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This week we are more than proud to welcome Dr Stephen Day of Norfolk, the noted scientist and educationalist as our cocktail guest columnist.

How about this one, which came from the once-popular Guinness Black list, published in 1976 ?
Guinness and Barley Wine:
Guinness Extra Stout is a fine, dark brew, but many find it excessively bitter. Barley Wine, as a genre of beer has been much neglected of late. It is excessively strong- perhaps 7-8%, generally sold in third of a pint bottles (or “nips”) and also too sweet for many beer drinkers’ tastes. However, combining the two can produce a fine, strong and drinkable pint.
Colloquially known as “Blacksmith” because it is a strong with a punch, I first discovered it in the Coach and Horses on Whiteladies Road, Bristol. Simply pour half a pint of Guinness Extra Stout into a pint glass, rolling it slowly down the side to avoid an excessive head. Once settled, introduce a barley wine of your choice- I recommend Adnams “Tally-Ho“- again pouring it slowly down the side of the glass into the head of the Guinness. If it has a sediment, pour that in too. Finally top up with further Guinness to make a full pint. Find a comfortable, padded, seat, put “The Doors” on your sound system and sip gently. The burnt aroma, smooth texture and juxaposition of bitter and sweet tastes make for a complex drink that is to be savoured, not rushed. It is probably one for the end of an evening or as a nightcap as, in the end, it is a little heady.

Nevertheless we at LSS can see it as an early evening sharpener, for those who like to mix traditional flavours. Thanks, Steve- and keep those recipes coming!

#guinness #adnams #barleywine #cocktails ‘#stout #ale #beer #fridaynightcocktails

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One of the more memorable remarks of our own nineteen seventies was overheard while serving time in the Life Sciences department of a large London University. “Politics,” declared the speaker, “is an infringement on the liberties of the individual.” The implication being that scientists, even aspiring ones, would be happier if left alone in their ivory towers to pursue untrammelled Knowledge.

Apart from the obvious omission that it was politicians who had collected the taxes to set up the institution and pay the speaker’s grant, there were too many issues joining scientists and administrators at the hip for them ever to be remotely separable. Even then, far sighted persons were beginning to worry about pollution and global warming.

Nowhere is this truth more apparent than at Nature. Here we are going to simply plug one of their podcasts which explores this issue.

‘Stick to the science’: when science gets political

A new three-part podcast series, Nature explores the question: ‘Why does a journal of science need to cover politics?’ We look at the history of the knotty relationship between science, politics and power, what it means for the objective ideals of science, and the danger of politicization in an increasingly divisive political landscape.

Nature | Three 25 min listens

And nothing is more tragic than the fact that a simple scientific phenomenon such as anthropogenic global warming has become deeply politicised. Somehow the richer classes of the English-speaking nations have become lined up against their own poor, and most of the rest of the world.

Once again, it’s Nature in driver’s seat, with a shrewd warning for the power of those rich persons and their camp followers if they are not very careful:

The US has left the Paris climate deal — what’s next?

Other nations are stepping up targets to reduce emissions — but the world will struggle to meet its goals.

Regardless of who wins the US presidential election, the United States officially pulls out of the Paris climate agreement today. Although the United States played a major part in crafting the climate agreement, it will be the only one out of the nearly 200 parties to pull out of the pact. Nature explores how the move will dampen international efforts to halt global warming, shift the balance of power to China and tarnish US credibility on climate action.Nature | 5 min read

#climatechange #globalwarming #presidentdonaldtrump #parisagreement

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As we write these lines, the result of the US election is still in doubt. It’s possible that Biden could still squeeze a technical win. But it would be a Pyrrhic victory, for nothing less than a landslide would have served as a repudiation of Trump and a political base for the next four years. And that ain’t gonna happen.

We think that the defeat of progressive forces has two underlying causes. An utter underestimation of the power of ethno-nationalism in human affairs. And a deep confusion about goals and their own identities.

