Assumption disproved

Babies seem to be better at keeping their lips firmly sealed during birth than had been assumed:

It has been a longstanding assumption that birth mode and associated exposure of newborns to their mothers' vaginal microbiome during delivery greatly affects the development of babies' gut microbiome. 

To test the scientific validity of this assumption, a team of Canadian researchers has now published a study in Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology in which they examined the effect of maternal vaginal microbiome composition on the development of infants' stool microbiome at 10 days and three months after birth.

"We show that the composition of the maternal vaginal microbiome does not substantially influence the infant stool microbiome in early life," said Dr. Deborah Money, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of British Columbia and corresponding author of the study. "It does not appear that exposure to maternal vaginal microbiota at the time of vaginal birth establishes the infant stool microbiome."

It seems that breast feeding is way more significant.  I wonder if there is value in at least initial attempts at breast feeding - say, for the first few weeks at least - rather than just going to formula immediately.  

Well, here's some folklore you don't read every day...

Look, it's from the Japan Today news site, so it's perfectly legit that I stumbled across it:

Every spring, thousands of tourists from Japan and overseas descend on a shrine in Tokyo’s neighboring prefecture of Kanagawa to celebrate one thing — the penis.

This symbol of fertility is at the centre of the Kanamara Matsuri (“Festival of the Steel Phallus”), which ranks as one of Japan’s kisai or “bizarre festivals“, and the story behind it is just as bizarre as the festival itself.

According to legend, a demon once sought revenge on a woman who rejected him by taking up residence inside her vagina and biting down on her husband’s penis so she was unable to procreate. In order to solve the problem, the woman paid a blacksmith to create a steel phallus to break the demon’s teeth, which he did, ultimately restoring her fertility.

All's well that ends well, I suppose.

The rest of the story at the link is pretty amusing too - the shrine has had to distance itself from an unofficial human-inside-giant-walking-penis mascot at the festival.

Can the AI doomsters be a little more specific, please?

Key figures in artificial intelligence want training of powerful AI systems to be suspended amid fears of a threat to humanity.

They have signed an open letter warning of potential risks, and say the race to develop AI systems is out of control.

Twitter chief Elon Musk is among those who want training of AIs above a certain capacity to be halted for at least six months.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and some researchers at DeepMind also signed.

I am curious as how they think an advanced AI is going to protect itself from having the power plug pulled.  

Noah Smith seems a skeptic on the matter of AI doomsterism, too.   

A sensitive essay on the matter of being "ready to die"

 An essay by a doctor in the New York Times seems pretty wise on the matter of how we should feel about the question of whether a dying person is "ready to die".  This paragraph stood out to me:

We want neatness and containment, not the spill of grief.

But death is never neat. A good death should be defined by how well and honestly we care for the dying, not by their performance on our behalf. Expecting them to make death a process full of insight and peace only limits our full emotional and spiritual participation in their death. By sacrificing neatness, we can have a conversation about what the dying truly need from us. Understanding their authentic experiences helps us not only to see them more fully but also to prepare, together, for losing them.

This tweet is accurate...and I also will watch it

You see, I am feeling more positive about Wes Anderson after The French Dispatch, which was his most amusing movie in a long time.  And it's now, I guess, meta funny that he just goes deeper into his visual shtick.

Here's the trailer for the new one:

 

Rice, considered

The Economist has an article about the potentially troubled future of rice.  It pretty much gives the grain a bad rap:

Rice’s contribution to global warming represents an underappreciated positive feedback loop. Irrigating paddy fields starves the underlying soil of oxygen. This encourages methane-emitting bacteria to flourish. Consequently, rice production is responsible for 12% of total methane emissions—and 1.5% of total greenhouse-gas emissions, comparable to the aviation sector. Vietnam’s paddy fields produce much more carbon equivalent than the country’s transportation.

Rice’s nutritional quality is another growing concern. The grain is high in glucose, which contributes to diabetes and obesity, and low in iron and zinc, two important micronutrients. In South Asia the prevalence of diabetes and malnutrition can be traced to over-reliance on rice. 

We don't get mention of the Australian success with making a Vitamin A enriched golden rice, though, which seems a bit of an oversight.

It does note this, too:

Global rice demand—in Africa as well as Asia—is soaring. Yet yields are stagnating. The land, water and labour that rice production requires are becoming scarcer. Climate change is a graver threat. Rising temperatures are withering crops; more frequent floods are destroying them. No mere victim of global warming, rice cultivation is also a major cause of it, because paddy fields emit a lot of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The crop that fuelled the rise of 60% of the world’s population is becoming a source of insecurity and threat.

