The hidden history of life, viruses, covid, y-chromosome bottlenecks and more...

Ah well, no advice that I offer* to obstinate politicos, pundits or AI-inventors ever gets past the Cliché Protection Barrier that's established to firmly keep out any ideas (and I got a million of em) that are Not-Invented-Here. Should I take a hint and stay in my lane?

Naw. But one way to keep defending this incredible, miraculously creative, anomalous Enlightenment Civilization is to keep pointing out how wonderful science truly is! And hence...

== The Wonderful World of Nature and Biology! ==

First... some great sites:

Anton Petrov's science podcast is a favorite. (Though I occasionally catch some small error; it's half the fun!) This time: using micro black holes for energy purposes on Earth. Izat familiar? Tis, if you read my eponymous novel Earth. And this happens almost exactly on the timeline I projected, for that story's dramatic arc. 

My friend - and 25-year host of the Closer to Truth sci-philosophy TV series - Robert Lawrence Kuhn - just published a comprehensive survey of theories of consciousness — A Landscape of Consciousness: Toward a Taxonomy of Explanations and Implications. A balanced survey of the core philosophical issue of our time. 

Drinking water directly from the air? A concept predicted in one of the Out of Time novels… Boondoggle by Tom Easton and Torion Oey, which will soon be published by Amazing Stories. Now a real life product!  

== Tracing the hidden history of life ==

Pretty big (though interpolative) news: “By studying the genomes of organisms that are alive today, scientists have determined that the last universal common ancestor (LUCA), the first organism that spawned all the life that exists today on Earth, emerged as early as 4.2 billion years ago.  Earth, for context, is around 4.5 billion years old. That means life first emerged when the planet was still practically a newborn.” 

Now, this assumes several things, like a reliably constant rate of mutation divergence in life’s genetic heritage. If verified, it suggests that Life pops up quickly when conditions permit, rendering that factor in the Drake Equation (still speculatively) close to “1”.

Moreover – "But what is really interesting is that it's clear it possessed an early immune system, showing that even by 4.2 billion years ago, our ancestor was engaging in an arms race with viruses."

How much of the evolution of biochemistry is lost to time? "We might never know exactly, but our research yielded an important piece of evidence: only eight new reactions, all reminiscent of common biochemical reactions, are needed to bridge geochemistry and biochemistry.”  

And yes, I expect the Drake factor f(L) to prove trivially large, as did f(P). Planets and life, everywhere... but f(i) very small and f(c) - true civilizations that escape the male reproductive strategy called feudalism, in order to become creative and civilized enough to reach the stars? Vanishingly small.

== But let's cheer up! ==

Much later… a stress event in the early Jurassic may have driven many bird-hipped and two-legged dinosaurs to higher latitudes where they had to develop feathers and warm-bloodedness to survive, while the poor lizard-hipper giants had to make do in more arid lands.  Yay bird-hippers! (And the furry little mammals who followed them into the hills.)

A hilarious and insightfully informative video - How Cats Broke the Game - that explores the biology and anthropology of humanity's partnership with cats... told entirely in GAMER PLAY terms, e.g. build-points and skill-sets and power-ups, terminology that winds up making surprisingly solid sense. In fact, it's new-gen speak that actually rather impressed me.  

(Though humans bred terriers and other dog types who are also great ratters. And much more loyal.)

And in news from deeper time… This particular posting by Anton Petrov is especially interesting, re the impudent proposal that complex (multicellular) life forms had a brief start during an oxygenization event around 2.1 billion years ago, only to die off, leaving only single celled life till at least a billion years later, when it got rolling again. Naturally, it seems slim... though without any killer refutations, so far. And... well... interesting!

 == Peering at human bottlenecks ==

New evidence indicates that humans left Africa earlier than thought.... "The Neanderthal Y chromosome, for example, is more similar to the Y chromosome found in living humans than it is to the rest of the Neanderthal genome. In 2020, researchers offered an explanation: Neanderthal males inherited a new Y chromosome from humans between 370,000 and 100,000 years ago. But that would have made sense only if a wave of Africans had expanded out of the continent much earlier than scientists had thought."

