The thumb print of JEHOVAH :hummingbird edition.

 A Closer Look at Hummingbird Tongue Design 

David Coppedge 

One of the memorable moments in Illustra Media’s documentary Flight: The Genius of Birds is the hummingbird tongue animation (see it below). The unique nectar-trapping mechanism of unfurling flaps (lamellae) on supporting rods that automatically fold over to seal in the nectar was discovered by two biologists at the University of Connecticut (see the paper in PNAS). This was cutting-edge science, because most biologists previously had assumed the tongue worked by simple capillary action. 

The two biologists have continued their work since then, filming hummingbirds in the wild. Along with a mechanical engineer who is an expert in fluid mechanics, they published a paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B that should increase our admiration for the design of this structure. It’s not only a nectar trap; the hummingbird tongue is a micropump!

News from UConn Today includes a video clip (below) of the tongue in action. The new findings debunk the notion that capillary action called “wicking” draws nectar up the tongue. 

Rico-Guevara explains that a hummingbird’s tongue, which can be stuck out about the same length as its beak, is tipped with two long skinny tubes, or grooves. Rather than wicking, he says, the nectar is drawn into the tongue by the elastic expansion of the grooves after they are squeezed flat by the beak.

The tongue structure is collapsed during the time it crosses the space between the bill tip and the nectar pool, but once the tip contacts the nectar surface, the supply of fluid allows the collapsed groove to gradually recover to a relaxed cylindrical shape as the nectar fills it.

When the hummingbird squeezes nectar off its tongue during protrusion, it is collapsing the grooves and loading elastic energy into the groove walls. That energy subsequently facilitates the pumping of more nectar. 

In Concert with the Lamellae 

This pumping action apparently works in concert with the lamellae (flaps) shown in the Illustra film. The cylinders are in a flattened shape when they enter the nectar. Having been compressed by the beak, they store elastic energy that makes them rapidly expand in the fluid as they unfurl. This expansion helps to pump the fluid into the cylindrical cavity upward from the lamellae. That way, more nectar can be delivered into the bird’s mouth.

Figure 1 shows the beak in cross-section from a CT scan. It looks beautifully designed to squeeze the tongue’s cylinders during protrusion, with the lower bill fitting into spaces in the upper bill that spread laterally to flatten the tongue as it exits the bill tip. This design probably also squeezes the previous load of nectar into the mouth at the same time. “After complete loading, the grooves filled with nectar were brought back inside the bill and squeezed for the next cycle, all in less than a tenth of a second,” they observe. The caption for Figure 1 explains how these two mechanisms (pumping and trapping) work together: 

The hummingbird tongue fills with nectar even when only the tip is immersed. (a) Hummingbirds can drink from flowers with corollas longer than their bills by extending their bifurcated, longitudinally grooved tongues to reach the nectar. During protrusion, the tongue is compressed as it passes through the bill tip, which results in a collapsed configuration of the grooves (cross-section). (b) Upon reaching the nectar, the tongue tips fringed with lamellae roll open and spread apart, but some of the grooved portions of the tongue will never contact the nectar pool. For the grooves to fill with nectar, they must return to their uncompressed, cylindrical configuration. 

Why doesn’t the collapsed tongue rebound immediately after it leaves the beak and enters the air? That would result in open tubes that would need to fill by capillary action when they enter the nectar. But capillary action is much slower than the observed filling. Apparently the tongue material is designed to expand upon contact with the nectar. “After contacting the surface, the grooves expanded and filled completely with nectar,” they found. 

Birds in the Wild 

All hummingbirds have this mechanism. They filmed 32 wild birds, representing 18 species (in 7 of the 9 main hummingbird clades), with a high-speed camera in natural wild habitats, undergoing hundreds of feeding cycles — all with the same results. This allowed them to falsify the “century-old paradigm” of the capillary hypothesis and shed new light on this rapid, dynamic process. 

All observed licks followed the same pattern: tongue thickness was stable during protrusion of the tongue, and rapidly increased after the tongue tips contacted the nectar… After complete loading, the grooves filled with nectar were brought back inside the bill and squeezed for the next cycle, all in less than a tenth of a second. 

Capillary action could not have filled the cylinders this rapidly. In addition, no meniscus (diagnostic of capillarity) was observed to form in any of the 96 video sessions. The pumping action, by contrast, fills the entire tongue in just 14 milliseconds. Here’s how it works, according to their new model: 

We suggest that while squeezing nectar off the tongue during protrusion, the bird is collapsing the grooves and loading elastic energy into the groove walls that will be subsequently used to pump nectar into the grooves. The collapsed configuration is conserved during the trip of the tongue across the space between the bill tip to the nectar pool. Once the tongue tips contact the nectar surface, the supply of fluid allows the collapsed groove to gradually recover to a relaxed cylindrical shape until the nectar has filled it completely; hereafter, we refer to this previously undocumented mechanism as ‘expansive filling’. 

Flattened and Sealed 

The tongue stays flattened and sealed, in short, until it hits the nectar pool. Then, inside the fluid, the tongue’s twin cylinders rapidly expand, pumping nectar up into the tongue as it darts into the flower at speeds of a meter per second. As the tongue is withdrawn, the lamellae then seal the cylinder tightly shut for delivery into the bird’s mouth. This is a wonderful dual mechanism that results in much more efficient food capture in far less time. 

Fluid trapping is the predominant process by which hummingbirds achieve nectar collection at small bill tip-to-nectar distances, wherein tongue grooves are wholly immersed in nectar, or when the nectar is found in very thin layers. Expansive filling accounts for nectar uptake by the portions of a hummingbird’s tongue that remain outside the nectar pool. The relative contributions of the two synergistic mechanisms(fluid trapping and expansive filling) to the rate and volume of nectar ultimately ingested are determined by the distance from the bill tip to the nectar surface during the licking process. 

In other words, these two “synergistic mechanisms” give the hummingbird the biggest possible nectar bang for the buck, regardless of how deep the nectar pool is. The new model explains how the tongue can fill up even in a short flower. Since hummingbirds already “have remarkably high metabolic rates, amazing speed and superb aeronautic control,” it is essential they get the optimum return on investment of feeding energy.  

All these traits result from the ability of hummingbirds to feed on nectar efficiently enough to fuel an extreme lifestyle out of a sparse, but energetically dense, resource. Therefore, the way in which they feed on nectar determines the peaks and span of their performance, and thus their behaviour (and evolutionary trajectory), across a range of environmental axes. 

How Did Evolution Contribute? 

But did evolutionary theory contribute anything to this study? The authors speculate briefly about “co-evolution” of flowers and their pollinators, but do not offer any “trajectory” by which a bird could evolve either of these mechanisms from ancestors lacking them. How useful is it to offer up evidence-free promissory notes like this? 

The new explanation of the mechanics of nectar uptake we provide here suggests that physical constraints are the main determinants of the relationship between pollinator type and nectar concentration, and can guide us through alternative hypotheses of hummingbird-flower coevolution. 

By contrast, they save their best lines for what might be termed (though not by the authors) intelligent design. The paper begins: 

Pumping is a vital natural process, imitated by humans for thousands of years. We demonstrate that a hitherto undocumented mechanism of fluid transport pumps nectar onto the hummingbird tongue. 

This implies a seamless connection between human design and biological design. They conclude on the design theme: 

Our discovery of this elastic tongue micropump could inspire applications, and the study of flow, in elastic-walled (flexible) tubes in both biological and artificial systems. 

You see, not only does a design focus inspire study of biological systems, it leads to better designed applications. Everyone can agree on this: hummingbirds are inspiring! 

The real world v. Darwin again.

 Stuart Burgess Informs Evolutionist Nathan Lents on the Design Genius of the Ankle and Wrist 

David Klinghoffer 

When engineers educate evolutionists about where their theory falls short, the results can be enlightening and entertaining. Sometimes they are spectacular. That’s the case with distinguished mechanical engineer Stuart Burgess and his presentation at the recent Westminster Conference on Science and Faith. Burgess addresses some claims of forensic scientist Nathan Lents in the latter’s 2018 book, Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes. As Burgess says, “It should be called Lents’s Errors.”

