Reindeer have new competition. Between now and next March, ice thickens in the Arctic Ocean, but, because of climate change, gradual melting after March opens a shipping channel in August. Ships with stronger hulls and expensive icebreaker escorts even can use the route for up to three months.
Up until about five years ago, the dark cold South Pole was home to penguins, and the far north only housed Eskimos and Russian prisoners in Siberia. Oleg Sentson, the Ukrainian film director on a hunger strike, is still there in a penal colony serving a 20-year sentence for protesting Russia's annexation of Crimea. But Russia's President Putin also now hikes on vacations in Siberia, and Russian ships travel from Vladivostok to St. Petersburg on a Northern Sea Route Putin calls "a matter of national pride."
Why are countries scrambling for claims to sea routes through the Arctic Ocean and not around Antarctica? Examine the North and South Poles on a globe or map. How many degrees latitude does it take from both poles before you find at least five countries? What potential problems do you see when passing between Russia and Alaska?
Arctic shipping routes, according to a paper prepared by the engineering faculty at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, are most dangerous in the East Siberian Sea. In the shallowest area of the Arctic Ocean, ice builds up earlier and faster after summer, and uncharted waters are more likely to cause ships to run aground. Even during summer, half of the East Siberian Sea can remain ice covered.
Go North, Young Men
Despite the harsh environment and high insurance rates, activity is expected to increase in the far north due to a variety of factors. Arctic routes shorten navigation time, and they are free of pirates. Oil and gas reserves in the area already have attracted exploration. (See the earlier posts: "Troubled Northwest Passage Found" and "North Pole Flag.")
Accidents, seldom now, can be expected to increase as shipping traffic increases, however. Ship captains who ply the Arctic Ocean cannot help but feel a little like captains of potential Titanics. Ice can trap ships, and they still can hit icebergs, as well as icebreaker escorts and other ships. Captains need constant weather station updates about the changing wave heights, wind speeds, and temperatures that affect icing in each section along their routes, information they also need in order to know how long crew members should stay out on deck. They want protocols about plans for emergency assistance and oil spill clean ups from members of the Arctic Council (Russia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark-Greenland, Finland, Iceland, Canada, and the United States).
Tourists Who Have Been Everywhere
Possible perils failed to deter 900 passengers from paying anywhere from $20,000 to one million dollars per person to book passage on the Crystal Serenity's first cruise through the Arctic Ocean in 2016. The ship sailed from Seward to Nome, Alaska, where it docked to unload solar panels ordered by the city's population of 3800. In groups, cruise passengers took turns sailing to shore in transport boats to photograph wild musk oxen; eat $5 slices of blueberry pie; watch Eskimo dancers; and purchase locally made seal gloves and wallets. From Nome, a month long voyage passed by Greenland and ended in New York.
The trip required a crew of 600, a special navigation satellite system, and chartering cargo planes to deliver perishable food for pickups at communities along northern Canada. The Crystal Serenity made another, and its final, passenger voyage in 2017.
Faster Cargo Shipments
After the Crystal Serenity tested the Arctic route for passenger cruises, the Danish-based Maersk line, the world's largest shipping company, launched the Russian Venta Maersk's container ship north from Vladivostok, west across the Arctic Ocean, and south around Norway and Sweden to St. Petersburg on the Baltic Sea. Carrying 3600 containers of Russian frozen fish and electronics from South Korea, the ship cut off about two weeks from the usual time it takes to use the southern route from Asia and enter Europe using the Suez Canal. While time was saved, profit was lost, because container ships are used to dropping off and picking up a thousand containers at a dozen or more ports along the way. No such transshipment points exist on the Arctic route. Following the test trip, Maersk announced no immediate plans to substitute the Northern Sea Route for its usual schedule.
Russian cargo ships already do service domestic ports on an irregular basis. Now Moscow is building roads, a railroad, and facilities to establish regular ports of call along its Northern Sea Route. China also has made overtures to Iceland and Greenland to establish outposts on what Beijing calls its "Polar Silk Road." (See the earlier posts, "Iceland Gives China the Cold Shoulder" and "China Stakes New Claim to Arctic.")
After China's President Xi Jinping determined to reduce pollution by switching from coal to natural gas, a serious shortage left Chinese homes without heat and shut down factories. To prevent future natural gas shortages, China's state-owned COSCO shipping company and Japan's Mitsui O.S.K. Lines formed a 50-50 partnership to ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) east on the Arctic Ocean and south to Asia from Russia's Novartek producer on the Yamal Peninsula. While a tanker can make this trip in 15 days in summer, compared to 35 days by going west and south through the Suez Canal, ice is too thick in the winter. Yet, there is pressure to increase China's shipments through the most dangerous East Siberian Sea.
