A quick round up: Plastic Pollution just got worse, Computers just got faster…and who were the Denisovans?

a few stories that caught our eye

Plastic pollution just got worse Remember those old movies where hard-pressed producers stared combining other movies? Think Godzilla and King Kong or Jesse James and Frankenstein’s daughter. The results were nearly always worse than the original. Well, it’s the same in the ocean PFAs do quite a bit of damage, So do microplastics, all things considered. But when you consider the two together, as Tom Perkins does in this Guardian article, you are in for a whole lot more trouble.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/25/pfas-microplastics-toxic

Quantum Computers just got faster Just when someone comes up with the-best-thing-ever-yet, someone else supersedes it. Remember CRISPR-Cas-9 and Base pair editing? Well now it looks as if AI may be going the same way. Read this:Giant Quantum Computers built from Light, in Nature Briefings

By the end of 2027, researchers at the private quantum-computing firm PsiQuantum aim to be using light in silicon chips to build a giant, programmable quantum computer. That ambitious goal is far ahead of major rivals such as Google and IBM. PsiQuantum researchers say they hope to also show that such a computer can run commercially useful programmes. The company has raised US$1 billion but has shown relatively little compared to its competitors, leaving some scientists worried it’s promising more than it can deliver.Nature | 13 min read

Who were the Denisovans anyway? One of the most intriguing puzzles in paleontology is the nature of the Denisovans, that mysterious third cousin of the modern human family. Since their discovery through the truly remarkable achievements of Professor Paabo and his teams, their details remain sketchy. A few scraps of bone, some DNA, and a few artefacts. So-hats off Linda Ongaro of The Conversation who pulls together what is known now, in November 2024. We are sure that she shares our wish that one day this excellent article will have been superseded.

https://theconversation.com/their-dna-survives-in-diverse-populations-across-the-world-but-who-were-the-denisovans-244441?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%

#dna #pollution #microplastics #PFA #denisovan #quantum computer

Tariffs: Like it or not, Trump has captured the spirit of our times

President Trump Postlaunch Remarks (NHQ202005300037) by NASA HQ PHOTO is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0

“Tear down your wall!” This was the gauntlet which US President Ronald Reagan threw down to the Communist bloc in the 1980s. It was a harbinger of times to come. Reagan was the leader of the Neoliberal programme, by which he meant that trade: the free flow of goods, services, capital and people would bring undreamed-of levels of prosperity and confine the memory of the restricted economies of Socialism to the dusty bookshelves of the History Faculty. Remember the 1990s and all those endless negotiations on GATT and the World Trade Organisation, as the good times rolled? The world was to follow the principle of Comparative Advantage, as advocated by David Ricardo, with each nation specialising in what it did best.

Yet the Neoliberal model contained the seeds of its own downfall, as we have noted before on these pages. The profound existential crisis it endured after 2008 has never ended. And now everyone, both ruled and rulers, has learned to turn away from its nostrums and the many problems which unrestricted movement has brought

Chief among these of course is immigration, which has incited a visceral fear of identity crisis among the native populations of countries where it runs high. Immigration was never a socialist thing, but a capitalist one. Donald Trump has recognised this, by using trade tariffs explicitly to control immigration(and the supply of stupefying drugs, (which similarly obeys the rules of a free market) As this Guardian article notes, he is simply the most powerful exponent of the spirit of our times. Free markets are out. Red Tape is in. What could be more Red Tape than immigration control? [1]

Of course everyone will follow suit. The first will be nations and trading blocs, retaliating against their American tormentor. Perhaps everyone will be poorer, but they may well live in more stable societies. However, once you throw over the market principle and prize stability above prosperity, you open the door to other innovations. Like higher taxes, which are also advocated to promote social good.. To restrictions on the buying and selling of second homes, lest they damage the fabric of local communities. To ever tighter restrictions on the use of cars, cigarettes and alcohol. Access to the internet and other sources of information. Trump and his supporters may not yest realise it fully, but they have already sold the pass.

[1]://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/26/the-guardian-view-on-donald-trump-tariffs-protectionism-is-no-longer-taboo-in-politics

#WTO #socialism #donald trump #immigration #ricardo #regulations #autarky

Lascivious Album Covers: But could you spare 1% for Brian Eno?

