Immigration! That word! We said it! Now wait for the neuralgic responses to come rolling in. For they will, they surely will. It’s like mentioning sex in a deeply Christian family around the year 1955. And like sex, it won’t go away even if everyone stops talking about it.

We’ve published a number of blogs on the matter here, even a little mini-series last year. The other day, someone in the office suggested they add up to our very own LSS Theory of Immigration. Sounds a bit portentous, doesn’t it? Anyway it goes something like this: Immigration is caused by people moving from nasty places (poverty, wars, oppression) to nicer places (money). It’s been going on for a very, very long time. It is a typical example of a free market brokering supply and demand, in this case labour. Er…that’s it.

It is in this light that the recent UK Government initiative on channel crossings ought to be considered. [1]Will it work? Only time will tell. In the meantime, opponents and supporters of the scheme should ask and answer these questions:

1 Many people are deeply frightened by these arrivals. These fears are particularly concentrated in certain social layers. If the crossings are not stopped, how will these fears be allayed?

2 Many illegal immigrants are finding work rather easily. Shall people and companies who employ them be hunted down and prosecuted?

3 During the US experiment with prohibition, every attempt to prescribe the flow of illegal alcohol failed as did every get-tough initiative, because the demand for booze was so great. Do you really think this will not happen again?

4 The War on Drugs-see prohibition above

5 Why does the UK receive such  high numbers of immigration from countries like Albania and Syria and such low numbers from places like Switzerland and Denmark?

6 How could rich countries promote programmes of economic improvement to cut the flows of migrants?

If our soi-disant Theory of Immigration is correct, the UK Government’s new initiative will fail. Leaving even more domestic anger, drownings and disillusion. Only time will tell.

[1]https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64883462

#immigration #sex #suella braverman #english channel #migrants #emigration #united nations

We at LSS are nothing of not optimistic, and always ready to try new ideas when a big problem is looming down on us. That’s why we’ve always nurtured a soft spot for bacteriophages as one extra approach to the antibiotics resistance crisis. Well, there’s some good news. Professor Martha Clokie is to head up the first bacteriophage library at the University of Leicester in the UK. She’s the right person, having been a phage expert for years. Phages are not the whole answer, but they have to be part of it. and a little lateral thinking has been long overdue.

We don’t want to get all carried away, but there are signs that the antibiotics problem is starting to be addressed seriously, in many ways. Lets give two and a half cheers and hope it long continues.

Hannah Devlin has an excellent summary in the Guardian [1]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/mar/03/increase-use-of-phages-to-combat-antibiotic-resistance-urges-uk-scientist

#antibiotic resistance #pandemic #bacteriophage #university of Leicester #medicine

Every so often we still come across the odd person who asseverates; “climate change isn’t real, anyway it’s not caused by humans, and anyway. it’s all a Big Communist Conspiracy designed to stop the people who fund our think tank from getting rich!” So, just in case you are passing through the Dog and Duck, or getting your car mended and you meet someone like that, we thought you might like to make use of a website designed to help you. You won’t get less Communist than the Royal Society (it was around when Karl Marx’s great grandparents were a twinkle in their fathers’ eyes) or more scientifically astute. It will even let you ask the following questions

1 a)What was the concentration of CO₂ in parts per million in the atmosphere before the nineteenth century? b)What was it in 1959? c) And what was it in 2019

answers a) it was 260- 280 ppm for the previous 10 000 years It never rose above 300ppm for the whole of the ice ages, a period of over a million years b 316ppm c 411 ppm

2 Name three gases which trap heat and by how much has their level risen since pre industrial times

answers: Carbon dioxide 40% Methane 150% Nitrous oxide 20%

3 How do you explain the changing ratio of C¹⁴ to C¹² in atmospheric gases?

answer: it comes from fossil fuels

4 By how much has the temperature risen since 1900. Can this be explained by natural variation?

answer 1^OC No, it can’t

5 Is water vapour a driver or an amplifier of climate change?

answer: amplifier

There’s plenty more here [1] if you are interested But these questions should produce interesting answers. And remember the old saying: extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Let them come up with that.

https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/climate-change-evidence-causes/basics-of-climate-change/

#climate change #global warming #royal society #evidence #carbon dioxide

About ten years ago one George Gideon Oliver Osborne (Norland Place, Colet Court, St Pauls, Magdalen Oxford), who happened to be passing through the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer, graciously shared his thoughts on those in receipts of state assistance. He characterised them as “sleeping off a life on benefits” while their hard working neighbours set off for a day of hard work. Given that Gideon (son of Baronet Sir Peter Osborne) could have had only limited experience of the sort of estates where such people lived, we wondered even then how he knew. Or how his nominal boss David Cameron (Heatherdown, Eton, Brasenose Oxford), who was enjoying a few years in occupancy of the post of Prime Minister), could have known much either, or met someone like Jake, who might have enlightened them.

