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Most readers will have been following the frantic speculation in the price of GameStop shares. It’s all very exciting, even for those of us without a dog in the fight, as small investors use the new found power of the internet to ambush the bigger boys who are apparently trying to short out the company. We’ve got two Guardian stories for you today, but it’s well covered in all the media. And one day it will all go into the “do you remember….?” file along with Lehman Brothers, Enron and 1987.

The point for the Ordinary Joe is “does it matter?” Shouldn’t people be doing better things with their time and money? It has always been a criticism from the the Left that speculative bubbles distort investment. Writ small it means sexy bubble share companies draw funds away from those concerned in the real economy who do dull things like making pharmaceuticals and producing food. Writ large, a financialised economy produces massive inequalities in wealth and power, corrupting information and education, and undermining the very markets that created them. Like all good criticism, much of it is valid; but it suffers from one very real drawback.

No alternative to alternative to capitalism has ever been able to get around the audit power of a price mechanism, which measures close to people’s real needs, not what they say that they want. The old style civil service was a classic example of a market- free institution. It had its virtues. But all too often whole departments could be captured by a few toxic individuals. They were then able to divert the resources to their own ends, awarding themselves perks and pay rises, while the stated purpose of the department was at best secondary. With no competitors and a guaranteed supply of taxpayers’ money, the situation could persist for years. So if you have free trading, the buying and selling of resources according to price, you well get some odd behaviours, like speculation, shorting, arbitraging-and they are just the legal ones. Until someone comes up with a better idea, we believe that they are inefficiencies of the lesser sort

GameStop’s dizzying share price rise is game over for the short-sellers | Games | The Guardian

How GameStop found itself at the center of a groundbreaking battle between Wall Street and small investors | Stock markets | The Guardian

#gamestop #shorttrades #wallstreet #freemarkets #socialism #civilservice #speculator #hedgefund

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The most depressing feature of having to live with humans is the way you divide yourselves in to warring tribes, usually over little things. You call yourselves “the Left” and you hate deride and eventually want to eliminate all those who call themselves “the Right”. Or you call yourselves “the Right” and you hate, deride and eventually want to eliminate all those who call themselves “the Left.” Frankly, you are becoming a little boring. Because the truth is a little more complicated. As the following example shows.

The Adam Smith Institute* is an impeccably right wing (some would say far-right wing) outfit: very low taxes, private health, free markets, no planning or immigration controls). Bien-pensants of the Centre and Left should hate and ignore everything they say and do, out of a sense of duty. Except when they shouldn’t. For one of their number, Sam Bowman has been a major force in setting up a major new website called Anti-Virus:the Covid FAQ* which uses the tools of objectivity, reason and facts to try to get to some reasonable understanding of people’s fears and anxieties about the Covid-19 epidemic. Is it heretical to suggest that Sam is not the Devil Incarnate, but a reasonable honest man whose enquiries sometimes lead him to the wrong conclusions? And sometimes to the right ones?

Even an inveterate Nixon-hater like Gore Vidal had to admit that the 37th President got it right on rapprochement with the USSR and China. Have none of you ever had an experience of an unexpected stranger suddenly putting out a hand? At the end of The Little Emperors By Alfred Duggan, a Roman Governor suddenly finds himself on the run in St Albans, in imminent danger of death by fire. He is saved by his freeman, Paul, who tells him “if you decide to live, remember that you have this chance because you were kind to a lonely freedman, and treat all slaves as though they might one day save your life.” It’s a great lesson in humility.

Anti-Virus: The Covid-19 FAQ (covidfaq.co)

Adam Smith Institute – Adam Smith Institute

Alfred Duggan The Little Emperors Phoenix 2007

#covid-19 #sars-cov-2 #coronavirus #herdimmunity #vaccine #nhs

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It’s all very well to have new vaccines: but what do you do with people who have already got the virus, and may be very ill indeed? So far, clinicians have tried dexamethasone and remdesivir. Now preliminary results from a multinational team suggest that a new drug called Plitidepsin may be even more effective yet.

Adolfo-García-Sastre of Mount Sinai University in New York heads up a truly diverse team of experts from UCSF, the Pasteur Institute and biotechnologists Pharmamar. They’ve been combing a vast variety of sources for possible new treatments. Plitidepsin, extracted from a humble sea creature called Applidium albicans was originally developed as a drug for cancer. But by blocking the action of the protein which the virus needs to take over your cells, it could have enormous therapeutic benefits for people who already have the virus. We’ve showcased Nuño Dominguez in El País for your story today, so you’ll need a translator app. But the English language media should be on to it

We think there’s lots of lessons for LSS readers here. First, the drug was found in an obscure sea squirt.* So let’s stop polluting the oceans and killing everything in them-there may be more goodies out there. Secondly, the future clearly lies in multi-talented, multinational teams. But if they’re working across continents, they’ll need all kinds of logistic support. What an opportunity for makers of conferencing software, translation programmes and blended international cuisine for meetings! Thirdly, the more science you do, the more pay-off you get. How about asking the world’s richest 100 people to loan 10% of their fortunes to set up and run an International Medical Research Institute? It’s a thought.

