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Animal spotlight: 7 facts about North American eagles

From Bald Eagle Appreciation Days in Wisconsin to soaring Golden Eagles as a tradition at Auburn University, North American eagles are viewed as stately and powerful creatures. However, these two resident eagles of North America have not survived without a struggle.

Officials removed Bald Eagles from the US federal list of threatened and endangered species in 2007 after years of illegal hunting and habitat and food destruction diminished the population.  Though Golden Eagles are not currently on a watch list, human impact causes an estimated 70 percent of Golden Eagle deaths. Fortunately, the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act of 1940 protects both eagles.

Learn more about the Golden Eagle and Bald Eagle in our factsheet.

Room to roam 

Golden Eagles living in eastern North America have home ranges two to ten times the size of Golden Eagles elsewhere. Scientists think this is because habitat in eastern North America is lower quality, with less prey and fewer nesting and roosting sites, forcing eagle to range over larger areas to find enough resources. Climate change and energy development are expected to hit eagles in this region especially hard.

Help from the public

Analysis of “citizen science” data shows that approximately 1,300 Golden Eagles migrate along a single ridge in Pennsylvania every year. Because Golden Eagles tend to be spread out across large areas, occurring at low densities, counts like this can be crucial for monitoring how their populations are doing.

Weather advisory 

Researchers studying the effects of weather on Golden Eagle migration were surprised to learn that older eagles did not cover more ground than younger eagles, despite their greater experience. Instead, older eagles migrated in poorer weather conditions and traveled more slowly. Young eagles typically aren’t breeding yet, while older birds need to start heading north in time to reclaim their territories on their breeding grounds and start nesting, so they can’t be as picky about when they start out.

Guarding Babies by Mathew Schwartz, CC0 via Unsplash. Peaceful coexistence 

Golden Eagles are sensitive to human recreation near their nest sites, and a study showed that it isn’t only the volume of people passing through that affects them — the overall density of the trail network near their nests matters, too. Land managers need to take both of these factors into account to make sure that hikers and eagles can coexist.

 California conservation

Bald Eagles were extirpated from California’s Channel Islands in the 1960s but have been reintroduced there in recent decades. Knowing what the reintroduced eagles are eating is key to helping them thrive, and analysis of prey remains from eagle nests and isotope ratios in eagle feathers showed that their diet includes a lot of seabirds such as gulls and terns. It appears that seabird conservation efforts in the Channel Islands are benefiting the entire food chain.

Aquatic birds

When hunting for fish, Bald Eagles can swim by paddling their wings in powerful strokes after landing in the water. This type of wing paddling, along with plunge diving and hint feet paddling in other types of birds, developed from ancestors of airborne birds as the species learned to adapt to aquatic habits.

National animal

The Bald Eagle in the United States was once threatened with extinction as a result of hunting and poisoning. Due to its protection the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act of 1940, their population has abundantly increased. Only 16% of national animals are receiving protection within the country where they are the national symbol. If population trends persist, over half of these symbols may face future extinction.

Featured image credit: Bald Eagle Perched Raptor by skeeze, CC0 via Pixabay.

 

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Philosopher of the Month: Plato [infographic]

This February, the OUP Philosophy team honours Plato (c. 429 BC – c. 347 BC) as their Philosopher of the Month. Plato is recognised as one of the most influential figures in the history of Western thought, along with his mentor Socrates, and his student Aristotle. Born into a noble and politically active family, he grew up in the shadow of the great Peloponnesian war which caused social and political upheavals for Athens. The Greek philosopher Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was an important formative influence on Plato. When his revered teacher, Socrates was put to death on charges of impiety and of corrupting the young in 399 BC, this affected him so deeply that he rejected a political career and devoted his life to the pursuit of philosophy. He spent several years travelling to various places, including Egypt, Italy, and Sicily. Upon his return to Athens, he founded The Academy, which was regarded as the first institution devoted to philosophy and mathematical enquiry. It was here that Aristotle, its most celebrated member, began his philosophical training under Plato’s supervision.

