Collapse in AMOC equals havoc

Photo by Chris LeBoutillier on Pexels.com

In theory, you can rebuild after a war. But if the Atlantic currents collapse there will be no rebuilding. Because the change will be irreversible, and anyway there will be no economy left to rebuild with. That’s now a real possibility according to this story from Damian Carrington of the Guardian.[1] [2] We start with something called the AMOC or Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation for short.

The world of oceanography and currents can all seem a bit remote from everyday life. But to plunge in briefly: Global warming has been adding colossal amounts of fresh meltwater—especially from Greenland—into the North Atlantic. This reduces salinity and density, in turn preventing surface water from sinking, which is the key engine of the AMOC. As sinking slows, the whole circulation weakens and it will eventually tip into a collapsed state. The question is when and what are the chances? According to Damien:

they found an estimated slowdown of 42% to 58% in 2100, a level almost certain to end in collapse.

And what will that collapse look like? After the initial shock, a permanent series of frozen winters in western Europe. There will be catastrophic ruptures in food chains as fields ice over, fish stocks migrate and transport is disrupted. Societies will face massive dislocation as people migrate from flooded coastal regions and river valleys. In turn producing massive conflicts on higher ground, as refugees discover that they are suddenly immigrants in what used to be “their” country.

Leaving you, gentle readers, with a choice on the balance of probabilities. You can rely on the findings of scientists [3] who have studied this issue assiduously for more than three decades and whose work is publicly available for anyone to examine. Or you can rely on opinions expressed in online comment sections. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. The real question is which source of information a reasonable and informed person would choose to act upon.

[1] Critical Atlantic current significantly more likely to collapse than thought | Oceans | The Guardian

[2] Atlantic meridional overturning circulation – Wikipedia

[3] Observational constraints project a ~50% AMOC weakening by the end of this century | Science Advances

Global warming #climate change #atlantic ocean #amoc #flood #ice age #ecological collapse

Flynn Coleman sees hope in Artemis

We are sometimes accused of being too gloomy here. Too admonitory, too censorious, scolding and sanctimonious. Preachy. Lecturing. Hectoring, perish the thought. Even didactic in certain circumstances. Judgemental was another one hurled at us by younger colleagues back in the nineties. Doesn’t everyone have to make judgements? we replied. We didn’t cause them to lead lives of frivolity greed and sensual indulgence, we simply pointed out a few obvious truths.

All of which may be impeding us from getting our message across at times, perhaps. So to make amends we have selected this rather upbeat article by a certain Flynn Coleman who writes in the Guardian. [1] He cites the Artemis 2 moon mission as his text and contrasts it with acts of brutality and ignorance back here on earth. Like Iraq in 2006 or the the high commands of certain nations in our own more troubled tomes. He invokes the spirit of the great Jim Lovell, a man whose intelligence and courage were displayed on both the Apollo 8 and 13 missions Above all its the duality which intrigues. Your species species can reach for the stars. You are more than the bunch of angry ape men we keep telling you that you are.

And Flyn’s final point is: you can choose to be one or the other. But read it for yourselves, gentle readers. And at least thank us for doing something Nice for a change.

[1]This week saw humanity at its worst. Artemis II told the opposite story | Flynn Coleman | The Guardian

#war #peace #artemis mission #space #moon #humanity #ethics

CART-T therapy takes three big steps forward

Photo by Monstera Production on Pexels.com

Once again we are indebted to that excellent organisation Nature Briefing for this opportunity to showcase another giant step forward for that old LSS favourite CAR-T therapy. [1]Well, three steps actually: as you will find out if you read this extract which they have titled One CAR-T to cure them all

A woman with an ultra-rare combination of three autoimmune diseases has had no symptoms since receiving a single dose of engineered immune cells. Researchers used the woman’s own T cells to develop chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells that targeted a protein on her B cells — the culprits behind her trifecta of autoimmune conditions. The woman experienced no side effects from the treatment, and fourteen months on she doesn’t take any medication for her conditions, says haematologist Fabian Müller, who helped to develop the treatment.Nature | 5 min read
Reference: Med paper