Photo by SK Movies & Photos on Pexels.com

Ancient readers of this blog, rummaging through the rubble of their memories, will recall the existence of a group of musicians called Roxy Music from the very early 1970s. It was not the lasciviousness of their album covers, nor the egregious prose of some of their supporters (or so it seemed to us) It was rather the way that ordinary rock and roll was combined with art college ambitiousness, blending allusive vocals, timely guitar licks and soaring synthesisers. The man responsible for the later was Brian Eno . After whose departure Roxy Music dwindled in to a good, but no longer very noteworthy, dance band, at least in the opinion of many early followers.[1]

But Eno soared into what can truly be described as an illustrious career. His list of collaborators reads like a list of some of the most percipient people of the last 50 years, including (hold your breath) David Bowie, Ultravox, Damien Albarn,U2, David Byrne, Grace Jones (that’s enough citations-ed) At 75, he is still one of the most sought-after producers and even such luminaries as Philip Glass cite him as an influence.

Yet Eno is nothing if not aware of the broader social and economic trends of our time. Also ecological ones, like global warming, which will kill most of us very soon if action to avert it is not taken shortly. To this end he and some colleagues have founded Earth Per Cent [2] whose founding aim was

Through the generous backing of our Founding Donors—remarkable artists and organizations committed to environmental advocacy—we’re able to channel the power of music into meaningful environmental change

Which in effect means all kind of restorative projects in all parts of the world.

Many of you who listened to early Roxy Music on a stereo in those far off days in someone’s mum’s front room will have grandchildren now. At the present rate of things, those grandchildren are unlikely to boast of the same. Can you do something to help Brian Eno?

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Eno

[2]https://www.earthpercent.org/

#roxy music #brian eno #global warming #earth percent #climate change #renewables

Avian Flu: A pandemic to make COVID look innocuous, may be about to happen

Imagine the COVID pandemic all over again. Hospitals full of dying people. Their overworked staff burnt out to the point of exhaustion. The masked survivors walking though haunted empry streets. The economies of the world in freefall. Only try to imagine that the pathogen is ten times more lethal than the COVID-19 virus. And you begin to get some idea of what the H₅N₁ virus will do.

So far the virus has been confined to birds Large scale factory farming of poultry is a sur- fire incubator of pandemic organisms. But, if you think you and your family are safe, read this from Nature Briefings Teenage Bird Flu rings alarm Bells

A teenager in Canada is in critical condition after being infected with a version of the H5N1 avian influenza virus that has researchers on high alert. Viral genome sequences suggest that this is a mutated form of H5N1 — which is related to the one infecting US dairy cattle but might be better at infecting the human airway. If true, it could mean that the virus can rapidly evolve to make the jump from birds to humans. “There is reason to be concerned,” says immunologist Scott Hensley. “But not reason to totally freak out.”Nature | 6 min read [1]

Obviously scientists and doctors will try to calm us down, it’s part of their job. But one chilling, ineluctable fact screams out from between the lines of these reports. The virus has jumped the barrier between species, Now only one last stage remains: to find a way to perfect human to human transmission. Every disease-ebola fever, smallpox, Bubonic plague, whatever- must pass these two tests. If it does so, it can kill at leisure-in enormous numbers. Remember the Spanish influenza panic of 1918? That was a similar virus(H₁N₁) and it carried off at least 50 million people from a world population of 1.8 billion. If we scale up to today’s population, the deaths will easily top 227 million. And that’s before we take into account the much faster communication and transport systems we now have, which will spread the virus so much more quickly.

So, while you are busy wondering the on line shopping malls, wondering whether Blagdon United will beat Nowhere City or trying to find a group of different people to hate, your nemesis may already be waiting in the wings. Question: does it serve you right?

[1]https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03805-4?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=f0d788c2d2-nature-briefing-daily-20241122&utm_medium=emai

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu

#avian flu #pandemic #disease #health #medicine

Plastic Progress brings a particle of comfort

The dreary rounds of negotiation to the endless proliferation of waste plastics go on and on. Steve Fletcher of The Conversation [1] reports from Busan ,South Korea on the fifth and latest (count ’em, folks, five!) stage in the UN Environment Assembly, designed to come up with a treaty to end this stuff. One that is more than a scrap of paper, that is. Because last year alone we dumped more than 400 million fresh tonnes into our life support systems – our fields, seas and atmosphere. Now, at the price of a modest cough, we have been adverting the dangers of all these plastics for years (LSS passim). Most recently we cited their risks as endocrine disruptors, and to the effectiveness of our last remaining antibiotics. There are plenty more reasons to be gloomy, we just haven’t got space to list them.

