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
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
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 HamblinThe 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:
So-is our current long hours culture making everybody ill?
Monoclonal antibodies could throw a defensive ring around patientsDenis 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
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.
We don’t know everything at LSS, but we do know it’s Christmas, and many of you penned in by the COVID-19 panic will be anxiously looking for a few movies to while away your forced confinement. So what follows is our personal choice of ones we think are the best in their classes-but it is just that, our choice. If you can think of any better, let us know?
Western:The Searchers John Ford 1956 Still utterly relevant; even as it explores the the themes of ethnic hatred, rape and dark obsession, it achieves the ultimate aim of art: its characters and world are transformed by the experiences so that the end of the film seems utterly remote from the beginning. John Wayne’s savage war veteran finds some reconciliation with his demons at last. All against the background of a burning, hostile landscape.
Runner up: The Outlaw Josey Wales
Sci Fi:2001 A Space Odyssey Stanley Kubrick 1968 The once world- beating special effects now look a bit creaky, and the plot hard without a couple of viewings. Yet nothing comes close to this in conveying the vast unknowable mystery of time and space. That’s why early critics struggled- the universe is much bigger than a few glib phrases and plot lines. Therefore,oddly, it’s one of the most authentic films ever made.
Runner up: Forbidden Planet
War:Paths of Glory Stanley Kubrick 1957 In war either the other side kill you for courage, or your own does for cowardice. Nothing and no one quite conveys the harrowing cruelty of death inflicted on a group of innocent men for refusing to obey stupid and suicidal orders. Some people can only watch this once and never go back. Clue-if a movie can do that to you, what must a real war be like?
Runner up: Das Boot
Detective/Noir: Blade Runner Ridley Scott 1982 So good it could have swept the categories for sci fi or love and romance, this tale of policemen hunting rogue genetically engineered replicants in an ecologically destroyed Los Angeles may actually be further ahead of its time than its release date suggests. Van Gelis’ soundtrack is masterful in conveying Scott’s moods, and Harrison Ford’s laconic detective is in our view his best ever performance. In 2120 who or what are we going to call human?
Runner up: The Maltese Falcon
Musical: The Rocky Horror Picture Show Jim Sharman 1975 Alright, we know there’s some big budget blasters out there packed with talented singers writers and directors. In our view none quite touch this cheeky melange of punk, goth and good old rock and roll. Not even Sound of Music has a cult following and audience participation like this, as attendance at a scary midnight theatre performance will show.
Runner up: West Side Story
Comedy:The Producers Mel Brooks 1967 An outrageous, painfully funny account of how two crooked Broadway entrepreneurs attempt to scam their investors by producing a sure fire flop. For us, later Brooks efforts were a little too long on pastiche and short on real comedy, but this exploration of grotesque venality uses parody sparingly, and lets is characters do the work. That said, their musical Springtime for Hitler plumbs true depths of bad taste and crass offensiveness. How can you not admire lines like “Don’t be dumb-be a smartie. Come and join the Nazi Party!” bellowed in a raw Bronx accent?
Runner Up: Dr Strangelove
Christmas: The Lion in Winter Anthony Harvey 1968. No Santa, elves, snow, or heart warming ghosts rattling a collecting tin. This one, based on real events, depicts a strife torn Christmas for the dysfunctional Angevin family and their egomaniacal head Henry II at Chinon castle in 1183. Watch as future and present kings and queens snipe, snark, betray, lie, deceive, quarrel and attempt murder around the usual lavish food, drink and decorations all one Christmas long. Do the auteurs of this film know something?
Runner Up: It’s a Wonderful Life
Gangster: The Godfather Francis Ford Coppola 1972 In a strong field, nothing has ever quite matched the dark sinister power of Marlon Brando’s Don Vito Corleone, and the array of psychotics and sociopaths who surround him. Epic in that its sequels form a near perfect triptych, it raises deep questions and about the springs of American society and where real power ultimately lies.
Runner Up: Goodfellas
Classic: Ran Akira Kurosawa 1985 Transposes Shakespeare’s King Lear to Samurai Japan. There’s plenty of blood, action and betrayal. But the tale is essentially the same: doting deluded old fool of a King gives away all his power to his scary children, and imagines that everything will be the same afterwards. Not without contemporary relevance. Spoiler alert: no one lives happily ever after.
Runner Up: Great Expectations 1948 version
Love and RomanceCasablanca Michael Curtiz 1942 Yes, we know it’s pretty stock plot with certain characters like Bogart, Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre all reprising themselves. And we know it’s all a bit far fetched and too goody at the end. In that case, why do so many people like it, why does it never fail to make all the lists of all time greats, and why is it referenced again and again? Because no one’s ever going to make a better one, that’s why.