Breakthroughs like this don’t come from wishful thinking, magical explanations, or comforting stories about how the world ought to work. They come from the scientific method: from hypotheses that can be tested, data that can be challenged, and results that must survive scrutiny. When we follow that discipline, we get therapies that save lives. When we don’t, we get nothing but anecdotes and disappointment. The contrast speaks for itself We have other tasks for other publishers today, and must attend to them But we hope the foregoing leaves you with a tiny quantity of Hope

[1]CAR T-cell therapy | Cancer Research UK

#CAR-T #cancer #medicine #science #health #reason #auto immune disease

Friday Night: Stormy Weather/Clear Skies Ahead

Tonight, ladies and gentlemen,we are proud to bring you not one cocktail, but two! Cunningly arranged into this neat diptych of Stormy Weather/Clear Skies Ahead. Which we fervently hope may act as a metaphor for these troubled times. So without further delay, and with the aid of our Sturdy Hamlyn The Ultimate Cocktail Book let’s get started.

STORMY WEATHER Put three of your iciest ice cubes in a shaker. Add 1½ measures of gin, ¼ measureof Mandarine Napoleon liqueur, ¼ measure of dry vermouth, ¼ measure of sweet vermouth and shake ‘em like Stevens. Pour to a chilled cocktail glass and decorate with a neatly trimmed spiral of orange .We haven’t the foggiest idea how this one got its name. but to help you enjoy it we link to Etta James performing the eponymous song, composed by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler in 1933. It drifts straight out of the jazz age, evoking a melancholy ambience of nightclubs soaked in gin, cigarette smoke and heartbreak. Cheers everyone!

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=song+stormy+weather&&mid=CE612D46E9198

CLEAR SKIES AHEAD After the rain there is always sunshine. Or so we hope. To get that optimistic mood going, add 4 ice cubes to a shaker. You then add ½ teaspoon of sugar syrup, the juice of ½ a lemon, ½ teaspoon of grenadine, 1 egg white and 2 measures of whisky. Shake and pour to a tumbler and decorate with a paper umbrella (very 1980s!-but that’s what the book says, so who are we to differ?) For our musical accompaniment we have chosen Irving Berlin’s Blue Skies, here performed by Benny Goodman and his orchestra. Its sunny vibe captures the spirit of a world recovering a bit of prosperity under the guidance of an able President (Roosevelt) who followed the guidance of a thoughtful economist (JM Keynes) So now everything will be alright then: yes or no?

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=benny+goodman+blue+skies&&mid=E52D90BB2028FF1663BC

#cocktail #President Roosevelt #JM Keynes #music

Humble little herb may have mighty role as antibiotic

Could a humble little wildflower growing unnoticed in bog and marshland be a key player in the science of antibiotic resistance? According to an article by researchers Ronan McCarthy John J. Walsh and Kavita Gadar for the Conversation[1], yes it could. For they have discovered that Tormentil (Potentilla erecta) [2] not only has intriguing antibiotic properties of its own, it may help us to retread and recycle some old human made antibiotics which are sadly reaching the end of their effective lives.

Tormentil has appeared for centuries in the herbariums of traditional folk medicine. It has been used variously to treat ailments as diverse as gum disease, diarrhoea and wounds. Noting this, our resourceful researchers put it into a cross study against 70 other plant species in their Laboratory. It came out tops, hacking into the biofilms that bacteria use to defend themselves and thereby shortening the lives of these creatures by more than somewhat. They even identified the active agents in the tormentil which are ellagic acid and agrimonem. But you probably guessed that, being such an erudite and well-informed bunch of readers. Even more remarkably they:

…. combined low levels of the antibiotic colistin – an antibiotic that is only used as a last-resort against severe infections due to its potential toxicity to patients – with the tormentil extract. The low-level antibiotic dosage wasn’t enough to kill the bacteria when used on its own. But when combined with the tormentil extract, the plant compound enhanced the antibiotic’s efficacy.