But there is a tiny ray of hope. It comes from Japan, and it tries to address the problem of all the plastic waste fouling up the seas. A team led by Aida Takuzo has come up with a new class of material which they call supramolecular plastic. It’s clear, it’s strong, it behaves a bit like polypropylene: but get this. It breaks down in seawater. An ecologists dream you might say, but even more so for those of us who live by the sea and whose daily walk consists in negotiating endless mounds of bottles, lids, bags, packets, vapes ,ropes, nets and fender buoys. Which are not only an ecological hazard but an acute source of aesthetic shame.

If you want progress, expect it from the educated and the scientific, toiling ingeniously in their laboratories. Certain nations seem about to forget that simple truth.

[1]https://theconversation.com/time-is-running-out-for-a-treaty-to-end-plastic-pollution-heres-why-it-matters-242165?utm_

[2]https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20241122_11/#:~:text=An%20international%20team%20led%20by%20a%20Japanese%20

biodegradables #plastic #United Nations #pollution #ecology

Digital Technologies offer step change in Antibiotic resistance

If something isn’t going too well, you try to look to throw something new into the mix. Something different, from outside the field. We’ve been bashing away with new drugs, education, media ops for ten years now. And still the problem of microbial resistance to antibiotics hasn’t gone away.

Which is why we welcome this new idea covered in The Lancet. The application of advanced digital technologies in things like diagnostics, data collection, clinical decisions -the thousand and one everyday things of medical life-could be a real game changer. So we are rather proud to present these articles from The Lancet. the first [1] by Timothy Rawson and co-workers is a marvellously detailed road map for how it might all work. (Warning-there’s a lot of it, this is going to take more than one coffee break) The second is a general guide from the Lancet about how they will be promoting and covering the whole trope. Well done, them.

We need a game changer, gentle readers. We sincerely hope this is it. Remember- you read it here first. Well, sort of. Anyway, the less you have of us, the more time you will have to read the papers. Off you go!

_{Thanks to G Herbert}

[1]https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500(24)00198-5/fulltext

[2]https://www.thelancet.com/series/AMR-and-digital-approaches?dgcid=facebook_organic_landigamr24_whod_landig&utm_campaign=landigamr24&utm_content=316076562&

#antibiotics #microbial resistance #digital technologies #the lancet

Global warming: five graphs to frighten anyone

Looks like we’ll need that carbon capture machine from yesterday’s blog (LSS 19 11 2024) Global warming is accelerating fast. An excoriating series of graphs, compiled by the industrious team of Helena Horton, Lucy Swan, Ana Paz and Harvey Symons, of the Guardian, punches the information right between your eyes. in a series of vivid clear and easy to grasp graphics [1] We thought that five in particular were especially noteworthy : Earth Surface Temperatures (up) Heat stress (up) Ocean surface temperatures (really up) and emissions(really, really up)

If you want to know why all this has been caused by human activity, click here [2]

But the consequences are feeding into our daily lives now, wrecking our political and social systems. For as people see their lands ravaged and turned uninhabitable by all this, they flee to the last surviving places where life may still be tolerable. It’s called migration. And so we close with a question. it’s particularly for the older sorts, who gripe and snipe at every effort to produce clean energy. How will you restore the ravaged lands of the south, and thereby stop the flow of migrants at source?

[1]ttps://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/20/the-climate-crisis-in-charts-how-2024-has-set-unwanted-new-records

[2]tps://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/how-do-we-know-build-carbon-dioxide-atmosphere-caused-humans

#climate change #migration #global warming #fossil fuels #carbon emissions #electric vehicles

CSAR Carbon Capture technology: small hope in difficult times?

Photo by Carlo Ju00fcnemann on Pexels.com

If US President Elect Donald Trump does what he says-pulling his country out of international climate agreements and encouraging oil drilling wherever possible-then the world will enter a catastrophic downward spiral. Urgent measures will be desperately needed. Could Continuous Swing Adsorption Reactor Technology be the answer? According to Darren Orf of Popular Mechanics, yes it could. [1]

A Norwegian Institute called SINTEFF [2] has not only researched this intriguing double capture process to achieve new levels of efficiency, but is actually testing it on industrial plant. As every schoolchild knows it’s not enough to come up with new sources of clean power, like wind farms. It’s going to be vital to seize the carbon from all those dirty industries like cement, metal production and waste incineration. Well, the results look good. Get this:

Although CSAR performed well in laboratory settings, the technology needed to be tested in the wild. Over the summer, SINTEF worked with the BIR AS waste combustion plant outside Bergen, Norway………In a 100-hour-long test operation, the CSAR pilot demonstration captured the same amount of CO₂ gas as it had in a laboratory setting. In total, this represents roughly 100 kilograms of CO₂ per day…………..

