Author: David Bradley

Another ancient anecdote

It’s just over three decades since myself and Mrs Sciencebase toured Australia. We started in Melbourne and took a greyhound West, up through the Red Centre, to Darwin, back down and then East to Townsville and Cairns and then South along the coast and back to Melbourne. It was during an air strike, we couldn’t fly, so never go to Perth, but it was amazing, exhilarating. One of our offspring is currently seeing the sites of coastal Western Australia, hence this little post.

Anyway, the Melbourne to Adelaide Greyhound was almost luxurious, but by the time we were getting on at Alice to head for Three-ways it wasn’t quite so salubrious. I remember seeing the incredibly calloused feet of an elderly gent who sat near us, it was almost as if he were wearing crocs made from human skin.

Three-ways was a very quick and humid pit-stop at 1am with only five minutes to have a bathroom break. Toothbrush in mouth I carried out another essential simultaneously function only to be asked by a fellow backpacker off a different bus whether I was German. No, Geordie, I said, he was bemused. I never did ever ask any Germans whether they would do the same, it’s perhaps not that hygienic, but then neither was hot-bedding in a Portakabin backpackers in Coober Pedy.

Oh, and yes, we did climb (the chain). Sorry. We were told it was fine. We were told that the local elders had given permission and that they got a cut. We were young. It was probably naive to imagine that it was ever fair. But, when we reached the top and were absorbing the incredible view, at least we weren’t doing our “lippy” as one other climber was doing…

 

I must be going batty

Two Pipistrelle Bats flying around the corner of a pasture field at the edge of Rampton Spinney at lunchtime today. Pipistrelle comes from the Latin word for bat, which is vespertilio, which literally means evening bird (as in “vespers”). We usually two to three Pipistrelles circulating in our back garden on balmy, calm summer evenings. Each bat can eat up to 3000 flying insects every night, including moths…

Not seen a bat flying in broad daylight, except in a church, when it was presumably disturbed from its roost on a day we climbed the bell tower (with permission).

I tried to get a decent photo, but they’re fast-moving creatures and this is the best I could do of either of the pair even when they were flying overhead:

Of course, it’s winter and these two really ought to be tucked up in crevices in old trees, hibernating through the cold period. But, it’s been relatively warm this winter with perhaps only one or two mornings with a frost. Inordinately, warm weather and something that disturbed them may have brought them out of their self-imposed torpor early.

How emerging viruses jump from species to species

David Bradley reporting from the Royal Society, January 2004

The list of emergent viruses continues to grow. In the early 1990s, there was HIV, ebola, lassa, and others, almost all having jumped from their natural host species to humans. More recently, hepatitis C, Sin Nombre, West Nile, and of course SARS emerged. The common factor, said Dr Eddie Holmes of the University of Oxford, is that they use RNA rather than DNA to carry their genetic code.

Holmes believes that the genetics of our immune systems and viral genetics should be an equally important research focus. To infect a new species, an emerging virus has to overcome the new host’s immune system and to replicate in its cells, the success of which depends on both viral and host genetics and other factors.

But, Holmes asked, why do such pathogens emerge and what controls the emergence? Ecological change, as emphasized in Tony McMichael’s talk, is the governing factor – change in human proximity and change in host-species population density. The key to understanding lies in the fact that RNA viruses mutate a million times more rapidly than organisms with DNA. This endows them with great adaptability. On the other hand, a high mutation rate constrains viral evolution by capping the viral genome’s size, which limits adaptability. Higher mutation rates, after all, mean more chance of error in the viral genes. This “error-threshold”, explained Holmes, means that if a virus has to evolve a lot to jump between species then it is more likely to fail. We eat a multitude of plant viruses every day but no one has yet fallen prey to turnip mosaic virus.

The coronaviruses such as SARS, are different. They have a much bigger genome than other RNA viruses, which means that SARS and its relatives should evolve more slowly but their larger genome gives them greater adaptability. A better understanding of the constraints to RNA virus evolution will allow us to make better predictions about the emergence of new viruses and help us find improved therapeutic procedures. Rather than thinking about what RNA viruses can do, we should concentrate on their limitations.

