Arthur Wesley Dow: Moonrise (ca. 1898-1905)
Good evening, Kibitzers!
It’s rather springlike this week here in the Boston area, and by Saturday it will be getting into the mid-70s with some wind and a chance of showers. Not perfect weather for a demonstration, but not horrible either. If you are thinking of going out, may your weather be good, your numbers be many, and your cops be calm and friendly! Stay safe!
My attention was attracted this week by the hoopla surrounding claims from obvious-movie-villains-yet-somehow-a-real-company Colossal Biosciences that they had “de-extincted” dire wolves. For starters, "to extinct" is not a verb. But once you get past that, it's an interesting story that involves the vagaries of science, and that, as of this writing at least, does not involve Donald Trump in any way, so it's not going to keep you up nights, at least not the way most of the news does. If you haven’t heard about it, we’ve got you covered here.
Diary Wolves
Let us start with a cute puppy video. These fluffy little wolflets are just freakin' adorable. Who's a dire boy? YOU are!!! [0:43]
In case you missed Colossal Bioscience's earlier work, here are the "woolly mice" they promoted recently as precursors to a revived Woolly Mammoth they claim to be working on. "There were no unintended consequences except adorability," the CEO is quoted as saying, so apparently that's kind of a theme with them. [1:25]
This is one of numerous wolf promo videos from Colossal Biosciences themselves. It's short (with 'film you saw in grade school' framing), and is mostly about their favorite topic, how adorable the pups are. [3:23]
And, here come the Mainstream Media, reporting on the "dire wolves". ABC is far from alone in the credulity of this report; the wolves were even a Time magazine cover story. Probably the part of all this coverage that frosts me the most is “scientists say”, as if ALL scientists are in on this. I’d go so far as to say that this idiot depiction of “science” as an insane monolith that coughs up a series of wildly contradictory statements, instead of as a mosaic of people offering their different findings in an effort to get at the facts, has caused untold pain and trouble in this world. [1:31]
So, I watched a ton of video about this matter. Some made me mad; some made me feel kind of bad about how mad I was. In the end, I pushed most of the material aside for this diary and went with Hank Green's response, because I thought it was the most complete and the most thoughtful about all aspects of the wolves. Well, I guess it should be, considering how long it is, but he is never boring, imho.
For background, first here's a SciShow episode from 2021, when a big and relevant shift took place in the thinking about how dire wolves should be classified. [6:11]
These next two videos together run for an hour, so you may well not want to watch them right now. But if you are interested in the issue, I recommend them. They're from his personal channel hankschannel.
First, his reaction video: They Didn't Make Dire Wolves, They Made Something… Else. [29:19]
And second, his further thoughts the next day, including a correction and his responses to questions/challenges from viewers and, interestingly, from Colossal. [29:47]
🐺🐺🐺 Now is the time in KTK when we dance!
Dire Straits: Sultans Of Swing (DVD Alchemy: Dire Straits Live, at the Hammersmith Odeon, London, July 1983) [10:46]
Duran Duran: Hungry Like the Wolf (live at the Palladium, New York City, New Year’s Eve 1982) [4:12]
Grateful Dead: Dire Wolf and Deep Elem Blues (Tom Snyder's The Tomorrow Show, May 1981) [7:45]
Please feel free to share additional songs about dire wolves, nonthreatening wolves, werewolves (in London and elsewhere), or obviously anything by Dire Straits. Also, anything else you like!
Oh, here’s an example: I just went looking for the weather, and was shown the “official” video of a Coachella performance that Franks Human posted an audience-phone version of yesterday: Bohemian Rhapsody by Benson Boone with Brian May. It’s so good, and the good-quality video adds so much to it; somewhere, Freddie is smiling. Many thanks to FH — I had never heard of Benson Boone and would have missed it (and apparently, the Coachella audience had never heard of Brian May, so… we’re even?) [6:13]
AND I have one other thing: the “penguins of Heard Island” are now selling pebbles, real and digital, inasmuch as that’s their only possible export, with all proceeds benefiting World Wildlife Fund - Australia (with whom they are not affiliated) to support penguin conservation. See their website here for details.
