Good evening,
Welcome to the 7th edition.
When I started this I did so as an experiment and this continues. I think we’ve got to a Beta version of a format for the emails - but I will continue to evolve this to see how we can improve. This week we are going to go into several themes and I’m also going to come back to my background biodiversity project that I talked about in earlier newsletters.
One change I may make is to focus on COVID related science in its own section, (but this week it’s the News List item) as there is still a dearth of good sources to read the best science coming out around the virus.
As always here’s the history of the newsletter. Growth has slowed partly because I really haven’t tweeted about the newsletter as much (I don’t like doing it really!) but in any event, we’re close to 300 lovely people getting this email every week. On average it takes 6 to 7 hours to collect, assemble, write about, and create all links etc for the newsletter each week.
Week 1: 87 (of whom 8 are paid subscribers)
Week 2: 107 (of whom 10 are paid subscribers)
Week 3: 150 (of whom 12 are paid subscribers)
Week 4: 183 (of whom 13 are paid subscribers)
Week 5: 233 (of whom 15 are paid subscribers)
Week 6: 270 (of whom 17 are paid subscribers)
Week 7: 296 (of whom 17 are paid subscribers)
If you like this newsletter please share its existence with others! And if you feel inclined, feel free to signup for a paid subscription. At the moment there is no difference between what paid/unpaid subscribers receive - it’s more of a contribution towards my Barry’s tea budget. If you’d like to subscribe, click here:
I’d also ask that if you do like this newsletter, do tweet about it. Feedback has also been very nice! Sometimes I’m not sure if it’s hitting the right spot, or is even worth recommending, but sure we are learning as we go here. 😬
Best wishes,
Gavin
News list - COVID 🦠 (a deep read-in on something in the news)
This week we’re going to take a closer look at COVID. There’s been some excellent science and journalism on COVID recently, and here are the best bits I’ve found.
As always, Ed Yong has crucial analysis. If you haven’t read all of his journalism during the pandemic I strongly urge you to go back and read his greatest hits (including this one from 2016 on what would happen if a Trump presidency faced a pandemic). This week he writes about what could happen in the US if Trump is re-elected. (1,500 words/ 5 mins). A line that stood out:
“COVID-19 has already become the second leading cause of death in the U.S. this year after heart disease (or the third, if you lump all cancers together). It is likely the new leading cause of death among people ages 25 to 44.”
Now listen to the related podcast (30 mins) from Ed Yong on this issue.
Now watch the 2020 Christiane Amanpour lecture by Ed Yong which was streamed this week (76 mins)
Next is a series of three related graphical representations of understanding the virus and aerosols in particular. I’ve tweeted my concerns about the Irish authorities not explaining this to the public well enough, nor having more public health officials (who do want more backward tracers as explained in link c) (or engineers, or architects) on NPHET.
a) First is the El Pais interactive on understanding viral spread (indoors).
b) Second is the excellent NYT interactive on how masks work (and are effective)
c) Third is this interactive by Science on how superspreading works
The other star of COVID coverage has been Zeynep Tufekci (who has started her own substack over here). She featured this week on the Medicine and the Machine podcast where they explored her writing this year on COVID, and how she was able to call out mistakes being made. (62 mins)
It’s a good exploration of cross disciplinary viewpoints, and how certain disciplines can live within their own silos (and how she overcame that to better explain issues to the public). The podcast is good because it goes not just into her writing, but about how to think about problems from first principles, how to research effectively in domains that are not your own, and how good communication can bring about systemic changes in approaching a problem (as she did).
Understanding aerosol transmission is key. (1,500 words / 5 mins by Julian Tang).
This study is good news. “Here we report that the vast majority of infected individuals with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 experience robust IgG antibody responses against the viral spike protein, based on a dataset of 30,082 individuals screened at Mount Sinai Health System in New York City”. Or as Lucy Walker tweeted: “Most people with mild to moderate #COVID19 make a strong antibody response. Antibody levels appear relatively stable for at least 5 months post infection.”
This CDC study on household transmission is interesting.“These findings suggest that transmission of SARS-CoV-2 within households is high, occurs quickly, and can originate from both children and adults. Prompt adoption of disease control measures, including self-isolating at home, appropriate self-quarantine of household contacts, and all household members wearing a mask in shared spaces, can reduce the probability of household transmission.”
Don’t get your hopes up on an early vaccine. (1,100 words / 4 mins by Helen Branswell)
On the downstream consequences Nick Bilton has a short piece on how the housing market in the US is changing. (2,000 words/ 10 mins by Nick Bilton) (h/t Azeem)
That’s it for the news list this week. Lots to get your teeth into there!
Reading list - great things to read
📜 History - the British Empire
Maya Jasanoff goes into how some new books are trying to grapple with the British Empire and how British people are blinkered about its legacy. Something close to the heart of Irish people everywhere. (3,000 words/10 mins by Maya Jasanoff)
Civilization evolves in stages, the logic ran; Britain had reached a higher stage than its colonies; therefore Britain had a moral duty to lift them up.
🔬 Science - Black holes
Black holes can leak information? What? This is an AMAZING read. (5,500 words/18 mins by George Musser)
In a landmark series of calculations, physicists have proved that black holes can shed information, which seems impossible by definition. The work appears to resolve a paradox that Stephen Hawking first described five decades ago.
