We’ll say it controversially, but we think that nostalgia-that unquenchable longing for a former Golden Age-can be a drug as dangerous as heroin or alcohol. We have sat with grown men, once successful businessmen in their day, who pined: “if only we could get back to…….” To what exactly? Their own former self, now lost in a sea of beer and responsibilities? Or the State of the Nation then, before all these bloody people arrived, and they built a housing estate next to the Dog and Duck?

Just as pornography is in error for obviating the human relationships that surround sex, so nostalgia ignores an obvious truth. Whether History is made by economic forces or Great Men, these forces are multiple, confluent and in flux. Sometimes a particular coincidence at one place, at one time, may allow us some security and welfare for a while. The error is to mistake that moment for permanence, a Golden Age. If things at that time were so good, they would have surely lasted. They didn’t-so somewhere must have been foundations of sand.

Nostalgia is dangerous for individuals and nations. Charles Dickens gave us Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, endlessly mourning her lost wedding day. The Russian nation, or many of them, long for the lost dominion of the Soviet Empire. They forget the price in blood and hunger and terror that was paid to construct it. But other peoples remembered. They are teaching their former masters that lesson in price now.

Gently but inexorably, it will be necessary to prise nostalgics from their addiction, much as we do with smokers or gamblers. For us one of the most hopeful campaigns was Clinton‘s of 1992 with its campaign song, Fleetwood Mac‘s Don’t stop thinking about Tomorrow.[1] Even if the past was better, it’s gone, and the future is real and here, it said. Or are we now being nostalgic in turn?

[1] https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=fleetwood+mac

#ussr #russia #ukraine #queen elizabeth 11 #great expectations #nostalgia #empire

stories that caught our notice

AI designs proteins Progress in biochemistry means progress in so many fields-medicine, agriculture, forensic science……now mix it with progress in computing sciences, and you’ve got a quantum leap. So we had to lead with this story from Nature: AI dreams up revolutionary new proteins and leave the explanations to them. The accompanying graphics are well worth a click on their own.

Huge advances in artificial intelligence (AI) mean that researchers can design completely original proteins in seconds instead of months. “The methods are already really powerful. They’re going to get more powerful,” says biochemist David Baker, who led the team that developed the process. “The question is what problems are you going to solve with them.” One application could be speeding up the creation of treatments made from these novel proteins. The first such medicine, a COVID-19 vaccine, was authorized in South Korea in June — but it took years to perfect. Nature | 8 min read

Lost in translation One of the greatest headaches for translators is when they have to convey something incredibly specific (like Yorkshire Pudding)* for the benefit of readers who have no idea at all what it might be. Here’s a wry piece from the Conversation which tells of the difficulties of translating nineteenth century English author Jane Austen for the benefit of a 20th century Chinese readership.

*_{we saw a translator try this once in a Spanish version of “Crete” by Anthony Beevor}

https://theconversation.com/how-jane-austens-early-chinese-translators-were-stumped-by-the-oddities-of-19th-century-british-cuisine-190200?

Things can only get better-or can they? Any exposure to modern media, or even a scan of this very blog, will convince most reasonable people that, not only are things very bad indeed, but they could get very much worse! Well, we don’t want you all to become complacent. Time for a contrary view, and who better than one Derek Thompson whose sunny views were carried recently by The Atlantic.

https://apple.news/ATrLMUiaIQwe8s6GbfIrIcw

_{Mr Peter Seymour has provided us with this link via Apple News}

No more levelling up Alright it’s a bit Anglocentric. But some writers explain things so clearly that their words are a model of prose. Here Larry Elliott of the Guardian explains how the new Truss government has made London and its banking sector the centre of our national hope once more. Which reverses the ideas of Boris Johnson and his levelling up agenda, which was designed to spread wealth “up north.” Plus ca change as President Macron would say:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/16/liz-truss-bankers-bonuses-labour-champagne

Hats off to India Just as the new nation finally overtakes its former Imperial masters, their cultural pride may be fully augmented by this heartwarming story from the BBC. Eight cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) have arrived from Africa ready for release into Gwalior National Park. Yes, the fast cats were once native to this land. History buffs will recall how Indian monarchs would train them as hunting animals, but they had declined to extinction by 1952. Now they’re back, faster than ever and ready to earn their keep with any number of tourist dollars, euros and yen of all sorts. Maybe not so many pounds sterling though!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-62899981

#AI #protein #folding #bill gates ##cheetah #linguistics #britain #india

One of the worst memories of being young is of going back to school in the autumn. The sadness made all the more acute by the recollection of the recent golden hours of summer liberty- so close, and now so cruelly snatched! A mass of unwanted homework, fellow pupils and teachers descended on one, and the long hours of drudgery began again. Mathematics. French. Physics. Grammar. English. Which of course included poetry, which the more sadistic teachers would use as a gleeful token of one’s subjection by choosing ones with autumnal themes and tropes. As if autumn (“fall” if you’re reading this in America) wasn’t bad enough already without the likes of Keats, Shakespeare, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robert Frost and a whole host of others expounding at length on falling leaves, mists, life’s passing, forests, and anything else that caught their eye as they gazed vacantly from their bedroom windows in West Hampstead, West Bromwich, East LA, or wherever.

