Science keeps moving on! It could give us the stars...( if we don't get idiocracy first.)

== Do humans need uplifting? ==

First off... some of my past sci fi has been more pertinent than I’d want! My Hugo-nominated story “The Giving Plague” deals with our complex relationships with viruses and such, including the several paths a parasite can go down, in “negotiating” with us hosts. Oh, there's sudden movie interest. I wonder why?

Alas, P.Z. Meyers speculates that my novel The Postman may be my most prophetic... re: a plague of selfish romanticism driving "preppers" at both society's low and high ends.

Or else maybe the Uplift Series? Because we badly need it? Oh, but see below. We're getting the tools!

== Uplifting animal news ==

Apparently chimps use Instagram and similar apps really well, swiping and touch-activating etc. Does this speak to their “pre-sapient” potential for uplift, as in my cosmology? Or to the really primitive level that these crude apps operate on?

And octopuses, along with some squid and cuttlefish, routinely edit their RNA (ribonucleic acid) sequences to adapt to their environment. When such an edit happens, it can change how the proteins work, allowing the organism to fine-tune its genetic information without actually undergoing any genetic mutations. "I wonder if it has to do with their extremely developed brains," asks geneticist Kazuko Nishikura. The theorized tradeoff: cephalopods may gain individual flexibility at the cost of slower genetic evolution.

More amazements from nature – scientists have found a species of insect that uses tooth gears to synchronize movement of the rear, hopping legs. 

Jumping jaws:  the trap-jaw ant uses its jaws - that open a full 180 degrees - not just to catch prey, but to jump as well, propelling them at a speed of 140 mph, with a force 300 times the insect's weight. 

Engineering new life forms. A generation ago, religious leaders called it a red line. A no-go zone, arrogating Heaven’s authority. Now? Silence, as the red lines keep getting moved. Scientists are sculpting and arraying frog stem cells into nano-robots that move tiny appendages and swim about, as designed.

Gosh what a fascinating time! Just a few years ago we learned about Denisovans, a human branch as widespread and important as Neanderthals. Both groups contributed partial inputs to our modern genomes... for non-Africans, that is.  

Only now it seems some African populations carry genes from the “ghost population” of yet a third mystery sub-species!  This  interbreeding happened about 50,000 years ago, roughly the same time that Neanderthals were breeding with modern humans elsewhere in the world. Are you jazzed that science keeps inventing time machines?

Toxic love. Yet sadly endearing. A baboon tries to groom and comfort a lion cub it stole, of course dooming the cub. Should pet owners take note?

== Recent research ==

In “strange metal” scientists have managed to get billions of electrons simultaneously entangled into a shared quantum state. We’ve long been able to do this with bosons (photons, phonons etc) in say lasers. But electrons are fussy fermions. Ooh. 

A fascinating method using “carboranes” to trap and extract particular elements from solution, even seawater. The first tested use was Uranium, but there may be others.

Another for the Predictions registry: “Teslasuit’s new VR gloves let you feel virtual objects.” See my story 'NatuLife,' from my collection Otherness.

== Mining the seas? ==

An eye-opening article about deep seafloor mining and resource extraction. Let’s bear in mind that most regions out there are ‘deserts’ featuring very sparse life. Still, we need critical foresight and a default attitude of ecological conservatism or conservationism. Both for posterity’s sake and … well… might the Galactic Club be waiting for some sign we’re starting to grow up?

Consider this paragraph: “Ships above will draw thousands of pounds of sediment through a hose to the surface, remove the metallic objects, known as polymetallic nodules, and then flush the rest back into the water. Some of that slurry will contain toxins such as mercury and lead, which could poison the surrounding ocean for hundreds of miles. The rest will drift in the current until it settles in nearby ecosystems.” 

Yes, the image is noxious. Though consider also that it is upwelling of ocean bottom sediments that is precisely where nearly all ocean life derives. The possibility of positive outcomes should not be blithely dismissed any more than negative ones. What’s needed is prudence and incremental approaches and above all, transparency combined with skepticism toward the truth-bending effects of greed.

Much will depend on a factor barely considered in the article… close proximity of test sites to fast or slow ocean currents. Having said all that (partly as a contrarian) let me add that this fine article should both inspire and warn you. We must to well by this Earth. Or we have our likely explanation for the Fermi Paradox.

== Saving the planet across a broad spectrum ==

Ever more it seems that some form of 'geo-engineering' is in the cards. While the biggest threat to the planet is right wing denialism, the left’s puritanism is also bad news, insisting that only draconian reductions in carbon emissions can do any good at all. This argument -- a version of "moral hazard" -- is flawed in several ways.

