Human Genome 2022

With so much else happening in the world since my last post its difficult not to focus on the bad news.

However with the ever developing picture of science, medicine and technology its interesting to hear more about the full resolution unfolding on the human genome currently 

https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/science/scientists-publish-first-complete-human-genome-2022-03-31/

2021 into 2022

 

Interests from 2021 looking towards 2022 make for one last post this year.

With instagram. twitter and facebook I don't post as often as i did but I might get back to it in 2022 but in the mean time the things to watch IMHO are:

Nuclear energy alongside hydrogen, ammonia and the mainstream renewables and the climate change debate

Nuclear Energy - Our World in Data

Global health beyond Covid eith new TB and Malaria vaccines looking promising

WHO recommends groundbreaking malaria vaccine for children at risk

Technology especially space and AI.

Webb's Launch GSFC/NASA

Have a happy christmas and a great hew year.

COP26 ignition

 After blogging for years i decided when Covid hit to take a break and Im glad I did.

Now moving on, seeing COP26 making an impact, I feel having posted so much about this in the past the least I could do is share one of the best written pieces of today - 

Stop Telling Kids They’ll Die From Climate Change | WIRED UK

I hope more people read this and with all the urgent action needed on climate change the most important thing from COP is to let young people know that this isnt just about "cope" its about "hope" and doing something. 

We need everyone of the young people to grow up not just in hope but in learning about science and maybe becoming an engineer or entrepreneur or family member that does something amazing to keep improving our world and everyone's future.

Covid19

So many aspects of everyday life have changed because of this one disease and so the dataset before it arrival and after its arrival and hopefully its eventual eradication is going to be incredibly useful for healthcare analysts and others.

I still view https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus on an almost daily basis and follow GAVI, The global Fund and CEPI closely for the latest news on this disease and its relationship to the wider issues of the world, for example www.globalgoals.org

Recent progress like https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/world/europe/coronavirus-vaccine-update-oxford.htmlis very encouraging.

Other insights on area's like the environment also stand out https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-lockdowns-effect-on-air-pollution-provides-rare-glimpse-of-low-carbon-future-134685 along with measures like http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/?sfns=mo and

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/admin/

This is a good short summary, perhaps one of the best https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/immune-system-fight-off-disease-coronavirus-covid19-pandemic/

and the story on India is surprisingly good https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/india-covid19-coronavirus-response-kerala-uttar-pradesh/

On the effective altruism front finding time to read this is a good move https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/timeliest-book-2020-a-j-jacobs-1e/

It difficult to remember our thoughts going into this and it will be the same coming out of it. I just like to capture a few as they happen as Ive done here and been doing since 2004.

Hind sight -something shared by everyone on this planet in 2020

So much was known, so much noise shrouded out the real priority.

Let see who builds the next wave of narratives for either the problems or the solutions.
For now we just have to watch the data and analysis:
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus

and hold our breath for everyone of the curves:
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data

Pandemics were so topical back in 2007 why was so much campaigning time effort and money wasted on all the other unimportant issues. Why were powerful organisation so afraid to speak truth to power?

Have lost my blogging mojo of late but I still FB post and tweet, however I’m as interested as ever in people planet and shared prosperity so let me just post some favourite links of recent times

The EU game still isn’t sunny https://www.euractiv.com/section/future-eu/news/summit-fails-to-narrow-differences-over-eus-seven-year-budget/

The USA and others are not much better
But their are interesting charts on Coal here
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/24/climate/how-electricity-generation-changed-in-your-state.html

Nuclear has to help renewables keep the world progress moving
https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

We and the poorest need the progress we have worked so hard to develop
https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-history-methods

And the Gates letter is worth the read every year

https://www.gatesnotes.com/2020-Annual-Letter?WT.mc_id=20200210040000_AL2020_GFG-EM_&WT.tsrc=GFGEM

The weather makers and the campaign makers

As many of my earliest posts indicate Tim Flannery was a key author to influence me on the climate and emissions and ecological damage https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/17/i-now-look-back-on-my-20-years-of-climate-activism-as-a-colossal-failure

SPI2019

Social progress for 2019
https://socialprogress.blog/2019/09/18/announcing-the-2019-social-progress-index/

Stiglitz on the EU and reform

So Brexit has been made impossible for all sides, so they seem to think.
Other news like this book and local elections will be speeding it up from here on.

https://www.feps-europe.eu/attachments/publications/book_stiglitz-web-pp.pdf

The red highlights make a very good speed read.