Plitidepsina: Un antiviral fabricado en España es 100 veces más potente que el tratamiento actual | Ciencia | EL PAÍS (elpais.com)

About PharmaMar – Pharmamar S.A

Aplidium – Wikipedia

#plitidepsin #remdesivir #dexamethasone #covid-19 #sars-CoV-2 #coronavirus

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Fans of the nineteen-sixties will recall a breathless time of progress, of limits being pushed and excitement in all kinds of new learning from astronautics to computers. Alongside all the Mick Jaggers and Jean Shrimptons there was another new girl who would change the staid world academia and leave a lasting legacy of learning and progress. Her name was Jane Goodall.

Jane epitomised all that was best in the values of the old English middle classes. Decent, hard working and ambitious, but not particularly well-to do, she managed to break in to the exclusively male world of primatology. Alongside the obvious integrity and academic flair was a shrewd mind, more than able to play the boys at their own games. Some of them, like Louis Leakey and John Napier, were among the sharpest minds of their generation. They gave her the break she wanted; the chance to observe real chimpanzees in the wild, to see if they had any bearings on human behaviour.

New discoveries and new methodologies came thick and fast, as she went round the jungle and the lecture theatres upsetting a whole series of apple carts. Chimps had personalities; so she gave them names. (it’s now standard practice in ethology). They were lethal hunters, not simple vegetarians. They made tools. And they killed each other in deadly wars. Sound familiar? And she became a star in a pioneering wildlife documentary for National Geographic, awakening millions to an awareness of nature.

It didn’t take long for Jane (that’s Dr Goodall to you and me) to realise that the same forces of destruction that threatened her Gombe Stream Chimp Reserve were busily smashing up all the other natural habitats all around the world. She soon took on a programme of environmental activism which you can read about in the link to her institute below. She now travels the world for at least 300 days year, actively educating, lecturing and campaigning. If your grandchildren are to have a future, they will point to one of the undoubted reasons why: Jane Goodall.

Jane Goodall – Wikipedia

the Jane Goodall Institute Homepage

#janegoodall #primatology #anthroplogy #ethology #animalbehaviour #chimpanzee #environment #animalwelfare

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Wisdom is better than rubies, and health than wealth, so they say. Old clichés, doubtless: but we agree with them. This week the round up is devoted to really encouraging new stories on health, plus a new feature-something to think about.

New Corneas for old- Blindness is a tragic affliction, and we welcome every cure. Stacy Liberatore in the Mail tells of work of Professor Irit Bahar of the Rabin Medical Centre in Israel. The Professor is pioneering the introduction of a corneal implant called Kpro, a new type of tissue. Early trials are a success-we beg you to read on.

Legally blind man regains sight following the first successful artificial cornea treatment | Daily Mail Online

Breakthrough in Nerve Cell Regeneration Stacey Liberatore strikes again! When we were young it was axiomatic on all life science courses that damaged nerve cells could never regenerate. And so the tragic fates of those with spinal damage, confined for life to wheelchairs. Using a genetically-engineered protein called hyper-interleukin-6 (yes, we know it’s a mouthful!) Dr Dietmar Fischer of the Ruhr University in Germany has started to get paralysed mice walking again. Of course it’s a long way to humans, but the technique seems sound. Here’s Stacey’s very clear article, again for the Mail:

Hope for millions as paralyzed mice walk again after just TWO WEEKS of breakthrough gene therapy | Daily Mail Online

Don’t You Forget About Me- Even simple minds will recall that the whole reason vaccines work is that they cause your immune system to remember a hostile protein from a virus , and so have your defences ready. There’s been a bit of a media lather since Christmas about how long the new vaccines will last, and if they will cope with the new variants. Fear and anxiety sell more papers than good news, but we will stick our necks out notwithstanding. Here’s Nature, via Science Daily on why you should give your immune system credit for being tougher and more resilient than some media commentators would have you think.

Immune system mounts a lasting defense after recovery from COVID-19, researchers find — ScienceDaily

Something to think about The first run of our new feature!

Anyone who has had the privilege to drive a Cadillac will recall the pleasure. But could it fly? Now General Motors have unveiled their project for a vertical take off version. Here’s the Mail on the recent show-off at the Consumer Electronics Show. It’s battery powered and should move you around at 55 mph, building to building, in the world’s most crowded cities. We can’t wait for our friends to try it.

