* 24 entries including: capitalism & socialism (series); viral universe (series); aluminum energy storage; underground predator plants | fake flowers; Trump arraigned again | Ukraine War status | Fukushima discharge; X-66 TBW demonstrator | ASRAAM SAM | hypersonic DART CMP; evolution & gut microbiome; Maui fires | Musk: no blocking | solar for everyone | US Navy fleet plans; mRNA vaccines against Ebola; Ohio Issue 1 continues | MAGA & Darwin | Russians under pressure; Africa & Putin; US buildup against China | AFU likes MASHA & THE BEAR; gene transfer in plants | Nadir impact crater; & war in the Black Sea.
* ALUMINUM ENERGY STORAGE: As discussed in an article from NEWATLAS.com ("Rechargeable Aluminum" by Loz Blain, 24 August 2022), a wide range of schemes is being considered for energy storage -- with bulk aluminum being considered as an unusual option. That's not meaning batteries with aluminum electrodes, though they do exist in the lab, but instead storing energy using an oxidation-deoxidation ("redox") chemical cycle.
Researchers at Switzerland's SPF Institute for Solar Technology, with funding from the EU's Horizon Europe program and the Swiss government, have initiated a research project named "Reveal", which involves nine different partners from seven European countries, to develop an energy storage system based on aluminum redox reactions.
According to a 2020 report from the SPF, a cubic meter (35.3 cubic feet) of aluminum can store about 23.5 megawatt-hours of energy -- about 50 times the energy density of a modern lithium-ion battery, in terms of volume. In terms of weight, aluminum has more like 30 times the density. That's somewhat misleading, in that the block has to be in small pieces to get the storage scheme to work, with the Reveal team talking about millimeter-sized pellets of aluminum, meaning a lower energy density by volume.
During the "charging process," excess renewable energy would be used to convert aluminum oxide or aluminum hydroxide, into elemental aluminum. This is an industrial electrolysis process, requiring temperatures around 800 degrees Celsius (1,472 degrees Fahrenheit) -- as well as a special inert electrode, to avoid the CO2 emissions that take place in normal aluminum smelting.
To "discharge" the aluminum, it's simply converted back again. This can be done at low temperatures, using aluminum-water reactions at less than 100C (212F), generating aluminum hydroxide and hydrogen gas -- with the gas fed into a PEM fuel cell stack for conversion to electricity. In other word, this is effectively a hydrogen storage scheme. The process and the fuel cell also generate heat, which can be scavenged to support district space heating or hot-water supply. All the raw materials of the process are relatively cheap and abundant, with the added benefits of being very simple to store and transport.
The researchers believe that the process can release 65% of the energy put into it in the first place. The aluminum pellets will spontaneously oxidize if exposed to air, but that only reduces the storage efficiency by about a percent. There's also a higher-temperature "discharge" process, running at over 200C (392F), which reacts the aluminum with steam to generate aluminum oxide, hydrogen, and much higher levels of heat -- but that's more relevant to industrial applications.
In the Reveal model, the charging process would be done at central smelting depots, with the "charged" aluminum trucked out in bulk to be "discharged" on-site at apartment buildings, industrial facilities, and even individual homes, since the equipment needed is relatively simple and, in principle, low-maintenance -- though it hasn't implemented as a commercial system yet. The "discharged" aluminum would be trucked back to the depots, starting the cycle over again.
It sounds like a long shot, but the SPF team says it should be able to store energy for 9 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), as opposed to 15 cents per kWh for battery arrays. It nonetheless remains a lab concept, being nowhere near ready for commercialization.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* VIRAL UNIVERSE (5): Viruses are generally seen as a threat, and with good reason. Compare their impact relative to warfare. The 20th century saw the most destructive combat in history, with from 100 million to 200 million people killed. The number killed by measles was somewhere in the same range; the number who died of influenza likely towards the top of it; and the number killed by smallpox -- from 300 million to 500 million -- well beyond it. That's why the eradication of smallpox from the wild, achieved in 1979 by a globally coordinated set of vaccination campaigns, was one of the all-time-great humanitarian triumphs.
Other eradications should eventually follow. Even without them, vaccination has led to a steep decline in viral deaths. Unfortunately, there are viruses for which vaccines do not exist, and emerging diseases -- like COVID-19 -- don't have vaccines at the outset. That means that protection against viruses, both through research and public-health policy.
The threat posed by viruses results in an indifference to and ignorance of their benefits. For a big example, the viruses most common in the human body are not those which infect human cells; instead, they are bacteriophages, found both internally and externally, parasitizing the bacteria that also grown inside and outside of us. Our permanent bacterial population is at least harmless, and at most essential to our health; if our gut bacteria population goes out of balance, it affects our digestion, and can even lead to malnutrition. The gut microbiome has also been linked, not always conclusively, to problems such as diabetes, cancer, and depression.
Phages appear to help regulate the bacterial populations in the microbiome -- limiting those that threaten to get out of control -- and more specifically to deal with "bad actors" that intrude into the gut microbiome. One well-known case is the bacterium Clostridium difficile, which causes chronic and potentially fatal dysentery. C. difficile is often treated with fecal transplants, to introduce a healthy gut microbiome into an unhealthy one -- and it seems the transplant will work better if the phage population in it is particularly diverse. However, nobody really has an understanding of the complicated microbiome ecology to know what's going on.
However, bacteriophages have used to treat bacterial infections since after the First World War, through the work of French microbiologist Felix d'Herelle. The Soviet Union became enthusiastic about bacteriophage therapy, and continued to work with it after the West obtained antibiotics and lost interest. Phage therapy is now being revived in the West, primarily to deal with nasty infections that resist antibiotic treatment. Researchers think phage therapy can be improved on -- one idea to modify the phage genome to make it more virulent, another being to alter them to evade anti-viral defenses of target bacteria. Phage therapy is far from being well established, but it has had some major successes in cases of particularly stubborn bacterial infections.
Researchers are also interested in modifying viruses to selectively attack cancer cells, to modify genomes, or to simulate pathogenic viruses as vaccines. The vaccine used to contain the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the past few years was made by engineering the Indiana vesiculovirus, which infects humans but cannot reproduce in them, so that it expresses a protein found on the surface of the Ebola virus. A number of COVID-19 vaccines are based on modifications of harmless viruses.
There is, however, also the possibility of modifying viruses to make them more lethal -- though to the extent it's done, nobody tells the world about it. There has been public fuss over what is called "gain of function" research, in which the action of viruses is enhanced to get a better understanding of them -- but on inspection, such experiments never turn out to be as controversial as they are made out to be. In reality, the promise of an improved understanding of the viral world is much more significant than the threat. [END OF SERIES]
START | PREV | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* PREDATOR PLANTS UNDERGROUND: As discussed in an article from CNN.com ("Carnivorous Plant That Traps Prey Underground Is The 1st Of Its Kind" by Katie Hunt, 1 July 2022), carnivorous plants have been discussed here in the past. Among them is the pitcher plant, which contains a little pool into which prey fall, drown, and are digested. It turns out that one species of pitcher plant, Nepenthes pudica, found in Borneo, is unusual in that it traps its prey underground.
The research lead, Martin Dancak of Palacky University Olomouc in the Czech Republic, said: "This species places its up to 11 centimeter [4.3-inch] pitchers underground, where they are formed in cavities or directly in the soil and trap animals living underground, usually ants, mites and beetles."
There are other carnivorous plants that are known to trap underground prey, but they all use other trapping mechanisms and, unlike N. pudica, can catch only very tiny organisms. As mentioned here in 2009, pitcher plants generally support elaborate micro-ecologies in their pitchers, and this species is no exception. Vaclav Cermak of Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic, said: "Interestingly, we found numerous organisms living inside the pitchers, including mosquito larvae, nematodes and a species of worm, which was also described as a new species."
The researchers stumbled on the discovery after they notice what looked like pitcher plants, but had no pitchers. When they dug up the pitchers, they thought they had been accidentally buried. The finding suggests that other surprises may be in store for field researchers in Indonesia.
* FAKE FLOWERS: As discussed in an article from SCIENTIFICAMERICAN.com ("This Flower Is Really a Fungus in Disguise" by Priyanka Runwal, 2 February 2021), during a trip to Guyana, botanist Kenneth Wurdack -- of the US Smithsonian Museum of Natural History -- noticed orange flowers on two species of yellow-eyed grasses of the genus Xyris that didn't seem quite right. He didn't think much of the matter at the time, but saw the same thing again on later trips, and got curious to investigate.
As it turned out, the "flowers" were not really flowers and were not components of the grasses. Instead, they were generated by a fungus -- named by Wurdack and his colleagues as Fusarium xyrophilum -- that infects a Xyris plant, sterilizes it to prevent it from blooming, and generates the fake blooms. Pollinators then spread fungal spores instead of plant pollen.
This is the only known case of a fungus fully mimicking a plant flower. There are some other fungal impostors, but they aren't as convincing. For instance, some rust fungi belonging to the order Pucciniales induce hosts to produce rosettes of leaves, not their own flowers, on which the fungus thrives, with the structure resembling yellow flowers. Another fungal species named Monilinia vaccinii-corymbosi, which infects the leaves of blueberry bushes, doesn't create fake flowers -- but the blighted leaves reflect UV light, emit a fermented tea odor similar to that of blueberry flowers and provide nectar, all of which could attract insects.
The researchers F. syrogphilum accordingly decided to probe more deeply into its fake flowers, curious about how they appeared in ultraviolet, and whether they induced the plant to generate odors pleasing to insects. Photos taken through an ultraviolet filter did indeed show the fake flowers reflected UV, and also identified ten chemical compounds that could possibly attract insects.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* THE WEEK THAT WAS: This last week, Donald Trump and 18 accomplices were arraigned in Atlanta GA on the latest set of charges, for trying to game the 2020 election. They all had mug shots taken, star accomplices including Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, John Eastman, Jeffrey Clarke, and Sidney Powell. This was Trump's fourth arraignment, tallying up a grand total of 91 felony counts. There was much amusement on X/Twitter:
Mark Hamill / @MarkHamill: May The Fourth Arrest Be With Him Mac McCullough / @SpitfireMarkIX: Sidney Powell -- COME ON DOWN! You're the next contestant on ... THE INDICTMENT IS RIGHT! The Wry Observer / @TockTick5167AD: Mugshots a-dropping of big sorry losers, Bails of six figures for voting abusers, Feds closing in on a big RICO ring, These are a few of my favorite things!
The Rodgers & Hammerstein reference was a nice touch. Anyway, the MAGA faithful are playing up Trump's mug shot as a badge of honor, saying indictments will ensure his re-election. Trump said: "Any time they file an indictment, we go way up in the polls."
It seems unlikely that Trump wins every time he loses, and it is nonsense to claim the indictments would drive people to vote for him: anybody who says that is guaranteed to vote for him no matter what. A Politico / IPSOS poll gave a more balanced read:
In an interview with MSNBC's Jen Psaki, New Hampshire's Republican Governor Chris Sununu says that the mug shot "doesn't change anything" with Trump's base. He commented: "It allows him to maintain his presence in the media, his image." Sununu argues that Trump's mug shot will, however, turn off independent voters. "Independents hate it. There's no way Donald Trump will win anything above 31% of the independents, which is why Republicans as a whole will get crushed if he's on [the ticket]."