Jake, the subject of this story by Amy Taylor in the Guardian tried to do all the right things. [1] He was honest and self employed (a wet dream for certain right-wing theorists) paying his taxes and even tried to own his own home via a mortgage. Tried. For Jake committed the cardinal sin in contemporary Britain. He was unlucky. He got a hernia. You can read the full heart-breaking details via the link. But the essence was that he couldn’t work, fell into our labyrinthine benefits system which is designed above all to starve all claimants except old age pensioners, of every possible penny it can. And from there his life has quite quickly spiralled out of control.

Gideon and his boss rode into town on a tide of enthusiasm whipped up by a media determined to demonise all in need of help-with their health, with their income, with their homes, what-have you) as feckless scroungers determined to milk the taxpayer and so dragging down our economy that we would be pauperised by 2023. (we are, aren’t we?-ed) Yet their relentless ethos of suspicion, blockage and grudge has transformed Jake from a contributing economic unit into a permanent pauper. With a little more help, Jake might have made it through. He probably won’t, now. And there are hundreds of thousands like him.

Before some readers accuse us of gullibility, naivety and being soft, we beg them to consider this null hypothesis. It pays to treat people as members of society, not entries on a spreadsheet. And so to help is actually an investment for us all.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/06/england-2023-welfare-system-debt-state-support

#universal credit #george osborne #davis cameron #poverty #inequality #benefits

A short while ago we published a little piece on Elizabeth Blackwell (LSS 28.2 23) in which we opined:

she was a product of that remarkable culture of Protestant Christianity that rooted in New England in the seventeenth century. ……….. all were united in their aspiring, hopeful lives, which prized Duty way above individual greed.

Hang on, that doesn’t sound too much like those gun-totin’, Trump-votin’ good ol’ boys from the Deep South we know and love so much today, does it? To quote John Blake of CNN [1]

Today White evangelical Christians are associated, rightly or wrongly, with a conservative set of theological and political stances. Those include opposition to abortion, being the most enthusiastic supporters of a brand of Christian nationalism that seeks to turn the US into a White Christian nation, and championing a former president who boasted about sexually assaulting women.

Not exactly a wholesome bunch. The biblical injunction “for there is no partiality with God” (Romans 2.11) seems to have passed them by. So has “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3.28) And all that tricky stuff about the meek from the Sermon on the Mount! But we won’t go on, lest we start sounding like an overexcited Fox News anchorman.

But as John observes:

Yet there were periods in the 19th and early 20th century when White evangelical leaders led campaigns against slavery, fought for women’s rights and became leaders in an array of social justice reform movements.

So, how did this essentially progressive, hopeful movement get hi jacked and how was it turned into a reliable voting machine for Donald Trump and some other equally unsavoury characters? One clue lies in the life of Jimmy Carter, surely one of the most honest and upright men who has ever held the office of President of the United States. We’ll let John tell his story, he does things much better than we ever could; do please click, because it’s a good one.

And our thoughts? There’s a strange strand in the human psyche where people like to portray themselves to themselves as gallant underdogs, full of homely virtues like equality, humour and matey-ness, struggling against corrupt elites. Until our underdogs find another group below them. A group who must thereby be oppressed, lest they get out and spoil the comfortable little hierarchies of unreason. The Boers of South Africa were like it with anyone who had a browner complexion. The Australians with the Aborigines. And always, always, the old Slavocracy of the southern United States, ever ready to destroy the Constitution in abeyance to their deepest hatred. Jesus was just another way to do it.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/05/us/jimmy-carter-evangelicals-blake-cec/index.html

#jimmy carter #southern baptists #reform #racism #christianity

Stories that caught our eye

CRISPR marches on    We try to bring you as much as we can of really -cutting edge stuff. And nothing is more so than CRISPR, which we’ve showcased here for some time  Here’s another update from Nature Briefings Genome Editing Beyond CRISPR babies

The Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing kicks off in London on Monday. The last summit, in 2018, convened on the day after biophysicist He Jiankui announced that he had edited the genomes of three embryos, resulting in the birth of the ‘CRISPR babies’ — and ultimately landing him in prison for three years. Researchers aren’t expecting similar revelations to shake this year’s proceedings, as there is broad consensus in the field that the technology is not ready for use in human embryos. Other ethical quandaries, such as how genome-editing therapies — the first of which could be approved later this year — could be made broadly accessible, will be up for discussion.Nature | 5 min read