Friday, August 31, 2018
Friday, August 24, 2018
Cryptocurrency for Kids (and adults)
Strip away its digital aspect, and cryptocurrency transactions are monetized barter exchanges between two people. Or, you can think of cryptocurrency exchanges as one person deciding how much of a new kind of money he or she has and is willing to pay for an item or service. No paperwork is involved in what is essentially a secret transaction between two people.
In a regular barter trade, a young person might try to find a student willing to trade a Pikachu card for one or more Pokemon cards. But in a cryptocurrency-like system, a young person offers to buy the Pikachu card with, let's say, some Monopoly money (or money students themselves design and distribute). A student is willing to sell the Pikachu card for a certain amount of Monopoly money, because she or he needs that amount of Monopoly money to buy a bag of chips from a student willing to accept that amount of Monopoly money. A student could, for example, use created currency to make a major trade, or a number of smaller trades, to receive items that could be sold, maybe at a yard sale, for a lot of real, government-issued money.
Unless all Monopoly money is going to disappear from all Monopoly games, families, students, and classrooms need to begin designing their own currency and agreeing how much each person receives in his and her accounts. It can be lots of fun to begin listing the items that can be sold: candy and cookies; unusual pens and pencils; socks; hair accessories; little stuffed animals; friendship bracelets and key chains. Services also can be exchanged for new currencies. Students can be paid to teach others to make different types of paper airplanes, braid hair in a certain way, throw a football or Frisbee, solve a math problem, or fold an Origami crane. Around the home, parents and children might sell services for new currencies to buy privileges. Of course, it is unlikely that services, purchased with created currency, could be resold for real money.
A do-it-yourself cryptocurrency system exposes some of the problems associated with cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, in the real world. You have to find another person who has what you want; who is willing to accept your particular kind of cryptocurrency (There is more than Bitcoin); who is willing to create no paper trail of the transaction; who will accept no changes, such as merchandise returns; and who wants to keep the transaction secret. Basing a subscription service on cryptocurrency is unlikely. Who would be wiling to hand over currency to receive a cupcake every moth or a weekly classroom newspaper, if they received no receipt showing they were entitled to the cupcakes or newspapers? Then, there is the problem of someone stealing your currency. In real life, cryptocurrency systems based on digital transactions currency has been known to disappear with the click of a key before a transaction is confirmed. Unlike savings held in a bank and protected by a government agency, cryptocurrency funds enjoy no such guarantee.
Bitcoin cryptocurrency uses the SHA256 algorithm to confirm each transaction as part of a blockchain, to notify all participants in its network of each transaction, and to enable participants to keep track of the balances in each other's accounts. But, before a transaction is confirmed, it can be altered.
In a regular barter trade, a young person might try to find a student willing to trade a Pikachu card for one or more Pokemon cards. But in a cryptocurrency-like system, a young person offers to buy the Pikachu card with, let's say, some Monopoly money (or money students themselves design and distribute). A student is willing to sell the Pikachu card for a certain amount of Monopoly money, because she or he needs that amount of Monopoly money to buy a bag of chips from a student willing to accept that amount of Monopoly money. A student could, for example, use created currency to make a major trade, or a number of smaller trades, to receive items that could be sold, maybe at a yard sale, for a lot of real, government-issued money.
Unless all Monopoly money is going to disappear from all Monopoly games, families, students, and classrooms need to begin designing their own currency and agreeing how much each person receives in his and her accounts. It can be lots of fun to begin listing the items that can be sold: candy and cookies; unusual pens and pencils; socks; hair accessories; little stuffed animals; friendship bracelets and key chains. Services also can be exchanged for new currencies. Students can be paid to teach others to make different types of paper airplanes, braid hair in a certain way, throw a football or Frisbee, solve a math problem, or fold an Origami crane. Around the home, parents and children might sell services for new currencies to buy privileges. Of course, it is unlikely that services, purchased with created currency, could be resold for real money.
A do-it-yourself cryptocurrency system exposes some of the problems associated with cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, in the real world. You have to find another person who has what you want; who is willing to accept your particular kind of cryptocurrency (There is more than Bitcoin); who is willing to create no paper trail of the transaction; who will accept no changes, such as merchandise returns; and who wants to keep the transaction secret. Basing a subscription service on cryptocurrency is unlikely. Who would be wiling to hand over currency to receive a cupcake every moth or a weekly classroom newspaper, if they received no receipt showing they were entitled to the cupcakes or newspapers? Then, there is the problem of someone stealing your currency. In real life, cryptocurrency systems based on digital transactions currency has been known to disappear with the click of a key before a transaction is confirmed. Unlike savings held in a bank and protected by a government agency, cryptocurrency funds enjoy no such guarantee.