1) It’s not true. Even if we vastly clamped down on human activity and emissions (as we’re doing now, amid the covid/covfefe crisis) it would not be sufficient in the near term to prevent many climate related calamities and extinctions and a possible methane runaway-release. As sci fi legend Kim Stanley Robinson said just today(!) keynoting for a conference on extracting carbon from the air, "we're well past talking moral hazard and now have to get used to fighting this battle on many fronts."

(See KSR's novel about the consequences of warming in New York 2140, and of course I portrayed the dilemma in my own 1990 book Earth.)

2) Carbon fuel replacement by sustainables and e-vehicles already has huge momentum, driven by ever advancing technology, far more than by puritanism. Over the long run, we should be fine. If we can get across the next few decades.

3) The very notion that we can only do one thing, instead of attacking problems across a broad front, is a pure sign of zero sum fanaticism based upon sanctimonious emotion and not vigorous problem solving. It is proof that even the “good” side that is right about overall problems and goals can still be infested with self-righteous loons. (Though nowhere near as bad as the other side, which has no positive traits at all.)

We can and must do many things, in parallel. And experiments must go forward to see if methods like this - and ocean fertilization — can offer safe and effective amelioration for a problem to the planet and future generations… while the real solutions lose no momentum at all.

An interesting article about the world trade in “recyclables”… or otherwise known as “waste” … now that China is producing so much of its own that it no longer needs any from the West. Progress... I think?

How is this "emergency bailout" different from all other bailouts?

Hang in to the end for my favorite suggestion for how to spend some of your quarantine time... plus a great way to defeat insomnia!

So. How is this "emergency bailout" different from all other bailouts? Answer: during every other urgent economic crisis intervention there were powerful interests in Congress and the Executive who spoke up for the taxpayer. Sure one could argue that industries were "saved" who should have been allowed to suffer the consequences of bad management... and that the CEO caste nearly always got their parachute first... nevertheless, this chart shows that overall, the workers at those companies were helped almost as much. Above all, our children weren't saddled with vast debt in order to line oligarchic pockets. In fact, taxpayers did all right.

This linked research shows that the vast majority of business bailouts passed by Congress over the past half century have either broken even or generated a profit! For example: "the much-derided 2009 Troubled Asset Relief Program, was a $854 billion bailout for financial companies. Ultimately, $382 billion was dispersed to Wall Street firms like Citigroup, JPMorgan and AIG in exchange for preferred stock and other compensation. Taxpayers earned a net $32.5 billion. 

A separate bailout to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was even more lucrative. The U.S. government received preferred stock for the $234 billion invested in the two housing giants. Taxpayers got their money back as well as $123 billion in profits."

The bailout of the auto companies in the same season restored that American industry to health. Republicans shouted: "let Detroit die!" while Obama and the Democratic Congress demanded major equity as collateral... and came within just $14B of breaking even.

The CoronaCrisis Stimulus has been entirely different in all ways. No collateral has been demanded from any of the TBTF (Too Big To Fail) corps, nor WallStreet, nor any moguls represented by K Street. Nor are there any CEO consequences. No equity that taxpayers might later sell to recoup anything. Pelosi had to use all her political capital just to get much of it called "loans" so that someday, something might be clawed back from those of the ungratefully saved who get obscenely profitable. (For now, those "loans" are unrecoverable.)

The systems of accountants who watched TARP carefully and insisted that U.S. funds buy toxic assets at near fair value are almost entirely absent this time, except for a few promises made by Black Rock, which might still contain a few citizens.

The inspectorate who might watch for insider corruption this time was either fired or intimidated by Trump, while he and McConnell have blasted any attempt in the House to create oversight as "delaying dems who are killing Americans and American jobs."

Even the money that's going to workers is being funneled through corporations under "payroll protection" when simpler and more direct means are available.

You may be upset with these traitors for many reasons, e.g. spreading climate denialism, waging open war on all fact-professions, attacking as "deep state" the brave men and women who won the Cold War and the War on Terror, kids in cages, the 20,000 Trump lies, the appointment of unqualified and corrupt monsters to every executive department, the deliberate dismantling of all American sciences and alliances...

In fact, all of you know some residual Republicans who hold their noses at such Trumpian antics calling them 'regretable" but... who then murmur about "spendthrift/wastrel Democrats." 

Demand they make a wager of it! Which party is always more fiscally responsible? Get the twit to ante-up and escrow big stakes in a bet over that cliché, because I promise you that I will (for 10% of your winnings) line up the proof. It is always, always Democrats, not the corrupt cesspool of turpitude that was once the Party of Lincoln.

== The Piketty fence against feudalism ==

Thomas Piketty’s series of books on “Capital” have sold millions worldwide zeroing in on the greatest problem of our time, the concerted campaign to re-impose feudalism through skyrocketing wealth disparities that are fast approaching those of 1789 France, just before the Revolution.