People who call themselves progressives are fond of sneering at ethno-nationalism and labelling its adherents as nothing more than ignorant bigots. This is folly, as repeated ballot results show. It would be more fruitful, and serve the human cause better, if they asked: what human needs does ethnic attachment serve? Is it safety? Is it communicative? Is it familiarity? Is it hierarchy? If these needs are universal to all people, what counter offer do progressives have to trade to make people give them up? And finally-if there is a human instinct to conserve, what is the psychological difference between conserving the ecological community of some sand dunes, or the human community of an ancient village? What is the difference between a Conservationist and a Conservative?

There is no force more destructive of settled communities than the free market. To survive, companies must grow until they reach the limits of the available market. World brands like Coca-Cola, Microsoft and Samsung cannot afford ethno- nationalism, as it would utterly cripple their sales and recruitment. There is nothing so perplexing as being told off in the pub for not drinking English Ale by a Brexiteer who reads his news on a Korean phone and drives home in a Mercedes-Benz. Which leaves one group of Trump opponents, the Left, with an excruciating dilemma. The only force capable of bringing about a multi-ethnic multicultural society is Free Market Capitalism. Do you ally with it, and become its facilitators? Or do you retreat into some comfortable little cultural village of your own, where all things have a Corbyn-like purity?

Millions upon millions of people voted for things like Trump, and Brexit and Bolsonaro and Erdogan. Until their needs are understood and and addressed and predicted as well as those of urban female graduates, we will lose again, And again, And again. And deserve to.

Maria Sobolewska and Robert Ford Brexitland Cambridge University Press 2020

Ami Chua Political Tribes Bloomsbury 2018

Eric Kaufman Whiteshift Abrams 2019

#uselection #trump #biden #ethnonatioanlism #conservation #conservative #freemarlets #muliticulturalism #multiethnic #brands

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We at LSS always insist that the gathering shortage of antibiotics will soon present the world with a health crisis so grave that the current Covid-19 crisis will look like a day out at the zoo, followed by beer and skittles. Clearly we have to eke out the antibiotics we have until new ones come along. And this will take time-even if we took back all the money from all the tax havens in the world and spent it on research, it still takes several years to get a safe drug into mass production.

Up to now, we have always been told to finish our course of antibiotics-because at base they are so precious. Now Dr Paul Offit, a leading US paediatrician, thinks that may be a mistake. Read why in this piece from the Daily Mail‘s health section. It is of course, upset-the-apple-cart stuff. But thought provoking as well. And for your pleasure, the good Professor charges full tilt at SPF creams, aspirin and hearts, and refuses to bend the knee to arthritic operations. Thought provoking stuff.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-8906919/You-dont-finish-course-antibiotics-suggests-leading-virologist.html

#antibioticresistance #antibiotics #pauloffit #arthritis

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We already know that rising levels of carbon dioxide from global warming are bad for the planet. They are ruining the climate, causing floods raising sea levels, and making fertile areas uninhabitable. But are they already starting to kill us individually?

Before global warming, the average level of CO₂ in the atmosphere fluctuated around 280 ppm (parts per million). Now it hovers around 410 ppm; by the end of the century it could be around 670 ppm or even higher.

The human body can sustain low levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere-we’ve adapted to it. High levels are normally only a problem for people like building workers, astronauts and captains of nuclear submarines. Research shows that there is no question that the sorts of levels these people can meet will do you serious harm, but most of the work is concentrated around very high CO₂ concentrations at thousands of ppm, with very short exposure times , both for obvious reasons.

But as CO₂ levels rise, what happens to all of us as we breathe in steadily rising levels day in day out, without a break? Especially in places like offices, where it tends to become more concentrated.

Now a paper from Nature Sustainability by Tyler Jacobsen, Jasdeep Kler* and their co-workers looks at this question.   Some of their findings are disquieting, to say the least. Firstly chronic CO₂ exposure does seem to have health risks. There’s a long list, but the main stand outs are on cognitive ability, kidney calcification and endothelial dysfunction. Secondly, this is a preliminary paper, as the authors admit. A very great deal of work remains to be done. And that will mean setting up research programmes, signing up scientists and re-budgeting whole departments..