Read on… Influenza and emerging viruses

Bullying teachers and musical barriers

First week at high school, first-year art class. I’d done what I thought was a nice sketch of the postbox at the end of the road, that was the simple brief, draw a post box, or pillar box as we used to call them. I sat in the cold for an hour or more sketching it. It looked okay. I didn’t see myself as having any talent for sketching, not like my mate Phil who could rustle up a tiger, a horse, or a Harley Davidson with nothing more than a few scratches of HB.

The nasty bastard of an art teacher told me my art book was too small (we couldn’t afford the twice the size one, which was three times the price, and the school had said in the letter home to parents that the size I had was fine. He also dismissed my sketch are awful because I’d used a ruler to get the straight verticals of the pillar box. Nobody in primary school ever told me not to use a ruler to draw a straight line. In fact, if you didn’t use a ruler you got told off and one teacher at junior school used to slap the tips of your fingers with his metal ruler for minor misdemeanours. At the age of 11, how are you supposed to know that rulers are precluded from art.

I didn’t bother trying again in art class after that and dropped the subject as soon as it was allowed. I did do an option on technical drawing (TD) where you used set squares, rulers, pairs of compasses, and all sorts of devices to make sure your lines were straight and at the correct, right, angles etc.

Meanwhile, in the music class, those of us with a musical bent were not allowed to touch any of the musical instruments in the classroom unless were having private lessons at home on piano or some other instrument. What snobbish educational posturing by ignorant teachers that was. It had been the case in primary school too. Awful stifling attitude and although I’d forgone putting any effort in for art class, music was my first love, as they say…I got 98 percent in the first-year exams and was second only to Alison (who got 100% and was learning piano and viola at the time and in the school orchestra, which is fine).

I got a chance to learn saxophone, but for the first couple of weeks of those lessons we weren’t even allowed to put the instrument together we just had to use the mouthpiece and practice getting a sound without in any way damaging the precious reed. For actually feck’s sake, what? I was eventually allowed to put the sax together, it hung naturally on me and I could probably still play Three Blind Mice and Merrily We Roll Along, on a tenor sax. But, playing it used to give me awful headaches and worse I would have to be in the woodwind band and at that age I was far too shy to be exposed in front of other people doing something I couldn’t do. I ended up teaching myself to play guitar from books and listening to records of bands I loved. Didn’t take any more formal music lessons until sixth form, aged, 17, one term of piano.

I had meanwhile, always been into sharks and dolphins, and magnets and motors, and dinosaurs and volcanoes and space and everything else sciencey so that was the route I ultimately took. I wrote about the person who was probably the only inspiring teacher I had at high school, Miss Hall. I’d love to be able to get in touch with her to thank her. She was in her early 30s back then, so probably in her early 70s now if she’s still around.

Obviously, this is all ancient history, but it does affect how your life goes when teachers deliberately stifle you and others close off opportunity. I hoped by the time our children got to school that things might have changed, but in some ways, I don’t think they had at all. There were still teachers who were bullies, stifling and condescending attitudes, and limited resources available.

I don’t think much has changed since they left school either, although education seems to be more of a commercial enterprise focusing on business targets and metrics now rather than actually teaching our children anything useful or giving them opportunities to grow into the people they might imagine they would like to be. It’s sad.

I am sure there are exceptions. There are inspiring teachers, I know a few and there are. But, those teachers are constrained and constricted by forces beyond their control. I just hope that the bullying and negative attitudes of my old art “teacher” have been pushed out of the system by all those metrics and the business head…I can almost feel from here that they haven’t but one can hope.

Waterloo sunset’s fine, as is Norwegian Wood

I’ve got another gig performing for local seniors. It’ll be an afternoon singalong in a residential carehome, it’ll be fun. I’ve recruited some people I know who will bring guitars and pianos to play and all of whom can sing really well. The last time I did such a gig was a harsh moment of learning.

We were actually a late booking as the proper old-time music band had cancelled a the last minute. We didn’t have any time to pull a setlist together letalone rehearse. I thought…okay…the majority of the audience is in its 70s, same as my parents were and my parents love Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, ELO, ABBA, oh and The Beatles…so, I thought I’d start with a nice solo acoustic, all gentle like – Norwegian Wood perhaps?

Well, two lines into the song, this old guy at the back who I later learned was 94 heckled us: “Bloody awful! Totally inappropriate!”

