The Domesticated Fox

So this guy decided to domesticate foxes. Dymitri Belyaev was a Russian geneticist who wanted to study the domestication process, so he just went ahead and did so, starting in 1959. In 1999, fourteen years after his death, Lyudmila Trut published an article about the experiment, which is ongoing, in American Scientist.

It's fascinating stuff, marred only (as far as I can tell) by the conditions in which the foxes are kept: "To ensure that their tameness results from genetic selection, we do not train the foxes. Most of them spend their lives in cages and are allowed only brief "time dosed" contact with human beings. Pups are caged with their mothers until they are 1 1/2 to 2 months old. Then they are caged with their litter mates but without their mothers. At three months, each pup is moved to its own cage."

The results of the selective breeding of 45,000 foxes across some fifty generations is that they've succeeded in crafting a domesticated fox. But they were selecting only for tameness, only for behavior. Nonetheless, they found that many physical features changed as well, including pigment, ear floppiness, and skull features. They note changes to reproductive cycles, infant development, and sexual maturation (the domesticated foxes reach maturity a month earlier than do their farmed and wild counterparts).

Of interest to the folklorist in me is that analogy that Trut uses to characterize the experiment: "By intense selective breeding, we have compressed into a few decades an ancient process that originally unfolded over thousands of years. Before our eyes, the Beast has turned into Beauty," as the aggressive behavior of our herd's wild progenitors entirely disappeared."

Here's a link to a video chronicling the experiment, in which you can see the silver foxes in question.

Of all the sciences that feature in science fiction, I'm most interested in evolutionary biology. I'm not well-read enough in that discipline to know what other experiments are being conducted within its laboratories and field work , but this stuff about foxes is fascinating. Why does their coloring change and their ears get floppy when selected for behavior and attitude? Why is neoteny a thing? And, above all, what are the ethical implications of this sort of work? In the video linked to above, we learn that the scientists are also breeding for aggression: one of the researchers gets bit by one and says, "This isn't a fox, it's a dragon."

Anyway, one of their findings is that aggression/tameness isn't related to the way the fox is raised; they have "cross-fostered" some of the pups, giving the offspring of an aggressive to a tame mother. The aggression wins out, not the way the mother raises the pup. Nature trumps nurture.

Too Perfect

The notion that Superman is just too good to be interesting is one that pops up quite often. Here's one statement, from Miss Cellania:

While Superman is, well, super, he was always too perfect, and rather one-dimensional.

There's Henry Jenkins, from a while ago.


And, because we're still trying to figure out how to make Supermen...Science!

Another review of Secret Origin 1, by Rokk. The discussion is interesing, particularly for this line:

it isn't like DC's continuity or present-day comics for that matter warrant religious following; you pick and choose what you like, sadly

This list is an intersesting one. Not so much for the content--it's really just a list of Superman comics that the writer likes. It's how it's framed that I find worth noting. 10 Essential Superman comics to help you forget Smalliville. As with any sacred narrative worth caring about, there has to be dissention among the ranks. I think this is worth exploring.

I'm going to have to find this one. What if Superman were raised by apes?

I have to post this. In Italy, a Man Dressed like Superman is arrested for stalking Burlesconi.

Science and Superman

In the world of comic books, the greatest villain is Frederic Wertham. His 1953 book Seduction of the Innocent crystallized the public opinion against comics, giving a voice to the distaste that obtained in many minds throughout the United States. It led directly to the Comics Code Authority, a self-censorship board that comics publishers created in order to pre-empt governmental involvement. Wertham objected vehemently to Superman, whom Wertham labeled a fascist who encouraged children to distrust authority (especially their parents) and to engage in vigilante justice. Embedded among these critiques was a subtler one: that Superman taught children incorrect lessons about physics: “Superman not only defies the laws of gravity, which his great strength makes conceivable; in addition he gives children a completely wrong idea of other basic physical laws. Not even Superman, for example, should be able to lift up a building while not standing on the ground, or to stop an airplane in mid-air while flying himself” (34).



Well, this article, The Science of Superman, goes to some length to prove that the science of Superman simply doesn't make sense--which, I suppose, none of us needed evidence of in the first place. Still, it's an interesting thought exercise. It comes from a book called The Science of Superheroes, by Lois Gresh and Robert Weinberg. I wonder if they tackle the perennial question, Would Wonder Woman's lariat really make me tell the truth?



This sort of thing--wondering about the possibilities behind Superman and other science fiction stories--is, evidently, a popular pastime among writers. Maybe among readers, too. There was a National Geographic channel special on the subject, as well as a book called The Science of Superman by Mark Wolverton. Here's an article from the USA Today about it. Predictably, a lot of this stuff came out around the time of the last Superman film, in 2006. Brief comparison: Where Gresh and Weinberg try to point out why Superman's powers simply cannot work, Woverton tries to come up with ways in which they could.



I spent a bit of time studying film, and I wonder if any film scholars have looked at it from the angle of cultural/economic focus point. This is more than trendiness, I think, though there is a bit of that going on. When a film comes out, lots of other aspects of the culture industry get behind it. Books appear, news stories and magazine articles explore it. Its history is laid bare for us to follow. And with Superman, it seems that all of a sudden, the putative science behind it became important.



And then there's this:



The strip is called Bizarro. He does a lot of Superman humor.

Links

In case you were wondering, Nic Cage really did name one of his kids after Superman.

Superman is also a handy way to describe and promote carbon nano-tubes.

Evidently in India, Superman spends most of his time dancing and singing. Seems about right to me. Have you ever seen an Indian film? This is particularly notable for the completely incomprehensible line "The grasslands have invited us to come to them./And when we went there they laughed asking us about the bed." Maybe it makes sense if you're more familiar with India. Or maybe the subtitles are badly translated. Or something.

Hmmm...not sure what to make of this one. It's a news article describing the Penn Libraries' superhero program, which presently includes an exhibit about superheroes and the ancient world. It's kind of vague, but kids seem to like it.

And then there's the Pakistan Observer. I leave interpretation up to you:

I watched as a rather thin Obama in Superman’s uniform threw a rope around the Empire State building then attempted to pull. Nothing happened as the American President, heaved and puffed away, till I heard the lady next to me shout, “Dive into the river Obama and push America up!”Obama seemed to have heard as he took a flying leap into the Hudson and didn’t surface for sometime as the crowd waited impatiently on the riverbank.