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Even before the release of Frank Sinatra‘s immortal classic Come Fly With Me, we at LSS have always been staunch fans of aviation. It’s not just the hackneyed cliches about business and pleasure, important though these may well be. It’s the way that planes have made the word smaller, forcing even the most inveterate xenophobes to at least admit that other people may actually exist-which is a lot.

The trouble is that old skool planes are noisy, intrusive and unbelievably polluting. Yes the industry is trying to work with governments to clean up its act. But it’s proving really tricky and we would hate to find a juncture where one had to choose between giving up the connectedness of flying in order to save the planet. Now a company called Faradair thinks it may have found a way around the dilemma. Writng in the Guardian, * Colin Tennant expounds on a genuinely exciting plane development called the BEHA (bio electric hybrid aircraft). It’s a lovely coffee break read.

For those with only time for an espresso, the facts are these. It’s got three wings, takes off on electric motors, cruises on biofuels at 230 mph (370km). It can take people or cargo, and can get in to all those pesky short runway inner city airports without waking all the residents. Colin’s piece has lots,lots more including lots of good pictures.

For us at LSS there are several learning points. Firstly really good imaginative thinking can solve problems. Secondly, it’s always a good idea to use transitional technologies like hybrids when you make a change. As in automotives, it’s much easier to go from petrol to electrics via hybrids, rather than trying to make it in a single jump. And from an English point of view-why, oh why, does yet another manufacturer with a good idea still have to complainn about lack of Government support? We bet the story would have been very different in South Korea.

But let’s end on a high, not a low. Hats off to Faradair and its brave chief exec Neil Cloughley. We wish them happy flying and a fuel order book.

Will a British bioelectric hybrid plane really take off? | Environment | The Guardian

#faradair #neilcloughley #biofuels #greenaviation #hybridplanes #climatechange #globalwarming #airports #transport

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Well no, he couldn’t, as all the pictures of him prove. But could a Neanderthal have been Leonardo da Vinci? Ah, that’s a different story. Up to now, the general consensus is that only modern humans, Homo Sapiens, created art. Now a new book by Professor Tom Higham of the University of Oxford, suggests that Neanderthals and other early types of human may have been artistically minded as well. At least, they could learn art from modern humans, even if they didnt invent it. We link to Dalya Alberge in The Guardian below. * But we want to go further.

There’s been hints and suggestions about this idea floating around for years . So to throw you all some more red meat, we link to a piece in National Geographic which gives some fine leads on the artistic accompishments of our much-disparaged cousins. * And New Scientist think that the mysterious Denisovans might have warmed to the Royal Academy Summer Show-assuming you could bring them back to life and safeguard them from Covid. All well and good, we hear you say- these were very modern types of humans, with brains as big as our own. Why, we even bred with them. But can we go back further. Evidence is scant, tantalising and of course open to interpretation. But there are intriguing hints that even Homo erectus may just, might, maybe have been making symbolic sketches on things as much as 500 000 years ago. See wikipedia link * below.

In which case, we think it is all rather moving. Art is sometimes produced in desperate circumstances. But the lives of early prehuman ancestors must have been desperately nasty, brutish and short. To think of one of them producing anything symbolic, and meant to last, is fascinating indeed.

Neanderthals helped create early human art, researcher says | Archaeology | The Guardian

Cave Paintings Found in Spain Are First Known Neanderthal Art (nationalgeographic.com)

Prehistoric art – Wikipedia

#homoerectus #homosapiens #neanderthals #denisovans #art #cavepaintings #paleolithic

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At present, the most succesful club in the English Premier League is Manchester City. Of their 30 matches, so far they have won 22, scored 64 goals, conceded 21 and have accumulated 71 points. They lead their group in the European Champions League. They are feared and respected by all their rivals for the persistent quality and efficiency of their play. In the last twelve years they have becoame a world brand, attracting a wide following and major sponsorship.

Who are the people behind such success? If you want to know more you could google the owner, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Ali Nahyan,who is from the United Arab Emirates. The manager Pep Guardiola, a Spanish citizen who self identifies as Catalan, seems also to have had something to do with it. There seem to be quite a lot of players too, who hail from places as diverse as Brazil, Spain, France, the USA, Portugal, Belgium,Germany, Argentina and England. And this is nothing unique. Their nearest rivals, Manchester United, have similarly diverse make up,and are themselves no strangers to the pursuit of excellence. We could name others from both England and other countries, but you’d stop reading. But you could ask this-would Manchester City have done quite so well if they had only English players?

