Will Wetlands save the World?

Every so often we receive a well-meaning, but slightly plaintive communication from people who yearn for improved methods of carbon capture, by which they mean huge industrial undertakings not unlike the filthy power stations which they are meant to replace. “Good point!” we cry “but it’s going to take years to perfect the technology. Then scale it up. By which time it will all be much too late.” What if there are far more efficient carbon capture stations already out there, cheap to develop, quickly scalable, which might in addition act as huge natural flood defences. Before you reply “too good to be true” have a look at these two stories about wetlands which have recently crossed our screens.

Mangroves in Brazil Brazil has had more than its fair share of bad ecological news recently, what with chopping down massive swathes of the Amazon and so on. But now Mr Bolsonaro has gone, we are able to report a more hopeful story, by Maurice Saverese via Apple News.[1] A new project in the Guanabara Bay, near Rio De Janeiro has planted up to 30 000 mango trees. Not only will these act as a massive flood defence, stabilising the coastline against erosion, but will provide a valuable new source of income to local fisherman as crabs and other economically valuable species return to the healthy waters.

Wetlands in Washington Since the 1780s the USA has lost about half of its wetlands. Which is a shame because although wetlands comprise just 10% of the world’s surface, they contain perhaps 25% of its soil carbon. That at least is the estimate of a team from Washington University, who are investigating the potential of vast carbon-capturing wetlands beneath the rain forests of the Pacific Northwest [2] You’ll have to get past the paywall for this one from Natalia Mesa of the Atlantic, again via Apple News. but it’s well worth it. Because the rainy north west also includes parts of California, Oregon and much of western Canada. If the Americans can only keep out Trump and his supporters, then once again they might have saved the planet, this time on a massive scale.

Sometimes the answer lies not in doing new things, but adapting old ones to new uses.

thanks to P Seymour

[1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/rio-de-janeiro-bay-reforestation-shows-mangroves-power-to-mitigate-climate-disasters

[2]https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/05/wetlands-forest-unmapped-carbon-washington/678513/?utm_source=apple_news

#wetlands #carbon capture #mangroves #washington state #donald trump

Nicola Davis leads the way on antibiotics journalism

One of our stated purposes at LSS is to scan the media feeds, both news and scientific, to bring you the best possible stories on the continuing crisis caused by antibiotic resistant micro-organisms. That’s superbugs in short. And one journalist whose work we have featured time and again is the indefatigable Nicola Davis who writes for the Guardian. Well today she has done it again, in an intriguing new take. It’s going to take quite some time before new drugs can be tested and made ready. Meanwhile people are starting to die, in quite large numbers. What can we do? [1]

Well, quite a lot according to Nicola. Like a good journalist, she starts by reprising how truly awful the current situation is. The figures are eyewatering. To take 2019 as a good pre COVID baseline, antibiotic resistant microorganisms were implicated in 4.95 million deaths, with a definite attribution possible in 1.27 million cases. So are we just going to wait, to sit around and wring our hands until new antibiotics come along? No, quite a lot is possible in the meantime, Citing the work of Professor Laxminarayan of Princeton, she writes:

……………AMR-associated deaths in LMICs could be cut by 18%, equivalent to about 750,000 a year, through three key steps……..The team team suggests an estimated 247,800 deaths are preventable through universal access to clean water and improved sanitation and hygiene, while 337,000 deaths could be prevented through better infection prevention and control in healthcare settings…….Another 181,500 deaths are preventable by means of childhood vaccinations,

But Nicola’s article, and the link she provides to The Lancet, are far more detailed [2]

An our thoughts? After so many years bashing you on your heads, gentle readers, we see actual grounds for optimism First journalists like Nicola are getting on to this.( See also MD of Private Eye and Stacey Liberatore of the Mail) Secondly, there’s nothing so likely to wither effort as the thought that we are powerless. Beyond hope. Passive. And as this article shows, nothing could be further from the truth.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/may/23/huge-number-of-deaths-linked-to-superbugs-can-be-avoided-say-experts

[2]https://www.thelancet.com/series/antibiotic-resistance

#superbugs #antibiotic resistance #pandemic #health #vaccination #sanitation #preventive medicine #nicola davis #md private eye #stacey liberatore

Are Co operatives making a come back?

History: it’s a funny, cantankerous old thing. Any action seems to produce its opposite. It may be happening again. Starting in the South east London Borough of Lewisham.

