post on his Truth Social platform that “great progress” had been achieved in “serious discussions” with a new, “more reasonable”collection of leaders in Iran.
But if a deal was not reached “shortly” and the Strait of Hormuz was not opened, he threatened, “we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched.’” Kharg Island, off the Iranian coast in the Persian Gulf, is Iran’s main oil shipping terminal.
Trump’s view that there is a pressure point at which Iran will capitulate is not universally shared.
Intelligence analysts have assessed that Iran’s view is that it has the upper hand in the conflict and therefore is not likely to respond to U.S. threats of force, said two people familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive information. The president has been briefed on that assessment, one of the people said.
As I said, I’m no pundit, but I think the war will go on so long as Iran has the enriched uranium, controls the Strait of Hormuz, and murderous theocrats are in power. He may ignore the last one, but he’s made very strong statements about the first two, and he’d look bad if he ended the war before they were resolved. I say this on the basis of Trump carrying not about what’s right, but about his own reputation.
The United States Coast Guard is allowing a Russian tanker full of crude oil to reach Cuba, delivering a critical supply of energy to the island nation after months of an effective oil blockade by the Trump administration, according to a U.S. official briefed on the matter.
The tanker, which is carrying an estimated 730,000 barrels of oil and is owned by the Russian government, was within several miles of Cuban territorial waters on Sunday evening, according to MarineTraffic, a ship-data provider. At its speed of 12 knots, it could reach its expected destination of Matanzas, Cuba, by Monday night.
The Russian ship’s arrival would shift the trajectory of a rapidly accelerating crisis in Cuba, buying the island nation at least a few weeks before its fuel reserves run out, analysts said.
It would also reduce pressure on a Cuban government facing a looming economic collapse and escalating threats from Washington, and show that, at least for now, the island can still depend on its longtime ally Russia.
The Trump administration had been enforcing what amounted to an oil blockade around Cuba since January, threatening nations that had been sending fuel to the country and, in one case, escorting a tanker heading toward Cuba away from the island.
The Coast Guard has two cutters in the region that could have attempted to intercept the Russian tanker. Yet the Trump administration did not order those vessels to act, according to a U.S. official briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operations. Barring orders instructing it otherwise, the Coast Guard planned to let the tanker reach Cuba as of Sunday afternoon, the official said.
Cuba is in big trouble, and one tanker is not going to solve it. The country needs a continuous infusion of oil, and almost certainly will have to capitulate to Trump, even becoming a democracy, without that infusion. I hope that is the case, for Cuba is full of good people under a bad regime. But one has to ask what right Trump has to keep trying to effect regime change in country after country (he failed in Venezuela). Cuba would be transformed if it were a democracy, but of course it would be transformed into a Caribbean vacation paradise, with all the charm it has ruined by tourism. But the people should be able to decide themselves what happens to their country.
A federal judge ordered a halt to construction of President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom, ruling that Trump lacks authority to fund the estimated $400 million project through private donations.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon disagreed with the Trump administration’s argument that the president has broad authority to make changes to the White House without congressional approval, including projects on the scale of his planned, 90,000-square-foot ballroom.
“The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!” Leon wrote in a 35-page ruling issued Tuesday afternoon.
“No statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have,” he wrote.
Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush, also wrote that Trump has not identified a law that allowed him to demolish the White House’s East Wing last year without congressional approval.
He stayed his order for two weeks and ruled crews could continue construction necessary to ensure the safety and security of the White House.
Within hours, the Trump administration notified the court it would appeal Leon’s decision, which the White House called “egregious.”
“President Trump clearly has the legal authority to modernize, renovate, and beautify the White House – just like all of his predecessors did,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement, adding: “We … are confident we will prevail.”
And, according to the news last night, Trump isn’t just going to clean up the site until Congress weighs in: he’s going to keep the construction going:
Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump told reporters that Leon was “so wrong” for ruling that the ballroom needed congressional approval. He suggested that many parts of the project would move forward, such as the ballroom’s bulletproof glass and anti-drone installations on the roof, citing Leon’s decision that the White House could proceed on efforts to ensure safety and security.
