Many thanks to those who enjoy this. ☺
In the 21st Century curiosity will SKILL the cat.
Jobs are dying - Work is just beginning.
Work that engages our whole self becomes play that works.
Techne = Knowledge-as-Know-How :: Technology = Embodied Know-How
In the 21st century - the planet is the little school house in the galaxy.
Citizenship is the battlefield of the 21st Century
“Be careful what you ‘insta-google-tweet-face’”
Woody Harrelson - Triple 9
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COVID-19, along with climate change, could be the equivalent of the Great Depression and WWII in forcing a sea change in economic thinking and policy.
And the battle for the COVID-19 narrative is already underway. The Economist sounded the alarm: “Big government is needed to fight the pandemic. What matters is how it shrinks back again afterwards. ... A pandemic government is not fit for everyday life.”3 Government overreach, we hear, led to America being unprepared. “Stringent and time-consuming FDA requirements are preventing academic and clinical labs around the country, with capacity and willingness to develop and deploy testing within their communities, from being able to do so.”
But many Americans, Britons, Italians, Japanese and others probably wish that, like South Korea’s, their governments had done more not less at the outset, and that their fellow citizens had the civic mindedness that made the South Korean government’s policies so effective.
The COVID-19 narrative that emerges in the aftermath of the pandemic will have to embrace two truths. First, there is no way that government – however well organised and professional – can address challenges like this pandemic without a civic-minded citizenry that trusts the public health advice of its government and is committed to the rule of law. Second, people facing extraordinary risks and costs have indeed acted with generosity and trust on a massive scale.
The coming battle for the COVID-19 narrative
The development of Google’s search algorithm, for instance, had been supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, a US public grant-awarding body. Electric car company Tesla initially struggled to secure investment until it received a $465 million (£380 million) loan from the US Department of Energy. In fact, three companies founded by Elon Musk — Tesla, SolarCity and SpaceX — had jointly benefited from nearly $4.9 billion (£3.9bn) in public support of various kinds. Many other well-known US startups had been funded by the Small Business Innovation Research programme, a public venture capital fund. “It wasn’t just early research, it was also applied research, early stage finance, strategic procurement,” she says. “The more I looked, the more I realised: state investment is everywhere.”
Mazzucato traced the provenance of every technology that made the iPhone. The HTTP protocol, of course, had been developed by British scientist Tim Berners-Lee and implemented on the computers at CERN, in Geneva. The internet began as a network of computers called Arpanet, funded by the US Department of Defense (DoD) in the 60s to solve the problem of satellite communication. The DoD was also behind the development of GPS during the 70s, initially to determine the location of military equipment. The hard disk drive, microprocessors, memory chips and LCD display had also been funded by the DoD. Siri was the outcome of a Stanford Research Institute project to develop a virtual assistant for military staff, commissioned by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The touchscreen was the result of graduate research at the University of Delaware, funded by the National Science Foundation and the CIA.
According to a study by Mazzucato and economist Bill Lazonick, between 2003 and 2013 publicly listed companies in the S&P 500 index used more than half of their earnings to buy back their shares to boost stock prices, rather than reinvesting it back into further research and development. Pharmaceutical company Pfizer, for example, spent $139bn (£112bn) on share buybacks. Apple, which had never engaged in this type of financial engineering under Jobs, started doing so in 2012. By 2018, it had spent nearly one trillion dollars on share buybacks. “Those profits could be used to fund research and training for workers,” Mazzucato says. “Instead they are often used on share buybacks and golfing.”
This economist has a plan to fix capitalism. It's time we all listened
In your view, how do these uncertainties underpin all of these crises?
