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

Whenever we see images of hungry, starving children (and they’re all over the news right now), our first reaction is “what a waste of human capital!” Somewhere in that crowd is a future Einstein, Marie Curie, or JS Bach. Whose potential will never be available to the rest of us. Their life has been ruined by the starvation and violence all around them. Contrary to the assertions of certain right-wing news outlets, the effects of poverty are well documented.[1] They show up in things like learning, fine motor control, growth, social skills, and health. Which brings us back to yesterday’s blog, and a reader’s response to it.

In the blog (LSS 5 Dec 22),we stated that the streptococcus A crisis in the UK was yet another reason to speed development of new antibiotics. But as regular reader Gaynor Lynch pointed out, this is essentially a reactive response to the crisis. It ignored the causal factors. In particular, Gaynor stated

“Prevention is much better than cure“…..adding that  “good nutrition is essential to support the immune system.”

And how right she was we found when we did a little digging. There seems to be a clear and unequivocal link between childhood deprivation and sub-development of the immune system. The literature is rather vast, but this link to the HuffPost gives a good, journalistic level jumping off point [2] For those who like their details detailed, we include a review study from Plos One, but be warned-it’ll take more than one cup of strong black coffee to get through this one.

You can read all of Gaynor’s thoughts in the comments section to yesterday’s blog. But we couldn’t help thinking: it’s going to take years and lots of money to develop a new generation of antibiotics. In the meantime, how about a little spend on food for hungry children? It could be a long-term investment.

[1] https://www.childfund.org.au/stories/how-does-poverty-impact-child-development/

[2] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/4-ways-that-poor-childhood-nourishment-can-affect-lifelong-health_n_587d0102e4b09281d0ebcc52

[3] https://www.bing.com/search?q=effects+poor+nutrition+children+immune+system&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&pq=effects+poor+nutrition+children+immune+system&sc=

#childood health #antibiotics #poverty #deprivation #preventive medicine

We don’t know about you, gentle readers of foreign lands, but here in the UK we’re witnessing an uptick in Streptococcus A infections. And this is worrying. It’s already killed six children and has hospitalised more. Why? Who? Where What? and all those other questions they try to teach you on management training courses. Michelle Roberts has a good go at answering these for the BBC [1]. But since her article, it’s got worse, and the Prime Minister is now involved as Kevin Rawlinson explains in the Guardian.

There are two things that worry us a little. Firstly, although this bacterium is normally benign, it can cause some truly terrifying cases, as you’ll see if you click on our links. We note particularly the iGAS syndrome, which is what happens when it gets behind your immune defences.

But what concerns us most of all here is the following sentence. which we confess to have lifted lock, stock and barrel from Michelle’s article

“……..strep A is treated with antibiotics”

Except when it isn’t. Because as well-established readers of this little blog will know, there won’t be any antibiotics soon, unless we really and truly pull our fingers out. And anyway, what if a new antibiotic resistant form evolves? The rate at which humanity is squandering its current antibiotic reserves suggests that day will be sooner rather and later. So how many children will die then?

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-63836093

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/dec/05/higher-levels-of-strep-a-in-uk-could-be-due-to-covid-pandemic-says-health-chief

#Streptococcocus #antibiotic resistance #health

these caught our eye

This is a big one Quantum computing is so very new and so very powerful (confession: and difficult to understand) that we assumed no one could do anything useful with it for years. Wrong, wrong and wrong again as this story from Nature Briefings explains. This will change the world, sooner than we know. Wormhole inside a quantum computer

Physicists have sent quantum information through a simulated wormhole in a ‘toy’ universe that exists only inside a quantum computer. The tunnel is analogous to passages through space-time that might connect the centres of black holes in the real Universe. “The surprise is not that the message made it across in some form, but that it made it across unscrambled,” write the authors of an analysis published alongside the study in Nature. Some scientists think that such experiments could help to unite the theories of quantum mechanics and gravity in the simplified realm of toy universes, leading ultimately to the answer to one of the biggest problems in physics: a real-world quantum theory of gravity.Nature | 5 min read Go deeper with an expert analysis by theoretical physicists Adam Brown and Leonard Susskind in the Nature News & Views article (7 min read, Nature paywall) Reference: Nature paper

Online Addictions Someone once told us of a casino in Las Vegas where, if you won too much, they sent the heavies round to your room and took the money back by force. How true this story is we’ll never know. But the gambling industry will certainly go to great lengths to part people from their money, as this story from Bloomberg shows. What will they do with quantum computing when it finally arrives on your smartphone?

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-gambling-addiction-stories-how-uk-got-hooked-on-online-casino-betting/?leadSource=uverify%20wall

thanks to P Seymour for this story

Losing my Religion Is the UK becoming a secular society? The decline in adherence to the Christian Religion shown by these figures would seem to indicate so. It seems to be a trend across many societies. But fans of religion should not despair. The prosperous centuries from up to about 200AD saw a decline in faith in the old Gods like Jupiter and so on. But this was followed by an enormous revival, first in Christianity then Islaam. The names of the Gods change, faith in them does not.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63792408

thanks to P Semour for this story

Can’t do right for doing wrong We at LSS tend to think that Mr Xi was trying to do his best to protect his people from COVID-19. Albeit in a way different to western countries. But even his best efforts have reached an impasse. If he stays in lockdown, the economy tanks and the people get restless. If he opens up, the virus (and many others) will spread like wildfire. Tricky balancing act needed as this one from The Conversation shows:

https://theconversation.com/chinas-white-paper-protest-movement-echoes-freedom-struggles-across-asia-and-the-world-195487?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Late

Touchy Feely Tyrannosaurs Did Hitler like dogs? Dis Jack the ripper buy flowers for his mum? Now there’s news that Tyrannosaurus rex, the world’s most fearsome dinosaur, may have been a big softie at heart. Wekll, perhaps as this story from The Guardian makes clear

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/nov/29/another-slice-of-triceratops-barbara-did-the-fearsome-t-rexes-take-care-of-their-sick

Irish Spirit The Irish never gave up their culture and independent spirit despite centuries of foreign oppression. It’s produced a great feisty culture, especially in literature and music. To end this week, we’ve chosen one of our old favourites, where the Pogues and the Dubliners combined in an incredibly spirited rendition of The Irish Rover

#quantum computing #wormholes #gambling #addiction #religion #dinosaur #tyrannosaurus rex #china #covid-19 #dubliners #pogues