Bitcoin cryptocurrency uses the SHA256 algorithm to confirm each transaction as part of a blockchain, to notify all participants in its network of each transaction, and to enable participants to keep track of the balances in each other's accounts. But, before a transaction is confirmed, it can be altered.
Saturday, August 18, 2018
Globalization Requires Skepticism
Along with telling children to be kind to others, part of raising kids involves cautioning them to avoid being lured into a van to see or search for a puppy and to avoid being touched in areas covered by their swimsuits. James Bond's dictum to trust no one is a bit too much, but healthy skepticism about ulterior motives is a useful life lesson. If playmates tap them on their left shoulders, while others on the right steal their bags of chips, they get the message.
Even adults can be duped. Wisconsin's Republican Governor, Scott Walker, and President Trump received splashy news coverage, when they announced the Chinese Foxconn company would bring new jobs to Wisconsin. The State soon learned its taxpayers were expected to contribute $3 billion to the project. The amount grew to a little over $4 billion which required borrowing from the State's transportation budget to build new roads to the plant. Foxconn's environmental plans and ideas about water usage from Lake Michigan required negotiation. The promised 1300 jobs were reduced to an initial 300, and, since the plant site is on the border with Illinois, there was no guarantee that all these jobs would go to employees from Wisconsin.
The Foxconn deal began looking like an albatross Democrats could hang around Governor Walker's neck. So, the Chinese offered to bring more jobs to Wisconsin to help bail the Governor out from the unfulfilled promise he made to bring 250,000 jobs to Wisconsin during his first campaign in 2010. Foxconn announced additional innovation centers were in the works for Wisconsin in Milwaukee, Green Bay, and Eau Claire. According to Foxconn, these job-creating centers are designed to inspire local companies and entrepreneurs to create new solutions.
Here's where skepticism comes in. Why would China seem eager to help a Republican Governor in a fly-over State not uppermost in many minds? The innovation centers and investments China already has in Silicon Valley provide some clues. With the U.S. preoccupied with Russian interference, Chinese tech companies associated with Beijing's government have been taking advantage of opportunities to pour venture capital billions into U.S. startups in fields, such as virtual reality, AI, financial software, cyber security, quantum computing, robotics, 3D printing, and biotechnology. Since the U.S. military does not purchase technologies from startups with foreign investors, Chinese investments can not only buy up technological advances from Wisconsin's startups, but they also prevent these innovations from improving U.S. defenses.
Delayed skepticism about the technological advantages the Chinese government can gain from U.S. startup innovations and increased concern about the national security implications involved caused Congress to pass the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIREMA) to enhance the oversight provided by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
Already, China is thinking about how to get around the crack down by making a move to Canada a condition for a venture capital investment or by hiring a team of employees from an innovative startup, the way the Chinese online giant, Alibaba, does this in China.
Even adults can be duped. Wisconsin's Republican Governor, Scott Walker, and President Trump received splashy news coverage, when they announced the Chinese Foxconn company would bring new jobs to Wisconsin. The State soon learned its taxpayers were expected to contribute $3 billion to the project. The amount grew to a little over $4 billion which required borrowing from the State's transportation budget to build new roads to the plant. Foxconn's environmental plans and ideas about water usage from Lake Michigan required negotiation. The promised 1300 jobs were reduced to an initial 300, and, since the plant site is on the border with Illinois, there was no guarantee that all these jobs would go to employees from Wisconsin.
The Foxconn deal began looking like an albatross Democrats could hang around Governor Walker's neck. So, the Chinese offered to bring more jobs to Wisconsin to help bail the Governor out from the unfulfilled promise he made to bring 250,000 jobs to Wisconsin during his first campaign in 2010. Foxconn announced additional innovation centers were in the works for Wisconsin in Milwaukee, Green Bay, and Eau Claire. According to Foxconn, these job-creating centers are designed to inspire local companies and entrepreneurs to create new solutions.
Here's where skepticism comes in. Why would China seem eager to help a Republican Governor in a fly-over State not uppermost in many minds? The innovation centers and investments China already has in Silicon Valley provide some clues. With the U.S. preoccupied with Russian interference, Chinese tech companies associated with Beijing's government have been taking advantage of opportunities to pour venture capital billions into U.S. startups in fields, such as virtual reality, AI, financial software, cyber security, quantum computing, robotics, 3D printing, and biotechnology. Since the U.S. military does not purchase technologies from startups with foreign investors, Chinese investments can not only buy up technological advances from Wisconsin's startups, but they also prevent these innovations from improving U.S. defenses.
Delayed skepticism about the technological advantages the Chinese government can gain from U.S. startup innovations and increased concern about the national security implications involved caused Congress to pass the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIREMA) to enhance the oversight provided by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
Already, China is thinking about how to get around the crack down by making a move to Canada a condition for a venture capital investment or by hiring a team of employees from an innovative startup, the way the Chinese online giant, Alibaba, does this in China.
