Author | Lightnews

Alan Yoshioka, PhD

@thesheepcat.bsky.social

400 followers 410 following 710 posts

Come for the bugs and flowers and occasional topical verse; stay for a vision of human flourishing: faith and reason, dialogue, democracy. “Truth and love need each other.” Byzantinish Catholic,☦️ widower, Japanese Canadian,🌸🍁 medical editor.

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Alan Yoshioka, PhD @thesheepcat.bsky.social · Nov 16

Four years on, my 2020 review of a book on Catholic Social Teaching remains as good an introduction as any to what I'm about. Along the way, I honour the memory of my beloved wife, Theresa, who truly tried to live by that teaching.
bccatholic.ca/voices/alan-...

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Alan Yoshioka, PhD @thesheepcat.bsky.social · 6h

Possibly, though I myself don't know.

Alan Yoshioka, PhD @thesheepcat.bsky.social · 10h

I suppose it's a good thing for us humans that this fearsome-looking dragon-like thing is only about 6 mm long.

It's the larva of a brown lacewing. If it makes it to adulthood, it'll be really pretty. Also, lacewings prey upon aphids and other pests.
#inverts

Macro photo of a long, slender reddish-brown insect with a curved beak-like front end that looks capable of tearing prey apart.

Close-up photo, apparently of a molt of a brown insect with translucent lacy wings. The blurred background is mostly light green lichen on an irregular light brown surface.

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Alan Yoshioka, PhD @thesheepcat.bsky.social · 3d

No, that's not how annulment works. A declaration of nullity has to do with conditions at the time the two persons attempted to marry. JD wasn't Catholic then. Catholic rules regarding mixed marriage aren't applied retroactively.
I suppose that might not stop him from filing, but it'd be thrown out.

Reposted by Alan Yoshioka, PhD

John Dupuis @dupuisj.bsky.social · 4d

This Physicist Says We Don't Take COVID Seriously Enough via @thetyee.ca

thetyee.ca/Analysis/202...

This Physicist Says We Don’t Take COVID Seriously Enough | The Tyee

We downplay the virus at our peril, warns Yaneer Bar-Yam. And children are more at risk than we thought.

thetyee.ca

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Alan Yoshioka, PhD @thesheepcat.bsky.social · 4d

Thanks, Elizabeth!🥰

Alan Yoshioka, PhD @thesheepcat.bsky.social · 4d

Please note the update, which includes the orbweaver.
bsky.app/profile/thes...

Alan Yoshioka, PhD @thesheepcat.bsky.social · 4d

New and improved pics for #Halloween.
1/2. A long-jawed orbweaver (Metellina sp., I believe), a whirligig mite (Anystis sp.), another prostig mite (family Rhagidiidae), and a Western earwig (Forficula dentata).
#arachtober 🐡

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Alan Yoshioka, PhD @thesheepcat.bsky.social · 4d

2/2. What the critters look like IRL. A long-jawed orbweaver, a whirligig mite, another prostig mite, and an earwig. #inverts

Photo, in ventral view, of a spider with very long and thin front legs. Its abdomen is round and has a complex pattern in white, yellow, dark brown, and black, including a wide black stripe. A somewhat irregular radial pattern surrounds an oval ring at the centre of its web. The background is black.

Macro photo of an eight-legged creature whose body, aside from white hairs and tiny dark sensory organs, is almost entirely reddish orange. It stands, legs spread radially, on a speckled brown surface.

Macro photo of an eight-legged creature, which under flash illumination appears to glow with a cool light. There are many hairs on its legs and body. Its back end is tinged yellow. It stands on a rough dark brown surface beside a smooth brown object, perhaps a seed, which is slightly larger than it.

Macro photo, in dorsal view, of a 6-legged critter oriented to the left on a smooth light brown surface. The insect's body and head are glossy. The head and abdomen are red; the legs are light orange-brown. At the back, truncated at the edge of the photo, are two orange crescent-shaped appendages.

Alan Yoshioka, PhD @thesheepcat.bsky.social · 4d

Photo of an intricately carved jack-o'-lantern showing a spider with very long front legs.

