In a little blog called The Emperor Julian’s Strategic disaster: are there any modern parallels? (LSS 25 3 26) we drew attention to the case of the Roman Emperor Julian . Whose great mistake was to enter into an unnecessary war of choice with Persia (then as now synonymous with Iran ) in order to boost his own flagging domestic popularity with what looked to be an easy victory.
Generally we try not to blow our own trumpet, as the vulgar phrase would have it. But we did at least draw a comparison which suggested that meddling with Iran/Persia , however disagreeable their regime, was a pretty bad idea unless you knew exactly what you were doing. We also noted that the end result of Julian’s blundering was a strategic backstep for his Empire of incalculable proportions by fatally weakening its offensive capabilities at a time when enemies assailed it on all frontiers. And we challenged readers to think of possible contemporary parallels to our little tale.
No historical parallel is ever perfect: no situation repeats exactly. But Julian was clearly out thought and out fought by an adversary who realised it had only to survive in order to emerge triumphant. So, once again-are there any modern parallels now that June has come?
#persia #iran #history #roman empire #united states #emperor julian
When that paragon of unimpeachable virtue Richard Milhous Nixon announced the War on Drugs back in 1971, we counted ourselves among his most fervid supporters. It chimed with our most basic principle: people must be stopped from enjoying themselves wherever and when that is possible. And when some of those people are pot-smoking hippies or degenerate cocaine fiends, how much more satisfying still was that act of repression! But yet, as always, the Devil Whispered in Our Ear: If we were banning all that weed and charlie and smack and billy whizz because they altered minds and caused social problems, then what about nicotine and alcohol? Didn’t Jesus seem to take a relaxed view of the matter, both in the famous wedding at Cana (John 2 10 ), and in the Last Supper (Matthew 26:27–29) At least the company didn’t light up cigars at the end of the meal-but boy, did these passages pose us some problems!
Since when things have slipped still further. As if they didn’t have enough problems with fossil fuels and rising sea levels already, the nation of Palau has dropped another logic bomb upon the Comfortable nations of the world Read this Should Nicotine be regulated like drugs? from Nature Briefings
A call by the Pacific island nation of Palau for nicotine to be regulated like narcotics by the United Nations will trigger an assessment and a vote by member states. If nicotine were to be added to the UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances, it would effectively make it illegal to sell nicotine products that aren’t considered medicinal, says nicotine-treatment specialist Renee Bittoun. But tobacco-company lobbying makes it unlikely that nicotine will be added to the list, says Bittoun. Nature | 4 min read
Whatever next, gentle readers? Will they free up restrictions and red tape on the sale of tea and coffee? Will they start alleging the thrill people get from driving fast cars is like that from cocaine-and bring in speed restrictions? Or will some sect of uber – Free Market Liberals, followers of Adam Smith or something, seize power and then abolish all restrictions on all neurologically active substances? We can’t decide whether we are going to be oppressed by Communists or Capitalists: but we await our fate in trepidation.
Everyone can choose how they learn about global warming. For some it is to read the science by consulting sites such as the Royal Society[1] , NOAA,[2] the Met Office [3] and other adults in the room. The second is to wait until it happens to you. Increasingly, people are choosing the second option because the climate is now delivering personal tutorials: a fire that shouldn’t have burned, a flood that shouldn’t have reached that high, a heatwave that shouldn’t have been possible at this latitude. We’ve got three examples for you today, which we present with due apologies and sympathy to the victims( it really isn’t their fault).
A. The 2022 UK 40°C heatwave
Most people who lived in Southern England that year can share memories like driving around the M25 through clouds of smoke from the burning heaths of Surrey, or seeing our beloved green South Downs turn the colour of chamois leather. Attribution studies conclude climate change made it at least 10 times more likely.[4]
B. The 2021 Pacific Northwest heatwave
You’d think the cool, rainy Pacific Coast would be the last place to expect a catastrophic climate change event. But this one was described by scientists as “virtually impossible” without global warming. [5]
C. The 2023–24 Canadian wildfires
The largest in Canadian history; attribution work shows climate change made the conditions significantly more likely and more severe.[6]
We could go on- but at this point there pops up the usual man from the Dog and Duck who yells “these are only (expletive deleted) probabilities! Just models! No one has PROVED these were caused by climate change!” To which we reply:
If you refuse to act until science gives you 100% certainty, you’ll never act on anything. Climate attribution uses the same probability standards we rely on for medicine, insurance, and engineering — the ones we trust every day without complaint. When scientists say “an event was made ten times more likely by climate change”, that’s not vague. That’s the same level of evidence we use to approve drugs, design bridges, and set insurance premiums. If you accept probability‑based evidence when it keeps planes in the sky and hospitals running, but reject it only when it concerns climate change, that’s not a scientific position — it’s a political one. It’s also disingenuous. But above all, it is very short term.