Professor Lents is a proponent of the “unintelligent design” hypothesis. He looks at engineering marvels like the human wrist and ankle and sees only “blunders,” “pointless bones,” “anatomical errors.” Burgess has studied those wonders of biology more closely than Lents has and explains in detail why they are, in fact, “ingenious” solutions to engineering problems that leave the genius of human engineers far behind. Burgess is simply on fire. 

A Certain Generosity 

Lents is like fellow evolutionist Jerry Coyne in that there’s a certain generosity to him: Coyne and Lent are so profuse in their blunders that they have both provided years of material for Darwin skeptics to work over. For example, in his book, Lents writes: “Humans have way too many bones.” Of the wrist, he says that “it is way more complicated than it needs to be….The small area that is just the wrist itself has eight fully formed and distinct bones tucked in there like a pile of rocks — which is about how useful they are to anyone.” Burgess tells exactly what functions depend on every one of those useless “rocks.” The design is supremely intelligent. And the same goes for ankle.

By the time you get to the end of the presentation, you won’t have any doubt that, in these cases — which can stand in for many others — Darwinists have been led by their philosophy to grossly misjudge human anatomy. Lents, in his ideological fervor, “ignores biomechanics research,” “ignores engineering research.” 

Now here’s an interesting question. Lents likes to hang out at computational biologist Joshua Swamidass’s online community Peaceful Science. Swamidass is another ID critic, though a Christian one rather than an atheist like Lents. Will the folks over there watch the video and prod their friend Nathan Lents to respond to the exceptional case it makes that Nathan doesn’t know what he’s talking about? Let’s find out. 

What would the prophet of the new Gods make of his modern day disciples.

 Would His Theory’s Cultural Impact Dismay Darwin? 

Evolution News @DiscoveryCSC 

A classic ID the Future episode features another chapter from Nickell John Romjue’s fascinating short novel I, Charles Darwin, in which Darwin experiences the future and is shocked to learn about the impact his theory has had on areas outside of science. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Part 1 of the audio series is here. Part 2 is here. To learn more and to purchase the book, visit www.icharlesdarwin.com. 

If not I, who then is the thinker of these thoughts?

 Can Red Have “Redness” if No Self Perceives It? 

Denyse O'Leary 

Yesterday, I looked at philosopher Julian Baggini’s argument that the unified self is an illusion. He spoke about this in the context of a discussion with Closer to Truth’s Robert Lawrence Kuhn. Kuhn, nearly midway through, steers the conversation toward qualia, that is, the inner experience we have of things. 

Red, an often-used example, is a color in the spectrum but it is also, for many, an experience. Serious and influential books have been written (2005 and 2017) about the history of the color and the experiences it evokes. Questions are interspersed between exchanges in the transcribed dialogue: 

Robert Lawrence Kuhn: (3:23) Let’s distinguish two factors that are flying around here. One is the concept of self — what it means to be yourself — the other is what does it mean to have these inner feelings, this sense of the red of redness and the sweetness of chocolate or whatever, where, whatever we’re feeling at the time, there’s this inner perception, so-called qualia as psychologists and philosophers call it. How do you differentiate those and how does your explanation fit either one well?

Julian Baggini: (3:57) To be honest, I mean there are lots of levels of detail here which I think we just don’t understand yet. I mean how it is that this sludgy stuff in our skulls gives rise to actual feelings and sensations, tastes, colors, we don’t understand properly yet. There’s no point pretending that we do.

Kuhn: (4:16) So if we are not able to understand things, of course, science always progresses. The problem with qualia, the inner feeling, is that even neuroscientists don’t have a concept of what an explanation might even be like, because you have this brain, neurons, electrical activity in the brain and these internal feelings — and, in linking the two, no one even has a theory of what a theory could be.

Baggini: (4:47) Well, you know I think that could be right. I mean, our state of knowledge about these things is very limited. But I think what we have to remember is, if we look back at past mysteries, what counts as an explanation in the end? Now think about electricity or something like that. (5:03)

I think about life as a good example. People wanted, you know, you need something to explain life. You need some kind of life force or life principle. It turns out that when you have a sufficiently rich understanding of how cells, atoms, and everything, you reach enough of an understanding about how things can replicate and so forth that there doesn’t seem to be a mystery anymore. 

Question: Wait. Origin of life (“things can replicate”) is up there with origin of consciousness (of which qualia are a part) as a topic for which there are many contested hypotheses. True, we have a clear idea what life is. That is, we can say with confidence that lichens are alive and rocks are not. We can clearly identify the “living” qualities that distinguish lichens from rocks. But origin of life is a historical event, a moment in time, and we really don’t know what happened then. If “there doesn’t seem to be a mystery anymore,” you would not know it from the vast literature on the topic. 

Baggini: Go dig deep enough, there still is a mystery. You know, I mean electricity (5:28) … I know people who are scientists who say, actually, if I think about it I don’t really understand how electricity works. Like, you know, we have equations which tell us which forces are operating and so forth. (5:49) We have models but how? Why? You can only dig so deep. 

Question: Dr. Baggini’s thoughts on electricity respond to Kuhn’s comment at 4:16: With subjects like qualia, “no one even has a theory of what a theory could be.”

We think we know what a theory of electricity could be. Yet scientists have been willing to tell Dr. Baggini, “I don’t really understand how electricity works.”

That is hardly due to their ignorance of the topic! To the extent that electricity depends on quantum mechanics, it originates in a world that we perhaps can’t know. That is, it may be that we can’t make how electricity works coincide with our expectations for a proper explanation. We must then be content to merely say what it is.

But shouldn’t this level of uncertainty even about electricity (by which neurons communicate) cause us to wonder whether we are looking in the right places for answers to more complex questions like how we should understand qualia? 

Baggini: So my suspicion is that as we get a richer understanding of how the different systems of the brain work and so forth we’ll reach a level of understanding and explanation which will do. And if people want to then insist that there is still a deep mystery (“Yes, but how is it that we feel these things?”), you could say the same things of “Yes but this is there still a deep mystery about how things can be alive, how something can replicate and so forth.” 

Question: But does Dr. Baggini really want to be where this takes us? As noted earlier, we are deadlocked about the origin of life. And electricity takes us down into the world of quantum mechanics where certainties are not even an aspiration. Why do we think we will reach “a level of understanding and explanation which will do” when we are talking about much less certain topics like qualia? 

Kuhn: (6:07) So do you have every confidence that there will be a physical explanation for the inner sense of awareness, this concept of qualia in consciousness?

Baggini: (6:16) I’m agnostic about how we’re going to go with being able to explain feeling, sensation, qualia, scientifically. I just don’t think we know. I think a lot of people are being too confident in saying science can never explain this or science will explain it. You know there are going to be limits to our knowledge. I think that’s something we all have to accept. (6:36)

I think what’s quite curious here in these kind of debates — particularly about people who will point to the absence of an explanation, a scientific explanation, of qualia as some kind of evidence for the need to plug that gap with the religious truth — is that, you know people will appeal to the ineffability of certain things or the mystery of things to suit them. So, you know, people who are happy with God being mysterious in all sorts of ways are not happy with consciousness being mysterious in all sorts of ways. 

Question: God — whether people believe in him or not — is, by definition, a supernatural being. What we can’t understand about God may then be outside of nature. If we simply can’t come up with a scientific explanation of qualia, why isn’t the best explanation this: that some elements of consciousness also lie outside of nature? 

Baggini: (7:04) And similarly, you know, there are some sort of materialists who sort of don’t accept the fact there might be limits to our knowledge. There are bound to be limits to our knowledge. Look at us, we’re just overgrown apes or undergrown apes, actually. 

Question: Is not the fact that we are having these discussions the best available evidence that we are not “just overgrown apes or undergrown apes”?

And if it is true — as the Smithsonian advises — that our genomes differ from those of chimpanzees by a mere 1.2 percent, why is it not reasonable to assume that the explanation for the difference humanity makes lies outside the material world? 

Read the rest at Mind Matters News, published by Discovery Institute’s Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence.

Primeval tech v. OOL science.