The other day we were reading about the top discoveries in Science in the last ten years. * and one of the things that struck us was how like football it is. We won’t go through all ten, you can see the link below. But all of these breakthroughs came from international collaboration. Lee Berger‘s work on Australopithecus sediba had collaborators from the USA, South Africa, Switzerland and Austria. The work to produce an Ebola vaccine * took the best part of three continents* Probably the biggest thing on the list to affect our lives is CRISPR. You can read about the amazing efforts to develop this in our third link. * There are some really good graphics too. This is all the tip of the iceberg: most university science departments and research institutes are multinational and multicultural, because the best scientists, like the best footballers, can come from anywhere.

We at LSS understand the current trends towards group defence and national isolation. The need to belong to your own is a deep and primary human instinct. It is a natural reaction to the unjust and unequal ways in which globalisation has played out in recent decades. As a political idea, the new tribalism is sweeping all before it. But science has a way of leading to material and economic advance. In the medium to long term there may be a premium for those who somehow maintain the best scientific teams. And inevitably, that will mean the most diverse.

The Top Ten Scientific Discoveries of the Decade | Science | Smithsonian Magazine

The Heroes of CRISPR (broadinstitute.org)

The inside story of how scientists produced an Ebola vaccine (statnews.com)

#crispr #leeberger #ebolavaccine #premierleague #championsleague #multinational #multicultural #knowledge #science #football #futbol #ciencia

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Diptheria was the terror of the slums of Victorian Britain. Stealthy, silent and deadly it crept through crowded insanitary tenements taking a horrifying mortality among the poor, especially their children. It started with a sore throat, but then temperature soared; as the bacterium Corynebacterium diptheriae ravaged its defenceless victim, dead tissue built up in an impenetrable membrane in the throat, leading to a painful death by asphxyation.

The years after 1945 saw a gradual control of the disease, through things like vaccines, antibiotics and the enforcement of housing standards. The move to a more low tax free market model after 1979 saw these advances go gradually into reverse, as investment in things like antibiotics tailed off and people were forced back into overcrowded flats and slums. Now there is good evidence that diptheria is back-and it’s hungry. Writing in The Conversation, Robert C Will and Ankur Mutreja of the University of Cambridge no less,descibe the alarming rise in antibiotic resistant strains of C diptheriae and the rising case numbers which are starting to cause alarm in many countries. We post links to both their piece and the Wikipedia pst. Warning: some of the medical descriptions and images in these links are not for the faint hearted.

https://theconversation.com/diphtheria-could-become-a-problem-again-thanks-to-new-variants-and-antimicrobial-r

Diphtheria – Wikipedia

#diptheria #antibioticresistance #vaccines #poverty #inequality #disease

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This week’s round up only has one trope, knowledge-pickers-support your local zoo.

We remember many an argument from the nineteen eighties about zoos, and the well intentioned case from the other side. Animals should roam free. Captivity can foster psychological aberrations in animals, especially those on the intellgent side, like bears or cats. Animals are not to be gaped at, like waxworks in exhibitions. All true no doubt. But then as now, we live in an imperfect world where one highly armed, arrogant species is trashing the livelihood and existence out of every other, and pushing species after species to extinction. Without zoos, wild animals would not exist at all. A zoo is like an Ark, its keepers latter-day Noahs, desperately keeping their charges alive. Until a better day, when humanity has outgrown its infantile egoism, and large parts of our planet can be returned to nature.

The Zoological Society of London was founded in 1826. But thanks to the drop in visitors due to Covid, it may not see its 200th anniversary in five years’ time. Which is suddenly true of just about every zoo in the world. This would be a tragedy of indescribable proportions. Founded as an institution of scientific research, ZSL has always been at the forefront of new programmes of public education, conservation, breeding and animal welfare. Above all, ZSL pioneered new ways of taking animals out of bleak, functional cages and putting them into more natural surroundings. Opening a country branch at Whipsnade (1931) was not only good business-it was humane. Such environments are now de riguer in zoos whether urban or rural and of course led to the development of wildlife parks where animals roam nearly free.