[5]Philip et al. (2022), “Rapid attribution analysis of the extraordinary heat wave on the Pacific coast of the US and Canada in June 2021.” Earth System Dynamics, 13, 1689–1713.
Photo by Chokniti Khongchum on Pexels.comPhoto by Felix Mittermeier on Pexels.com
Losing plants and fungi to climate change is a quiet catastrophe for antibiotics and medical research in general because these organisms are our undiscovered pharmacy. A huge share of existing drugs — from penicillin to paclitaxel — came from obscure species that someone happened to find before they vanished. As habitats heat, dry, burn, or shift faster than species can move, we’re not just losing biodiversity; we’re losing chemical ingenuity that evolution spent millions of years perfecting. Every extinct fungus is a potential new antibiotic gone forever, every vanished plant a missed anti‑cancer compound, every collapsed ecosystem a library burned before we even opened the first book. The tragedy is not only what we lose now, but what we will never get the chance to discover.
Fortunately, the Royal Botanic gardens at Kew in London (one of the world’s most enlightened and learned places) is on the case as the erudite Damien Carrington makes clear for this article in the Guardian. The vital, almost neuralgic need, is to identify new plants before they are destroyed forever under a concrete miasma of shopping malls, motorway interchanges and cheap hotels. To say nothing of climate change: if you want proof of that, the flowering time for plants has been changing by 2.5 days a decade for the last hundred years or so, according to this article But the RBG are at last deploying the wonders of AI to speed up identification and classification, so the task of exploring the pharmaceutical cornucopia can be made much easier
Digitisation and online access to millions of specimens that were until now only accessible in archives is also producing new insights, especially in the global south, reports Damian They are even getting genomic data from 180 year old fungi, potentially opening a completely new line of research But read the lot for yourselves gentle readers, by clicking on Damian’s lucid article
Now we could tell you much about how the foregoing cheers us on behalf of our pet project, antibiotic research or even for medical science in general; for we know some of you have wider concerns and interests. But we won’t. Instead we shall close with a naked, unashamed plug for that self-same Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew.[2] Easily reached by bus , train or licenced London Taxi, it contains a formidable treasure of plants from the entire globe cunningly arranged in some spectacular displays Plus some delightful lakes full of fish and water fowl, pleasant lawns and excellent cafes and souvenir shops. If in London, visit it we say. Personal note: we remember from more than 30 years ago an excellent bar on Kew Gardens station where they sold excellent cold lager to compensate for the hard slog around the tropical greenhouses Does anyone know if it is still there?
CAUTION IS WISEST “Don’t get too far out from your data” has always been our motto. So despite many hopeful stories about alien life being found at last, this article from the Conversation is a useful reality check about where we really are:
NO FREE LUNCH Given the raging obesity epidemic, we are on the whole positive about the new wave of GLP-1 based drugs and similar types of slimming medications, But as with everything that there has ever been, there are always side effects and other consequences, And this Guardian article is a sober conscientious reminder of some of them, basically.
THE LION THAT WASN’T QUITE A LION Giving something a familiar name can help; but can also disguise its real identity. Recent genomic studies suggest the Cave Lion was not just a subspecies of the modern lion(Panthera leo), but may have to recognised as a distinct species, (Panthera spelaea ) El País takes up the story (in Spanish)
KRUGMAN ON IDENTITY AND AMERICAN DECLINE (the Alternet via MSN feed) Here’s a nod to the great Paul Krugman, who argues that MAGA politics now treats “toughness” as identity, and anything future‑facing — like green energy — gets dismissed as “softness”. We found this piece particularly fascinating because it touches on a favourite mystery of ours: the way unconscious psychological forces drive the way people think and vote.
IS FUSION POWER FINALLY HERE? asks Nature Briefing. Don’t get us wrong: we applaud every heroic company and institution which tries to develop sustainable nuclear fusion reactions (with which we have been accosting people since at least 1973) But we applaud their cautious spirit, the leitmotif of this blog.
Private fusion company Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) has published five papers that it says “confirm” that, if built as intended, its ARC power plant will produce more electricity than it consumes. But some researchers say that the claim might be premature. Results from an operational fusion reactor are needed to validate CFS’s predictions, and the company hasn’t demonstrated that they can generate tritium, a scarce isotope fuel that the reactor will need to run, experts say.
Quote of the week Have all the flowerpots in your garden just blown down and smashed, as some of ours just have? If so present this bon mot to your local neighbourhood climate change denier.