Fortunately, childhood is something you grow out of, and you are free again to spend your leisure time as you choose. By going down the pub for example. Or in our case, gentle readers, the Cocktail Bar. And suddenly autumn can be a pleasure again. Especially if you choose from the rather extensive list of really juicy cocktails which our researchers (give ’em another dollar-ed) have lined up for you.

For they have unearthed a rather delightful site called She Keeps a Lovely Home, where a lady named Genevieve waxes lyrical about such delights as the Constant Comment Hot Toddy, The white Pumpkin, The Morticia Adams and lots more. So, as the nights draw in and the frost starts to sparkle on your lawn and car windows, why not let these expert mixologists guide you to a Friday night of autumnal delight, and forget the miseries of a wasted youth?

http://www.shekeepsalovelyhome.com/10-autumn-cocktails/?

#autumn #fall #cocktails

One thing we’ve learned in the last hundred years is that the Planet Earth isn’t all that big really. Especially with all these people now living on it, all of them wanting new homes, cars, fridges and clothes. Which means its resources of things like water, clean air, minerals and all the other things which those people need are truly, terrifyingly finite. It’s time to make a serious, rational estimate of how much there is left, and how long it will last.

Nature explains how a multidisciplinary team called the Earth Commission are doing just that.[1] Who they are and how they’re doing it you will find by clicking our link below. Their own summary is pretty good though

Researchers must help to define science-based targets for water, nutrients, carbon emissions and more to avoid cascading effects and stave off tipping points in Earth’s systems.

About time too, we say. Wise parents send teenagers off to their first summer camp with a limited budget; they soon learn how long money lasts. We have to do the same with things like fish stocks. river systems and forests. (Could someone quickly send Bolsonaro on a summer camp, please?) What these scientists are really saying is that we need planetary budgets: not monetary, but rather based on resources. Which in turn raises an intriguing thought: would not a world budget work better if there were a world government to run it?

PS- Do click on the link- the picture for the article is truly nauseating

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02894-3?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=55a5a1c7f7-briefi

#resources #environment #ecology #earth #bolsonaro # finite #conservation

Recent advances by Ukrainian forces on the Kharkiv front spell one barrowful of trouble for Vladimir Vladimirovitch Putin. [1] [2]. Trouble; but not yet terminal, as he still has cards to play. These could be economic, or nuclear. But there is one remaining conventional military option, sitting right on Ukraine’s border, which could still be deployed. It is Belarus and its lifelong dictator Alexander Lukashenko.

On the face of it, this option must look tempting to Putin and his advisers. Lukashenko owes them his position, and thereby a favour. Both share a common hatred of freedom and democracy. Ukrainian forces, heavily committed towards Kherson and the Eastern fronts would be incredibly vulnerable to a stab in the back. Belarussian forces could sweep across the lightly defended plains to be in Kiev in a week. War over.

But think again from the point of view of Lukashenko’s self-interest. Firstly: if he gave the order, how much of his army would obey? He’s not the most popular of men. Secondly: how many Belarussians would risk their lives for Vladimir Putin? And if Putin triumphs, what then? Lukashenko becomes one more provincial governor, just another subordinate in Putin’s power structure. And we all know what happens to them when they displease the Boss, or some more favoured member of the Court takes a fancy to their little fief. The current fashion is to fall out of a window, or a mysterious poisoning (often extended to wives and children). But as Putin treads ever more faithfully in the footsteps of Josef Stalin, how long before it’s a long slow death in Siberia, or a short, agonising one in the Lubyanka?

A victory for Ukraine would leave Belarus largely untouched, ready to integrate at its own pace into structures such as the EU and NATO, if it chose to do so. It would certainly take a generation or so. Meanwhile a general rising tide of prosperity which that victory would bring, will guarantee rising living standards and political stability to all nations in that region. Lukashenko must be an intelligent man, or he could not have lasted so long. Time for him to consider the old maxim:” “be careful what you wish for.”