Rising demand exacerbates the problem. By 2050 there will be 5.3bn people in Asia, up from 4.7bn today, and 2.5bn in Africa, up from 1.4bn. That growth is projected to drive a 30% rise in rice demand, according to a study published in the journal Nature Food. And only in the richest Asian countries, such as Japan and South Korea, are bread and pasta eating into rice’s monopoly as the continental staple.

Yet Asia’s rice productivity growth is falling. Yields increased by an annual average of only 0.9% over the past decade, down from around 1.3% in the decade before that, according to data from the UN. The drop was sharpest in South-East Asia, where the rate of increase fell from 1.4% to 0.4%. Indonesia and the Philippines already import a lot of rice. If yields do not increase, these countries will be increasingly dependent on others to feed their 400m people, according to the Nature Food study.

The article opens with a mention that several Asian countries have mythology in which rice is a gift of the gods.  I would've liked to also see mention of  how the Japanese like to say there are seven gods on each grain of rice.  

And this slanderous article (I do like my rice, although don't want to eat it every single day) ends with promotion of, surprisingly, millet.  My bold: 

At India’s request, the UN has declared 2023 the year of millet. India is hoping to sell farmers and consumers on this crop, which is far more nutritious than rice or wheat and requires a lot less water. Indonesia is doing something similar for sorghum. Today only health-conscious hipsters in Delhi would choose a millet biryani over a rice one. But where elites lead, masses often follow. If a big market emerged, it would entice some farmers to switch and even ardent rice growers to diversify.

I think Australia grows a lot of millet and sorghum, but I don't know that much of it goes directly into human food.  Oh, now that I check, not much millet:

...the size of the millet crop each year was normally around the 20,000 to 30,000 tonnes, but this year because of the hot, dry summer production fell to around 8000 to 10,000t.

Google tells me we grow about 40 million tonnes of wheat in a good year.   Sorghum?  1.6 million tonnes.  How about rice?  It seems that depending on the weather, it can vary wildly, from as low as about 60,000 tonnes to 630,000 tonnes.   So, we grow a lot more sorghum than we do rice?   Yet I don't recall ever specifically eating it.

Anyway, that's my farming self education for today....

Long term knowledge storage

I'm always interested in stories about new efforts to record the accumulated knowledge of mankind* via methods that aren't going to disappear into the digital ether any time soon.   Hence, this guy's efforts are pretty remarkable; although I do worry about the tiles breaking from (say) an asteroid hitting the planet, and future alien explorers having to spend a lot of time working out a huge number of jigsaw puzzles before they can make sense of it:
  

*As I told my daughter recently, who complained I expect her to contribute to household cooking more often than my son, I was born in 1960 and she has to make allowances for that. :)

Pretty sure that making a deadly situation look like a video game is not a good idea

I'm referring, of course, to the police releasing the body cam video of them going through the school to find the shooter in Tennessee yesterday.  I'll gift link to the NYT story that describes the video.

It seems kind of obvious to me that this has the potential of "selling" to a mentally disturbed person that they too can be a part of a real life video game, and also give them the idea that they would know how to anticipate and deal with the other "player" seeking them.  

Has anyone else been saying this?  I can't be the only person thinking this, surely...

The culture wars are going to be even more unbearable for the next week or so

Well, I had forgotten until Twitter reminded me that today's mass shooter in American is not the first transgender person to "go postal" and shoot up a school.

I have posted before about how unhelpful it is for either side to rush to identify the background of mass murderers, who obviously must be psychologically disturbed extremists acting inhumanely, as a way of point scoring in the political and culture wars.*    

That said, it is also extremely bad for any group to keep telling itself that, if people don't 100% agree with or support their ideological positions, they are evil and must want them dead.   

Now, while I have complained for years that the American Right has spent the last 3 or 4 decades increasingly demonising (now, often in the literal sense) anyone even slightly to their left, I don't think I am "two sides-ing" this [see below] by pointing out that, indeed, transgender activists and commentators are routinely, on social media, absolutists about their cause and allow for no argument or nuance at all, and accuse the likes of JK Rowling of all sorts of ill will and evil.   Just this morning people were posting about this soup throwing transgender person:

who in the above video said "she [Posey Paker] is advocating our genocide", and in his latest video is weeping into his home webcam about how "they" want to kill him.    

While I don't doubt transgender folk can face danger on the street from stupid Right wing thugs who ridiculously want to categorise each and every one of them as a danger to women and children, and having a couple of dozen incel young men (what is it with Victoria? - it's such a weird state) giving Nazi salutes at rallies is something that is an extraordinarily bad look for the, um, anti-trans cause,  I still think it's a counterproductive wild exaggeration for them to talk at rallies as if they may as well be Jews in Nazi Germany, or something.   I mean, the political response from (Australian and New Zealand) government has been nearly entirely positive for the transgender side, and the Liberals are not winning any votes over it.