“I’m allowed to continue building as necessary,” Trump said. He also attacked the group that brought the lawsuit, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, on social media.
So who’s going to stop him now? The Supreme Court? According to his demented interpretation of the law, he could destroy and rebuild the entire White House (no doubt putting “TRUMP” in big letters over the door) if he so wished.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has criticisms of the EU:
Hili: The State of Palestine nominated the European Union for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Andrzej: For what?
Hili: Formally for the obligation to attach caps to cartons of milk and other beverages, contributing to the preservation of the Earth and peace worldwide.
In Polish:
Hili: Państwo Palestyna wysunęło kandydaturę Unii Europejskiej do Pokojowej Nagrody Nobla.
Ja: Za co?
Hili: Fromalnie za ustawę o obowiązkowym przymocowaniu zakrętek do kartonów z mlekiem i innymi napojami, co przyczynia się do ratowania Ziemi i pokoju na całym świecie.
And from Norm. Clearly the Jews are the ones responsible for making gas prices go up! This was reportedly seen in Ohio, and appears to be real. Look at that schnoz!
Masih shows five more Iranian protestors set for execution:
The regime’s execution machine has sped up and is rapidly executing innocent prisoners.
With every additional day the terrorist regime stays in power, more people are executed and tortured.
In recent days, many people have been executed.
Luana contributes one highlight from the recent convention in Winnipeg of Canada’s New Democratic Party (NDP). I’ve watched some of the convention, mostly with my jaw hanging open. To read more about how a party for workers has been taken over by wokers, see the Quillette article, “The tragicomic death throes of Canada’s (former) workers’ party” (article archived here).
Currently in Taiwan, my favourite country on earth, thinking about how 16 years ago I made the decision to leave here and immigrate to a nation balanced on a precipice, about to plunge into total clown land and make itself an international laughing stock. pic.twitter.com/fk8TRlk5dD
From Emma; “NGL” means “not gonna lie”. And you probably heard about the theft of 12 tons of KitKat bars somewhere between Italy and Poland. (What are the thieves going to do with them?)
Translation:
“I started something I can’t finish and broke something I can’t fix so I’m going to walk away and pretend it’s your fault” pic.twitter.com/mdd0aXwNCC
One from my feed. I love quokkas (a marsupial), though I’ve never seen one:
Translation:
“I started something I can’t finish and broke something I can’t fix so I’m going to walk away and pretend it’s your fault” pic.twitter.com/mdd0aXwNCC
A pair of Dutch twin girls, Jewish of course, were gassed to death as soon as they arrived in Auschwitz. They were fourteen years old. https://t.co/yNSCMZfTuG
Two tweets from Dr. Cobb, still on hols. First, a book he recommended that I read (I don’t think he read it, but we’re both interested in the Amelia Earhart story:
What happened to Amelia Earhart? New book takes on the case.. Rachel Hartigan on her eminently readable new book, "Lost: Amelia Earhart’s Three Mysterious Deaths and One Extraordinary Life." arstechnica.com/science/2026…
As usual, I watched the NBC Evening News last night, even though some of its reporting has seemed slanted against Israel. Since I wrote about the Guardian article yesterday, though, I’ve become more sensitized to how the media uses language to express political opinions—even in supposedly objective news reports.
Here’s a video showing all the NBC Evening News from last night, but you don’t have to watch it all unless you want to see bodycam video of a clearly inebriated Justin Timberlake being arrested for DUI (17:05). The part that made me prick up my ears is at 4:07, when the news shows cute little Lebanese Muslim kids getting presents at the end of Ramadan. But they are not in their homes. The narration says this (bolding is mine):
While across the Muslim world, the end of Ramadan means presents for children. These kids are among the one million people displaced in Lebanon by Israel’s expanding offensive against Hezbollah.