As every schoolchild knows, the Industrial Revolution produced an atomised, nihilistic society where the overwhelming majority lived in slums, and worked every hour for pitiful wages. The new metropolises like Manchester drew waves of strangers into disease ridden slums. The results were far indeed from the hopes of the philosophers of the Enlightenment whose heady thoughts on free markets had kick-started the whole sorry mess. Yet somehow, in those desperate places, people began to come together. New community organisations began to thrive. Methodist Churches were one example. Trade Unions another. There were things like Working Mens clubs and libraries. Building Societies. And of course the Co operative movement, where poor people could club together to make their purchases at their own shops.(overseas readers might like to know it still exists today, but is barely differentiable from any other hight street grocer) Each in turn contributed to the foundation of the Labour Party. Fast forward one hundred years, what with the collective experience of wars and depressions and most people assumed that collective actions were the optimal solutions to most of our problems.

Following the world crisis of 1973-74,everything changed. Free marketeers saw their chance to exalt the individual above all else. Writers like Hayek and Friedman paved the way for politicians like Thatcher and Reagan. Even popular books like The Selfish Gene could be read in such a way as to exalt the cult of the sovereign individual . Down with the state! Taxes were an imposition on human liberty! Although the adherents of such doctrines could never explain how the National Health Service was Communist, but the Army was not, the individualistic tendency bit deep into our lives and culture. With the results we see today. Once again, atomised communities. Poverty. Capital in the hands of a very few, who invest with a grudging reluctance that would make Mr Gradgrind envious indeed. Pollution, rack rented slums, and growing poverty, especially among children.

Once again there seems to be a reaction setting in. Starting at the bottom, people are beginning to come together in groups to save what is important to them, from the all -dissolving solution of unrestricted free markets. As Kemi Alemoru explains in this article for The Standard [1], it seems to begin around the need to preserve collective things like music venues and pubs. Her piece treats the Southeast London area of Lewisham as a sort of living field experiment. But the thought strikes us. If it works for things like those, why not for bigger ones? Like housing. Controlling air pollution. Making roads safe. Even, whisper it, schools and collective education.

To borrow from another area of learning “every action produces an equal and opposite reaction. Maybe this is the start of one.

[1]https://www.standard.co.uk/homesandproperty/property-news/the-battle-for-lewisham-how-coops-are-reinvigorating-communities-b1157728.html

#free markets #collectives #cooperatives #hayek #keynes #methodist #coperative society #friendly society #trade union

The Guardian takes the lead on antibiotics. Make your newsfeeds do the same

LSS readers, being an informed and engaged bunch, will each of us have our favoured little cluster of news and media feeds we go back to time and time again. Regular readers of this blog will have largely discerned what our little regular handful comprises. And among them is the famous UK platform The Guardian.

Recently they stepped up to the plate with an interesting take on the work of Dame Sally Davis, which we noticed on this blog earlier this week(LSS 13 5 24). We also wrote personally to the journalist concerned to thank them. Lo and behold, the Guardian followed up on Friday with a major leader article on the whole subject, pushing the new UN initiative, and hymning the praises of Dame Sally[1]. As is only right and proper. Dare we, could we, hope that our letter of praise to the first prompted the second? Unlikely. But it got us thinking.

Readers, there are several hundred of you now, scattered around the four corners of the globe. From the lonely coves of Patagonia to the bustling metropolises like Barcelona, each and every one of you will have mediafeeds. You know, former newspapers, TV stations, news sites, visual channels and all that. Each one of them will have an editor. Each one of those editors will be hungry to catch the latest trend, to find a story, to get ahead of the competition. So why don’t we give them a story? Why not write a brief note now to two of your favourite news supremos? You know the themes to riff on. Antibiotics are running out. Not enough new ones are being developed. If this goes on, all modern medicine and surgery will revert to the dark ages. And so it goes. You’re an intelligent lot, we can’t tell you how to write it.

But write it you could, and send it. Each one in less than two minutes. And it could, it might, just make a difference. Over to you.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/17/the-guardian-view-on-antimicrobial-resistance-we-must-prioritise-this-global-health-threa

#microbial resistance #antibiotics #medicine #public health #dame sally davis #microbiology #pandemic #e.coli

What if you could detect cancer before it was cancer?

