Bruce Pascoe’s new book may spark another culture war. He hopes for ‘decency and intellectual curiosity’ this time

The Dark Emu author rails against Christianity, capitalism and colonialism – and Shakespeare and Charles Dickens cop a serve too. He’s ready for blowback

theguardian.com

She was convicted of a murder she says she didn’t commit. Then AI hallucinations stopped her speaking out

Tasmania’s Parole Board used a document citing legal authorities that do not exist to stop Susan Neill-Fraser proclaiming her innocence

theguardian.com

‘We skate on the rooftops of damaged buildings’: a day in the life a skateboarder in Gaza

Rajab al-Reefi teaches children to skate to ‘bring some joy’, but finding boards and safe spaces is a daily challenge

theguardian.com

A Mars moss

--- Source: Wikipedia Mars is bitterly cold, has only a very thin atmosphere, no soil, and what gravel and sand it has is contaminated with toxic perchlorates, no liquid water, and it's bathed in lethal radiation. In short, not a particularly welcoming environment for life. And yet, researchers have found a moss which might, just, be able to survive on Mars. From Science Daily > **The desert moss _Syntrichia caninervis_ is a promising candidate for Mars colonization thanks to its extreme ability to tolerate harsh conditions lethal to most life forms. The moss is well known for its ability to tolerate drought conditions, but researchers report June 30 in the journal The Innovation that it can also survive freezing temperatures as low as −196°C, high levels of gamma radiation, and simulated Martian conditions involving these three stressors combined. In all cases, prior dehydration seemed to help the plants cope.** > > **"Our study shows that the environmental resilience of S. caninervis is superior to that of some of highly stress-tolerant microorganisms and tardigrades," write the researchers, who include ecologists Daoyuan Zhang and Yuanming Zhang and botanist Tingyun Kuang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. "_S. caninervis_ is a promising candidate pioneer plant for colonizing extraterrestrial environments, laying the foundation for building biologically sustainable human habitats beyond Earth."** > > **A small number of previous studies have tested the ability of microorganisms, algae, lichens, and plant spores to withstand the extreme environments of outer space or Mars, but this is the first study to test whole plants.** > > **_Syntrichia caninervis_ is a common moss species with a widespread global distribution. It grows in remarkably extreme desert environments including Tibet, Antarctica, and the circumpolar regions as part of the biological soil crust -- a widespread and resilient type of ground cover often found in arid lands. Given the moss's ability to survive extreme environmental conditions, the researchers decided to test its limits in the lab.** > > **To test the moss's cold tolerance, the researchers stored plants at −80°C (in an ultra-cold freezer) for 3 and 5 years and at −196°C (in a liquid nitrogen tank) for 15 and 30 days. In all cases, the plants regenerated when they were defrosted, though their rebound was less rapid compared to control specimens that had been dehydrated but not frozen, and plants that were not dehydrated prior to freezing rebounded more slowly than plants that were dried, then frozen.** > > **The moss also demonstrated the ability to survive gamma radiation exposure that would kill most plants, and doses of 500 Gy even seemed to promote the plants' growth. For comparison, humans experience severe convulsions and death when exposed to around 50 Gy. "Our results indicate that S. caninervis is among the most radiation-tolerant organisms known," the researchers write.** > > **Finally, the researchers tested the moss's ability to endure Mars-like conditions using the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Planetary Atmospheres Simulation Facility. The simulator's Martian conditions included air composed of 95% CO2, temperatures that fluctuated from −60°C to 20°C, high levels of UV radiation, and low atmospheric pressure. Dried moss plants achieved a 100% regeneration rate within 30 days after being subjected to the Martian conditions for 1, 2, 3, and 7 days. Hydrated plants, which were only subjected to the simulator for one day, also survived, though they regenerated more slowly than their desiccated counterparts.** > > **"Although there is still a long way to go to create self-sufficient habitats on other planets, we demonstrated the great potential of S. caninervis as a pioneer plant for growth on Mars," the researchers write. "Looking to the future, we expect that this promising moss could be brought to Mars or the Moon to further test the possibility of plant colonization and growth in outer space."** > > **This research was supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Leading Talents in Technological Innovation Program, and The Third Xinjiang Scientific Expedition Program.** At the bottom of Gale Crater (close to Mars's equator) daytime temperatures can reach 20 degrees in summer, but average 2 degrees daily. Night temperatures fall to as low as -76 C. The bottom of Valles Marineris or Hellas Planitia (which are deeper than Gale Crater) might be warm enough to let this moss survive. In Valles Marineris, humidity may briefly reach 100% at the coldest point in the night, and frost deposition might provide this moss with enough moisture to survive. The moss might well also survive on the rims of Mars's ice caps, going dormant each winter, and growing in that hemisphere's summer. Most interesting.