The rest of the short segment seems designed to evoke the viewers’ sympathy for Lebanese people—especially the kids—displaced by the wicked Jewish state. And indeed, it’s sad that people have to flee their homes. HOWEVER, the report neglects to mention that there had been a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah that largely held until March 2 of this year. Then, on March 2, three days after the U.S. and Israel struck Iran, Hezbollah in fired a barrage of missiles and drones from Lebanon at northern Israel, explicitly saying that this was in response to the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and what Hezbollah called were “repeated Israeli aggressions” (there were minor attacks by both sides during the ceasefire, with UNIFIL and the Lebanese government failing to rein in Hezbollah, as they are supposed to. Israel responded big time, but to construe that as an “expanding offensive” minimizes the defensive nature of Israel’s attacks, designed to stop Hezbollah’s rockets and drones for once and for all.
Again, it’s a small remark, but a telling one. “Expanding offensive” implies that Israel started the attacks in Lebanon going on now. It didn’t, just as Israel didn’t start the war with Hamas on October 7.
But at the end you might want to see the inevitable “there’s-good-news-tonight” segment (several nice pieces starting at 18:05, with an especially moving bit at 19:54 as a woman is assigned to take the final call from an Air Force officer as he leaves the military—an officer who happens to be her dad). As the world is falling apart, nearly all the major television news stations like to leave viewers with a good taste in their mouths.
Abby Thompson, a UC Davis mathematician, is back with more photos (and a video!) from the intertidal of northern California. Abby’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them.
Jellyfish!
I thought I’d throw some jellyfish into the lull between the great winter tides and the great summer ones.
The reproductive cycles of the tidepool creatures are wildly varied, with behaviors ranging from maternal (see Epiactisprolifera from my last post), chancy (see mussels), through incessant (see nudibranchs). But for sheer baroque complication, I vote for the jellyfish. Many who stroll on a beach will see the quivering gelatinous masses of jellyfish stranded by the tide, and the less fortunate will have encountered their stinging tentacles while in the water. This describes, a little, how they get there.
There are several jellyfish species common on the Northern California beaches; here are some of them:
The Chrysaoras and Aurelia labiata are in the class Scyphozoa; the rest are in the class Hydrozoa.
For all of these, males and females get together in the same vicinity, and release eggs and sperm (see “chancy” above), which form little “planulae”. Then things get complicated. Because (usually) the planulae settle down and attach themselves to something, and become polyps. Like these tiny things:
But how do they get from here (e.g. something like Sarsia) to there (e.g. something like Polyorchis haplus)? Well they don’t, always, and sometimes they don’t get from there to here, either, but here’s an illustration of the process when it goes through a “typical” complete cycle:
And in fact if you look closely at that photo of H. bodegensis, you can see a little medusa just budding off, circled in the photo below:
Here’s a video of a set of newly-formed “baby jellyfish” (they look excited) which swam into my microscope view. I didn’t know what I was seeing, so don’t have a photo of the polyp from which they likely emerged. This means I have no idea of the genus (or even the class- if these are Scyphozoa then these are really ephyrae which will turn into medusae).
There seem to be many species for which the complete reproductive process is not documented – for example, if you search for the polyp stage of Polyorchishaplus, the answer is that we don’t know what it is, nor where it can be found.
A final oddity of this elaborate reproductive process is the existence of the so-called “immortal” jellyfish. (not found in the cold waters of Northern California). If damaged at the medusa phase, this one can revert to its earlier (genetically identical) polyp phase- and so on ad infinitum, apparently. As though, when things go wrong in your life, you could go back to your childhood and try again.
I’m grateful for help with IDs from experts on inaturalist and elsewhere. All mistakes are mine.