[1]https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/ukraine-victory-russia-putin/671405/?utm_source=apple_news

[2] https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/09/putin-plays-the-escalation-game/

#lukashenko #putin #belarus #ukraine #russia #war #stalin

some things we noticed this week which may be significant

Fusion, fusion We’ve said it before here, but one sure way out of our current energy problems will be the ability to harness the power of nuclear fusion; that bringing together of hydrogen atoms to make them into helium, thus replicating the processes of the Sun. Progress has been indifferent for many decades but two recent developments suggest that things may be looking up

First Anthony Cuthbertson for the Irish Independent showcases a South Korean team who have achieved 30 seconds’ run time at temperatures far hotter than the Sun. No one’s quite got this far before.

https://www.independent.ie/world-news/nuclear-fusion-breakthrough-as-reactor-runs-seven-times-hotter-than-the-sun-for-30-seconds-41972034.html

In research, trying to do things a bit differently sometimes helps. Up to now much fusion research has centred on tokamaks. Now team at Germany’s prestigious Max Planck Institute is trying out something called a “stellarator.” It’s early days yet, but this Insitute’s track record on anything is truly formidable. One to watch:

_{We thank Mr Gary Herbert for this lead}

https://www.science.org/content/article/twisty-device-explores-alternative-path-fusion

More wrangling over genes We are at LSS are always suspicious about a single genetic explanation for anything, from homosexuality to the disappearance of Neanderthal Persons in the late Paleolithic. Yet genes must do something, or why else would we have them? Which is why it’s worth a good look at this one from Nature, which puts down our own (self-proclaimed) superiority to a gene called TKTL-1

Researchers have pinpointed a fateful genetic mutation that might have contributed to a cognitive advantage for modern humans over Neanderthals. Tests in the laboratory suggest that a single change in the gene TKTL1 ultimately causes the brain to develop more neurons. The Neanderthal version of TKTL1 still exists in some modern humans, although it’s very rare and it’s unknown whether it causes any disease or cognitive differences.Nature | 4 min read
Reference: Science paper

Looking for America Given that the two American continents are so very big, it always seemed odd to us that everybody missed them before Colombus. Turns out they didn’t-at least seven other lots got there before the intrepid Italian. None of it could have been plain sailing, but we are in particular awe of the Polynesians who crossed the truly vast Pacific in tiny canoes. Nicolas Longrich expounds for the Conversation:

https://theconversation.com/seven-times-people-discovered-the-americas-and-how-they-got-there-188908?utm_me

Time for a cat app Everyone thinks they know how to communicate with a feline friend. But can IT help clarify the conversations? Claire Cohen checks out the pros and cons of the latest apps which may help humans and cats understand each other more clearly. We don’t think there’s much to know beyond “I WANT MY DINNER” and “LET ME IN/OUT.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/10/cat-miaow-app-translate-feline-pet

May you and all your pets of whatever species have a good weekend

#nuclear fusion #max planck institute #tktl-1 #neanderthal #settlement of America #cats

Out of respect to our British readers, there will be no Friday Night Cocktails this week due to the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on Wednesday.

We would like to thank readers in all countries for the condolences which your leaders have sent to our Government and Nation.

LSS will resume tomorrow with Weekly Round Up.

We’re fond here of trying to trace back to who gave us the first warning of our impending ecological catastrophe. Was it Creedence Clearwater Revival? Joni Mitchell? No, it was long, long before. It was Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 -1834) whose Rime of the Ancient Mariner represents, for us, the first heavee-message eco bit of art; in the western canon at least.

Coleridge was a great poet and author, and a personal disaster with private griefs such as a failed marriage, a major league opiate addiction and endless financial troubles. Yet he’s still important as a founding father of the new Romantic movement of the late eighteenth century. A breath of fresh air in science art and philosophy, it encompassed such luminaries as Wordsworth, Goethe, Beethoven, and David among many others. They disagreed on many things-but all were firm in their admiration for Nature. It was Coleridge who first warned of the terrible dangers of those who wantonly destroy it.

Nature appears in the poem in the shape of a beautiful albatross, who leads a group of sailors out of an Antarctic ice field,and accompanies their ship as guide and mentor. Then, just because he can, the ancient mariner blows it away with one bolt from his crossbow. The rest of the poem relates the troubles which befall the crew as the Powers That Be take vengeance for this swinish act. We won’t spoil it for you, but mass death and anguished remorse are always something to look forward to, particularly if they happen to someone else.

There’s a message here for eco campaigners too: the fickleness of public opinion, as represented by the other crew members. At first they berate him (ah, wretch, they said, the bird to slay/that made the breeze to blow), then change their minds (then all averred I had killed the bird/that brought the fog and mist). Their final opinions, when they realised what he had brought upon them by his act of gratuitous ecocide, we shall leave you to find for yourself, gentle reader [1].

