CRISPR gallops ahead (article contains a warning for xenophobes)

Warning: this article may make uncomfortable reading for xenophobes everywhere)

Progress in CRISPR-Cas-9 (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats)[1] and the associated enzyme is getting faster and faster. We started reporting on this truly innovative technique in 2020 and regular readers will recall updates ever since. Only four years ago it still felt a bit theoretical. But now radical applications are coming thick and fast Read this from Nature Briefing CRISPR horses spark debate reporting on the rather recondite world of polo pony breeding

the horses pictured above{*} are the first of their species to have been created with the help of the CRISPR–Cas9 gene-editing technique. They are clones of the prize-winning steed Polo Pureza, with a tweak to myostatin — a gene involved in regulating muscle development — that is designed to quicken their pace. Critics say that genetic manipulation has no place among polo’s traditional breeding practices — it has already been banned by some of the sport’s governing bodies. But a zoo of CRISPR-edited animals, from cows to sheep, is gaining acceptance in agriculture.Nature | 5 min read

^{{*} sorry LSS readers-we can’t show this}^-ed

In one sense there’s nothing new here. Humans have been modifying the genetics of plant and animal species since the dawn of the Neolithic. CRISPR and other base editing techniques have simply speeded the whole process up by making specific, designed changes and crucial nodes in the subject organism’s development. There is every reason to suppose that any number of new modifications to animals(and crop plants such as wheat) will be developed in the next few years. Some may even enable us the preserve the integrity of food supplies despite the ravages of things like plastics pollution and global warming. Also, as we have also reported here, gene editing is beginning to show real applications in medical fields such as sickle cell disease and certain cancer therapies. All of which leads us to an intriguing thought.

If ponies may be so easily modified, why not humans? One could start small by just modifying athletes and other small groups. Yet eventually the techniques could become ubiquitous in our species. Hang on-our species? Because the genetic differences between beings consisting entirely of CRISPR modified genes and the rest of us would then be far, far greater than those currently existing between our different races and ethnic groups. Are xenophobes everywhere already wasting their own time?

[1]https://www.yourgenome.org/theme/what-is-crispr-cas9/

#CRISPR Cas 9 #base pair #medicine #biotechnology #sickle cell #agriculture #stock breeding

Driving drives Dementia

Cars, don’t you love them? They cost a lot of money, they run people over, they allow cities to sprawl out over the countryside. Now comes evidence that the pollution that they cause, along with many other sources of pollution it has to be said, may be causing a special form of dementia called Lewy Body Dementia. [1] Ian Sample of the Guardian reports on a massive study of 56.5 million patients carried out by Dr Xiaobo Mao of Johns Hopkins University in the United States. The team found that fine particulate matter called PM_2.5 (LSS passim) caused proteins in the brain to form toxic clumps which slowly destroy nerve function leading to cognitive decline characterised by to memory loss, poor attention spans, visual hallucinations and sleep disturbance. The team went further and found the deadly particles induced similar symptoms in mice, confirming their evidence from population studies in humans .

When we did out background research for this article we were quickly overwhelmed by the amount of available evidence. This report [2] by the UK Government waxes lyrical on the different types of air pollutants-particulates, NO₂ SO₃, ammonia. and many more.. as well as the many symptoms the pollution causes in the human body. And this from the Alzheimers Society [3] puts the ball in the polluters’ court when it comes to neurodegenerative diseases particularly. We weren’t ever going to fit all that in paragraph two of a three paragraph blog, so we won’t try

What we will do instead is ask where does all this pollution comes from. Cars? Sort of. Factories? In a way. But the real source is a set of misguided economic policies which value growth numbers above all else. You have to have more growth than your neighbours or younare not reaklly worth anything at all. There must be more new cars, new washing machines new mobile phones, bright new shiny anythings, so that we can create a frantic cycle of production and consumption to prove how rich and clever and successful we are. But is the definition of the good life really to drive an overpriced automobile over concrete flyovers for a few years, followed by a long cognitive decline into dementia, really such a good life? Answers please-we’d love to hear them.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/04/fine-particulate-air-pollution-trigger-forms-dementia-study-lewy-body

[2]https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-matters-air-pollution/health-matters-air-pollution

[3]https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/managing-the-risk-of-dementia/reduce-your-risk-of-dementia/air-pollution