I’m not sure who Frederick Alexander is, but he’s written an intriguing article at The Gadfly (click below to read for free)
Alexander lists five types of “progressives”, and although their characteristics are distinct, he avers that their natures interlock to reinforce “progressivism”, which he sees, as most of us do, as performative wokeness that serves as a form of virtue signaling. And yes, two of the subspecies really believe the ideology. I’ll give the five types (indented), but it’s fun to try to think of examples of each one. I have omitted some of the descriptions in the interest of space.
The True Believers are the rarest and most dangerous type. Usually found in university admin or HR, they genuinely think that questioning any aspect of progressive orthodoxy constitutes harm. The moment they make eye contact with reality, their pupils dilate, and they assume a glazed, faraway look like someone’s talking to them through an earpiece only they can hear.
It’s the Tavistock clinician who dismissed parents’ concerns about rushing children into transition as “transphobia”. It’s the university administrator who considers “women” a radioactive word and the niqab an expression of female empowerment. It’s the civil servant who enforces unisex toilets because questions of “dignity” matter more than safeguarding.
The Careerists know it’s all nonsense but have mortgages. They privately roll their eyes at the latest pronoun updates but champion them in the board meeting with the enthusiasm of a North Korean newsreader.
Examples include the BBC editor who knows “pregnant people” is absurd but issues the apology on behalf of the female presenter who corrected the autocue to “women”. It’s the museum curator who rewrites exhibition labels to acknowledge “problematic legacies” to satisfy the demands of the True Believer, who controls the money.
The Cowards are everywhere. They know exactly what’s happening, hate it, but will never say so out loud. They’re the sort who’ll text you “100% agree!” after you’ve been fired but somehow missed every opportunity to back you up before the True Believer called you in about your unconscious bias.
When Kathleen Stock was hounded out of Sussex University, the Coward thought it was outrageous right up to the moment they realised they could be next. Then they recalibrated the events in their mind and took a different view.
. . .The Opportunists don’t care either way but have spotted the angles. Young, ambitious, and morally vacant, they add a dozen causes to their personal website and say things like “centring marginalised voices” without meaning a word of it.
The Opportunist will launch a DEI consultancy today and charge an HR True Believer ten grand tomorrow to tell a roomful of Careerists they’re racists. Or they’ll be the author who went from wellness influencer to decolonisation expert in 18 months and set up a podcast in between. It’s the academic who discovered that adding “queer theory” to their research proposal tripled their funding chances.
. . .The Fanatics think they’re True Believers except they dial it up to eleven. Pronouns and watermelon emojis in the bio, sure. But they also believe in decolonising logic and think the world is going to end tomorrow if we don’t do what they tell us. Every cause connects to every other cause, and all causes connect back to the same enemy.
It’s the student activist who screams at a Jewish classmate for three hours about Zionism, then files a complaint claiming she felt unsafe. It’s the protester who glues himself to a motorway, causes an ambulance delay, then calls the criticism “ableist”. The Fanatic cannot maintain eye contact except when talking about Palestine, at which point his eyes fix unblinkingly on yours, daring you to push back on his claims of genocide.
I could name a specimen of each of these, but will refrain on the grounds that you wouldn’t know most of them. Fanatics, though, include Robin DiAngelo, and True Believers the many biologists who assert that sex is a spectrum. (Some of the latter could be “careerists” as well, knowing that they can sell books and write articles, advancing themselves, by supporting nonsense.
Then, in an analysis that I like a lot, Alexander explains why these types are self-reinforcing, advancing “progressivism” as a whole (I hate calling it that; how about “wokeness”?):
Identifying these types isn’t an exact science, and they overlap to various degrees. The crucial thing to understand is that they need each other.
True Believers provide the moral authority, write the policies, and enforce the rules with genuine conviction. They absorb the ideology and give it form. Without them, it would all feel like a game of pretend (which it is).
Careerists provide the manpower. They actually implement the nonsense without stopping to think much about what any of it means.
Cowards provide the silence and the illusion of consensus, allowing the system to expand unopposed.
The Opportunists provide the raw energy, finding new ways to monetise moral exhibitionism because they see progressive orthodoxy as a business opportunity. Celebrity activists – indeed the whole entertainment industry – fall into this category.