Plato wrote many philosophical works. Most of these are in dialogue form between two or more characters, usually with Socrates as a leading protagonist. The dialogues are incentives for philosophical discussions and debates; the characters engage in cross examination, asking questions and analysing each other’s ideas and presumptions. The early dialogues hold a central place in his writing as they provide a portrait of Socrates and reveal the full range of his philosophy.

Like his mentor Socrates, Plato believed that it is vital to question received dogma and traditional moral beliefs and to distinguish truth from opinions. He also insisted on the importance of virtue and wisdom as a basis for happiness in our lives. Among Plato’s masterpieces are The Republic, an extended dialogue in which he outlines his view of an ideal state and develops a comparison between justice and order in the soul; Symposium, and Phaedrus which contain profound ideas on the true nature of love; and Phaedo, which explores the nature of the soul and immortality.

We’ve created the infographic below to highlight more from the life and work of Plato. For more, follow @OUPPhilosophy and the hashtag #philosopherotm on Twitter.

Featured image credit: “The School of Athens” by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (1511), Vaticans Museum. Public Domain via  Wikimedia Commons

 

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Black Press: The advent of the first African American newspapers

In the decades preceding the Civil War, the free black community in the North struggled both for freedom from racial oppression and for the freedom of their enslaved southern brethren. Black newspapers reflected these twin struggles in their own fight for survival—a fight that most black newspapers in the antebellum era lost in a relatively short time. Northern black communities were too poor to give long-term support to black newspapers or magazines; and such enterprises had no chance of existing in the South, where the population of free, literate blacks was even smaller and any opinion challenging slavery and white supremacy was quickly suppressed. Nonetheless, black journalists in the years leading up to the Civil War strove against all odds to create viable newspapers that would serve their communities, with thirty black newspapers published between 1827 and 1861. Here is a brief history of some of those papers:

Featured image credit: Freedom’s Journal 23 March 1827 vol. 1 no. 3 by John Russwurm, editor, Freedom’s Journal. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons 

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Going places

When one reads the obsolete phrase go to, go to, the meaning is still understood quite well. After to, one “hears” the word hell. However, directions vary, and the origin of the idioms beginning with go to is less trivial than it may seem. One goes to Bath, to Banff, to Jericho, to Hanover, to Halifax, to Husham, to Putney, to Tunbridge, to Freuchie, and probably to many other places with the same results. How did they get their ignominious reputation? I’ll offer a few remarks only about the idioms represented with some fullness in my database, but would be happy if the denizens of those places sent us local anecdotes or conjectures about the circumstance that gave rise to this (quite possibly undeserved) opprobrium.

Bath, England: no wives, no beggars, no madmen. Image credit: The Abbey, from the bridge, Bath, England by Library of Congress. Public Domain via Flickr.

We may begin with Bath. In the past, I have had a chance to refer to Thomas Fuller’s once popular book History of the Worthies of England, published posthumously in 1662 (excellent but very slow reading, and its outline—the celebrities are discussed according to their place of birth: one county after another—is inconvenient). In the chapter on Somerset, Fuller mentioned Bath as a favorite haunt of beggars. Bath, it will be remembered, is a town in southwest England made famous by Chaucer’s wife of Bath; its ancient abbey is a tourist attraction. Fuller wrote: “Whither should fowl flock in a hard frost, but to the barn-door? Here, all the two seasons, being the general confluence of gentry. Indeed laws are daily made to restrain beggars, and daily broken by the connivance of those who make them; it being impossible when the hungry belly barks and the bowels sound to keep the tongue silent….” Very eloquent, but did the status of beggars’ resort justify equating Bath with hell? One correspondent to Notes and Queries proposed this connection, but Fuller did not. It also appears that the original saying was longer or at least had a longer variant, namely: “Go to Bath and get your head shaved.” Allegedly, “in former days, persons who showed symptoms of insanity were sent to Bath to drink the medicinal waters; the process of shaving the head being previously resorted to.” Bath may have been a euphemism for “hell,” but did the name of the town ever stand for “madhouse”? Or was originally bath rather than Bath meant? There is a mysterious link between English beggars and words beginning with a b: the place where they met was called beggars’ bush (the name is still very much alive).