There was the first Republican presidential debate this last week. Trump didn't attend, having to report to Georgia. It was the GOP rearranging the deck chairs on the TITANIC: "Apres Trump, la deluge."
There is a descending line from Ronald Reagan to Trump. Reagan was an honorable person who was given a mandate for an experiment on America. I don't think Reagan would have liked the way it turned out. It failed. The line ends with Trump.
* During this last week Yevgeny Prigozhin -- boss of the Russian Wagner mercenary group -- was killed along with nine others in the crash of a Wagner executive jet. Prigozhin had led a noisy but short-lived uprising against Moscow in June, and it is widely believed the plane was bombed or shot down under Vladimir Putin's orders. Nothing is really known for certain about the matter, except for the fact that the decline and fall of Prigozhin indicates deep fissures in Putin's rule.
In the meantime, Armed Forces Ukraine is making slow progress on the battlefield -- with much public comment on the "slow" and not much celebration on the "progress". Ukraine's Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, in an interview with the German newspaper BILD, counseled patience, saying the AFU counter-offensive is on track.
The head of the defense ministry stressed that the Russian occupiers had densely mined the territories and prepared for defense. Ukraine's partners are aware of the situation at the front and understand what is going on. Reznikov said:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
Everything is really going according to our plan. This plan was also discussed with our partners in advance. And everyone who is really involved in this process is aware of it. They know what the enemy's defenses are, what the security zones are, where the minefields are, where the tanks are surrounded, where the fortifications are.
END_QUOTE
Reznikov admitted that that Ukraine is making slower progress than expected, but explained that the AFU wants to protect the lives of its soldiers and preserve military equipment: "We are not going to send our soldiers to die in battle without any result. ... The counter-offensive is not a film. It is not a Hollywood blockbuster." For myself, I am patient. I suspect that when Russian resistance crumbles, it will do so dramatically. In addition, there appear to be some significant new weapons in the wings that should make a difference.
In other Ukraine War news, the Ukrainians released (dark) footage of a robot submarine, the "Marichka", about the size of the tank on a big tanker truck, and with a stated range of 1,000 kilometers (620 miles). It was said to be for reconnaissance, cargo transport, or attack missions -- it seems likely to be used for minelaying.
The Ukrainians tend to be quiet about new weapons, so there was some puzzlement on X/Twitter as to why the robot sub was being played up. One Ukrainian explained it easily: "To make the Russians shit their pants." Even if the Marichka isn't ready for service yet, it can still make the Russians jumpy. Incidentally, "Marichka" is a girl's name, applied to a manga-style combat mascot associated with the AFU Azov Brigade, underdressed in fatigues. One cartoon of Marichka had her walking with Joe Biden in Kyiv, both eating chocolate-chip ice-cream cones.
* In 2011, a nuclear reactor at Fukushima in Japan was severely damaged by an earthquake and accompanying tsunami, leading to a long-term radioactive cleanup operation. One consequence was that a million tonnes of radioactive water is now being dispersed into the sea.
The Chinese have objected loudly, with Japanese fishermen objecting as well. However, all radioactive isotopes have been filtered out of the water except for tritium AKA heavy hydrogen, which is too hard to get rid of, and the discharge will be slow, taking decades. The concentrations of tritium will be about 50 times lower than the limits set for drinking water by the World Health Organization. In addition, tritium has a half-life of about 12 years, meaning it decays to normal hydrogen quickly. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, has approved the plan, saying that it met international standards and that the impact it would have on people and the environment was "negligible".
There's nothing new about discharges of tritium-tainted water, they've been done for about 60 years. The hysteria is ridiculous. The complaints from China are to be expected. South Korea has said the discharge is not problematic, but didn't endorse it. It appears the critical path for the Japanese government was to get Japanese fishermen on board.
PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (61): Even before Barack Obama entered the White House in 2009, he was already working with outgoing President George W. Bush to deal with the global financial crisis that had begun in 2007, with Obama supporting Bush in pushing the "Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)" program and providing loan guarantees to help strengthen the banks. There was considerable resistance to these measures among Republican lawmakers.
Bush thought those actions would be enough to get the USA back on an even economic keel, but Obama took the oath of office as the world fell into the most disastrous economic slump since the Great Depression. The answer was "more stimulus", including bailout loans to the financial and auto industries. The bailouts were bitterly criticized as "featherbedding" businesses, but in fact most of the loans were repaid and the government made a small profit on them. Of course, another stimulus package was passed, though Obama drew the line at another one.
The Federal Reserve helped push back against the Great Recession by lowering interest rates, and also through a mechanism called "quantitative easing", in which the central bank bought government bonds and other securities, injecting bank reserves into the economy and increasing the money supply. The Treasury Department worked with the Fed by simply creating new money -- which traditionally should have been inflationary, but that wasn't a problem in a time when deflation was the real threat.
To deal with the follies of the banks that led up to the economic crash, Obama signed the "Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform & Consumer Protection Act" of 2010. Dodd-Frank raised the limits on funds that banks needed to have available, and also extended regulatory control over the "shadow banks" that had contributed to the crisis. In his memoirs, Obama wryly noted how bankers were happy to get bailouts, but were unhappy at new regulations. Dodd-Frank also created the "Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)", which focused on ensuring fairness in consumer finance, notably in mortgages, charge cards, and student loans. The Left criticized Obama for not taking more drastic actions, such as breaking up the biggest banks, but he didn't see justification in doing so.
The most significant measure pushed through by the Obama Administration was the "Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (ACA)" of 2010, which became known as "ObamaCare". It set up a government-regulated health-insurance system based on commercial insurers, with insurance offered on government-sponsored exchanges. Citizens with "pre-existing conditions" could get insurance, with everyone obligated to obtain insurance or suffer tax penalties. An attempt to add a "public option" was shot down by conservative resistance in Congress. It also provided subsidies for low-income Americans needing health care and expanded Medicaid support for the states, though some Republican governors refused to implement it.
ObamaCare was partly funded by raising taxes on the wealthy, helping become a conservative target, with ObamaCare being heavily denounced. The 2010 mid-term election went badly against the Democrats; they lost the House by a significant margin, and the Republicans made major gains in the states. As a consequence, Dodd-Frank and the ACA were the only major bills that Obama was able to pass. Under pressure, Obama had to extend the tax cuts implemented by George W. Bush, even though the Great Recession and the loss of tax revenues, along with stimulus programs and stress on relief programs, meant deficits continued to climb.
The Republicans had been determined to deny Barack Obama a second term, but the economy was coming out of the Great Recession, and he won by a good margin in the popular vote, a big margin in the electoral vote. During his second term, the economy went back to booming. The ACA, though it had its difficulties, gave more Americans health insurance, while employment, household income, household net worth, and the stock market climbed steadily.
Obama was able to pass a tax act in 2012 that finally scaled back the Bush tax cuts and capped some government spending; with the economy recovering, deficits began to fall. From 2013, he was able to tweak taxes to address the problem of "income inequality" -- more on this later. He began efforts to grow access to high-speed internet across the USA, though perks given to commercial internet service providers (ISP) did not pay off well. In response, municipalities began to charter ISPs to provide fast internet service, just as if it were another municipal service like water or electricity. He also pushed for "net neutrality", which meant that service providers had to provide impartial access to the internet for their clients.
Obama reinforced environmental regulation, in particular attempting to deal with climate change. He had EPA rules reinforced to push for better automotive gas mileage, and attempted to set up a scheme, working with the states, to reduce emissions from power plants. However, at the same time the Obama Administration boosted efforts to extract oil in the USA with new "fracking" technology, much to the fury of the Left.
Ironically, despite a booming economy and corporate profits, Obama was attacked as "anti-business" for his regulatory efforts. When he said that somebody who set up a successful business "didn't build that", he was bitterly criticized, with the context of the quote -- that all personal initiative only succeeds in the context of a much bigger system of society and government -- disregarded. Indeed, the attacks on Obama became increasingly hysterical through his term, most notably in a claim that he had been born in Africa, not Hawaii as was the fact, and so was ineligible to be president. [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* WINGS & WEAPONS: Aerospace giant Boeing has been working on a "truss-braced wing (TBW)" airliner concept for a number of years -- last mentioned here in 2019. The other shoe has finally dropped, with NASA having hired Boeing to build a demonstrator, part of the agency's agenda to improve the fuel efficiency of future civilian airliners by up to 30%.
A TBW aircraft features a high-mounted very wide-span wing, supported by trusses. The "X-66A" demonstrator will be modified from an old MD-90 jetliner, with the TBW and twin turbofans or propfans. NASA officials say the X-66A will perform its first flight in 2028. It will cost over a billion dollars, with the majority of the funding from Boeing and its commercial partners. There is no plan at present for an operational derivative of the demonstrator; that decision will need to be made later.
* As discussed in an article from THEDRIVE.com ("Air-To-Air Missiles From UK Now Being Used By Ukraine As SAMs" by Thomas Newdick & Tyler Rogoway, 4 August 2023), Ukraine has been under continuous attack by Russian missiles and drones, with the result that the Ukrainian air-defense system has been strained to keep up.
To help with the defense, Britain is now supplying the AIM-132 Advanced Short-Range Air-to-Air Missile (ASRAAM), two being carried on a 6x6 SupaCat truck for surface launch, for the short-range air defense (SHORAD) role. Apparently the SupaCats were fitted with the ASRAAM launchers on a fast-track basis, along with a sensor turret of unspecified capabilities, it seems mounted on a telescoping mast. ASRAAM is a heat-seeking missile with a range of about 25 kilometers (16 miles); it has a "lock-on after launch" capability, meaning it can be guided to a target area and then acquire the target on its own. It is believed to be used against drones and particularly against helicopter gunships, the Russians having made effective use of gunships early on in the current offensive.
* As discussed in an article from JANES.com ("Australia's Hypersonic UAV Project To Boost Advanced Materials" by Akhil Kadidal, 06 April 2022), the Australian government has awarded a grant to investigate a hypersonic drone, named the "DART CMP" -- the acronym "DART" not being explained, but "CMP" meaning "composites", indicating its construction. It follows an earlier "DART AE" concept, which used alloy metals instead -- the "AE" standing for "additive engineering", with 3D printing used in fabrication. DART AE is expected to fly in 2023.
This reusable hypersonic platform is being developed by Hypersonix Launch Systems of Sydney, together with collaborators including the University of Southern Queensland. It will be based on the SPARTAN hydrogen-fueled supersonic combustion ramjet (scramjet) engine that will push it up to Mach 12. The project is expected to push Australian development of high-temperature oxide-oxide ceramic matrix composites. DART CMP is not expected to fly until after 2025.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* VIRAL UNIVERSE (4): Viruses were around long before humans were, and to no surprise, they have left their marks on the human genome. In 2016 David Enard, then at Stanford University and now at the University of Arizona, conducted a study to find the effects of viruses on the genome.
