Watch langurs' daring crossings over busy roadway
But a new project installed the first monkey bridge in Peninsula Malaysia, utilizing repurposed fire hoses to offer a safer, wider crossing option for the langurs and other wildlife.
Produced by the BBC Natural History Unit.
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Spectator
an hour ago
- Spectator
How political ideology corrupted science
Science is no longer regarded or respected as an objective pursuit, one in which the principle of impartiality is sought with due diligence. This is the inference we can make from comments made by Ella Al-Shamahi, presenter of the new BBC science series, Human. 'We do have to be a little honest,' she says, 'to many, it seems like left-leaning atheists have a monopoly on science.' Science as presented to the public has taken a decidedly left-wing turn in recent years, and in many cases has been contaminated by hyper-liberal ideology Her remarks, reported in the Sunday Times, echo those made earlier this month by the Wellcome Trust chief executive, John-Arne Røttingen, who said that scientists now had a 'responsibility' to demonstrate why research from across the political spectrum matters, in light of the fact that the 'research community overall is more on the progressive/left-wing side.' Al-Shami's words are a rare admission of a well-known development. They confirm what many have come to recognise: science as presented to the public has taken a decidedly left-wing turn in recent years, and in many cases has been contaminated by hyper-liberal ideology. This became evident to many after the death of the biologist, entomologist and polymath E.O. Wilson in December 2021, when Scientific American published a scolding obituary of this titan of our times. 'With the death of biologist E.O. Wilson on Sunday, I find myself again reflecting on the complicated legacies of scientists whose works are built on racist ideas', began the article. It damned his 'problematic' work and legacy, chiefly because his 1975 masterpiece, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, suggested that human societies in many ways reflect innate human characteristics. While this notion has always been largely objectionable to the traditional left, it is utterly intolerable to modern-day hyper-liberals. Scientific American was one of the greatest casualties of the Great Awokening of ten years ago. It abandoned all pretence at impartiality last September by endorsing Kamala Harris to be US president, having previously jettisoned most claims to seriousness in 2021, when it published an article urging readers to reject the Jedi religion, based on the Star Wars franchise, on the basis that this quasi-faith was 'prone to (white) saviorism and toxically masculine approaches to conflict resolution.' That article was merely an egregious warning that a global scientific establishment had become captured and compromised. A far more serious symptom of this development was how health institutions worldwide came to accept and then propagate the non-scientific, non-empirical trans ideology of 'gender self-identification'. While the NHS today still states that, 'Gender identity is a way to describe a person's innate sense of their own gender', the World Health Organisation's guidelines parrot the same subjective mantra: 'Gender identity refers to a person's deeply felt, internal and individual experience of gender'. In 2023 John Hopkins University took trans ideology to its ultimate, absurd yet inevitable conclusion, when in releasing a new glossary of terms for clinicians and the general public, it defined a lesbian as 'a non-man attracted to non-men'. The corruption of scientific discourse and public instruction when it comes to the fact that human beings are divided into two sexes is one of the alarming signs of a global scientific and academic community that has become degraded by politics. The profusion and contamination of wokery, with its other obsessions of race and hurtful words, has been equally as conspicuous. In 2017 Professor Rochelle Gutierrez from the University of Illinois made the claim that 'on many levels, mathematics operates as whiteness.' In 2020 the Journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry produced new guidelines to 'minimise the risk of publishing inappropriate or otherwise offensive content'. This language shows how postmodernist relativism has spread into the scientific field – the very last place it deserves to belong. It's something Richard Dawkins has long-been attuned to and exasperated by, having written in River Out of Eden of those who insisted that science was merely a Western origin myth: 'Show me a cultural relativist at 30,000 feet and I'll show you a hypocrite.' One of Dawkins's most recent interventions has been against attempts to include Maori 'ways of knowing' into science classes in New Zealand. Science can't but help be influenced by the politics of its time. It's why 'scientific racism' flourished in the 19th century. It's why a previous generation of deranged leftists, those in charge of the Soviet Union, denied the mainstream theory of evolution, becoming beholden instead to the Lamarckian delusion that organisms could pass to their offspring traits acquired in their own lifetimes. Even if science can never attain a purely God-like perspective on the world, we should always strive for objectivity. Examples from history should remind us to forever be on guard against our own unconscious bias.