German mining and burning of Lignite

This is the policy climate change people need to put the most pressure on within the EU in my opinion. You would not want to be charging millions of cars on this stuff after 2025

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/implementing-germanys-coal-exit-proposal-road-ahead

The last year of Polio

So much hope was riding on 2018 and I have been following this for over 20yrs and active in the support for over 8 yrs. 2018 might still just be that year!

The last mile is just that, a mile!

https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/02/24/455104/polios-lingering-threat-to-new-zealanders

Gates Foundation annual letter 2019

Every year I look forwards to this annual letter coming out. This one is full of surprises, many surprises, one stands out for me - SURPRISE #9
Mobile phones are most powerful in the hands of the poorest women #mdg3 #sdg5

Hot off the press today: https://www.gatesnotes.com/2019-Annual-Letter

Recycling the messages on inequality

With Davos 2019 on it appears Oxfam want to keep on with their meta work away from their roots in oxford for famine relief, pushing on the political and campaign domain as much as ever and the conversation is a good and important one.

https://www.oxfam.org/en/countries/history-oxfam-international

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/20/business/oxfam-billionaires-davos/index.html

However the recycling by the self interest of all sides needs to be seen in the context of the progress over decades as shown in many places but a favorite is:

https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-conditions-in-5-charts
and
https://ourworldindata.org/economic-growth

Understanding the full picture is important and since Picketty book a lot has been said and written and not much has been resolved either way about impact on the most vulnerable and inter and intra country or community inequality.

Here are some interesting reference links from the other side:

https://putanumonit.com/2016/06/01/inequality-part-1/

https://theconversation.com/do-eight-men-really-control-the-same-wealth-as-the-poorest-half-of-the-global-population-71406

https://www.vox.com/2015/1/22/7871947/oxfam-wealth-statistic

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2014/04/04/stop-adding-up-the-wealth-of-the-poor/

so much more research and reading to be done in this area at this precise time as we head for 2020 and then especially 2030 with http://www.globalgoals.org

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bill-gates-the-best-investment-ive-ever-made-11547683309

2019 arrived

Its a little remiss of me to realise I didn't post anything in November 2018 or December.
It has been quite a year for so many reasons.

2019 is going to be a very very interesting year for so many reasons. I don't know where to start but I find it worrying to hear that the very fine man, Jim Kim the head of the World bank has decided to step down and go and work for a private sector infrastructure provider.

As a Clinician and a founder of his own TB foundation, Jim is a remarkable man and listening to him speak, both having been in his audience in Washington but also listening to him online is always a pleasure and educational.

I wish him well and ponder why? Perhaps we will find out this year or next decade!?

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/07/jim-yong-kim-to-resign-as-president-of-the-world-bank

https://www.ft.com/content/ad959b3a-133e-11e9-a581-4ff78404524e

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-08/world-bank-s-jim-yong-kim-had-good-reason-to-resign

Visualisations

As busy and passionate about the issues and outcomes as ever and the way information can be visualised

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/10/the-80-trillion-world-economy-in-one-chart The value of the global economy and segmentation

https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/guid/D410312A-A5A6-11E5-8AE7-A86DAC7DE99F
All the money in the world

https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-conditions-in-5-charts
The world is a better place for more people than ever before

https://ourworldindata.org/economic-growth?fbclid=IwAR0MLUE3HMrJIB9_QK-l5lc-iVbJ8NSW3ibqT5mZ-GmGT-CKh-J2Helvy_I
the economics working

PM speech on science and modern Industrial Strategy: 21 May 2018 - in times of Brexit

The importance of AI and health is interesting to me today, leading a conference on this tonight!