Enard and his colleagues started out by identifying almost 10,000 proteins that seemed to be produced in all the mammals that had their genomes sequenced up to that point. The research team then hunted through scientific literature to find proteins that had been shown to interact with viruses in some way; they found about 1,300. Roughly one in five of these proteins was linked to the immune system, hinting at viral interaction. The others seemed to be proteins that the virus made use of in its attack on the host. The two cell-surface proteins that SARS-CoV-2 uses to make contact with its target cells and penetrate them would fit into this category.
The researchers then compared the human versions of the genes for their 10,000 proteins with those in other mammals, and used statistical screening to sort out changes that have no real impact from changes that natural selection retains because they are useful. Genes for virus-associated proteins turned out to be evolutionary hotspots: 30% of all the adaptive change was seen in the genes for the 13% of the proteins that interacted with viruses. Viruses evolve to recognize and subvert such proteins; hosts then modify to frustrate the viruses.
A few years later, working with Dmitri Petrov at Stanford, Enard showed that modern humans have borrowed some of these evolutionary responses to viruses from other human species. Around 2% to 3% of the DNA in an average European genome has Neanderthal origins, a consequence of interbreeding 50,000 to 30,000 years ago. For these genes to have persisted they must be doing something useful, or they would have been weeded out by natural selection. Enard and Petrov found that a disproportionate number of the genes produced virus-interacting proteins; Neanderthals gave modern humans ways to stay ahead of viruses.
Viruses, along with shaping the genome through natural selection, also end up embedded into it. At least a twelfth of the DNA in the human genome is derived from viruses, with some estimates giving the total as high as a quarter. Retroviruses are necessarily the biggest if not the only culprits, since they replicate by integrating their genome into that of the host cell, with such integrations sometimes taking place in germ cells -- with the result that the integrated viral genome is passed down through the generations with the rest of the host genome. Such integrated viral sequences, known as "endogenous retroviruses (ERV)", account for 8% of the human genome.
Many bacteriophages are also able to stitch copies of their genome into their host's DNA, staying dormant, or "temperate", for generations. If the cell is doing well and reproducing along with the host cells, all is fine; the only intent of the virus is to propagate its genome, and if that happens without having to infect new cells, the virus is doing fine. When a virus senses that a cell is under stress and may not survive, it goes "lytic", with the cell producing virions that then destroy it.
All ERVs in humans have been "broken" by mutations, so they can no longer produce virions -- though some have been implicated in cancers. They have, however, proven useful sources of genetic novelty. In one of the best-known examples, at least ten different mammalian lineages make use of a retroviral gene in the construction of the placenta. The placenta has the ability to pass oxygen from the mother to the fetus, and send back carbon dioxide and other waste products back to the mother. This process is dependent on a protein, syncytin-1, that was originally used by retroviruses to join the external membranes of their virions to the external membranes of cells. Evidence has begun to crop up that genetic sequences derived from ERVs are frequently used to regulate the activity of genes of more conventional origin.
The human genome also holds a multitude of copies of a "retrotransposon" called LINE-1, believed to have been derived from an ERV. LINE-1 is a 6,000-base sequence of DNA which describes a "reverse transcriptase" of the sort that retroviruses use to make DNA from their RNA genomes. When LINE-1 is expressed, it uses the reverse transcriptase to make a copy of itself back in the cell's genome. It's been doing this for a long time; the human genome now contains 500,000 copies of LINE-1, 17% of the genome, twice as much as taken up by ERVs.
Most of the copies are broken and can replicate no further -- and those that can aren't necessarily mere genomic parasites. Fred Gage and his colleagues at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, in San Diego, believe that LINE-1 elements have an important role in the development of the brain. Brains start out with a wild proliferation of neural cells, which are pruned back into an orderly arrangement. Gage suspects that it is the action of active LINE-1 transposons, showing up in different places in the neural cell genome, that guides the pruning. [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* EVOLUTION & GUT MICROBIOME: As reported by a release from the Carnegie Institution for Science ("Your Gut Microbiome Shapes Your Life, But Where Did It Come From?", 27 March 2022), the human gut microbiome is an ecosystem of hundreds to thousands of microbial species living within the human body. The microbiome affects our health, fertility, and lifespan, but where did the microbiome come from in the first place?
New research under a team led by Carnegie's William Ludington revealed important specifics about how the bacterial communities that make up our gut microbiomes are acquired. Ludington says:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
There is a huge amount of variation in microbiome composition between individuals. For example, if you look at the sum total of all of the bacterial species that are adapted to live in the gastrointestinal systems of humans, most of these are not present in a majority of people. That's how incredibly diverse these gut microbial populations are.
END_QUOTE
A combination of factors including genetics, diet, and environment contribute to the differences between our microbiomes. However, as is true of evolution in general, there's a strong element of chance as to exactly what kind of microbiome any one person acquires.
Although the microbiome is a hot topic for research, there hasn't been much work on using controlled environments reveal the process by which new species join a gut microbial ecosystem.
Ludington and his collaborators -- Eric Jones and David Sivak of Simon Fraser University, along with Jean Carlson of UC Santa Barbara -- developed a micro-ecological model to understand how we acquire the specific mix of microbes that are individual to our own particular gut communities.
They started out by probing the comparatively less complicated microbiomes of fruit flies, to learn that exposure to a particular microbial species does not necessarily lead to its successful incorporation into the microbiome ecosystem. It turned out that the state of the microbiome, and interactions between existing microbiome member species, determined the likelihood of whether a newly encountered bacteria is added into the mix. Sivak says: "Even among genetically identical flies that lived in the same housing and were fed the same diets, we saw variations in microbiome composition."
Working from these results, the researchers built simulations that could investigate scenarios of increasing complexity by which new microbiome species could be acquired, leading to their breakthrough understanding of the community factors that shape membership in the microbiome ecosystem. Luddington says: "Think of microbiome composition as a big party where the social dynamics determine who leaves early and who stays until dawn."
Understanding the group interactions of the members of a microbiome could help in understanding the origins of maladies rooted in microbiome composition, and show how to alter microbiomes to correct those problems. It might even lead to therapies in which a microbiome is altered to correct a malady not directly related to it. Carlson concludes: "The beauty of the mathematical approach we deployed is that it acknowledges that colonization is a roll of the dice, but we are now able to attribute the weighting of the dice to biological interactions with a molecular basis that has been honed by evolution."
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* THE WEEK THAT WAS: A wildfire blew up on the Hawaiian island of Maui this last week, with the popular resort town of Lahaina being wiped out, and at least a hundred people killed. The ruins of the town were still being inspected at last notice, so the toll is likely to increase. Drought conditions, amplified by climate change, and gusty winds were the culprits.
Conspiracy truthers had different ideas, saying the fires were caused by space lasers -- or something along that line -- as part of a conspiracy in which corporate villains seized the island -- or something like that. As evidence, the truthers showed a picture of a time-lapse image of a rocket taking off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California that looked like, of course, a space laser blasting the ground.
Where do they find these people? Not incidentally, I've given up referring to "conspiracy theories", now preferring to call them "conspiracy stories / tales", or better yet "conspiracy hoaxes". Of course they're hoaxes, they're made-up, they never go anywhere. Similarly, "conspiracy theorist" becomes "conspiracy truther / troll / kook".
* Incidentally, speaking of trolls, Elon Musk is saying that he wants to eliminate the ability to block trolls on X/Twitter. As is typical of the "Musk Rat", exactly why is not clear. One reason is that blocking increases the computing load on the servers, another reason is that blocking interferes with the ad system. Musk replied to complaints with sarcasm. It is also not clear if he will follow through; apparently, both the Android Store and Apple Store will refuse to support the X/Twitter app if it doesn't have blocking.
I have an account on Spoutible, which is a moderated answer to X/Twitter. It seems Musk is determined to drive everyone but the trolls out, which should be to Spoutible's benefit -- but it takes years to build up a social-media app. One problem is funding, since server costs escalate as new users sign up.
Spoutible has been taking donations, and there's also talk of going to "equity crowdfunding". Which is what? It's like this: typically crowdfunding is based on advance sales of a new product, but that wouldn't work for Spoutible. The alternative is to buy shares in a crowdfunded venture. I like that idea; I wouldn't be expecting anything from it financially, but I would enjoy having a bit of ownership of the venture, and I've been donating anyway. I have a budget for tips, I figure I can invest $100 USD every four months.
* As discussed in an article from REUTERS.com ("US Launches $7 Billion Program To Bring Solar To Low-Income Households" by Valerie Volcovici, 28 June 2023), back in June the US Environmental Protection Agency launched a $7 billion USD competitive grant program to give low-income communities access to residential solar panels. The agency is making up to 60 awards to community groups around the country representing specific states, Native Americans, and Alaska Natives, and multi-state programs. The grants are part of the $27 billion USD Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund established in the Inflation Reduction Act. The goal is to infuse "transformational" capital to communities that have not been able to attract clean energy and transportation investments, while suffering from pollution.
The awards will help communities develop low-income solar programs -- providing financing and technical assistance, such as workforce development -- and help low-income households receive the benefits of rooftop solar, including household savings, community ownership and energy resiliency. The program will guarantee a minimum 20% total electricity bill savings for households.
The EPA is also conducting a $14 billion USD National Clean Investment Fund (NCIF) grant competition to expand deployment of renewable technologies on the national scale; along with a competition for the $6 billion USD Clean Communities Investment Accelerator, which will bolster funding through community lenders.
* As discussed in an article from THEDRIVE.com ("Navy's New 381-Hull Fleet Plan Recommits To Big Amphibious Warfare Ships" by Joseph Trevithick, 19 July 2023), the US Navy has sent a report to Congress that lays out plans for a "battle force" of 381 ships and submarines. The report specifically affirmed a need for at least 31 large amphibious warships. The Navy had envisioned a "strategic pause" on obtaining new amphibious ships -- which didn't go over well with the US Marines, since a number of major amphibious ships are scheduled to be retired. Apparently there was something of a miscommunication, the Navy saying there was never any intent to short-change the USMC.
The 2022 iteration of this report to Congress had specified a requirement for a battle force with 373 vessels in total. The service currently expects the size of its battle force in the 2024 Fiscal Year to be 293 vessels, including 29 amphibious warfare ships -- meaning AMERICA and WASP-class amphibious assault ships (aircraft carriers crossed with landing ships), SAN ANTONIO-class landing platform dock (LPD) ships, plus WHIDBEY ISLAND and HARPERS FERRY-class dock landing ships (LSD). Underlying the requirement for a large fleet is Navy concern over US shipbuilding capacity.
The 381-ship number does not include uncrewed (robot) ships and submarines. The Navy has said in the past that the service expects to acquire around 150 uncrewed platforms of various types in the coming years, some of which will be more than mere robot boats. The reports were classified and specifics were not released; the Navy has been particularly secretive about robot ships and submarines.
* As discussed in an article from REUTERS.com ("Georgia Man Sentenced To 27 Years In Jail Over $463 Million USD Genetic Testing Scheme" by Kanishka Singh, 18 August 2023), it is well-known among the medically literate that genetic testing is a somewhat dubious exercise. In particular, genetic testing for cancer can rarely give any indication of risk level more or even as persuasive as simple observation of a patient's physical condition and lifestyle.
