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Our weekly roundup of things our readers saw, or we haven’t had time to cover.
Earlier this week we blogged an intriguing tale of green shoots from Amsterdam, at the behest of the well-known broadcaster and entrepreneur Mr Lindsay Charlton, of Kent. But he thinks this is so important that he wants you to know more. Read how Amsterdam’s doughnut shaped economy could pull all of us out of the current quagmire.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/05/doughnut-model-amsterdam-coronavirus-recovery/
much of the thinking behind all this comes from an academic called Kate Raworth. Here’s her link
Nuclear fusion is the energy source of the future-and always will be. So runs the sardonic joke of the last 65 years. Yep, it’s a holy grail-endless cheap green energy. Trouble is, we haven’t been clever enough to make it work. Now Abigail Beall of the New Scientist thinks that Artificial Intelligence may be coming to our rescue. If this one has legs, it will transform all of our lives for the better
Mr Peter Seymour of Hertfordshire reminds us that human ingenuity finds surprising expressions. Here’s a piece from The Conversation which shows how analysis of sewage will help us track the progress of Covid 19. Old Forensic Scientists will love the way tiny traces provide marvellous results, if you try hard enough-and of course the presence of our old friend, PCR!
While we spend our time on statues and coronavirus, nemesis is approaching fast. It looks like we have underestimated the effect of greenhouse gases by a lot. Here’s Jonathan Watts in the Guardian
And finally….astute readers will have noticed that when corporations or other organisations are in trouble, they change their name. It is usually a vanity and a delusion, because the old faults are still there. Should humanity do the same? When the first real humans appeared they were called Homo ergaster. In Latin, it means “work man”. A simple no-nonsense name that suggests a species that got on with making the tools, chopping the meat, and had all the plain unpretentious values that go with it.
About half a million years ago, the name was changed to Homo sapiens, which means “wise man”. Have you ever heard of anything so vainly self-deluding? “Oh we’re so clever and cool, we can do anything we like!” we told ourselves. Try telling that to a coronavirus or an antibiotic-resistant bacteria. It’s pride and hubris that lead to nemesis, and it looks like we’re the next victim.
Don’t say you weren’t warned.
#doughnuteconomy #covid19 #nuclearfusion #globalwarming #homoergaster
Learning, Science and Society 