While playing off the concerns that Karl Marx raised (dogmatically and with far more primitive data) in Das Kapital, Piketty, is actually a fan of Adam Smith. He wants to save competitive-creative market enterprise, which truly does foster invention and wealth generation that can ‘lift all boats.’  

Alas, eras of vibrant entrepreneurship almost always failed across the last 6000 years, wrecked not by socialists or bureaucrats but by rich cheaters - by century after century of kings, nobles, priests and the sort of spoiled inheritance brats who were also (ironically) the chief villains in every Ayn Rand novel. (Though no Rand-oid ever seems to notice that fact.)

Piketty systematically shows how the vastly creative and flat social structure of the post WWII Greatest Generation led to hugely successful enterprise… whereupon after 1981 all of that began to decline and then plummet with this era’s return to oligarchy.

“Capital and Ideology builds on Piketty’s long-standing argument that inequality has soared across the world since 1980. It proposes strong remedies. Piketty wants to slap wealth taxes of 90 percent on any assets over $1 billion, and he waxes nostalgic about the postwar decades when British and American top marginal income-tax rates were over 80 percent.”  

Sound radical? Well, it wouldn’t sound at all radical to the Greatest Generation who survived the Depression, crushed Hitler, stymied Stalin and built the most spectacularly effective market economy of all time.

“Franklin D. Roosevelt and European social democratic parties, desperate to dissuade workers from Bolshevism, oversaw a redistribution from rich to poor. From 1932 to 1980, top marginal income tax rates averaged 81 percent in the US and 89 percent in Britain, Piketty calculated. Rich Americans also paid state income taxes, and higher inheritance taxes than wealthy Europeans. But from 1980, Reagan, Thatcher and their acolytes, as well as post-communist regimes in the former USSR and China, restored the trend to inequality….”

(Something I also note, that Piketty missed and that boggles all "Tea Party" types. That the American Founders followed the revolution against British oligarchy by seizing and redistributing up to a third of the land in the former colonies. And act of "leveling" that both built the initial US middle class and makes the New Deal look almost Randian, by comparison.)

Piketty goes into the justifying incantations, like “government is the enemy”… even though Adam Smith extolled civil servants as helpful in counter-balancing feudal monopolists and oligarchy. (One reason today’s oligarchs’ Enemy #1 is the so-called “deep state” of a million men and women who strive honestly on our behalf, daily.) Piketty describes the “sacralization of property” which has become the central faith-word of a libertarian movement that used to focus on the C-Word… competition… till billionaires bought out the movement, top to bottom.

Reading the stats, you have to wonder where the oligarchs think this all can lead? Do they actually think they can establish a permanent inheritance pyramid, with all the fact-using “boffins” - folks who who know genetics, cyber and nuclear science - all meekly accepting their place just above a festering sea of poverty? 

Many zillionaires can now see that’s untenable and they are splitting in two directions. Some are making the choice made by Joe Kennedy in the 1930s"to sacrifice half my wealth so the workers won't get furious and take it all."  Count Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and many of the smartest tech giants there.

Others have decided to double down on the evil. Among some has arisen an even more noxious meme — a fixation on apocalypse that they plan to ride out in Patagonian or Siberian prepper redoubts or in hideaways under the sea, blithely certain those few boffins who survive won’t be able to find them. Riiiight.

In the end, Piketty calls for what I’ve been demanding since The Transparent Society … and even since my novel EARTH… the one thing that Adam Smith and even Friedrich Hayek demanded in order to make markets, justice systems and every other thing work well… and the one thing that oligarchs and inheritance brats have always avoided frantically, until that final tumbrel ride.  Transparency.

== And finally - a good use of time... and maybe save the galaxy?  ==

RECOMMENDATION: there is no better win-win way to pass quarantine time than with a historical atlas. If you have just five minutes at a time, it makes terrific bathroom reading and you come away having learned tons, from just one page. Or get immersed for hours - any page might lead you to go click great web tutorials like the EXTRA CREDIT series! And never again will you be at a loss about this or that era and the names that smug folks drop!

You'll gain perspective on the awful, wretched way that self-deluding kings, lords and theocrats ruled, as humanity crawled agonizingly out of the dismal trap of feudalism that mired nearly all cultures, on nearly all continents, and that has likely mired a majority of alien races, too. (A top candidate to explain the Fermi Paradox... and much of today's politics.)

Oh, and one more great benefit! 
Having trouble falling asleep? 
When you're interested, a historical atlas can be riveting!

But when you're loggy and in need of sleep...

...a historical atlas can be ... utterly... soporific...

...zzzzzzz

A total win-win.