#automobiles #pollution #dementia #health # neurology

Heroes of Learning: Alexandra David-Neel

Today we celebrate the life, travels and accomplishments of Alexandra David-Neel (1868-1969) who died tragically young, one month short of her 101st birthday. Yet in that time managed to pack in as varied a CV as anyone ever has. Explorer, feminist, writer, mystic, opera singer, anarchist and first westerner to enter the forbidden city of Lhasa. [1]

Her exposure to the world started early when her father took her to visit the memorial to the recently executed Communards in1871. Whether this troubled her we cannot say. But her teenage years were certainly feisty. By the age of 18 she had clocked up travels to England Switzerland and Spain, on the way encountering controversial characters like Madame Blavatsky and getting herself enrolled in the 30th degree of Scottish Freemasonry.By 1899 she had written her first books and converted to Buddhism. But it was only as the curtains lifted on the twentieth century that she really got going. The next 46 years read like a whirlwind of adventure which would leave Indiana Jones green with envy. She got out East by becoming a successful opera singer in what was then called Indo China. After that her perambulations included vast stretches of India, Sikkim(where she lived as an anchorite in a cave) China, Mongolia, Tibet (hence the Lhasa episode), interspersed with marriage and a peaceful interludes in Digne-les-Bains in Provence.

It was here she finally retired for last decades of her life, . as the burden of her exertions caught up with her. It is interesting to recall that this quintessential nineteenth century explorer actually died after Neil Armstrong had placed his famous first step on the Moon. But we guess that she must have approved. We hope our links will tell you more about this energetic, learned and above all courageous woman. A beacon of learning indeed in dark times.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_David-N%C3%A9el

[2]https://avauntmagazine.com/alexandra-david-neel

#tibet #buddhism #lhasa #dalai lama #provence #china #sikkim #neil armstrong

The Best time to have been alive #4: Al-Andalus

Des kand meu Cidello venid/ton bona al-bishaara /com ray de shol yeshed/fi waad al-hiraaara*

When my Lord Cidello comes, what good news! He shines like a ray of sun on Guadalajara

When someone suggested we tackle Muslim Cordoba at its peak (roughly, the Emirate and Caliphate, 750 -1031 AD in the western calendar), we were unprepared for the cornucopia of historical riches that awaited. But, as both frequent holidaymakers in the Iberian peninsula, and speaking a smattering of Spanish at least, here goes anyway.

The story starts with Abd al-Rahman I, the “Falcon ” who fled a purge in Baghdad and founded the Emirate of Córdoba in 756. His survival story—crossing the Euphrates, losing his brother, and arriving in al-Andalus as a lone prince—is cinematic. He united fractious Muslim territories and laid the groundwork for a multicultural society. Córdoba became a haven for Muslims, Christians, and Jews, with Arabic, Berber, Romance, and Hebrew spoken in its markets and courts. The Great Mosque (Mezquita), begun under his reign, symbolized this fusion—its horseshoe arches and layered aesthetics echoing both Damascus and Iberia

Under Abd al-Rahman III, who declared the Caliphate in 929, Córdoba reached its zenith. The city boasted paved streets, public baths, and over 400,000 catalogued books in al-Hakam II’s library. Irrigation systems turned Andalusian soil into a breadbasket, exporting silk from Toledo, leather from Córdoba, and steel from Damascus- Scholars like Ibn Masarra and later Ibn Hazm flourished, while Jewish thinkers such as Hasdai ibn Shaprut advised the Caliph and translated medical texts. The court at Madinat al-Zahra shimmered with diplomatic prestige, hosting envoys from Byzantium and the Holy Roman Empire.

But all golden ages come to end. After the fall of the last strongman, Al Manzor, the Caliphate quickly declined into petty little kingdoms called taifas, each jealously guarding its privileges and rights. Easy prey indeed for the larger Christian states to the north. Yet the legacy of convivencia—coexistence—echoed through European Renaissance thought. Andalusia wasn’t just a place, but a possibility. A cultural experiment in coexistence, beauty, and intellectual ferment[2] which makes it a contender for one of history’s “best times to be alive.”