 Energy Harnessing: Achilles Heel for the Origin of Life 

Evolution News @DiscoveryCSC 

Origin-of-life specialist Rob Stadler joins a new ID the Future episode to discuss the latest Long Story Short science video. The cheeky video (below) investigates a problem that faces all materialist origin-of-life scenarios: To be viable, a cell must have sophisticated machinery, including ATP synthase, to turn raw energy into constructive energy. But how could prebiotic chemicals harness raw energy on the way to evolving into a viable self-reproducing cell without first having the sophisticated machinery to harness raw energy and convert it to useful work? Are the energy sources that have been proposed for chemical evolution realistic? In his conversation with host Eric Anderson, Dr. Stadler argues that, no, they aren’t. This isn’t the sort of hurdle that mindless natural processes can overcome, but it is precisely the sort of problem that a designing mind could solve. Download the podcast or listen to it here. 

Scientism v. Science scepticism?

 Stephen Meyer: No, the Big Bang Hasn’t Been “Disproven” 

David Klinghoffer 

As soon as I see multiple uses of scare words like “denial,” “disinformation,” and “pseudoscience,” my eyebrow goes up. Today, the mark of genuine disinformation is, often, the repeated, robotic use of the word “disinformation.” A piece at Space.com seems to be competing to see how densely it can sprinkle such terms across a short article. Keith Cooper writes, “The James Webb Space Telescope never disproved the Big Bang. Here’s how that falsehood spread.” He’s referring to “an article about a pseudoscientific theory that went viral in August, and which mischaracterized quotes from an astrophysicist to create a false narrative that the Big Bang didn’t happen.”

We’ve addressed that already here. And Cooper is correct that the original story was highly misleading. But count the number of variations on the phrase “science denial” in just two paragraphs. This is verging on hysteria: 

Science denial is a growing problem. While science denial has existed for as long as science, in recent years it seems to have grown more pervasive, perhaps encouraged by social media. And although somebody choosing not to believe in the Big Bang won’t cause society to unravel, other examples of science denial are not so benign: not believing in vaccines, for example, saw millions of people around the world die unnecessarily from COVID-19, while climate denial has stymied efforts to bring in legislation to combat the planet’s rising global temperatures.

“Science denial has gotten worse because it’s now more of a threat to the wellbeing of our society,” [How to Talk to a Science Denier author Lee] McIntyre said. “Denialism costs lives.” 

I was much more interested to hear what philosopher of science Stephen Meyer, author of Return of the God Hypothesis, had to say about the same viral story in a conversation with podcaster Frank Turek. The two ask, “Has the Big Bang Been Disproven?” 

The answer is no: observations so far from the Webb Space Telescope have strengthened the case for a cosmic beginning, as Meyer shows, not weakened it. He explains why science writer Eric Lerner and his “pet theory” about the Big Bang are wrong. It’s much more persuasive to say so, lucidly and soberly, without trashing other people as “serial deniers” or pushers of “pseudoscience.” I highly recommend Dr. Meyer’s detailed discussion of why, yes, the universe began with a “bang

 .”

The Amurru kingdom: a brief history.

 Amurru kingdom 

Amurru was an Amorite kingdom established c. 2000 BC,[1] in a region spanning present-day western and north-western Syria and northern Lebanon.[2][3][4] The inhabitants spoke the Amorite language, an extinct early Northwest Semitic language language classified as a westernmost or Amorite-specific dialect of Ugaritic.[5][6][7] The kingdom and its people were synonymous with their god Amurru, also known as Martu, a storm and weather deity and patron god of the unknown Mesopotamian city of Ninab, titled as bêl šadê and sometimes compared to the Canaanite and Mesopotamian god Hadad/Iškur.[8][9] 

Religion

Ancient Levantine religion

Government

Monarchy

• c. 14th century BC

Abdi-Ashirta

• c. 14th century BC

Aziru

Historical era

Bronze Age

• Established

c. 2000 BC

• Disestablished

c. 1200 BC

Today part of

Syria

Lebanon 

The first documented leader of Amurru was Abdi-Ashirta (14th century BC), under whose leadership Amurru was part of the Egyptian empire. His son Aziru made contact with the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I, and eventually defected to the Hittites.

The Amurru kingdom was destroyed around 1200 B.C.

Adrian Carton de Wiart: a brief history.

 Adrian Carton de Wiart 

Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart,[1] VC, KBE, CB, CMG, DSO (/də ˈwaɪ.ərt/;[2] 5 May 1880 – 5 June 1963) was a British Army officer born of Belgian and Irish parents. He was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" in various Commonwealth countries.[3] He served in the Boer War, First World War, and Second World War. He was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear; was blinded in his left eye; survived two plane crashes; tunnelled out of a prisoner-of-war camp; and tore off his own fingers when a doctor declined to amputate them. Describing his experiences in the First World War, he wrote, "Frankly I had enjoyed the war."[4] 

Birth name

Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart

Born

5 May 1880

Brussels, Belgium

Died

5 June 1963 (aged 83)

Aghinagh House, Killinardrish, County Cork, Ireland

Buried

Killinardish Churchyard, County Cork, Ireland

Allegiance

United Kingdom

Service/branch

British Army

Years of service

1899–1923

1939–1947

Rank

Lieutenant-general

Service number

836

Commands held

61st Infantry Division

134th Brigade

12th Brigade

8th (Service) Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment

Battles/wars

Second Boer War

First World War

Somaliland Campaign

Battle of the Somme

Battle of Passchendaele

Battle of Cambrai

Battle of Arras (1918)

Polish-Soviet War

Polish-Ukrainian War

Polish-Lithuanian War

Second World War

Invasion of Poland

Norwegian campaign

Second Sino-Japanese War

Awards

Victoria Cross

Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire

Companion of the Order of the Bath

Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George

Distinguished Service Order

Mentioned in Despatches

Virtuti Militari (Poland)

Croix de guerre (Belgium)

Legion of Honour (France)

Croix de Guerre (France) 

After returning home from service (including a period as a prisoner-of-war) in the Second World War, he was sent to China as Winston Churchill's personal representative. While en route he attended the Cairo Conference.

In his memoirs, Carton de Wiart wrote, "Governments may think and say as they like, but force cannot be eliminated, and it is the only real and unanswerable power. We are told that the pen is mightier than the sword, but I know which of these weapons I would choose."[5] Carton de Wiart was thought to be a model for the character of Brigadier Ben Ritchie-Hook in Evelyn Waugh's trilogy Sword of Honour.[6] The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography described him thus: "With his black eyepatch and empty sleeve, Carton de Wiart looked like an elegant pirate, and became a figure of legend."[7] 

Carton de Wiart was born into an aristocratic family in Brussels, on 5 May 1880, eldest son of Léon Constant Ghislain Carton de Wiart (1854–1915) and Ernestine Wenzig (1860–1886). By his contemporaries, he was widely believed to be an illegitimate son of King Leopold II of the Belgians.[8] He spent his early days in Belgium and in England.[9] The 'loss of his mother' when he was six prompted his father to move the family to Cairo so his father could practise at Egypt's mixed courts. It was widely assumed by biographers that his mother had died in 1886; however, his parents had in fact divorced in that year and his mother remarried Demosthenes Gregory Cuppa later in 1886.[10] His father was a lawyer and magistrate, as well as a director of the Cairo Electric Railways and Heliopolis Oases Company and was well connected in Egyptian governmental circles. Adrian Carton de Wiart learned to speak Arabic.[11]

Carton de Wiart was a Roman Catholic. In 1891, his English stepmother sent him to a boarding school in England, the Roman Catholic Oratory School, founded by John Henry Newman. From there, he went to Balliol College, Oxford, but left to join the British Army at the time of the Second Boer War around 1899, where he entered under the false name of "Trooper Carton", claiming to be 25 years old. His real age was no more than 20.[12] 

Carton de Wiart was wounded in the stomach and groin in South Africa early in the Second Boer War and was invalided home. His father was furious when he learned his son had abandoned his studies, but allowed his son to remain in the army. After another brief period at Oxford, where Aubrey Herbert was among his friends, he was given a commission in the Second Imperial Light Horse. He saw action in South Africa again, and on 14 September 1901 was given a regular commission as a second lieutenant in the 4th Dragoon Guards.[13] Carton de Wiart was transferred to India in 1902. He enjoyed sports, especially shooting and pig sticking.[14] 

Carton de Wiart's serious wound in the Boer War instilled in him a strong desire for physical fitness and he ran, jogged, walked, and played sports on a regular basis. In male company he was "a delightful character and must hold the world record for bad language."[15]