If you want to cure a cancer, identify it as soon as possible. That’s long been a truism among medical experts. But what if your techniques were so advanced that you could identify the precursor steps to cancers before they had even started to initiate a tumour in someone’s body? According to an article by Anna Bawden and Nicola Davis of the Guardian, the first steps to do just that are now feasible, as two studies suggest.

Instead of simply rehashing their excellent prose[1] upon which we urge you to click, we’ll provide a brief summary, and raise some interesting and rather hopeful observations. The first looked at 44000 samples from the UK Biobank. 618 proteins were identified, which could then be linked to 19 different types of cancer. In a different take on the same trope, a second study using a whopping 300 000 samples came up with 40 different proteins linked to 9 different types of cancer. We dare not comment, but dare to observe:

1 It’s amazing the amount of new discoveries you can make just by crunching data. As AI comes into its own, it should be able to handle bigger and bigger numbers. Think of alpha-fold, if you don’t believe us-and that quite old hat by now!

2 Talking of hats, let’s all take ours off to Cancer Research UK, whose steady, patient work down the decades has not only provided a congenial ecosystem for researchers, but also a steady stream of reliable income for the planners and the finance people. Come on, hands in pockets, please! [2]

3 We were impressed that the results were already identifying different types and subtypes of cancers. It suggests a subtlety of technique which has probably only just got going.

and, finally:

4 The bigger the database, the better. Without belittling today’s researchers and journalists, these are still relatively small numbers. Imagine an AI supercomputer tirelessly combing the biological samples of every human on the planet. And maybe their pets. Would might it not find.

Oaks and acorns times, gentle readers. Keep donating.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/may/15/proteins-blood-cancer-warning-seven-years-study

[2]https://donate.cancerresearchuk.org/donate?gclid=cf2827b39f4311a97ff841f589e5c887&gclsrc=3p.ds&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=IMP%20%

#database #cancer #medicine #AI #protein #gene #prediction

Is antibiotic resistance a bigger threat than global warming?

Dame Sally Davies thinks so. And she has been on the case since at least 2012. In fact, older readers will recall our long standing admiration for this remarkable woman, and her erstwhile colleague Professor Colin Garner, who jointly did so much in the early stages of this crisis. (for the record, we have had the honour of hearing both these great scientists speak at meetings)

Sadly, the problem is very, very far from resolved, as Dame Sally makes clear in this Guardian story from the admirable Kat Lay. They point to the same weary old tropes that we’ve flogged here for years: lack of research; over prescription; reckless, feckless wasting in misguided agricultural practice. You can read it for yourself here[1]. We fervently hope that you do so.

We shall end on a personal note. Afflicted by a cold, we have suspended all work, and for leisure reading have ploughed again through Professor Harper’s The Fate of Rome. It is a remarkable synthesis economics, history, biology and climatology which we have praised before on these pages. One thing struck us at once. The terrible impact of the Plague of Justininian (541, bubonic) on the Byzantine Empire was like that of a gunshot wound on a human body. It wrecked the economy, the army, caused a catastrophic fall in population and output from which there was never any meaningful recovery. And it meant that all the efforts of Justinian and his brilliant advisers like Theodora, Belisarius, Tribonian and the rest meant nothing at all when that plague struck. However hard they had tried at their jobs, the changes they effected before the plague counted for nothing. They might as well have stayed in Constantinople and gone to the horse races.

And today, in 2024? What will all the efforts of politicians, bankers, generals, footballers, marketing gurus, Estate agents, brand designers and games enthusiasts count for when a real pandemic strikes? Whose work will really be enough to still matter afterwards?

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/may/13/superbugs-antibiotics-drugs-antimicrobial-resistance-infections-pandemics-sally-davies

#dame sally davies #antibiotic resistance #global warming #microbiology #health #medicine

Why the UK has ended up like Manchester United

Followers of football often discuss the fate of Manchester United FC. A once hugely-successful club, awash with money that is now desperately underperforming, despite an endless stream of new mangers and fresh starts. Some compare it with the fate of Rome (the Empire of that name, not the football club). But there may be an another comparison, more recent and much closer.