[1] Al-Andalus – Wikipedia

[2] The Ornament Of The World by Maria Rosa Menocal | Waterstones

*Yehuda Halevi celebrating Yosef ibn Ferrusiel in a kharja ending a muwashshah c 1100 AD

* Kharja attached to a muwashshah attributed to Yehuda Halevi c 1095 AD

#al-Andalus #islaam #abd-al-rahman #Cordoba #Caliphate #Emirate #Spain #Portugal #Arabic

The Slippery Slope fallacy: the one we’ve never got on with

“Don’t throw that rubbish there! Put it in the bin like you’re supposed to!” Many years ago we lived on a pleasant private estate in West London with trimmed lawns, walkways, security, a residents association, all those sorts of things. The only problem was some of the residents, who were either too lazy or felt culturally compelled to throw their domestic rubbish down by the rubbish chutes instead of putting in properly, as we, the decent majority did. This bad practice spread, being quickly copied across the estate and soon we all had a widespread problem with flies, rodents and an ugly disfigurement of our pristine areas. It’s called the slippery slope. Another example is when the office agrees to step out for a single drink and, three hours later, the entire company ends up blind drunk ,broke and embracing each other with varying declarations of love. Everyone copies bad behaviour, because they feel entitled, or are missing out. And so crime, disorder, drugs and violence spread quickly through communities, reducing everyone to common beggary.

And that raises a bigger problem for us here at LSS. For years we have proudly touted our Enlightenment, Whig, rational, call them what you will credentials like a badge of honour. Central to our purpose, hardened readers will recall, is the practice of reason and logic. Avidly do we follow websites like your logical fallacy which are stuffed with every classic example you could wish for: post hoc propter hoc, texas sharpshooter, all shining beacons of clear thought each one of them.. Standing out like a dead rat in a melon souffle is the slippery slope, of which the authors state

Allowing to happen will cause Z to happen: therefore we should ban A now!

Yes, we see the error. The slippery slope is a fallacy for it allows one to jump to conclusions without checking each intervening link from A to Z for both logic and empirical fact. Its the classic howler of someone like a Daily Mail columnist, carried away on tides of hysteria and dread. The trouble is: it’s how humans really behave. It’s the way most of them are.

So our problem with the slippery slope mirrors a more general problem. Reason, learning, and all the the qualities which we prize are not always good guides to how society works. (Try a Friday night out in Croydon if you don’t believe us) Yet the values we espouse are the only ones which will ensure not only the good life but also human survival in the long term. The problem we now have is how do we form a critical mass to allow those values to prevail?

[1]https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/

#logic #fallacy #reason #slippery slope #enlightenment

1st September 2025: the day world history changed forever(you did notice, didn’t you?)

Today, or yesterday (it’s all a bit muddled what with time zones, deadlines and so on) world history changed forever. Because the two biggest powers on the planet have started to come together. Making Asia potentially one huge zone of economic co operation. the true centre of economic and political power in the world. Yes, Mr Xi and Mr Modhi have started to talk about the joint efforts of 1.416 billion Chinese and 1.464 billion Indians. all increasingly prosperous and tech hungry. All of which trumps the 347 million Americans who so recently seemed to have the world game so utterly in their hands(anyone remember George W Bush?)

Ah, critics might say- but look at the GDP figures. America at $30.51 trillion is still comfortably ahead of both its enemies combined($23.4 trillion) But a Briton in 1900 could have pointed to similar figures which showed how rich they still were, ignoring the growth potential of rivals like the USA and Germany. And ominously, the current USA is in a bad position here, with 1.9% against China’s 4.0 % and India’s 6.9% The conclusion is obvious; the USA is fast on the way to becoming a regional, local power. It’s days of strutting the world like a colossus are over, or very nearly so.

And how has this come about? There have been long term trends of course. Growing inequality. political polarisation and corruption of its legal system have been in evidence since 2000 at least. The Iraq war of 2003 was an epic blunder and the crash of 2008 fatally undermined the rationale of the American order. But until recently America still represented an open democratic country Rational independent institutions. inalienable Rights , Something worth fighting for, both for its own people and for its allies. But now those allies are humiliated . [2] Others, not allies but still potential partners, alienated by irrational and erratically applied tariffs, rush to form their own blocs and trading systems. It was easy to believe that Mr Trump and his policies made sense at least from the point of view of their own country. Now the damage is not only deep, it is permanent. Welcome to a new world order.

[1]https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp37e8kw3lwo

[2]https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-tariff-ass-kissing-nrcc-hannibal-b2729968.html

#china #india #usa #donald trump #narendra modi #Xi Jinping #geopolitics

Two exciting new drugs for heart disease point a deeper lesson

News of two exciting new discoveries not only brings hope to cardiovascular sufferers around the the world. They also point the way to what has gone so terribly wrong and how despite everything, we could still get out of this mess.

First up is Baxdrostat, designed to reduce blood pressure. Sharon Wooler of the Daily Mail covers it here[1] As readers will instantly recall, it inhibits aldosterone synthase enzyme making it tough on hypertension and tough on the causes of hypertension. Yup, we guessed that was how it would work. Mmmm.