As we write, the wanton destruction continues apace. Will Bolsonaro ever be like the Ancient Mariner, condemned to endlessly repent his actions in the Amazon? Will big oil ever be brought to account for all the heatwaves, fires and floods they have visited on us all? Coleridge longed for Divine justice in the world. What will happen to us if his wish comes true?[2]

[1]https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43997/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner-text-of-1834#:~:text=The%20Rime%20of%20the%20Ancient%20Mariner%20%28text

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

#ecocide #climate change #global warming #samuel taylor coleridge #ancient mariner #romantic movement

The biggest division in the living world is between procaryotes-those tiny, simple celled creatures that include things like bacteria-and the eucaryotes, with larger far more complicated cells. And this includes you, gentle reader, for your cells have a marvellous set of apps like an enclosed nucleus, mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum and a host of other bright shiny things. Which make the poor old bacterial, with its free-floating DNA look like one of those early mobile phones we had back in 1998.

Except of course, the bacterial design is incredibly successful. It probably began 3.5 billion years ago has survived ever since and in terms of biomass, habitat niches and diversity, far outstrips its haughty, but relatively rare, eucaryote rivals. For every blue whale there are billions and billions and billions of bacteria. So why did eucaryotes evolve at all, and when?

Now some really exciting research among microfossils in the 1.9 billion year old Gunflint Chert formations of Canada may give some clues[1] Researchers have found a whole range of fossils that are procaryote in size but begin to exhibit the range and functions we’d normally expect from eucaryotes. It’s as if some transition was going on. And why? Researchers speculate it may have been driven by environmental stresses such as early plate tectonics. But we urge you to read the article by David Bresson of Forbes for yourself. It’s got great pictures, and a reference to the original paper if you really want to wade in deep.

And our takeaway? Up to now, paleontology has been dominated by big fossils you can see, like bits of dinosaurs. Maybe it’s time for more spend on microfossils, like bacteria, pollen grains, chemical residue traces and so on. They might tell us an awful lot more than we know now

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbressan/2022/09/05/discovery-of-new-types-of-microfossils-may-show-when-complex-cells-evolved/?sh=7f5805f2100c

#evolution #procaryotes #eucaryotes #precambrian

stories that caught our eye

Neanderthals Live on Life is ironic. Neanderthals went extinct 40 000 years ago. Yet there are so many Homo sapiens now who carry small amounts of Neanderthal DNA that it all adds up to more Neanderthal stuff than when they were in their Ice Age pomp. At least according to this excellent article by Peter Kjaergaard and his colleagues for The Conversation. We also liked their diagram that tries to make sense of the incredibly complicated gene flows during the last part of human evolution, when so many lines were interbreeding with each other. To the utter inconvenience of modern scientists, who must try to make sense of it all

https://theconversation.com/neanderthals-died-out-40-000-years-ago-but-there-has-never-been-more-of-their-dna-on-earth-189021?utm_medium=emai

James Webb makes you proud to be educated While the mass of humanity pass their time in pub brawls, burning witches, engaging in theological controversies, watching Fox News and other activities of that sort, it’s heartening to see what the more enlightened sections of our species get up to. Now the James Webb telescope is sending us pictures of actual, real planets orbiting round other stars. And this is just the start. All we can say is “watch this space” Nature Briefings, Webb wows with first exoplanet image

At first glance, it doesn’t look like much: just a handful of bright pixels. But the James Webb Space Telescope’s first image of an exoplanet demonstrates the observatory’s infrared prowess. Exoplanets are difficult to image directly because they are often lost in the glare of the star around which they orbit. Observing in infrared wavelengths, as Webb does, helps boost the contrast between star and planet. “It gives us wavelengths we’ve never seen planets at before,” says astronomer Beth Biller.Nature | 5 min read
Reference: arXiv preprint

Meat the counter-intuitive Before it becomes accepted wisdom that we’ll have to give up meat to save the planet, at least read this counter-intuitive argument from Thomasina Miers in The Guardian. We know farmers with land that really isn’t suitable for arable, but can produce good food by way of pasture. So maybe the answer is-keep it, but in much smaller amounts?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/01/eating-meat-planet-george-monbiot-regenerative-grazing

World Warms, Pakistan drowns The tragic floods in Pakistan are a case study in the devastation caused by global warming. It will take immense sums to repair the damage. Could Pakistan’s Government recoup some of it by claiming damages against the energy companies who have caused it and those politicians, journalists, think tanks and so many others who worked so assiduously to deny there was ever a problem at all?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62758811

Big Yellow Taxi-another canary in the mine We have alluded more than once to how the old Creedence Clearwater Revival song Bad moon rising gave early warnings of impending ecological catastrophe. Bought on by human greed, venality and concupiscence of course! Around that time Canadian singer Joni Mitchell wrote a deliciously ironic song, as only a woman could, called Big Yellow Taxi which said it all in one line “they paved paradise, out up a parking lot” We” end hoping you can play this link

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=significance+of+yellow+taxi&docid=607987427628379943&mid=1527598B80EFB53ECF8E1527598B80EFB53ECF8E&view=

#ecocide #global warming #climate change #NASA #space #dna #neanderthals #joni michell