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The debts being run up to cover the costs of Covid-19 lockdowns are now so eye-watering that they are truly comparable to those run up in wars. To take one example; by October 2020, UK national debt had already reached 100.8% of GDP- a chilling ratio last seen in the years after the Second World War. Many other countries have similar problems.

There are two possible approaches to debt. You could pay it back. This was the approach of the Cameron-Osborne government from 2010-2016, and even with the best will in the world, the results were mixed for UK PLC. The other is to wait until the economy grows, letting the proportion of debt fall until it is manageable. This was the strategy pursued by both Labour and Conservative Governments in the UK from 1945 until 1979, and on the whole, it worked.

So how can you persuade an economy to grow? And especially fast? More and more findings seem to indicate that the answer is to spend on R&D. This leads to innovation (especially in marketable products) which in turn leads to growth, funding more R & D, which in turn…….etc etc. We’ve got a couple of links below where you can explore at leisure. We liked John Wu in Innovation Files,* who puts it succinctly

^{The more a country sets aside today for R&D, the greater the dividends they stand to reap in the future. In that sense, among OECD nations, Korea leads in R&D intensity at 4 percent, followed by Japan at 3.4 percent, and then the United States trailing in third at 2.8 percent. For comparison, the R&D intensity of all OECD nations averages at 2.4 percent. Countries such as Korea and China have focused on expanding heavy investment into R&D over the past decade}

The fact he wrote this in 2015 only makes his predictions for the rise of China all the more prescient!

A little extra spend on R&D is worth a lot more in a few years. As the world emerges from the Covid-19 crisis there are limitless opportunities for new technologies and new markets. We are not financial advisers and can make no prediction. But to us as laymen, the speculation around healthcare and renewable energies looks intriguing. And anyone who could master cleaning up the results of 200 years of industrial pollution would indeed be wealthy. The world of the 2030s might be clean, healthy and prosperous indeed.

Fueling Innovation: The Role of R&D in Economic Growth | The Innovation Files

How important is R&D for economic growth? – Research & Development World (rdworldonline.com)

R&Dspending #GDP #nationaldebt #science #covid-19 #renewableenergy #greenindustries

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To all readers and followers, too numerous to name. Sorry about the inexplicable technical problems which caused the last one to be published twice!

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“I am a sovereign individual, entire of myself; thus free to do whatever I want ,whenever ; any attempt to constrain me is an intolerable assault on liberty.” Noble sentiments; but also the creed of every polluter, and their supporters in media and government, who wish to dump the consequences of their lucrative operations into someone else’s life. And death.

Historically the worse pollution happens with the sudden appearance of new, rapidly changing industries. For the simple reason that old established legislation was quite inadequate to meet the threats. The new cities of the industrial revolution were famous for smoke, disease and contaminated water. It took decades and centuries of bitterly contested legislation to bring even minimal standards of health and safety. But no one would deny that it was worth it. An even better example was food purity legislation. Early mass produced foods were full of questionable ingredients including strychnine and lead (which helped with flavour and appearance) or just bulkers like water and chalk. It took the efforts of reformers like Arthur Hill Hassall (1817-1894) *and many others, in many countries, to effect reforms.

The massive explosion in information technology has allowed anyone and everyone to dump whatever they want into the common pool of human knowledge. All cry the same “I am free to say want-my opinion is as good as yours!” The damage effected has been clear for all to see.

The need for legislation to control the quality of what is put into the public domain is now overwhelming. Oddly enough, examples of good practice exist, which might give us a clue as to how standards might evolve. Let’s take the Scientific Journal Nature as an example. Anyone is free to send anything to it. They may expound on an almost infinite number of topics from Archaeology to Zoology. However, the Editor sets certain limits before he will publish. These include standards on proof, evidence, verifiability and logic. Intolerable affronts to many, no doubt. But they have made Nature a byword for trustworthiness-and therefor a product of high value. Try a subscription if you don’t believe us. And these standards can be found across many journals.

Parliamentary legislation need not stand in the way of free speech or liberty. But a common space needs common rules of behaviour. The internet is no different.

Arthur Hill Hassall – Wikipedia

#informationpurityact #cleanairacts #pollution #internet

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“I am a sovereign individual, entire of myself; thus free to do whatever I want ,whenever ; any attempt to constrain me is an intolerable assault on liberty.” Noble sentiments; but also the creed of every polluter, and their supporters in media and government, who wish to dump the consequences of their lucrative operations into someone else’s life. And death.