International mafias and our struggle to survive

== Those mob connections ==

We all knew there were mob connections. Indeed, the thing the Trumpists fear most is release of the full swathe of documents from Deutsche Bank, proving that roughly a billion dollars of Russian oligarch mafia cash rescued the family from their multiple bankruptcies. Still, this book excerpt shows how far back it goes and a depth of mob links that swirl so thick you'd need more than a respirator... more like a spacesuit... not to choke.

Will the Deutsche Bank revelations ever “hit the fan” and save us? The exact correlations to the laundering through the Trump Co. of tens of billions in Russian oligarch cash are blatantly there, but will those powers succeed in keeping the flames concealed by smoke? Oh, but so much smoke! In his best-selling book Dark Towers, David Enrich, finance editor at The New York Times, chronicles the complicated history of Deutsche Bank and its entanglement with Donald Trump. 

Reviewing Dark Towers, Roger Lowenstein writes, 

"Enrich’s most tantalizing nugget is that in the summer of 2016, Jared Kushner’s real estate company (which received lavish financing from Deutsche) was moving money to various Russians. A bank compliance officer filed a “suspicious activity report,” but the report was quashed and she was fired. The suggestion that maybe the money was payback for Russian campaign meddling isn’t one that Enrich can prove. Similarly, we will have to wait to see if Deutsche can recover from years of banking malpractice that destroyed its capital and wiped out 95 percent of its stock price. In the meantime, Enrich has given us a thorough, clearly written and generally levelheaded account of a bank that lost its way." (Courtesy of Phil’s Stock World.)

And this is one more reason to wage open war not just on the reputation of the FBI and other law professionals, but all independent civil servants, especially inspectors general.

== Cyberwar - Cold War ==

  

Scary stuff re cyber warfare: “During the Cold War, opposing military commanders and national leaders spent decades figuring out how to posture and signal to one another so they could resolve disputes without fighting. In nearly every major depiction of an imagined cyberwar, the purpose of the attacks is obvious and usually involves cowing the United States into concessions. In his book “Glass Houses,” for example, former National Security Council inspector general Joel Brenner imagines China using a series of devastating cyberattacks to force the United States to back down in a confrontation over Taiwan.”

The real danger though comes in a second Trump term, when his hollowing out of the so-called "deep state" finally lets him hand over our intel agencies to the Kremlin

“Putin backs Russian constitutional amendment allowing him to stay in office till 2036.”  It's not just that these President-for-Life moves are boringly predictable aspects of despotism. Or that they show why delusional, macho-male leaders ruled so execrably in 99% of human cultures for 6000 years. 

On a more fundamental level, these actions by Putin, Xi and others insult their own people and nations! Doesn't the "indispensable man" justification imply the entire nation can't sift a vast pool of talent for one other... or several or many other... leaders just as qualified? What, not even one? So the lesson is that you are a fluke genius, without whom the entire, fragile edifice would collapse?

The never-mentioned silver lining to all of this mess - an oligarchic-confederate putsch that aims to demolish the Enlightenment Experiment? It is that the U.S. has been robust, so far, in the face of the very worst-case scenario, takeover of our executive, legislative and judicial branches by either moronic-maniacs or enemies, or both. The very thing that Vlad has aimed to prove - that democracy is a decadent failure - is exactly what we have disproved.

So far. In the short term.

But yes, 6000 years of history shows the odds were always stacked against any effort to rise above oligarchism. Indeed, each generation in this Great Experiment has had to show heroism to some degree. And the magical, almost godlike power of citizenship.

It's our turn.

== The great warner ==

As often the case, George Orwell had insights into what these monsters aim to achieve:

"For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.”

  - O’Brien, speaking for the Party in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four

== Worries and concerns ==

Yes, added to the long list of “he actually said that”: 

“The things they had in there were crazy. They had things, levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again,” Trump said during an appearance on Fox & Friends. Having to support vote-suppression is now a core matter of survival to a Republican Party that has been losing members – especially from the fact-professions – faster than leaves from a dying tree. 

New at the Evonomics site: “Saving Capitalism from Inequality: Robust middle incomes deliver the demand that businesses need to produce.”

Next. While this article contains loads of “stuff I never knew” about far-right hackers and their backers, it is also tendentious and untrustworthy at some levels, including especially the very notion that “facial recognition” is some sort of plot, instead of an absolutely inevitable aspect of technology, as natural and unstoppable as the tide. 

Yes, shine light on abuses or uneven distributions of access or power. But there are better ways to prevent all that and get positive sum benefits. This article ironically demonstrates the very process that can offer that path.  “The Far-Right Helped Create The World’s Most Powerful Facial Recognition Technology - Clearview AI, which has alarmed privacy experts, hired several far-right employees, a HuffPost investigation found."