Don’t give up on the rainforests You might think that Destructors are having it their own way. Not so, at least not entirely, as this heartening news from Indonesia shows Thanks to P Seymour

https://www.wsj.com/articles/indonesia-shows-its-possible-to-tame-rainforest-destruction-f6261f1

Devonian was best   We’ve always had a weakness for the word Devonian. Not only because it was generally warm and sunny, and a crucial turning point in the evolution of life, but also because it evokes a nice scenic coastline, cream teas, peaceful cows and fine beaches. The Conversation riffs on the first part, anyway

https://theconversation.com/how-fish-evolved-to-walk-and-in-one-case-turned-into-humans-200328?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conve

Robbie was the best Of what, or who? Well, we can’t answer that without legal representation, so we’ll leave you to guess. But evidence for our theory appears in this early solo effort. Take that, ye detractors!

ttps://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=robbie+williams+angels&docid=608015963554786440&mid=AEBC104FD12D1115F084AEBC104FD12D1115F084&view=det

#CRISPR #devonian #climate change #deforestation #indonesia #robbie williams

The experience of dining recently with some business acquaintances in a small village to the north of London prompted an age-old question: what is the best drink to partner a curry? For it may still surprise certain overseas readers that curry is now our number one dish on this island, ahead of such supposed staples as fish and chips and roast beef.  How this came about is explained in this delightful video from the BBC

Curry: A history of one of Britain’s national dishes – BBC Ideas

Discussions were wide ranging. All agreed on one thing: even the mildest Asian dishes like Korma do not sit well with wines, which were developed to accompany European dishes. And as you go up the scale, challenging your mates to try something hotter and ever hotter, the need to slake an over stretched palate becomes ever more acute. There is water of course. And we believe you should have plenty of it, well-iced, always close at hand on these occasions.

But hey, you can’t have a really good night out inn a curry house with just water! The occasion would lack that certain je ne sais quoi, as they used to say in old Kahnpoor. So, with the benefits of hundreds of years of collective curry achievement under their belts (and what wide belts some of them now are!) we came up with this list of suggestions

Cobra Lager  It not only feels Indian, with a name straight out of the pages of Rudyard Kipling, but is the standard request as it comes in a big cold, thirst-quenching bottle which somehow stands naturally among all those funny spice trays and poppadoms you see at the beginning of the evening, when you can still remember what you’re doing. At 4.5% it’s not too deadly, making it our beer of choice, even though much of it now seems to come from Burton-on Trent

Cobra Beer – Wikipedia

Kingfisher   1857 was a turning point in Indian history for all sorts of reasons. Not least for seeing the invention of Kingfisher, which has delighted the tastebuds of thirsty Indians and Brits ever since. We always liked it because when we lived in Kingston Upon Thames our local curry house (not the posh one) served it on tap, a service amiably extended to take away patrons with a few minutes to kill while the order was prepared, Happy memories!

Kingfisher (beer) – Wikipedia

Singha  Not every curry comes from the Indian subcontinent. Thailand has a long and honourable tradition in this regard. Many a tourist has regaled us with stories of Bangkok in the 1990s and curry restaurants were often among their tales, though not always the most interesting of such. And the establishment of Thai curry here has brought in train Singha, which to us has a marvellously unique flavour of its own, quite different from the Indian ones we have mentioned, or Eurolagers for that matter.

Singha Beer | Our Brew

Well, there’s our little suggestion for tonight. Doubtless you will add to it, and if so-we’d love to here from you. In the meantime, have  a happy Friday night.

#india #bangladesh #curry #cobra #singha #kingfisher

Fans of the origin of life and all things evolutionary will recall the RNA World hypothesis. [1] Stated simply, it holds that the whole apparatus of DNA, tRNA, ribosomes mRNA and associated enzymes is just too complicated to have arisen at once. Information Theory alone would suggest an earlier, simpler stage, when something was taking bits of chemical out of the primordial soup and organising it into simple chains of amino acids. If only for something to do-there was no TV or internet back then.