After his regiment was transferred to South Africa he was promoted to supernumerary lieutenant on 16 July 1904 and appointed an aide-de-camp to the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Henry Hildyard, the following July.[16] He describes this period lasting up to 1914 as his "Heyday", the title of Chapter 3 of his autobiography. His light duties as aide-de-camp gave him time for polo, another of his interests.[14] By 1907, although Carton de Wiart had now served in the British Army for eight years, he had remained a Belgian subject. On 13 September of that year, he took the oath of allegiance to Edward VII and was formally naturalised as a British subject.[1]

In 1908 he married Countess Friederike Maria Karoline Henriette Rosa Sabina Franziska Fugger von Babenhausen (1887 Klagenfurt – 1949 Vienna), eldest daughter of Karl, 5th Fürst (Prince) von Fugger-Babenhausen and Princess Eleonora zu Hohenlohe-Bartenstein und Jagstberg of Klagenfurt, Austria. They had two daughters, the elder of whom Anita (born 1909, deceased) was the maternal grandmother of the war correspondent Anthony Loyd (born 1966).[17][18]

Carton de Wiart was already well connected in European circles, his two closest cousins being Count Henri Carton de Wiart, Prime Minister of Belgium from 1920 to 1921, and Baron Edmond Carton de Wiart, political secretary to the King of Belgium and director of La Société Générale de Belgique. While on leave, he travelled extensively throughout central Europe, using his Catholic aristocratic connections to shoot at country estates in Bohemia, Austria, Hungary, and Bavaria.[19] Following his return to England, he rode with the famous Duke of Beaufort's Hunt where he met, among others, the future field marshal, Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, and the future air marshal, Sir Edward Ellington. He was promoted to captain on 26 February 1910.[20] The Duke of Beaufort was the honorary colonel of the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars, and from 1 January 1912 until his departure for Somaliland in 1914 Carton de Wiart served as the regiment's adjutant.[21] 

When the First World War broke out, Carton de Wiart was en route to British Somaliland where a low-level war was underway against the followers of Dervish leader Mohammed bin Abdullah, called the "Mad Mullah" by the British. Carton de Wiart had been seconded to the Somaliland Camel Corps. A staff officer with the corps was Hastings Ismay, later Lord Ismay, Churchill's military advisor.[22] In an attack upon an enemy fort at Shimber Berris, Carton de Wiart was shot twice in the face, losing his eye and also a portion of his ear. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) on 15 May 1915.[23] 

In February 1915, he embarked on a steamer for France. Carton de Wiart took part in the fighting on the Western Front, commanding successively three infantry battalions and a brigade. He was wounded seven more times in the war, losing his left hand in 1915 and pulling off his fingers when a doctor declined to remove them.[24] He was shot through the skull and ankle at the Battle of the Somme, through the hip at the Battle of Passchendaele, through the leg at Cambrai, and through the ear at Arras. He went to the Sir Douglas Shield's Nursing Home to recover from his injuries.[25] 

Carton de Wiart received the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest award for gallantry in combat that can be awarded to British Empire forces, in 1916. He was 36 years old, and a temporary lieutenant-colonel in the 4th Dragoon Guards (Royal Irish), British Army, attached to the Gloucestershire Regiment, commanding the 8th Battalion, when the following events took place on 2/3 July 1916 at La Boiselle, France, as recorded in the official citation:

Capt. (temp. Lt.-Col.) Adrian Carton de Wiart, D.S.O., Dn. Gds.

For most conspicuous bravery, coolness and determination during severe operations of a prolonged nature. It was owing in a great measure to his dauntless courage and inspiring example that a serious reverse was averted. He displayed the utmost energy and courage in forcing our attack home. After three other battalion Commanders had become casualties, he controlled their commands, and ensured that the ground won was maintained at all costs. He frequently exposed himself in the organisation of positions and of supplies, passing unflinchingly through fire barrage of the most intense nature. His gallantry was inspiring to all.

— London Gazette, 9 September 1916.[26]

His Victoria Cross is displayed at the National Army Museum, Chelsea.[27] 

Carton de Wiart was promoted to temporary major in March 1916.[28] He subsequently attained the rank of temporary lieutenant colonel on 18 July, was brevetted to major on 1 January 1917 and was promoted to temporary brigadier general on 12 January 1917.[29][30][31] He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the Crown of Belgium in April 1917.[32] On 3 June 1917, Carton de Wiart was brevetted to lieutenant-colonel.[33] On 18 July, he was promoted to the substantive rank of major in the Dragoon Guards.[34] He was awarded the Belgian Croix de Guerre in March 1918,[35] and was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in the King's Birthday Honours List in June.[36]

Three days before the end of the war, on 8 November, Carton de Wiart was given command of a brigade with the rank of temporary brigadier general.[37] A S Bullock gives a vivid first-hand description of his arrival: 'Cold shivers went down the back of everyone in the brigade, for he had an unsurpassed record as a fire eater, missing no chance of throwing the men under his command into whatever fighting happened to be going.' Bullock recalls how the battalion looked 'very much the worse for wear' when they paraded for the brigadier general's inspection. He arrived 'on a lively cob with his cap tilted at a rakish angle, and a shade over the place where one of his eyes had been'. He was also missing two limbs and had eleven wound stripes. Bullock, the first man in line for the inspection, notes that Carton de Wiart, despite having only one eye, ordered him to get his bootlace changed.[38] 

At the end of the war Carton de Wiart was sent to Poland as second in command of the British-Poland Military Mission under General Louis Botha. Carton de Wiart was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in the 1919 King's Birthday Honours List.[39] After a brief period, he replaced General Botha in the mission to Poland.[40]

Poland desperately needed support, as it was engaged with Bolshevik Russia in the Polish-Soviet War, the Ukrainians in the Polish-Ukrainian War, the Lithuanians in the Polish-Lithuanian War, and the Czechs in the Czech-Polish border conflicts. There he met Ignacy Jan Paderewski, the pianist and premier, Marshal Józef Piłsudski, the Chief of State and military commander, and General Maxime Weygand, head of the French military mission in mid-1920.[41] One of his tasks soon after his arrival was to attempt to make peace between the Poles and the Ukrainian nationalists under Simon Petlyura. The Ukrainians were besieging the city of Lwów (Lvov; Lemberg). The discussions were unsuccessful.[42]

From there he went on to Paris to report on Polish conditions to the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George and to General Sir Henry Wilson. Lloyd George was not sympathetic to Poland and, much to Carton de Wiart's annoyance, Britain sent next to no military supplies. Then he went back to Poland and many more front line adventures, this time in the Bolshevik zone, where the situation was grave and Warsaw threatened. During this time he had significant interaction with the nuntius (dean of the Vatican diplomatic corps) Cardinal Achille Ratti, later Pius XI, who wanted Carton de Wiart's advice as to whether to evacuate the diplomatic corps from Warsaw. The diplomats moved to Poznań, but the Italians remained in Warsaw along with Ratti.[43]

From all these affairs, Carton de Wiart developed a sympathy with the Poles and supported their claims to eastern Galicia. This caused disagreement with Lloyd George at their next meeting, but was appreciated by the Poles. At one time during his Warsaw stay he was a second in a duel between Polish members of the Mysliwski Club, the other second being Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, later commander-in-chief of Finnish armies in World War II and President of Finland. Norman Davies reports that he was "compromised in a gun-running operation from Budapest using stolen wagon-lits".[44]

He became close to the Polish leader, Marshal Piłsudski. After an aircraft crash occasioning a brief period in Lithuanian captivity, he went back to England to report, this time to the Secretary of State for War, Winston Churchill. He passed on to Churchill Piłsudski's prediction that the White Russian offensive under General Anton Denikin directed at Moscow would fail. It did shortly thereafter. Churchill was more sympathetic to Polish needs than Lloyd George and succeeded, over Lloyd George's objections, in sending some materiel to Poland.[45]

On 27 July 1920, Carton de Wiart was appointed an aide-de-camp to the king, and brevetted to colonel.[46] He was active in August 1920, when the Red Army were at the gates of Warsaw. While out on his observation train, he was attacked by a group of Red cavalry, and fought them off with his revolver from the footplate of his train, at one point falling on the track and re-boarding quickly.[47]