“California proposes 3-day backup power for cell towers, communication networks.” A small step toward the kind of systemic resilience I’ve been pushing for decades. Still, towers are the most unreliable piece of infrastructure we’ve got. Vastly better would be to require the cell-cos to turn on the backup peer-to-peer text-passing capability that is already available on Qualcomm chip sets.  See other recommendations to make society more robust here… or copied into a chapter of Polemical Judo.

Space Age marvels - near and far

Let's lift our heads from Earthly troubles for a bit. First something cosmic -- BBC World Service uses me pretty often, most recently on a program about moving the Earth.   A light take on a very – um – heavy topic that I explicate further here.

Is “dark energy” real? It’s based on the notion that cosmic expansion started accelerating again, some 5 to 10 billion years ago, as apparently evidenced by the distance and brightness profiles of Type 1a supernovae, which are our standard candles for immense distances. But what if those candles were not “standard” across those billions of years? Might the brightness of a typical S1a have varied, as the galaxies got older, and more ‘metal-rich’? Or even (perhaps) as space-time itself got more stretched out? (I feel it, even across my almost seven decades!) 

If so, then the new inferred distance/recession curves might eliminate the supposed acceleration and thus any need for dark energy.  (There are other metrics like the Cosmic Background Radiation and the baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAO), but these are even more indirect.) What fascinating times. Fight for a brave, scientific civilization.

Soon the New Horizons spacecraft (with Pluto and and Ultima behind it) will take images of two "nearby" stars, Proxima Centauri and Wolf 359. When combined with Earth-based images made on the same dates, the result will be a record-setting parallax measurement yielding 3D images of these stars appearing (as points) to pop out of their backgrounds, giving very precise distance measurements.

Image from Inouye Solar Telescope

And coincidental with our re-release of my first novel - Sundiver… the new Inouye Solar Telescope based on Maui in Hawaii is taking the most detailed images of our Sun to date. Amazing pics of convection cells the size of Texas coupled with titanic magnetic fields and sources of the Solar Wind that sometimes surges as massive storms.  

== ...and only slightly less cosmic ==

On a broader scale,  a study published in The Astrophysical Journal  found that hundreds of galaxies were rotating in sync with the motions of galaxies that were tens of millions of light years away. It should be impossible that the galaxies separated by six megaparsecs [roughly 20 million light years] directly interact with each other. Perhaps the synchronized galaxies may be embedded along the same large-scale structure. “In 2014, a team observed curious alignments of supermassive black holes at the cores of quasars, which are ancient ultra-luminous galaxies, that stretch across billions of light years.” And yes, one notion is that this provides forther evidence for “we’re in a simulation.” Well, it’s one thought occurring to science fiction readers.

Amazing composite image of the Tycho Supernova, with the red and blue coloring used to give a 3D feel to it (retreating and advancing silicon and other stuff too).

While breathless reporters ask if Betelgeuse is about to go supernova (not huge odds in our lifetimes) a smaller spectacle seems assured in mere decades. V Sagittae is made up of an ordinary star orbiting around a white dwarf star, with the former’s matter slowly falling onto the latter. The astronomers’ mathematical model predicts this process to result in a merger between 2067 and 2099. “It’ll be “substantially brighter than the all-time brightest known nova just over a century ago, and the last time any ‘guest star’ appeared brighter was Kepler’s Supernova in the year 1604.”

China has finally booted up its “super-Arecibo” radio telescope. The completed FAST is about 2.5 times as sensitive as any other radio telescope on the planet, and is expected to have four times the range of the next largest dish. That is, till the Square Kilometer Array goes live.

Astronomers have discovered a 'void' with absolutely nothing in it. ‘The void, which is about 6 billion to 10 billion light years away, is nearly a billion light years across, is empty of both normal matter and dark matter. The finding challenges theories of large-scale structure formation in the universe.’

Speaking of which, here’s the coolest recent thing: a light echo of SN 1987A! Some of the light from the supernova from 1987 went a different direction, bounced off a gas cloud and got here almost 33 years late. Even cooler, we can do this proactively. We can calculate and find gas clouds that WILL reflect a known event to us, at some future time, and then catch some of the very earliest light curves from sudden events like supernovas. 

== And more coolstuff! ==

The first-ever direct image of a black hole's event horizon was a truly impressive feat though so-far low-resolution, confirming exactly the visual appearance (of an accreting singularity) predicted by Caltech Nobelist (and sci fi fan) Kip Thorne, for the movie “Interstellar.” This computer simulation is truly gorgeous. You’ll be glad you clicked.

A titanic, expanding beam of energy sprang from close to the supermassive black hole in the centre of the Milky Way just 3.5 million years ago, sending a cone-shaped burst of radiation through both poles of the Galaxy and out into deep space.

Hubble Spots a Ghoulish 'Face' in the Depths of Space. Well, two galaxies colliding. But kewl. Watch as it happens! (Be patient.)