E.M.: This is because we must learn to accept them and live with them, even though our civilisation has instilled in us an increasing need for certainties about the future – often illusory and sometimes frivolous, when we’re told precisely what will happen to us in 2025! The emergence of this virus should remind us that uncertainty remains intrinsic to the human condition. All of the social insurance policies you may subscribe to can never guarantee that you won’t fall ill or that you’ll have a happy home life! We try to surround ourselves with as many guarantees as possible, but life is an ocean of uncertainty, upon which we sail between islands or archipelagos of convinctions, where we recharge …
Edgar Morin - "Uncertainty is Intrinsic to the Human Condition"
Humankind is now facing a global crisis. Perhaps the biggest crisis of our generation. The decisions people and governments take in the next few weeks will probably shape the world for years to come. They will shape not just our healthcare systems but also our economy, politics and culture. We must act quickly and decisively. We should also take into account the long-term consequences of our actions. When choosing between alternatives, we should ask ourselves not only how to overcome the immediate threat, but also what kind of world we will inhabit once the storm passes. Yes, the storm will pass, humankind will survive, most of us will still be alive — but we will inhabit a different world.
Many short-term emergency measures will become a fixture of life. That is the nature of emergencies. They fast-forward historical processes. Decisions that in normal times could take years of deliberation are passed in a matter of hours. Immature and even dangerous technologies are pressed into service, because the risks of doing nothing are bigger. Entire countries serve as guinea-pigs in large-scale social experiments. What happens when everybody works from home and communicates only at a distance? What happens when entire schools and universities go online? In normal times, governments, businesses and educational boards would never agree to conduct such experiments. But these aren’t normal times.
In this time of crisis, we face two particularly important choices. The first is between totalitarian surveillance and citizen empowerment. The second is between nationalist isolation and global solidarity.
Yuval Noah Harari: the world after coronavirus
If we could predict human behaviour with Newtonian and quantum models, we would. But we can’t. It’s this honest confrontation between science and complex reality that produces the schism. Some critics claim that it’s our own stubborn anthropocentrism – an insistence that our tools yield to our intelligence – that’s impeding the advancement of science. If only we’d quit worrying about placating human minds, they say, we could use machines to accelerate our mastery over matter. A computer simulation of intelligence need not reflect the structure of the nervous system, any more than a telescope reflects the anatomy of an eye. Indeed, the radio telescope provides a compelling example of how a radically novel and non-optical mechanism can exceed a purely optical function, with radio telescopes able to detect other galaxies that lie beyond the line of sight of the Milky Way.
The great divergence between understanding and prediction echoes Baruch Spinoza’s insight about history: ‘Schisms do not originate in a love of truth … but rather in an inordinate desire for supremacy.’ The battle ahead is whether brains or algorithms will be sovereign in the kingdom of science.
Perhaps the most rigorous work on paradox was pursued by Kurt Gödel in Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems (1931). Gödel discovered that in every strictly formal mathematical system, there are statements that cannot be confirmed or refuted even when they are derived from the axioms of the system itself. The axioms of a formal system allow for the possibility of contradictions, and it is these contradictions that constitute the basis of the experience of paradox. Gödel’s basic insight was that any system of rules has a natural domain of application – but when rules are applied to inputs that are not of the same structure which guided the rules’ development, then we can expect weirdness.
What paradox and illusion show us is that our ability to predict and to understand are dependent on essential deficiencies of thought, and that the limitations to achieving understanding can be very different from those that limit prediction. In just the same way that prediction is fundamentally bounded by sensitivity of measurement and the shortcomings of computation, understanding is both enhanced and diminished by the rules of inference.
At the limits of thought
A central problem with the news media is that it does not care about participatory democracy. It is comfortable with politics being something that ordinary people merely watch and consume, rather than do.
Notes on a Nightmare #6: Against Newspapers
This is an important weak signal of the future of identity - of an ecology of ‘selves’ sustained by some sort of narrative continuity that herds ‘the cats of our ecology of dividuals’ in an meta-ecology of networks. Our ‘entangled’ and ‘fractal’ selves. For a sense of this one can read “Ancillary Justice” by Ann Leckie (this sci-fi book won every prize for the genre), watch TV series like “Sense8” or “Westworld” or others.
It’s completely true that people express different sides of themselves according to different contexts. However, this is different from multiplicity. Members of a multiple group will individually experience themselves as having these ‘different sides’, just like everyone else.