Friday, August 10, 2018
Who Would You Like to Meet?
At a luncheon in Chicago, I was seated next to Jesse Owens in 1956. We didn't reminisce about his track and field victories at Hitler's 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. We discussed why attitudes toward race were different in suburban Chicago and other areas of the city.
The Atlantic magazine ends each issue on its last page by asking readers to respond to a question. In June, 2018, the question was: "Which two historical figures would you most like to introduce to each other?" It is a question young and old anywhere in the world can and should pose to each other.
Reader responses reminded us to recognize the enduring influence of people from diverse backgrounds, such as Julia Child, Albert Einstein, Louis Braille, and Mother Teresa.
Why readers wanted to hear the conversations of the people they introduced revealed interesting topics. One wondered what Alexander Hamilton would tell Lin-Manuel Miranda he got right and wrong in his prize-winning musical.
Another wanted Barack Obama to show Abraham Lincoln "the fruits of his enormous accomplishment."
What would Leonardo da Vinci and Nikola Tesla chat about over coffee, a woman wondered. And then, someone thought William Shakespeare and Mae West would realize they both live on through their quotable remarks.
The Atlantic magazine ends each issue on its last page by asking readers to respond to a question. In June, 2018, the question was: "Which two historical figures would you most like to introduce to each other?" It is a question young and old anywhere in the world can and should pose to each other.
Reader responses reminded us to recognize the enduring influence of people from diverse backgrounds, such as Julia Child, Albert Einstein, Louis Braille, and Mother Teresa.
Why readers wanted to hear the conversations of the people they introduced revealed interesting topics. One wondered what Alexander Hamilton would tell Lin-Manuel Miranda he got right and wrong in his prize-winning musical.
Another wanted Barack Obama to show Abraham Lincoln "the fruits of his enormous accomplishment."
What would Leonardo da Vinci and Nikola Tesla chat about over coffee, a woman wondered. And then, someone thought William Shakespeare and Mae West would realize they both live on through their quotable remarks.
Wednesday, August 8, 2018
Diseases and Cures Travel the Globe
Relatives and teachers need to keep up with findings about diseases in order to protect children. On the other hand, older students can begin to see career opportunities for themselves in medical and medical-related fields, including in the area of bioethics.
Tropical Diseases
Africa is breaking the grip of tropical diseases thanks to a coalition of aid agencies, pharmaceutical companies, and charities that formed Uniting to Combat Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDS). Health programs in individual countries and radio programs where experts and patients answer questions about treatments and dispel misconceptions also do their part.
In Sierra Leone, for example, a country once ravished by Ebola, health workers visit villages once a year to provide everyone at risk with drugs for four diseases:
Mosquitoes continue to be the ones that transmit malaria, dengue fever, and Zika in tropical areas. In warm, wet weather, they mature faster and become infectious sooner. But even in warm, dry conditions, they find ways to survive underground in storm drains and sewers. In Singapore on a small scale, Trendwatching.com reports innovative pots, decorated with paint infused with the non-toxic mosquito repellent, permethrin, are used to kill mosquitoes trying to survive in water collected in plant pots. (Use keywords, mosquitoes, malaria, dengue, and Zika, to find earlier posts on these subjects.)
Polio
News that polio is staging a comeback in some parts of the world recalls disturbing memories from my childhood. Paralysis from polio required President Franklin Roosevelt to wear leg braces, a neighbor to live in an iron lung, and a playmate to compensate for her withered left arm. When Jonas Salk's polio vaccine became available in the 1960s, we all rushed to take it on sugar cubes.
Normally, the polio vaccine that carries a live, weakened virus breeds in the recipient's intestines and enters the bloodstream to cause a lifelong protective immune response. But occasionally, once in every 17 million vaccinations, the weakened virus mutates and causes a new strain that can live in poop for six to eight weeks following an innoculation. In countries that lack clean water, adequate toilets, and treatment for sewage, polio is transmitted by drinking water carrying the mutated virus. That seems to be what has happened to cause cases of polio in Papua New Guinea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria.
HIV/AIDS and STDs
Ever since the International AIDS Society (IAS) established a 90-90-90 goal in 2014, countries have aimed to make sure 90% of their population knows they have the disease, 90% of those are taking antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), and virus levels in 90% taking ARVs are negligible. Worldwide, only a 75-79-81 goal is reached.
In less developed countries, HIV is combated by circumcising male foreskins to remove HIV-breeding cells and by paying school tuition for girls who are less susceptible to exchanging sex for food and other benefits, if they have employable skills. In all countries, HIV prevention responds to a combination of two ARVs, tenofovir and emtricitabine found in Truvada. Prevention still depends on those at risk coming forward and governments willing to help pay for treatment.