It was an odd moment, it threw us. We ploughed into a chorus and brought that song to a rapid close. Babs on piano grabbed her “old-time songbook” and we launched into some stuff from the 30s and 40s, all a bit ad hoc song about bluebirds and nightingales and white cliffs and meeting again. The nonagenarian seemed appeased went back to his cake and ale (it was a party after all). Unfortunately, the youngsters in the front row seemed to be a little restless, they didn’t really want to hear Vera Lynn, they had quite liked The Beatles, that was their era, even if the old guy perceived that band as a bunch of long-haired louts.

We changed tempo again and went for Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks. The ladies on the front weren’t jumping into the moshpit or stage-diving as such, but some were tapping along with their fingers and feet and others were singing a few of the words. The ones they knew and even some of the ones they didn’t. It was a sweet moment. Ol’ Mr Heckler didn’t shout again, he’d been glad-handed by our local MP (Heidi Allen) who was also attending the event as a guest of honour and was to give a speech after we’d done our turn.

As I sang the final refrain of “Waterloo sunset’s fine”, and Barbara echoed with a harmony “Waterloo sunset’s fine”, Heidi caught my eye as she turned from Mr Heckles and gave me a little wink…it was a moment, hah, a musical moment, a meeting of minds, she knew.

Norwegian Wood’s fine too…

I must confess the moment didn’t persuade me to vote Tory, but there’s always a little nod if we encounter each other at other events.

I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me?

Wilding our gardens with Seedball

A nice big package has arrived from the lovely people at Seedball. As I mentioned previously I am hoping to wild two patches of our front and back gardens to provide a couple of localised ecosystems for invertebrates, such as bees, butterflies, and moths and also to invest in those for the sake of the bats and birds.

Indeed, the various mixes that have arrived after discussions with Seedball are their bee mix, butterfly mix, shade mix, and a bat mix. Each has a wonderful mix wildflower seeds in their clay seed ball system that one simply spreads over the surface of a roughly prepared patch of soil (or in tubs). The balls have added nutrients and even some chilli powder to keep pests of them until the seeds have germinated.

I will be taking up turves from the lawns over the next couple of weeks (some of it will be used to make some dividing footways for #AllotmentLife. The remainder will be used to create some mounds behind at least one wilded area of the garden to add a bit of three-dimensionality to an otherwise flat and featureless garden. However, as with last year’s parallel project to the allotment we have #Pondlife and those plans were all a bit ad hoc and improvised when I pulled on my wellies and started doing the work. Thankfully, it seems to have worked, plants in the pond are growing, there are lots of snails, and we definitely have frogs using it as well as birds drinking from it.

The Bee Mix contains Seedballs to grow: Foxglove, Viper’s Bugloss, Birdsfoot Trefoil, Wild Marjoram, and Red Clover

The Butterfly Mix contains: Forget-me-not, Red Campion, Yarrow, Purple Loosestrife, and Musk Mallow

The Shade Mix has: Forget-me-not, Red Campion, Meadowsweet, Bellflower, Oxeye Daisy, Ragged Robin, and Meadow Buttercup

The Bat Mix contains: Evening Primrose, Cornflower, Corn Marigold, Borage, Wallflower, and Night-scented Stock.

Photographing a semi-acoustic guitar

A good friend of mine lent me his ’83 Westone semi-acoustic guitar. It’s a Japanese model, lovely to play, sounds great, it’s almost akin to the quality of the Gibson ES335 on which it is based, although obviously not quite as high quality, but probably a fifth or sixth of the price of those guitars new.

Anyway, I gave it a good workout playing a load of classic riffage – Rush, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Jethro Tull, Cream, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, David Bowie, even CHIC. It bears up to quite close aural scrutiny, I might hang on to it for a little while longer…

A skein for a friend – a truly wild goose chase

In Stephen Rutt’s second book, Wintering, we follow him on a journey around the British Isles to find the elusive species and sub-species of what might at first light seem a rather dull and innocuous class of birds, the geese. The geese, you say? As in “what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander”? What could be more interesting?

Well, hang fire, Rutt’s tale takes back through mediaeval droves to the ancient Greeks and the ancient Egyptians even, by way of the marshlands and reedy wetlands of Suffolk, Northumberland, and the wide rivers of the Scottish borderlands. It also takes us back and forth across oceans to Scandinavia for the geese have been with us a long, long time and are an integral part of British history in ways you cannot imagine, they are in historical festive diet, and embedded in our folklore.

