stories that we liked this week

P-22 retires The adventures of Puma P-22 have intrigued the inhabitants of Los Angeles as much as those of any movie star for the last 10 years. But like many an old trouper, he’s now too long in the tooth for his starring role in Griffith Park, and is to be retired to a sanctuary, to spend his days in nostalgic memory of when he topped the bill in LA

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64006005

Hope in India India is fast becoming so important that everything they do there counts, right around the world. That’s why it’s so hopeful to read of a major rewilding initiative, which might also help to mitigate global warming. Nature explains, The Promise and Politics of Rewilding India, via The New Yorker

In midlife, writer and filmmaker Pradip Krishen fell in love with trees. Now he is a leading advocate for rewilding in India, as one of the leaders of a group called the Ecological Restoration Alliance of India. Rather than quick-fix tree-planting projects — some of which are nothing more than a media stunts and have little long-term success — their restoration aims focus on the specifics of local ecosystems and the livelihoods of their people. But that approach is at odds with the policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which push for rapid development that sometimes sweeps aside scientists’ warnings and Indigenous people’s resistance.The New Yorker | 30 min read

Work this one out Humans have always had a fascination with puzzles. Is it in our DNA? Some of them are very old. And some are timeless as these two pieces form the Mail make clear:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-11537199/Ancient-grammatical-puzzle-baffled-scientists-2-500-years-SOLVED.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11540011/A-record-40-000-people-downloaded-GCHQs-puzzles-reveal-answers.html

Putin’s Puzzle Talking of which-why didn’t Vladimir Putin actually sit down and think for ten minutes before he launched his foolish invasion of Ukraine? The Guardian outlines the long term harm he has done to Russia, its people and its culture. And it’s catastrophic.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/17/ukraine-greatest-threat-russian-world-vladimir-putin

Daydream believer Everyone dreams about what might happen if they won the lottery. But for some daydreams and fantasies can become as addictive as cocaine, alcohol or cigarettes. The Conversation offers this wake up call:

https://theconversation.com/daydreamings-dark-side-the-compulsive-complex-fantasy-disorder-that-dominates-some-peoples-daily-lives-195767?utm_medium=em

California Dreaming This week’s song started where we ended, with P-22 dreaming of his lost freedoms, while lapping up the cream of the Golden State’s largesse from his well -appointed paddock. It’s the Mommas and the Poppas-who else?

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube+california+dreaming&docid=608044125552918745&mid=01F373D72113D03AA8DA01F373D

#p-22 #cougar #puma #india #rewilding #puzzle #putin # #russia #disorder #daydreaming #california

We’ve always been Roman buffs at LSS. But the purpose of studying History is to draw lessons from it that might help today. And Sam Webb of the Independent has uncovered a story that does exactly that. Everyone agrees that the mass invasions by Attila and his Hun followers were the final nail in the coffin for the Western Empire. But what caused them? The answer seems to be sudden climate change on the steppes, turning herdsmen into predatory raiders, desperate to feed their families. [1] [2]

Before you yawn and say “all a very long time ago” look at these stats. According to the UNHCR, on average 21.5 million people a year have been displaced by climate change since 2008. By 2050 1.2 billion people will be displaced. At which point our old friend Dave Watford from the Dog and Duck pops up to shout “we’ll yuze the army ter keep ’em AHT!” Sorry, Dave. That’s what the Romans tried all through the fourth century. In the end, they’ll just come and take it. That’s why Attila’s name is a byword to this day.

thanks to P Seymour

[1]https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/huns-rome-climate-wars-un-sudan-b2245981.html

this is much better written than most academic papers, so we thought you’d like a chance

[2]https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-roman-archaeology/article/role-of-drought-during-the-hunnic-incursions-into-centraleast-europe-in-the-4th-and-5th-c-ce/C036810C421F7D

For further reading we strongly recommend The Fate of Rome by Kyle Harper Princeton UP 2017

#romans #huns #climate change #global warming #migration #immigration

Zara Aleena was a woman with it all in front of her. Beautiful, intelligent and decent, she was on her way to becoming a brilliant lawyer. Until her life was snuffed out by one Jordan McSweeney, a brutal, violent man whose only claim to fame was his 28 previous convictions and 69 previous criminal offences. [1] What possible forces in society could have stopped this senseless killing? Let’s look at the possibilities:

The Police? Everyone’s been quick to blame them. But before we do, look at the climate they have been forced to operate in since 2010. Nationally, the UK has lost 23 500 Police Officers. London, where Aleena lived, has been particularly hard hit, losing 47% of its officers in that time. The excellent PCSO service, which was such an excellent source of community intelligence, has been virtually abolished. In such circumstances, isn’t there a higher chance that some glaring problems will be missed?