After being raised and educated in Europe, Dr. Agnes Binagwano began returning to Rwanda with suitcases filled with medical supplies. Working with the government, she began an HIV program and trained health workers to visit villagers in their homes. To build trust for Rwanda's health care program, villagers chose the health workers who care for them.Once the country with the worst child mortality rate, 97% of Rwanda's infants now are vaccinated. The country where genocide killed nearly one million in 1994 also has the University of Global Health Equity in Kigali, rural health centers, and a nationwide health insurance program.
Still a problem, ARVs give gay and bisexual men a false impression that these drugs prevent all sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). And birth control pills and other forms of female contraception give heterosexual couples the false impression male partners need not use condoms. Consequently, syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhoea infections all are on the rise from unprotected sex. At the same time, testing has been hit by cuts in funding for preventive education, local health departments, and confidential clinics that cater to adolescents.
Gene Editing
Which human cells the CRISPR-Cas9 technique edits and the changes made promise to treat diseases when engineered cells return to a patient's body. While unintended consequences of CRISPR-Cas9 editing to improve agricultural crops are less of a concern, the studies that find some forms of CRISPR-Cas9 editing delete or rearrange strings of DNA, affect non-targeted genes, and might cause cancer in humans motivate the search for technological techniques that produce only intended results.
Genetic engineering capable of removing hereditary predispositions to cancer would, of course,be valuable. Editing into humans destructive hereditary traits passed along to future generations would not.
Based on the way viruses can penetrate bacteria cells and destroy their defenses, CRISPR editing also is involved in the search for a way to k(ll superbugs resistant to antibiotics. (Use the keywords, antibiotics and CRISPR, to see earlier posts on these subjects.)
Cellphone Radiation
Research continues to study the danger of cellphone radiation from phones and antennas. Emissions from decaying lithium batteries, which remind me of those from black holes, also seem to indicate possible health risks. Keep an eye on findings about brain damage and memory loss from long term studies of new 5G technology.
Tropical Diseases
Africa is breaking the grip of tropical diseases thanks to a coalition of aid agencies, pharmaceutical companies, and charities that formed Uniting to Combat Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDS). Health programs in individual countries and radio programs where experts and patients answer questions about treatments and dispel misconceptions also do their part.
In Sierra Leone, for example, a country once ravished by Ebola, health workers visit villages once a year to provide everyone at risk with drugs for four diseases:
- Elephantiases (lymphatic filariasis). Microscopic worms infest the body and cause extreme irreversible swelling and damage.
- River blindness (onchocerciasis). Blindness caused by black fly bites and worms infecting the body.
- Snail fever (schistosomiasis). Parasitic worm infection that destroys kidneys and the liver.
- (Helminths) Roundworms in soil cause infections that stunt growth and physical development.
Mosquitoes continue to be the ones that transmit malaria, dengue fever, and Zika in tropical areas. In warm, wet weather, they mature faster and become infectious sooner. But even in warm, dry conditions, they find ways to survive underground in storm drains and sewers. In Singapore on a small scale, Trendwatching.com reports innovative pots, decorated with paint infused with the non-toxic mosquito repellent, permethrin, are used to kill mosquitoes trying to survive in water collected in plant pots. (Use keywords, mosquitoes, malaria, dengue, and Zika, to find earlier posts on these subjects.)
Polio
News that polio is staging a comeback in some parts of the world recalls disturbing memories from my childhood. Paralysis from polio required President Franklin Roosevelt to wear leg braces, a neighbor to live in an iron lung, and a playmate to compensate for her withered left arm. When Jonas Salk's polio vaccine became available in the 1960s, we all rushed to take it on sugar cubes.
Normally, the polio vaccine that carries a live, weakened virus breeds in the recipient's intestines and enters the bloodstream to cause a lifelong protective immune response. But occasionally, once in every 17 million vaccinations, the weakened virus mutates and causes a new strain that can live in poop for six to eight weeks following an innoculation. In countries that lack clean water, adequate toilets, and treatment for sewage, polio is transmitted by drinking water carrying the mutated virus. That seems to be what has happened to cause cases of polio in Papua New Guinea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria.
HIV/AIDS and STDs
Ever since the International AIDS Society (IAS) established a 90-90-90 goal in 2014, countries have aimed to make sure 90% of their population knows they have the disease, 90% of those are taking antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), and virus levels in 90% taking ARVs are negligible. Worldwide, only a 75-79-81 goal is reached.