You don’t need to be an old LSS hand to realise our worries about the declining effectiveness of colistin and some of the other older antibiotics.[3]

And our conclusions? We’ve written over twenty blogs on the theme of antibiotics or other medicines which may be hidden in nature. And therefore to destroy wildlands in order to grow food which no one really needs, or to build shopping malls of aching vacuity, is biologically insane, whatever the short term economic benefits. That probably half of all wild plants contain something useful, if only to the secret services of certain well known governments . As Shakespeare had it

“Within the infant rind of this small flower / Poison hath residence and medicine power.”
— Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 3

[1] https://theconversation.com/wildflower-once-used-to-treat-wounds-and-sore-throats-shows-promise-in-fighting-dangerous-superbugs-279406?utm_mediu

[2] Potentilla erecta – Wikipedia

[3] Liu, Y.-Y. et al. (2016). “Emergence of plasmid-mediated colistin resistance mechanism MCR-1 in animals and human beings in China.” The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 16(2), 161–168.
DOI: 10.1016/S1473-3099(15)00424-7

#health #medicine #antibiotic resistance #wild flowers #tormentil #bacteria #microbiology

Eyes show why evolution is never linear

Photo by Alejandro Quintanar on Pexels.com

Opponents of evolution and natural selection are fond of quoting the eye as an example of irreducible complexity which they imagine will wash away all objections to their creeds: “How could anything so complex have evolved without a very clever chap like God being behind it?” they ask, “and why would it have evolved as it only works when it’s completed?” Aside from the logical error which astute readers will have spotted at once, the story of how eyes evolved not only demonstrates how it happened, but answers so many other questions,that it’s actually rather more interesting than the stories offered as an alternative. Read this beautifully explained article in the Conversation by George Kafetzis and Dan Nillson [1] for a full exposition. Our humble summary appears below.

About 620 million years ago there lived an animal that was ancestral to all animals that would ever have two sides and move forward. It needed to steer as it swam: so it had two light sensitive areas symmetrically up front on either side. Another patch on top told light from dark, and which way up it was. And there it might have ended except for two things One group of these animals went to live in the mud as filter feeders. Having no need to swim they lost the steering eyes. Of course they kept the middle eye as it as still important to know if the Sun was shining. But when some of their descendants in turn started swimming again they needed to steer. Slowly the sides of the top eye moved apart, developed lenses and became eyes. These were the vertebrates. And this is why the eyes of all vertebrates-fish, lizards, birds and humans are so very very different from all other animals :invertebrates, such as scorpions, flies, octopuses and so on . Never giving up moving, their ancestors needed those original bilateral side eyes which slowly became more and more complex. Look at a fly if you don’t believe us. For the record the vertebrates kept the third top eye, its just that in mammals it has shrunk to the internal pineal gland where it still controls lots of light-related things like sleep and melatonin release

Its funny to think of eyes starting simple, evolving, un-evolving in some groups, and then evolving again, all according to the needs of those animals at the time. Its refreshing to find our basic LSS beliefs confirmed. Truth, or knowledge worth knowing, is complex and requires a lot of patient exposition to tease out. And it shows that simple, this-explains-it -all tales only end up obfuscating any real understanding.l. Nice to think that what happened 600 million years ago still has lessons for us today.

[1]https://theconversation.com/our-modern-vision-evolved-from-an-ancient-one-eyed-worm-creature-278120?utm_medium=email&utm_ca

#evolution #natural selection #eye #cambrian #vertebrates #invertebrates #paleonto;ogy #biology

Camilla Cavendish Confounds the Conspiracists

Photo by Hartono Creative Studio on Pexels.com

Of all the columnists we follow, Camilla Cavendish of the Financial Times is one of the most clear-eyed and objective. But the reason we’re showcasing her today is because she has turned her mind to that old LSS favourite: conspiracy theories and their devotees. Here is the reference [1] but because it’s behind the FT paywall* we’ll provide a short summary, clearly distinguishing Camilla’s points from our own riff on them, which is demarcated below.

CAMILLA SAYS

She notes sadly that an old pal (University educated!) has fallen for the hoary old belief that anthropogenic global warming is a hoax. Which leads her to consider why people need Conspiracy Theories: their History (apparently they had previous spikes around the troubled years 1900 and 1950): that people have an inherent tendency to believe facts that confirm their existing beliefs: and most chilling of all, that believing one conspiracy acts as a gateway to believing all, as the susceptible mind links the dots between anything and everything. Astutely, she notes that the provision of facts and reason almost never help the sufferers, because these do not address the deep emotional and psychological needs which are really driving participation in these modern cults. She even provides further reading: a book called Foolproof: why we Fall for Misinformation by Professor Sander. Camilla concludes with an admirable determination to read more things that she disagrees with. A form of mental training also recommended by Bertrand Russell, another much admired favourite of this blog.