The Probation Service? Like a fighter reeling under blows, they have never really recoverd from their own share of post 2010 cuts. Plus the botched attempts to privatise the whole thing by a certain Minister called Chris “failing” Grayling. Once again a case of trying to spread your jam too thin, we think

The Public? Could anyone have seen McSweeney and alerted the authorities, or even intervened. Well no wonder no one goes out any more. All these cuts have not only made the streets unsafe, they have also become dirty and unkempt-hardly a place to attract the discerning citizen. Funny isn’t it, how tax cuts seem to actually reduce most people’s freedom? But that’s a trope for another day.

The Conservative Party and its supporters in the media? We’ll leave that for your homework

There’s no greater freedom than the right to walk the streets. And this is particularly true of women, In the UK, in India, Spain or any other country. The moral is simple. If we want to do something real, we are going to have to pay for it.

Dear readers: we couldn’t leave you without hope. Until the Government steps up to its responsibilities, private citizens can help The charity REFUGE investigates and assists in all cases of domestic and misogynistic violence. Can you whack up the ginger for even a small donation? It will help way beyond its financial value!

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-63956133

main page

tps://refuge.org.uk

donations line

ttps://refuge.org.uk/i-want-to-support-refuge/

#violence #domestic abuse #zara aleena #misogyny #conservative party #cuts

Rudyard Kipling knew a thing or two about cats

…..“the wildest of all wild animals was the cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him” [1]

So how did this aloof, solitary carnivore end up sharing a hearth and home with primates, along with goodness knows what other species, including dogs, horses cows and many others? Until now, the guess was that cats moved in well after other domestic animals. Their role was pest control. To protect the winter stores for humans and other animals, which would otherwise have been destroyed by hordes of rats and other graminivorous rodents. The likely time frame would be in the mid-Neolithic as barns and grain stores became common, attracting pests from far and wide.

The trouble was that until recently, this was little more than conjecture, backed by a few archaeological discoveries. Intriguing, but essentially another just-so story. But now our old friend genetics once again comes to the rescue. A new survey of over 1000 cats, looking at 200 genetic markers puts the origins of domestication in the Neolithic along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates. Exactly where the early farmers were starting to pile up stores of wheat, barley and other foods. It’s nice to see that science really can confirm conjectures with some hard evidence. David Nield has the full story here[2] in Science Alerts We were amused to note that, unlike most other domestic creatures, cats have retained most of their wild behaviours and should still be able to survive in the wild, if push came to shove.

Maybe that is their charm. Because the bond between humans and cats has become something more than merely economic. Even big burly footballers like the England team seem susceptible to the old feline charm, as this tale from Eirann Prosser of the Mail shows.[3] Defenders John Stones and Kyle Walker befriended a local stray tabby during off- the- pitch sessions. He’s called Dave and will soon be winging his way back to England along with the other lions. Maybe Kipling was nearer the truth than we thought.

[1]http://www.online-literature.com/kipling/163/

[2] https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/techandscience/the-lost-history-of-cat-domestication-can-finally-be-told/ar-AA15e1Oi

[3]https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/fifa-world-cup/england-team-adopts-dave-the-cat-after-befriending-him-in-qatar/ar-AA159apV

#kipling #cat #neolithic #rodent #john stones #kyle walker #dave the cat #gentics #animal domestication #neolithic

As 2022 draws to a close, we would like to offer a big thank you to:

-The many readers who follow this blog, too numerous to name. We would like to mention two readers from very different corners of the Spanish-speaking world for their many likes; but obviously cannot name them for reasons of privacy.

-To all those who suggest new ideas, comments and stories, and those who spread this blog across the various social media

-To all the professional scientists, social workers, economists, journalists and others whose intelligence and hard work are, when all is said and done, the real basis of this blog

-To all those Americans who realised that Donald Trump is not the answer to their problems

-To all those Ukrainians who stood up to to violence and tyranny

-And, even if this annoys some readers, to all those Conservative MPs who realised that Britain needs governance of a higher order than that provided by Boris Johnson and Liz Truss

-To all those French electors who realised that, however bad its practitioners, Democracy is less lethal than Fascism

-To all Australians who gave us hope that the climate might yet be fixed and that ignorant stubborn denialism can be overcome, however strong the support for it in certain media outlets

–Brazilians in general, who in our professional experience manage to combine the joie de vivre of the Latins with the stern work ethic of the Germans-we’ve never met anyone like them.

There are other examples

We think 2022 could have been a lot worse. Which is not to say things are particularly good, at least as long as Vladimir Putin has access to nuclear weapons. But please keep your hopes up. The bad guys don’t always win. Not every time anyway.