In less developed countries, HIV is combated by circumcising male foreskins to remove HIV-breeding cells and by paying school tuition for girls who are less susceptible to exchanging sex for food and other benefits, if they have employable skills. In all countries, HIV prevention responds to a combination of two ARVs, tenofovir and emtricitabine found in Truvada. Prevention still depends on those at risk coming forward and governments willing to help pay for treatment.
After being raised and educated in Europe, Dr. Agnes Binagwano began returning to Rwanda with suitcases filled with medical supplies. Working with the government, she began an HIV program and trained health workers to visit villagers in their homes. To build trust for Rwanda's health care program, villagers chose the health workers who care for them.Once the country with the worst child mortality rate, 97% of Rwanda's infants now are vaccinated. The country where genocide killed nearly one million in 1994 also has the University of Global Health Equity in Kigali, rural health centers, and a nationwide health insurance program.
Still a problem, ARVs give gay and bisexual men a false impression that these drugs prevent all sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). And birth control pills and other forms of female contraception give heterosexual couples the false impression male partners need not use condoms. Consequently, syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhoea infections all are on the rise from unprotected sex. At the same time, testing has been hit by cuts in funding for preventive education, local health departments, and confidential clinics that cater to adolescents.
Gene Editing
Which human cells the CRISPR-Cas9 technique edits and the changes made promise to treat diseases when engineered cells return to a patient's body. While unintended consequences of CRISPR-Cas9 editing to improve agricultural crops are less of a concern, the studies that find some forms of CRISPR-Cas9 editing delete or rearrange strings of DNA, affect non-targeted genes, and might cause cancer in humans motivate the search for technological techniques that produce only intended results.
Genetic engineering capable of removing hereditary predispositions to cancer would, of course,be valuable. Editing into humans destructive hereditary traits passed along to future generations would not.
Based on the way viruses can penetrate bacteria cells and destroy their defenses, CRISPR editing also is involved in the search for a way to k(ll superbugs resistant to antibiotics. (Use the keywords, antibiotics and CRISPR, to see earlier posts on these subjects.)
Cellphone Radiation
Research continues to study the danger of cellphone radiation from phones and antennas. Emissions from decaying lithium batteries, which remind me of those from black holes, also seem to indicate possible health risks. Keep an eye on findings about brain damage and memory loss from long term studies of new 5G technology.
Saturday, August 4, 2018
Plant Flowers, Help Bees
To bees, a sweeping lawn, parks, and golf courses look like deserts, writes Thor Hanson in Buzz: The Nature and Necessity of Bees. Without pollen from flowers, bees cannot survive and neither can people without the pollination bees provide for many food crops. Of the 20,000 different species of wild bees, some 40% are in decline or threatened with extinction. Domestic bees suffer from lost habitat, parasites, pesticides, and diseases picked up when transferred from farm to farm.
After "colony collapse" began to cause hive losses, dangers to bees and ways to help them often have been covered in previous posts:
After "colony collapse" began to cause hive losses, dangers to bees and ways to help them often have been covered in previous posts:
- Bumble Bees Have Special Needs
- Don't Take Food for Granted
- World's Food Supply Needs Bees and Bees Need Help
- Be Kind to Bees
- The Bees and the Birds
Friday, August 3, 2018
New Beginning for Zambia and Zimbabwe Falters
In the unfortunate country, where a protected lion named Cecil met his fate at the hands of a trophy hunter, voters braved intimidation to elect members of parliament and a new president on July 30, 2018. But violence began tearing up the country days after the election. Not only losing candidates and their supporters protested the less than free and fair election, but winners in the Zanu-PF party and the military also split into competing factions.
A rise in fuel prices on January 12, 2019 again set off protests, sent soldiers into the streets to kill 8, and blocked internet access until January 16. At the same time, President Mnangagwa departed for Moscow, where he agreed to give the Russian company, Alrosa, access to Zimbabwe's diamond mines.
After World War II, Great Britain grouped Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia), and Malawi (then Nyasaland) into the Central African Federation. London's plan made perfect sense economically, but not politically. Located within Northern Rhodesia, valuable exports from the Copper Belt, shared with the Congo's Katanga Province, already traveled south by rail through Rhodesia to ports in South Africa. Rhodesia, named for Cecil Rhodes, whose guns defeated Chief Lobengula of the Ndebele people who inspired the costumes for Black Panther, had a developed agricultural economy with farms capable of feeding the region and generating tobacco and chinchilla pelt exports. Yet to be mined rich deposits of gold and platinum still exist. Migrant workers from Nyasaland were used to working Rhodesia's farms. They would consult their lists of good and bad employers before agreeing where to work.