The fastest eclipsing white dwarf binary yet known orbits in only 6.91 minutes, and is expected to be one of the strongest sources of gravitational waves detectable with LISA, the future space-based gravitational wave detector. “Closely orbiting white dwarfs are predicted to spiral together closer and faster, as the system loses energy by emitting gravitational waves. J1539’s orbit is so tight that its orbital period is predicted to become measurably shorter after only a few years.”

==The Sci Fi Beat ==

A  Kickstarter for SHAPERS OF WORLDS, an anthology featuring first-year guests of The Worldshapers podcast, offers stories by Seanan McGuire, David Weber, me, and many others. 

Science patterns and speculations... and Freeman Dyson and Stephen Wolfram

My friend and legendary polymath Freeman Dyson passed away at 96. We had lunch planned for when he and his irrepressibly impressive wife Imme next came to their apartment in La Jolla. Alas, it’s not to be.

Freeman’s long and creative life was spent being a scientific and philosophical rascal — rewarded for impudent skills at questioning anything and everything… skills that would likely have got him strangled in any other culture. Born into this one, he rose from World War II Blitz survivor to one of the most original thinkers in mathematics, physics and space technology.

One thing you’ll not read in any of the bios spilling across media is my judgement that Freeman Dyson was the greatest theologian of the 20th Century! He and Tulane University Professor Frank Tipler had books in the 80s forecasting the likely condition and interests and survival of intelligent super-beings in the distant future. Tipler’s notions centered on a cyclical cosmology — gravity slowing the Bang expansion, then reversing it into a Big Crunch — as illustrated in Poul Anderson's famed novel Tau Zero. 

Meanwhile, Freeman pursued the logic of the Great Dissipation, assuming that the expansion goes on forever; how might intelligence continue long after galaxies, stars and even protons decay away?

Freeman “won” that rivalry when astronomers discovered universal acceleration of expansion (the fact behind “Dark Energy” speculations.) Hence my awarding him that title. 

(The title of Greatest 21st Century Theologian may be won by another friend - Roger Penrose - who has revived cyclical universe notions in new and funky ways that are totally consistent with Freeman.)

Of his many legacies, Freeman's absurdly creative and productive offspring -- first George & Esther and then four more with Imme -- count highly. One recent memory was taking him (with the Benford boys) to revisit the glider point at Torrey Pines (near UCSD) where he 60 years ago helped to invent a new kind of launcher catapult. What a guy.

Okay, that was an impulsively garrulous riff, borne out of my sitting here perplexed and grieving, but celebrating a life like no other.

== Speculations and advances ==

Speculations run rampant about the source of the coronavirus pandemic, which I went into elsewhere… and whether it might have repercussions similar to Chernobyl.  

Meanwhile folks might find interesting my stories about infectious disease, offering insights into how some become killers and others might evolve into something else. Maybe cooperative. Or even weird? "The Giving Plague" was a Hugo nominee (It's in Otherness but also available on my website.)

And "Chrysalis" Is a biology tale found in my third and best collection Insistence of Vision.

And moving on... this woman apparently has the super-power to smell early stages of Parkinson’s Disease, long before a victim shows any outward symptoms.

Researchers have created a mutant bacterial enzyme that can in only a couple of hours break down PET plastic bottles into their individual chemical composites, which could later be reused to make brand new bottles. Conventional recycled plastic that goes through a “thermomechanical” process isn’t high enough quality and is mostly used for other products such as clothing and carpets.

An interesting claim: “ "Air-gen" or air-powered generator, connects electrodes to microbe-created protein nanowires to produce electrical current generated from the water vapor naturally present in the atmosphere.” I’d like to see the energy gradients, to believe it.

Scientists describe how they assembled genomes made up of blueprints for proteins — and demonstrated that it was capable of replicating 116 kilobytes worth of its own RNA and DNA. The team plans to build an “enveloped system” that can reproduce like this last one — but also consume nutrition and dispose of waste, like a living cell.

Between the 1860s-1890s, father-and-son glassworkers Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka created thousands of anatomically correct models of marine invertebrates. They're so delicate it could be mistaken as a real sea creature. Thank you David Crosby!

Scientists outlined a method to “shape intense laser light in a way that accelerates electrons to record energies in very short distances: the researchers estimate the accelerator would be 10,000 times smaller than a proposed setup recording similar energy, reducing the accelerator from nearly the length of Rhode Island to the length of a dining room table.”

Watch a violinist play while surgeons operate on her brain.

Especially interesting as an amateur beekeeper who does have problems with wax moths… Showing how beekeeping has multiple uses, an amateur beekeeper and scientist at the Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology of Cantabria learned of the ability of the greater wax moth larvae in eating plastics after she plucked the larvae out of her beehives and tossed them in the garbage only to find them chewing holes in the bag. The one drawback is they excrete a toxic substance when fed plastic. 