How ironic that a small country like Norway should be right at the cutting edge of such vital design! Or is it really surprising? Back in the 1980s both Britain and Norway enjoyed a bonanza of money from North Sea Oil. Norway sensibly invested theirs in a state owned sovereign wealth fund. It led their tiny population to acritical economic mass, allowing them to develop projects like this. And Britain? They spent it all on tax cuts for City Brokers and Landowning Grandees. Not surprising at all, when you think about it.

_{with thanks to P Seymour}

[1]https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/a62855594/csar-cabon-capture-climate-change/

[2] https://www.sintef.no/en/sintef-research-areas/ccs_ccus/

#carbon capture #carbon storage #global warming #donald trump #runaway greenhouse effect

Pesky Plastic Particles Promote Antibiotic Resistance

Oh for those shiny days of the far-off 1960s, when all those brightly coloured plastics were new, and somehow modern. Your model of Thunderbird 2 was made of it. So were the seats in your dad’s new Austin 1100. So were bottles of fabric conditioner, drinking mugs and clothes of nylon. No more fuddy duddy old wood and cotton for us! This was the Space Age, and we even listened to David Bowie’s Space Oddity on a plastic record.

Except there was a catch. All this new plastic which was slowly filling up the world would one day break down into tiny indigestible particles. With no where else to go except into our blood, our brains, our tissues. So far so bad, but it gets worse. LSS started out as antibiotics blog, and this is where we close the circle. Read this: It’s from the admirable Science News website, a cornucopia of knowledge on many subjects

An international research team has investigated how nanoplastic particles deposited in the body affect the effectiveness of antibiotics. The study showed that the plastic particles not only impair the effect of the drugs, but could also promote the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.I

So what’s going on? Firstly, can we say how much we liked the simplicity of this study. It used a common antibiotic (tetracycline) and and some common as muck plastics (polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene) It looks as if microparticles of these things can bind antibiotics, which leads to both the reduction of effectiveness and the generation of new resistance. But read the paper and judge for yourselves, good readers.

And our thoughts? Well they’re more emotions really. A kind of vague melancholy at how progress in one area slow creeps up and vitiates progress in another. That Rachel Carson was right all along. And that all that glistens isn’t good.

[1]https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/10/241030150657.htm

#plastic #nanoparticles #antibiotic resistance #pollution #health #medicine

Some riffs on masculinity, and how it plays out in elections

There’s no point progressives wringing our hands. We lost, forever. The best use of our time now is to try to work out some of the reasons why, so that future generations may not repeat our mistakes. It’s worth considering a range of explanations: economic, technological. psychological. For the first, economic, you won’t do much better than this one by Nesrine Malik of The Guardian, to which we just had to give a nod [1] But at the same time we couldn’t help thinking that everyone is affected by the economy(that’s how it got its name) So why the split between men and women? Have a look at this:

The president-elect represents a particular type of masculinity: he is seen as brash and straight-talking, and can appear domineering or patronising around women………………. For some women who voted for him, this might be a familiar personality that they’ve seen in their fathers and husbands. For men, Trump represents “hegemonic masculinity”, the exalted position of men at the top. In this view, aggression, control and dominance are all admirable traits and highly socially valued.

It’s from an article by Ashley Morgan in The Conversation,[2] and it made us ponder. The way that masculinities are formed, particularly in certain social classes. How smoking was advertised, and why it took so long to die out. Why speed cameras and signs near our home are often vandalised-and elsewhere [3] Why some people idolise gangsters. Why football hooligans exist. But before we begin, let’s ask a deeper question: why?

For thousands of years societies have prized strength and courage You needed it if you were a herdsman trying to push your flock over a pass in the Zagros mountains. While simultaneously fighting off the next tribe of robbers who sought to despoil you of the lot. Later industrial societies had many roles for such masculinity, in agriculture, industry or war. Never forget Dr Johnson‘s famous dictum “Sir- among the lower orders, what is often called insolence in times of peace is called courage in time of war.” For far too long, people who call themselves “progressive” have been too ready to despise and condemn men of-how to put this delicately?- certain classes and occupations.9that’ll do for now-ed) Last week they just came round to take their revenge. Serve us all jolly well right.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/18/donald-trump-victory-liberals-modern-crisis-neoliberal

[2] https://theconversation.com/trump-represents-a-specific-type-of-masculinity-and-its-dangerous-for-women-243285?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Con

[3]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/18/wales-20mph-speed-limit-lives-money-policy

#masculinity #class #socialisation #trump #harris #neolithic #transhumance