One Minal Patel, 44, of Atlanta, Georgia, went well beyond "dubious". Patel owned LabSolutions LLC, a lab enrolled with Medicare that performed sophisticated genetic tests. Patel conspired with patient brokers, telemedicine companies, and call centers to target Medicare beneficiaries with telemarketing calls promoting genetic tests supposedly covered by Medicare. Once a mark snapped at the bait, Patel paid kickbacks and bribes to patient brokers to obtain signed doctors' orders authorizing the tests. Patel had the patient brokers sign bogus contracts to keep them from talking.
From 2016 to 2019, LabSolutions submitted more than $463 million USD in claims to Medicare, including for useless genetic tests, of which Medicare paid over $187 million USD, with Patel personally receiving over $21 million USD in Medicare proceeds, prosecutors added. He was indicted in 2019 on charges of health care fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the USA, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and payment of illegal health care kickbacks. His arrest was part of a crackdown on genetic-testing fraud that busted 35 people in four states that officials said cost the US government over $2 billion USD. Patel was convicted late last year, and has now been sentenced to 27 years in prison.
[ED: I'm not sure why, but I find stories of big-time frauds highly amusing. What I particularly wonder is if Patel realized he was doing anything wrong. That sort of disconnect seems common among flim-flam men.]
PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (60): Alvin Roth was a pioneer in "market design", the creation of new forms of market transactions. Another example of market design was the rise of radio-spectrum auctions in the 1990s and 2000s. Governments had long regulated use of the radio spectrum to prevent stations from interfering with each other, but in the 1990s they were confronted with rapidly-growing mobile phone networks that needed reserved bandwidth. The problem was fairly selling the spectrum, since nobody was very certain as to how the spectrum was worth.
The solution was to auction the spectrum off. There are three types of auctions:
When the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) began auctioning radio spectrum in 1994, the bidding was performed online, with bidders logging into an "Automated Auction System (AAS)" -- which was later improved into a web-based "Integrated Spectrum Auction System (ISAS)". The FCC spectrum auctions are conducted as "simultaneous multi-round (SMR)" auctions, in which bidding is broken into "rounds" of fixed time length. Within each round, people bid on all the licenses on offer, with the bids tabulated and revealed at the end of the round. The next round will start with a minimum bid 10% higher than the highest bid of the previous round. If nobody raises the highest bid of the previous round, that bid wins the license. Rounds are continued until there are no new bids.
In others, SMR auctions are a form of ascending auctions. The FCC eventually added a provision for "package bidding", in which bids are place on a set of licenses, not individually. In any case, the spectrum auctions were a neat market-based scheme in which the answer to the question of: "How much is radio spectrum worth?" -- was: "How much am I willing to pay for it?"
However, detailed investigation of "auction theory" shows that, as always is the case in economics, that's maybe a bit too simple. When people are in a sealed-bid auction, they will tend to "shade" their bids, or in other words offer bids that are less than what they are willing to pay. This is not to the advantage of the seller of course -- but what can be done to give more leverage to the seller?
In the 1960s, a Canadian economist named William Vickrey (1914:1996) came up with a solution to shading: the "second-price" auction, in which the highest bidder wins the auction, but ends up paying the second-highest bid. That gave bidders an incentive to bid what they were willing to pay, on the assumption that they wouldn't have to pay that much. Design of auctions has become something of an art, with modern digital systems able to support auction schemes that would extremely cumbersome to manage in the pre-digital age. [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* Space launches for July included:
[01 JUL 23] US CC / FALCON 9 / EUCLID -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 1512 UTC (local time + 4) to put the ESA "Euclid" observatory into space. It was a wide-field survey telescope, with a primary mission to map the distribution of dark matter in the Universe. The Falcon 9 first stage soft-landed on the SpaceX drone ship.
[05 JUL 23] ESA KOUROU / ARIANE 5 ECA / HEINRICH HERTZ, SYRACUSE 4B -- An Ariane 5 ECA booster was launched from Kourou in French Guiana at 2200 UTC (local time + 3) to put two geostationary comsats into orbit, including "Heinrich Hertz (H2SAT)" from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and "Syracuse 4B (Comsat-NG 2)" from the French Defense Procurement Agency (DGA).
H2SAT was built by OHB of Germany and had a launch mass of 3,450 kilograms (7,605 pounds) and featured an electric propulsion system. Syracuse 4B was the second satellite in the Syracuse 4 (previously ComSat NG) program, following the 2021 launch of Syracuse 4A. The Syracuse 4 satellites had increased bandwidth and improved resistance to jamming. They had a design lifetime of 15 years.
Syracuse 4A & B replaced Syracuse 3A & 3B, which were launched in 2005 and 2006 respectively. Syracuse The French DGA contracted Thales Alenia Space to develop Syracuse 4A and Airbus Defense and Space for Syracuse 4B, which was based on the Airbus Space on its Eurostar 3000EOR (Electric Orbit Raising) spacecraft bus. Airbus also worked on ground systems. A company press release said:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
Relay capabilities of the two Syracuse IV satellites respond to the increased data transmission needed for digitalisation of the battlefield. These Earth-orbiting platforms also will provide long-distance capacity to new categories of users, such as drones and armoured vehicles, as well as aircraft operated by the French Air and Space Force and the Navy. Operating in the X- and Ka-bands, the satellites offer increased performance in terms of communications capacity, flexibility and resistance to jamming, thereby meeting the future needs of armed forces.
END_QUOTE
This was the last flight of the Ariane 5, after 27 years of operation. The launch notched the Ariane 5's flight log up to 117 in total and was also be the 347th launch for the entire Arianespace family of launchers. The Ariane 5 had over twice the lift capacity of the Ariane 4. There were several versions of the Ariane 5, including the Ariane 5G, Ariane 5G+, Ariane 5GS, Ariane 5 ES, and finally the Ariane 5 ECA. The Ariane 5 is being replaced by the Ariane 6.
[07 JUL 23] USA VB / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 5-13 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Vandenberg SFB at 1928 UTC (local time + 8) to put 48 SpaceX "Starlink v1.5" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit. The booster stage landed on the SpaceX drone ship.
[09 JUL 23] CN JQ / LONG MARCH 2C / HULIANWANG JISHU SHIYAN 01 & 02 -- A Long March 2C booster was launched from the Chinese Jiuquan launch center at 1100 UTC (local time - 8) from the to put the "Hulianwang Jishu Shiyan 01 & 02" IoT test satellites into orbit.
[10 JUL 23] USA CC / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 6-5 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 0358 UTC (previous day local time + 4) to put 22 SpaceX "Starlink v2 Mini" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit. The Falcon 9 first stage landed on the SpaceX drone ship.
[12 JUL 23] CN JQ / ZHUQUE 2 -- A Chinese Zhuque 2 booster was was launched from Jiuquan at 0100 UTC (local time - 8) on an orbital test flight, without payload. It featured methane-LOX ("methalox") propulsion.
[14 JUL 23] / GSLV MK3 / CHANDRAYAAN 3 -- An ISRO Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mark 3 booster was launched from Sriharikota at 0905 UTC (local time - 5:30) to send the "Chandrayaan 3" lunar probe to the Moon. This was India's third Moon mission, the probe consisting of three elements:
The landing site was in the Moon's south polar region, where water ice is suspected to persist in permanently shadowed craters. The Vikram lander featured four scientific instruments:
The lander was solar-powered, and used an CX-band link to communicate with Earth, with the orbiting Propulsion Module serving as a relay and the Chandrayaan 2 orbiter as a backup option.
The six-wheel Pragyan rover carried an "Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS)" and a "Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscope". APXS has been used on other spacecraft in the past, including the NASA "Sojourner" rover sent to Mars, which Pragyan resembled. The rover was solar-powered and communicated with the lander.
[16 JUL 23] USA CC / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 5-15 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 0350 UTC (local time + 4) to put 54 SpaceX "Starlink v1.5" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit. The Falcon 9 first stage landed on the SpaceX drone ship.
[18 JUL 23] NZ / ELECTRON / TELESAT LEO 3 & -- A Rocket Labs Electron light booster was launched from New Zealand's Mahia Peninsula at 0127 UTC (local time - 13) to put a number of payloads into orbit, including:
Total mass of the payloads was about 100 kilograms (220 pounds). The booster stage was recovered after splashing down into the ocean.
[20 JUL 23] CN JQ / KUAIZHOU 1A / TIANMU-1 07 to 10 -- A Chinese Kuaizhou 1A (KZ1A) booster was launched from Jiuquan at 0320 UTC (local time - 8) to put four "Tianmu-1 07-10" commercial weather satellites into space.
[20 JUL 23] USA VB / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 6-15 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Vandenberg SFB at 0409 UTC (previous day local time + 8) to put 15 SpaceX "Starlink v1.5" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit. The booster stage landed on the SpaceX drone ship.
[22 JUL 23] CN JQ / CERES 1 / QIANKUN 1, XINGSHIDAI 16 -- A Ceres 1 booster was launched from Jiuquan at 0507 GMT (local time - 8) to put the "Qiankun 1" demonstrator and "Xingshidai 16" remote sensing satellites into orbit.
[23 JAN 23] CN TY / LONG MARCH 2D / LINGXI 03, SKYSIGHT AS 01:03 -- A Long March 2D booster was launched at 0250 UTC (local time - 8) from the Chinese Taiyuan space center to put the "LingXi 03" and the "Skysight AS 01" to "AS 03" satellites into orbit.
[24 JUL 23] USA CC / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 6-6 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 0050 UTC (previous day local time + 4) to put 22 SpaceX "Starlink v2 Mini" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit. The Falcon 9 first stage landed on the SpaceX drone ship.
[26 JUL 23] CN XC / LONG MARCH 2D / YAOGAN 36-05A:C -- A Long March 2D booster was launched from Xichang at 0220 UTC (local time - 8) to put the secret "Yaogan 36 Group 5" payloads into orbit. It was a triplet of satellites and may have been a "flying triangle" naval signals intelligence payload.
[28 JUL 23] USA CC / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 6-7 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 0401 UTC (local time + 4) to put 22 SpaceX "Starlink v2 Mini" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit. The Falcon 9 first stage landed on the SpaceX drone ship.
[29 JUL 23] USA CC / FALCON HEAVY / JUPITER 3 -- A Falcon Heavy booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 0304 UTC (next day local time + 4) to put the "Jupiter 3" AKA "EchoStar 24" geostationary comsat into space for EchoStar. It was built by Maxar and was the biggest geostationary payload ever, with a launch mass of 9,200 kilograms (20,280 pounds). The multi-spot beam Ka-band satellite could deliver 500 gigabits per second to customers across North and South America.
[30 JUL 23] IN SR / PSLV-CA / DS-SAR & -- An ISRO Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) was launched from Sriharikota at 0100 UTC (local time - 5:30) to put the "DS-SAR" radar-imaging satellite into orbit for the Republic of Singapore. It had a launch mass of 360 kilograms (795 pounds) and carried a SAR payload built by Israel Aerospace Industries. The flight also carried a set of smallsats, including "ARCADE", "Galassia 2", "NuLIon", "ORB 12 STRIDER", "SCOOB 2", & "VELOX-AM".