OUR THOUGHTS

She’s right, sadly. For us, what’s so depressing is the way that conspiracy theories and misinformation on just about anything choke up the worldwide interweb like bindweed in a garden. The intellectual level of much conspiracy discourse-the use of language, evidence and reason-reminds us of the old Anonymous Letters we used to examine long ago in a Police Laboratory, long before the internet could spread such rubbish universally. So we’ve little enough to add, frankly. Except perhaps some further reading into Social Identity Theory as pioneered by the great Drs Tajfel and Turner [3], and its depressing observations that the species we are forced to belong to tends to draw its conclusions about what is true from the opinions of others rather than an objective consideration of the facts. In which case the only remedy is to choose you friends, family and above all, masters, with extreme care.

* or is it? Gentle readers when we clicked on this the whole thing came up in which case you can read all of Camilla’s article for yourselves. Go on, try it

[1] It’s far too easy to get sucked down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole

[2] Foolproof: Why We Fall for Misinformation and How to Build Immunity
London: Fourth Estate, 2023.ISBN: 978-0008466764

[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_identity_theory#:~:text=As%20originally%20formulated%20by%20social%20psychologists%20Henri%20Tajfel,the%20activities%20in%20which%20o

Conspiracy theory #climate change #misinformation #internet #social identity theory #camilla cavendish #financial times

Easter is time for Roast Chicken

Easter is here again. And so for the benefit of our readers in many lands we thought we’d come up with an all-time Sunday favourite: Roast Chicken. Except we are going to trim it round with a few extras to make your family’s day really special. And just to get things right, all our recipes come with the help of top BBC chefs who will show you how easy it can be to turn out some really good food.

Background Music (Cocktails/Starter) :You won’t do better than The Gothic Voices’ version of A Feather on the Breath of God by Hildegard of Bingen Great sacred/ medieval/spring vibe.

Cocktail If you can’t stand yet another gin and tonic, and you think Pimms is a bit rich, we recommend this Hugo Spritz from Good Food as a possible runner

Hugo Spritz Cocktail Recipe

Starter We will go with this tasty pea and mint soup recipe from Mark Sargeant. Its got that lovely green spring vibe but without filling you up

Pea and mint soup recipe – BBC Food

Background Music (Main Course): St Matthew Passion by JS Bach. Proper Easter-y and all that! We hand the choice of version over to Classical Music as they probably know what they’re talking about.

Bach St Matthew Passion: guide and best recordings – Classical Music

Main Course There are so many variations of the central theme of roast chicken that all we could do was to stick a finger in the wind and recommend this version by Simon Hopkinson

Perfect roast chicken dinner recipe – BBC Food

Wines We’ll go with this Mâcon Villages Les Pierres Blanches from Majestic. But really any good supermarket white burgundy will do, especially if you have a lot of thirsty diners and prize quantity over quality.

Mâcon-Villages Blanc ‘Les Pierres Blanches’ 2018 Cave de Lugny – Majestic Wine

Dessert what’s more English than apple crumble? And the beauty of it is, it’ll go with custard or ice cream!

Easy apple crumble recipe – BBC Food

Dessert Wine We’ll recommend that old favourite Muscat de Beaumes de Venise. Waitrose have this excellent half bottle which will still stretch to six or so normal guests

Muscat de Beaumes de Venise 1348 | Waitrose & Partners

Port When it comes to the word port everyone means Ruby or thinks they do. To be fair there are thousands of good rubies out there at incredibly good prices. So why not stick your neck out and just for once serve up this tawn from Sainsurys If nothing else it’l get them talking -the ones who are still awake

https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/sainsburys-tawny-port-75cl?

Cheeses Naturally we’ve got a cheddar and a stilton, both from Marks, as you’d expect nothing less. But just to be daring can we alsoslip in this Brighton Blue from our own county of Sussex?