Whatever it was must have been a simpler, no frills version of the ribosome, that little molecular engine that builds all the proteins we use to live. A hypothetical protoribosome, for want of a better word. But could such a thing have arisen itself from the primordial soup? Now two independent teams of scientists suggest the answer could be a qualified “yes”.[2] Nature Briefings has this summary and link, The molecule that kickstarted life

For more than 15 years, scientists have been on a quest: create a functional ‘protoribosome’, a reconstructed version of the protein-building machine that many think might have helped to kickstart life on Earth. The modern ribosome is a key ingredient of life as we know it because it translates genetic information into proteins. At its heart sits a small RNA pocket that some think might be closest to what the very first ribosome looked like. Now, there’s proof that some reconstructed protoribosome-like RNAs can link amino acids — the first step to making proteins. Some scientists say there are other ways for proteins to emerge, without a ribosome. But others are already thinking about repurposing these simple machines to manufacture new kinds of biomolecule.Nature | 12 min read

You can praise this on all kinds of levels; cutting edge intellectual research, awesome techniques and even the possibility of something useful in areas like research or medicine growing out of it. But for the romantic in us, it offers a possible glimpse into the origins of life in a dark sea as the asteroids still smashed down, long long ago.

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

[2]https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00574-4?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=22d7dd2757-briefing-dy-20230301&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-

Imagine if we had no female Doctors. Do you think we might be in a bad way? Well, the fact we have any at all is partly due to Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910) who was showing the boys that the Sisters could do it at a time when female suffrage was regarded as a quaint joke, and slavery was still widely practiced in the United States.

What’s remarkable about Elizabeth was her all-consuming energy. In the course of a long life her ferocious will was applied to most of the progressive Reform and Progressive causes of her day. Like Garrison, Stowe and many others, she was a product of that remarkable culture of Protestant Christianity that rooted in New England in the seventeenth century. It generated many offshoots and heterodox subsets-Blackwell was a doyenne of both Congregationalists and Unitarians at different times-but all were united in their aspiring, hopeful lives, which prized Duty way above individual greed.

The roll call of her achievements is too long for this tiny blog. First female medical graduate 1847 (hats off to Geneva College, NY for this one!) Founded New York Infirmary for women 1857. Deeply involved in medical work in Civil War 1961-1865 (she hated slavery) Flits across the pond to Britain where she founded the National Health Society in 1871. A prescient title indeed. Then came retirement, when most of might choose to spend our days in beer and skittles. But:

Her greatest period of reform activity was after her retirement from the medical profession, from 1880 to 1895. Blackwell was interested in a great number of reform movements – mainly moral reform, sexual purity, hygiene and medical education, but also preventive medicine, sanitation, eugenics, family planning, women’s rights, associationism, Christian socialism, medical ethics and antivivisection – none of which ever came to real fruition.^[6] She switched back and forth between many different reform organisations, trying to maintain a position of power in each. Blackwell had a lofty, elusive and ultimately unattainable goal: evangelical moral perfection. All of her reform work was along this thread. She even contributed heavily to the founding of two utopian communities: Starnthwaite and Hadleigh in the 1880s.^[6] [1]

She wasn’t right on everything (nor were Darwin and Einstein) and she quarrelled with some equally remarkable people including Florence Nightingale. Such are the occupational hazards of a life lived at the cutting edge. But, man or woman, before you sink into apathy and self satisfaction with your accomplishments, ask yourself: have I lived my lfe as well as this?

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

#women #feminism #medicine #protestant #new england #reform #progressive

It’s another day in the office here at LSS. And in between watching the trains coming and going from East Croydon Station, we thought we’d showcase a nice little article from the Daily Mail about a new test for the prostate cancer.[1] A new testing technology will massively improve screening for this disease, saving thousands of lives. And anyway, haven’t we always been big champions of preventive medicine here, or what?

And then we looked again and found the hidden message. Get these extracts

British medics have been working to evaluate the test, developed by Indian firm Datar Cancer Genetics.

Researchers in India collaborated with Imperial College and Guy’s Hospital in London on the study, which is published in the journal Cancer Medicine.

India? Collaborated? Were these words really used in the Daily Mail? Have they just confessed that working with other people across borders might actually produce some useful results? That Foreigners might know something we plucky British do not?

Unfortunately, it seems the answer is “yes.” Our second exhibit is this little piece from Nature [2] which looks at Covid-19 research back in 2020. The authors conclude, overwhelmingly:

Collaborations are essential — we need diverse teams to tackle global problems such as pandemics, and to help navigate social and geopolitical challenges. COVID-19 has provided a timely reminder that it can be done — and of the enormous rewards it can bring.

And what’s true for biomedical research is true for work in IT, astronomy. food sciences and every other discipline that works to ameliorate the lot of humankind. Thanks, Mail, you’ve proven the case. We’re better together.

[1]https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11793975/New-highly-accurate-blood-test-gives-hope-doctors-soon-able-screen-prostate-cancer.html

[2]https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01581-z

#prostate cancer #testing #preventive medicine