#spanish #donald trump #vladimir putin #ukraine #climate change #global warming

Alright. we admit it -we’ve been banging on about nuclear fusion here since at least 2020, and some of the more elderly members of the Board were boring their classmates with it back in 1973. The promise of endless abundant, renewable energy, with no more rising sea levels and choking smogs. And yet, with many of the world’s best brains and biggest budgets on the job we are no further forward than when Slade topped the popular charts with their hit song Mama we’re all crazy now.

Or are we? The key thing about nuclear fusion research is: to be successful, you have to get more energy out than you put in. And for the first time, the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California claims to have done just that. We’ve got two links for you [1] [2] , from CNN and The Guardian, so you can read for yourselves. But in the meantime, here are our questions

Is this a reputable claim? Definitely. The Lawrence Livermore is one of the world’s top research institutes and always have been.

What’s the energy balance? They claim to have put in at least 2.1 MJ and got out 2.5 That’s a positive.

Has it been confirmed? Weeelllllll……there’s the rub. The best scientists are like the best journalists. They wait for confirmation.

Surely that’s a bit old and fuddy duddy? Generally, it seems to work in practice. Imagine if journalists at The Sun were in charge of housebuilding-we’d still be living in caves.

What are the next steps? First Lawrence Livermore have got to repeat it. Then other researchers must. Remember the excitement around cold fusion back in 1989? Then, of course they have to turn fusion into safe, reliable power stations.

Overall, it’s a step in the right direction. But we at LSS think it’ll be a long time before you turn on the light and the electrons flowing through it came from a terrestrial fusion reactor.

With thanks to contributions from P Seymour

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/12/politics/nuclear-fusion-energy-us-scientists-climate/index.html

[2]https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/12/breakthrough-in-nuclear-fusion-could-mean-near-limitless-energy

#nuclear fusion #cold fusion #slade #energy #]renewables #global warming #climate chane #lawrence livermore laboratory

Today we want to tell you about a very special girl called Alyssa. Because she is the first person in the world whose life has been saved by Base Editing, As we think that this will change all our lives, for the better, very soon, we’re going to run a slightly longer blog today. Because we think that you, as citizens of the educated world would like to know a little more about what it is. And what it represents in the bigger scheme of things.

The Story Alyssa had a terminal form of leukaemia which wasn’t responding to conventional therapies. Not even at London’s Great Ormond Street, one of the world centres for paediatric medicine. So doctors staked all on Base Editing a technique that’s so very new it hasn’t really hit the trial stages yet. Alyssa’s story is well covered here by Sarah Knapton of the Daily Telegraph. Plus Sarah gives a pretty good explanation of the technique

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/12/11/teenage-girl-leukaemia-cured-month-pioneering-cell-editing-treatment/

CRISPR-Cas- 9, The Daddy of Base Editing Well, Base Editing is really a specialised form of CRISPR-Cas-9, as astute readers of this blog will remember (LSS 25 7 20,16 7 22 et al) CRISPR was a natural defence mechanism of bacteria to help them snip the DNA of hostile viruses. Clever scientists purloined this and combined it the Cas-9 protein system to let them snip the DNA wherever they chose. The problem was that it could break open the double chain of the DNA molecule.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cas9#:~:text=Cas9%20%28C%20RISPR%20as%20sociated%20protein%209%2C%20formerly,cut%20DNA%20and%20ther

And so to Base Editing The base editing refinement avoids this problem. It is now possible to introduce single nucleotide changes at any point on the genome you want. without breaking the DNA molecule of the patient. The potential to overcome many diseases is now there. Here’s a couple of worthy, if slightly heavy, guides to the whole thing

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7721651/

https://horizondiscovery.com/en/gene-editing/base-editing/advantages#:~:text=Base%20editing%200a%2

The Future? The question you ask is a fair one-“how long before this all becomes routine?” It’s early days yet, even for CRISPR. And base editing has barely reached clinical trials. This article by Bridgit Balch for AAMC news gives som eideas of the sorts of applications we might see

https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/future-crispr-now

The implications The world is now divided into two hostile blocks. The uneducated and the educated. The former despise learning, science and reason. Perhaps their most eloquent spokesperson was British politician Michael Gove, who famously declared that society had no further need of experts. They live in the comfort of their beliefs, but have no idea how to cure diseases, or make any other type of useful advance.