“The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.”Proverbs 12:15
A couple of years ago we did a piece called Did your long-ago BCG Vaccine save you from dementia? In which we reported that the famous BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guérin) vaccine was also proving efficacious in cases of bladder cancer and certain types of dementia. (LSS 2 12 24) Well today things just became even more intriguing. Read this from Nature Briefing, Century Old Vaccine helps control diabetes;
A tuberculosis vaccine developed in the 1920s helps to regulate blood sugar in people with certain types of diabetes, enabling them to reduce their insulin use. The findings demonstrate yet another beneficial off-target effect of the Bacillus Calmette–Guérin vaccine, derived from a weakened form of the bacterium that causes tuberculosis in cows. The shot has been approved to treat bladder cancer in the United States and is being investigated against conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease. The results were presented at the American Diabetes Association meeting on 7 June.
And the Learning Point? When we did Training and Teaching, they always told us that we had to have a learning point. So we think it’s this:
Vaccines are one of civilisation’s quiet miracles:[2] you design them for one threat, and decades later they’re still paying unexpected dividends — BCG for TB, then bladder cancer, then dementia, and now hints of protection against diabetes. That’s what real science does: it compounds. You invest once, and the benefits echo for generations. But if you decide, like the climate denier or the old‑school smoker, that evidence is optional and expertise a nuisance, you’re effectively betting your long‑term future against the only tool that has ever reliably improved it. Reality is not something you can pick and choose.
Once more a big thank you to all suggesters, likers, followers, contributors and just good old visitors who are continuing to push this blog up to numbers we had never dreamed of ascending to when we started in 2020 (doesn’t that seem a long ago?)
A curious note: yesterday (LSS 10 6 2026) we published a wry observation suggesting that humans and AI might fuse into a new life form in much the same way as certain Archaea and bacteria did so to form the first Eukaryotes about 1.68 billion years ago (although some still maintain it happened on the Friday before that) Anyway, our grasp of the evolutionary microbiology part of the blog was not too shaky; although things may have been a bit more complicated than we implied. But this excellent explainer [1] from the learned Ana Lozano Del Campo of El País will put everything to rights (Anglosphere: you will need your translator at this point)
If you want to know more about Archaea, this excellent Podcast from Misha Glenny and In Our Time will reveal even more about this fascinating branch of life. [2]
Go into any pub, stand in any supermarket queue, and you’ll hear some one talking about “this ‘ere artificial intelligence wotsit, guvnor.” Some, especially the elderly and bewildered, are overwhelmingly hostile. Others like ourselves reference it from time to time in specialist settings like the development of new drugs and other molecules. Yet others, visionaries indeed, see it as the absolute future, already indelibly written. So how significant will it be really, and what changes might it effect? To find out, we thought we’d compare it with other big turning points in the History of the World and see how it shapes up by awarding each event an LSSSignificance Verdict (SV) Ready?
1950s Rock and Roll replaces the Big Bands Well , you could make just as big a noise with far fewer musicians, and the lyrics got better. But in the bigger scheme of things-nah, not really SV 1/10
1780s Industrial Revolution There had been wind and water mills, but the first time the power of muscles was replaced by machines on a truly worldwide scale, although mess it created still needs clearing up. In human terms at least this must go down as quite a biggie. SV 5/10
2320 BC Writing For the first time data could be captured and stored outside of human memory. This immensely helped the development of early agrarian civilisations as well as giving us writers like Dante and Shakespeare On the other hand it has also given us popular newspapers, graffiti and those funny little jokes you find when you open up Christmas Crackers SV 5/10
3.351 287 years BC, Tuesday 27th June:Invention of tools Now we’re getting somewhere . The great Arthur C Clarke said this was a big one because the tools themselves shaped the biological evolution of their owners : teeth shrank because they were less needed, hands became more delicate to make ever finer tools, and so on. Some think AI will have this effect on the current human species, but we think it could be bigger than that (see below) SV 7/10
390 000 000 years BP Vertebrates come on land Because humans are vertebrates and write all the Prehistory books, they big this up as one of the great steps in time. It isn’t, as any arthropod, mollusc or plant will tell you: they had already climbed up there 100 million years before. SV 3/10
1,250 000 000 years BP Fusion into eucaryotes Now we are talking .Somewhere around this time a small bacterium that lived free took up its home in the cytoplasm of a larger organism called an Archaea. The new cells were a sort of hybrid , each retaining their own DNA, but fusing into a successful new organism called Eucaryota. Which includes all plants, fungi and animals that currently live or have ever lived on this planet. One type is even trying to get into space albeit slowly and not very well. If both AI and humans could fuse their identities into a single superorganism, then we predict a very bright future for them indeed. And an end to all these chats about “Is AI going to take us over?” SV 9/10
So what do you think gentle readers? What steps would you choose? The invention of fire? Language? The sudden demise of platform soles and flared trousers round about late 1975? Each thesis will have its opponents and defenders. But one thing is certain. AI is here to stay so we had better get used to it.