==  A Theory of All ?  ==

More diversion from those exploring the smart-edge of civilization. Polymath Stephen Wolfram - inventor of Mathematica and the Wolfram Language - wrote me a note about his new venture… solving the Riddle of Everything and "cracking the code in physics." Do visit his linked site - Stephen has credibility! In addition to the web-posted missive linked below, see his "Physics project.”

While I'm a licensed, if minor league physicist, it strikes me that his approach has much in common with (1) cellular automata using simple rule sets to create complexity (and note that John Conway, inventor of the Game of life (featured in Glory Season), died of Covid, last week), plus (2) pattern-sifting... plus (3) big-data machine-learning systems... both of the latter needed in order to cull the vast population of rule-based 'universes' down to a few worth contemplating.

When we last spoke - gosh a year ago - we mulled over how different statistical regimes -- e.g. Bose-Einstein vs Fermi-Dirac -- would certainly apply to the range of rule sets. And sure enough, in this missive Stephen says "the only requirement is that it’s distinct from all other elements," suggesting that the example he gives in this web presentation uses the Fermi-Dirac approach. But of course in a "universe model" you'd have to generate both types, since fermions make up all the "matter" -- Leptons and quarks -- while bosons carry the forces of light and EM and gravity etc. It will be a combination of both rule sets, that interact, with bosons created-destroyed in a simple tabulation of energy... while fermions must keep careful track of their identity and net-sum number.

The first exampled network that SW's rule pattern "grows" will strike you as looking like a human brain. I wouldn't make anything of that. But the stringy clumping of the galactic clusters - according to recent maps -- also comes to mind.

Covid insights... but don't forget the political implications.

Alert: With oil near $0, there's no reason for a vulnerable US carrier group to be anywhere near the dangerously confined and provocative Straits of Hormuz... except to serve as a "Tonkin Gulf" trip wire. Putin needs a US-Iran war to raise both oil prices and Trump's polls. Keep an eye on this.

 == Some Covid-related flash thoughts ==

(1) ‘Might the many who have but have antibodies, but no symptoms, have been exposed through food rather than breathing?" asks Joseph Carroll. 'Attenuated, it may not reproduce fast enough to outrace immunity." We assume the virus is killed in stomach acids. But the esophagus other points of entry might offer attenuated lethality... to many, not all. Even if true, don't restart "edibles" versions of “Corona Parties” yet! Because the virus can be brutal outside the lungs, if it gains traction almost anywhere. “[It] can attack almost anything in the body [and] Its ferocity is breathtaking.”  Both views may be partly right, for some populations and some strains. 

(2) Meanwhile, this article in the South China Morning Post suggests that Covid-19's mutation rate is far higher than previously thought, with some strains - like the one attacking most of Europe and New York - being especially aggressive and deadly.

(3) And yes it's either criminal negligence or much worse. For example: the National Security Council gave Donald Trump a 69-page pandemic plan three years ago — he ignored it. Snopes has verified: “The Trump administration fired the U.S. pandemic response team in 2018 to cut costs.” And that's just one of maybe fifty culpable failures.

(And there were ignored warnings from science fiction. My Hugo-nominated story “The Giving Plague” explores our complex relationships with viruses and such, including the several paths a parasite can go down, in “negotiating” with us hosts… and yes read it for free.)

(4) The anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine Trump touted is linked to higher rates of death in VA coronavirus patients, a VA study says. Even more strongly it says "no net benefit." And yes, when combined with that antibiotic.

(5) We need right now to start massing tracking of even the non-symptomatic infected for hidden effects. We mentioned non-lung damage, above. But further, some viruses are known to have downstream effects like triggering cancers. While I doubt this... or an HIV-style immune system attack... it means "we'll get past this" merits adding a "maybe."

(6) Lots of infected/recovered folks donating plasma for experiments using serum from covid survivors to help the ill. (I wasn't able to give my 96th pint because I'm (probably) pure and uninfected! Can't have that!) Here's a summary of efforts to evaluate this possible treatment.

(7) A couple of non-covid blips: Most years I try to warn folks in March to be wary when traveling during the 3rd week of April. Nut jobs often go rampaging on 4/19 - the anniversary of the Waco Debacle and Oklahoma City bombing. And the next day is old Adolf's birthday and Columbine Day. (Why did cannabis folks choose 4/20? Were they nuts?) And now the Nova Scotia shooter. See other mid-April jolts here. And Stay safe. Beware Holnists.

Oh but the 4th week of April starts with Earth Day... now its 50th Anniversary. So take heart. And yes, Earth.