Photo of an intricately carved jack-o'-lantern showing a mite. Eight legs surround a round central part called the idiosoma. It has many hairs.
Caveats: Two dots for sensory organs are shown too large, giving the critter the aspect of a cartoon octopus. Oh, well! The front part, called the gnathosoma, from which the two palps extend downwards, is not shown clearly.

Photo of an intricately carved jack-o'-lantern showing an eight-legged creature oriented towards the left.

Photo of a jack-o'-lantern showing a long-bodied insect with distinctive appendages curved inwards at the back.
Caveat: The head is shown too large.

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Alan Yoshioka, PhD @thesheepcat.bsky.social · 4d

Thank you!😊

Alan Yoshioka, PhD @thesheepcat.bsky.social · 5d

I'm pretty much ready for #Halloween.
L to R: whirligig mite (Anystis sp.), another prostig mite (family Rhagidiidae), and Western earwig (Forficula dentata). The pièce de résistance, a long-jawed orbweaver jack-o'-lantern (not shown), was completed this afternoon.
#arachtober 🐡

Photo of three intricately carved jack-o'-lanterns. The legs of the arachnid at left are nearly radially symmetric; the arachnid in the middle has long forelegs and bright bands across its body; the insect at right has long, segmented antennae and converging arcs (barely visible from this angle) at the back. The background is leaf-covered lawn, very dark.

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Alan Yoshioka, PhD @thesheepcat.bsky.social · 5d

Tiger fly (Coenosia sp.) taking off from my neighbour's fence yesterday. Vancouver, BC.
#inverts 📸🪰

A close-up flash photo freezes the motion of a dark gray fly just above the light gray surface it has sprung up from. Its legs are all extended, and its wings are spread at an angle. Large, dark red eyes dominate its head. It has black bands along its thorax and black patches on its abdomen. It casts a recognizably fly-shaped shadow.

Alan Yoshioka, PhD @thesheepcat.bsky.social · 5d

The replies are pretty amusing too.

Not that it would have mattered much in the days before electronic submission, but I *think* the filenames of my own drafts didn't ever match the pattern *steamingpile*.wp*.

John Gallagher @earlymodernjohn.bsky.social · 5d

Genuinely delighted to download a PhD thesis from a university repository where the author has neglected to remove the words "BITCH THIS IS YOUR THESIS" from the filename.

Reposted by Alan Yoshioka, PhD

Justin Ling @justinling.ca · 5d

In my column today, I note that Trump's freakout over the anti-tariff Reagan ad let slip a basic fact: He's very worried the Supreme Court is going to declare his tariffs unconstitutional.

It's in Canada's strategic interests to make that argument. #GiftLink
www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

www.thestar.com

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Alan Yoshioka, PhD @thesheepcat.bsky.social · 6d

Hilarious little video by Instagram reel creator spaghettysean about how to take good photos of an earthworm so someone can tell which of more than 6000 species it might be.
#inaturalist #inverts 📷🪱
www.instagram.com/p/DQUSJjMDOmN/

Screenshot from Instagram: At left, a woman in a white lab coat stands beside a whiteboard on which is a labelled drawing of a worm. The superimposed transcript of the video says, "a worm." At right, text posted by spaghettysean explains, "Ad If you’re an earthworm in the midst of an identification crisis, this is for you. (If you’re not, well ... now you know a bit more about identifying earthworms.)" @inaturalistorg is tagged. Several users react, amused. 1,282 likes 1 day ago.

Photo of a white woman in a homemade earthworm costume. She wears a light brown sweater. A light brown stocking on the top of her head gives it a rounded point. Dark disks cover her eyes. Her expression is puzzled and surprised. Caption: "The what?"

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Alan Yoshioka, PhD @thesheepcat.bsky.social · 7d

The F-winged barklice (Graphopsocus cruciatus) were out in force yesterday. I saw at least three on my neighbour's fence.
#inverts

Macro photo of a bug-eyed insect perched head-downwards on a nubbly light brown vertical surface. On its long ovalish wing is a darker brown F, from which it gets its name. The background and foreground are quite blurred.

Alan Yoshioka, PhD @thesheepcat.bsky.social · 9d

It does have an Ent-like vibe, doesn't it!