"But why do the early migrations out of Africa seem to have fizzled away? Was there something different about the people in the last wave?"

Well, yeah, I talk about it in Existence.

A more recent bio mystery that’s been discussed a lot right here, in this blog’s lively comment community (below) has been the Great Big Y-Chromosome Bottleneck, from about 7000 to 5000 years ago, which appears to have started – and ended – rather suddenly, especially From Europe to South Asia. This article describes it pretty well. 

But how do you get a situation in which nearly all healthy females got to breed, but only one male in 17? And why would it happen (and stop) all across Eurasia with such brutal suddenness?

My own theory. It began with the arrival of larger farming villages, in which old tribal democracy could no longer function. No longer hold local 'lordly' bullies in check. Not when those top bullies could gather an 'army' of 20+ pals, call themselves demigods and simply take the widows of any men they killed. (That era also coincides with the arrival of large scale beer brewing; ponder that.) 

And the Y-Chromosome Bottleneck ended just as quickly! Pretty much as soon as some of those large villages gathered into even larger town- and city-based kingdoms. Those bigger-scale kings -- from Ur to the Indus to the Nile -- needed law and order! They also needed men for their armies, in struggles against other big kings. And hence they would have commanded local lords to stop wholesale slaughter of other local men! 

Those events would fit the order and sequence of the chromosomal evidence perfectly! Though... yes... that is a long way from proof.

And further DNA sleuthing opens such a window into a Scandinavian village 5000 years ago, tracing seven generations of 100 related individuals, 17% of whom had… the Plague. Which may have accounted for population declines. Which leads us to…

== Preparing for the next pandemic? ==

I have yet to see a single person, even one, point out the real, topmost effect of the Covid-19 epidemic.  That it was a spectacularly effective and relatively mild wakeup call and training exercise, for when we must deal with the real thing. A real ‘pandemic.’

All of what I just said may offend those of you who lost one or more people to that nasty disease… or if you claim that both government and society bungled the response. True enough. Still, I am not deterred from calling em as I see em. 

For example, while millions died, when you factor in remaining lifespan (most fatalities were elderly), the number of lost human years doesn’t rank anywhere in the top rank of plagues. 

For example, when compared to the 1918 flu calamity. As related by Evan Anderson in a recent Strategic News Service report: “(The 1918 flu) was by far the worst thing that has ever happened to humankind; not even the Black Death of the Middle Ages comes close in the number of lives it took. A 1994 report by the World Health Organization pulled no punches. The 1918 pandemic, it said, "killed more people in less time than any other disease before or since." It was the "most deadly disease event in the history of humanity." - Albert Marrin, Very, Very, Very Dreadful: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918.

(Well… worst in total deaths, sure. Though not as a fraction of the population or in seismic effects upon civilization. But sure. way-way worse than anything we the living have seen.)

This is small comfort to those who lost loved ones, or who still suffer from Long Covid. (I know several and it’s a nasty syndrome that must be fought with science!) And I am well aware how consensus is shifting, re: the disease’s origins -- toward a verdict that this was no ‘accident.’ At least not completely. 

Still, I expect future generations will deem the whole episode to have been ‘innoculatory’… leaving us much better prepared for something truly worse. 

Like (perhaps) the H5N1 Bird Flu that’s now spreading among mammals, killing (for example) thousands of elephant seals and spreading through dairy and beef cattle*. With signs of seeping into pigs and thence maybe human-to-human… though let's emphasize that experts still rank it as ‘low risk.’

== More blessings from Covid-19? ==

A few – very few – have openly marveled over the incredible speed with which RNA-based vaccines arrived, saving millions and leading to even better/quicker skills. Stockpiles of medical supplies and apparatus are far improved and bureaucracies finer tuned. Even the mistakes that were made in the initial covid-panic led to better understanding. 