Every zoo we have visited, from San Diego to Regents Park, is an education-in nature, architecture and humanity(they’re great for people watching). Being in England, we naturally put our local people below. But wherever you read this, please think of a donation for your local Zoological gardens. Because your grandchildren will thank you for it.

Zoological Society of London (ZSL) – UK Zoos & Animal Conservation

#extinction #conservation #zoo #zsl #endangeredspecies #captivebreeding #familydayout #covid19 #pandemic #noah #noahsark

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This week we want to celebrate two drinks which link Britain and the USA-whisky and bourbon. There are so many special relationships from hush hush security to blessed ties in marriage, including prominent families like the Churchills! That excellent book The Bartender’s Guide by Peter Bohrman gave us a few ideas, together with some of his tasting notes! Sadly,we can’t think of a theme to link all these delicious drinks-can you, gentle readers?

Prince Charlie “fruity dry drink for the evening” In a shaker, mix 1 measure (ms) of scotch. 0.75 ms. Drambuie, 2 teaspoonfuls (tsp) lemon juice and shake over ice. Pour to a cocktail glass and garnish wth a maraschino cherry. LSS says: well that’s pretty British!

Modern Girl spicy and dry In your shaker mix 0.75 ms bourbon , 2 tsp lemon juice, 1 tsp white rum, 1 tsp pernod, 1 tsp orange bitters. Shake over ice and pour to a cocktail glass, retaining the ice. Here comes the twist: squeeze the peel over the glass and use it for your garnish. LSS asks: can you think of any sassy American girls right now?

London Sour Fruity for any occasion Shake up 1 ms scotch. 0.75ms lemon juice, 0.75ms orange juice,2 tsp almond syrup, 2 tsp sugar syrup, all over chunky ice. Pour to a chilled cocktail glass and decorate with orange slice and cocktail cherry. LSS ponders: why is London sour?

Los Angeles fruity for a party Usual shake;1ms scotch 0.75ms passion fruit syrup,0.75ms lemon juice, 0.75ms pineaple juice,(there’s your five a day!) Big garnish on this one-slices of orange lemon and pineapple. Then add a touch of amaretto before she goes down the hatch. LSS observes: what a way to put your recent troubles behind you!

Royal Turkey fruity for summer In your shaker, over ice, add 1.5ms pineapple juice, 0.75ms bourbon. 0.75ms apricot brandy and 0.75ms gin. Shake and pour with ice to a highball or hurricane glass. Top up with ice cool lemonade, and garnish with a cherry. LSS speculates:could this be the name of the film, or the feedback?

For the record we have converted ounces to measures. Same thing. Thanks, Peter. If you want to benefit from his knowledge of over 1400 tasty drinks, and much beside, why not buy the book, which is to say:

Peter Bohrman The Bartender’s Guide Greenwich editions 2005

#fridaynight #cocktails

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You won’t make sense of te modern world without knowing about Science. Whether you’re an investor, a teacher, someone with a career to begin, or just an ordianary citizen, you need to know what scientists are doing now-for that is what we’ll all be doing in five years. Remember something called DNA in crime scene investigation. So here, in no particular order are some of the Science sites we visit to run up your daily read

Nature World’s foremost science Journal- but the print edition is aimed fairly and squarely at the professionals. To reach out, they have started Nature Briefings-and it’s a winner. They pick the very best science news from Nature and elsewhere and then serve up a nice summary, with clicks to longer articles and/or the original paper. You’ll often see us reference them here. You can even arrange to have regular updates by email-and it’s all free.

Nature Briefing | Nature

New Scientist Bright and lively (for a science mag-it’s notTake a Break) it was part of the wave of more accessible science in the 1960’s,alongside TV shows like Tomorrows World and Horizon– accessible tone, serious integrity unquestionable. Warning to cheapskates-quite a lot of the online stuff is paywalled. Oh well-we’ve all got a living to make!

New Scientist | Science news and science articles from New Scientist

Our friends across the pond: If you put “Science” in your search engine you’ll get two results, as follows

Science Magazine– published by Phys.org, the articles are clickable all the way down. Great resource for teachers

Phys.org – Feature Stories, Weblog News, Reports

Science The worthy Journal of the worthy American Association for The Advancement of Science, it’s another premier league heavy. There are some good summary and warm up articles before you hit the serious papers, but be warned-this one’s paywalled like Hadrian’s as well.