This is Jericho, England, as it looks today. Image credit: Jericho Victoria 1917 by Museums Victoria. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

By far the best-researched idiom of this type is go to Jericho! Here we have a clue to the origin, because Jericho is a town often mentioned in the Bible. The earliest researchers of this idiom gave the explanation that has been repeated many times.  A rather inconspicuous mansion at Blackmore, a little village in Essex, was King Henry VIII’s house of pleasure disguised by the name of Jericho. “The Cam rivulet, which flows through the village, is still called Jordan by the old inhabitants.” Frank Chance, a first-rate student of word history, after quoting an old source to this effect, continued (May, 1876): “I was at Blackmore myself a short time ago accidentally. And I saw this house, which is an old-looking one of red brick, and close to the church, and I can testify that the names ‘Jericho’ and ’Jordan’ are still current here, and not only among the old inhabitants…. ‘To wish one in Jericho’ would, therefore mean merely to wish one well out of the way.” As stated in another publication, the courtiers, when the king was suddenly missing from Court, were in the habit of saying that His Majesty had gone to Jericho “and from this circumstance arose the cant phrase, in vogue to this day.”

The go to phrases often alternate with those beginning with send to. The most important contribution to the history of this idiom was made by the indefatigable Walter W. Skeat, though, as he pointed out, the idea had been clear to several of his predecessors. According to the biblical story, when David’s servants had half their beards cut off and were therefore not presentable at court, the king advised them  to “tarry at Jericho till their beards were grown.” Thus, the phrase to tarry at Jericho meant ‘to live in isolation’ and was applied to such young men as were particularly instructed to keep themselves to themselves until they had been endowed with a visible sign of their wisdom. The initial saying seems to have insinuated a charge of inexperience. The person sent to Jericho was considered not good enough for the company. As far as I can judge by the examples at my disposal, the advice to go to Jericho did have the sense “go to hell!” and for this reason it became a vulgar expletive.

Jericho will soon fall. Image credit: Prise de Jéricho by BnF Expositions. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Even though Skeat believed that he had settled the question once and for all, another suggestion about the origin of this idiom exists.  It was noted that the phrase bears the meaning of consignment to perdition or penal exile: Jericho has been attested with the sense “prison” and also “an improper quarter of Oxford” (if an area frequented by prostitutes is meant, then we are again close to “a house of pleasure”). Could Henry’s Jericho be a ribald allusion to “brothel”? Also, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, we read that a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and was attacked by robbers. One of the contributors to the discussion in 1901 even heard the curse: “Go to Jericho and fall among thieves.”

I cannot abstain from quoting still another author, who offered his suggestion to Notes and Queries in 1901: “There used to be a little witticism perpetrated by the ‘slangy’ newspapers about sixty years ago: ‘The King of Prussia has gone to Pot(sdam)’. Perhaps in time to come this may be quoted as being the origin of the expressions ‘Gone to pot’.”  An extremely apt observation! Folk etymology is constantly at work, and, if I find enough material, in the future, I may discuss the origin of the phrase go to pot.

Incidentally, there are quite a few places in England called Jericho, with the river Jordan flowing by. With regard to Henry VIII’s house of pleasure, it remains unknown who coined its name. Was it the lascivious king himself? His courtiers? Young Mistress Blount, the mother of the hapless Henry Fitzroy? As most of us will remember, according to Joshua, the walls of Jericho fell from the sounds of the soldiers’ trumpets. Did some wit suggest that the walls of the king’s secret resort did not guarantee his privacy (blow hard, and they will collapse)? In retrospect, it seems that joking with and about Henry VIII was not a good idea.

Featured image credit: The Good Samaritan by David Teniers the younger after painting by Francesco Bassano. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons. 

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Do events like Davos really make a difference?

The World Economic Forum is held every January in the Swiss resort of Davos. Since 1971, world leaders have travelled deliberate on the big social and economic questions of our times. Attended by politicians, Nobel Prize laureates and billionaire philanthropists, this forum has set itself the noble task to improve the state of the world.

Funded primarily by Qatari business, the December Doha Forum acts as a global platform for policy discussion. With Russian funding, the October Rhodes Forum touts as a “premier destination for globally renowned academics and policy makers” to share insights into, and solutions for, global problems. And then there are a multitude of regional dialogues including the more exclusive and secretive bodies like the Bilderburg Meetings set up to promote better understanding between the cultures of the United States and Western Europe.