Historically the worse pollution happens with the sudden appearance of new, rapidly changing industries. For the simple reason that old established legislation was quite inadequate to meet the threats. The new cities of the industrial revolution were famous for smoke, disease and contaminated water. It took decades and centuries of bitterly contested legislation to bring even minimal standards of health and safety. But no one would deny that it was worth it. An even better example was food purity legislation. Early mass produced foods were full of questionable ingredients including strychnine and lead (which helped with flavour and appearance) or just bulkers like water and chalk. It took the efforts of reformers like Arthur Hill Hassall (1817-1894) *and many others, in many countries, to effect reforms.

The massive explosion in information technology has allowed anyone and everyone to dump whatever they want into the common pool of human knowledge. All cry the same “I am free to say want-my opinion is as good as yours!” The damage effected has been clear for all to see.

The need for legislation to control the quality of what is put into the public domain is now overwhelming. Oddly enough, examples of good practice exist, which might give us a clue as to how standards might evolve. Let’s take the Scientific Journal Nature as an example. Anyone is free to send anything to it. They may expound on an almost infinite number of topics from Archaeology to Zoology. However, the Editor sets certain limits before he will publish. These include standards on proof, evidence, verifiability and logic. Intolerable affronts to many, no doubt. But they have made Nature a byword for trustworthiness-and therefor a product of high value. Try a subscription if you don’t believe us. And these standards can be found across many journals.

Parliamentary legislation need not stand in the way of free speech or liberty. But a common space needs common rules of behaviour. The internet is no different.

Arthur Hill Hassall – Wikipedia

#informationpurityact #cleanairacts #pollution #internet

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Well, New Years Eve has always been a traditional time for fun and japes and conga lines-and lots and lots of champagne. Sadly, old Mr Covid-19 is going to crimp that this year, and by more than a little! But, do not despair, god reader. We at LSS have a couple of delicious champagne cocktail recipes for you to try as the big countdown to the glorious hour begins.

French ’75

Supposedly named after a powerful piece of Gallic field artillery, this is a fun sharpener with quite a slug of our favourite spirit-gin. The lemon and caster will give it the feel of a sparkling version of that old LSS favourite Between the Sheets. So, adapted from from Hamlyn‘s The Ultimate Cocktail Book:

Half fill a tall glass with cracked ice. Add 1 measure of good dry gin, the juice of half a fresh lemon, one teaspoon of caster sugar, and chilled champagne. These days Bollinger or Veuve Clicquot are perfectly acceptable, unless you live in somewhere like Monaco. You can decorate this one well with orange, lemon or lime slices to give that real party feel.

The Bellini

Most readers of LSS will be more than familiar with Renaissance Art, and the works of Giovani Bellini in particular. We know this from our focus groups. So it may come as no surprise that this one was named after the eponymous author of such works as St Jerome in the Desert, Christ Blessing and St Francis in Ecstasy. We are a bit unsure about that last one; surely a small tipple before evensong would have been sufficient? Anyway, once St Francis had come back down he, and you, could well have enjoyed the following. Again it is from our immortal Hamlyn, which is to us what Das Kapital is to the followers of Karl Marx.

Take a large, robust wineglass. Add two measures of fresh peach juice. Add four measures of chilled champagne and a dash of grenadine. Hamlyn recommends peach slices to decorate. We say: use your imagination, it’s New Year’s Eve!

You can read the full histories and more about these cocktails below via Wikipedia. But don’t forget, Knowledge and objective learning are now in deep, deep danger. Wikipedia is one of the best guardians of truth that we have. And so we earnestly beg you to think how much you can donate to this marvellous resource. They too must survive another year: details below in the links.

French 75 (cocktail) – Wikipedia

Bellini (cocktail) – Wikipedia

Support Wikipedia – Wikimedia Foundation

The Ultimate Cocktail Book Hamlyn 2004

#french75 #bellini #champagne #newyearseve #cocktails #wikimediafoundation

Regular readers of LSS have sometimes criticised us for taking a sunny, over-optimistic view on the possibilities of human progress. We have been accused of thinking like a nineteen sixties schoolboy, dazzled by new technologies like antibiotics, spaceflight and James Bond gadgets. Naively asserting that progress in one field will automatically lead to progress elsewhere. Blind to the fact that the mass of humankind are doltish ignoramuses, driven by greed and loathing. (And sex, as we shall see below). Today we offer two stories which offer evidence both against us and for us.