Under the GRAND CHALLENGES, Four Missions - "

AI and data

First, as part of the AI and Data Grand Challenge, the United Kingdom will use data, artificial intelligence and innovation to transform the prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of diseases like cancer, diabetes, heart disease and dementia by 2030.

Late diagnosis of otherwise treatable illnesses is one of the biggest causes of avoidable deaths.

And the development of smart technologies to analyse great quantities of data quickly and with a higher degree of accuracy than is possible by human beings opens up a whole new field of medical research and gives us a new weapon in our armoury in the fight against disease.

"

A speech worth reading whatever side you are on, a speech about an island of less than 1% of the earths population that I calculated occupises less than 0.2% of earths landmass and less than 0.07% of the earths surface, not bad for what has been and will be!

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-on-science-and-modern-industrial-strategy-21-may-2018


"...Newton himself put it best when he wrote that, ‘if I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants’....."

It will be interesting to see if we, they, she can live up to all this but the lines are being drawn so we can revisit them in 2020 and 2030.

Deciphering China’s AI Dream The context, components, capabilities, and consequences of China’s strategy to lead the world in AI

A significant document that takes a while to read but along with the other issues from FHI is all part of the big picture for tomorrow.

https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/Deciphering_Chinas_AI-Dream.pdf

Post Brexit who is going to be the thought leader for the EU and perhaps Europe. Macron, perhaps but I doubt it!

Each new French President says change and yet the power base of the people stop them!

https://www.ft.com/content/d3466998-4299-11e8-93cf-67ac3a6482fd


"His grand project might fail. Its very method betrays France southernness: a boss telling hostile workers what he will do is a spectacle familiar from southern Europe, where working relations tend to be vertical and distrustful, unlike in the co-operative north. Albrecht Sonntag, a German sociologist at the ESSCA School of Management in Angers, says,The lubricator of Scandinavian-style public life is trust. But we don�t have it in Latin public life. Macron with his faith in the state and especially the executive as the agent of change is quintessentially French. Yet his dream for France is Scandinavia with Mediterranean beaches."


Journalist speak for free market economics, open and evolving, they dare not say who else does this already, the benefits and the price paid for moral hazard and global competitiveness!

Car-T: hacking the body code to cure it!

#Car-T another key development to watch over the next decade

https://www.ft.com/content/30b5a944-3b57-11e8-b9f9-de94fa33a81e

China's lead in this area could help us all!

AI time - Anything In time

Rubik cube solved in less than 1 second, fast but so what. Mega rubik under 39 minutes, the so what is that no human could do this in years!

This might seem clever and it is, mechanically and computationally it is but it isn't AI> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by1yz7Toick 

Even if they then take it to the next level with more than a 3x3x3 cube this is smart but its still just rules based programming> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5b9BIBuOd4 .

What AI will do is what human do, aim to do, inspire to do, grab hold of any problem and solve it. Literally any problem, any shape, any size, not just puzzles but real world experiences that's what human intelligence has had us doing for millennia now. That is what AI and AGI will be all about. Machine learning on data first and that is happening fast but then real life mining, solving and doing, that has yet to be seen. When it is it will probably be the last thing humans invent as the machine will then do the invention, everything else before the humans even get to it.

Give it another 100 or perhaps 1000 years and who knows what our computers and machines will do. But we better start to think about it and work out how to plug our values into the code and to ensure AI safety at so many levels. The same could be true with our biology through CrispR and nano technology, be in no doubt. Just as the first hunter gatherers set up camp and built an agrarian economy never envisaging beyond that and just as next major paradigm shift thousands of years later did with energy and machines with the industrial revolution no one then envisaged what we do now. The big paradigm shift of AI will in effect be a singularity, that is what people are trying to envisage now, how big that will be and when, who knows!!??

AI, AGI and autonomous machines and robots with this capability, this is so hot with the tech and philosophical community right now. A singularity: Is that going to free humans to live life at a totally new level, that's the question! #AI #AGI #ArtificalIntelligence