Next to the fore comes Clopidogrel, which is a doozy when it comes to preventing heart attacks and strokes: better than aspirin or so asseverates Andrew Gregory of the Guardian [2]Instantly we heard of the substance we asked” does it inhibit P2Y12 receptor on platelets?”-as any of you would have done, gentle readers, And the answer was: yes. It does!

The same Professor Bryan Williams and the same Conference of Cardiologists in Madrid cropped up in both stories, which we found confusing: but we have sorted it out for you gentle readers. All part of the service.

Oh yeah, what has gone wrong? Well, the fact is that both these drugs were developed using the scientific method. Which first needs long years of hard study to develop intellectual faculties like critical thinking, evidential assessment. probability theory and experimental design. Then many long hard hours in a laboratory learning to eliminate promising hypotheses and false lines of reasoning. This is a very different use of the word “research” to the activities of those who spend a few hours on the interweb, then jump to hasty conclusions which they spend the rest of their lives defending in an increasingly hostile aggressive and hysterical tone. it is this way of behaving which is slowly squeezing out scientific research. Cutting its funds and closing its laboratories. The longer it persists, the less new Baxdrostats and Clopidogrels there will be. And quite a lot more global warming.

[1]https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-15050895/Game-changing-miracle-drug-slash-high-blood-pressure.html

[2]https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/aug/31/doctors-find-drug-that-is-better-than-aspirin-at-preventing-heart-attacks-clopidogrel

#baxdrosat #clopidogrel #cardio vascular disease #heart #circulation #hypertensiion

How life evolved long ago is absolutely relevant today

Long suffering readers of this blog will recall our occasional sallies into the remote past. Like some latter day Doug McClure we occasionally take you into a world stuffed with dinosaurs, ape men and pterodactyls, to the detriment of more relevant stuff on antibiotics or the US Ten Year Bond. And so, although we were privately raving about this piece below called How did life get multicellular? from Nature Briefing, we thought we ‘d spare you from our private obsessions about things that took place between 800 -600 million years ago.

Until a chance encounter with one of more intelligent friends in the car park at our Spanish Conversation group produced the most inspiring thought. “All those Choanoflagellates. protometazoans. Filasterea. whatever, have to do several things if they are to succeed in living together. To glue up to each other. To signal little messages. To co-ordinate the cycles of cell division. Just like cancer cells have to, in fact. And then it hit us. These funny little organisms are the perfect way to model the behaviour of cancer cells. Not just the molecular and genetic mechanisms, but also the Information and Complexity models we must build to understand them: a cancer cell is a typical metazoan cell gone wrong.

Which confirmed a very old principle of this blog. All research however abstruse it may seem, will have a pay off somewhere one day. If it doesn’t benefit the economy, it will make us live longer; sometimes it may do both. These researchers are not just having fun on the edge of time: they may be contributing directly to the study of a disease which will kill half of us. There’s a thought for anyone who wants to cut university budgets or meddle with the findings of scientists.

To play out we shall first post the Nature Briefing paragraph. If you can get past that we’ve some supporting evidence for our basic proposition. We hope both will inform

Across all forms of life, the move from being single-celled to multicellular seems to have happened dozens of times — for animals, though, the jump was one-and-done. The unique cocktail of environmental and genetic factors that helped animal ancestors make that jump still eludes our understanding. To investigate, researchers are focussing on unicellular organisms that ‘dabble’ in multicellularity, occasionally forming colonies of many cells. By studying these organisms as they flit between the two states, scientists are hoping to illuminate how multicellularity stuck in animals — and what sparked the single successful event that gave rise to the animal kingdom.Nature | 11 min read

ASTRACT BECOMES APPLIED

This work discusses how cancer disrupts the gene regulatory networks (GRNs) that evolved to coordinate multicellular life. These networks balance genes inherited from unicellular ancestors (handling basics like metabolism and division) with newer multicellular genes (handling coordination, differentiation, and tissue integrity). https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13059-024-03247-1

and this how somatic mutations in early metazoan genes specifically disrupt the regulatory links between unicellular and multicellular gene networks. The result? Tumours behave like rogue unicellular entities, ignoring the cooperative rules of multicellularity. Some of these disrupted genes even correlate with drug response, hinting at therapeutic relevance

thanks to R Muggridge

https://elifesciences.org/articles/40947

#cancer #evolution #multicellularity #medicine #health #choanoflagellates

Is all the money in the world running out?