Superresistant gonorrhea: The case against LSS

Some years ago, some clever scientists developed a nice little antibiotic called azithromycin. It can be used in all sorts of cases, including respiratory illnesses, but was especially useful against the well known STI gonorrhea. During the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, clinicians threw everything they could at patients with Covid-19, including azithromycin; it seemed to have some use with associated respiratory conditions. The trouble with mass prescription of antibiotics is that mass resistance soon develops. Meanwhile millions of people continued having sex (what happened to the lockdown restrictions?-ed) and now cases of super-resistant gonorrhea are shooting up. The whole sorry saga is admirably told by Natalie Rahhal in the Mail.

Super gonorrhea could be fueled by antibiotic use amid the pandemic | Daily Mail Online

RNA supervaccines-the case for LSS

The original discovery of the importance and structure of nucleic acids has unleashed a torrent of discovery and change in fields as diverse as genetic engineering and Forensic Science. Today Nuno Dominguez of El Pais details exciting new techniques developed by a team at the University of Pennsylvania in RNA vaccines. They have developed a tiny nanocapsule which will deliver their virus directly to the target tissue. Small modifications in RNA could allow a whole class of vaccines to counter 30 diseases including AIDS and flu -and may even let you synthesise your own monoclonal antibodies. It’s amazing stuff, but English speakers will need their translator.

Los pioneros del ARN ya investigan vacunas contra 30 infecciones diferentes | Ciencia | EL PAÍS (elpais.com)

So how long before the work of the second group is abused and wasted like azithromycin was? Why do we, as a species, shoot ourselves in the foot, as it were, time and time again? Are we truly doltish and ignorant, as asseverated above? Perhaps there is another answer, captured by Franklin D Roosevelt, that greatest of American Presidents, who on his inauguration in 1933 stated:

the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, the nameless unreasoning terror which paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into advance…”

#covid-19 #antibiotics #azithromycin #gonorrhea #rnavaccines #monoclonalantibodies

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There’s no question that the sudden appearance of new strains of the SARS-Cov-2 virus has caused everyone a whole set of new problems. Particularly in places where it was already pretty much out of control. If this mutation problem becomes endemic, then we will have the virus with us for decades to come. New research suggests that this could well now happen.

As every schoolchild knows, a certain number of random genetic mutations are thrown up in every new generation. So a very large and growing population will throw up a relatively large number of mutations. But a smaller, stable population ,which can reproduce itself for many generations, will eventually throw up the same number in time. If SARS-Cov-2 could find a place to hide and maintain a steady population, it could be generating dangerous new strains in 2030 and 2040.

And what better place than the human gut? It is warm and wet with lots of vulnerable soft tissue. It has regular flows in out to facilitate spreading and colonisation of new victims. Now a new Chinese study, covered by the Times of India, points to worrying signs that the virus has found a home in human guts. So far the sample size is small. But that is not a ground to dismiss, but rather an urgent wake up call for a much bigger one. It may be that vaccines could counter it: but the trouble with that one is that gut cells are slightly isolated from other tissues in the body, and a vaccine may struggle to reach them. For us at LSS, this is a disturbing new trend, and it needs to be addressed.

_{We thank Mr Gary Herbert of Buckinghamshire for this story}

What other symptoms should be aware of?-Signs of lasting gut infection can be a COVID symtom to look out for (indiatimes.com)

#sars-cov-2 coronavirus #covid19 #gut #intestinalflora #mutation #newstrain

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Long ago in 1992, we had the privilege of sitting with one of the country’s leading News Journalists and one of the country’s leading Economics Journalists. The Berlin Wall had not long fallen. In the UK, the Tories were about to win their fourth successive general election. The Triumph of Capitalism seemed complete. The News Journalist opined that there were only two ways to run an economy-Capitalist and Socialist. Self evidently, the Capitalist way had triumphed. Capitalism provided freedom, and private property. It was more fun. Above all, it was innovative, dynamic and would leave sclerotic Socialism far behind. The Economics Journalist demurred. There were, he felt, different ways to run Capitalism, and different countries might have different experiences of the heady brew.

In Rentier Capitalism, Brett Christopher thinks that the predictions of the Economics Journalist have come true, at least in the UK. * He sees an economy riven by massive inequalities on a scale unknown since before the Second World War. There is a massive disparity between the owners of assets and those who have nothing but debts, starkly highlighted by the dysfunctional housing market. With wealth, and hence information, concentrated in few hands, decision outcomes, both economic and political, are poor. Christopher devotes a whole chapter to the hot topic of contracts for all kinds of public service provision from test and trace to railways as evidence of this.