Bonus link: Can particles exceed the speed of light by using quantum tunnels? (3,000 words/10 mins by Natalie Wolchover)
🔬 Science - Epigenetics
A mix of two of my favourite topics - epigenetics and drugs. And a new word to me: dopaminylation. (2,000 words/ 8 mins by R Douglas Fields)
Looking ahead, Maze wonders if such epigenetic changes might also occur in response to other addictive drugs, including heroin, alcohol and nicotine. If so, medicines based on this newly discovered epigenetic process could eventually lead to better treatments for many types of addiction and mental illnesses.
🔬 Science - Bird intelligence
How do crows mourn the dead? And do crows pass down information between generations about threats to their community? And why do some crows try to have sex with dead (or dummy dead) crows? (1,500 words 5 mins by Anne Marshall Chalmers)
🔬 Science - Asteroids
The Hubble Space Telescope observed the asteroid known as Pscyhe according to this study. It’s between the Earth and Mars (370 million kilometres away) and is estimated to be about the size of West Virginia - but is composed almost entirely of metals.
This means it could be worth $10,000 quadrillion ($10,000,000,000,000,000,000), or about 10,000 times the global economy as of 2019. (Though obviously if we could exploit and mine this, the price of metals would rapidly fall!)
A probe will arrive at Psyche in 2026.
👨👩👧 Society - conspiracy
The co-founder of Solyent had a rather mad blog post, which Edward dissects. (2,000 words/ 6 mins by Edward Ongweso)
Later in the blog, he adds that the “deceived” readers of the Times are “followers of the evil octopus.” Not content to leave it at that, later that day Rhinehart published another few thousand words in a blog explaining why we “are all being controlled and oppressed and enslaved by the evil octopus of the New York Times." In it, he seems to conflate normal journalistic work such as sourcing with controlling events:
🇺🇸 Society - US politics
Since the US election is this week let’s go a bit deeper here.
Masha Gessen is always worth reading and here she goes into ‘Anonymous’ coming forward as Miles Taylor. (1,800 words/ 7 mins by Masha Gessen)
“Americans tend to be forgiving of our former officials…If we are going to recover from Trumpism, whenever the post-Trump era begins, this is one tradition that will have to be broken. Denying charity and, more important, respect to Taylor, whom we now know to be an architect of criminal and cruel policies as well as a liar, would be a good place to start.”
How will Murdoch react if Trump loses? (2,000 words/8 mins by Sarah Ellison and Jeremy Barr) [Disclosure: I worked for a Murdoch company for a short time after the News Corp acquisition of Storyful)
“If anything, I think they will be more successful,” said Sean Graf, who worked at Fox for the news division’s well-regarded research staff before leaving in January 2020. “There’s going to be an audience for Biden controversy.” And few envision viewers abandoning Fox for lower-rated rivals such as the conservative upstarts One America News or Newsmax.”
Reuters journalists are being issued with flak jackets to cover the US election results. (1,700 words/ 5 mins by William Turvill)
In this piece Mayer explores how Trump could be in criminal trouble if he loses the election. The breadth of scenarios presented is fascinating. She also explores the future potential effort to create a Trump media outlet. (6,500 words/20 mins by Jane Mayer)
“One of the reasons he’s so crazily intent on winning is all the speculation that prosecutors will go after him,” she said. “It would be a very scary spectre.” She calculated that, if Trump loses, “he’ll never, ever acknowledge it—he’ll leave the country.” ….
“I think Trump’s a canary in the coal mine,” he told me. “Trump 2.0 is what terrifies me—someone who says, ‘Oh, America is open to a strongman kind of government, but I can do it more competently.’ ”
Eliot A. Cohen argues that the re-election of Trump would lead to a permanent US decline. (2,200 words/8 mins by Eliot A Cohen)
US newsrooms are not prepared for the coming week (or weeks) and have a guide to help. (700 words/2 mins by Jennifer Brandel)
I still think Biden will win - but the margin of victory (as argued by some in the Mayer piece) could dictate the level of acrimony and instability in the coming weeks.
👨👩👧 Society - cronyism
My good friend Peter Geoghegan has a lengthy piece on cronyism in the UK, but in particularly with the Tories. (4,400 words/15 mins by Peter Geoghegan)
With their departure from the EU - which generally puts limits on things like environmental damage, State aid and anti-competitive practices- it is likely that the UK will continue to deteriorate, perhaps into a quasi kleptocracy.
👨👩👧 Society - the far right
Buzzfeed reported on leaked messages of far right group Patriot Front. A disturbing read. (2,600 words/10 mins by Jane Lytvynenko)
Greek Tragedy Corner
Last week we started on Aeschylus with The Persians. Next up is Seven against Thebes. Let’s go for the same production co as last week:
Podcast episode(s)
Besides the podcast mentioned earlier with Zeynep it’s worth listening to Azeem’s interview with Facebook’s CTO Mike Schroepfer. (45 mins)
Documentary
Now that we’ve completed the Death of Yugoslavia let us move on to another documentary. Peter’s long read in the LRB on cronyism reminded me of our discussions about The Mayfair Set, and how much Brexit was preceded by some of what Adam Curtis describes in his documentary. If you’ve already seen it, it’s worth re-watching with a view to how the UK will operate in the future, since the same culture now pervades the Tory party.
Here’s part one:
Still in my tabs
Detecting bots is getting harder
11,000 years of dog evolution
Southpark deepfake weirdness
Finally:
I loved this deepfake of Zuck as Data.