Experts, like those who developed CRISPR and Base editing belong to the educated block. The people who know that all learning is provisional. Which is why there needs to be much more of it. Then there could be more things like base editing

#crispr #base editing #michael gove #leukaemia

Stories that caught our eye

Does evolution really happen? The gene that makes mice care for their young makes sheepdogs care for their flocks. Yet the common ancestor of both lived more than 75 million years ago. It’s the same with the FOXP-2 gene, so beloved of human evolutionary buffs. Actually it pops up all over the place, in lots of different creatures. Of course there are variations, which one would expect over long periods of time. Which raises the question: if the genes don’t really change, can evolution be said to have happened at the most basic level? Nature, Study uncovers dogs’ squirrel genes

A study that combined behavioural data from 46,000 dogs with 4,000 dogs’ DNA sequences has pinpointed genetic variants linked to nervousness and predatory behaviour, such as chasing squirrels. The researchers scrapped the conventional breed categories — which had been found to be a poor predictor for behaviour — and sorted dogs into ten genetic lineages. Herding sheepdogs, for example, had genes that, in mice, had been associated with mothers’ instinct to protect their pups.Nature | 4 min read
Reference: Cell paper

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOXP2

A course in coarse language Sometimes the pressure in our offices gets so much, you’d think everyone had developed Tourette’s syndrome-in several languages! But is the actual sound of bad words random, or is there a deeper meaning? The Conversation investigates

https://theconversation.com/swear-words-we-studied-speakers-of-languages-from-hindi-to-hungarian-to-find-out-why-obscenities-sound-the-way-they-do-192473?utm_m

Boom-or crash? November 9th 2022 was the day we all watched the thrilling Argentina-Netherlands game. But will historians of the future remember it as the day the UK government unlearned the lessons of 2007 and paved the way to the next financial crash? The Guardian looks at both sides

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/dec/09/jeremy-hunt-sets-out-sweeping-reforms-to-financial-sector

Life on Earth Despite the valiant efforts of the COP 15 delegates, some say we are heading for a mass extinction as bad as the one that culled all the dinosaurs. So it’s important to know exactly what we’re talking about; the BBC makes a stab at it here

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-63875331

Musical number

Sorry for all the oldies, but this one illustrates a truism in music “keep it simple” Shocking Blue were a bit of a one hit wonder( well we don’t remember anything else they did!) but this was one of the most catchy ever. Maybe Holland are out of the world cup, but they’ll always have Venus

#evolution #genes #obscenities #swearing #finance #economics

We’re interrupting the production line of cocktail recipes this week to bring you something we saw on safe usage.Because we at LSS believe that alcohol is wonderful stuff, if it’s managed responsibly. And this little piece will help you to find where that point lies. What with Christmas approaching, office party season upon us and all that, it’s probably high time to do so. Well, Joe Davies and Victoria Allen of the Mail have a lovely piece which gives you all the advice you need to enjoy the festive season and still avoid a hangover.

According to the authors most people make two mistakes. They underestimate the size and number of units an any given drink, They also underestimate how many units they take in every week. In the UK that is now only fourteen for men and women. Nothing like the world we remember from our youth! So there’s an excellent quiz to see how much you know.

And which countries are the worst offenders? Surprisingly, it’s not the Brits, which may surprise anyone who has more than a passing acqaintance with the town of Magaluf in Mallorca. It seems that countries such as Latvia and certain other east European countries enjoy a tipple more. Anyway the league table will show your national standing.

Finally-do you have a problem, or does someone that you know? They include a rule-of-thumb but handy little guide to keep you safe and on the straight and narrow, this Christmas and every Christmas. Now go and enjoy all those parties, Normal service will resume next week.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11507123/Alcohol-units-units-favourite-drink.html

Overseas readers may not know whether to weep or laugh at the atavistic decision of the English government to open a new coal mine in Cumbria. The arguments adduced in its favour are largely specious[1]. But, before you condemn, we beg you to at least try to understand the real motivations of our countrymen, and the state of despair this reveals.

For England was once an industrial country. A land of shipyards, furnaces, docks and mines. True, the work in them was usually harsh, badly paid and perilous. But membership of such communities gave people some income, some purpose (England was once a world power)- a way of life. Cumbria was the first region to de-industrialise. Now the wind blows over empty ports and yards. Fragmented, cruelly exploited labour in warehouses and call centres can never be a substitute for the tales of the grandfather and great-grandfather.

And those who lose hope in the future will look for it in the past. A mindset that has played out disastrously since 2016, and not just in England. There are many opportunities to build a future in Cumbria (think wind and tidal power for example). But the poor people who live there were never given the education nor the mentality to suspect that these exist. They demand to be put back under the ground, where the life is dirty, damp and dangerous. And even this sacrifice will be for little gain, as elsewhere cleverer people move on to other things.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/07/what-is-the-cumbrian-coalmine-and-why-does-it-matter-woodhouse-colliery

#cumbria #coal mine #climate change #global warming #coal #fossil fuels #cop27 #england