What we can learn about respect and identity from ‘plurals’
A plural is a human being who says things like: ‘I’m one of many people inside my head.’ Although they are quite rare (it’s impossible to say how rare), plurals are increasingly visible on social media and in the occasional popular media article. At present, there is a handbook online about how to respond to a co-worker’s ‘coming out’ (as the document puts it) as plural.
You might think you’ve heard of plurals if you’ve heard of dissociative identity disorder (DID), because, like plurals, people with DID experience themselves as being psychologically multiple. But many plurals don’t meet the diagnostic criteria for DID. Often, this is because they don’t find their plurality per se to be distressing or impairing. In other cases, it’s because they don’t meet the amnesia criterion for DID, since the multiple beings that plurals experience as being inside them can share experiences or communicate to each other about their experiences. Conversely, most people with DID aren’t plurals. Plurals don’t just feel as though they are psychologically multiple – they believe that they are. And they take each of these psychological beings, inhabiting one shared body, to be a full person: let’s call each of them a personp, where the little ‘p’ stands for ‘part of one human being’. As one personp puts it: ‘You presume that there’s a “real person” underneath all of us who’s conjuring up “imaginary friends”. No, we’re just people, thanks.’
According to plurals, then, a plural human being isn’t a person, but a co-embodied group of people. Each personp takes him or herself to bear social relations to the others, as members of a household might. Different peoplep might speak of liking or disliking, respecting and disparaging, cooperating and arguing and negotiating with each other.
Here is a signal that is ripe for consideration. Now that all the control-freak managers have had to enable their ‘troops’ to work at home - they may become more amenable to their employees to engage in telepresence. This is a good summary of what’s available to organizations for letting employees be virtually present.
Best telepresence robots for business in 2020: Double Robotics, OhmniLabs, Meeting Owl, and more
The best telepresence hardware to go beyond video conferencing and make remote work truly collaborative.
How can remote workers make their presence known in their organization? How can enterprises overcome the limitations of video conferencing and enable a level of communication and collaboration that approaches on-site interaction?
Telepresence robots have been on the scene for the better part of a decade, though as global upheavals reshape work and reorient attitudes toward remote participation, the technology may finally be primed to break out of its niche user base and go mainstream. The timing is fortuitous: The market is now mature enough that consumers have choices when it comes to feature set and price point. As companies downsize physical locations and revamp their policies toward distributed workforces, telepresence offers both technological benefits and collaboration advantages that will appeal to some employers and workers alike.
The current telepresence lineup reflects the range of use cases and intended end-users out there, including a handful of models designed for specific fields and workflows, as well as others that fit organizations of any size.
These are our picks for the best telepresence robots out there right now.
Well this is a good signal toward dealing with one form of communicable disease - even if it’s not covid-19.
Research reveals a new malaria vaccine candidate
Researchers have discovered a promising new strategy for combating malaria, a mosquito-borne parasite that claims nearly a half-million lives each year.
For a study reported in the journal Nature, researchers screened blood samples from children who had natural immune resistance to severe malaria infection. The study identified an antibody to a particular malaria protein, called PfGARP, that appears to protect resistant children from severe disease. Lab tests showed that antibodies to PfGARP seem to activate a malarial self-destruct mechanism, causing parasite cells living inside human red blood cells to undergo a form of programmed cell death.
The team is hopeful that vaccinating individuals with PfGARP to generate anti-PfGARP antibodies, or directly infusing anti-PfGARP antibodies, would protect them against severe malaria. The team developed preliminary versions of those vaccines, and testing in nonhuman primates has shown promise, the researchers report.
This is an important signal of our relationship with insects.
Nature crisis: 'Insect apocalypse' more complicated than thought
Previous research indicated an alarming decline in numbers in all parts of world, with losses of up to 25% per decade.
This new study, the largest carried out to date, says the picture is more complex and varied.
Land-dwelling insects are definitely declining, the authors say, while bugs living in freshwater are increasing.