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* VIRAL UNIVERSE (3): Viruses are tiny and universal, handily outnumbering all the organisms of the Earth. That makes sense, in that all organisms, sooner or later, are infected by viruses, and host multiples of them. In 1999 Roger Hendrix, a virologist, suggested that there might be ten virions for every living individual creature, the overwhelming majority of which are single-celled bacteria and archaea. If the whole planet were crushed into a powered, there would still be fewer particles of powder than there are viruses. A liter of seawater may contain more than 100 billion virions; a kilogram of dried soil possibly a trillion.
Metagenomics -- the field of study in which all the nucleic acid in a given sample is decoded to get a sense of the range of life forms within it -- reveals that these tiny throngs are highly diverse. A metagenomic analysis of two surveys of ocean life, the Tara Oceans and Malaspina missions, by Ahmed Zayed of Ohio State University, found evidence of 200,000 different species of virus. These diverse species play an enormous role in the ecology of the oceans.
On land, most of the photosynthesis that provides the biomass and energy needed for life takes place in plants. In the oceans, it is overwhelmingly the business of various sorts of bacteria and algae collectively known as "phytoplankton". They reproduce rapidly, to be killed off by viruses almost as fast. According to work by Curtis Suttle of the University of British Columbia, bacterial phytoplankton typically last less than a week before being killed by viruses.
This increases the overall productivity of the oceans by helping bacteria recycle organic matter from generation to generation, and it helps explain what the great mid-20th-century ecologist G. Evelyn Hutchinson called "the paradox of the plankton". According to Hutchinson, it might seem that, over time, a few star performers among the plankton would predominate -- so why, in fact, is there great diversity in plankton? It may be due to the reality that, once a particular form of plankton starts to become predominant, fast-evolving viruses cut it back down to size.
It is also possible that this endless dance of death between viruses and microbes sets the stage for one of evolution's great leaps forward. Many forms of single-celled plankton have molecular mechanisms that allow them to kill themselves -- "aptosis" -- presumably being used when one cell's sacrifice allows its sister cells -- which are genetically identical -- to survive. Self-destruction means the cell won't produce as many virions, and so there will be fewer of them to infect other cells.
Aptosis also occurs in multicellular organisms, in part to help defeat viruses and other pathogens. However, it may also be due to the fact that some cells outlive their usefulness to allow the multicellular organism to thrive. Eugene Koonin of America's National Institutes of Health and his colleagues have examined the idea that virus-thwarting self-sacrifice and complexity-permitting self-sacrifice may be related, with the second descended from the first. Koonin's model also suggests that the closer the cells are clustered together, the more likely this act of self-sacrifice is to have beneficial consequences.
The diversity of viruses in soil parallels that of viruses in the seas, though it's harder to find viruses in soil than in the ocean. However, in 2021 Mary Firestone of the University of California in Berkeley and her colleagues used metagenomics to count 3,884 new viral species in a patch of Californian grassland. Since their metagenomic analysis system could only pick up viruses with RNA genomes, that's likely an underestimate.
Metagenomics can also be applied to biological samples, such as bat guano in which it picks up viruses from both the bats and their food. However, more generally finding animal viruses requires more targeted sampling. During the 2010s PREDICT -- a US government project focused on finding animal viruses -- gathered over 160,000 animal and human tissue samples from 35 countries and discovered 949 novel viruses.
The people who put together PREDICT now are pushing a "Global Virome Project" to track down all the viruses native to the world's 7,400 species of mammals and waterfowl -- the reservoirs most likely to harbor viruses capable of making the leap into human beings. They expect such an effort would find about 1.5 million viruses, of which around 700,000 might be able to infect humans. A 2018 planning meeting suggested that such an undertaking might take ten years and cost $4 billion USD. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, that pricetag sounds like more of a bargain. [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* MRNA VAX & EBOLA: As discussed in an article from NATURE.com ("Can MRNA Vaccines Transform The Fight Against Ebola?" by Max Koslov 7 November 2022), the biggest weapon in the battle against the COVID-19 epidemic was the mRNA vaccine. The vaccines -- one made by drug giant Pfizer with German biotech firm BioNTech, another by US pharmaceutical company Moderna -- sped through clinical trials in just months and gained approval from major regulatory bodies less than a year after development began. Now, mRNA technology is being considered for vaccines against other pathogens.
Africa has been faced with the deadly Ebola virus. There are two vaccines that are already proven to protect against Ebola: rVSV-ZEBOV (Ervebo), sold by Merck of Rahway, New Jersey, and Ad26.ZEBOV/MVA-BN-Filo (Zabdeno/Mvabea), sold by Johnson & Johnson, based in New Brunswick, New Jersey. However, these vaccines are only known to protect against only one strain of the virus: Zaire ebolavirus, which caused a large epidemic in West Africa between 2013 and 2016. There are no proven vaccines against Sudan ebolavirus, the species responsible for a 2022 outbreak in Uganda.
"Public health in Africa would benefit from further options," says Heinz Feldmann, head of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases' Laboratory of Virology in Hamilton, Montana, whose research contributed to the development of the existing Ebola vaccines.
Alex Bukreyev, a virologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, believes it would be best to have a vaccine that confers protection against multiple filoviruses -- the family that includes ebolavirus and other pathogens that cause haemorrhagic fevers, such as Marburg virus -- instead of having many separate vaccines. That way, every new filovirus outbreak would not necessarily need a new vaccine.
Both the existing Zaire ebolavirus vaccines are based on modified live but (mostly) harmless viruses. Ervebo is approved for use only in people over 18, and its side effects can be unpleasant. Johnson & Johnson's regimen can be offered to people one year old and up, but it must be given in two doses, eight weeks apart, which is not ideal when trying to stop an outbreak.
Norbert Pardi -- a vaccinologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia who specializes in mRNA technology -- believes that mRNA viruses could help deal with these issues. The mRNA vaccines do not contain a virus, live or dead; the mRNA instead encodes key proteins on the surface of the target virus. When the mRNA enters a person's cells, the cells start to make the protein, which stimulates an immune response against the virus.
It's easy to tweak the proteins that the mRNA encodes if a new species emerges, or to include different strands of mRNA to induce protection against multiple filoviruses at once. In addition, much of the world's population received mRNA vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic, and they are demonstrably safe. However, mRNA vaccines didn't prove very effective in preventing infection, being administered instead to prevent severe disease and death. An ebolavirus vaccine also really needs to prevent infection.
Ebolaviruses don't mutate nearly as fast as coronaviruses, and so it's not so hard to keep up with new strains. However, it is not clear how many shots an mRNA vaccine against ebolavirus would require, and mRNA vaccines also have to be stored in cold conditions, which can complicate distribution.
Animal trials of mRNA vaccines against ebolavirus have demonstrated high efficacy, however. Tests of mRNA vaccines against Sudan ebolavirus began in Uganda in late 2022, though the epidemic there then faded out early the next year, thanks to strict quarantine measures by the authorities. However, vaccine research continues, since Africa hasn't seen the last of Ebola.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* THE WEEK THAT WAS: In news for this past week, Ohio conducted a special election relative to Issue 1, an initiative to enshrine reproductive rights in the state constitution in the November state election. The measure could be passed by a simple majority vote. In response to Issue 1, Republican legislature set up a referendum, to raise the threshold for an amendment to 60% -- and, much worse, proposed that signatures had to be obtained from all 88 Ohio counties, instead of 44 as is the law now. That would effectively make constitutional amendments impossible.
The referendum got shot down 57% to 43%. What was particularly interesting was that polls showed Ohio citizens evenly divided on the vote . The lopsided result demonstrated that, these days, Democrats are well more motivated than Republicans -- and indeed, Democrats were lined up to vote early. The thing about polls is they ask for an opinion, but can't really determine how serious anyone is. That means some number of people will express an opinion and then forget about the issue. Ohio is a swing state, overly dominated by Republicans these days; the times, however, are a'changing. [ED: Issue 1 passed in November by almost the same margin.]
* Donald Trump is facing yet another indictment -- to be discussed after it happens -- with the media playing up the fact that his poll numbers and donations go up every time it happens. A Twitter posting suggested that there was a difficulty in thinking that important:
The Salon Group / @salongroupnyc: Just imagine how much he would benefit from a conviction and prison time. He'd be unstoppable!
Indeed. Of course his fans will circle the wagons -- we could bet on it. As I commented in a reply: "The reality is that VOTE FOR ME TO KEEP ME OUT OF JAIL is not a winning formula."
* Speaking of "not a winning formula" ... on Wednesday morning, FBI agents attempted to serve a warrant on the home of 75-year-old Craig Robertson of Provo, Utah, who had threatened to kill President Joe Biden during his visit to the state that day. Robertson had posted to social media:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
I HEAR BIDEN IS COMING TO UTAH. DIGGING OUT MY GHILLIE [camouflage] SUIT AND CLEANING THE DUST OFF THE M24 SNIPER RIFLE. WELCOME, BUFFOON-IN-CHIEF!
PERHAPS UTAH WILL BECOME FAMOUS THIS WEEK AS A PLACE A SNIPER TOOK OUT BIDEN THE MARXIST.
IN MY DREAM I SEE JOE BIDEN'S BODY IN THE CORNER OF A DC PARKING GARAGE WITH HIS HEAD SEVERED AND LYING IN A HUGE PUDDLE OF BLOOD. HOORAH!!!
HEY FBI, YOU STILL MONITORING MY SOCIAL MEDIA? CHECKING SO I CAN BE SURE TO HAVE A LOADED GUN HANDY IN CASE YOU DROP BY AGAIN.
END_QUOTE
He had also said: "The time is right for a presidential assassination or two. First Joe then Kamala!!!" He had similarly made threats against government officials investigating Trump, including Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, US Attorney General Merrick Garland, and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Robertson, an Air Force veteran, was a gun collector; the FBI had him under surveillance from March. Agents had visited him earlier, with Robertson telling them to get lost: "I said it was a dream! We're done here! Don't return without a warrant."
He didn't take the hint and change his ways; they did return with a warrant, there was an armed confrontation, and Robertson was killed. Neighbors were startled, saying he wasn't in good health and couldn't get around much, and judged him harmless. His family did not help his cause by issuing a statement:
"Though his statements were intemperate at times, he has never, and would never, commit any act of violence against another human being over a political or philosophical disagreement." Robertson was "understandably frustrated and distraught" by "erosions to our constitutionally protected freedoms and the rights of free citizens wrought by what he, and many others in this nation, observed to be a corrupt and overreaching government. There was very little he could do but exercise his First Amendment right to free speech and voice his protest in what has become the public square of our age -- the internet and social media."
Of course, Robertson did not have a constitutional right to threaten and intimidate public officials, or confront Federal agents with a firearm when they came to take him in. There was not much sympathy for him online. I commented: MAGA MEETS DARWIN AWARDS.