When the Poles won the war, the British Military Mission was wound up. Carton de Wiart was promoted to temporary brigadier general and also appointed to the local rank of major general on 1 January.[48] He was promoted to the substantive rank of colonel on 21 June 1922, with seniority from 27 July 1920 and relinquished his local rank of major general on 1 April 1923, going on half-pay as a colonel at the same time.[49][50] Carton de Wiart officially retired from the army on 19 December, with the honorary rank of major general.[51] 

His last Polish aide de camp was Prince Karol Mikołaj Radziwiłł, member of the Radziwiłł family who inherited a large 500,000-acre (200,000 ha) estate in eastern Poland when the communists killed his uncle. They became friends and Carton de Wiart was given the use of a large estate called Prostyń, in the Pripet Marshes, a wetland area larger than Ireland and surrounded by water and forests.[47] In this location Carton de Wiart spent the rest of the interwar years. In his memoirs he said "In my fifteen years in the marshes I did not waste one day without hunting".[47]

After 15 years, Carton de Wiart's peaceful Polish life was interrupted by the looming war, when he was recalled in July 1939 and appointed to his old job, as head of the British Military Mission to Poland. Poland was attacked by Nazi Germany on 1 September and on 17 September the Soviets allied with Germany attacked Poland from the east. Soon Soviet forces overran Prostyń and Carton de Wiart lost all his guns, fishing rods, clothing, and furniture. They were packed up by the Soviets and stored in the Minsk Museum, but destroyed by the Germans in later fighting. He never saw the area again, but as he said "they did not manage to take my memories".[47] 

Carton de Wiart met with the Polish commander-in-chief, Marshal of Poland Edward Rydz-Śmigły, in late August 1939 and formed a rather low opinion of his capabilities. He strongly urged Rydz-Śmigły to pull Polish forces back beyond the Vistula River, but was unsuccessful.[52] The other advice he offered, to have the seagoing units of the Polish fleet leave the Baltic Sea, was, after much argument, finally adopted. This fleet made a significant contribution to the Allied cause, especially the several modern destroyers and submarines.[53]

As Polish resistance weakened, Carton de Wiart evacuated his mission from Warsaw along with the Polish government. Together with the Polish commander Rydz-Śmigły, Carton de Wiart made his way with the rest of the British Mission to the Romanian border with both the Germans and the Soviets in pursuit. His car convoy was attacked by the Luftwaffe on the road, and the wife of one of his aides was killed. He was in danger of arrest in Romania and got out by aircraft on 21 September with a false passport, just in time as the pro-Allied Romanian prime minister, Armand Calinescu, was assassinated that day.[54] 

Recalled to a special appointment in the army in the autumn of 1939, Carton de Wiart reverted to his former rank of colonel. He was granted the rank of acting major general on 28 November.[55] After a brief stint in command of the 61st Division in the English Midlands, Carton de Wiart was summoned in April 1940 to take charge of a hastily drawn together Anglo-French force to occupy Namsos, a small town in middle Norway. His orders were to take the city of Trondheim, 125 miles (200 km) to the south, in conjunction with a naval attack and an advance from the south by troops landed at Åndalsnes.[56] He flew to Namsos to reconnoitre the location before the troops arrived. When his Short Sunderland flying boat landed, it was attacked by a German fighter and his aide was wounded and had to be evacuated. After the French Alpine troops landed[57] (without their transport mules and missing straps for their skis), the Luftwaffe bombed and destroyed the town of Namsos.[58] 

Despite these handicaps, Carton de Wiart managed to move his forces over the mountains and down to Trondheimsfjord, where they were shelled by German destroyers. They had no artillery to challenge the German ships. It soon became apparent that the whole Norwegian campaign was fast becoming a failure. The naval attack on Trondheim, the reason for the Namsos landing, did not happen and his troops were exposed without guns, transport, air cover, or skis in a foot and a half of snow. They were being attacked by German ski troops, machine gunned and bombed from the air, and the German Navy was landing troops to his rear. He recommended withdrawal but was asked to hold his position for political reasons, which he did.[59]

After orders and counterorders from London, the decision to evacuate was made. However, on the date set to evacuate the troops, the ships did not appear. The next night a naval force finally arrived, led through the fog by Lord Louis Mountbatten. The transports successfully evacuated the entire force amid heavy bombardment by the Germans, resulting in the sinking of two destroyers: the French Bison and British HMS Afridi.[59] Carton de Wiart arrived back at the British naval base of Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands on 5 May 1940, his 60th birthday.[59] 

Carton de Wiart was posted back to the command of the 61st Division, which was soon transferred to Northern Ireland as a defence against invasion.[60] However, following the arrival of Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Pownall as Commander-in-Chief in Northern Ireland, Carton de Wiart was told that he was too old to command a division on active duty.[61] 

Advanced to temporary major-general on 28 November 1940,[62] he remained inactive very briefly, as he was appointed as head of the British-Yugoslavian Military Mission on 5 April 1941. Hitler was preparing to invade the country and the Yugoslavs asked for British help. Carton de Wiart travelled in a Vickers Wellington bomber to Belgrade, Serbia to negotiate with the Yugoslavian government. After refuelling in Malta,[63] the aircraft left for Cairo with enemy territory to the north and south. Both engines failed off the coast of Italian-controlled Libya, and the plane crash-landed in the sea about a mile from land. Carton de Wiart was knocked unconscious, but the cold water made him regain consciousness. When the plane broke up and sank, he and the rest aboard were forced to swim to shore.[64] They were captured by the Italian authorities.[65] 

Carton de Wiart was a high-profile prisoner. After four months at the Villa Orsini at Sulmona, he was transferred to a special prison for senior officers at Castello di Vincigliata. There were a number of senior officer prisoners here due to the successes achieved by Rommel in North Africa early in 1941. Carton de Wiart made friends, especially with General Sir Richard O'Connor, The 6th Earl of Ranfurly and Lieutenant-General Philip Neame, VC. In letters to his wife, Lord Ranfurly described Carton de Wiart in captivity as "a delightful character" and said he "must hold the record for bad language." Ranfurly was "endlessly amused by him. He really is a nice person – superbly outspoken."[15] The four were committed to escaping. He made five attempts, including seven months tunnelling. Once Carton de Wiart evaded capture for eight days disguised as an Italian peasant (he was in northern Italy, could not speak Italian, and was 61 years old, with an eye patch, one empty sleeve and multiple injuries and scars).[66]

Then, in a surprising development, Carton de Wiart was taken from prison in August 1943 and driven to Rome. The Italian government was secretly planning to leave the war and wanted Carton de Wiart to send the message to the British Army about a peace treaty with the UK. Carton de Wiart was to accompany an Italian negotiator, General Giacomo Zanussi, to Lisbon to meet Allied contacts to negotiate the surrender. To keep the mission secret, Carton de Wiart was told he needed civilian clothes. Distrusting Italian tailors, he stated that "[he] had no objection provided [he] did not resemble a gigolo."[67] In Happy Odyssey, he described the resultant suit as being "as good as anything that ever came out of Savile Row."[67] When they reached Lisbon, Carton de Wiart was released and made his way to England, reaching there on 28 August 1943.[68] 

Within a month of his arrival back in England, Carton de Wiart was summoned to spend a night at the prime minister's country home at Chequers. Churchill informed him that he was to be sent to China as his personal representative. He was granted the rank of acting lieutenant-general on 9 October,[69] and left by air for India on 18 October 1943. Anglo-Chinese relations were difficult in World War II as the Kuomintang had long called for the end of British extraterritorial rights in China together with the return of Hong Kong, neither proposal being welcome to Churchill. In early 1942, Churchill had to ask Chiang Kai-shek to send Chinese troops to help the British hold Burma from the Japanese, and following the Japanese conquest of Burma the X Force of five Chinese divisions had ended up in eastern India.[70] Churchill was unhappy with having the X Force defend India as it weakened the prestige of the Raj, and in an attempt to improve relations with China, the prime minister felt a soldier with experience of diplomacy such as Carton de Wiart would be the best man to be his personal representative in China.[70]