This new study, the largest on insect change to date, aims to give a more complete understanding of what's really happening to bugs worldwide.
Drawing on data from 166 long-term surveys across 1,676 sites, it paints a highly nuanced and variable picture of the state of insect health.
The compilation indicates that insects like butterflies, ants and grasshoppers are going down by 0.92% per year, which amounts to 9% per decade, lower than many published rates.
However while many land-based species are declining, the new study shows that insects that live in fresh water, like midges and mayflies, are growing by 1.08% per year.
And another good signal of a possible way to meet the challenge of increasing antibiotic resistance.
Research: A peptide can render antibiotics effective again – at doses 100 times lower than usual
A peptide renders older antibiotics effective again at doses 100 times lower than the common dosage, as shown by research from Örebro University.
"Administering lower doses of antibiotics when treating infections in turn reduces the risk of further development of antibiotic resistance, which today is a major global threat to public health," says Torbjörn Bengtsson, professor in medical cell biology.
The results of the study, which was conducted by Torbjörn Bengtsson together with his Örebro colleague Hazem Khalaf, docent in cellular microbiology, and researchers at Linköping University, have been published in Scientific Reports.
The plantaricin peptide originates from a "good" bacterium and can for instance be found in fermented vegetables, serving as a preservative.
This may be a signal of a simple form of metabolic economy.
Cement factories can put the brakes on global plastic pollution
Hope in the midst of crisis. Overflowing landfill sites in Asia may prove to be goldmines for local cement producers. So say researchers at the Norwegian research organization, SINTEF, who have extensive experience with the same concept in China.
Plastic is made from fossil fuels and contains more energy than coal. Substituting industrial coal consumption with non-recyclable plastic enables us to resolve two problems. The plastic will not end up in landfill or in the sea, and we will reduce levels of coal consumption and thus also CO2 emissions.
China is now investing heavily in the use of plastic waste as a fuel in the cement industry, and it was Norwegian researchers that first suggested the idea. The aim of the project OPTOCE (Ocean Plastic Turned into an Opportunity in Circular Economy) is to assist a number of Asian countries to be rid of their landfill sites and at the same time reduce their coal consumption.
Another signal of the transformation of manufacturing with 3D printers.
"The Army would like to be able to print parts in the field to simplify logistics by carrying digital part files instead of physical parts, but to date, the technologies for producing high-strength parts have not been practical in an expeditionary setting. These printers are too large, energy-hungry, delicate or messy for starters, and their feedstocks can require specialized storage requirements."
New Army tech may turn low-cost printers into high-tech producers
The Army has a new type of multi-polymer filament for commonly-used desktop 3-D printers. This advance may save money and facilitate fast printing of critical parts at the point of need.
The research is also the cover story of the April edition of Advanced Engineering Materials, a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal.
Parts produced with these printers historically have had poor strength and toughness, which prevented affordable printers from being used to resupply military parts on demand, especially at deployed locations, until now. The Army's new material overcomes those deficiencies, potentially allowing Soldiers to use low-cost printers to create parts that, once subjected to a few hours of heat, can achieve mechanical properties robust enough to withstand the rigors of field operations.
This breakthrough is an important step forward for Army expeditionary manufacturing, said Dr. Eric D. Wetzel, who leads the Emerging Composites team and serves as the research area leader for Soldier Materials at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Army Research Laboratory.
This is an important weak signal of the future of domesticating (hacking) matter.
Synthesizing new superheavy elements to open up the eighth period of the periodic table
Measurements of collisions between small and large atomic nuclei by RIKEN physicists will inform the quest to produce new elements and could lead to new chemistry involving superheavy elements.
Two tantalizing goals lie nearly within the grasp of experimental nuclear physicists. One is to break into the eighth row of the periodic table. So far, scientists have made all the elements in the first seven rows—from hydrogen (one proton) to oganesson (118 protons). Thus, synthesizing heavier elements will open up new ground.