And again, of course, I think both extremes of the transgender rights debate are acting hysterically.   

But, going back to America:  I agree with those who have commented on Twitter and elsewhere that, while Trump may only  have got a few thousand MAGA dills to attend his Waco rally, the 100% fascist nature of the  imagery and rhetoric was not emphasised enough (or condemned enough) in the media:

A defiant and incendiary Donald Trump, facing a potential indictment, held the first rally of his 2024 presidential campaign Saturday in Waco, Texas, a city made famous by deadly resistance against law enforcement.

In an extraordinary display, Trump opened his rally by playing a song, “Justice for All,” that features a choir of men imprisoned for their role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol singing the national anthem and a recording of Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Some footage from the insurrection was shown on screens.

Trump, in his speech, defended the insurrectionists and railed against prosecutors, including those overseeing multiple investigations of the Republican former president.

“You will be vindicated and proud,” Trump said “The thugs and criminals who are corrupting our justice system will be defeated, discredited and totally disgraced.”

So, yeah, the transgender culture war is very ugly, and might sometimes even have helped inspire  deadly action, but in terms of long term danger to democracy and society overall, there is no doubt at all that radical rhetoric from the MAGA Right is the far, far bigger danger to America.

 

 * It's also - obviously - painfully stupid of the Right to argue it's all because mental health treatment being "de-institutionalised", what, 50 years ago; or because of "side doors"; or because there just aren't enough "good guys with guns" on or near the school.   Their pathetic "it's anything other than too easy access to guns" is just so obviously stupid to the rest of the planet, and a significant number of Americans too. 

Recipe posting, again

I feel like I've been on a bit of a meat bender lately.   Last night it was lamb shanks braised in red wine and tomato.   On mashed potato, of course.

Not sure that it's worth noting the recipe, as it was pretty much just following some Youtube videos with a kind of generic recipe for anything cooked in red wine and tomato:  brown the seasoned shanks on all sides in bit of olive oil in your iron casserole dish;  take them out and throw in a diced onion, diced carrot and a (diced) stick or two of celery; fry off a bit, then put in some thyme or whatever spare herb you have (I also used sumac which I stumbled across in the cupboard), and a cup or two of red wine, the shanks, about a cup or two of passata, and a cup or two of chicken stock.   Oh, and I added quite a few halved cherry tomatoes too.  The liquid should just about cover the shanks, but doesn't have to completely.   Bring to boil and cover and put in oven at 180 degrees for 2 1/2 hours, turning the shanks a couple of times during the cooking.   Quite delicious, but my food photography skills need an upgrade:

 It's not as much meat as it looks - honest!

On Saturday, it was pork belly time, again.   I only posted a recipe for it last month, but this time it was Chinese style braised pork belly, with a recipe from a very non-Asian woman, but I think it's relatively authentic.

The step that surprised me was the first - browning the pieces of pork belly in a bit of melted sugar.  Yes, this dish has it all: sugar, salt and fat (that all get incorporated into the reduced, sticky sauce at the end.)   But it was delicious:

 It's not like you need to eat a lot to get your calories.  And I found out that sucking on the braised star anise still gives a great licorice burst, even after an hour or more of braising.

And to round off this collection of recipes for my own benefit, I followed a Youtube video of making a Filipino chicken and mango dish a few ago, and it came out good too.  Like my lamb shanks, it's not a precise recipe, and you just wing it a bit: 

Presumably, he finally believed a lawyer who said "you know, they don't have to give you bail"

 Also:  can you imagine his lawyers' feelings about him doing a rally at Waco this weekend?  

Maybe we'll AI guess our way in the secret of life, the universe, and everything

I must admit, some examples I see of ChatGPT generated material seem surprisingly good, and I notice that someone asked it to (I presume - I can't see the prompt) come up with a dark matter theory, and this is the result:

Now, I'm pretty sure that this is rubbish, and people have pointed out that the AI is good at inventing stuff to fill in gaps in its knowledge.

But - it would be kind of funny if, in future, one of these AI's comes up with a theory which someone bothers to check, and it turns out to be correct.

I wonder if it currently thinks "42" is the answer to the big question in the title...
 

Update:   Sure seems quite a few researchers are getting nervous over the question of how we're even going to tell if true, self conscious AI has been reached:  

Compassion fatigue in the lab

Science has an interesting article about the quite serious issue of compassion fatigue amongst those who care for, and work with, laboratory animals:

Health care workers and pet veterinarians are no strangers to compassion fatigue. Being surrounded by suffering and dying patients can extract a profound mental, emotional, and physical toll—a sort of traumatic stress by proxy. But the condition also strikes a shocking number of lab animal workers, a community of tens of thousands worldwide that includes everyone from cage cleaners to veterinarians who oversee entire animal facilities.