What is the point of these types of gathering? Many are purely private gatherings even if they might benefit from some kind of political patronage. What impact do these international dialogues and private summits generate for better policies and for global governance?

Sometimes portrayed as convivial junkets for the world’s political elite to catch-up and pontificate before both a live and virtual audience, gatherings like Davos do have a role to play in building momentum behind policy solutions, or at least a heightened understanding of different policy perspectives and priorities across political cultures. For example, the World Economic Forum launched the Global Battery Alliance aimed at safeguarding workers, banning child labour, eradicating pollution, and promoting re-use and recycling throughout the global supply chain. Convening the relevant stakeholders to global problems through conferences like that at Davos is the first step towards developing effective and coordinated action.

Face-to-face interaction in business, politics or science is an essential but intangible ingredient in developing partnerships, joint ventures or policy coordination. Global conferences are also important venues for the big professional NGOs to launch their latest reports to international media. For policy entrepreneurs looking to promote new ideas and court patrons, for budding opinion leaders desperate to start their careers, or for Hollywood actors looking to develop reputations for seriousness, these conferences are sites with a concentration of funders and decision-makers – people who can make things happen – and who they can lobby.

While talk may be cheap, attending the Davos meeting is not – which is not to say you will get in: the World Economic Forum is invitation only. These events are full of elites of one kind or another. They have been criticised not only for arriving in private jets but also some of them for tax avoidance. In 2001, thousands of NGOs and civil society activists created the World Social Forum to counter the elitism and neoliberalism of Davos.

 Convening the relevant stakeholders to global problems through conferences like that at Davos is the first step towards developing effective and coordinated action.

But there is no substitute for the networking opportunities and access to informal knowledge these forums provide. Private policy gatherings are one way to get inside the loop, to become known to and a participant in the transnational policy communities that form around pressing public matters like global food policy and global health policy or specific issues like the growing problem of space junk.

The chief executives of international organisations sometimes attend these Forums. International organisations are a vital and integral component of the institutional architecture for responding to and helping resolve our global problems. The world is replete with global public problems such as climate change, recurring financial crises, declining fish stocks and pollution of the oceans. This requires coordination between states. But negotiating treaties or creating new international organisations is a slow and cumbersome political and bureaucratic process. Global problems move at a faster pace. International summits and global forums are one way to direct concentrated attention to fast moving policy concerns. But while good for consciousness raising and public pronouncements by leaders to do something, these problems also require new institutions and instruments for global policy making.

A new breed of informal international organisation (without a treaty basis or very often without a permanent secretariat) have already emerged. This includes informal bodies like the Group of 20 and BRICs. Below the radar of public awareness, there is a blooming of global and regional public-private partnerships. A famous one is GAVI, The Vaccine Alliance delivering immunisation to communities in low income countries, which was bankrolled by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Yet solutions also beget problems. Without central global sovereign authority, a lot of duplication and bureaucratic fragmentation results from events like these. Lines of authority are opaque and accountability is hard to trace. These unintended outcomes become agenda items for the next global gathering. Davos is a global convenor par excellence. But while transnational dialogues present themselves as civic educational exercises, it’s hard to tell if any of these meetings really help change anything.

Feature image credit: “Photography of people inside room during daytime” by John Mark-Smith. Public domain via Unsplash.

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Some value safety, others value risk

No one has ever crossed the Antarctic by themselves and without help from other people or engines. To me, this is very unsurprising and uninteresting. No one (outside of superhero movies) has ever shrunk themselves to the size of an ant, or turned back time by causing the earth to rotate backwards either. Big deal. But to Colin O’Brady (a 33-year-old American adventure athlete) and Louis Rudd (a 49-year-old British Army Captain) the fact that no one has ever crossed the Antarctic unsupported is very interesting. Indeed, this fact motivates them both to try to do it! When I first became aware of their stories, both men were in the midst of attempting this 921-mile journey, pulling their sleds of supplies on cross-country skiis across an icy, unforgiving terrain. Now, happily, both men have succeeded! O’Brady completed the trip in 54 days, Rudd in 56. That’s almost two months of working out hard in a freezer under the constant threat of death. Even in light of their survival and record-setting, nothing about this sounds remotely appealing to me.