As his accommodation in China was not ready, Carton de Wiart spent time in India gaining an understanding of the situation in China, especially being briefed by a genuine tai-pan, John Keswick, head of the great China trading empire Jardine Matheson. He met the Viceroy, Field Marshal Viscount Wavell and General Sir Claude Auchinleck, the Commander-in-Chief in India. He also met Orde Wingate."[71] Before arriving in China, Carton de Wiart attended the 1943 Cairo Conference organized by Churchill, U.S President Roosevelt and Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek."[72]

When in Cairo, he took the opportunity to renew his acquaintance with Hermione, Countess of Ranfurly, the wife of his friend from prisoner-of-war days, Dan Ranfurly. Carton de Wiart was one of the few to be able to work with the notoriously difficult commander of US forces in the China-Burma-India Theatre, U.S Army General Joseph Stilwell."[73] He arrived in the headquarters of the Nationalist Chinese Government, Chungking (Chongqing), in early December 1943. For the next three years, he was to be involved in a host of reporting, diplomatic and administrative duties in the remote wartime capital. Carton de Wiart became a great admirer of the Chinese people. He wrote that, when he was appointed as Churchill's personal representative to Chiang Kai-shek in China, he imagined a country "full of whimsical little people with quaint customs who carved lovely jade ornaments and worshiped their grandmothers".[70] Once stationed in China, however, he wrote: 'Two things struck me forcibly: the first was the amount of sheer hard work the people were doing, and the second their cheerfulness in doing it.'[74] 

He regularly flew out to India to liaise with British officials. His old friend, Richard O'Connor, had escaped from the Italian prisoner-of-war camp and was now in command of British troops in eastern India. The Governor of Bengal, the Australian Richard Casey, became a good friend.[75]

On 9 October 1944, Carton de Wiart was promoted to temporary lieutenant-general and to the war substantive rank of major-general.[76] Carton de Wiart returned home in December 1944 to report to the War Cabinet on the Chinese situation. He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in the 1945 New Year Honours.[77] Clement Attlee, when he became head of the Labour Government in June 1945, asked Carton de Wiart to stay on in China.[78] 

A good part of Carton de Wiart's reporting had to do with the increasing power of the Chinese Communists. The journalist and historian Max Hastings writes: "De Wiart despised all Communists on principle, denounced Mao Zedong as 'a fanatic', and added: 'I cannot believe he means business'. He told the British cabinet that there was no conceivable alternative to Chiang as ruler of China."[80] He met Mao Zedong at dinner and had a memorable exchange with him, interrupting his propaganda speech to criticise him for holding back from fighting the Japanese for domestic political reasons. Mao was briefly stunned, and then laughed.[81]

After the Japanese surrender in August 1945, Carton de Wiart flew to Singapore to participate in the formal surrender. After a visit to Peking, he moved to Nanking, the now-liberated Nationalist capital, accompanied by Julian Amery, the British Prime Minister's Personal Representative to Chiang.[82] A visit to Tokyo to meet General Douglas MacArthur came at the end of his tenure. He was now 66 and ready to retire, despite the offer of a job by Chiang. Carton de Wiart retired in October 1947, with the honorary rank of lieutenant-general.[83] 

En route home via French Indochina, Carton de Wiart stopped in Rangoon as a guest of the army commander. Coming down stairs, he slipped on coconut matting, fell down, broke several vertebrae, and knocked himself unconscious. He was admitted to Rangoon Hospital where he was treated.[84] His wife died in 1949. In 1951, at the age of 71, he married Ruth Myrtle Muriel Joan McKechnie, a divorcee known as Joan Sutherland, 23 years his junior (born in late 1903, she died 13 January 2006 at the age of 102.)[85] They settled at Aghinagh House, Killinardrish, County Cork, Ireland.[86]

Carton de Wiart died at the age of 83 on 5 June 1963. He left no papers.[87] He and his wife Joan are buried in Caum Churchyard just off the main Macroom road. The grave site is just outside the actual graveyard wall on the grounds of his own home, Aghinagh House. Carton de Wiart's will was valued at probate in Ireland at £4,158 and in England at £3,496.[88

I think therefore I am?

 Another Philosopher Says the Unified Self Is an Illusion 

Denyse O'Leary 

university of kent philosopher julian baggini, author of the great guide: what david hume can teach us about being human and living well (2021), was interviewed recently by robert lawrence kuhn at closer to truth. in the interview, dr. baggini asserted that, while consciousness is not an illusion, a unified self that persists through time is: 

Here is a partial transcript, interspersed with questions that arise from the discussion:

Robert Lawrence Kuhn: Julian, my own internal feeling of awareness, my consciousness seems like the most obvious fundamental thing in the world. You tell me it’s an illusion. Why?

Julian Baggini: (0:11) To be honest, consciousness isn’t an illusion. I mean clearly there’s awareness of the world. I wouldn’t even say that the self is an illusion.

What’s an illusion is the idea that within each of us is this unitary fixed constant self, that there is in each of us a kind of core of being, a single entity which is the same and persists through time. I think that’s an illusion because, actually, when you look at it and you look at it from the point of view of introspection or you look at it through neuroscience or you look at it through meditation — which Buddhism does — you find that actually there’s just an arrangement, a collection of thoughts, feelings, memories, and so forth, and it’s the way those all come together. It gives us a feeling of being unitary entities but there isn’t a single thing there at the core of it.  

Question: But if the unitary self is an illusion, whose illusion is it? 

If “a collection of thoughts, feelings, memories, and so forth” comes together, isn’t that, precisely, a “single thing there at the core of it.”? 

Kuhn: (1:04) Some people talk about this being a binding problem because we have auditory impulses, visual impulses, tactile memories, and all of these come together and they seem to be a coherent whole but they are really separate systems coming together. Is this part of the concept of how all of these different systems come together and why does it feel like it’s one thing?

Baggini: (1:27 )Well, there are also metaphors one can use and I think that to try and explain it completely would be idiotic. We don’t understand enough about how the sense of self emerges from the way the brain operates to actually be able to explain this properly. So we have to be satisfied with the fact that we don’t yet know and just accept that rather than leap to some false answer which will give us some neat solution which actually isn’t based on the evidence. 

Question: We do have a persistent sense of self. We don’t know that the sense of self “emerges from the way the brain operates.” Maybe it doesn’t. Could that be why we aren’t finding answers in that direction? 

Baggini: (1:55) But there are lots of metaphors that can help us. I mean the most basic one would be like an orchestra. I guess we all have the sense that when you listen to an orchestra you have a sense of there being a single piece of music. You hear it as one thing but we know that’s only because there are all sorts of different instruments doing their bits. There isn’t a single thing there. The orchestra is a collection and, in a way, brain and consciousness [are] like an orchestra of the mind. They’re all these different systems working together and they create a sense of oneness because of the way they harmonize. 

Question: Wait. Every individual member of the orchestra is a complete individual human and they have all chosen to work together toward a single goal, which is the performance of the piece they are playing. So there is in fact “a single thing there” — as the sheet music will show. Brain and consciousness would only be like an orchestra if each element in the brain-mind mix was a complete individual human. Is that even thinkable? 

Kuhn: What would be the analog of the conductor of the orchestra?

Baggini: (2:23) Well yes, people sometimes say if a brain is like an orchestra, if consciousness is like the orchestra, who’s the conductor? But you know, orchestras don’t always need conductors. That’s the point, you know. The best ones do and we might think there’s one but there needn’t be one. 

Question: Dr. Baggini does not offer an example of an orchestra without a conductor. However, a research study found that conductors do exert control over the orchestra — and that the better ones exert more control and get better results. Are there instances of successful orchestras with no conductor? 

Read the rest at Mind Matters News, published by Discovery Institute’s Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence.

A design with us in mind?

 Is There Enough Phosphorus for Us? 

David Coppedge. 

Not long ago I considered the element phosphorus as a test case for Michael Denton’s hypothesis of prior fitness of the environment for complex beings of our size. Phosphorus is a vital element on which life’s genetic and metabolic processes depend every picosecond. And yet P is not as easily cycled through the environment as are other elements like nitrogen and carbon. Phosphorus, therefore, can be considered a limiting factor for a productive biosphere. We left the issue as a work in progress, although ample circumstantial evidence exists that P bioavailability has not been a problem throughout Earth’s history (consider trilobites in an ancient ocean, sauropods in a tropical rain forest, or tropical fish in a lagoon consuming phosphorus with impunity in different eras).

