News from the Squares – Book review

news-from-the-squaresIn Robert Llewellyn’s eagerly awaited sequel to News From Gardenia, erstwhile engineer Gavin Meckler is trying to get back to the present in his Youneec aircraft, but something is amiss. He soon realises he has travelled sideways through time to another possible future, as unlike his visit to 2211 “Gardenia” as our own era.

Llewellyn, known to geeks everywhere as the actor who plays Kryten in the BBC comedy sci-fi Red Dwarf and as a big fan of sustainable technologies and electric vehicles, provides an intriguing perspective on a second possible future for humanity. In “Squares”, it’s no agrarian, hippy love-in, this time, men (who are all well over two metres tall, but outnumbered by females 10 to 1) are now playing the roles traditionally taken by women, while the women run the vast mega cities that evolved from our current metropolitan areas and covered each nations. Bio-inspired materials science allows the women of the future to grow buildings and a neck-wrenching terrestrial and sea-based transport system that outstrips our puny supersonic flight. It soon becomes apparent to Meckler that the world is soon to vote on whether to eradicate the male of the species once and for all…and his timely presence could change the course of history.

A quick and gripping read with some intriguing insights and even a neat reference to today’s wonder material graphene! Can’t wait to read the final part of the trilogy.

News from the Squares by Robert Llewellyn.

Designing out desire for sustainable life

We’ve got it all wrong, it seems. We invest millions in recycling centres, refuse sorting facilities, and in some parts of the world in assimilating every last scrap of metal, plastic, glass and feeding it back into the system as usable source materials whether that’s for plastics recycling, remanufacturing, metal melting and smelting or simply grinding up green glass to make grit for under-road hardcore. Instead, we should be designing from the perspective, not of making products recyclable, but of making out lifestyles sustainable.

Obviously, this is easier said than done. After all, millions of people want the latest shiny toys, the smart phones to map their social networks, plot their routes around strange cities, and even call their friends for a chat. Millions hanker after the low-energy, efficiency-rated white goods that wash whiter, dry faster and purportedly make for domestic bliss, although the low-cost robot that loads and empties the dishwasher and irons its own dustcover is yet to be released on to a market that waits with baited breath, freshened with the autoflossing electric toothbrush.

It is time we overcame the idea that we – in the Western, Eastern, Northern and Southern world, developed or otherwise – must seek at the latest and greatest if we are to have happy fulfilled lives. There are, it seems, just too many issues that must be addressed before we can stop worrying. Dwindling fossil fuels, fracking friction, nuclear incidents, turbine trouble, cracked solar panels, rising sea levels, flooding, drought, oh and the relatively smaller matter of much of the world concerned with attacking its neighbours for whatever reason. Nevertheless, writing in the International Journal of Sustainable Design, Christa Liedtke, Johannes Buhl and Najine Ameli of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy in Germany, argue that instead of focusing on objects, designers must adopt a user-centric perspective. “A sustainable design of products and services requires the integration of production-orientated (efficiency and consistency) and consumption-orientated (sufficiency) strategies,” they explain. They introduce the concept of an indicator that can assess total lifecycle of a product and that can then integrate design and engineering into a strategically sustainable approach. “The goal is not to design sustainable products but rather to design systems that manage to foster sustainable lifestyles,” they say.

The team estimates that to provide a sustainable world, our lifestyles need an order of magnitude shift downwards in terms of the resources each of us in the West, and a growing number elsewhere in the world, use each day. An entirely new approach to design and products as well as a paradigm shift in our perspective as disposable consumers with an eye on the recycling centre will be needed. Recycling is not enough, we have to some design out desire…

Research Blogging IconLiedtke, C., Buhl, J. and Ameli, N., “Designing value through less by integrating sustainability strategies into lifestyles,” Int. J. Sustainable Design, 2013, 2, 167-180.

Amygdalin – anticancer “vitamin” B17

Amygdalin the so-called safe and natural anticancer vitamin B17, is none of those things. It is not a vitamin in any sense of the word. It has no anticancer properties. It is poisonous.

The compound, formula C20H27NO11, is a glycoside initially isolated from the seeds of the tree Prunus dulcis in the nineteenth century, also known as bitter almonds. Enzymes (namely glucosidases) found in the gut and in some foods break down amygdalin to release hydrogen cyanide. See also synthetic derivative, laetrile.

“Cochrane Collaboration” had this to say:

“The claims that laetrile or amygdalin have beneficial effects for cancer patients are not currently supported by sound clinical data. There is a considerable risk of serious adverse effects from cyanide poisoning after laetrile or amygdalin, especially after oral ingestion. The risk—benefit balance of laetrile or amygdalin as a treatment for cancer is therefore unambiguously negative.”

Research Blogging IconMilazzo S., Ernst E., Lejeune S., Boehm K., Horneber M. & Milazzo S. (2011). Laetrile treatment for cancer, DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD005476.pub3

Stay safe legally, moderate your comments

I’ve always moderated comments on my blogs. I own the blogs, I’m an independent science journalist, no blog “network” safety net for me, so why wouldn’t I? I treat the comments section like a letters editor at a newspaper would. All legitimate comments are posted, always have been, but trolling, libellous or other garbage (spam, advertising etc) do not pass muster and are not up-moderated.

That’s not censorship, this is my blog, I run it, have done since 1999 (and before that I had other websites dating back to 1995). I’ve worked hard on my sites and I pay the hosting fees and try to keep the site shiny and fresh. If you want to post hateful nonsense, you can build your own site and post it there, feel free and see where it gets you.