Rutt’s poetic prose tells tale of Beans and Barnacles, of Canada, and Brent and Brant. He talks of Pink-foots of Greylags, and White-fronts. He writes with an empathy and an enthusiasm that has grown in him and grows in us the reader with each waft of the figurative quill. It’s a tale of chasing, of tracking, of falling in love with place and nature. A tale of missed opportunity and the luckiest of finds.

A skein of Pink-footed Geese, over Druridge Bay, Northumberland, England

Coronavirus FAQ

UPDATE: 2020-03-03: I’ve not had time to update the FAQ, so here’s a link to a more current one elsewhere that’s got answers to some of the bigger questions too.

UPDATE: 2020-02-24: A vaccine against COVID-19 is now being manufactured in Australia ready for lab tests.

UPDATE: 2020-02-18: WHO’s latest epidemiology: Over 80% of patients have mild COVID19 and will recover. In just 14% of cases, the virus leads to pneumonia. For one in 20 patients, it causes potentially fatal respiratory failure, septic shock and multi-organ failure.

UPDATE: 2020-02-11: The WHO has given the viral disease an official name, based on COronaVIrusDisease, hence COVID-19.

UPDATE: 2020-02-10: Scientists now suggesting that coronavirus source may be pangolins, which are used in Chinese “medicine”. Details here.

UPDATE: 2020-02-02: Death toll in China now more than 300, first death outside China (Philippines), although infection was in China.

BREXITDAY UPDATE: 2020-01-31: Two cases confirmed in the same family of coronavirus infection in the UK (BBC)

UPDATE: 2020-01-30: WHO  declares coronavirus international emergency, says we must stop its spread to vulnerable countries

UPDATE: 2020-01-28: 106 deaths reported in China so far. 4000 confirmed cases. Virus present in at least eleven other countries and regions. WHO yet to declare international health emergency

What is a coronavirus?

Coronaviruses are a group of viruses that cause diseases in mammals, including humans, and birds.

Why are they called coronaviruses?

The name derives from the fact that the viral capsule has a crown-like halo surrounding it, when viewed under the microscope.

What do coronaviruses do?

In humans, the virus infects the airways giving rise to flu-like symptoms, a runny nose, cough, sore throat and fever, these are usually mild, but in rare cases can be lethal.

Is there a vaccine against coronaviruses?

No.

Are there any drugs to block or treat infection?

No.

When were coronaviruses first discovered?

In the 1960s

Any details?

The first one discovered was an infectious bronchitis virus in chickens. At about the same time, two viruses from the nasal cavities of human patients with the common cold were identified and dubbed human coronavirus 229E and human coronavirus OC43.

So coronaviruses cause the common cold?

They are usually present when someone has a cold, so yes, pretty much.

Why are we so worried about them?

Some coronaviruses cause serious respiratory tract infection that is far worse than the usual symptoms of the common cold. In the elderly, infants, people with compromised lung function (such as asthma patients, COPD sufferers, people with lung cancer), an infection can ultimately be fatal, often through the development of pneumonia.

Is the Wuhan coronavirus a dangerous form?

It has infected several hundred people that we know about so far and there have been a couple of dozen deaths, mainly among vulnerable people infected with the virus. The World Health Organisation is not yet endowing this virus with the same worrying global status of earlier epidemics. It may yet be contained and fatalities limited significantly. Nevertheless, China has quarantined 20 million people already. Wuhan is a city the size of London, England.

Where did this virus come from?

At the end of 2019, a new strain of coronavirus, scientists named 2019-nCoV, was first reported in Wuhan. It is by definition an “emergent” strain of the virus and is thought to have made the species leap from infected animals to humans, probably in an environment where diseases animals are in close proximity to people, such as a live-produce market.

Where is the virus going?

Already, there have been many cases outside Wuhan and China is locking down public transport. Air travel has allowed the virus to spread to Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, South Korea, Vietnam and elsewhere, and it has already reached the USA.

How long do symptoms take to emerge?

Up to fourteen days. This makes it difficult to screen people because they may be infected and travelling with the virus without displaying a fever or other symptoms.

Will I catch it?

You are only likely to catch the virus if you have travelled to places where it is obviously present or if you have come into contact with people who have visited those areas. If you have and you think you have symptoms, stay at home, call your physician or local healthcare provider for advice. Do not go to the emergency hospital or your doctor’s surgery, you could end up spreading the virus to others who have other health problems.