There is a worrying historical parallel. When the first early papers on the effects of cigarette smoking were published, they were largely ignored. Which only gave the danger time to grow. And at least individual smokers were able to mitigate the risk by giving up. But for passive smokers the risk was everywhere. If you lived or worked or socialised with a smoker, you couldn’t help breathing the stuff in. It’s the same with carbon dioxide-there’s no getting away from it

We are aware of the dangers of crying wolf, and of course it’s perfectly possible that this may not be as serious as some of the other problems currently besetting the world. But isn’t it time we researched a little, just to make sure?

Direct Health Risks of Increased Atmospheric CO2

Tyler A Jacobson, Jasdeep Kler, Michael T Herneke Rudolf K Brown, Keith C Meyer and William E Funk

Nature Sustainability Review Article Vol 2 August 2019 pp 691-701

#globalwarming #climatechange #co2levels healthrisks #environmentalhealth

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Firstly, thanks to al our fantastic contributors on the Cocktail Night blog, we learn from several sources that people liked them. And thanks to everyone who once again has read, shared and contributed to the blog, on here, face book, twitter and elsewhere. Too many to mention individually, we regret.

On then to brief selection of stories linking the most important themes in our lives for the week (no, we’re not going near that election!)

The whole sorry Covid-19 saga now seems to be turning on how long our antibodies will last. Whether you’re a herd immunity supporter, or a vaccine enthusiast, or just curious, everything depends on the duration of those pesky antibodies. In the Conversation, Sheena Cruikshank, a Professor at Manchester University, discusses fading and its implications.

https://theconversation.com/a-new-study-suggests-coronavirus-antibodies-fade-over-time-but-how-concerned-should-we-be-148957?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20October%2028%202020%20-%201770417166&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20October%2028%202020%20-%201770417166+CID_cc816b6bff7b3751fe48c8db091550d7&utm_source=campaign_monitor_uk&utm_term=A%20new%20study%20suggests%20coronavirus%20antibodies%20fade%20over%20time%20%20but%20how%20concerned%20should%20we%20be

Vaccines work; they have almost eliminated polio. But unless we keep up research, which means spending money, vaccination programmes will run down. It could even happen with polio. Here’s Nature

New Polo vaccine approved

Wild polio has almost been eradicated. But a version of the virus that arose naturally from the weakened polio virus used for vaccination is increasing. Now, a vaccine against this vaccine-derived polio strain is expected to receive emergency approval before the end of the year. If it does, it will be the first time the World Health Organization (WHO) has steered an unlicensed vaccine through its emergency listing process. “It’s going to be a very good exercise for us to look [at] how this works,” says WHO adviser Alejandro Cravioto. “Probably some of the COVID-19 vaccines will have to be authorized for use in the same way.”Nature | 7 min read

Message to all you wildcat capitalists out there: if you continue to to slash taxes and rip dividends out of companies every three months, there won’t be any long term research. Maybe high levels of testosterone will protect you from polio?

We love it when someone remembers our old blogs, like the one on magnetic polar flips. Here Mr Gary Herbert of Buckinghamshire uncovers a piece about an old tree which carries records of the last time it happened. Over to Doug Williams of Outdoor Revival:

ttps://m.outdoorrevival.com/news/magnetic-reversal.html

Animal lovers, who’s man’s best friend, a dog or a cat? According to Nature, it’s dogs by many thousands of years. We may have been breeding them since before 11 000 years BCE

Ancient dog DNA reveals canine evolution

The largest-ever study of ancient dog genomes has revealed a lot about our four-legged friends. The analysis of more than two dozen Eurasian dogs suggests that the animals were domesticated and became widespread well before 11,000 years ago. “Already, there were at least five different groups of dogs across the world, so the origin of dogs must have been substantially earlier than that,” says population geneticist Pontus Skoglund. With so many genomes, the researchers could follow ancient dog populations as they moved and mixed and compare these shifts with those in human populations.Nature | 5 min read
Science paper

