Something for the weekend #132

Welcome to my regular round-up of the week’s causes for optimism, as reported or commented on in the media. Plus links to debunking of alarmism, and general discussion of the struggle between optimism and pessimism.

* As has been widely reported, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft successfully docked with the International Space Station on its first scheduled flight, and four fresh astronauts boarded the station. SpaceX and NASA’s first long-term manned mission marks the end of the dependence of the U.S.A. on Russian rocketry.

* Voice of America reports that “Pakistan Plants 500 Million New Trees” and is now heading for many more, having this month… “generated adequate [tree] nursery stock [of over 300 million] over the last two years”, many in new private tree-nurseries that are providing local employment in impoverished districts. To forestall the nay-sayers, there will also now be… “unprecedented third-party monitoring” of the national programme from 2020 to 2024.

* Science Mag reports on how “New genetic tools will deliver improved farmed fish, oysters, and shrimp”… “Aquaculture breeders can tap a rich trove of genetic material; most fish and shellfish have seen little systematic genetic improvement for farming, compared with the selective eugenic breeding that chickens, cattle, and other domesticated animals have undergone with such success. “There’s a huge amount of genetic potential out there in aquaculture species that’s yet to be realized,” says geneticist Ross Houston of the Roslin Institute. … “The technology is amazing, it’s advancing very quickly, the costs are coming down,” says Ximing Guo, a geneticist at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. “Everybody in the field is excited.””

* In the latest Reason print magazine, an article on the ongoing work to narrow some of the more hysterical “child neglect” laws in the USA… “In 2018, Utah passed the nation’s first “Free-Range Parenting” law, which states that it is not neglect to let kids walk or play outside, stay home alone, or wait briefly in the car in some circumstances.” The same edition of the magazine reports that… “states are finally revoking cops’ licence to steal”, which is done through the wide mis-use of the “civil forfeiture” laws that were supposed to be used against drug-barons.

* After the U.S. election, Jewish News asks “What happened to the violence?”… “Remember all the hysterics about a civil war hitting our streets … What happened? Where did all that violence go?”

* The UK’s Law Gazette recalls the more positive side of the 1970s, “Dare to believe in white heat”… “the seventies [1970s] was a decade of extraordinary progress. It was when we eradicated smallpox. It was the climax of Norman Borlaug’s Green Revolution, which would eradicate mass famine from Asia thanks to the promotion of dwarf high-yielding cultivars of wheat and rice. Thus our current confidence that we will be able to feed a population of 9.7 billion people in 2050. If you still think the world’s population is running out of control, check when your teacher went to school: the rate of growth has been declining since 1962.”

* The Army Times reports on “A new way to create diamond-structured crystals”, discovered by researchers funded by the U.S. Army and which… “creates a method for scientists to build more powerful lasers”.

* And finally, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been getting up close and personal with camel sweat glands. The inspired result is a hydrogel-aerogel bi-layer surface which can keep food or medical supplies cool “for 250 hours” in hot climates — five times as long as current methods. That’s not to be sniffed at.

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Something for the weekend #131

Welcome to my round-up of recent causes for optimism, as reported in the media. I also offer links to debunkings of alarmism, and general discussions of the optimism / pessimism gap. This issue is a “UK special” issue.

* A research breakthrough achieves fish-free aquaculture feed… “After six years of research, a team of scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz has developed a cost-effective new aquaculture feed that eliminates conventional fish meal and fish oil ingredients — while also providing better fish weight gain and higher nutritional value in the fillet for humans.” The current practice is to feed small fish to big fish, to make them grow bigger. Tuna farming in the Mediterranean, with the fish destined for the luxury market in the Far East, is one of the worst examples of this.

* CFACT notices that “Out of Africa, an entrepreneurial society emerges”. The article cites and summarises the recent major Africa Youth Survey of 4,200 young Africans aged 18-24.

* In central Africa, “Kenya launches commercial growing of GM cotton”. In a big way too, with “16.3 metric tonnes” of seeds having been distributed to the cotton-growing districts, ready for the new season.

* “Rolls-Royce to create 6,000 jobs to build 16 mini nuclear power stations” in the UK. There has also been a big government announcement of a further 40Gw of fixed deep-water offshore wind-farms costing some £60 billion, which may or may not be good news according to how you view such things. For instance consider that the fish volume living around an offshore oil platform is ten times larger than that of a natural coral reef. So, effectively, we would also be building hundreds if not thousands of new fish-havens around the UK coastline. The background here is the UK’s relative energy-dependence on EU connector-cables, and the EU’s evident willingness to ‘hold us to ransom’ re: energy supplies.

* In a potential boost for UK manufacturing, “Retailers to on-shore £4.2 billion of products”… “more than £4.2 billion of products will be on-shored to the U.K. by retailers in the next 12 months” as global supply chains are re-worked to be closer to the consumer. As well as the virus, another sharp spur may be that the British Parliament is currently shining a light into the murky world of fashion supply chains, and also “consulting on a new law to clean up supply chains”. More generally, UK business auditing is also set to get a big overhaul.

* In the Nevada desert, the UK’s Virgin has made the first test of Elon Musk’s supposedly-impossible Hyperloop transport system… with passengers aboard… “the first new mode of mass transportation in over 100 years has come to life”.

* Need a robot driver for your Hyperloop? What could be more natural than a worm? Very small neural networks, adapted from worms’ nervous systems, have been found to perform tasks as well as neural networks thousands of times larger.

* Innovations Origins, on why “scaremongering is not helping the climate debate”… “I don’t think it helps to sow panic for decades to come. That has a tremendous psychological impact, people start living in fear and become stressed [and] people resign themselves to it and think that nothing helps anymore.”

* Yale 360 asks “Green Hydrogen: Could It Be Key to a Carbon-Free Economy?”. It’s still early days though — test-beds, some real-world trials of showcase vehicles, evolving technologies with “potential”, and tests for the warming effect of fugitive hydrogen on a large scale. In the U.S., earlier this year, President Trump’s Dept. of Energy made… “a $100 million investment to help develop large, affordable electrolyzers and to create new fuel cell technologies for long-haul trucks.”

* English winemakers celebrate “a ‘high-quality’ bumper harvest” this year, with near-perfect weather. The UK’s apple orchard movement of the 2000s and 2010s is also starting to bear fruit, with bumper crops landing for local pie and cidermakers. While champagne sales are understandably struggling (no weddings, events cancelled, bars shut, etc) wine, beer and cider sales have actually seen a strong 15-17% boost in both the USA and UK.

* Motorists won’t be allowed to touch their phone for any reason, while driving, under new UK laws set for 2021. Unfortunately, motorists will still be able to use “hands-free” phones. Which potentially means that hands-free “video-chat”, very popular among youths, will be permitted.

* The UK government has launched a review to ensure better provision of toilets for the public. UK toilet provision is increasingly offered in a politically-correct ‘open access for all’ form, at places such as a public libraries and welfare offices. This is said to be illegal and dangerous because… “public authorities have a duty to provide safe spaces for women in lavatories in buildings.”

* And finally, a silver-lining to the UK lockdown… a surge in interest in building and running model railways. This means that much-loved maker Hornby has returned to profit for the first time in nearly a decade.

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Catch the buzz

The latest edition of PC Pro magazine profiles the many test programmes now ongoing for delivery-drones flying “out of line of sight”. The venerable magazine concludes they’re likely to fly first in remote rural areas, delivering things like regular medical supplies. They’re likely to be more acceptable there than flying a pizza across a city, and also less likely to be zapped by criminals hoping there will be valuables in the downed box.