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Reposted by Alan Yoshioka, PhD

AltSpaceForce 🚀🇺🇲 @altspaceforce.altgov.info · 11d

"Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet, or even a whole system, is insignificant next to the power of the Force." - Lord Vader

"We’re going to win this war - not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love!” Rose Tico

Edited photo of unknown origin showing the white house with a death star/ball room being constructed on the east wing

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Alan Yoshioka, PhD @thesheepcat.bsky.social · 11d

Not as spectacular as the swallows of Capistrano or anything, but the Ptenothrix (Ptenothrixen? 🙃) have returned to Marpole, Vancouver!😍
#inverts
www.inaturalist.org/observations...

Macro photo of a creature with an ovoid body, cream with a complex pattern in dark orange and dark red, including a carrot shape at the back. It walks away from the camera on a wet, nubbly, gray surface.

Macro photo, in side view, of a six-legged creature with an ovoid body and small roundish head. It has a complex pattern in maroon, olive green, and cream. It stands or walks on a gray surface.

Macro photo, in side view, of a six-legged creature with a cream-coloured ovoid body and small roundish head. It has a complex pattern in olive green and maroon. It stands or walks on a sandy brown surface..

Alan Yoshioka, PhD @thesheepcat.bsky.social · 11d

They can put a man on the moon, but they can't make a tent that doesn't leak, so the nation's only alternative is to build a ballroom that will seat nearly 4 times as many guests as Buckingham Palace's. Got it.
#EastWing
Oop, pardon me, can't turn your eyes for a sec! More than 5 times as many.

Alan Yoshioka, PhD @thesheepcat.bsky.social · 11d

For what it's worth, I noticed nothing of the kind on the stink bug (Banasa sp.) eggs I observed last year. But this is as good an excuse as any to repost that thread.

Alan Yoshioka, PhD @thesheepcat.bsky.social · Jul 22

They're kind of pretty in their own way, these stink bug eggs and nymphs.
I'm thinking (1) first instar because I don't see antennae, and (2) not the most common invasive kind here because those would be orange with black, not solid black.
📸🐛

Close-up photo of long, thin green leaf with fine hairs or trichomes, on the underside of which is an array of perhaps 20 organisms: either cream-coloured spheroidal eggs with the "lids" popped open or hemispherical shiny black nymphs.

Alan Yoshioka, PhD @thesheepcat.bsky.social · 11d

Stinkbug aficionados – or, er, detractors, for that matter – this is way cool! I wonder if other kinds of stinkbugs exhibit the same phenomenon.

These stinkbugs coat their eggs in fungi to protect them from parasitic wasps

An unusual relationship could shed light on how insects choose their partners

www.science.org

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Alan Yoshioka, PhD @thesheepcat.bsky.social · 11d

Outstanding thread!👏

Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 13d

Verification asks: can we reliably establish what is true? Deliberation asks: can we debate and decide fairly together? Accountability asks: can we hold power to account? If one or more of those breaks down, democracy doesn’t just wobble, it hollows out.

Alan Yoshioka, PhD @thesheepcat.bsky.social · 12d

Said Ronald, in hope, most of all,
That, answering liberty's call,
Berlin be united,
No longer benighted,
"Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

Said Donald, "This joint is too small.
There oughta be a beautiful hall.
We'll hold our events
Inside, not in tents.
Make room for it. Tear down this wall!"

Reposted by Alan Yoshioka, PhD

The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 12d

After authoritarian regimes are toppled, monuments to the authoritarians are *always* removed. If America's republic survives, the ballroom should be treated no differently. www.thebulwark.com/p/we-will-te...

We Will Tear Down the Trump Palace Ballroom and Casino

Thinking like a dissident movement.

www.thebulwark.com

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Reposted by Alan Yoshioka, PhD

Erica Chenoweth @chenoweth.bsky.social · Apr 1

Lately I've seen many references to the 3.5% rule. A few years ago I pulled together this Q&A on potential uses and misuses of this statistic. www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/defaul...

The cover page for a discussion paper called "Questions, Answers, and Some Cautionary Updates Regarding the 3.5% Rule" by Erica Chenoweth. In the image, peaceful protesters can be seen in front of the US Capitol building.

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