Oh well, they were here first. But as the old saying has it-Dogs have masters; Cats have Staff

And finally, sadly, we bid farewell to Sean Connery; for most fans he is still the best Bond of all. He was an accomplished actor in many roles, and the world is a poorer place without him. Good bye, Mr Bond. Here’s the Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/oct/31/sean-connery-james-bond-actor-dies-aged-90

#magneticpoles #seanconnery #jamesbond #polio #vaccines #covid19 #sars-cov- 2 #nature #antibodyfading

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Today we are honoured to welcome the noted journalist, broadcaster and entrepreneur Mr Lindsay Charlton of Kent as our cocktail guest

Cocktail: Ice cold Martini

“One day, dehydrated after a hot day’s filming, I found myself on my own in the cocktail lounge of Don Cesar Hotel, Florida, a pink oceanside palace that featured in Once Upon a Time in America. (In the scene, Robert De Niro wore a 1930s men’s bathing cosie with a bib and shoulder straps. Didn’t suit him).

“Anyway, I told the barman that I had never had a proper Martini before, but he said that he’d soon sort that for me. This is what he did:

Ingredients: ice cold gin, olive, twist of lemon, quite a lot more iced gin.

“Forthwith, I drank: Martini so good, so astonishingly strong that I relaxed entirely, savouring the ambience, the light chatter in the air conditioned bar, and the gentle murmuring of music. It wasn’t long before I had ordered a second, and downed that too. Minutes later, having entirely lost the power of speech, I had to be helped off of the bar stool and padded off somewhat asynchronistically to dinner.  I realised when I had fully regained consciousness that the Martini was not for the amateur cocktail drinker. (you’re dead right there-ed)

Who else drinks them? Everyone knows that. But how he, 007, shoots straight after drinking them is beyond me.

https://www.guestreservations.com/the-don-cesar-hotel/booking?msclkid=09883e56b96c1e04b87461ca97bc979f

#martini #doncesarhotel #sergioleone #robertdeniro #gin #florida

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Fans of Paleontology, and non-fans of Paleontology, there’s something for everyone here, so don’t click away. But fans will instantly remember the marvellous Burgess Shale formations of British Columbia. They’re about as good as it gets: Old (Cambrian, 520million years BCE); incredibly well preserved (you can see the compound eyes in trilobites); and above all the first good examples of just about every major group of animals is suddenly here, fully formed and ready to go. Here are all the answers to what the first arthropods. the first molluscs and the first vertebrates looked like, and its dazzling. And some people were dazzled . Over the years enormous theories were erected about this sudden Cambrian Explosion. Why so sudden? Why nothing like this earlier? There seemed to be nothing but a few old funny shapes, which may not even have been animals, in the poor old Precambrian. And bacteria-but as they are not exactly photogenic, who cared about them?

But some people always had doubts. Firstly, the molecular evidence pointed to a much earlier divergence of animal groups-maybe by two or three hundred million years. And there were all those pesky little burrows and strange shapes in places like Ediacara in Australia and Charnwood Forest in England. And some multicellular things like red algae have been around unchanged for fourteen hundred million years and are still washing up on beaches today. Now Traci Wilson of Nature tells how discoveries in the Precambrian are completely upending the Cambrian explosion and showing how the really important stuff was happening long. long before. There’s loads of good stuff here, and links, and great pictures. For us the highlight was some scientists who recovered 550 million years old cholesterol to prove some of the strange blobs were real animals, but there is loads more.

However, the real point is: don’t get carried away by one discovery, however good it looks. No one book holds all the answers. No scientist thinks that Darwin wrote the last word on biology, or Newton on physics. What people think about the Cambrian is no real danger to the world. But there are plenty of other people with fixed ideas who are. And who kill for them, even in churches.