Science | AAAS (sciencemag.org)

Live Science If the ones above are the serious older family members, this lot are the cool young brother who wears his baseball cap the wrong way round. That said, the stuff here is perfectly acceptable, they just cast their net a little wider; there’s even a History section which is clever because it can drag in a lot of archaeology as well.

Live Science: The Most Interesting Articles, Mysteries & Discoveries

News Sites Lots of news outlets employ good science journos and it’s bitterly unfair of us to only pick three. But for historical, personal reasons these are the ones that make our cut every day

Daily Mail. Yes that’s right, the Daily Mail. Before all our enlightened readers start reaching for the benzodiazepemes, we know there may be “issues” around some of their news reporting, and yes they did seem to flirt with certain anti-vaccinators a couple of decades ago. But there is nothing like a sinner repentant we say, and their writings on things like global warming, antibiotics and vaccines are now utterly objective and right-on. All right, some of the “comments” underneath seem to come right out of the Mesolithic, but, hell, they can’t pick their readers anymore than we can.

Latest Science News & Technology News | Daily Mail Online

Guardian The days of gratuitous typos are long over with this lot, and there’s often a wry, Guardianesque take on stories which will keep you in.

Science | The Guardian

El Pais We couldn’t leave you with just English Language hits, could we? To prove we are a truly international blog, we recommend the most serious and best of all the Spanish News outlets. Warning: like just about every other Spanish publication we have ever read, they seemed to have skimped on subeditors. So, often, the sentences start and go on and on and on, like that, one sentence, until it fills a whole paragraph, or two, and still you’re reading it, and……..OK. maybe the money was better spent on tapas. But what about the poor readers?

#sciencejournalism

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One thing is certain-lockdowns are a whole lot easier when you can get your food delivered. And the driver’s route is planned by a computer algorithm, not a man with a telephone and a piece of paper. Vaccines help. So will anitbiotics or antivirals when the next one hits. But how were things in the good old days before all those pesky scientists and doctors came along and forced us to have to think about things? Here is a brief survey of some plagues from the past, which we hope helps to lend perspective.

Antonine Plague c AD 165-170, recurring big until c. AD 190 Cause: almost certainly smallpox. Species Jump: Virus probably originated by mutation from rodents and or camels, both common along the trade routes of the time. Cure: pray to the God Apollo, whose temples seemed to have boomed. Mortality: Smallpox can kill 70% of infected persons, but best estimates for this plague are around 30-50% across the Roman Empire. Long term consequences The demographic catastrophe began the decline of the Ancient World.

Plague of Cyprian AD 248-270 Cause: thoroughly unpleasant haemorrhagic fever, perhaps like ebola. Species jump: more pesky rodents. Cure: pray to Jesus Christ Mortality: could be anything up to 50% depending on where you were. Long term consequences: This one has been a bit of a Cinderella in the history books, but according to Professor Harper its economic, political and cultural consequences were extreme. These were the years when Christianity changed from a small cult to a world religion. Damage was so great that the Roman Empire began the process of splitting into two halves.

Plague of Justininian AD 541-550, recurring in nasty waves until c AD 750. Cause: Black Death from bacillus Yersinia pestis. Species jump: From black rat Rattus rattus via fleas. Cure: Pray to any Saint or Deity you could think of. Mortality: Opinion is divided, but a good guess for black death ususally comes out around 40-50% (see below) Long term consequences: Justinian’s Eastern Empire was almost on the point of getting back the West when this plague blew their chances for good. Recrudescences of this plague sapped the Byzantines’ economy and army so much that they were reduced to a tiny fragment, and Islam occupied most of the lost provinces.

Black Death AD 1347-1355.,although it never really went away, and is still endemic in many countries. Cause, Mortality, Species jump, Cure: see Justinian above. Long term consequences: The jury is still out. In some countries wages rose, as there was hardly anyone left to work. Some see it leading to a new crisis of faith which in turn led to developments like the Renaissance and Reformation.

Spanish Flu AD 1918-1920 Cause: virus in the flu family Orthomyxoviridae. Proteins on the outside, RNA inside-sounds familiar? Species jump: the orthomyxoviridae are endemic in pigs and poultry, hence the repeated epidemics of flu we got every year. Mortality: varied by country, but estimates for the peak years suggest a minimum of 17 million and a possible maximum as high as 100 million world wide. Cure: aspirin, arsenic, strychnine and epsom salts. It is unlikely any worked much. Due to prevalence of mask wearing, a lively anti-mask movement soon sprang up, especially in San Francisco.