Besides the symptoms Sessions experienced, those who handle lab animals may face insomnia, chronic physical ailments, zombielike lack of empathy, and, in extreme cases, severe depression, substance abuse, and thoughts of suicide. As many as nine in 10 people in the profession will suffer from compassion fatigue at some point during their careers, according to recent research, more than twice the rate of those who work in hospital intensive care units. It’s one of the leading reasons animal care workers quit.

Yet few in the animal research community want to talk about the problem—and few want to listen.

Everyone Science spoke to for this story who works with lab animals stressed that they are critical for biomedical research. These caregivers also feel deeply bonded to these creatures, from rodents to rabbits to monkeys. This dichotomy puts them in a difficult position: Unlike doctors or pet vets, those in the lab animal community aren’t just surrounded by pain and death—they’re often the ones causing it. Experimental drugs can sicken animals, implanted devices may cause discomfort, and euthanasia typically comes long before an animal would die of natural causes.

“It’s one of the only caring professions where you have to harm the beings you’re caring for,” says Megan LaFollette, program director at the North American 3Rs Collaborative, which focuses on improving the lives—and reducing the numbers—of research animals.

That’s made those in this field loath to reach out for help. At best, friends and family don’t understand what they do, or why. At worst, animal rights groups vilify them as torturers and murderers. Institutions are squeamish about discussing or addressing compassion fatigue, for fear of attracting negative attention to their animal research programs, often hidden from public view in university basements or windowless facilities. So those who tend to lab animals have largely suffered in silence: Compassion fatigue is an invisible population’s invisible disease.

 This is an obviously difficult problem.  Look at the dichotomy in this person's job:

Catherine Schuppli is all too familiar with the dilemma. A veterinarian who oversees two rodent facilities at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, she seeks to foster empathy in the workers she trains so they provide better—and more compassionate—animal care. She shows her trainees videos of rats navigating obstacle courses, hoisting tiny buckets on a string, and even playing fetch with miniature balls. “The staff comes to realize how smart and cute they are,” Schuppli says.

But on other days, Schuppli trains people how to decapitate the rats. Using what is effectively a tiny guillotine—a common form of euthanasia when gas or drugs could compromise an autopsy—she sometimes performs several of the procedures per day. The work has made her angry, depressed, and drained of energy—all of which she’s tried to suppress. While training others how to turn their emotions on, she’s found herself shutting her own off.

 The article goes on to note that addressing it as a problem has not been easy.   I can see why...

A plausible solution to a mystery

At NPR:

Scientists think they know why interstellar object 'Oumuamua moved so strangely

Long story short:  venting naturally formed hydrogen, which would not have been detectable from earth.

Or to put it another way: "enjoy every sandwich"

 Perhaps it's increasing age that causes such thoughts, but I like to think of it more as a kind of mindful appreciation of simple life experiences that is good to teach to children.  Adrian Chiles in The Guardian writes "The secret of happiness?  Embrace the boring, lay claim to the mundane and rejoice in repetition":

...the abhorrence of the boring is at the root of a whole lot of bad stuff. From before the South Sea bubble of the early 18th century, the catnip of big investment returns has driven us wild with desire and into many a financial crisis. If only we stuck to boring investments in boring companies promising boringly modest but steady returns. But no – just too boring. I was talking to a former banker about the 2008 financial crisis. “Hands up,” he said. “It was us driving the car when it crashed, but there were plenty of people in the back seat egging us on to go faster and faster.”

The older I get, the more I think the secret of happiness is the ability to embrace the boring, lay claim to the mundane and rejoice in repetition. In affairs of the heart and the wallet, in relationships and family life, and the workplace too, we’d enjoy more lasting success if we stopped being bored by the boring, stopped seeking what we tell ourselves is the next exciting thing. After all, everything gets boring in the end if you let it.

I once went to a mass on a Monday night in a massive church on the Bury New Road in Manchester. There were but six of us in attendance, plus the priest who gave a short but brilliant sermon. Afterwards, modestly fielding my compliments, he told me he had been ordained almost exactly 40 years to the day. “I treat every mass as if it is my first or my last,” he said. Yes, I thought, that’s the secret. On the bus home, for some reason Mick Jagger came to mind. I’m not a massive Stones fan but I thought of how many thousand times he’d performed Satisfaction or Sympathy for the Devil. And each time, he does it as though it’s the first or last time.

I thought of all the radio and television programmes I’ve grumped my way through, having dared to have got a bit bored with it all. And how many times I’ve lamented the drudgery of changing nappies, combing out nits, watching the Tweenies over and again, driving the kids around and so on. I so wish that I’d been more Mick, or more priest, and treated everything like it was the first or the last time I was doing it.