Runner Up: Quest for Fire
Epic:Gone with the Wind Victor Fleming 1939. So majestic in its sweep characters and scenery that it became the benchmark for epic films forever. Even Goebbels tried to ape it a few years later, but all he got was a turkey. GWTW managed to sneak in some quite shrewd political analysis. To some cocky southerners ,eager to flounce out of the Union, Clark Gable counsels: “Are you sure? All we’ve got is cotton, slaves and arrogance!” More prosecco, anyone?
In July 1968, authorities in Hong Kong (then a British Crown Territory) noted the first case of a new and rather nasty form of influenza. It was called H3N2 in the easy parlance of virologists. By the end of the month it had spread to Vietnam and Singapore. By September it was in the Phillipines,Australia, Europe and the USA, on its way to to global pandemic status.
By anyone’s standards, 1968 was a fate-charged year. The Vietnam war was peaking in its ghastly climax. It sparked a series of violent insurrections and soul -searchings across many western counties. Campaigners for may types of rights, including Black, Gay and Women’s all rightly see ’68 as their seminal year. A lurid light was cast by the terrible assassinations of those rather mild politicians Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. But if anyone dreamed that Communism offered anything better, China was in the grip of Mao Tse Tung’s Cultural Revolution. And the USSR crushed a fellow Communist regime in Czechoslovakia.
So Christmas that year was a pause in a Promethan year. To cap things off, the first humans left Earth orbit in Apollo 8 and, on Christmas Eve, sent back the heart-stopping iconic image for which that mission will be forever remembered. But as the nations settled down to prepare (and listen to Lily the Pink by TheScaffold) the virus just kept on spreading and spreading and spreading all around them. In the end, it is estimated to have killed between 1 and 4 million of us. and ruined weeks of life for many more. Most UK schools and families had more than one victim that Christmas. We think there may be a lesson in there, somewhere.
Firstly, as every schoolchild knows H3N2 flu virus is in a different family (orthomyxoviridae -ve RNA) to our new friend Sars-Cov-2 (Coronavirida +veRNA) Secondly, the disease was allowed to spread, and a vaccine became available in only four months. Thirdly, it was around for a long time, making a second surge in the following winter. Lastly, Lily the Pink has not aged well.
As long as humans live in densely packed clusters, overworked, stressed and eating badly, viruses will assail us again and again. The next one may not be so benign as H3N2 or even Sars-Cov-2. There may be something utterly nasty like Ebola. Science and its methods of evidence and careful thought are the only reasonable hope. So cheer when scientists offer you a vaccine. By the same token please, please don’t sulk like children when they tell you to stay indoors and not go out and get plastered.
We thank Mr David Crossland of Berkshire for this story
As we write, a terrible disease is sweeping across the world. In the UK alone there are 209 600 new cases per year. One in 14 of people over 65 are sufferers. Readers in any country in the world will soon find comparable statistics. ** To kick you off, our first two links for Alzheimers/Dementia stats are listed below.
To cure any disease you have to be really sure of the right cause. The arrival of the germ theory of disease, pioneered by people like Semmelweis, Pasteur and Koch was a quantum game changer for the treatment of infectious diseases. Sadly, the cause of Alzheimers is still up for discussion.
Writing in the Independent,Christian Holscher* gives us a neat summary- it is clearly associated with the aggregation of two proteins called amyloid and tau in our nervous systems. But are these the cause-or just an effect? Christian thinks the protein problems may be caused by changes in insulin levels, and that Parkinson’s terrible disease may be involved as well.
Meanwhile, over at New ScientistDebora Mackenzie goes for a fascinatingly different line. It’s all about cleaning your teeth! Several groups of researchers are now actively pursuing the theory that the bacterium Porphyromonas gingivalis, associated with gum disease, may be invading the brain tissues. It’s these inflammations which may lead to Alzheimers/ Dementia. As you would expect from good ol’ NS, it’s well written, chatty but never ever frivolous and so a real good read if you like science writing.
But what did we say about keeping an open mind and considering all the evidence? The NHS website lists a lot of factors including genetic, cardiovascular and a few more for good measure. The NHS has always been a comfort for many, let’s hope our friends on the right don’t send it the same way as the BBC!
The point of all this is that Alzheimers is an epidemic of terrifying proportion which makes COVID-19 look like an outbreak of food poisoning on a Benidorm Bank Holiday. It’ll be around long after Covid-19 is in the history books. And we still don’t know why.
