Drone technology

Does Iran have a military drone fleet?:  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/26/world/middleeast/iran-iraq.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0

This is news (to me at least).

What if they put weapons of mass destruction on these drones?

They then don't have any need of ballistic missiles presumably.

They could target anywhere - Toledo in Castile, Clermont Ferrand in l'Auvergne, even Lincoln in Nebraska.

What efforts are being made internationally on controlling drone technology?
 

Nation-critical skills

Allegra Stratton talks about nation-critical skills.

To me these would be:

Organic chemists.
Physicists.
Chemists.
Bacteriologists.
Pathologists.
Botanists.
Mathematicians.
Astronomers.
Topologists.
Astrophysicists.
Embryologists.
Psychiatrists.

London used to be strong in all of these areas, but in the last thirty years gaps have appeared.

Is it possible that our memories are being saved in the water in our brains?

I am completely agnostic about homeopathy.  I have no idea whether it works or not.  I know farmers give it to animals and it seems to work, so it cannot solely be due to the placebo effect.

But I am interested in the claim that homeopaths make that water has a "memory".

Scientists are not sure how the human brain stores memories.

As the human brain is 70% water, is it possible that our memories are being saved in the water in our brains? (and presumably when the brain becomes dehydrated we should expect to see memory loss).

This is just an idle thought I am throwing out into the world.

I don't want anyone to go off and start experimenting on animals or anything.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2267120/Homeopathy-rubbish-shouldnt-available-NHS-says-chief-medical-officer.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Who will pay for the baby boomers

Progress (one of the more lively of Labour think-tanks) is asking who will pay for the baby boomers.  This is predicated on the supposed demographic shortfall in future taxpayers.  This in turn is ignoring the fact that future (smaller) generations will gain an inheritance windfall from dying "boomers" as more assets go to fewer children and will have more money to pay higher taxes.

But assuming Progress is right to scaremonger about a "demographic timebomb" they are overlooking the fact that cloning technology is available to close the gap (and will certainly be used by countries such as China to solve their own demographic shortfalls).

This is not to endorse the Frankenstein science of cloning - I am absolutely opposed to it.

But in an irreligious society where secularism is triumphant all morality will become relative and thus cloning will be made palatable.

Unlikely the Anglican Church will be able to stand against it.  As the women bishops episode demonstrates, the Church of England is under almost overwhelming pressure from secularists.  And if the Anglican Church, with all the state powers and privileges behind it, is unable to stand against secularism there is little hope for less influential groups such as Roman Catholics or Muslims.

James Purnell's article in today's Times

I have to say I was confused by James Purnell's article in today's Times about internet policy.

Expert analysis of the situation, interesting comparison with international competitors, and then he tells us the answer is to have another departmental reorganisation.

As if shuffling civil servants around would solve the problem.

Each time the medical establishment sidestepped the question

Discussion this morning on the Today programme about drugs to treat Alzheimer's disease.

Three times presenter Sarah Montague asked two representatives from the medical establishment (one from a university, one from a big pharma company) whether relying on the large pharmaceutical companies is the best way to research and develop new treatments.  Each time the medical establishment sidestepped the question.  Evasive, misleading, intellectually dishonest.

Because of the high cost of developing a new drug the pharmaceutical companies will only (ONLY) develop drugs they can patent and sell at a profit.

They also have a vested interest to suppress and belittle research that shows the efficacy of low cost commonly-owned sources of new medicines.

There is an enormous body of anecdotal evidence, going back centuries and developed in all cultures and regions of the world, that shows plant-based traditional medicines can be used to treat a vast range of medical conditions.

This is belittled by the medical establishment as "herbal" medicine, or "alternative" medicine, or "quack science".

Because common plants are common, and grow everywhere, they cannot be patented.

The big pharmaceutical companies have no interest in researching these plants unless they can identify the active constituents, synthesise them, and sell the patented formula to the NHS.

Thus to take one example from many thousands, Sutherlandia frutescens (a plant found in South Africa) has an anecdotal history of being useful to treat some forms of cancer. 

Medicines made from this plant will cost next to nothing.

And yet no pharmaceutical company is researching this possible cure for some forms of cancer.

They are not researching it because they cannot find a way to make money from it.

They would be seriously alarmed if Sutherlandia frutescens (or any other common plant) was brought forward as a cure for some forms of cancer as it would undermine all the expensive patented drugs they are already selling into the NHS.

Thus the pharmaceutical companies commission PR companies to alarm the general population with tales of untested medicines, and anyone interested in this body of medicine is ridiculed for "quack therapies" and "bad science" and people like Ben Goldacre write supercilious articles in the Guardian.

Obviously patients should not be given untested medicines.

However the real scandal is that the medical establishment is not researching and testing medicines from common plants with a history of efficacy, irrespective of whether money can be made from them.

Angelique Richardson reviews Jonah Lehrer's Proust Was A Neuroscientist

Book review that appeared in the Times Literary Supplement a couple of weeks back.  Angelique Richardson reviews Jonah Lehrer's Proust Was A Neuroscientist.  Not sure if I will ever read the actual book (and probably I wouldn't understand it if I did) but this review is so packed full of information that it is a masterpiece of precis.