The two most prosperous countries in the former federation, Zambia and Zimbabwe, struggle to get back on track. Zambia, one of the African countries that received debt forgiveness in 2005-2006 began spending freely just when copper prices tanked and a new regime increased the number of districts where it could reward leaders with graft. By 2018, Zambia defaulted on a Chinese loan repayment, and immediately Beijing was ready to begin talks to takeover ZESCO, Zambia's electric company, even though President Edgar Lungu claimed the Cabinet would have to approve such a measure. China already owns Zambia's national broadcaster, ZNBC.
Black majorities in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland broke away from white-ruled Rhodesia. Ian Smith, like South Africa's white leaders, clung to power, and, in 1965, he unilaterally declared Rhodesia's independence from Britain. Later, Zimbabwe also would leave the British Commonwealth.To wrest control from Smith, blacks, led by Robert Mugabe's Zanu party, launched a successful civil war in 1972. Mugabe would exercise dictatorial power in Zimbabwe from 1980 until a military coup led by his vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, ousted him in 2017.
Mugabe failed to follow the advice of Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first black president after apartheid. (See Mandela's advice in the earlier post, "How to React When You've Been Wronged."). Doing unto Zimbabwe's white farmers what they had done to blacks, Mugabe's government seized the farms of white owners in 2000. The economic prosperity envisioned by Britain's plan for the Central African Federation disappeared, when whites quickly emigrated. Following the 2017 coup, Mnangagwa left Zimbabwe for a charm offensive designed to lure back white farmers who could feed the estimated 1.1 million to 2.5 million people starving in his country.
To avoid a runoff, a president in Zimbabwe needed to win over 50% of the vote. After a delay, 16 different polling stations reported exactly the same number of votes, and Mr. Mnangagwa won a slim 50.8% majority. His Zanu-PF's party candidates also won 145 of the 210 seats in the National Assembly. Rather than support a Zanu-PF leader who overthrew him, Robert Mugabe, who would die at age 95 on September 5, 2019, backed Nelson Chamisa from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, who received 44.3% of the vote, while the remaining votes were split among 21 presidential candidates. Six died, when the military quelled rioting in the capital, Harare, following the announcement of National Assembly votes. MDC voters, who are concentrated in Zimbabwe's cities, called the election unfair and a fraud. When the Constitutional Court rejected MDC's election challenge, members fled the country to escape violence.
Most Zimbabweans live in rural areas where they depend on foreign food donations. By distributing food at rallies, the Zanu-PF military and traditional chiefs intimidate villagers to vote "the right way." Before the 2018 election, Catholic Church leaders attempted to counter fear, apathy, and violence used in past elections by recognizing the need to protect voters and by stressing a vote for the common good was a human right. Sister Mercy Shumbamhini took it upon herself to go to the streets to ask citizens what the common good meant to them. They answered: having enough to eat, health services, a job, a clean environment, dignity, good roads, and security. In other words, they wanted what citizens everywhere want.
Zimbabwe entered a new election cycle starved for food, tourist and export dollars, and business investment to cover unpaid debts to the World Bank and African Development Bank. Initially, Mugabe's incompetent party loyalists, used to collecting bribes in their civil service positions, retained their jobs. But in an effort to demonstrate his determination to stabilize Zimbabwe's faltering economy and gain much needed IMF, British, and Chinese loans, President Mnangagwa replaced cronies with technocrats, including Ncube, his new finance minister.
Funding still remains in doubt, since post-election violence caused lenders to back away from support for the new government. Inflation has soared. Everyone wants payment in US dollars instead of unbacked, government-printed zollars subject to devaluation. Goods, such as generators and building materials, and staples like sugar, maize, and gasoline, are in short supply as customers purchase everything they can before their money is worth even less.
A 5G pilot project in rural Zimbabwe stands as a vestige of a once hopeful new beginning. Offering new hope, however, is the Friendship Bench organization founded by Zimbabwe psychiatrist, Dr. Dixon Chibanda. According to an article in TIME magazine (February 18-25, 2019), Dr. Chibanda's organization grew out of his advice to those with mental problems: Visit grandmothers. Friendship Bench trains grandmothers, who have time and a natural tendency to listen and guide, rather than tell people what to do, to use role playing and other behavior therapies. The medical journal, JAMA, published the positive benefits of the Friendship Bench approach.
A rise in fuel prices on January 12, 2019 again set off protests, sent soldiers into the streets to kill 8, and blocked internet access until January 16. At the same time, President Mnangagwa departed for Moscow, where he agreed to give the Russian company, Alrosa, access to Zimbabwe's diamond mines.