Will they check me over at the airport?

Several US airports and other places have introduced screening of passengers arriving from Wuhan. If the disease spreads widely, screening is likely to be introduced at many other airports. Basic screening might involve measuring the temperature of travellers’ foreheads non-invasively to spot those with a fever.

Is it infectious before symptoms appear?

Yes, unfortunately, it seems that the virus can spread between people during its incubation period(up to two weeks) before they present with any symptoms, such as high temperature. Temperature screening would not find asymptomatic carriers, this means an epidemic could become a reality once a critical infection rate is passed even before we realise how many people have caught the virus. Many colds and influenza viruses are infectious even before symptoms appear.

What’s the latest news on this coronavirus?

2020-01-25: 22 Chinese provinces affected; billion+ people. 56 million people banned from travelling at epicentre of viral outbreak, Hubei. 41 dead, 1200+ infected, 237 critical.

Should we be panicking?

Scaremongering and sensationalist headlines abound, they’re usually wrong, but conversely, the voice of reason urging us to stay calm may well be wrong too. UCL virologist Jennifer Rohn has this to say: “…we need to treat any unknown emerging disease as if it has the potential to be a massive and devastating pandemic — because despite preliminary assessments of the rate of spread and how many people have died, the jury is still very much out.”

So, how do we cope?

Quoting Dr Rohn again: “We’ll never know when the ‘big one’ has arrived until it’s already too late. So let’s deal with each outbreak as if it could be our last.” Unfortunately, no nation is ready, unfortunately, the US has cut funding in the face of preparedness for such an outbreak that might kill millions worldwide, as earlier epidemics have done.

Should I wear a facemask?

Feel free, but the cheap ones won’t offer much protection as they don’t seal around your mouth and nose well. They will to some extent limit the degree to which you might spread infection if you are a carrier by trapping your nasal and oral fluids. Proper surgical masks are sealed, but uncomfortable to wear and harder to breathe and talk through.

Facemasks might reduce the spread of infection in enclosed spaces, such as public transport and in live-produce markets where infection may be present and animals are being slaughtered in public. But, they unnecessary in the open air where infections are not readily transmitted between people. Shoes tramping through spilled matter in a market are a more likely vector for viruses.

Most “airborne” viral infections are actually passed on through so-called fomites. Bodily fluids that land on door handles via coughs and sneezes or from an infected person’s hands where they have wiped their nose or coughed into their hand and the contaminated a surface are a much more efficient route for transmission of an infection. More about facemasks in the face of emergent pathogens here.

You can read a more detailed and technical FAQ on the coronavirus in Popular Mechanics.

An anecdote I’ve told for the longest time

Did I tell you about the time I had the solo opener with the choir TyrannoChorus at West Road Concert Hall in Cambridg? Really? I didn’t? Oh, come on, I must have, it was a few years ago now, admittedly. [6th August 2016, ed.]

Well, anyway, I did. We had a special guest compere for the whole of the event the wonderful John Suchet. I introduced him to my parents who had come along to the concert, I think my mother fell in love for the second time…with John. Charmed she was, didn’t wash the cheek he kissed for days afterwards.

Anyway, the concert opener, we’d been rehearsing it for weeks, John introduced the choir to a packed house hashtag #SoldOut. Our pianist, the amazing Tim Lihoreau also off of Classic FM fame, tickled the ivories to give us all our opening notes ready for Mrs L’s cue. And, then we’re in:

“Woah-oh-oh-oh-for the longest time”

We seemed to rattle through it, but I was shaking like a leaf at the front of the stage with a mic and no music or lyrics in front of me, and although the soloist leads the conductor who leads the choir, I made the big mistake of glance at Mrs L for vocal validation…and although this Billy Joel song follows a nice narrative arc, I stumbled over the opening to the third verse. Had to back pedal and just repeated a line that ought not to have been repeated until we were back into the chorus and I’m finishing on that octave leap to middle C.

Then, it was over. And most people applauded. It was fun. John thanked me, mentioned that I do a bit of science writing in between gigs. I still tell the tale…did you notice? Oh, oh, oh, I’ll be telling it forrrr the longest ti-i-i-ime…you can bet on it, Billy.