O’Brady and Rudd both have wives; Rudd has children. They probably also have friends. If they were my friends, I would have tried to talk them out of attempting what seems to me a crazy thing to do. If Rudd were my friend, I would even want to prevent him from going. I would consider lying to him if that would change his course: “Louis, you can’t go to the Antarctic this year because you’ll miss my wedding/Broadway debut/bat mitzvah!” But would that be good for him? I wouldn’t want my friend to risk his life in this way, but what about what he wants?

One thing seems clear from the stories you read about people like O’Brady and Rudd – people who climb Everest without oxygen, or free climb El Capitan without ropes or safety gear –:  it’s really important to them to do these things. So important that many of them keep climbing, trekking, and risking their lives even after someone they know dies in the attempt. (In fact, Rudd’s friends Henry Worsley did die making attempting the Antarctic trip 2 years ago). These men value risk, adventure, and challenge in the way that I value safety and spending time with my friends and family.

There are two ways to respond to the difference between risk-averse me and risk-loving Rudd. One thought you might have is that one of us is wrong about what matters in life. On this view, well-being consists in achieving things that are objectively valuable and people who value the wrong things do things that are detrimental to their well-being.  I can convince myself that this is an appealing view when I think that I’m right, and I don’t try very hard to put myself in Rudd’s shoes. But when I do put myself in Rudd’s shoes, and I realize that the things he values are as important to him as the things I value are to me, I feel a little queasy about this answer. After all, it’s not that I don’t think any values are worth risking your life for: I like to think that I would put my own life at risk for some of the things I value deeply (though I haven’t really been tested). The difference is that I wouldn’t risk my life for pulling heavy objects in an icebox.

The other way to respond to the difference between Rudd and me is to think that this difference makes a profound difference to what is good for each of us. On this view, a person’s life goes well to the extent that they fulfill their own values, and different people can achieve well-being by pursuing very different things. Learning about people who are very different from me has led me to think that this must be the right way to go. For O’Brady and Rudd, their love of high-risk achievements is not a whim or a passing fancy, nor is it (as far as we can tell) the expression of an unhealthy death wish. For them, these are long-standing passions around which they organize their lives; these activities are the ground projects (as Bernard Williams put it) that give their lives meaning. They just don’t happen to be ground projects that many of the rest of us can understand.

There aren’t many people who want to cross the Antarctic on cross country skiis. But other kinds of differences in values – and how we understand what it is to achieve those values – are common: some people want to have children, others don’t; some people think career success is extremely important, others see their jobs as just jobs and put more energy into their avocations; some people think appreciation of fine aesthetic objects is crucial to a good life, others couldn’t care less about fine wine or art. Once we see the importance of what people value to their well-being, and we appreciate that people can differ significantly in what they value, we’ll also see that it’s probably a good idea to have a little humility about what we think we know about what is good.

Featured Image: Mountain-Peak-Summit-Altitude-Top by Free-Photos. Public Domain via Pixabay.

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Why some value safety, others value risk

No one has ever crossed the Antarctic by themselves and without help from other people or engines. To me, this is very unsurprising and uninteresting. No one (outside of superhero movies) has ever shrunk themselves to the size of an ant, or turned back time by causing the earth to rotate backwards either. Big deal. But to Colin O’Brady (a 33-year-old American adventure athlete) and Louis Rudd (a 49-year-old British Army Captain) the fact that no one has ever crossed the Antarctic unsupported is very interesting. Indeed, this fact motivates them both to try to do it! When I first became aware of their stories, both men were in the midst of attempting this 921-mile journey, pulling their sleds of supplies on cross-country skiis across an icy, unforgiving terrain. Now, happily, both men have succeeded! O’Brady completed the trip in 54 days, Rudd in 56. That’s almost two months of working out hard in a freezer under the constant threat of death. Even in light of their survival and record-setting, nothing about this sounds remotely appealing to me.