GM takes to skies with flying car concept unveiled at CES | Daily Mail Online

For those who got our little joke, here’s Simple Minds. Why is this our cat’s favourite song?

Simple Minds – Don’t You (Forget About Me) – Bing video

#generalmotors #cadillac #vtol #immunesystem #antibodies #covid-19 #Sars-Cov-2 #neuralregeneration #genetic engineering #cat

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LSS is read in many countries. So today we are truly proud to have out first international contribution. It’s from our old friend and colleague Marce Lee Gorman, a Forensic Scientist who is now based in Dublin. Clearly Marce thinks that if ever this wretched lockdown lifts, and you’re breezing through downtown Manhattan, then you should try a Pink Lady at Rosie O’Gradys. We link them below.*

What’s in it?	Gin, Grenadine, Egg white
Where did you drink it?	Rosie O’Gradys Irish Bar, Manhattan
Who were you with	A work colleague
Why was cocktail good	Just fab: great colour in a martini glass
What was going on around you	Great Fun
Who else likes/liked this one?	I don’t know. It’s unique to me

Personal note: Marce didn’t specify any music, so we’re going to take a chance and make a recommendation of our own: Rosalie by Thin Lizzy. In our humble Anglo-Saxon view they were the greatest Irish band ever. Move over U2 and the Pogues, and learn from the masters. Sláinte.

here’s a great recipe from the BBC

Pink lady cocktail recipe – BBC Good Food

here’s rosie o grady’s

Rosie O’Grady’s Restaurant | Irish Pub NYC | Manhattan Pub Food |

#manhattan #dublin #pink lady cocktails #newyork #forensicscience

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We at LSS always had short time for devotees of aliens, UFOs, Ancient Astronauts and Little Green Men. In youth, one avoided them at parties, as any further communication from them tended to arrive in green ink. So, with the broadmindedness that comes with extreme age we say hats off to Avi Loeb of Harvard University in his lonely battle to convince us that Oumuamua more commonly known as Il/2017/U1, which flew through the solar system a few years ago is in fact an alien spacecraft. We link the Mail‘s coverage below.

Good news, we say-because it may be just the medicine to solve the terrible divisions which wrack the world. Superpower rivalry, ethnic tensions, conspiracy theories-never have we been so divided against ourselves. But there is a way out.

No education in politics, psychology or philosophy is complete until one has read of the life and times of Jeeves, Bertie Wooster’s valet in the works of PG Wodehouse. Astute readers will recall how Jeeves uncanny knowledge of psychology saved many a tricky situation from cataclysmic disaster. For us, the classic exemplar was Right-Ho Jeeves. Bertie’s meddling had left a near terminal meltdown at previously tranquil Brinkley Court. The marriage of his Aunt Dahlia and Uncle Tom was on the point of collapse. Tuppy Glossop and Cousin Angela were no longer talking. The chances of any marriage between Gussie Fink-Nottle and Madeleine Basset were null and void. Brinkley Court was riven by the hatreds of warring factions. Then Anatole the Chef handed in his notice.

Into the situation stepped Jeeves. He knew that ultimately there is only one way to bring people together. Give them a common enemy. He provided one, in the shape of his employer, Bertram Wooster. In a short while he had contrived to turn Wooster into an object of common hatred, derision and scorn. The warring factions united. The marriage was saved. New engagements pledged. The cook resumed his duties. All was right with the world.

And so we believe that nothing would unite us all better than the arrival of hostile alien forces, either real or imagined. Our personal experience of aliens is rather limited. But it may be useful in general to think of them as the Clingon types from Star Trek One-malevolent baddies with nasty eyebrows and apres-ski outfits ever ready to do us down. So that we may at last unite the warring tribesmen of the ignorant and move forward to better things.

Harvard physicist believes Oumuamu is an alien craft, NOT a comet | Daily Mail Online

#pgwodehouse #jeeves #oumuamua #aliens #flyingsauces #psychology #commonenemy

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“When the facts change, I change my mind.” said JM Keynes, arguably one of the most intelligent people of the twentieth century. We think that this is the mindset that defines LSS readers. Today we offer a short piece about a man called Bernard de Haas and his colleagues in one corner of the research community, which does them all immense credit.

Bernard had published a paper on using brain scans to measure changes in behaviour. It was all routine stuff; they did the work, checked out the statistics and published. A few years later anther researcher called Susanne Stroll contacted Bernard to discuss some problems growing out of his work. She didn’t do it a nasty vindictive way. Both teams joined in a collaborative approach to tease out the truth-and eventually Bernard felt he had to withdraw his findings. Nature explains below what happened.*

Not all scientists are like this, gentle reader: we have known several who delighted in discovering errors in the work of colleagues, and gleefully broadcasting them. While attempts to discuss their own shortcomings were met with sullen hostility and angry shouting. A bit like five year olds in fact.