Animal, vegetable or something else entirely? For decades, researchers were baffled by fossils of bizarre living things that dated back to the Ediacaran period — around half a billion years ago. But recent evidence suggests that some of these alien-like species were in fact animals — including ones that had guts, segmented bodies and other sophisticated features. Researchers are using these finds to re-examine a pivotal event in evolutionary history: the Cambrian explosion. “I would just love to be swimming over these communities and see, finally, how are they really growing? What on Earth are they?” says palaeobiologist Rachel Wood. “So much would become obvious.”Nature | 12 min read

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/29/knife-attacker-in-nice-kills-three-people

#niceattacks #cambrian #precambrian #yilingiaspiciformis #ediacara #charnwoodforest

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If you are a historian from the future, looking back on old blogs to see how people coped with the Covid-19 pandemic, welcome to Wednesday 28th October 2020. Because the consensus on restrictions is breaking down. Their have been riots in some of the great cities in Europe; people all over England are blithely ignoring restrictions from the highest levels of society all the way down. And we at LSS think that, if the government wants to use the Police to break up Christmas lunches, there will be no law left at all by the New Year.

So what is to be done? One answer is to shield the vulnerable. let the virus rip and hope that the resulting build up of immunity in the survivors will provide protection for all in the long term. It’s a point of view defended in this clip from Talk Radio by Professor Sunetra Gupta of Oxford University, no less. Whatever you say about the funding and origins of the Great Barrington Declaration, some one has to make the case for getting the economy going!

The essential case against is that “Herd Immunity” is scientifically questionable, and that the cost in lives of attempting it without vaccines would be unacceptable. Here are the counterarguments

Last week we linked to a piece from Nature: here it is again

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02948-4?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=b7acfea873-briefing

We would also like to link a piece by Graham Lawton of New Scientist

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2257258-it-is-bad-science-to-say-covid-19-infections-will-create-herd-immunity/

We at LSS are always saddened when scientific questions become political. It happened over smoking and global warming. Though we haven’t crossed that threshold yet on this one, we fear it could go the same way. Oh for a couple of really good, reliable vaccines before that day!

Our thanks to Mr Gary Herbert of Buckinghamshire who is the moving spirit in this post.

#covid19 #sars-cov-2 #coronavirus #herdimmunity #greatbarringtondeclaration #epidemiology #herdsafety

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No crime is worse than domestic violence, pitting a strong big man against a smaller, weaker woman. It’s just cowardice. And no tyranny is more total than a domestic tyranny. That’s why we want to offer today’s little blog in support of the sterling efforts of campaigners everywhere against this atrocity.

Domestic violence awareness month seems still to be an American thing, judging by its media footprint. Our link offerings are therefore to an excellent US site called Domestic Violence-it’s everybody’s business. We’ll take one little fact-ette for you gentle readers: in the US there is a victim every 15 seconds. So what’s it like in other countries? There’s loads of facts here, ideas on how you can help, even if it’s only by wearing a purple ribbon.

https://domesticviolence.org/domestic-violence-awareness-month/

Back across this side of the pond, we found this marvellous little link. Jamie Brassington of the Smethwick Express and Star tells how a marvellous little Sikh Temple in the Black Country have cover themselves in purple for the whole month in support of the campaign. They are called Guru Nanak Gurdwara, and we are sure that donations to the roof fund will not go unappreciated

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/local-hubs/sandwell/smethwick/2020/10/06/sikh-temple-turns-purple-to-raise-awareness-of-domestic-violence/

And finally..spare a thought for our four legged friends. The decision for a woman to bail out of abusive relationship can be agonising. One more agony is if she has to leave her beloved cat or dog behind. Now Purina Petfoods have come up with the Purple Leash Project. The idea is to help victims move on their pets, and care and support these poor animals during the dreadful transition process. Declaration of Interest: none. We get no money from Purina, but we think they’re great. For the record, ours is a Whiskas household!

https://www.purina.com/about-purina/purple-leash-project

#domesticviolence #domesticabuse #purpleribbon #purina #purpleleash

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