Some quotes, with my commentary in red:

"...we are before all else a body."  Yes, I see that now (although I didn't before).  Far from being just 'packaging' the body is crucial to who we are.  Is that why physical resurrection is such a fundamental part of Anglican belief?

"Emotions are generated by the body: mind and matter are interwoven."  I always thought emotions were generated by the mind, but it's obvious when you think about it that emotions must come via the body.

"...a body that viscerally connects our minds with our environment, our nature with nurture."  I really like this idea - of the body being a medium through which we transmit and receive.

"DNA is too complicated for genes to be deterministic."  This is a slap in the face for all those who think that we are controlled by our DNA.

"New proteins make up memories, the past is a partial fiction..."  I love the idea that memories are physically made of something.

"Cezanne redefined reality, showing the world as it first appears before the brain gives it form..."  So that's what Cezanne was trying to tell us!

"Seeing has ambiguity built into it; neuroscience shows that subjectivity shapes as it makes sense of sensations."  This is a genuinely disturbing idea - how do we know we are all seeing things the same way (or perhaps we don't)?

"Following in the footsteps of Kant, and the Gestaltists, Cezanne saw that seeing was an act of the imagination."  So do we only 'see' things in the mind?  Are we all actually in pitch darkness, imagining the things around us?  Scary.

"Neuroscience, using the language of music, has named the malleable cells in the auditory cortex the corticofugal network.  They learn new patterns, dance to new tunes, as the brain reorganises them with dopamine."  Again this is an entrancing idea - that the body uses a chemical to reorganise things, like a sort of liquid kaleidoscope.

"Art changes the brain depending on its plasticity, its ability to learn new things, to change itself."  Yes, I have always believed in the power of art.

"And (Virginia) Woolf saw that unity of self is an illusion, that we are ordered into being by the brain, held together by fiction, by how we see ourselves; by our stories."  When I read this sentence I was reminded of this post.

Perhaps I can get the book via the library and have a look through.  I dare not buy it, with the huge mountains of books I already have waiting to be read.  But I have a feeling this is one of the books that changes lives (if you can only understand it).

Wonders of the Universe presented by Professor Brian Cox

Last night I watched Wonders of the Universe presented by Professor Brian Cox.

I have to force myself to take an interest in science. Not sure why this is. I think it must relate to when I was at school and anything to do with physics seemed incredibly boring and tedious.

Wonders of the Universe was beautifully filmed. Every sequence seemed a work of art with Professor Brian Cox standing on the summit of snowy mountains, looking over the edge of deep crevices, levitating excitedly in gravity-free plummeting aircraft. It was as if Casper David Friedrich lived today and had become a television director.

The programme seemed a bit too USA-centric - doesn't the United Kingdom have any of those gravity-free plummeting aircraft (and if not, why not?).

The series seemed to be telling us, in cosmological terms, that man is the centre of the universe and demonstrating this ideology by showing us Professor Brian Cox in every conceivable environment and from every possible angle (including following rather too close behind as he clambered up a steep slope). His enthusiasm was boundless, and there seemed nothing he would not do to show us how the universe worked. At one point he was striding beside a fast-flowing river and talking about swimming against the current, so that I expected him to suddenly throw himself in and demonstrate this to us (he didn't).

Towards the end of the programme he came to a stopping point he called singularity - "the place where our understanding of the universe stops". Having already told us that gravity was the great creator, this seemed a bit lame (if we don't entirely understand the universe how do we actually know gravity is the great creator?). Also the bit about the black hole seemed highly improbable - I know many eminent minds have endorsed this theory, but to me it still seems ridiculous.

Professor Brian Cox told us that he over-uses the word "beautiful", but that description was entirely appropriate to this production. It was beautiful in every way (visually, audibly, conceptually etc). A beautiful and engrossing study about a subject that (if I am honest) I don't care about very much.

More about Wonders of the Universe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zdhtg

Identity: Eight Rooms Nine Lives exhibition

Recently I went to the Wellcome Institute in Euston Road to see the Identity: Eight Rooms Nine Lives exhibition.

It was both fascinating and infuriating. Fascinating because of the huge amount of scientific techniques available to define “identity”. Infuriating because the layout was so badly designed so that finding your way around was difficult (especially as I only had my lunch hour, and also there was a big group of students going round led by a very loud American woman who seemed to think she could just push her way in anywhere).

The most interesting (for me) room was the collection of diaries, including Samuel Pepys. I would have liked more analysis on why people keep diaries (as a diarist myself, this area interests me, as I am not really sure of my own motivation). The Francis Galton room was unconvincing – I would have thought improved diet over the decades would throw all his findings into doubt. The Fiona Shaw room was interesting, but not really relevant. The DNA profiling was also interesting, but scary in its implications. The room on the twins was absorbing but I have to be honest and say I didn’t understand a lot of it.