The other goal is to locate the 'island of stability' in the sea of superheavy nuclei. Superheavy elements generally become more unstable the more protons they contain. For example, the most stable isotope of nihonium (113 protons) has a half-life of nearly eight seconds, whereas that of oganesson is a mere 0.7 milliseconds. But theorists think that this trend will change for nuclei lying just beyond oganesson. They conjecture that a particularly stable nucleus exists that is 'doubly magic," having magic numbers of both protons and neutrons. Long-lived superheavy elements will open up a new type of chemistry, which involves more protracted reactions.
This is definitely one of my pet peeves - the very concept of bottled water is to my view, like believing ‘pet rocks’ are treasures to value. The marketing on ‘purity’ is a dog whistle to unconscious racism, classism and more.
What’s more, most bottled water sold in the U.S. comes from the same municipal sources that supply tap water—a fact that might be unknown to most consumers. Coca-Cola makes Dasani at the company’s Detroit plant by purchasing, treating, and bottling municipal water before selling it at a significant upcharge to consumers. Pepsi bottles its Aquafina water brand in Detroit the same way.
The business model is hugely profitable. The cost to buy that municipal water is exceedingly low—and once bottled, the markup can be around 133 times greater, a Consumer Reports analysis of company water billing and usage records found.
“These bottlers are essentially double-dipping—receiving low-cost water subsidized by taxpayers and then turning around and selling it back to the public at a significant markup,” says Brian Ronholm, CR’s director of food policy.
How Coke and Pepsi Make Millions From Bottling Tap Water, as Residents Face Shutoffs
The beverage giants were allowed to keep bottling in Detroit, despite substantial uncollected water bills
In recent weeks, on a quiet stretch of Detroit’s west side dotted with vacant homes, a 262,000-square-foot Coca-Cola manufacturing facility has buzzed with activity, even as many businesses in Michigan were ordered by the state to temporarily close to combat the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Coca-Cola churns out a number of beverages here, including Dasani bottled water, which generated more than $1 billion in U.S. sales in the past year, according to market research firm IRI. It’s a good time to be in the water business: As the coronavirus pandemic spread in the U.S. throughout March, bottled water sales increased 57 percent over the same time period last year.
But among the products, such as toilet paper and hand sanitizer, that Americans are panic-buying, bottled water is unusual: There is no shortage of safe drinking water, and health officials have tried to assure people that public water supplies are not contaminated by the coronavirus. Hoarding bottled water simply isn’t necessary for most people.
This may become harder to procure than disinfectant wipes.
HK scientists say new antiviral coating can protect surfaces for 90 days
Researchers at a Hong Kong university say they have developed an antiviral coating which could provide 90 days of “significant” protection against bacteria and viruses such as the one causing COVID-19.
The coating, called MAP-1, took 10 years to develop and can be sprayed on surfaces that are frequently used by the public, such as elevator buttons and handrails, researchers at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) say.
The coating that forms after spraying has millions of nano-capsules containing disinfectants, which Kwan says remain effective in killing bacteria, viruses and spores even after the coating has dried.
Unlike common disinfecting methods such as diluted bleach and alcohol, MAP-1 is further boosted by heat-sensitive polymers that encapsulate and release disinfectants upon human contact, Kwan said.
It is non-toxic and safe for skin and the environment, the researchers say.
Applying the coating at schools costs HK$20,000 ($2,600) to HK$50,000, depending on the size of the sprayed area. The company also plans to introduce 50ml and 200ml domestic use versions with prices ranging from HK$70-250.
This is an excellent summary of work on a vaccine currently underway.
The race for coronavirus vaccines: a graphical guide
Eight ways in which scientists hope to provide immunity to SARS-CoV-2 .
More than 90 vaccines are being developed against SARS-CoV-2 by research teams in companies and universities across the world. Researchers are trialling different technologies, some of which haven’t been used in a licensed vaccine before. At least six groups have already begun injecting formulations into volunteers in safety trials; others have started testing in animals. Nature’s graphical guide explains each vaccine design.
