Winding Down
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology, science and other news
by Alan Lenton
23 May 2021
This week we look at an educational experiment, plus the Black Death, the rise in gastroenteritis, IQ, the state of the internet, and the RSA hack of 2011. Pictures include Jupiter at different wavelengths, the Eiffel Tower, and the development of a spiral galaxy. The quote is from Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi, and Scanner contains URLs on crypto miners, a new type of biochemical, COVID-19 death figures, black phosphorus, IEFT and the pyramids, extremist group evolution, Homo Galacticus, and finally the universe.
Alan Lenton
Publishing schedule: No issue next week, 30 May (UK Spring Bank Holiday), next issue 6 June.
Credits: Thanks to readers Fi and Barb for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.
Essays:
PhysOrg has an interesting essay on an education experiment being carried out in Australia. Basically it amounts to admitting that the present formal education system, based on the age of pupils, has serious flaws. Instead it proposes what it calls ‘untimed syllabuses’ . It is a recognition that children have different levels of skills when they first get to school, and they have different rates of learning – by definition some learn faster than average, and some learn slower than average!
In spite of that, they are expected to reach the same level at the end of the school year. Clearly crazy when you stop to think about it! It’s also a real pain for the teachers who have to cope with the boredom of those well ahead, and the incomprehension of those who are lost because they are slow learners.
The Australian New South Wales government have agreed to try an alternative that, it is hoped, will cope with this problem and allow slow learners more time to reach what would have been the end of the year. Details at:
https://phys.org/news/2021-02-curriculum-based-students-readiness-age.html
As we – hopefully – come out of the pandemic, historians have been looking at previous pandemics to see how they originate and how they spread. And one of then, Monica Green, has published an article about her work on the origins and spread of the Black Death plague in the 14th Century.
It turns out that, among other things, it started a century earlier than previously thought, but moved more slowly along the trade routes until it reached the much more densely urbanised cities of Europe. Interesting and timely, involving both history and genetic research.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/did-black-death-rampage-across-world-more-century-previously-thought-180977331/
Health:
A number of countries are starting to report an increase in viral gastroenteritis. Gastroenteritis is caused by norovirus, and occurs all year round. Just why there is the increase is not definitely known, but a number of health experts think it might be to do with the massive increase in the use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers – demand for which grew by a factor of 16 in the first months of the COV-19 pandemic.
Sanitizers don’t kill norovirus. I guess washing your hands with soap properly, which does kill norovirus, is the way to go!
https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/hand-sanitizer-use-gastroenteritis-outbreaks/
Intelligence:
IQ test scores are getting higher, but is that because people are practicing taking them, or are people getting more intelligent (whatever that may mean)? I used to ‘fail’ them in school by deliberately giving ‘wrong’ answers. Some teachers actually believed in them (though to be fair it was clear that most didn’t). There was, I gather, a gnashing of teeth on the part the IQ believers when I turned out to be the only one in my year who got into university...
I don’t think people are getting smarter as shown by IQ tests. I just think that the internet, even in its current crappy state, and other technical innovations, are giving people more chance to be creative!
https://www.sciencealert.com/iq-test-scores-are-getting-higher-but-are-humans-actually-getting-smarter
Internet:
Science Alert is flagging up the problem that just a handful of sites are dominating the Web, and that this could be a serious problem. There are around 150 million sites registered on the .com domain. Despite that, the authors argue, 60-70 percent of all the attention on the key social media sites is focused on just ten popular sites.
I don’t necessarily agree with the methodology used, which I think is rather narrow. However, I don’t think the conclusions are that far off the mark, because it accords with the similar experience over time for all the other mass media – newspapers, radio, movies and television, for instance.
And governments like it that way. It’s much easier to control the news when there are a small number of outlets with a large number users than a large number of small outlets. If the internet had remained in the second category, how long before the governments would have been requiring licenses similar to those of ham radio operators?*
https://www.sciencealert.com/we-re-going-to-fewer-and-fewer-websites-and-that-could-be-a-problem
Security:
Wired has an excellent piece about the story behind the RSA hack ten years ago. It was the original supply chain attack. As always the Wired story is an excellent piece of journalism. Highly recommended!
https://www.wired.com/story/the-full-story-of-the-stunning-rsa-hack-can-finally-be-told/
Pictures:
The Smithsonian website has some pretty impressive pictures of Jupiter taken at different wavelengths – infrared, visible, and ultraviolet. The infra-red version looks suitably violent!
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/peer-jupiters-gassy-atmosphere-using-various-waves-light-180977747/
Our second offering is an animation of the construction of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It offers not only an animation, but also photographs taken at the time at key stages in the building of the tower. Interesting!
https://www.openculture.com/2021/05/watch-the-building-of-the-eiffel-tower-in-timelapse-animation.html
And finally, we have on offer an animation of the formation of a spiral galaxy. No, it isn’t in real time – we don’t have the odd five or ten billion years to spare...
https://www.sciencealert.com/at-the-age-of-12-4-billion-years-bri-1335-0417-is-the-oldest-known-spiral-galaxy
Quote:
“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.”
Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi (biochemist)
Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 5th Edition
Useless Snippet: There are 8,571 different cryptocurrencies (at last count) – source ADVFN newsletter. I bet you didn’t know that!
Scanner:
Crypto-mining gangs are running amok on free cloud computing platforms
https://therecord.media/crypto-mining-gangs-are-running-amok-on-free-cloud-computing-platforms/
Scientists discover a new type of biochemical that could be in all life on Earth
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-found-an-entire-new-type-of-biochemicals-that-could-be-in-all-life-on-earth
University of Washington study suggests COVID-19 deaths far higher than official reports
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-05-university-washington-covid-deaths-higher.html
Black phosphorus coating kills superbugs then self-destructs
https://newatlas.com/medical/black-phosphorus-superbugs/
New IETF draft reveals Egyptians invented pyramids to sharpen razor blades
https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/20/new_ietf_draft_reveals_egyptians/
Researchers shed light on the evolution of extremist groups
https://phys.org/news/2021-05-evolution-extremist-groups.html
Homo Galacticus: How Space Will Shape The Humans of The Future
https://www.sciencealert.com/homo-galacticus-how-space-will-shape-the-humans-of-the-future
Is there anything beyond the universe?
https://www.space.com/whats-beyond-universe-edge
* Recommended reading: ‘The Master Switch’ by Tim Wu
Footnote:
Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Thunderbird spam filter...
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
23 May2021
Alan Lenton is a retired on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/index.html.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.
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