Neanderthal genes

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A chunk of Neanderthal DNA carried by some people living today appears to reduce the chance of miscarriage and promote fertility. The finding is the latest evidence that Homo sapiens benefitted from Stone Age sexual encounters with other human species.

Genetic studies suggest  that people of non-African modern humans descent carry about 1 – 2% of Neanderthal DNA in their cells.  This might have helped homo sapiens cope with Eurasian diseases which they had never encountered during their evolution in Africa.  

Researchers examining data from the UK Biobank, which includes the genetic and lifestyle information of more than 450,000 people in the UK, found that women who carry the Neanderthal allele were less likely to have experienced a miscarriage or unexpected bleeding during early pregnancy.

An earlier study indicated that the Neanderthal allele is also linked with a higher chance of premature birth. But the new study puts that earlier finding in a new light. It is thought that some of these premature births would have been miscarried if the woman lacked the Neanderthal allele. In other words, it might preserve pregnancies that would otherwise be lost at an early stage.

So that is positive, but there is also a downside: the PGR Neanderthal allele is also linked to a higher occurrence of ovarian cancer. Nothing is simple !  

(Colin Barras, New Scientist 8 June 2020, (Journal reference: Molecular Biology and Evolution, DOI: 10.1093/ olbey/msaa119).

My comment:  I subscribe to 23and Me and have contributed to 99% of their research projects, maybe because they told me that I carried more Neanderthal genes than most of their contributors.  The knowledge I have gained is practically speaking useless, but it’s fun.   For the record, research shows that those with more than normal Neanderthal genes are more intelligent, more affectionate, and ( according only to me) more accepting, gentle, sociable.and cooperative. Early Epicureans, actually,  They died out because homo sapiens were rude, violent, aggressive, greedy and none of the  more charming things listed above.  ( If you can’t advertise yourself no one is going to do it for you.  There. End of blatant self-promotion).

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Making a dog’s dinner of Brexit?

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“The UK’s new start – let’s get going.” That’s the lame slogan unveiled this week to exhort businesses to prepare for Brexit proper in January.   For UK consumers, that “sunny” new start means sky-high phone roaming charges, comprehensive travel insurance to cross the Channel, and the need to visit a vet four months in advance if you want to take your pet. For businesses, though, the situation is even worse. Under the border plans laid out by Michael Gove this week, importers face retrieving their goods from a “vast and stupendously pointless lorry park being put together at a cost of £705m”. Exporters face similar challenges in reverse.

And all told, officials predict a “post-Brexit bureaucracy burden” of 215 million customs declarations, overseen by 50,000 new customs agents, costing businesses £7bn. This “godawful mess” of red tape makes a mockery of Brexiter promises of reinvigorated trade. And even this supposes a best-case scenario of a trade deal, rather than a “no-deal crash-out”, and “crippling WTO tariffs”. Let’s get going? Let’s not.    (James Moore, The Independent, The Week, 18 July 2020)

My comment:   All this  was quite unnecessary. I thought it would be a potential disaster, culturally, practically and economically. The  characters involved in Brexit spoke for themselves. But I hadn’t factored in the earnest desire of bureaucrats to create bigger and better bureaucratic methods of really irritating the populace.

What is the national benefit to the  the “new, vibrant Britain” is all this stuff? The current political establishment ( living back in the 19th Century) is not qualified for the job it has voluntarily chosen to do.  Con-men thrive in all directions, but they are incapable of devising any sensible directions.

Being a gentleman

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I have to say that the modern world – and especially politics –  can be crude, vulgar, and lacking any kindness and thoughtfulness for others.

If there is one thing that separates those who espouse Epicureanism from most (not all!) of the rest of the human race , or the male half of it, anyway, is the old-fashioned concept of the. gentleman.  What are the character traits of a gentleman?

  •  Courtesy and politeness to everyone, young and old
  •  Kindness and thoughtfulness for others less well off than yourself
  • Patience with those less mentally agile than yourself
  • Honesty  (lie to nobody. Period)
  • Integrity  (having strong moral principles)
  • Reliability:   Always do what you say you will do
  • Loyalty to family, co-workers and country
  • Sense of humour (under-rated in some parts of the world!)
  • Mild self-depreciation  (no boasting)
  • Respect for rich, for poor, for black, for brown, for old and young
  • Viewing money as a necessary thing in life, but secondary to how you deal with others.
  • Consideration for the sick, the old, and the poor.  With that goes generosity towards not-for-profit organisations seeking to serve deserving causes.

 

We get too much choice, not too little

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Choice

They think we’ll rejoice, offered infinite choice,

But in fact more is less; indecision means stress.

How did they ever think it was clever

To propose the adoption of every damned option

Under the sun, instead of just one?

 

Just take the car, where they’ve gone far too far.

Do I have to recap the ten types of hubcap

The number of doors, colored carpets on floors,

The bumpers, the hoods, powered windows, faux-woods?

One mentally cowers faced choice of horse-powers,

Different colors and trims and personalized shims,

When on the turnpike cars look much alike.

Henry Ford, please come back and offer just black!

 

Take the cereals on offer three hundred they proffer,

And do so in aisles that stretch out for miles.

They have now added in every known vitamin,

So you’re glutted with C and gutted with D.

If you read all the labels, ingredient tables,

I very much fear it would be a career.

 

Hi-tech sort of gear is a category where

They include lots of stuff that you don’t use enough,

Or remember it’s there, or particularly care.

The shops you buy through mostly haven’t a clue;

The instructions are vast, and a whole day has passed

Before you work out what the feature’s about.

And I’ll have a good bet that at once you’ll forget

What buttons to press, and you’ll just have to guess.

 

Oh, take me back home where the buffaloes roam

Where you rock in your chair in fresh air with no care;

Where in the boondocks the shops have small stocks,

And you’re settled and done with a “choice” of just one;

And you buy your provisions with no endless decisions,

Just a simple invoice and no multiple choice.

 

So who’s going to tell the people who sell

To in future decline to over-design?

Who’s going to complain “Wish you’d just keep it plain.

Let it do just one task, that’s all that we ask.”

I have just made a start: “Give us less a la carte!”

Come, you too can rejoice with more time and less choice.

(Robert Hanrott)

 

Water crisis

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Millions of Americans are facing unaffordable bills for running water and risk being disconnected or losing their homes

Water bills weigh heavily on many Americans as utilities have been hiking prices to pay for environmental clean-ups, infrastructure upgrades and climate emergency defences to deal with floods and droughts. Federal funding for America’s ageing water system has plummeted, and as a result a growing number of households are unable to afford to pay their bills.

Typical story: Albert Pickett inherited water debts from his mother after she died. Pickett applied to get on to a repayment plan, but the water department refused as he didn’t have the money, several hundred dollars, required as a deposit. Cleveland Water didn’t inform Pickett, who survives on disability benefits, about his right to appeal – instead, they turned off the taps in 2013. “Without water you can’t do anything. I lost my family, my wellbeing, my self-esteem. It was humiliating, like I was less than human,” he says.    (The Guardian. July 7 2020)

My comment:  All who subscribe to the thought and ethics of Epicurus will be shocked at this situation, brought to my attention by a British newspaper!  The  disgraceful treatment of poor Americans by the money-crazed local, reactionary local officials should be outed and shouted out above the rooftops.  We need to get rid of all local officials who are tolerating the situation.

I take it there are still some decent, kind, thoughtful and considerate people out there, even if they don’t vote the same way as I do. Black lives do matter.  So do those of poor whites.  End profiteering!