volewica.blogspot.com

Another big jump in bond yields

Another big jump in US bond yields overnight (Ozzie time). The sell-off continues. 10-years back to 2002 levels, 30-years to 2004 (lower chart) Very not good.

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Why didn't you vote against them?

By Dave Whamond

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One Nation admits using party funds to build $56,000 shed on James Ashby’s private property

Email to members says money lent to a party-linked company to establish a micro distillery

theguardian.com

Or I sue

By Matt Davies

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He left his makeup on your shoes

By James Mellor

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Patriot or terrorist?

By Bishtoons

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Bromance

By Michael de Adder

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OMG! They're eating noses

by Tim Whyatt

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Insane temperature increase next year

From Zeke Hausfather **** > **I'm not sure folks have realized just how crazy the second half of 2026 and 2027 will be for global temperatures – on the back of a record-smashing El Niño event. Here is my latest estimate of where both years will end up compared to global temperatures since 1850.** We're racing towards 2 degrees increase in temperatures since the 19th century. And look how bad things already are. The rate of increase is accelerating. Yet our politicians and CEOs lie to us, pretend to care, but take no action to slash emissions.

volewica.blogspot.com

Australia’s newest chicken factory looks like a modern art gallery – but will it improve animal welfare?

Three million chickens a week will be processed at the state-of-the-art facility in Tamworth – a fifth of all those eaten nationwide

theguardian.com

US bond sell-off intensifies

Bonds had a brief rally (i.e., yields fell) when the Fed raised the fed funds rate (the Central Bank discount rate). The fear in the markets had been that the Fed was going to become Trump's creature and go soft on inflation. The rise in the fed funds rate reduced that fear, and long-dated bond yields fell. That lasted just 2 days, and yields have now moved to new highs. Why? The same reasons as before. In particular, it's clear that the Iran war is not over, inflation is higher than targets, and recent data suggest that world economies are strengthening, meaning that there will be further rises in C.B. discount rates. Tightening credit tends to cause economic slowdowns. And right now, the US economy is propped up by spending on AI, which is funded by venture capital and private credit, both of which rely on loose general credit markets. This developing credit crunch is not good for shares or the economy. Take care out there, people.

volewica.blogspot.com

White-Ray Electrical, or ...

... how I learnt about data -- a morality tale. My sister used to work at a company in Cape Town called White-Ray Electrical. I'd just started working as an economist and I was intrigued about data. How to collect them, how to analyse them, whether they showed what was really happening in the economy. I was the most junior person in the department so I was given the task of maintaining the times series in the Red Book, our record of what we considered to be relevant data series. My sister told me that she used to fill in the Department of Statistics survey about employment, and, years before, the actual number of employees had deviated from the number they would put in the dept of stats survey. So she would look at the change in their payrolls from the month before and adjust the number she put on the dept of stats survey by this change. I was horrified. _You're telling me that the numbers bear only the most tenuous relationship to reality? How am I supposed to make decisions involving millions of dollars when I can't trust the data? Eeep!_ So I started a major project. I graphed (by hand! this was long before PCs) 20 major time series and put the charts up on the wall all round our office. And guess what? They all tended to show booms and recessions. Oh, the amplitude of the waves would vary, the exact timing was different, but broadly, they tended to give the same picture. And that was one of the best lessons about economic data I ever learnt. Don't rely on just one series, look at different series from across the economy. Allow for the White-Ray Electrical effect, but also assume that if you look at enough time series, they will give you a real picture of what's happening. > Things are seldom what they seem > Skim milk masquerades as cream Anyway, the purpose of that little discursion across my personal history as an investment person is to provide an intro to the chart below. Now I should have shown this _before_ the ISM was published, but I had to persuade a friend to give me back data for the Chicago PMI, which I didn't have. Notice how the average for the Philadelphia, Dallas and Richmond Fed surveys and the Chicago PMI closely follows the national ISM manufacturing survey, even though they from regions around the country, not for the country as a whole, and they're also taken at different dates during the month. Of course, it still doesn't tell us whether this is "payback" for earlier mild weather. But ... if it is, we should start to see upturns in the regional numbers when they come out over the next couple of weeks, and if we don't, then the risk that this is a renewed (albeit mild, perhaps) downturn rises sharply. And the nice little stock-market rally will come to an abrupt end. There's method in my madness.