Fanatics provide the threat. They’re the enforcers who make the Careerists think twice about cracking a joke since every joke has a victim. The Coward looks at them and thinks at least I’m not that person in an effort to assuage the sense of disgust at their own lack of integrity.
The system rewards all of them. True Believers get authority. Careerists get promotions. Cowards keep their heads down and Opportunists get book deals. Fanatics get the attention they crave, which is why we’re forever seeing clips of them in our social feeds waving Palestinian flags or throwing soup at Van Gogh.
What they all get – every single one – is protection from consequences.
Why? Because progressive orthodoxy is sustained by particular incentives. It’s got nothing to do with the strength of the ideas, most of which are obviously terrible when examined under daylight. It’s about the incentives that come with compliance and the costs that come with dissent.
In the end, Alexander still thinks the ideology is doomed to disappear:
The good news is that every protection racket collapses eventually – and progressivism will be no exception. The lawsuits will become too expensive, the backlash too loud to ignore. Those politicians who told us that men can be women will explain with a frown that these were “challenging times” rather than a gruesome display of moral cowardice. Pronouns in bios will become so mortifyingly embarrassing that those who had them will pretend, even to themselves, that they never dreamt of anything so silly.
Well, I’m not so sure he’s right here, but one can hope. The Democratic Party has been influenced too long by “progressivism,” and that shows no signs of disappearing. Indeed, it’s growing, to the point where Nate Silver lists Gavin Newsom and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as the two top Democratic candidates for President. (Remember, though, that it’s early days.) AOC is clearly a progressive, a combination of Fanatic and Careerist, while Gavin Newsom used to be progressive but, starting to realize he can’t win the Presidency that way, has been moving towards the center. He’s clearly a combination of Careerist and Opportunist.
In the meantime, have fun by listing below individuals falling into the five classes given above.
Praise Ceiling Cat, fleas be upon him: we have received a couple of submissions to tide us over. Today biologist and artistLou Jost, who works at Ecuador’s Ecominga Foundation, has contributed some lovely hummingbird videos. Lou’s captions are indented, and you know how to enlarge YouTube videos:
The Americas are currently the only continents that have hummingbirds, though the oldest hummingbird-like fossils are actually from Europe. In today’s world the centers of hummingbird diversity are the mountains of Costa Rica and Panama, and the northern Andes of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Ecuador alone has 137 species of hummingbirds, compared to only 15-17 hummingbird species regularly found in the US. I recently visited an Ecuadorian birding lodge (Sachatamia) in northwest Ecuador, with many hummingbird feeders. The chaotic swarm of hummingbirds surrounding these feeders gives a good impression of this diversity. Here are some phone videos I took over the course of a few minutes.
Left to right: three Andean Emeralds, (Uranomitra franciae; white throats, light blue crown iridescence), the aptly named White-necked Jacobin (Florisuga mellivora), another Andean Emerald (head down) and a Rufous-tailed Hummingbird (Amazilia tzacatl, pink beak and iridescent green throat), also initially head down). Then more Rufous-tailed Hummingbirds and a brief Brown Violetear (Colibri delphinae):
Purple-bibbed Whitetip (Urosticte benjamini, white spot behind eye and in tail, iridescent purple throat), Booted Raquet-tail, second Purple-bibbed White tip. Then something else obscured by feeder:
Female Empress Brilliant (Heliodoxa imperatrix)?, female Violet-crowned Woodnymph (Thalurania colombica, blue shoulders), displaced by male Green-crowned Woodnymph (iridescent green throat and purple body) in turn displaced by Empress Brilliant, photobombed at end by tiny beelike woodstar species:
Green-crowned Woodnymph front, Fawn-breasted Brilliant (Heliodoxa rubinoides, fawn breast, pink chest/throat patch) at rear, displaced by male Empress Brilliant, cameos by White-necked Jacobin, Andean Emerald, and others.