Why is the UK so desperately underperforming? Why is the state of its mental health so very poor, when compared to other countries? Why have peoples hopes and expectations stagnated? Why is the health service so bad? Housing so squalid and insecure for so many? Especially as all the terrible social and economic problems were tackled so ably, especially in the years between 1945 and 1975? One intriguing set of ideas has been presented by George Monbiot. [1] [2] Intriguing because they link together so many disparate observations. Refreshing, because they challenge existing orthodoxies of Right and Left. For George, the culprit is Neoliberalism, which he defines as a cultish ideology based on a relentless cutting of the state, privatisation, low taxes and the freest possible flows of taxes and people. (the latter certainly explains why we couldn’t see the pictures in the Uffizi galleries in Florence)

Of course, it’s a contribution, not a panacea. But it touches on the same sort of themes as Thomas Piketty, Wilkinson and Pickett, Hutton and others whom we have referenced on these pages from time to time. That the endless competition by individuals for wealth and status will end up by leaving all of us poorer. Except the very rich, who own all the media by which we are told what a great idea all of this is. And as for the UK and poor old Manchester United? Perhaps both of them need to take a very long, cool look at the fundamental causes of their unhappy states. Before worse happens.

[1]https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/other/why-is-britain-s-mental-health-so-incredibly-poor-it-s-because-our-society-is-spiralling-backwards/ar-BB1m8tVR?ocid=msedg

[2]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/10/britain-mental-health-society-neoliberalism-politicians

#neoliberalism #finance #wealth #mental health #housing #inequality

New Potential Breakthough in Gene Editing

Quite a quick one today, gentle readers, but this is so potentially significant that we thought that you ought to know, Well, our researchers kind of insisted, to put it bluntly. So here goes.

We’ve reported before on how AI has been used to divine the structures of proteins with a speed and accuracy unimaginable only 10 years ago. We’ve also run our fair share of stories on CRISPR-Cas 9 systems and their offshoots like base pair editing.(LSS passim) Now imagine that a company in California has thrown all three of these favourite tropes into a heady mix. According to Rob Waugh of the Mail, they have not only done so, but are making it work. [1] Using AI systems Profluent Bio[2]think they can create a range of DNA editor proteins which will be at once more targeted and more efficient than the by now rather traditional CAS-9 which is, after all derived directly from living systems. As Rob says, the potential to edit and replace malfunctioning genes is now imminent. It could lead to breathtaking advances in the treatment of. Our particular hope is that abnormalities of the mind may at last be treatable. If they do indeed have a genetic component, which seems likely.

And we’ll sign off by adducing out usual regret, The staff of Profluent represent t tiny fraction of humankind. The work they do is both beneficial and significant. What is the other 99% of humanity actually up to?

[1]https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13344731/New-AI-creates-molecules-not-nature-CHANGE-human-genes-cure-rarest-diseases.html

[2]https://www.profluent.bio/
#DNA #genetic editing #CRISPR Cas 9 #AI

Has the James Webb really found life? Let’s not jump to conclusions

Photo by Monstera Production on Pexels.com

Has the James Webb Telescope found life at last? Solid, incontrovertible evidence of biosignatures on another planet? We write these words in the afterglow of a half-heard item on BBC News this morning, which so far (8.30 27 4 24 UK time) we can’t confirm anywhere on the web, including the BBC itself. The story is intriguing, not only because of the implications if it’s confirmed, but as as an example of how good science journalism should work. First, a little background.

Well-informed readers will the recall the media excitement last autumn, when provisional findings suggested that the James Webb Telescope had indeed detected the presence of methane (CH₄), Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) and Dimethyl sulphide (CH₃)₂S on the planet K2-18-b which lies about 120 light years from Earth in the constellation Leo.[1] That last molecule was particularly intriguing, because according to many, it can only be produced by living process. All the traditional media wrote it up. Certain news magazines, not always renowned for cool and reflective judgement, seemed to get more than a little carried away. Was this it? Was this, you know, them, ET and all that? At which point we turn to an excellent piece of journalism by Eric Berger of Ars Technica, a model of level-headed reasonableness which all of us would do well to imitate. In this racket, and many other walks of life. [2]

Instead of commenting on Press Releases and other journalists’ stories, Eric went back to NASA and got quotes. These it turned out, were much more subtle, nuanced and provisional. The signs of real knowledge in fact. The difference, in fact, between the provisional first interpretations of a crime scene examiner, and their write-up months later in a final statement, when all findings have been integrated with a much larger investigative process. And, above all, reflected upon.