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New Ideas

It can take a long time for new ideas to percolate. My old geography teacher used to say, "people, you can't tell me that they'll put a man on the moon and bring him back alive". He was uncommonly reserved after the moon landing, with the whole class waiting to see what he'd say. He never admitted he'd been wrong. The famous consultancy, McKinsey, said not long after mobile phones started to become widespread, that they would never take off: _Here is a cautionary tale about a telephone giant and a management consultancy. In the early 1980s AT &T asked McKinsey to estimate how many cellular phones would be in use in the world at the turn of the century. The consultancy noted all the problems with the new devices—the handsets were absurdly heavy, the batteries kept running out, the coverage was patchy and the cost per minute was exorbitant—and concluded that the total market would be about 900,000. At the time this persuaded AT&T to pull out of the market, although it changed its mind later._ _ __These days 900,000 new subscribers join the world's mobile-phone services every three days. In eight countries more than a third of the population own mobile phones; among Scandinavian men in their 20s the figure is almost 100%. Almost everywhere ownership is growing relentlessly, and sometimes exponentially. In both France and the Netherlands, for example, the number of mobile phones doubled during 1998. The tipping point seems to be somewhere between 15% and 20% of the population. Below that, people regard mobiles as expensive toys for business people, so it takes a long time to reach that point; but from there on, growth takes off._ (Source) And _The Economist_ 's article was written in 1999! Now there are more mobiles phones than ppl, and most of them are smartphones with computing power millions of times greater than the first IBM machine (the 701) introduced in 1952. The same learning/experience curves are working in solar panels and their installation, in wind, in concentrated solar power, in batteries and in electric cars and buses. Just like McKinsey in the early 80s, there are many who cannot see that the cost curve declines and the growth in installations are exponential not linear. Something rising by 20% a year doesn't rise 100% in 5 years. It rises by 150%. It doesn't rise by 200% in 10 years. It rises 6 fold. Renewables are growing by 20 or 30% per annum. That means they will go up at least 6-fold in 10 years. Already, in the world's largest CO2 emitters, the rise in renewables electricity generation each year is greater than the rise in electricity demand. We have passed the tipping point, and the transformation will only accelerate from here. [Update 7th February, 2022: I was too optimistic here. A slowdown in China led the country to revert to its traditional stimulus process--pushing the property sector, which is very emissions intensive. So emissions continued to rise from 2016 onwards.] And just in case you thought that mobile phones were a special case, here are two photographs of the same New York Street, exactly 13 years apart, taken on Easter 1900 and Easter 1913. In one, there is just one car, in the other just one horse-drawn vehicle. (Source: Library of Congress/ National Archives; hat tip to addledlady who pointed me in the right direction) In just 13 years the entire technology of personal transport shifted irrevocably. _In just 13 years_. True, that was at that point only in the US. But the rest of the developed world followed over the next 25 years. Currently EVs form just 1% of world car sales. But sales are doubling every 18 months (BYD, the world's largest manufacturer expects its sales to double _every year_ for the next 3 years.) So in 3 years they will form something like 4% of sales, in 6, something like 16%, in 9, 64% or more. Sales growth is likely to slow after that as EVs get close to 100% of the market, in a classic S-curve pattern. [Update 7th February 2022: I wrote this in June 2016, and forecast that by 2022, EVs/PHEVs would make up 16% of global car sales, to mocking laughter. In 2021, EVs/PHEVs made up 10% of global car sales, up 10-fold from the 2016 number. The year-on-year growth rate of the smoothed series in December was 70%. So it is entirely plausible that by end 2022, EV/PHEVs will reach 16% market penetration. Further update, 24/09/2026 — EV/PHEV sales now make up 27% of all car sales] The implications of this shift are huge. If you are a major low-cost oil producer with huge reserves (say, Saudi Arabia), it makes no sense to restrain production to keep prices higher, because demand is going to start falling by 2% per annum within 5 years and 10% per annum within 10 (assuming the average vehicle lasts 10 years). You may as well produce as much as you can while you can still sell the stuff. Expect the oil price to continue its secular decline, even if it has cyclical bounces. Added to the impending decline in emissions from electricity generation, it also means that global CO2 emissions have prolly peaked and will start falling now, at first slowly but then faster and faster as we switch to the new energy economy. It also means that conventional car producers and their hangers-on are in strife. So add them to coal and oil stocks as investments to avoid,