* Armed Forces Ukraine has been conducting an offensive against Russian forces entrenched in the Donbas region since late spring, and now the fighting seems to be intensifying. It's hard to say exactly what's going on, since Ukrainian operational security is airtight. One interesting comment by an AFU officer did get out, the officer saying that kamikaze drones were rivaling artillery in importance.
That leads to the interesting question of where they're getting the k-drones. They expend hundreds, maybe thousands of them a day. Apparently they had been buying large numbers of drone assemblies from China, but that source is of course drying up. They could be getting them from Taiwan, but nobody's talking one way or another. The specific details of the k-drones are just as mysterious -- though they seem to pack a heavier punch than they used to. One video also showed k-drones ganging up on a Russian Terminator-2 combat vehicle and destroying it, suggesting that "drone swarming" is becoming a reality.
It's hard to say that the AFU is close to breaking through Russian defenses. What can be said is that, since the Russians are being pressured across a broad front, they can't focus their resources on defense of one sector. They've been attempting to perform spoiling attacks on other sectors of the line and getting nowhere. The Russians are spread thin; once the AFU breaks through, the Russians will lose everything. Will Putin even be able to pretend to continue the war? We shall see.
The war of the cities continues. There was a video of two girls performing music on the streets of Zaphorizhzhia; they were killed by a Russian missile an hour later. The Ukrainians have been hitting back, with regular reports of precision drone strikes on Moscow, it seems always in the dark hours of the morning to avoid civilian casualties. The drones don't carry a big warload and they're not a major threat, though they do seem to get lucky on occasion. The blandly devious General Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukrainian intelligence, commented:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
Last night, Ukraine started regular service of air express deliveries to Moscow via Domodedovo Airport. Arrivals will become more frequent in coming days.
END_QUOTE
The Ukrainians also fired two repurposed S-200 surface-to-air missiles -- mentioned here in the past -- at the Kerch Strait Bridge connecting Crimea to Russia. The Russians replied to a video of smoke billowing off the bridge with the claim that it was a smokescreen to protect repair crews. I replied: "Yeah -- like the S-200s are confused by smoke, right? I don't think so."
There were similar replies by others, one being a GIF of a Russian officer spokesman nicknamed "Vatnik Bob" -- in homage to the memorable "Baghdad Bob" of the First Iraq War -- saying: THERE IS NO PANIC.
PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (59): Many economists didn't think much of behavioral economics, believing that rational decision-making is a useful approximation and the real-world variations from that are just noise. Behavioral economists believed that factoring in the variations was valuable even with that assumption -- and also pointed out insensible decision-making sometimes went out of the control.
The classic example is stock-market bubbles. An economist named Robert Shiller (born 1946) published a book titled IRRATIONAL EXUBERANCE in 2000, which focused on stock-market bubbles. Of course, he'd written the book during the dot-com boom, which gave him a front-row seat to irrational exuberance in the stock market. When Yahoo launched onto the stock market in 1996, demand for its shares was so great that the company's value increased by 150% in one day.
That was extraordinary, but the market was pumping up other dot-com firms as well -- even though not many of these firms were making money. In fact, Amazon.com warned investors that the company was likely to lose money, but they still bought the shares. By the end of the decade, the stock market was surging, though on an earnings basis the stocks were generally greatly overvalued. Shiller realized that rational expectations had nothing to do with the dot-com craze, seeing as more like a fashion fad. He predicted it would crash to earth, and had the personal good fortune to make that prediction just before it did. Shiller was hardly psychic: he was just watching what was going on. A few years later, he was making similar predictions about the housing market that would also come true.
Shiller was not really traveling on new ground, economic bubbles having been examined in detail by the Scots author Charles MacKay (1814:1889) in his 1841 book EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS & THE MADNESS OF CROWDS. Along with stock-market bubbles, the book examined other popular acts of madness, such as alchemy, crusades, duels, witchcraft, fortune-telling, haunted houses, and prophesies. MacKay was one of the ancestral figures of the modern skeptical movement -- with the persistence of such irrational beliefs since his time suggesting how deeply humans are inclined to unreasonable ideas.
* Nonetheless, there is clearly a place for rational decision-making in economics, as demonstrated by the work of the American economist Alvin Roth (born 1951). Roth got to thinking about organ transplants. In most of the world, except for a few rogue states, selling organs is illegal -- for the obvious reasons that it would exploit poor people who were desperate to make money, or even encourage possibly murderous black-market traffic in organs. There is actually a large black market in human organs, but it is heavily discouraged by the authorities.
Roth specifically wondered about kidney transplants. Every healthy human has two kidneys and can get by with one, meaning one could be transplanted into another person. The problem is that foreign tissues are often rejected by a host, or in other words they're not "biocompatible". That means anyone who wants to donate a kidney to a particular person may find out that it can't be made to work.
Roth came up with the idea of setting up a database of kidney donors and kidney patients that could match a donor and patient across a big pool. Since the kidneys were not being sold, the arrangement would be legal. That led to the New England Program for Kidney Exchange, which worked across fourteen kidney transplant centers in the US New England region. [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* GIMMICKS & GADGETS: As discussed in an article from REUTERS.com ("Wind & Solar To Produce Over A Third Of Global Power By 2030", 13 July 2023), a report from the Rocky Mountain Institute says that Wind and solar projects are on track to account for more than a third of the world's electricity by 2030.
Earlier in 2023 Sultan al-Jaber -- president of the next UN climate summit, COP28 -- called for a tripling of renewable energy generation by 2030 to curb greenhouse gas emissions and help reach goals set under the 2015 Paris climate agreement. The RMI report says that renewables are now in an exponential-growth phase and, by 2030, will generate at least 33% of global electricity, up from around 12% now,
The RMI, a US-based non-profit organization focused on clean energy, carried out the research in partnership with the Bezos Earth Fund, set up by Amazon owner Jeff Bezos. According to the report the cost of solar power, which is already the cheapest form of electricity generation, will fall as low as $20 USD per megawatt hour (MWh) from around $40 MWh currently, as more projects are started and economies of scale improve.
* Switzerland has traditionally not been a hot spot for renewable energy, but according to an article from REUTERS.com ("Switzerland's Solar Dam", 7 February 2023), it's not like it's been ignored -- as demonstrated by a wall of solar panels attached to the Lake Muttsee Dam, in the central Swiss canton of Glarus.
The "AlpinSolar" array, built by the Axpo firm, covers the face of the dam with almost 5,000 solar panels, and will generate 3.3 million kilowatt-hours of electricity a year. The dam is nestled in the mountains at an altitude of 2,400 meters (7,900 feet). The high altitude allows the solar panels to draw well more energy from the Sun than an array at lower altitudes, all the more so because fogs are unusual at such heights.
AlpinSolar is part of a larger vision for Axpo, which says it aims to install 4,200 solar projects in Switzerland's mountains and lower-lying regions by 2030. The Swiss government is tweaking the laws to fast-track renewable energy programs. The drive towards more green means of energy production is tied to its decision to phase out nuclear power. In 2011, the Swiss Parliament resolved not to replace any existing reactors, which was confirmed in a 2017 referendum.
* As discussed in an article from NEWATLAS.com ("Rapid-Deployment Solar Arrays Cut Energy Cost Up To 20%" by Los Blain, 20 December 2022), Australian company 5B has developed a folding solar array that can be quickly deployed for large-scale solar installations. In a demonstration, a team of ten workers covered an athletic field with a 1.1-megawatt (MW) array in one day. It is similarly easy to relocate.
5B prefabricates "Maverick" blocks of 40 to 90 large solar panels in a factory. The solar panels in a block are hinged together to allow them to fold up into a shipping container for transport. Its efficiency is comparable to that of fixed arrays, with lower installation costs. The company has already deployed the Maverick with a total generation capacity over 60 MW, and plans to build a manufacturing and assembly hub in North America.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* VIRAL UNIVERSE (2): Where did viruses originally come from? Since they can't reproduce on their own, it would seem they couldn't have preceded organisms that can. There are two possibilities, the first being that an organism could have lost parts of itself until it couldn't survive without a host organism. There are bacteria that have gone down this road.
More interestingly, since evolution is at root all about the propagation of genes, viruses could have arisen as a scheme in which organisms propagated genes outside their own gene lines. Evolution is all about the propagation of genes; genes could have acquired viruses, allowing them to jump across species lines. Suggestively, organisms often contain independent bits of nucleic acid that don't do much but reproduce themselves. The smallest, found only in plants, are tiny rings of RNA called "viroids", only a few hundred genetic "base pairs (BP)" long. Viroids replicate by hijacking a host enzyme that normally makes mRNAs. Once attached to a viroid ring, the enzyme cycles around it, unable to stop, turning out a new copy of the viroid with each cycle.
Plasmids -- somewhat larger loops of nucleic acid found in bacteria -- do contain genes, and the proteins they describe can be useful to their hosts. Plasmids are sometimes seen as semi-independent parts of a bacteria's genome. However, the keyword is "semi-independent"; plasmids can transfer between bacteria, not always of the same species. This can result in transfers of properties such as antibiotic resistance to a bacterial strain that didn't have them before.
Recently, some plasmids have been implicated in what looks like a progression to true virus-hood. A genetic analysis by Mart Krupovic of the Pasteur Institute suggests that the "Circular Rep-Encoding Single-Strand-DNA (CRESS-DNA)" viruses, which infect bacteria, evolved from plasmids. He suspects that a DNA copy of the genes that another virus uses to create its virions, copied into a plasmid by chance, provided it with a way out of the cell. More needs to be learned, but it is possible that CRESS-DNA viruses, previously seen as a fairly closely related group, have arisen from plasmids this way on three different occasions.
It seems likely that viruses appeared quickly after organisms did, or intriguingly in seamless parallel with them. It is widely believed that much of the evolutionary period between the origin of life and the advent of LUCA was spent in an "RNA world" -- in which RNA acted as a genetic code, and also catalyzed the creation of more RNA. Patrick Forterre, an evolutionary biologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris with a particular interest in viruses -- and the man who first popularized the term LUCA -- believes that the "RNA world" was not just full of viruses. He also thinks they may have brought about its end.
DNA and RNA are very similar molecules, and an evolutionary process based on RNA could easily end up producing DNA over the longer run. DNA has the advantage of being more stable than RNA, but that comes along with the disadvantage of losing catalytic properties. Would there be an evolutionary advantage in going to a DNA genome? Forterre believes so, suggesting that the RNA world was highly competitive, with RNAs not only catalyzing their own replication, but cutting apart rival strains. DNA would be much more impervious to attack. Once DNA genomes had arisen, there would be a competition in which those better able to replicate, leveraging off proteins or their precursors, would predominate over those that didn't replicate so well, along with the general suppression of the RNA. [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* AFRICA & PUTIN: As discussed in an article from ECONOMIST.com ("Why African Leaders Shunned Vladimir Putin's Summit", 26 July 2023), Russian President Vladimir Putin has long courted the leaders of African countries. In 2019, he invited African heads of state to Sochi, Russia, for the first Russia-Africa summit, with 43 attending. In late July, Putin held a second summit in Saint Petersburg -- with only about 17 attending.