Identity is a big issue in the current election campaign, not least because of the proposal to introduce identity cards. There is widespread unease at the idea of identity cards, particularly as those who do not have one will cease to officially exist. The effect of identity cards will be to create a “club membership” that can be cancelled at will by the government (for anti-social behaviour perhaps, or specific categories of crimes, or even for heckling Jack Straw at a Labour Party Conference).



Above: there were various materials that helped you define your own sense of identity.

And I have to say that the exhibition made me ask: who am I?

Although by almost every demographic rating you could apply I fall into the “comfortably well-off professional”, if you really pushed me to identify myself I would say: white working class East Ender. Until my generation my family were all East Enders, from Bethnal Green, Limehouse and Stepney, and lived there continuously at least since 1750 (documented, although who knows how far they actually go back). I feel I would be disloyal to my parents and grandparents if I claimed to be anything else.

But having an affinity to the East End is problematic. The garbage TV soap opera EastEnders routinely portrays the original population as white trash. The old docks where generations of my family worked have been redeveloped and are now populated by shallow worthless yuppies. The church (St James the Great) where my grandparents were married is now flats. Waves of migrants from all over the world have moved into the rest of the area. Intellectuals and commentators promulgate the myth: “there are no real East Enders, the area has always been a cultural melting-pot”.

This last point needs to be challenged. The vast majority of the East End population, over a thousand years up until the 1950s, has been English. You needn’t take my word for this – the census records are on-line and you can go into each one and see that the overwhelming majority of surnames are English. Not Irish, not Jewish, not Chinese, not “Huguenot”, not Flemish weavers, not descendants of African slaves etc etc. My grandparents came from Limehouse – there were some Chinese living in Limehouse, but they were a small minority, not the majority. Not sure why I feel so strongly over this. But I do want my cultural identity back.

More: http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/exhibitions/identity.aspx

It's just thyme

There has been a lot in the news recently about herbal medicine and whether it should be taken seriously or not.

The experts say there is no established evidence (by which they mean large-scale animal destruction and all that) supporting its effectiveness.

Occasionally I find it slightly difficult to breath. Not asthma exactly, just a heavy pressure on my chest. I talked to a medical herbalist I know, and she advised me to drink tea made from thyme. Just ordinary thyme that you buy in Sainsburys. So when I next felt I couldn't breath easily I made this tea and the heaviness went away immediately. It doesn't taste very nice so I have started mixing it with a Heath & Heather tea (which you can buy in Holland & Barrett).

I have a cup about once a day (and I really am not the "herbal tea" type).

It's just thyme. In terms of medicinal drug prices it costs next to nothing. No pharmaceutical company is going to make any money from it.

But for me it works.

My cholesterol level is 5.2 which the internet says is normal, but my GP says is too high according to new government guidelines. My doctor wants me to take statins, which have a scary reputation. The medical herbalist advised me to take red rice yeast and gave me a bottle free to try, to see if they work.

The Dyson Airblade

I was in a hotel recently attending the Council meeting of one of my clients (a not-for-profit organisation, very politically correct).

Charities fall into two categories. There are those which are well-run, do good work and are extremely professional (and also pay realistic rates to outside agencies). And there are those which are more shambolic, are filled with empire-building careerists, and are always pleading poverty and asking for free work while denying themselves nothing in terms of personal comfort and job security.

This client leaned towards the latter category.

Hence the Council meeting was held in a private meeting room at a very lavish central London hotel (I knew it was expensive as I had to hire a projector for my Powerpoint presentation - at £280 per day!).

Anyway I was in the meeting most of the morning. I had to sit through the previous Minutes being read, then give my presentation on PR work-in-progress, and then answer questions. The Minutes were interminable so that I felt I was experiencing the stretching of time described in Einstein’s theory of relativity.

I was tired and bored and dearly wanted to close my eyes, although I knew it was the one thing I must not do (would probably lose me the account since charity people are easily offended). Making an excuse, I left the room and went down the hushed and deserted corridor looking for a washroom where I could splash my face with cold water. The nearest one had a sign saying “Toilet Out Of Order”.

Ignoring this (it was an emergency) I went through the door and stood at the washbasins bathing my eyes and attempting to recover from the extreme tedium I had been subjected to. When I came to dry my hands I found the Dyson Airblade pictured above. It seemed a wonderful invention - a hand dryer that actually dries your hands!

The over-ripe decadent feel of Western civilisation is characterised by the invention of ever-more silly and marginal “products” and “services” that fulfil no useful purpose other than disguise the fact that our lives are effectively meaningless. The ancient Romans walked this path before us. “When you have everything to live with, you need something to live for” as a fictional character once said.

More on the Dyson Airblade (three years research and development went into this product): http://www.dysonairblade.co.uk/?sicampaignppc=google&sicampaigntopic=airblade

Note that I have created a new label for this post - Science and Technology (mainly because I don’t know enough about either, and I ought to be better informed).

PS rereading this post, it seems unduly pessimistic - I do enjoy life really!