Phosphorus has been in the news since that article. A paper in Nature admits that “the extent to which phosphorus availability limits tropical forest productivity is highly uncertain” because of intertwined effects with other limiting factors such as nitrogen. The authors experimented with adding phosphorus to a small patch of old growth rainforest in Amazonia, where soils are depleted in phosphorus. After two years, they saw increases in primary productivity, but not in stem growth. Disentangling the effects of phosphorus from other factors still seems uncertain. 

At Charles University in the Czech Republic, two paleontologists investigated the phosphorus cycle over geological time by investigating the abundance of phosphatic marine shells in the fossil record as a proxy. In news from the Faculty of Science, they ascribe a transfer of phosphorus from shelly creatures to vertebrates in the Devonian: 

M. Mergl laconically remarked that “phosphorus was stolen by vertebrates“. This remark actually became the “starting shot”. The question of the radical loss of phosphorus in the environment proved so exciting that both authors set about studying in detail the various corners of the cycle of this element. [Emphasis added.] 

The Phosphorus Theory

Their tale begins with abundant phosphorus supporting the Ediacaran fauna. Then they attribute the Cambrian Explosion in part to still-plentiful phosphorus. 

The Early Paleozoic was a critical era of phosphorus cycle due to the intense involvement of biota in its dynamics. At the beginning, phosphorus was easily available in great amount and therefore many groups had the opportunity to build external phosphatic shells. This very likely contributed to the story of the Cambrian explosion, a period when representatives of almost all animal phyla appeared in the fossil record within a relatively short period of time. The Cambrian was thus a “golden age” for organisms with external phosphatic shells. 

Like the oxygen theory, this explanation transfers the explanation for the origin of genetic information to the abundances of blind elements in the periodic table — hardly a logical idea. That would be like attributing the origin of books to the availability of movable type in a print shop with no Gutenberg. 

In Act Two of their biological opera, phosphorus divorced the shelly creatures and married the vertebrates. Marine shells declined in size because large phosphatic shells became a luxury. “This process has been accelerated by the emergence and evolutionary diversification of vertebrates, which, although they need a lot of phosphorus, are better at managing it,” the paleontologists surmise. But the plot thickens when anomalies emerge:  

The subsequent era from the end of the Paleozoic to the present is characterized by limited but also selective availability of phosphorus in the seas and oceans. Geological processes such as the Variscan (400-300 Ma) and the Alpine orogenies (80 Ma to the present) have greatly aided the supply of phosphorus to the oceans.However, the ability of phosphorus to reach the oceans from its main source in the rocks of the denuded continents was hampered by the spreading of vegetation on land and other influences such as climate during this times [sic].  

A Skeleton Key? 

Climate change should not be used as a skeleton key for incomplete answers. In combination with “other influences,” storytellers can make any plot work. Kraft and Mergl published their ideas in an Opinion article, “Struggle for phosphorus and the Devonian overturn,” last month in Trends in Ecology & Evolution.

Most instructive is their proposal that “geological processes… have aided the supply of phosphorus” to the oceans and land. The role of volcanoes and orogenic processes in keeping phosphorus plentiful throughout Earth’s history deserves elaboration by design theorists. Consider what happened on January 14, when one of the most powerful volcanic eruptions ever recorded, the Hunga-Tonga volcano, surprised scientists with a massive plume visible from space (see the photo above). A new paper in Geophysical Research Letters reports a “massive phytoplankton bloom” that was visible from space as well following the eruption.  

Two independent bio-optical approaches confirmed that the phytoplankton bloom was a robust observation and not an optical artifact due to volcanogenic material. Furthermore, the timing, size, and position of the phytoplankton bloom suggest that plankton growth was primarily stimulated by nutrients released from volcanic ash rather than by nutrients upwelled through submarine volcanic activity. The appearance of a large region with high chlorophyll a concentrations less than 48 hours after the largest eruptive phase indicates a fast ecosystem response to nutrient fertilization. However, net phytoplankton growth probably initiated before the main eruption, when weaker volcanism had already fertilized the ocean. 

Although chlorophyll itself does not contain phosphorus, the availability of phosphorus in the ash may have stimulated rapid proliferation of the plankton. 

Phosphorus Ecology

Does phosphorus availability impact predator-prey relationships? In a research article in PNAS, Guilloneau et al.investigated “Trade-offs of lipid remodeling in a marine predator–prey interaction in response to phosphorus limitation.”  

Microbial growth is often limited by key nutrients like phosphorus (P) across the global ocean. A major response to P limitation is the replacement of membrane phospholipids with non-P lipids to reduce their cellular P quota. However, the biological “costs” of lipid remodeling are largely unknown. Here, we uncover a predator–prey interaction trade-off whereby a lipid-remodeled bacterial prey cell becomes more susceptible to digestion by a protozoan predator facilitating its rapid growth. Thus, we highlight a complex interplay between adaptation to the abiotic environment and consequences for biotic interactions (grazing), which may have important implications for the stability and structuring of microbial communities and the performance of the marine food web. 

The magical thinking in this story becomes evident when the authors opine that “marine microbes have evolved sophisticated strategies to adapt to P limitation” such as replacing phospholipids with non-P lipids. One must imagine microbes holding committee meetings, thinking out “strategies” as if they were business managers worried about maintaining their products under duress from shortages in the supply chain. “But if we do that,” one manager worries, “we become susceptible to organized crime.”  

The low availability of key nutrients like P in marine surface waters represents a grand challenge for microbes, particularly those inhabiting oligotrophic gyres. Although lipid remodeling enables these microbes to survive better in these potentially P-limited environments, as well as facilitating greater avoidance of ingestion by ciliate grazers, once ingested, these lipid-remodeled cells are unable to survive phagolysosomal digestion (Fig. 6). Therefore, these microbes face an unsolvable dilemma.  

The managers panic; what to do? Each option is potentially disastrous. “Thus, it is clear that adaptation to a specific niche can come with consequences to an organism’s viability,” the storytellers continue. Stay tuned for the next exciting episode! “…it remains to be seen what other trade-offs in predator–prey interactions exist following adaptation of cosmopolitan marine microbes to P limitation.”  

Not Particularly Helpful  

Speculation like this is not particularly helpful in science, especially when the story is so evidence-starved as to depend on one single example of a microbe and its predator. “Global change is expected to exacerbate P limitation in the surface ocean due to water-column stratification accelerated by global warming,” they say at one point. Maybe that was the motivation to ensure their story got funded and published. But what do they know from their observations? And how can they extrapolate one predator-prey interaction to the whole globe? 

Moreover, given that the effects of remodeling on predator–prey interactions we report here are ultimately controlled by in situ P concentrations (which controls lipid remodeling), then such interaction effects are also likely to be dynamic in their nature, given the often-seasonal nature of P limitation — e.g., in the Mediterranean Sea, PlcP-mediated lipid remodeling occurs across an annual cycle, whereby P limitation intensifies during spring and summer, but starts to become alleviated from September. Nonetheless, this work clearly highlights the complex interplay between the abiotic nutrient environment, microbes, and their grazers and how predator–prey dynamics are governed by abiotic control of prey physiology, which has important implications for how we model trophic interactions in marine ecosystem models, particularly in a future scenario where nutrient-deplete gyre regions are set to expand. 

Readers should note that both predator and prey have not gone extinct, which would make a stronger case for P limitation in their limited ecological case. 

Habitability Requires a Phosphorus Supply Chain 

While agriculturalists worry about phosphorus for commercial fertilizers, none of these papers above suggest that the natural biosphere has ever suffered from a deficiency of phosphorus. The plankton bloom after the Tonga eruption shows how volcanoes can fortify marine environments with inorganic nutrients. Another paper in Nature Scientific Reports suggests that terrestrial environments, too, can take advantage of volcanic phosphorus. Pioneering plants can absorb phosphorus from volcanic ash and supply it to secondary growth through their leaf litter. This is interesting because many terrestrial soils contain volcanic ash containing insoluble inorganic phosphorus that was thought unavailable to plants. Volcanic islands like Japan and Hawaii, however, seem to have thriving ecosystems. 

Despite volcanic ash soil covering about 20% of the land in Japan,and phosphorus deficiency being a serious problem in Japanese agriculture, net primary production in Japanese forests is primarily is not low compared to other temperate zones of the world. This suggests that natural vegetation on the infertile volcanic ash soil obtain sufficient nutrition including phosphorus. 