Russian officials blamed Western meddling for the low turnout, but the reality is that Africa is ambivalent towards Russia. Of Africa's 54 countries, 19 backed Ukraine in most of the five votes on the war at the UN General Assembly in the first year of the conflict -- with only two voting for Russia, and the rest abstaining. There's a mix of reasons for the ambivalence:
Most generally, however, African leaders just don't want to pick sides, sensibly wanting to strike a balance. That balance was upset when, on 17 July, Russia said it would no longer honor a deal made a year ago to allow Ukraine to export grain, and then began to launch cruise missiles to attack grain-storage facilities in Ukrainian ports.
Africa needs Ukrainian grain, so withdrawing from the deal struck at their national interests. Losing grain imports could mean high prices at best and starvation at worst. Putin has attempted to keep African leaders happy by giving them deals on Russian grain and handing them other perks.
The problem for Putin is that Russia is a poor country and doesn't have much leverage in Africa. In 2018, the most recent year with proper statistics, Russia gave $28 million USD in bilateral aid to African countries, less than a hundredth of what Britain gave. As far as foreign direct investment in Africa goes, in 2020 Russia-Africa trade reached $14 billion USD -- only 2% of the continent's total and about a twentieth of EU-Africa trade. At the 2019 Russia-Africa summit, officials played up deals worth $12.5 billion, but most of them fizzled.
Russia does have some good cards in its dealings with Africa, selling weapons to sub-Saharan African regimes such as Uganda more cheaply and with fewer strings than the West would attach. Its Wagner mercenaries back up autocratic rulers, and so it was no surprise that African countries where the ruling elite has the closest ties to Russia -- such as Algeria, Madagascar, Mozambique, Uganda and Zimbabwe -- preferred to abstain in UN votes on the war in Ukraine. Russian propaganda, particularly on social media, has successfully exploited anti-Western sentiment that is widespread on the continent, particularly in Francophone West Africa. In a poll of 23 African countries in 2022, Gallup found that the states with the highest approval ratings of Russia were Mali (84%) and Ivory Coast (71%). The top seven were Francophone.
Still, that leverage only goes so far. In 2021 Afrobarometer, a research group, released results of polls across 34 African countries that showed only a bit more than a third of respondents said Russia was a good influence -- which was less than the shares given former colonial powers, the USA, and China.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is now trying to woo African states. Roughly in parallel with the second Africa-Russia summit, Zelenskyy hosted a group of African journalists -- to compare Ukraine's struggle against Russia as like that of Africans against colonialists, and warn them that Russian generosity to Africans was intended to make them politically dependent. Whatever Africans think of Ukraine, they already know better than to put much trust in Russia.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* THE WEEK THAT WAS: As discussed in an article from AVIATIONWEEK.com ("China Biggest Driver Of US Defense Spending Surge" by Matthew Fulco, 10 July 2023), the USA is currently preoccupied with the war in Ukraine -- but hasn't forgotten China. A study from investment banker TD Cowen (TDC) projects a surge in American defense spending over the next four years, the primary aim being to counter China in both conventional and nuclear weapons.
TDC estimates that the Pentagon's spending on a group of about 30 major weapons and munitions is set to jump 22% from fiscal 2024 to 2028, "a significant increase from prior plans." TD Cowen expects solid, near-term growth for conventional munitions but more sustained growth for atomic weapons as part of the Nuclear Triad Modernization.
Of course, there is short-term spending relative to the war in Ukraine, the report saying: "Ukraine-type weapons ... should benefit from funds appropriated by Congress over the last year for DOD refill and from foreign military sales to NATO countries." Specific items include Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies' Javelin anti-tank missiles, Lockheed's Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS), Raytheon's Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, and General Dynamics' Excalibur smart 155-millimeter rounds.
In the long term, Northrop Grumman programs are likely to grow the most on the back of nuclear modernization and rocket motors, with Lockheed right behind, carried by demand for both its conventional and nuclear programs. Northrop Grumman is bringing in defense dollars with its new B-21 Raider stealth bombers, with the Air Force planning to buy 100 at about $700 million each.
China is building its own stealth bomber, the Xian H-20, which being manufactured by the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC). The H-20 is part of a broad, high-priority push by Beijing to modernize its nuclear arsenal. The Pentagon estimates that China plans to nearly quadruple its nuclear warheads from 400 to 1,500 by 2035. It is not clear why China wants to expand its nuclear forces so aggressively. The opacity of China's political system makes it hard to determine intent. 400 warheads is plenty for a deterrent. The conventional capabilities of the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) are sufficient to make US intervention in a Taiwan Strait conflict a costly exercise for Washington.
It may be the case that Beijing doesn't want to be a distant second to the USA in nuclear arms, even if there's no intent to use them -- that is, China wants parity for national prestige. After US President Joe Biden met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Indonesia in November 2022, the White House issued a statement that said the two men "reiterated their agreement that a nuclear war should never be fought and can never be won and underscored their opposition to the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine."
The US is also working hard to build up stockpiles of conventional weapons, both to make up for munitions expenditures in Ukraine and to reinforce Taiwan. Taiwan's defense needs are driving production of Raytheon's Standard Missile Six (SM-6), Naval Strike Missiles, and Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM). TDC said: "Raytheon's portfolio has implications for Taiwan scenarios, and increased production and stockpiling could be part of a US-Quad-Taiwan stockpiling and deterrence scenario." -- with "Quad" referring to the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue that includes the US, Japan, Australia, and India.
Looking ahead, TDC noted that the Pentagon wants contractors to add missile and munitions capacity, but they are hesitant to do so without assurances of sustained demand. In response, the Pentagon "appears willing to consider multiyear buys," with production to ramp up in 2024:25 and continue at an elevated level for several years thereafter "to achieve the inventory levels DOD wants to both replenish Ukraine and refill its own stockpile."
[ED: Improvements in Taiwan's defensive capability should outpace improvements in China's offensive capability -- meaning that the greatest danger is NOW, but declines over the longer run. For the present, there is no indication that China is preparing to invade Taiwan. In a few years, Taiwan will be awash in drones; stealthy long-range cruise missiles might be nice as well, to suggest to Beijing that attacking Taiwan would be expensive. One wonders what effect Russian defeat in Ukraine will have on China's plans as well.]
* A video showed a group of Ukrainian soldiers sitting talking about a Russian prisoner, the discussion being edited-down somewhat here:
BEGIN QUOTE:
S1: We were sitting around and talking with a POW ... lying around, watching cartoons on smartphones for three days.
S2: I was just laying down, and I say to the POW: "Bro, want to watch some cartoons?" He says: "What do you mean?" "I just got back from my post and have some time, nothing to do -- want to watch some cartoons?" He looks at me like I'm crazy. He says: "Fuck it, let's watch cartoons. What cartoons?" I say: "Let's watch MASHA & THE BEAR." He says: "Are you fucking with me, or are you like this for real?" I said: "Yeah. What about it?"
S1: Guy thinks we are crazy. We watch cartoons with that guy for three days in a row. He goes: "Oh, guys! Not only do you give me food, give me smokes, treat me good, don't beat me -- you have me watching cartoons with you. Are you out of your minds" "So what else should we do with you? Why would we beat you?" He thought for a second: "Yeah, you're not wrong." And when I talk with that guy, I learn what kind of fairy tales they're told about us -- like we eat babies and so on.
END_QUOTE
Soldiers are like that -- most are not mean. Being a soldier is also boring, so they find amusements for themselves. MASHA & THE BEAR is a long-running series of computer-generated cartoons from a Russian named Oleg Kuzokov, featuring a cute but mischievous tyke named Masha, and a long-suffering Bear who tries to keep her out of trouble. If the Russians can make MASHA & THE BEAR, there's hope for them yet.
PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (58): It has been mentioned earlier here that economics is essentially a behavioral science, being the study of the economic behavior of humans. It wasn't until recently, however, that psychologists began to investigate exactly how humans made their economic decisions. Two Israeli psychologists, Daniel Kahneman (born 1934) and Amos Tversky (1937:1996) decided to investigate human economic decision-making, helping to found "behavioral economics".
Traditionally, economics models rested on the assumption of "rational decision-making". The behavioral economists found that wasn't really how things work. For example, another behavioral economist, Richard Thaler (born 1945) noted how one of his economics professors, a wine collector, would pay high prices for a favored wine, and then refuse to sell it even if offered multiples of the original price. The professor just wanted the wine much more than he wanted the money.
Kahneman and Tversky ran an experiment along the same lines. They gave one set of students a mug, and told them to set a price for it. They didn't give a mug to another set, but told them to price the mug as well. They found out that those students who had a mug consistently priced it higher than those who didn't. Kahneman and Tversky realized it was a question of "framing" the transaction. In the same way, they considered a pandemic that could kill 2,000 people out of 100,000, and a treatment that could save 400 of them. If the same treatment was advocated as reducing the death count to 1,600, people were less inclined to like the treatment, even though the result was the same.
Another peculiarity of decision-making was that people had little ability to estimate futures. There's a concept in probability theory named "Bayesian analysis", which in simple terms is ranking the possible outcomes of an event according to their probability, and expecting the most probable outcome. If, as is often the case, one outcome is normal, another outcome is unusual, and a third outcome is almost unheard-of, there's no problem in the analysis.
However, trying to render it down any more specifically than that is difficult to impossible -- in part because complicated events don't always lend themselves to any determination of probabilities. The most traditional fallacy in that context are attempts to predict the trajectory of the stock market, which as already explained are futile.
More generally, there is the "McNamara Effect", named after Robert S. McNamara (1916:2009), secretary of defense in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations. McNamara had a corporate industrial background and believed in basing decisions on detailed data -- which proved a disaster in attempting to direct the chaotic Vietnam War. Data was of course important at a tactical level, but it was effectively useless at the strategic level, which demanded a maturity of vision that McNamara lacked. The later emergence of "spreadsheet management" suffered from the same failing.
Even when data is available and useful to support decision-making, the analysis of the data may be skewed by such factors as too small a data sample, and the inclination to "confirmation bias" -- that is, selecting or interpreting data so it conforms to a desired outcome, or even using data that isn't really relevant to the issue in question. Other statistical fallacies include:
Outside of the simple cases, all such probability estimations were gut feel, idle guesswork. Faced with uncertainty of the outcome, the sensible knew they were as well off flipping a coin. [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* SCIENCE NOTES: As discussed in a report from CELL.com ("Bacteria Genes Gave Ancient Plants Traits To Colonize Land", 1 March 2022), researchers have determined that genes jumping from microbes to green algae hundreds of millions of years ago might have driven the evolution of land plants. Their analysis shows that hundreds of genes from bacteria, fungi, and viruses have been integrated into plants, giving them useful traits for a terrestrial life.
Horizontal gene transfer (HGT), meaning the transfer of genetic materials between organisms of similar or different species, is common in bacteria, notoriously resulting in the spread of antibiotic resistance. However, the role of HGT in complex multicellular eukaryotes -- organisms such as plants and animals -- is less clear.