O’Brady and Rudd both have wives; Rudd has children. They probably also have friends. If they were my friends, I would have tried to talk them out of attempting what seems to me a crazy thing to do. If Rudd were my friend, I would even want to prevent him from going. I would consider lying to him if that would change his course: “Louis, you can’t go to the Antarctic this year because you’ll miss my wedding/Broadway debut/bat mitzvah!” But would that be good for him? I wouldn’t want my friend to risk his life in this way, but what about what he wants?

One thing seems clear from the stories you read about people like O’Brady and Rudd – people who climb Everest without oxygen, or free climb El Capitan without ropes or safety gear –:  it’s really important to them to do these things. So important that many of them keep climbing, trekking, and risking their lives even after someone they know dies in the attempt. (In fact, Rudd’s friends Henry Worsley did die making attempting the Antarctic trip 2 years ago). These men value risk, adventure, and challenge in the way that I value safety and spending time with my friends and family.

There are two ways to respond to the difference between risk-averse me and risk-loving Rudd. One thought you might have is that one of us is wrong about what matters in life. On this view, well-being consists in achieving things that are objectively valuable and people who value the wrong things do things that are detrimental to their well-being.  I can convince myself that this is an appealing view when I think that I’m right, and I don’t try very hard to put myself in Rudd’s shoes. But when I do put myself in Rudd’s shoes, and I realize that the things he values are as important to him as the things I value are to me, I feel a little queasy about this answer. After all, it’s not that I don’t think any values are worth risking your life for: I like to think that I would put my own life at risk for some of the things I value deeply (though I haven’t really been tested). The difference is that I wouldn’t risk my life for pulling heavy objects in an icebox.

The other way to respond to the difference between Rudd and me is to think that this difference makes a profound difference to what is good for each of us. On this view, a person’s life goes well to the extent that they fulfill their own values, and different people can achieve well-being by pursuing very different things. Learning about people who are very different from me has led me to think that this must be the right way to go. For O’Brady and Rudd, their love of high-risk achievements is not a whim or a passing fancy, nor is it (as far as we can tell) the expression of an unhealthy death wish. For them, these are long-standing passions around which they organize their lives; these activities are the ground projects (as Bernard Williams put it) that give their lives meaning. They just don’t happen to be ground projects that many of the rest of us can understand.

There aren’t many people who want to cross the Antarctic on cross country skiis. But other kinds of differences in values – and how we understand what it is to achieve those values – are common: some people want to have children, others don’t; some people think career success is extremely important, others see their jobs as just jobs and put more energy into their avocations; some people think appreciation of fine aesthetic objects is crucial to a good life, others couldn’t care less about fine wine or art. Once we see the importance of what people value to their well-being, and we appreciate that people can differ significantly in what they value, we’ll also see that it’s probably a good idea to have a little humility about what we think we know about what is good.

Featured Image: Mountain-Peak-Summit-Altitude-Top by Free-Photos. Public Domain via Pixabay.

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A bull-session with bacteria

Arthur S. Reber’s new book argues that consciousness was present in the first living cells, and that even the simplest of organisms, the prokaryotes like bacteria, are sentient. In this piece, he imagines what it would be like to sit down with two bacteria and hear their opinions on consciousness, and how their sentience helps them keep alive despite the best efforts of humans.

Arthur Reber: I’ve got what I need here: a microscope, two Petri dishes, and the Universal Translator that the curators of the James T. Kirk Star Trek Museum loaned me for the day. Fabulous piece of digital mastery this thing is. So let’s get started.

Let me begin with you Lactobacillus salivarius, one of the most beneficial of bacteria. I’m finding that folks are having trouble accepting that single-celled species like you have a legitimate consciousness. How does this make you feel?

Lactobacillus salivarius: In a word, annoyed. We’ve been around for several billions of years waiting for someone to figure this out. Thanks for giving us the chance to speak out today.

AR: You’re quite welcome. You know the project started with a mostly one-way chat I had with a caterpillar some years ago. I’d have gotten to you sooner if I’d known I could get my hands on the Universal Translator. But, no matter. Let me turn to your friend, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Uh, M. tuberculosis, you won’t mind if I sit back a bit.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis: Not a problem. I understand. You know that we don’t have evil intentions. We do what we do because of simple Darwinian mechanisms and that includes protecting ourselves from onslaughts of antibiotics.