There have been other pandemics, so we apologise to all those Greeks, Goths Assyrians and others who have missed a mention. There will be more to come; so a donation to a medical research charity or sending your child off to become a medical researcher might be a very good investment.

Kyle Harper The Fate of Rome Princeton University Press 2017

#pandemic #epidemic #plague #romanempire #middleages #bacteria #virus #firstworld war #rats

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Remember back in 2006, when the Bush administration was trying to extricate itself from its truly catastrophic decision to invade Iraq? Ideas of a world triumph for Liberal Democracy were coming apart, and all the talk of the smart set was Samuel Huntingon and clashes of civilisations. The ideas of Islam, it was said, clashed with those of the west, and here would be the showdown. We suppose they forgot to tell Russia and China, who were already nurturing ideas of their own.

It was then that a man called David Ronfeldt publised a truly perceptive essay on the problem of tribalism, which we link below* (confession- we only stumbled upon it yesterday). Slowly the knowledge dawned on the Bush people that their problems in Iraq were due to tribalism, not clashes of belief. And gradually the realisation grew on everyone else. We at LSS have often advertised how the theme was developed by authors like Amy Chua and Eric Kaufman. (LSS ad nauseam) But there, back in ’06 was Ronfeldt, the daddy of them all. Since when Tribalism has grown across the world like a cancer. Its symptoms are obvious. Short easy answers to every question-blame the outsiders. Ranting charlatans leading disatrous responses to pandemics and other problems which call for co-operative, global solutions. The threats of armed conflict where before there was just peaceful trade. And lots of different competing tax havens for the worlds’ billionaires.

The task for all intelligent people is to think of a way out of this mindset before it destroys us all. It will not be easy. But unless we try, it won’t be done at all

Today’s Wars Are Less About Ideas Than Extreme Tribalism | RAND

#tribalism #ideology #iraq #bushadministration #balkans

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Today, March 8th is International Womens Day, and for anyone in the Enlightenment Community, it should be as important as any day of the year. The battle of women against ignorance and brutality is everyone’s battle. Today we have three stories to salute brave women in three very different ways.

Birth of the Refuge For some 1973 was a sunny, optimistic time, last of the post war years before the winter crisis changed the world for ever. But the smiling face of consumer society hid dark, savage truths. Nowhere was this more so than the experience of thousands of women who were condemned to a life of physical and psychological violence-and there was no help. Until the birth of the womens refuge movment. In May 1973 Jenny Smith became one of the first to seek help. Read her moving story here, told by Sandra Laville in the Guardian

Domestic violence: how the world’s first women’s refuge saved my life | Women | The Guardian

Educating women makes us all richer Do you sincerely want to be rich? Then do all you can to help the education of women. Alright we’ve said it here before, and we’ll keep on saying it until you lot listen. We’ve linked to a Wikipedia article below. Dear old Wiki- it’s incredibly earnest and straight, stuffed with case studies and links to links. But it proves our case handsomely,if you want to click on. But why not, just for once, take our word for it? It’ll save you so much time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_impact_of_female_education#:~:text=Women%27s%20education%

Digging up the dirt with Mary Anning In the early nineteenth century nearly all scientists were men. And there were few enough of them! But on England’s Dorset coast there lived a woman who would change the face of Paleontology forever-Mary Anning. Fossil hunter, collector, tireless seeker after knowledge she opened up the famous Jurassic Coastline of Dorset and gave the world its first glimpse of Icthyosaurs, pliosaurs, mosasaurs, belemnites, ammonites and dozens of other saurs and nites that would put paleontology on the map. So overwhelming was her irrefutable evidence of a vast, rich and teeming past, that the work of Darwin and Lyall was half done before those boys put pen to paper. We’ll start you off with Wiki, but searches for Mary Anning will reveal a number of hits, and dozens of those marvellous early Victorian prints and paintings of ancient life. Enjoy

Mary Anning – Wikipedia

talking of Women’s Day and Wikipedia. here’s their link to how YOU can help both, with lots of links, organisations and projects. Remeber the mother that bore you, and join in.

Gender gap/International Women’s Day – Meta (wikimedia.org)

#feminism #internationalwomensday #refuges #paleontology #maryanning #education #femaleemancipation