The central problem for us all is: why are there so few Bernards and Susannes? Why are so many in the arrested development stage of a five year old? Who get hold of one tiny idea and twist every incoming fact so that it fits with their perception. Who can think of no better way to counter their opponents than to scream abuse? Who deny all facts and have no idea of shading or context? The problem is now acute. The internet is like a polluted stream: to drink from now is to endanger one’s health. Bernard’s article points out the psychological roots of intelligence. And the emotional roots of its opposite.

What my retraction taught me (nature.com)

“The experience [of retracting a paper] has not left me bitter,” writes experimental psychologist Ben de Haas. “If anything, it brought me back to my original motivation for doing research.” Despite the pain of losing work he was proud of, solving a mystery and working collaboratively with fellow researchers was a positive experience overall. He calls for incentives that foster the common goal of better research.Nature | 5 min read

#fakenews #research #reason

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We have so many friends to thank this morning for sending us links to a breaking story. Oxford University has received a £100 million grant from Ineos to start serious research projects into antibiotic resistance and new antibiotics. Regular readers will be fed up with us banging on about this; but we say: at last! It’s well covered this morning, so we’ve done a couple of links to stories at the BBC and Mail.

We’d like to make a couple of observations here. As some of you have pointed out, one of the most important ways in which we have squandered the opportunity antibiotics gave us was their uncontrolled and massive use in animal farming. The thoughtless desire to measure success by how cheaply you get goods to the point of sale, and no other has done immense damage to public health in so many areas. Let’s hope the new rango of antibiotics doesn’t go the same way.

Secondly to thank the work of Professor Colin Garner. He it was who first identified this problem back in 2014, since when he has campaigned tirelessly. Building a whole new charity, recruiting big hitters like Dame Sally Davies, lobbying and organising…..we would all be in a much worse place without him. If you want to learn more about his work, please visit the website of antibiotics research UK Antibiotic Research UK | Fighting Antibiotic Resistance

Oxford research tackles threat of antibiotic resistance – BBC News

Ineos gives Oxford University £100m for antibiotic… | Daily Mail Online

#antibiotics #superbugs #antibioticresearch #oxforduniversity #ineos #professorcolingarner

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We at LSS are always honoured to have readers in the United States of America. For those who have never visited, it is a large country which is, on average, south of Canada and north of Mexico. It is famous for beautiful scenery and delicious foods. And for a deep, seemingly unbridgeable racial divide which is now close to tearing it down altogether.

The origins of the divide have perplexed historians and social scientists for centuries. It may well be that the instinct to form tribes and hate all who are different is a primary human drive. We certainly respect the learning of authors such as Amy Chua whose Political Tribes we link below.*

Could the United States have ever taken a different turn? Below we offer two studies of two experiments which both grew out of the Civil War. (1861-1865)

The Free State of Jones was a pro-Union rebellion in the deep Confederacy State of Mississippi between 1864 and 1865. Led by a charismatic poor farmer called Newton Knight, a group of white agriculturalists and runaway black slaves staged something that seemed to have been somewhere between a guerrilla insurrection and a full blown revolution. LSS links you to a wonderfully balanced, charmingly written piece in the Smithsonian by Richard Grant. Oddly, Knight survived until 1921 and the branches of his families still live today in various states of disamity

The True Story of the ‘Free State of Jones’ | History | Smithsonian Magazine

A political attempt to stage a multiracial democracy occurred in Wilmington North Carolina in 1898. It was overthrown when armed white insurrectionists rose up and overthrew the government, following closely contested elections. Their victory was total; segregation and Jim Crow laws were then enacted which were not cleared away until the 1960s. An irony of history was that all this was done in the name of the Democratic Party, then the principal exponents of white supremacy.

Wilmington 1898: When white supremacists overthrew a US government – BBC News

The views that genes are destiny and that our instincts are more powerful than our reason have been skated over too long by many doubtless well-meaning people. They remind us of the Victorians and sex: let’s all try very hard to pretend that it doesn’t exist. There is now an overwhelming need to discover how these instincts play out in many places from prisons and aircraft carriers to the halls of governance, and how factors like poverty and inequality may inflame them. Or not. It is the great scientific opportunity of this century. And about time too.

Amy Chua Political Tribes Bloomsbury 2018

Free State of Jones (film) – Wikipedia

#freestate of jones #wilmingtonnorthcarolina #politicaltribes #racism #uscivilwar #newtonknight #mississippi #northcarolina