The Filtrate for March 17, 2025
By Alan Dove
The current US regime continues to wage war on facts while implementing policies opposed by a majority of citizens, but scientists just keep on doing science.
The fall of Shouxiangcheng
Sometime around the first century BCE, near a military fort in what’s now Mongolia, a bunch of people got slaughtered. Their remains, excavated from a mass grave in 2009, show signs of dismemberment, blunt force trauma, decapitation, and other violent ends. But who were they, and who killed them? In an impressive new paper, researchers identify the victims’ and perpetrators’ likely origins, and also illuminate a historical period that’s been hard to study until now.
Mass grave in Mongolia. Image from Ma et al., Journal of Archaeological Science.
Most of the work in the new paper is outside my field, but it’s easy to understand and well worth a read; it’s open access. The deaths occurred during the Han-Xiongnu war, a long conflict between what were then the two most powerful empires in eastern Eurasia. I won’t spoil the ending, except to say that someone involved seems to have followed this guy’s tactical advice.
Because why would an army need to know psychology?
The US Department of Defense, which eats an enormous chunk of the national budget, has now decided that social science is irrelevant to fighting wars, so they’re not going to fund it anymore. Okay, I’m sure the officers in charge haven’t decided that, because anyone who’s paid any attention to military history realizes this is a stupid move. It’s what the Commander in Chief and his minions want to do to score political points with idiots, though, so now the most powerful military in the world will stop researching one of its core disciplines.
What’s black and white and dead all over?
As highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza continues its world tour, it seems to have reached Antarctica. There’s no peer-reviewed paper out on the latest data yet, but a report from the scientific expedition currently sampling Antarctic wildlife for the virus shows that it’s widespread on the last continent. Everything from gulls and penguins to seals seems to be able to catch the virus, and from the viral loads they’ve found in carcasses, it looks like it’s deadly to a lot of them.
It pays to advertise
Back in 2017, the TWiV crew attended the March for Science in Washington, DC. We recorded an episode at the headquarters of the American Society for Microbiology, then went to the march the next day. It was an enormous event, and it seemed like people there were optimistic about the prospects for promoting facts and data.
Eight years later, the follow-up event organized by a different group was a bit more subdued. While I agree with the Science news article’s contention that people are feeling tired and pessimistic now, I’d also point out that the organizers of the March 7 Stand Up for Science rally could have done a much better job publicizing it. I work in science communication, and didn’t hear about this year’s march until just a few weeks before it happened, which isn’t enough time to make plans. And no, that’s not because of my news diet. The thing was just under the radar until too late. I’m glad some folks made it, though.
Roofies and tentacles
We’re more than a month past Valentine’s Day, but it’s always a good time to celebrate love. So how do blue lined octopuses hook up? Well, they hold tentacles, the male injects the female with one of the deadliest venoms on Earth, and then they go at it.
Wait, what? Why does he do that? Ah, right, to keep from getting eaten. Blue lined octopuses resist their own venom to some extent, so the dose the male gives the female is only enough to stun her for a little while. That way he can mate with her and get away before she decides she’s hungry. So it’s safe sex, octopus style. Isn’t nature romantic?