AR: I know but still …. Let me get to heart of the issue of prokaryote sentience. Do both of you have feelings? Do you have internal subjective experiences? Or, as philosopher Thomas Nagel put it, is there something it is like to be a bacterium?

MT: Of course we do and of course there is. Look, there are molecules in this dish, some are tasty and nutritious, some decidedly not. Some are supportive of life. Others, not so much. How could I absorb the good ones and avoid the toxic ones if I didn’t have a good feeling when encountering say lactose but feel pain when I run into a concentrated salt solution?

LS: Moreover, we have clusters of receptors on our membranes. We can detect up to fifty different kinds of stimuli, temperature, nutrient gradients. We sense light using rhodopsin, the same molecule you use.

AR: That is very impressive. Tell me more. I understand you also learn and can form memories. How can you do these remarkable things when you’re just a single celled critter?

LS: Well, first I’m not fond of being called a “critter” but I’ll let it pass. Of course we learn and, more obviously, what’s the point of being able to learn if you can’t set up memories?

MT: Last week someone in your lab tried to fool me. First she flooded my dish with some sugar that I really liked — later I discovered it was lactose. Then she followed that with another sugar which turned out to be maltose. It was okay, but not as tasty as that first batch. But that’s okay because I know how to handle these different sugars. I simply modify my biomolecular functions to accommodate whatever sugar is around.

AR: You what?

MT: Shift metabolic functions. Goodness, you just don’t appreciate the things we can do. But, back to the sugars. Then things got really interesting. Suddenly my little home was flooded with the first sugar again. So I shifted my metabolism to make it easier to absorb. Then, bingo, back to the other one. It didn’t take long to realize what she was up to. So I did the obvious. As soon as the lactose stopped I began anticipating the maltose so I’d be ready to maximize absorption. And ditto with the maltose. So everything was cool, right? I’d learned a simple pattern and was doing just fine. You know what your stinker of a lab-mate did then? She bloody tricked me. After a dose of maltose she gave me another one. Caught me totally off-guard. Here I was, metabolically prepared for a really tasty sugar and I got smacked with a second rate dessert that I was so not ready to consume.

AR: Well, I guess I’m sorry for any distress she caused you but she was just trying to see if you could learn a simple pattern. But how about that memory thing. What kinds of memories do you and your unicellular friends have? Salivarius, can you tell us?

LS: Sure, but it really should be obvious. I hang around in people’s insides where the temperature often changes. I happen to like some temperatures better than others. As I swim from one area to another I sense temperature gradients looking for the most comfortable. Then I either stay where I am, go forward, or retreat. How could I make the right choice if I didn’t have a memory of the temperature of the medium that I was in before?

AR: Huh. Makes sense. But that, if you don’t mind my saying so, isn’t all that impressive. You’re only talking about a second or two. I’m not even sure everyone would agree with you calling this a “memory.”

MT: Look, Arthur, let’s not make this little chat nasty. I could send some of the folks from my family your way.

AR: Alright. Sorry. But seriously, can you form more permanent memories?

MT: Let me tell you what a friend of ours does and see if you don’t think this is an instance of an ontologically secure biomolecular representation — you can look that up if that phrase is too sophisticated for you.

AR: Ok, I already said I was out of line so you can stop with the snarky remarks. Just tell me about memories in prokaryotes.

MT: There’s a species of sessile prokaryotes – “sessile”, if you don’t know, means stationary –Caulobacter crescentus, that can hold onto a memory for up to two hours.

AR: Fascinating. Tell me more.

MT: A group of C. crescentus was clinging to a piece of lab detritus that one of your colleagues left in their dish when suddenly a wave of concentrated salt solution hit them. Frankly, we’re pretty sure it was done by your friend with the flip-flopping sugars. But they did what we all do in these situations, shift metabolism to be able to mitigate the situation — uh, you’re okay if I use big words like “mitigate”?

AR: You can stop insulting me anytime you want. Get on with the story.