Once again, the source for our blog today comes from the excellent Nature Briefing, who are always in the forefront of scientific research in every field. Today we are showcasing their piece AI is taking on antibiotic resistance because we think they’re picking up on some real game-changing developments, and we really want you to know about them.
Let’s start with their usual helpful summary, as it’s a good general overview. But this time we earnestly beg you to click on the link they have provided: read below to find out why.
Antibiotics are an effective, but somewhat indiscriminate solution to some gut infections. Helpful species of gut bacteria get caught in the crossfire, which increases the likelihood that drug-resistant bacterial strains will evolve. Researchers are now designing drugs to selectively target disease-causing species with the help of artificial intelligence. Some teams are using AI to screen drug molecules for the most promising candidates quickly and cheaply. Others have developed tools that predict how drug molecules bind to protein targets to reveal a drug’s mechanism of action, reducing the need for wet-lab experiments.
Because if you do, you will step into a world of research where Information Science and Biological Science are meeting: which of course is more and more these days isn’t it? You will learn about:
Jonathan Stokes of McMaster University in Canada who have pioneered the use of AI to test their newest molecule called enterololin and thereby strip out all kinds of old-skool testing processes.
Regina Barzilay of MIT who with her team have done much of the AI work to set this up for Jonathan She is a remarkable woman who has been hunting down the link between antibiotics and AI since 2018-how’s that for far sightedness, folks?
You’ll be able to name check tools like Diffdock , RdKit and Chemprop which these people use to do all this-how’s that going to sound in the pub?
And a woman called Molly Bartlett who’s something called a Chemical Informatician at London’s Imperial College. As we still have a tenuous connection to that august institution we sometimes write in to their alumnus mag and tell them what a good job they’re doing, knowing we speak for all of you, gentle readers.
And much more besides, Especially if you do the decent thing and sign up to go behind the paywall.
Funny, isn’t it? If our first name were Donald (it isn’t) we might note how much this progress a) seems to come from despised places like Canadia and Englandland b) how somehow these evil foreigners still find ways to work with Unitedstatespersons c) maybe if you want to find cures for important things you may have to look at other methods in addition to earnest prayer d) if I were getting bigly older, perhaps approaching my eightieth birthday for example, I might like to have a few antibiotics around. Just a thought.
# Antibiotic research #Artificial Intelligence ~medicine #health #bacteria
Recently we approached one of the sharpest minds in the UK with our thoughts on the nation state. To our immense honour they replied. Please understand that, although we must protect their confidentiality, these are their exact words:
….. the core paradox today is that countries have to be small to get a real sense of citizen accountability – but big to grapple with these problems of security and prosperity. Therein lies the size conundrum………….
And we hope that the following anecdote illustrates why they are right.
Yesterday, while wandering at leisure on England’s south coast, we came across a seafront meeting of locals who had convened to discuss ways of improving their town, which they held to be in Decline. Before anyone sneers, let us record how moved we were that they had turned out at all, and how assiduously they strived to avoid dragging in wider political allegiances. Their concerns were local indeed:-flower beds, and the colours of bus shelters, mainly. Their hostility common- a deep suspicion of their local council and all its works. Which is shortly to be replaced by a merger with certain neighbouring towns, a prospect greeted with general dismay.
It follows that, if they were so suspicious of their local council- the very first and most immediate layer of their government- how much more suspicious might they be of a World Government? And not just them, but people everywhere, from the High Arctic to the projected colonies on the Moon? What makes people cling so jealously to the local and the tangible? We confidently tell them that Big offers Defence, Economies of scale, Energy grids, Supply chains, AI, biotech, cyber capacity and Climate resilience. Plus the World Cup. And quite rightly they counter that Small offers meaningful scrutiny, power where the scale is human, that corruption is easier to spot, that leaders are socially legible (you can imagine them in your local pub), not a distant man in a suit reading from an autocue. Policy feedback loops are brief too, meaning decisions have immediate consequences political pressure works-and you see where your money is going. That is a strong set of arguments, tuned to the way people are. Should we close down this whole LSS trope of World Government, and concentrate instead on flower beds and bus shelters?
Perhaps. And perhaps not. Even the most well-kept flower beds cannot escape the droughts of climate change for ever, nor the neatest town the effects of rising seas. The threats in the world will require collective action sooner or later. While the things they love like beer, cars and chocolate are supplied from the efficiencies of world markets, the very antithesis of the local and the particular. But so far all arguments on our side have been based on reason and evidence. Which can never win the emotional loyalty which those who tell stories about Tribe and Location currently scoop with ease. It is time for us to look for stories of our own. Which can offer so much more.
#world government #accountability #politics #economics #history #power
Learning, Science and Society 