(7) Finally, a Republican-led Senate review unanimously supported the conclusion of the intelligence community that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, undercutting claims by President Trump and his allies that the findings were those of a “deep state” seeking to undermine his victory. Demand wagers from your MAGAs, now that every GOP senator agrees with the Deep State.

== The contrast that nails them ==

“Biden's Health Play In a COVID-19 Economy: Lower Medicare's Eligibility Age To 60.”  

Well, yes, that is half of my recommendation! But it's the other half that would make election-winning headlines. 

Also include all children, up to age 25! You'll gain converts from most parents in America! Then comes the capper. Include an escalator. A year after the law takes effect, the not-covered age range becomes 27-to-58... then 28-to-57... then 29-to-56... automatically. Watch how quickly insurance companies then rush to (at last) negotiate in good faith.

And even if the GOP retakes Congress (as they did in '94 and 2010) they won't dare rip this away from the nation's kids. Unlike "Medicare for all," this could easily be afforded out of just ending Supply Side voodoo. And hence, no need to rail over "How you gonna pay for it?" Since the more complex issues have been put off for later (middle aged folks stay with employer insurance or medicaid,... at first), This version could pass within one month of a new Congress sitting in session. And support would span the spectrum from AOC types to moderates to sane Republicans.  

So good for you Joe. That's a baby step toward something both truly disruptive and affordable. See more in Polemical Judo.

== Judo your way past their reflex defenses ==

It is a grievous error for democrats to leap and proclaim "deficits don't matter!" Savvy guys like Reich and Krugman have been doing this and it's a trap. A free giveaway of a choice campaign rejoinder that just reinforces an image that helps Fox hold onto working stiffs. 

Vastly better is to shout: "Republicans are the budget-busting wastrel biggest spenders! Not only do they almost ALWAYS throw away more money and increase debt faster (care to bet on it?) but they waste it on "supply side voodoo" gifts to the super rich and oligarchs and mafias....

"...At least we'd spend it on making healthy, educated children who can then compete with the rich in flat-fair-open markets. Yes Democrats would spend extra in a recession, as FDR did, but look at the states! In good times, Democrats pay down debt! No Republican does that, ever!"

Anyway, there is a reason why US conservatives and especially libertarians never mention Adam Smith, who taught the fantastic creative power of flat-fair competition. They veer away to worship Milton Friedman and “Supply Side” incantations, or Ayn Rand, or apocalypse fetishism… or sigging a playground bully, rather than face the pure fact that Adam Smith today would be a Roosevelt Democrat:

"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all." 

          -Adam Smith, The Wealth Of Nations (1776)

== Political potpourri ==

A member of the Supreme Court Bar resigns and tells John Roberts off. Wow, on target and apropos of this era’s John Taney.

And double wow in contrast, what a deep bench of women Biden could choose a running mate. Michigan Governor Whitmer has had a lot of attention, lately. Bottoms and Duckworth and Masto offer big diversity points while being solid folks. (Duckworth also has political and veteran chops, though is from a bluest state.) I doubt Klobuchar, who does nothing to salve the left. Harris is strong on paper (and ranks #1 on this list), but yipe do her huge brains and savvy and feistiness (and racial points) make up for the sense she has knives up her sleeves, eyeing everyone in sight?

Okay, a year ago I predicted Biden-Warren. And that he'll depart after 3 years, giving her nine, after she garners some executive experience. (She has none, but is a fast learner.)

Let's be clear on the Veep Record. Democrats always pick someone who is qualified to serve as president... and who is somewhat boring. 

Republican nominees since WWII have all but once picked a living horror, a wretched "ticket balancer" who is spectacularly not-qualified, with no thought to the national consequences.

That exception? Ronald Reagan chose as running mate a fellow who - on paper - was supremely well-qualified... and who went on to be the very worst US president of the 20th Century... who set the stage for two of the worst in the history of the republic.

Want another consistent pattern? Democratic ex-presidents are manic, they spend the rest of their lives scooting around busy trying to save the world. e.g. Jimmy Carter. Republican presidents always "retire to the ranch" or golf or paint. The pattern goes back (perfectly) to Ike. 

== Twitter metrics ==

And now some other analytics that could help you convince someone about the emperor’s non-clothes…

The New York Times analyzed Trump's 11,390 tweets since becoming president, and found he praised himself 2,026 times

Stylistic variation on the Donald Trump Twitter account: A linguistic analysis of tweets posted between 2009 and 2018.

A Text Analysis of Trump's Tweets - an Online Project.

Twitter Analysis shows How Trump Tweets Differently About Nonwhite Lawmakers.

Do not let Covid distract you from what's important -- saving the Western Enlightenment Experiment and the American dynamic progress toward better horizons. This crisis should make you more determined than ever.