volewica.blogspot.com

50 years of green hydrogen failure

From Michael Liebreich. ### > > **It is over fifty years since Japan's "Sunshine Project" started governments pouring money into green hydrogen as a replacement for fossil fuels. How is it going? TLDR: not well.** **That’s why it’s called the #HydrogenSoufflé.** > **I don’t even need to write a commentary - I’ll just leave you with five charts:** ** * **We’re not producing green hydrogen (despite the investment** * **We’re not buying hydrogen vehicles (despite the hype)** * **We’re not buying hydrogen fork lift trucks (despite the rumours)** * **We’re not buying hydrogen trucks (despite the hopes)** * **We’re not buying hydrogen boilers (despite the grift)** ** Hydrogen is hard to store, because its small molecules can escape through metal and plastic molecules of its container. It makes pipes brittle. It needs to be chilled and compressed for storage, so there are energy costs/losses. And in most cases, alternative technologies are cheaper and more effective. For example, the round-trip efficiency of lithium-ion batteries for storage is much higher than electrolysing water and then using the hydrogen in a fuel cell. For aircraft, the hydrogen has to be kept at -253 C as a liquid or at 5,000 to 10,000 pounds/per square inch (350 - 700 bar, 1 bar equals one atmosphere). Tricky. It can be used to smelt steel, but that works best if the hydrolyser is close to the steel mill. And as I've mentioned often before, if it is converted to methane by the Sabatier process, it can be used for long-duration storage for balancing the grid. In my opinion, and obviously also Liebreich's, green hydrogen is mostly hype. Green methane, maybe. And as the first chart shows, only 0.1% of hydrogen produced is in fact green.

volewica.blogspot.com

Before blaming migrants for [insert issue here], remember how awesome Australia is because of migration | Jess Harwood

Monoculture has always been a fiction!

theguardian.com

Fake Crowd

By Walt Handelsman

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Trump is an idiot

By Rick McKee

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Heart Aerospace's first flight

I've been following Heart Aerospace's electric plane since 2021. It made its first flight in August, a flight which lasted 30 minutes and cost just $5 for "fuel" (electricity). Most ES-30s will be hybrid, though, because current battery energy density isn't high enough for ranges longer than 150 miles (250 km). Also, 1 in 1000 flights in the US get diverted to an airport 100 miles away. Having two hybrid engines will allow the ES-30 to get ranges up to 500 miles and provide backup if a diversion is necessary. Regional air travel is the most expensive air travel per kilometre. So Heart Aerospace isn't just about reducing emissions and noise, it's also about filling a gap in regional and short-range passenger travel that has been abandoned by airlines because it became too expensive. If it goes into service, the first flights won't be until 2031, because it takes years to get certification. Remember, the first really successful electric car was the hybrid Toyota Prius. It took a decade before fully electric cars were available, and another decade before they became mass market. The first video shows an overview of the first flight, the second is an interview with the founder of Heart Aerospace, Anders Forslund.

volewica.blogspot.com

‘The choice was prison or exile’: journalists who fled Russia publish grim portrait of Putin

Roman Badanin and Mikhail Rubin, who were forced to move abroad in 2021, tell of president capable of ‘limitless cruelty’

theguardian.com

The Coalition wants 'discrete' First Nations content in schools. But children must be taught to critically assess concepts such as national pride | Tony Birch

A law passed in Victoria in 1886 left aftershocks felt across Australia today. Yet few white people have ever heard of it

theguardian.com

‘Addiction is not only caused by weak will’: how a talking pigeon got Czechia to face up to its alcohol problem

Director Pepa Lubojacki’s heartbreaking film chronicles the lives of her brother as he struggles with drink and homelessness – and her own shame in the face of societal prejudice

theguardian.com