For example, next time we’ll likely know within mere days whether a pathogen can be transmitted by ‘fomites’, by non-living surfaces. So, no bleaching your store packages or produce, or microwaving your mail. Though hand washing proved-out as a very, very good thing.** And fer gosh sakes stay home with your sniffles and coughs!

Surveillance and detection, while at 1% of what experts say we should be funding, are at least a hundred-fold better than before, e.g. sampling viral loads in city waste water ‘sewersheds.’

Of course, none of this is helped by anti-science manias like the new U.S. Defense Secretary appointee, who proudly declared: "I don't believe in germs and I haven't washed my hands in a decade!" 

... or vaccine denialism by loons, who romanticize the 1950s as some whitebread paradise era, while ignoring the myriad ways that things were far more wretched then – and reasons why – during that decade, as I well recall – the most-adored person in America was named Jonas Salk. 

If science-haters truly carry out their open plans, we could be in big trouble (as described chillingly in these few paragraphs by Robert Heinlein). Or even if they remain the raving impediments that they currently are. 

None of this is meant to minimize. In fact, my job is to look ahead at possibilities, both bright and dark. And both future-view and history suggest 'pandemics' can get far, far worse than Covid-19. And while we are certainly unprepared, we are definitely less unprepared than we were.

(* Thorough cooking does kill the virus, so maybe rare steaks should be off the menu, for a while. Pasteurized milk seems to be fine.)

Then there’s this on the history of vaccines. 

== Final tidbits ==

‘Researchers have uncovered what might be the world’s oldest solar calendar at Göbekli Tepe, a 12,000-year-old archaeological site in southern Turkey.’  The implications of very pre-literate sophistication are so interesting.

Does putting Neosporin in your nose help fend off covid? Surprisingly, there’s preliminary evidence that it does. 

And finally this bit of genuine wisdom to cancel your incel rage junkie.... 

 

"He's just mad because he was abandoned by wolves and raised by his parents."                         

                          -- Robin Williams

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* Though again, Joe Biden has two weeks to do one thing. 

One thing easily within his power, that might shatter the worst madness, infection and treason among the US political and aristocratic castes. 

He could do this. He could... though his factotums will ensure that he won't.

General science updates plus amazing tech... starting with a wonder!

First, for some Big Picture think? Want another wise-guy interview?  For the Closer to Truth TV series, Robert Kuhn interviews me on the topic: “Does ESP Reveal the Nonphysical?”

Okay this is just wonderful. Saturn's moon Titan is one of my favoritetourist haunts! "...one of the jewels of the solar system. Its greenish-blue hues are reminiscent of Earth, and it's the only other place in our part of the cosmos that we know to have roiling seas and wondrous clouds. But Titan is kind of strange; an alternate reality Earth. Its clouds and seas, rivers and lakes aren't composed of water. They're made of methane and ethane." The Cassini-Huygens probes showed us the marvels of (likely) lakes under the obscuring clouds. Only now...

...the Webb Telescope's infrared abilities can look through those clouds at the gorgeous surface!

== Amazing tech! And assertive ways to save the planet ==

GammaPix is a smartphone application available for both Android and iPhone operating systems that uses the smartphone camera sensor to detect and measure ionizing radiation fields. The software analyzes digital images produced by a smartphone camera to determine the local gamma-ray radiation environment. It compares a dark image (i.e., with the camera covered) to one with bright pixels caused by photons from a radiation source, which pass through a covered camera lens.

The U.S. government has directed the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to develop a plan to study solar geo-engineering, a controversial approach to combatting the effects of climate change by using stratospheric aerosol injection of short-lived reflective material, such as sulfur dioxide, into the stratosphere over the fast-melting poles. 

In the same month, Greta Thunberg came out favoring transitional nuclear power. 