MT: My, my, we are the sensitive one aren’t we? Anyway, your sadistic cell biologist friend did this several times. It became clear that my sessile friends were going to have to play “scout” — you know, like in “be prepared” — and hold on to the memory of nasty salt solutions and maintain the appropriate metabolic condition. They got so good at it that the metabolic memory could last for up to two hours. And, here’s the interesting part. When C. crescentus divides the “mother” cells stay and the “daughter” cells swim away looking for their own perch (yeah, I know, gender-linked terms aren’t PC but that’s the way it is).

At this point your nasty friend did it again. Another wave of salty water. The mother cells, because they held onto to the metabolic memory, had a pretty high survival rate while the poor daughter cells, having swum to a presumably safe place, succumbed in large numbers. They had no need to recall events from the past — or thought they didn’t need to. You see why we’re suspicious of your kind.

AR: That’s pretty impressive. But I won’t apologize for my species. Anything else?

LS: Sure, I spent several hours the other day being forced over a tiny bridge between two Petri dishes. I say “forced” because she (and you know who “she” is) kept putting all the good food in whichever dish I wasn’t in. And worse, she put drops of an acid that really hurt to touch. It didn’t take me long to realize that there was a pattern to the acid drops and I was soon able to navigate the bridge without touching anything icky. That, I was thinking, will show her. Needless to say she then moved the acid spots and I had to learn a whole new pathway. I did this faster than the first time — and I hope you can see why.

AR: Well you guys are telling quite a story. Maybe folks will have a bit more respect for you, my tiny friends. One thing is clear, you’re both great conversationalists.

LS: But we communicate all the time among ourselves.

AR: Seriously?

LS: Yeah, seriously. We have to. We like to form colonies, hang around together. If a collective gets big funny stuff happens. Those of us in the center find that the nutrients, which are mainly on the periphery, aren’t getting to us. So we send out a molecular signal that travels through the collective asking our friends out there to slow down, reduce metabolism, stop dividing so much. They always do. We’re a very altruistic bunch. So the tasty bits come down our way. We absorb them and we send out another message basically saying “ok, we’re fine now.” And things go back to normal.

AR: So what you’re telling me is that when life began minds came along for the ride. The bottom line is that life and sentience are, and I hope you won’t mind my using a big word, co-terminous. Just as all life, no matter how complex, evolved from prokaryotes, all minds, all forms of consciousness, no matter how complex did as well. A nice theory. I like it.
Now I’ve got to get the Universal Translator back. The battery light is blinking so the interview will have to end. Thanks to you both.

LS and MT: And thanks to you and the folks at the museum for letting us tell our tale.

Featured image credit: “Microscope photo” by Ousa Chea. Public Domain via Unsplash.

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Ice Cube and the philosophical foundations of community policing

The recent “

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Who decides how much the world can warm up? [Video]

Over the past 20 years, scientists and governments around the world have wrestled with the challenge of climate change. The Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement, and other international climate negotiations seek to limit warming to an average of two degrees Celsius (2°C). This objective is justified by scientists that have identified two degrees of warming as the point at which climate change becomes dangerous. However, there are voices in the scientific community that suggest that the actual temperature restriction should be lowered to 1.5°C. Why the discrepancy?

Climate scientists themselves maintain that while science can provide projections of possible impacts of warming at difference levels, determining exactly what constitutes an acceptable level of risk is not a matter to be decided by science alone. It is a value choice that must be made by societies as a whole. This difficult decision should not be made by a selective group of people. Therefore, climate scientists can inform debates using their research, but they cannot provide a definitive answer to what’s acceptable.

However, news stories, policy announcements, and many environmental NGO campaign messages characteristically describe 2°C of warming as the point at which scientists agree climate change will become dangerous. In order to clear the confusion, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change have committed to improving public access to information about climate change. Public participation could also extend to discussions about what, if anything, should replace the 2°C concept. Greater public involvement in discussions of what constitutes an acceptable level of climate risk is needed because currently, there is little public awareness or understanding of the targets and the risks they represent.

Learn more about the debate with the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science and the politics around climate change.

Featured image credit: “Industrial building, sky and grey” by Natasha Kasim. Public Domain via Unsplash.

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