We thank Mr Lindsay Charlton of Kent for this story
Those of us still hoping for the detection of a signal from intelligent life on other worlds will have perked up this week. Astronomers are investigating the news of a possible signal from Proxima Centauri, our nearest neighbour. If it’s a positive it may seem to some a little too close for comfort. Ian Sample covers it well for the Guardian, but most news organisations had good pieces this week.
The trouble with all of these “aliens” is that we’ve been here before. Back in the last century, news of the first pulsars was hailed as possible evidence of alien life. Then came the famous Wow signal. More recently there have been SHGbo2+14a and Tabby’s star, which fuelled excited speculation but have since been shown to be at best equivocal, or to have a natural(i.e. non-alien) explanation.
Jerry Ehman, discoverer of the Wow signal, perhaps said the wisest words of all when he warned against drawing vast conclusions from not-vast data. And this is a problem all of us humans have. We see something, get an idea into our heads, then defend it come Hell or High water. All new bits of data fit into our hypothesis. Everybody who puts up contrary data or arguments becomes a fool and traitor. From this root grow most of the troubles of the world.
Fortunately there is an antidote. It’s very simple. It’s called the Null Hypothesis. Every time you come up with a theory, you have to consider the direct opposite. Example-suppose we think that the Moon is made of cheese. We first gather every piece of data that we can from astronomy, spectroscopy, what have you, to support that hypothesis. Then we construct the Null Hypothesis. In this case, that the moon is not made of cheese. We then gather all the evidence we can to support that argument, from the same data sources. It’s an amazing mental exercise, better than all those computer games. It’s actually how drugs trials work. Your hypothesis is your drug, and your null is the placebo.
Try it today. Think of your favourite political, religious or scientific belief. You have most of the evidence you need, or you wouldn’t believe it anyway. Think why you want it to be true. The Null Hypothesis is easy- this belief of yours is not true. Now gather all the evidence you can for that hypothesis. Why would anyone want this to be true? (Caution- not all people are fools and knaves)
It is Christmas 1965. Harold Wilson leads a Labour Government. Lyndon Johnson has committed massive US Forces in Vietnam. There is a coup in Dahomey. The Beatles are top of the UK Hit Parade with their Day Tripper/ We Can Work It Out double A side, but they are closely pursued by such luminaries as The Seekers and Ken Dodd. The cool cars of the year were the Rolls Royce Silver Cloud III and the James Bond Aston Martin DB5, both pictured above. (are they real?-ed) If you had wanted, you could have driven them home from pub or party, for Barbara Castle‘s Drink and Driving Act was still two years away from bringing down the alcohol-fuelled carnage on nineteen sixties roads.
And at that pub or party, the cool cocktail of the season was The Snowball. It’s a heady mix of lemonade and Advocaat. We have a recipe below, but it’s the latter we want to concentrate on. It’s almost forgotten now, but back in ’65 it used to fly off of the shelves. Advocaat is a Dutch drink, a curious mix of eggs, sugar and brandy with a strong yellow colour. It looks and tastes like custard and is delicious. We suspect its place as the sweet thick aperitif has been taken by the likes of Baileys. Nevertheless if your chocolate buds are jaded, here’s a nice little alternative-just don’t mix it up with the custard on your Christmas pudding. Or might you? And talking of eggs, Faberge had recently launched their new brand of aftershave, Brut, which must have delighted many under the mistletoe. Ask your Granny.
To wish you good Christmas cheer we have two links, a Wikipedia one to Advocaat and the other from the BBC Food website. Both organisations are beacons of light in a darkening world and we beg you earnestly to lens them your support. Here’s to Merry Christmas.
Snowball: 50 ml lemonade. 50 ml Dutch advocaat. 10 ml lime juice. Add ice and a cocktail cherry to decorate
Bladder and Erectile Dysfunction-marketers think it’s one of our fastest growing demographics
What’s so good about them?
They have houses, pensions, savings-that’s quite a lot of cash to tap
And what do they like to spend it on?
Things that try to bring back things they loved long ago. Motorbikes. Fast cars. Viagra.
Cars?
Big fast red ones. Ferraris. Jaguars. Porsches. With huge throbbing engines
Hang on, didn’t Freud have something to say about this sort of thing?
Well, he wasn’t alive in the age of sports cars, but yes, he would have had a lot to say about symbolism.
And what will the market trends be?
As they move forward the trend will be away from the cars and towards things like spectacles, walking sticks, TV remotes with great big buttons, and knee operations
What about IT?
They’ll buy those apps that let you find missing things like keys
Nice things to say
Well, Roxy Music must have been very good in their day.
Don’t worry-there’s many bases to a stable relationship
Not nice things to say
Why did England get knocked out in the quarter final in 1970?
I don’t think those yummy mummies are actually interested in you
Learning, Science and Society 