I now feel somewhat vindicated that I never let the garbage on to my sites: Judges at the European Court have made the ludicrous decision to hold news sites and blogs legally responsible for all the comments that appear on their sites even if they remove those comments after a complaint. This means that any offended party could pursue a news organisation or blog for an allegedly defamatory comment made about them even after it has been removed from the website. More on the specifics here.

Moreover, as I understand it, in English law now if someone sues you for libel and you win, you still have to pay their legal fees…they say the law is an ass*, I wouldn’t go that far, just in case some judge sues…

*NB US readers: foolish and stubborn like a donkey, not round and fleshy like a butt.

Big Bang Theory

There’s lots of discussion right now about the so-called “God particle“, the Higgs boson, the notion of a time before time. There are those who worry about what triggered the Big Bang, whether we live in a universal hologram akin to the “world” that exists beneath the event horizon of a black hole. Perhaps the universe is headed for eternal entropy death, or a Big Crunch, perhaps dark matter and dark energy will yield some answers when we finally figure out what they actually are and how they can account for almost all the mass-energy of the universe and yet remain invisible.

Moreover, some suggest that the universe itself may well be a black hole, perhaps one of countless in an infinite frothy spume or that there are myriad realities all existing in parallel in which every single path taken by every single atom across the universe somehow represents a different existence in that multiverse.

When they ask is the glass half full or half empty, every physicists knows it is always full…even when it’s in a vacuum.

Big Bang Theory

From the very start, entropic decompression, outstripping light, no sound…on deflection
Focused apprehension written large
Like the word of some almighty pressure
At the very start energetic high expression releases light and sound, found on reflection

Colder than the comfort
Weaker at the moment
Beauty and the feeling of everything that’s the new

Colder than the comfort
Weaker at the moment
Singularity
Singularity…

From the very first, the moment of conception, outsourcing light and sound, all imperfections
Final thoughts are written out so clear
Like a world with so many under pressure
To the very end, entropic decompression deconstructing light and sound, no reflection

But colder, there’s no comfort
In the weakness of the moment
Beauty fails and nothing’s left as new

Colder than the comfort
Weaker at the very moment
Singularity
Singularity…

Colder, there’s no comfort
In the weakness of the moment
Beauty fails and nothing’s left for free

Colder than the comfort
Weaker at the moment
Singularity
Singularity…


COMMENTS about this song culled from SongWriterForum

“Bit of a fusion thing going on here…which I’m liking a lot :-) :-) Love the jazzy feel. The way the vocal melody interacts/scans with the music is very clever and sophisticated…..a real pleasure to listen to.”

“Nice instrumentation….especially liked the chord progression, and I thought that sort of soft, clipped effect on the guitar worked really well.”

“Love your style……great song”

“the mix was very very good super crisp & clear & i realy liked the bouncy rhythm”

“It’s a really good sound you’ve got, seems very ‘airy’ without any harsh treble, nice. The words are great, very unique and the guitar sounds really tight too.”

“This is an interesting mix of things. Production excellent as always. Music and vocal are very good.”

“Such a great song. Love the chord progression! It’s awesome music”

Elemental discoveries – Hipsterium

Back in the day (well 1995) I created one of the first chemistry websites – Elemental Discoveries – it was a spinoff of my news column for the RSC’s young chemists’ print magazine New Elements (a name I coined to replace the old Gas Jar). Anyway, Elemental Discoveries was essentially a chemistry blog before Jorn Barger even coined the full neologism weblog on 17th December 1997; contracted to ‘blog and thence blog.

hipsterium-chemical-element

Obviously, being such a pioneer, such an early adopter, such an all-round ahead of the crowd smart arse isn’t easy. But, I can now reveal my secret. When I was studying chemistry I accidentally discovered a new chemical element (hence the name of my blog Elemental Discoveries), that element was element 0, the element that was there before all the other elements. I must have inhaled a whiff of this stuff, which exists in all phases of matter simultaneously – solid, liquid, gas, plasma, quasicrystal, Bose-Einstein condensate etc etc. Just that one whiff was enough to send my head spinning with innovative ideas and trend-setting powers. Thankfully, it was not quite enough to trigger me into wearing tartan trousers and faux National Health glasses…

Obamacare and the shutdown

The US has shut down for the day…it’s some kind of budgetary rebellion over Obamacare, right?

This is roughly how Wiki describes Obamacare, or to give it its formal name The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA):

“[Obamacare] aims to increase the quality and affordability of health insurance, lower the uninsured rate by expanding public and private insurance coverage, and reduce the costs of healthcare for individuals and the government…The law also requires insurance companies to cover all applicants within new minimum standards and offer the same rates regardless of pre-existing conditions or sex. Additional reforms aim to reduce costs and improve healthcare outcomes by shifting the system towards quality over quantity through increased competition, regulation, and incentives to streamline the delivery of healthcare…will lower both future deficits and Medicare spending.”

So…remind me, what’s a legitimate, moral argument against a new system that aims to be cheaper and ensure everyone gets healthcare? If only the Tories here in the UK would take such care of the National Health Service instead of crushing it into a bedpan and offering the dust to the highest bidder…

Is the opposition comprised of the middle-class “dream” chasers who worry that their stocks and pensions won’t be as big when they retire because the money-grubbing insurance companies won’t be making quite as much profit as they did exploiting the sick?

As a curious outsider, Just askin’…