Traditionally, researchers assumed that eukaryotic genes were only passed down from generation to generation. That view has been increasingly challenged, now by research from a team led by Huang Jinling, a biologist at East Carolina University, suggests that HGT in plants might be much more common than traditionally assumed.
To study the role of HGT in plant evolution, the researchers scanned the genomes of 31 plants. They focused on species from all four plant groups, including mosses, ferns, and trees, as well as charophytes, a group of green algae related to modern land plants. They found that nearly 600 gene families in modern plants were transferred from other organisms, particularly from microbes such as bacteria and fungi. In addition, the team discovered two major episodes of HGT during the early evolution of charophyte algae and the origin of land plants, when over a hundred gene families hopped from microbes to plants.
Many of the genes acquired perform important biological functions in plants. For example, the late embryogenesis abundant genes, which came from bacteria, helps plants adapt to a drier environment. The ammonium transporter gene, acquired from fungi, helps plants absorb nitrogen from soil for growth. Huang says:
BEGIN QUOTE:
Our finding suggests that HGT plays a significant role in land-plant evolution. Compared with mutations from vertical gene transfer, HGT enables plants to gain new traits rapidly, and some of these new traits could help plants adapt to a drastically different environment, like when they moved from water to land.
END QUOTE
The team now plans to explore transferred genes in bryophytes, the plant group that includes mosses.
* As discussed in an article from CNN.com ("Scientists Discover A 5-mile wide Undersea Crater Created As The Dinosaurs Disappeared" by Katie Hunt, 18 August 2022), it is known that a huge meteor strike occurred in the Yucatan at the end of the age of dinosaurs. Researchers have found evidence of a second major impact around that time -- a previously undiscovered crater 400 kilometers (250 miles) off the west coast of Africa.
Uisdean Nicholson, an assistant professor at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, found the crater by accident while reviewing seismic survey data for another project on Atlantic plate tectonics. He says: "While interpreting the data, I [came] across this very unusual crater-like feature, unlike anything I had ever seen before. It had all the characteristics of an impact crater." It had the right ratio of crater width to depth, the height of the rims, and the height of the central uplift.
The crater is 8 kilometers (5 miles) wide, and Nicholson believes it was likely caused by an asteroid more than 400 meters (1,300 feet) wide smashing into the Earth's crust. It was not in the same league as the Chicxulub impact, which left a crater about 160 kilometers (100 miles) wide in what is now the Yucatan, but it was still monstrous. He says:
EGIN_QUOTE:
The [Nadir] impact would have had severe consequences locally and regionally -- across the Atlantic Ocean at least. There would have been a large earthquake [magnitude 6.5 to 7], so significant ground shaking locally. The air blast would have been heard across the globe, and would have itself caused severe local damage across the region.
END_QUOTE
It would have generated a tsunami wave up to a kilometer high at the source, fading to a few meters by the time it reached South America. Inspection of microfossils in nearby exploration wells show that the crater was formed around 66 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period. However, there's still uncertainty of about a million years of its exact age. There may or may not be any linkage between this impact and the Yucatan impact, but it is possible that the two were due to the breakup of a single large asteroid, whose pieces then struck the Earth.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* VIRAL UNIVERSE (1): As discussed in an article from ECONOMIST.com ("The Viral Universe", 20 August 2020), there is much that is mysterious about viruses. They're not precisely alive; they are simply genetic codes, packaged in a protein and possibly lipid shell, with the resulting "virion" hijacking host cells to replicate -- and the progeny going on to infect more cells in turn.
Eckard Wimmer, a chemist and biologist who works at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, says that viruses "alternate between nonliving and living phases". Few know more about viruses: in 2002 he became the first person to take a kit of nonliving chemicals and build a virion from scratch, with the virion then reproducing and infecting cells.
Viruses, of course, are a major component of the biosphere, being found almost everywhere on Earth. The number of copies of their genes to be found on Earth is astronomical. They kill more living things than any other type of predator. They shape the balance of species in ecosystems ranging from those of the open ocean to that of the human bowel. They spur evolution, driving natural selection and allowing the swapping of genes. They have clearly been an important factor in the ongoing evolution of life on Earth, with markers of viruses dotted through the human genome. They provide researchers with tools to reprogram cells and alter metabolisms.
All cellular organisms, from bacteria to humans, can trace their origins back to a "last universal common ancestor (LUCA)" through the patterns of their genomes. Viruses are so minimal that their genomes only establish the broadest connections between them, and it appears they have multiple origins -- some in the far distant past, some recently.
The multiple origins are hinted at by a wide range of viral architectures. In cellular organisms, genomes are all encoded with the double-stranded DNA molecule, with the complementary messenger RNA (mRNA) molecule used to synthesize proteins. Viruses are more diverse. In the early 1970s David Baltimore, one of the great figures of molecular biology, divided the realm of viruses into seven separate classes, on the basis of their genomes.
In four of these seven classes, the viruses store their genes not in DNA but in RNA. Those of Baltimore group three use double strands of RNA. In Baltimore groups four and five, the RNA is single-stranded; in group four, the genome can be used directly as an mRNA; in group five it is the template from which mRNA must be made. In group six -- the retroviruses, which include HIV -- the viral RNA is copied into DNA, which then provides a template for mRNAs.
Since the genomes of cellular organisms are universally based on DNA, RNA-based viruses have to introduce alien mechanisms into their host cells to get them to replicate the RNA genomes. Those mechanisms provide medicine with targets for antiviral treatments. Many drugs against HIV take aim at the system that makes DNA copies of RNA templates. Remdesivir (Veklury) -- a drug that interferes with the mechanism that the simpler RNA viruses use to recreate their RNA genomes -- was originally developed to treat hepatitis C (group four) and subsequently tried against the Ebola virus (group five). It is now being used against SARS-CoV-2 (group four), the COVID-19 virus.
Studies of the gene for that RNA-copying mechanism, RdRp, show how hard it is to trace down virus genealogy. Some viruses in groups three, four and five seem, on the basis of their RdRp sequence, more closely related to members of one of the other groups than they are to all the other members of their own group. What does that tell us? It may suggest that RdRp has been swapped between different viral lines. When two viruses infect the same cell at the same time, such swaps are more or less inevitable. They are, among other things, one of the mechanisms by which viruses native to one species acquire the ability to infect another. [TO BE CONTINUED]
NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* BLACK SEA BATTLE: As discussed in an article from ECONOMIST.com ("How Oceans Became New Technological Battlefields", 8 July 2023), the war in Ukraine has been noted by slugfest ground battles, plus extensive use of missiles and drones. It has not been marked by a comparably intense naval war in the Black Sea.
Nonetheless, there is a naval war going on in the Black Sea. At the outset in February 2022, the Ukrainian Navy seemed hopelessly outgunned by the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which had 20 warships. Ukraine only had one warship worthy of the name, which was scuttled at the outset of the conflict to keep it from falling into Russian hands. The entire Black Sea coast of Ukraine seemed open to Russian naval attacks and amphibious operations.
That changed on 14 April 2022, when two Ukrainian antiship missiles sank the cruiser MOSKVA, the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet. Since that time, Russian warships have been careful to keep their distance from Ukraine's coastlines, which are now effectively defended by some unknown number of antiship missiles, including Western-supplied Harpoons, presumably more Ukrainian-made antiship missiles, and possibly some other weapons. The effectiveness of the Ukrainian defense helped promote a deal with the Russians to permit grain shipments across the Black Sea -- though the Turks backed the deal and lent teeth to it through the Turkish Navy.
The sinking of the MOSKVA was nothing new; antiship missiles have been around for a long time, and the Russians were careless to take the vessel within range of possible threats. The MOSKVA might not have been even hit if the crew had been alert and it had more modern defenses; it appears Russian damage-control efforts were similarly deficient. Rune Andersen, head of the Norwegian Navy, says:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
On the day of the sinking I was confronted by army colleagues: "This must surely be the end of the idea of building big warships?" I said: "No -- it's the end of having a 40-year-old warship which hasn't been updated and without trained crews."
END_QUOTE
Alas, all Ukraine was to do with the sinking was make the Russians keep their distance, with Russian submarines and surface vessels occasionally lobbing Kalibr cruise missiles at Ukraine. The Ukrainians are kept up-to-date on the actions of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, thanks to intelligence provided by the USA and other Ukrainian allies -- but the Ukrainians have lacked the weapons to do much about Russian sea-borne attacks.
The Ukrainians have made use of "uncrewed surface vessels (USVs)" -- drone boats -- to hit back. In October and November 2022, the USVs were deployed alongside aerial drones to attack Sevastopol, headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and an oil depot in Novorossiysk, a Russian port. Other attacks have followed, including an apparently successful hit on an intelligence ship near the Bosporus on 24 May 2023.
Drone boats are not exactly new; Iran-backed Houthi rebels used a USV to strike a Saudi frigate in 2017. However, Ukraine's USVs are highly sophisticated and intelligent, able to operate over long range. Vice-Admiral Oleksiy Neizhpapa, Ukraine's navy chief, says: "Drones are very important elements of our warfare right now. The warfare of the future is a warfare of drones. No other country has as much experience using naval drones."
The Russians learn slowly, but they do learn, and it appears that a raid on Sevastopol in March 2023 with USVs was a bust, with one USV blocked by a boom and two others destroyed by machine gun fire. The Ukrainians, however, are nowhere near the limit of what is possible with maritime drones. There's no reason drones can't carry mines, antiship missiles, or torpedoes, with images of a big Ukrainian quadcopter drone dropping a torpedo as well.
The Ukrainians have also released images and drawings of a series of "Toloka" submarine drones, ranging from long-range torpedoes to small robot submarines with long range and capable of carrying tonnes of warload. The fact that images were released, however, suggests that the Tolokas are not close to being fielded, with the release intended to mislead the Russians -- possibly to distract from improved USVs much closer to operation.
There is considerable interest in maritime drones elsewhere. After the mysterious attacks on the Nord Stream pipeline in September 2022, European governments searched for means of spotting threats. Admiral Andersen says Norway reached out to private companies working offshore in activities such as oil and gas. "We found an industry with a huge sense of responsibility and a willingness to contribute."
Within days Andersen said he had 600 advanced undersea drones, some remotely operated and others autonomous. Working with Britain, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands, the drones scanned "every inch" of gas infrastructure over 9,000 square kilometers, before moving on to power and data cables. In early 2023, NATO a new critical undersea infrastructure co-ordination office to encourage such defensive co-operation.
There's plenty of work in progress in NATO nations to enhance maritime drone capabilities, much of it in secret, with Ukraine being a beneficiary. Indeed, Ukraine is serving as a naval "battle lab" of great value to NATO. Rear Admiral James Parkin, the British Royal Navy's director of development says:
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The things that a British company funded by British taxpayers' money and cohered by British military officers can do in Ukraine I cannot do in the UK because peacetime regulations forbid it. ... We're at a bit of a moment in uncrewed surface vessels in particular which is equivalent to the man with a red flag walking in front of a motor car.
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The naval war in the Black Sea is by no means over, and the current silence is deceptive. Admiral Neizhpapa says: "After the war we will certainly write a textbook. And we'll send it to all the NATO military academies."
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