5 Year Old Cornish Cruncher Vintage Cheddar | M&S

Mature Blue Stilton | M&S

Brighton Blue Cheese – High Weald Dairy

Music (Post prandial)After the earlier high moral tone we thought we’d try something a little more rela,xing. Maye we suggest a couple from Frank himself? What is more Sinatra-moody than One for my baby(and one more for the road)? Or In the Wee small hours of the morning? Nat King Cole’s Stardust or Ella Fitzgerald’s Angel eyes often play well to the après-dejeuner crowd. But given our Hispanic connections we might offer Roberto Goyeneche’s version of Ventanita florida finishing off with Oblivion by the late great Astor Piazzolla.

Well there’s our Easter menu for this fateful year of 2026. We look forward to presenting the Christmas one. If we are all still here and there is any food left in the shops.

#food #wine #cheese #roast chicken #cocktails #easter #music

Beyond the Nation #5: what happens when the Big One hits?

No event is so unlikely that it won’t happen for certain. Statisticians (and insurers) have a name for this sort of thing: tail risks. Things which, although unlikely, would have catastrophic consequences. We’ve looked at a few before here (LSS passim); but by general consensus, the top six include: a sudden volcanic eruption (think Yellowstone or Campi Flegrei); an asteroid impact (think dinosaurs);a geomagnetic pole flip which would bring down all power, communication and navigation systems; a sudden solar flare which would do all of the proceeding and more; a gamma ray burst from a nearby star which would blow away the ozone layer: and a possible megatsunami caused perhaps by the collapse of the Cumbre Viejas formation in the island of La Palma in the Canary islands.

If you are going to plan for these things you want your plan to be optimal and your outcomes to have maximum success. You want your numbers of survivors to be as high as it could be, and your numbers of dead, injured, pandemic and starvation victims to be as low as you can get them. The problem is that catastrophes on a planetary scale expose a profound structural mismatch: the hazard is global, but the response will be fragmented. Each government plans for its own survival and has no incentive to think about its neighbours. In fact, it has no remit,so why should it? Yet if such an event did occur, the price will be paid in extra but wholly avoidable deaths, injuries epidemics and famines.

Ok, these events sit far out on the probability tails. Humanity has been lucky-for now. But we make a prediction: if such an event occurs the response of a planet organised into nation states will be far less effective than it otherwise would have been. Time will tell.

Coda: On completing this piece someone in the office suggested another and more likely catastrophe: the release of a deadly pathogen, such as engineered forms of bubonic plague, ebola or smallpox from a secret weapons laboratory. But that would mean a pandemic, gentle readers: and we are planning to deal with those in the next instalment of this series

#catastrophe #asteroid impact #tsunami #volcano #caldera #magnetic flip #solar flare

Quantum Computers model Quantum Matter

Photo by Merlin Lightpainting on Pexels.com

Study this , Quantum simulations match real-world data. from the inimitable Nature Briefing. For you are seeing into the future, at a quantum level.

For the first time, physicists have matched detailed quantum-computer simulations to experimental data gathered from work with solid materials. Two teams of physicists achieved the feat independently: one simulated the physical properties of a magnetic material, such as its heat capacity, and the other modelled a different material’s response to being excited into a range of energy states. Both agreed with experimental data. The work “sets the stage for a new standard in the application of quantum simulation to materials science,” says theoretical physicist Daniel González-Cuadra.Nature | 5 min read
Reference: arXiv preprint 1 & preprint 2 (not peer reviewed)

And our thoughts? Well, for the first time, quantum computers have reproduced the real, experimentally measured behaviour of solid materials, not toy models or idealised systems. That matters because it turns quantum computing from a theoretical promise into a scientific instrument — one that can interrogate nature at its own level, rather than approximating it from above. It also signals that quantum tech is advancing faster and more quietly than the AI hype cycle suggests, edging into domains where classical intuition simply can’t follow. And in doing so, it blurs the old boundary between “understanding” and “emulating” reality, letting us use a human‑built quantum device to explore quantum structures our minds were never evolved to picture — all powered, in my case and yours, by nothing stronger than coffee.

LSS is about much more than antibiotics and Allosauruses, gentle readers. We do IT and computing too. If you want the real cutting edge stuff in many fields, all neatly wrapped up in espresso-sized cups, then this is where to place your order.

#IT #quantum computers #AI #materials science #sub atomic #technology #science