For Christopher Rentier Capitalism is defined as “…income derived from ownership or control of scarce assets under conditions of low or no competition” By definition it will produce a sluggish, low innovation economy of proles and toffs, where the latter have no incentive to invest overmuch, and the former exist as a precariat living from paycheck to loan to rent day. Hence Britain’s appalling record on productivity. Christopher is in the tradition of reformist economists such as Thomas Piketty and Will Hutton, as well as various studies of Britain’s peculiar decline from about 1850 onwards.

Is the system self corrective? So far the British Ruling class has been adept at self preservation by throwing crumbs like right to buy and a wholesale blaming of foreigners for the country’s afflictions. Will it always work? The rise of a propertyless educated stratum, and angry and enabled to allege deep seam of injustice has always been the storm signal of violent revolution to come. The owners of the media, the essential guardians of the system, are becoming older and showing signs of losing their power. In which case, batten your hatches.

Brett Christopher Rentier Capitalism Verso 2020

for an intelligent discussion of this book, and possible responses, see Christine Berry in Open Democracy

Replacing rentier capitalism is one of the defining challenges of our age | openDemocracy

Replacing rentier capitalism is one of the defining challenges of our age | openDemocracy

#finacialisation #rentiercapitalism #capitalism #socialism #innovation #inequality #economics #democracy

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Sad to recall, but songwriter Ian Dury (1942-2000) is no longer with us. If he were, he might have added today’s news stories to the lyrics of his song Reasons to be Cheerful.

Does sleep cure Covid-19? From James Hamblin The Atlantic

When Feixong Cheng started using AI to explore every possible angle on COVID-19 back in January, he little dreamed that his computer would throw up melatonin as a real candidate. This humble little hormone, involved both in sleep and the immune system may actually lower your odds of succumbing to an attack by the virus. And, get this, sleep may help you on the pathway to recovery. James tells it a lot better than we could:

How COVID-19 Changes Our Sleep – The Atlantic

So-is our current long hours culture making everybody ill?

Monoclonal antibodies could throw a defensive ring around patients Denis Campbell The Guardian

It’s quite an exciting example of how fruitful the partnership between Academia and the private sector can be if it’s done right. Dr Catherine Houlihan of UCL and AstraZeneca (of vaccine fame) are looking at how monoclonal antibodies with the catchy name of AZD7442 could be quickly injected into COVID-19 patients and the people who live around them. The drug may even help those poor souls whose immune systems are compromised by another illness. Denis looks at all of this, but we’ve also included a Wikipedia link on monoclonals for those who like a bit of background

UK scientists trial drug to prevent infection that leads to Covid | Coronavirus | The Guardian

Monoclonal antibody – Wikipedia

All we need now are really good track and test systems so we know who should get the drug!

We think that’s two more items to add to your list of Christmas good cheer. Happy? Well, you should be.

#melatonin #monoclonalantibodies #covid-19 #sars-cov-2 #coronavirus

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We’ve said and said and said it until you lot are fed up. But there are just too many resistant strains of bacteria and not enough antibiotics. That’s why we love this story from Jonathan Chadwick of the Mail about DAIA antibiotics. Yes to risk the oldest cliche in writing, this could be a real breakthrough.

We will let Jonathan tell the story*, backed by Nature*. It’s a good one, with some great pictures. But for us, the highlights were the way that the researchers used their brains. Like this

1 two birds with one stone– The new class is called Dual Acting Immuno Antibiotics for a good reason-they kill the bacteria, and boost your immune system.

2 Canny targetting-they decided to attack a metabolic pathway that is both essential to bacteria, and common to many of them.

3 Use new opportunities-they employed computers to look for a huge range of molecules which would target their chosen weak point (an enzyme) (aren’t we at LSS always pushing for that?-ed)

4 Do your homework- did these guys look at a lot of tough literature before they decided that they knew what they were talking about!

We think the last one is particularly important for those sorts you meet in the pub who get one idea from a journalist or a conspiracy theorist and then think that they know the answers to everything. But why end happy news on a sour note? A Happy Christmas to all our readers. There are reasons to be cheerful.

New antibiotics block an essential pathway in bacteria | Daily Mail Online

IspH inhibitors kill Gram-negative bacteria and mobilize immune clearance | Nature

#daia #antibiotics #antibioticresistance #gramnegative #superbugs

if you want to help develop new antibiotics you can make a real contribution via this charity

Antibiotic Research UK | Fighting Antibiotic Resistance