Thirdly, studies of the effects of vast clouds of soot from last year's Australian fire on the seas have shown decisively that ocean fertilization can positively affect fast currents to increase fisheries and whale habitats.

At last we can ask the fringe-puritans to either make their crits useful and practical or else get out of the way, letting humanity's problem solvers find out which of many multi-prong approaches - pragmatically - can help assist the main effort. 

A main effort which of course must remain a strenuous emergency push aimed at reducing carbon pollution and other filthy habits.

=== Diving into biology ==

Some likely neurological and brain differences between humans and Neanderthals now pretty much verified. 

About 30 Neanderthal genomes have been sequenced. The lack of mitochondrial DNA (inherited from mother to child) from Neanderthals present in living humans might be evidence that only male Neanderthals and female Homo sapiens could – or did - successfully mate. I had not known the mitochondria results, which do imply an interesting past bias in gene flow. Still, alas, the author's hypothesis - Sex, not violence, may have sealed the fate of the Neanderthals - displays a profound lack of understanding of males or male behavior in nature. A more likely - if related - possibility is that those wandering males brought STDs back to their tribe. 

I hope the next two effects can be separated ... A genetic mutation that raises I.Q. ... and causes blindness.  Reminiscent of Disch’s novel Camp Concentration or Vernor Vinge’s A Deepness in the Sky.

A young engineer has created a rotary dial LTE cell phone. Want one! 

"Many animals signal to each other vocally or by banging on things, but new

research in a Ugandan rainforest shows that each chimpanzee pounds on tree

roots with its own individual signature drum beat to send messages more than

1km away. Combined with their hooting and hollering, signature rhythms allow them to send information over long distances, revealing who is where, and what they are

doing." 

Okay so where have you seen that depicted before? 

Strong muscles, healthy brain: Even moderate exercise can increase metabolism in brain regions important for learning and memory in older adults. And the brain itself has been found to respond to exercise in strikingly physical ways. Studies have shown that even in people with existing brain disease or damage, increased physical activity and motor skills are associated with better cognitive function. 

== Don't get too cocky ==

Yes there are many reasons for pride in our scientific advances that should fill us with the tools and the confidence tp solve the world's many problems. And yet there are also reminders of how deep those problems go...

As the United States' south-west faces the worst drought in more than a millennium... Tucson seeks new ways to reclaim water from the desert.

And in San Diego, toilet-to-tap recovery is progressing fast, as urgency make the previously-unacceptable suddenly normal. Like Greta Thunberg extolling carefully responsible nuclear power. And liberals now willing to invest research funds into cautious Geo-engineering - a flexibility in the face of new evidence that (alas) is entirely lacking on the other side.

One shift I'd like. Build that tunnel, long mentioned in Sci Fi, from the Sea of Cortez to California's Salton Sea, that would both draw downhill electricity while re-filling that sea so that it won't become a disaster of poison dust. And dwindling Colorado River fresh water can go where it's needed.

And finally...

An interview with Neil DeGrasse Tyson about three types of 'truth' and how we must not let incantations or ideologies trump objective reality. Best of all, he talks about how to argue with all but the worst fanatics. Start by finding some shared common ground, then examine the gaps for some that can be crossed...

...till we are back to a place where we can take our further arguments to a pub, for beers. Share with your borderline MAGAs.

From geology to quantum science to a healthy planet...

For your weekend... as I traditionallly do, here's a round-up of recent science news...

First, here's the latest CARTA conference - the Center for Anthropogeny (human origins) at UCSD. This one with talks having to do with the theme of "The Planet Altering Apes."

== Physical Science ==

The observation of the Higgs boson  at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has validated the last missing piece of the standard model (SM) of elementary particle physics.  The mass of the W boson, a mediator of the weak force between elementary particles, should be tightly constrained by the symmetries of the standard model of particle physics.  So… do recent results mean we have a problem here?