Times
a day ago
- Times
Where are the right-wing scientists? Everyone's on the left like me
Trust in science has been eroded because the field is so dominated by left-wing academics, a leading evolutionary biologist has warned. Ella Al-Shamahi, presenter of the BBC's science series Human, which starts tomorrow night, said people who lean towards the right, or have strong religious beliefs, feel alienated by mainstream science. 'We do have to be a little bit honest and say that, to many, it seems like left-leaning atheists have a monopoly on science,' she said. The dominance of a single school of political thought in science is an important context to President Trump's withdrawal of funding from universities in America, she said. 'If you can't demonstrate that scientists and research labs don't belong to just one tribe, then suddenly it doesn't become a priority to fund them.'
The Independent
4 days ago
- The Independent
When is flying ant day in the UK and why does it happen?
The much-loathed 'flying ant day', a summer phenomenon, is set to return to Britain and Ireland as warmer weather persists across the UK. Swarms of winged black garden ants, typically Lasius niger, will erupt from their nests under lawns, flower beds, and patios, invade personal spaces, cling to laundry, and splatter car windshields. Their sheer numbers can be so immense that they have previously registered as drifting clouds on weather radars. Met Office forecaster Simon Partridge told the BBC that distinguishing them from patches of showers can be difficult. While the occurrence can be unpleasant and occasionally very irritating – memorably, tennis stars Caroline Wozniacki and Ekaterina Makarova had to interrupt a Wimbledon match in July 2018 to spray themselves with bug repellent as the result of an influx of flying ants to Court 1 – it is largely harmless to humans and not something to worry about. Nevertheless, to be forewarned is to be forearmed, so here is everything you need to know about this strangest of annual events. Why does it happen? The reason ants emerge from the ground in this sudden fashion is because they have reached the 'nuptial flight' phase of their reproductive cycles, at which point those with wings (known as alates) – virgin queen ants (or princesses) and male drones, but not flightless female workers – depart their nests in search of new colonies, moving as one for protection. As the queens race off, they emit pheromones to attract mates while flying as fast as they can to ensure that only the fastest and most capable males can reach them. This is an example of natural selection in action, as the race makes certain that only the strongest examples of the species get to pass on their genes to a next generation. The spread to fresh colonies further afield also serves to limit inbreeding as it means ants commingle with mates from other nests. A queen – which can grow to 15mm in length and live for as long as 15 years in the wild, according to the Natural History Museum (NHM) – may have several mates during the nuptial flight and preserve their semen within her abdomen for a lifetime, with a view to fertilising future eggs. She will go on to discard her wings by chewing them off and form new nests underground but her male suitors will simply fall to the ground and die without so much as a post-coital cigarette, their final moments on Earth presumably also among their happiest. What weather conditions encourage it? In Britain and Ireland, flying ant days typically occur in July or August, often in warmer urban areas first, when the weather is hot and humid and when winds are low. Temperature is a key factor, with the Royal Society of Biology (RSB) noting that ant swarms rarely emerge if it is cooler than 13C and that 25C is their preferred seasonal average. The RSB, incidentally, argues that we should think of flying ant seasons, rather than isolated days, as ants may well take to the air on multiple occasions over the course of a British summer, depending on the atmospheric conditions, the species of ant in question and the nature of their habitat among other variables. What can be done about it? Not a great deal, unfortunately. Some might advocate flooding the ants' nests with water or detergent or attempting to snare them in sellotape around the home but that all feels distinctly inhumane. Instead, your best bet is to stay out of their way as much as possible and console yourself with the integral role ants play in the maintenance of natural ecosystems. Their colonies help to keep the soil aerated and they themselves are a vital source of food to birds like swifts and gulls, who in turn make important contributions to the natural order. If you do get bitten or stung, do not be alarmed. The NHS states that ant bites are 'generally harmless, although you'll probably feel a nip'.
