Stephan: If you read SR regularly you know that I am following a number of Red and Blue value states studying their social policies and comparing their social outcome results. Here is an interesting essay on one of those states, Kansas, that pulls back the curtain on the thinking of grass roots Republicans there in a way I have not previously seen. It is not polemic merely human, and that is what makes it interesting -- and, to me, rather sad.
The author’s uncle, Gene Suellentrop, a six-year Republican member of the Kansas House of Representatives (and an ally of Gov. Sam Brownback). Credit: Holly Andres/The New York Times
When I think of my uncle Gene, I think of a man who, late into the night at a particularly boisterous family wedding, would flatten his palms against the dance floor, extend his body parallel to the ground and then begin to undulate his legs and torso in a move known as the worm. Or I think of how, even later that same evening, he would agitate for a midnight meal at a diner in west Wichita, Kan., called the Golden Bell. Or of how, in his more abstemious workaday life, he left the family business — a small bank based in Colwich, a town of about 1,000 people in south-central Kansas, where he […]
Stephan: This is a story of our very partial understanding of what happens when the Earth's meta systems change, and we attempt to respond to those changes without fully understanding what is happening. I am beginning to see an increasing number of stories along these lines. At their core all these reports are stories of our failure as a culture to recognize that everything is interconnected and interdependent.
Farmland near Corcoran in the southern San Joaquin Valley sank 13 inches in just eight months last year. To the north, near El Nido, the land surface dropped about 10 inches.
Along a major canal near Los Banos, the ground has sunk so much that the concrete sides cracked. Nearby, a bridge over another canal had dropped so low it had to be demolished and replaced with a higher structure.
Groundwater over-pumping is causing some parts of the San Joaquin Valley to sink faster than ever, according to a NASA report released Wednesday.
The survey dramatically documents the rising toll the prolonged drought is taking on the Central Valley, where some federal irrigation deliveries have been cut to zero, domestic wells have run dry and growers are drawing down portions of the valley’s vast aquifer to historic low
To keep their fields green, they have drilled new and deeper wells and ramped up withdrawals, worsening the valley’s historic problem of land subsidence and depleting their water savings account for future droughts.
The sinking is so subtle that it is imperceptible on the […]
Stephan: DNA research, particularly outside of the U.S. is hot, hot, hot. New papers and new research vectors are published weekly. Here is one vector that I think is going to be particularly important because it constitutes fundamental research on how biological computers can develop.
A University of East Anglia DNA research lab. Credit: University of East Anglia
Scientists have found a way to ‘switch’ the structure of DNA using copper salts and EDTA (Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid) — an agent commonly found in shampoo and other household products.
It was previously known that the structure of a piece of DNA could be changed using acid, which causes it to fold up into what is known as an ‘i-motif’.
But new research published today in the journal Chemical Communications reveals that the structure can be switched a second time into a hair-pin structure using positively-charged copper (copper cations). This change can also be reversed using EDTA.
The applications for this discovery include nanotechnology — where DNA is used to make tiny machines, and in DNA-based computing — where computers are built from DNA rather than silicon.
It could also be used for detecting the presence of copper cations, which are highly toxic to fish and other aquatic organisms, in water.
Stephan: The advantage countries have in not being early adopters of new technologies is that they do not develop hugely expensive installed infrastructure bases and entrenched special interests defending the past. Therefore it is much easier and cheaper for them to develop the new technologies. It is easy to see this with mobile phones. Large parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America that never had copper wire telephonics just skipped that phase and went straight to mobile.
I see the same thing happening now with solar and wind. Here is a very thoughtful, and optimistic story in that regard about India.
Indian solar installations are rapidly growing. Credit: www.climateparl.net
The Indian solar story is much bigger than the story of one country and one technology. It is one of those game-changing developments that will have an impact on many aspects of our lives, around the globe.
It is the opportunity of a lifetime for India, for the global energy industry, and for the climate. Here is why:
A Lifetime Opportunity for Indians
India is where China was 30 years ago: It needs to industrialise, and for that, it needs to massively expand its energy infrastructure. The difference is: its choices are much better and clearer.
India today has an option China never had: to build its future energy infrastructure around solar (and other renewables, storage, and smart grids), rather than coal.
This will be a choice that costs less, is much cleaner, […]
Stephan: What advocates of fences never quite seem to get is fences have two sides. They keep people out but they also keep people in. The Israelis particularly don't seem to see this, but American Rightists don't seem to get it either. Here is an essay on the subject that makes this point. Note that most people here without papers have been here for more than a decade because they can't cross the border back into Mexico, and have much hope of returning.
Memo to Donald Trump: Border fences aren’t effective at keeping people out. But they do keep unauthorized immigrants who are already here from leaving. And that’s one big reason there are 11 million unauthorized immigrants, most of whom have been here for a decade or longer, settled in the United States today.
The US may not have tried a literal wall at the US/Mexico border before, but it’s been stepping up the presence of Border Patrol agents — a human wall — for 20 years:
Princeton sociologist Doug Massey, America’s leading scholar on immigration policy, explains in Foreign Policy that this didn’t exactly have the intended effect. Before the border buildup, unauthorized immigrants — mostly adult men — had come to the US for months at a time to work, then returned to their home countries (they were predominantly Mexican) to see their families. Once it became riskier to cross the US/Mexico border, however, they stopped taking the risk on a regular basis — instead crossing once and staying in the United States, often moving […]