“Wireless Sensors: Tiny Battery-Free Devices Float In The Wind Like Dandelion Seeds…” or a lot like the ‘localizer nanochips in Vernor Vinge’s great novel  A Deepness in the Sky.  

A new form of ice discovered, which forms at high-pressures: Shades of Kurt Vonnegut! Here’s ‘ice-ten’ or Ice-X!  Scientists speculate that it could be common on distant, water-rich exoplanets.

Asking the Ultimate Questions, Robert Laurence Kuhn’s recent presentation at the Institute of Art and ideas (IAI-UK), is posted on the Closer To Truth YouTube channel.

== The biologic world ==

States and cities have also begun to decriminalize psilocybin – the core of magic mushrooms - in general or for medicinal purposes, especially treatment of depression. 

The disturbing rise of bird flu; already more than 27 million birds have died or been slaughtered. Will we see a poultry vaccine?

Apparently fish can calculate....stingrays can perform simple addition and subtraction in the low digit range.

Forty to fifty percent of all animal species are actually parasites, including 300,000 different types of worms that parasitize vertebrates.

Interesting question: Why didn't our primitive ancestors get cavities?

== Insights into our planet ==

In Earth’s past, two gargantuan 'super-mountain' ranges may have fueled two of the biggest evolutionary boom times in our planet's history — the first appearance of complex cells roughly 2 billion years ago, and the Cambrian explosion of marine life 541 million years ago.  

Is Earth’s ‘solid’ inner core something like my fictional-hypothetical descriptions in Earth? If the material is ‘superionic,’ then the majority iron atoms might be 'solid' in the crystalline lattice structure, whereas the carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen molecules would diffuse through the medium, creating the liquid-like element.  

And in related matters, the top mineral form of the mantle is perovskites… which are still (since I wrote Earth) among the best high pressure/high temperature superconductors. So… is she alive? Way too soon to tell. But the traits (or potentialities) keep piling up!

Moving a bit outward toward Earth's mantle… “Earth is layered like an onion, with a thin outer crust, a thick viscous mantle, a fluid outer core, and a solid inner core. Within the mantle, there are two massive blob-like structures, roughly on opposite sides of the planet. The blobs, more formally referred to as Large Low-Shear-Velocity Provinces (LLSVPs), are each the size of a continent and 100 times taller than Mt. Everest. One is under the African continent, while the other is under the Pacific Ocean.”  Might this explain the unusual solidity of the African continent?

Meanwhile, fast melting Alpine permafrost may contribute to rising global temperatures.

There have been wonderful paleontologic finds at the Tanis site, in the Dakotas, which show many creatures exceptionally well-preserved who seem to have died suddenly the very day that asteroid ended the era of the dinosaurs. I look forward to the show - Dinosaurs: The Final Day with Sir David Attenborough, which was broadcast on BBC One. A version for the U.S. science series Nova on the PBS network will be broadcast later in the year.

And...an allegory of uncertainty

Four quantum physicists are in a car. Heisenberg is driving like he is in The Matrix. Schrödinger is in the front seat waving at the other cars. Einstein and Bohr are in the back arguing when they get pulled over. The officer asks Heisenberg, “do you know how fast you were going?”

“No, but we know exactly where we are,” Heisenberg replies.

The officer looks confused and says, “you were going 120 km/h!”

Heisenberg throws his arms up and cries, “Great! Now we’re lost!”

The officer looks over the car and asks Schrödinger if they have anything in the trunk.

“A cat,” Schrödinger replies.

The officer opens the trunk and yells, “This cat is dead!”

Schrödinger angrily replies, “Well it is now.”

Bohr says, “on the bright side, a moment ago we didn’t have a position, speed, or a cat. Now we have all three!”

Fed up, the officer says, “I just want to know how many of you I need to bring back to the station!”

“Roll dice for it?” Einstein asks.

heh.

Now back to your regularly scheduled 21st Century crises...