Geology, therefore, appears to offer a supply chain for elemental nutrients built into our planet by means of plate tectonics coupled with thermodynamics — the availability of heat near the surface. Since a planet’s internal heat decreases over time, there may be temporal constraints on this supply chain. If so, one implication is that cold, dead worlds might not have a functioning biosphere even if they orbit in the habitable zone. Is Earth operating in a Goldilocks time as well as a Goldilocks location? These are good questions for design theorists to investigate. Meanwhile, Earth’s biosphere seems to be functioning tolerably with its natural phosphorus supply. 

And still yet even more primeval tech v. Darwin.

 The Electric Cell: More Synergy with Physics Found in Cellular Coding 

David Coppedge 

New imaging techniques down to the picometer scale are permitting the detection of previously unknown alliances of cellular software with electrostatics and mechanics. Such knowledge was unattainable until biophysicists gained the ability to measure phenomena at the atomic level. What they are finding multiplies the information content embedded in the molecules of life.

Early depictions of molecules in the nucleus showed them drifting around aimlessly. How could molecules do otherwise without membranes to hold them together? Organelles are defined by their lipid membranes. The simplified picture of molecules in lipid cages, like animals in a zoo, raised questions about how enzymes locate their substrates in regions that, at their scale, would be distant. Last December, we reported findings at Caltech that revealed smaller levels of organization at play: nuclear speckles, transcriptional condensates and other “membraneless organelles” coordinated by non-coding RNAs. These erstwhile “junk” parts of the genome turned out to play key roles in architecting the “office layout” of the cellular factory. Some ncRNAs actually recruit the partners needing to associate like managers calling a meeting. 

The Electric Cell 

New findings reported in PNAS by Toyama et al. are uncovering a role for electrostatics in enzymatic activity. Simultaneously, the discovery may offer insight into the function of so-called “disordered proteins” that never fold into stable structures, and other proteins containing disordered regions that would seem to flail about like loose cables. But there is order in the disorder! How big is this discovery? 

Electrostatic interactions play important roles in regulating a plethora of different biochemical processes and in providing stability to biomolecules and their complexes 

6What the team from the University of Toronto found, discussed below, was only made possible by “solution NMR spectroscopy.” This technique allows them, for the first time, to measure the near-surface electrostatic potentials of individual atoms in proteins and follow changes in those potentials during an enzyme’s action. 

Our results collectively show that a subtle balance between electrostatic repulsion and interchain attractive interactions regulates CAPRIN1 phase separation and provides insight into how nucleotides, such as ATP, can induce formation of and subsequently dissolve protein condensates. [Emphasis added.] 

CAPRIN1 (cell cycle associated protein 1) is an RNA-binding protein “localized to membraneless organelles playing an important role in messenger RNA (mRNA) storage and translation.” It may act as a negative regulator of translation, confining mRNAs in condensates at times to prevent overproduction of proteins. “CAPRIN1 is found in membraneless organelles, such as stress granules, P bodies, and messenger RNA (mRNA) transport granules, where, in concert with a variety of other RNA-binding proteins, it plays an important role in regulating RNA processing,” the paper explains. In humans, this enzyme appears associated with long-term memory through the regulation of dendritic spine density. If so, our memories are not just dependent on chemistry, but on electrostatics, too.

CAPRIN1 contains IDP tails at both ends which, it turns out, are the key to condensate formation. The Toronto team found, importantly, that ATP plays a dynamic role in the electrostatic changes of CAPRIN1, especially in its IDP regions. In brief, here is what happens (see Figure 5 in the paper). Specific amino acid residues in the IDP regions confer on them a net positive charge. This makes the tails repel each other, resisting condensate formation (and preventing self-association of the tails). When ATP attaches to the IDP regions, however, the net charge is reduced, permitting intermolecular interactions. As more ATP is added, the collection becomes neutral, and a condensate forms. Additional ATP inverts the electrical potential, making it negative. Electrostatic repulsion ensues again, causing breakup of the condensate, separating the contents and freeing them up for the next round.  

This implies that condensate formation has an electrical aspect to it. Since it relies on the sequence and position of specific amino acid residues, one might even call it an electric code. 

Our interest in these experiments lies in applications to intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) and to intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) of proteins, collectively referred to as IDPs in what follows. It is estimated that ∼30% of residues within human proteins encode regions of disorder, comprising at least 30 amino acids, with many of these proteins playing critical roles in cellular function, including modulating the formation of membraneless biomolecular condensates that organize proteins and/or nucleic acids, along with a variety of small molecules to regulate biochemical processes in the cell. At least 75% of IDPs contain both positively and negatively charged residues, with charge–charge interactions important in defining their physical and chemical properties and, in some cases, their propensities to phase separate. 

The information in the sequence of amino acids, and of the codons in the genes that encode them, appears to play critical roles in condensate formation and, simultaneously, in enzymatic behavior. Some amino acids they dub “stickers” promote phase separation. The specific electrostatic attractions and repulsions that give rise to the enzyme’s function during condensate formation and dissolution is dependent on the positions of these stickers.

This remarkable revelation begins to give insight into the participation of cell coding with electrophysics. Get a charge out of that! 

CAPRIN1 coexists with negatively charged RNA molecules in cells and, along with FMRP and other proteins, is implicated in the regulation of RNA processing and translational activity. Thus, electrostatics play a central role in modulating the biological functions of this protein, and measurement of electrostatic potentials at each site along its backbone, as reported here, provides an opportunity to understand in more detail the important role of charge in this system. 

The paper only investigated one enzyme, so caution is advised before generalizing. The authors feel, though, that this electrical code model will help explain many other processes that require molecules to come together, perform their work, and then separate. It’s the new Electric Cell. 

Future applications of these methods will pave the way for mapping the role of electrostatics in phase separation in a more general sense, including the effects of sequence, charge patterning, posttranslational modifications, and the presence of nucleic acids. 

Coded Mechanics, Too 

Another case of physics in cellular processing was uncovered by a team from the University of Washington who also published their work in PNAS. And once again, it was new creative imaging at the atomic scale that made the discovery possible.

This team worked on a helicase enzyme named PcrA, which unwinds DNA for transcription. This enzyme works so fast (1000 bases per second!) it’s been like trying to describe the blur of a racecar speeding down a track. Using a new technique called “single-molecule picometer-resolution nanopore tweezers” (SPRNT), they were able to slow down the action and watch the racecar move with its “inchworm mechanism” one base at a time. This blends chemistry with another branch of physics, mechanics: “mechanochemistry." 

We recorded more than two million enzyme steps under various assisting and opposing forces in diverse adenosine tri- and diphosphate conditions to comprehensively explore the mechanochemistry of PcrA motion.…Our data reveal that the underlying DNA sequence passing through the helicase strongly influences the kinetics during translocation and unwinding. Surprisingly, unwinding kinetics are not solely dominated by the base pairs being unwound. Instead, the sequence of the single-stranded DNA on which the PcrA walks determines much of the kinetics of unwinding. 

The authors are not clear why this is. What is evolution up to? They figure that there must be a reason. 

Unlike protein filaments (e.g., actin), DNA is not a homogeneous track; sequence-dependent behavior may be the norm rather than the exception. Strong sequence-dependent enzyme kinetics such as those observed in our data likely affect PcrA’s role in vivo and could thereby exert selective pressure on both DNA and protein evolution. Therefore, sequence-dependent behavior should be carefully considered in future studies of any enzyme that walks along DNA or RNA, since the sequence-dependent kinetics may reveal essential features of an enzyme’s function. Such effects are almost certainly used by life to achieve various ends, and SPRNT is well suited to discovering how and why such sequence dependence occurs and opens the possibility of uncovering enzyme functions that were hereto unknown. 

Why are they giving the credit to blind evolution? If life uses “sequence-dependent kinetics…to achieve various ends,” that sounds like intelligent design, not evolution. Design advocates are accustomed to forgiving logical malapropisms like this. They look past the magical thinking and see the operation of a designing mind with foresight and purpose, intimately familiar with the laws of physics, able to write code to utilize those laws in precision operations. Now, it becomes clear that the precision goes deeper than previously known.