After World War II, Great Britain grouped Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia), and Malawi (then Nyasaland) into the Central African Federation. London's plan made perfect sense economically, but not politically. Located within Northern Rhodesia, valuable exports from the Copper Belt, shared with the Congo's Katanga Province, already traveled south by rail through Rhodesia to ports in South Africa. Rhodesia, named for Cecil Rhodes, whose guns defeated Chief Lobengula of the Ndebele people who inspired the costumes for Black Panther, had a developed agricultural economy with farms capable of feeding the region and generating tobacco and chinchilla pelt exports. Yet to be mined rich deposits of gold and platinum still exist. Migrant workers from Nyasaland were used to working Rhodesia's farms. They would consult their lists of good and bad employers before agreeing where to work.
The two most prosperous countries in the former federation, Zambia and Zimbabwe, struggle to get back on track. Zambia, one of the African countries that received debt forgiveness in 2005-2006 began spending freely just when copper prices tanked and a new regime increased the number of districts where it could reward leaders with graft. By 2018, Zambia defaulted on a Chinese loan repayment, and immediately Beijing was ready to begin talks to takeover ZESCO, Zambia's electric company, even though President Edgar Lungu claimed the Cabinet would have to approve such a measure. China already owns Zambia's national broadcaster, ZNBC.
Black majorities in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland broke away from white-ruled Rhodesia. Ian Smith, like South Africa's white leaders, clung to power, and, in 1965, he unilaterally declared Rhodesia's independence from Britain. Later, Zimbabwe also would leave the British Commonwealth.To wrest control from Smith, blacks, led by Robert Mugabe's Zanu party, launched a successful civil war in 1972. Mugabe would exercise dictatorial power in Zimbabwe from 1980 until a military coup led by his vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, ousted him in 2017.
Mugabe failed to follow the advice of Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first black president after apartheid. (See Mandela's advice in the earlier post, "How to React When You've Been Wronged."). Doing unto Zimbabwe's white farmers what they had done to blacks, Mugabe's government seized the farms of white owners in 2000. The economic prosperity envisioned by Britain's plan for the Central African Federation disappeared, when whites quickly emigrated. Following the 2017 coup, Mnangagwa left Zimbabwe for a charm offensive designed to lure back white farmers who could feed the estimated 1.1 million to 2.5 million people starving in his country.
To avoid a runoff, a president in Zimbabwe needed to win over 50% of the vote. After a delay, 16 different polling stations reported exactly the same number of votes, and Mr. Mnangagwa won a slim 50.8% majority. His Zanu-PF's party candidates also won 145 of the 210 seats in the National Assembly. Rather than support a Zanu-PF leader who overthrew him, Robert Mugabe, who would die at age 95 on September 5, 2019, backed Nelson Chamisa from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, who received 44.3% of the vote, while the remaining votes were split among 21 presidential candidates. Six died, when the military quelled rioting in the capital, Harare, following the announcement of National Assembly votes. MDC voters, who are concentrated in Zimbabwe's cities, called the election unfair and a fraud. When the Constitutional Court rejected MDC's election challenge, members fled the country to escape violence.
Most Zimbabweans live in rural areas where they depend on foreign food donations. By distributing food at rallies, the Zanu-PF military and traditional chiefs intimidate villagers to vote "the right way." Before the 2018 election, Catholic Church leaders attempted to counter fear, apathy, and violence used in past elections by recognizing the need to protect voters and by stressing a vote for the common good was a human right. Sister Mercy Shumbamhini took it upon herself to go to the streets to ask citizens what the common good meant to them. They answered: having enough to eat, health services, a job, a clean environment, dignity, good roads, and security. In other words, they wanted what citizens everywhere want.
Zimbabwe entered a new election cycle starved for food, tourist and export dollars, and business investment to cover unpaid debts to the World Bank and African Development Bank. Initially, Mugabe's incompetent party loyalists, used to collecting bribes in their civil service positions, retained their jobs. But in an effort to demonstrate his determination to stabilize Zimbabwe's faltering economy and gain much needed IMF, British, and Chinese loans, President Mnangagwa replaced cronies with technocrats, including Ncube, his new finance minister.
Funding still remains in doubt, since post-election violence caused lenders to back away from support for the new government. Inflation has soared. Everyone wants payment in US dollars instead of unbacked, government-printed zollars subject to devaluation. Goods, such as generators and building materials, and staples like sugar, maize, and gasoline, are in short supply as customers purchase everything they can before their money is worth even less.
A 5G pilot project in rural Zimbabwe stands as a vestige of a once hopeful new beginning. Offering new hope, however, is the Friendship Bench organization founded by Zimbabwe psychiatrist, Dr. Dixon Chibanda. According to an article in TIME magazine (February 18-25, 2019), Dr. Chibanda's organization grew out of his advice to those with mental problems: Visit grandmothers. Friendship Bench trains grandmothers, who have time and a natural tendency to listen and guide, rather than tell people what to do, to use role playing and other behavior therapies. The medical journal, JAMA, published the positive benefits of the Friendship Bench approach.
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