Is the United States of America about to go bust, the way that previous empires like Spain and Britain did? Critics point to astronomical levels of government debt ( it’s now a whopping 123% of GDP) and ballooning trade deficits. Exactly the opposite to the US position just over one hundred years ago when it elbowed aside Great Britain to make Uncle Sam the dominant world player. “Ah”, counter the critics” if you have the world’s reserve currency you can issue as much debt as you like. And the fact that America has independent institutions makes its bonds the safest bet in the world for foreign investors”. So-no problem then? Perhaps. The trouble with debt is that it’s OK until it isn’t. As interest rates start to rise (as they have been doing for some time) the rising costs crowd out all sorts of fiscal flexibility. Especially on crucial issues like defence, health and education. As for the United States much vaunted institutions- recent events have put their independence in very great doubt indeed. [1]

But before we heap all the opprobrium on poor old America, don’t forget everyone else is doing it too, Japan is running debt at an eye watering 250% of GDP: while in France things are so bad , there are even rumours that they are flirting with an IMF bailout[2] If stalwarts such as they are in such deep trouble, what hope for less prosperous nations? The answer, chillingly, is not much. According to a report by Schroders [3] the levels of sovereign debt around the world are so high that they represent a real risk to future investment, growth and healthy trade. In effect the repayments will come to stifle most normal economic activity. Though the authors are careful not to go quite this far, what worries us is that if this activity slows, then there may be a real risk that many nation states may become structurally unable to ever repay their debt. If sovereign bond markets cease to function there is no real stable credit, In effect. all the money in the world has run out. The political, social and military consequences of that would be interesting indeed.

[1]https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/29/economy/trump-fed-turkey-argentina

[2]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/27/france-on-the-brink-political-crisis-economic-francois-bayrou

[3]https://www.schroders.com/en-gb/uk/institutional/insights/sovereign-debt-dynamics-the-alarming-backdrop-to-rising-geopolitical-risk/

#sovereign debt #USA #japan #france #economics #finance

There will never be a sound-bite answer to what causes autism

Not our words, but those of Helen Tager-Flusberg a psychologist and expert on neurological conditions at Boston University inn the United States. Wise words indeed. Read this from Nature Briefing what we know about autism:

A claim by US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr that “an environmental toxin” is responsible for autism has worried many researchers and autism groups, who say it seems to ignore what’s already known about the condition. Decades of research suggests that genetics plays a huge part, although parental age, infections during pregnancy and a string of other environmental factors have also been linked to autism. “There will never be a sound-bite answer to what causes autism,” says psychologist Helen Tager-Flusberg. Meanwhile, the increasing prevalence of autism is predominantly caused by an increase in diagnoses rather than a true rise in underlying traits.Nature | 12 min read [1]

What we know. Humble words in a way. Especially in world where the deeply unhumble fill the internet and newspaper columns with shrieking headlines about what they think they know. Even set out on demonstrations carrying placards, as if emotion and wishful thinking could somehow override the basic facts of science and the laws of logical deduction. We live in an age where emotion now seems to be trumping clear thinking on every subject at every turn. But for the benefit of the few of you left who still believe in intelligence and logic we offer these questions, as they mark the limits of our own knowledge, and everyone else’s.

1 Is there a single condition called “autism”? Or does the word mask several different underlying conditions?

2 If there is a genetic cause, what is its heritability?

3 Are epigenetic factors also involved? If so how can they be measured?

4 Is there a single underlying causal factor?

5 What are the statistical probabilities that factors such as the age of the parents, prevalence of environmental toxins and types of diet play a role in producing diagnoses?

6 Did the change in diagnostic criteria in the 1990s change the prevalence in reported cases of the condition?

7 Why are their two different diagnostic systems anyway? (DSM and ICD) Ok, this is a personal peeve, but it could be affecting the data.

Autism is a neuralgic issue because it touches so many emotions: guilt, fear, anxiety, unknowing, shame and the overwhelming need for a cause to hate and blame. The attempts to grapple with it lie right on the edge of the limits of human skill and technique. Which means there can be no easy answers and no cure any time soon. COVID-19 it isn’t. But LSS prides itself on being a truth telling blog and the truth right now is that we just don’t know. Distrust anyone who dooes.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02636-1?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=a6bc173c35-nature-briefing-daily-20250827&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b27a691814-

#autism spectrum disorder #neurology #genetics #epigenetics #environment #diagnoses