Perhaps today, perhaps next week we’ll get more reports, both in the mainstreams and in the science journals which will help us confirm or deny this potentially exciting discovery. But when it comes we will still ask the following questions

1 Is there any possibility, however small, that DiMethyl Sulphide can be produced by non-biological processes?

2 How easy is it to distinguish the spectroscopic signature of DiMethyl Sulphide from other molecules?

3 Are there other molecules which indicate the presence of life, and if so, have they been detected on K2-18-b?

4 Are there other factors(the presence of noxious compounds, extremes of temperature or radiation, for example, which make life impossible, despite these hopeful findings.

We await today’s news with anticipation.

[1]https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/webb-studies-planet-k2-18-b-again-to-confirm-presence-of-gas-only-produced-by-life/ar-AA1nGfUo

[2]https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/no-the-james-webb-space-telescope-hasnt-found-life-out-there-at-least-not-yet/

#dimethyl sulphide #ocean planet #james webb telescope #exobiology #alien #astronomy #spectroscopy

Volcanoes and Viruses-two deadly warnings of trouble to come

The slew of tv documentaries and news stories about the recent discoveries in the Roman town of Pompeii, destroyed by a cataclysmic eruption of nearby Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, certainly afford material for reflection. [1] Here was a thriving town, blotted out in a single day. Yet this was a small eruption. Far greater damage was done to the Roman Empire by the titanic eruptions in the age of the Emperor Justinian in 536 AD. [2] The resulting world-wide winter produced cataclysmic hunger, which in turn weakened the resistance to the bubonic plague epidemic which ravaged the Empire in the following decade. It is easy to think that we moderns, with all our advanced technologies are far superior to those old Romans, and thereby conclude “it won’t happen to us”. Don’t be so sure, at least until you have looked at this piece from Nature Briefings The Next Big Eruption will come. And, like the inhabitants of Ancient Rome, it looks as if we are woefully unprepared:

Tamsin Mather’s book Adventures in Volcanoland takes readers on a journey to some of the world’s most notorious and active volcanoes — and reminds us that the next volcanic catastrophe is inevitable. Yet global preparedness for volcanic eruptions is severely lacking, says fellow volcanologist and reviewer Heather Handley. There is no international treaty organization for volcanic hazards and no global coordination on issuing comprehensive warnings of risks of eruptions, she says. Mather’s book “reminds us that we should all keep careful watch on the world’s volcanoes”.Nature | 7 min read

And where will it happen? We’ve linked to this handy guide to the top five or so candidates, which, if they blew, could easily plunge us all into an economy-collapsing winter.[3] They include Popocatapetl, Mount Fuji and Mount Ranier. But don’t forget the highly active caldera of magma which sits under Naples, and includes Vesuvius itself. Are you sure it won’t happen?

As Justinian and his subjects found, deadly plagues soon follow the societal collapse produced by a giant volcanic event. Of course, these plagues can happen anyway without help from under the ground. Proof of how close this might be comes with alarming news that bird flu viruses have now jumped the species barrier into mammals. Which means they could spread rapidly among humans any time soon. The potential consequences will be far, far graver than the recent Covid-19 outbreak, which is already passing into memory. Nature Briefings takes up the story

“In my flu career, we have not seen a virus that expands its host range quite like this,” says virologist Troy Sutton about H5N1, an avian influenza virus that has rapidly infiltrated species well beyond birds. While most mammal infections were probably caused by contact with an infected bird, there’s evidence that the virus has now evolved to spread directly between some species, such as sea lions. Spreading in more species gives H5N1 opportunities to further adapt to mammals, including humans. So far, the virus doesn’t show signs of being able to cause a pandemic, Sutton says. “If we don’t give it the panic but we give it the respect and due diligence, I believe we can manage it,” adds Rick Bright, chief executive of a public health consultancy.The New York Times | 10 min read

One thing you won’t get at LSS is frivolous celebrity gossip nor trivial items about the doings of footballers, actors and minor royals. Instead, we offer timely and thoughtful warnings about the real issues which confront us. How you respond to them, gentle readers, is up to you.

[1]https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68777741

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536

[3]https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-most-dangerous-volcanoes-in-the-world.html

[4]https://nhess.copernicus.org/preprints/nhess-2020-51/nhess-2020-51.pdf#:~:text=The%20Naples%20%28Southern%20Italy%29%20area%20has%20the%20highest,within%20twenty%20kilometres%20from%20a%20possible%20eruptive%20vent.

#volcano #caldera #volcanic winter #ad536 #pandemic #plague