No snow but bright cold days rule in this short clip of the winter solstice complete with the Wolf Moon as captive audience. Enjoy

300 steps ...

This animation shows the ideal execution of the James Webb Space Telescope’s deployments in the hours and days after launch. The extension of the central Deployable Tower Assembly will increase the distance between MIRI’s two segments. They are connected by a coiled tube carrying cooled helium. Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Here's hoping the Webb makes it. Complex launch sequence doesn't even begin to explain just how difficult a process it will be to get this system up and running.

Winter Solstice Pix 2021 :)

Ice Lines/rev V

Channel 1

Lantern Plant Seed

Shades of Green & Yellow

Whorls

Channel II

The Wolf Moon

A quiet dread ...

Photo by Fusion Medical Animation on Unsplash

A quiet dread, you know, the kind giving subtle shivers up one's spine applies as there are three coronaviruses, not just one and ... the chance of gene flow happening among the three  becomes possible due to the probabilistic nature of quantum and to the inherent similarity of genetic material shared by the three viruses in question. Last but not least is the incredibly contagious Omicron variant of Covid 19, the perfect delivery system of chaos incarnate if a new strain of coronavirus sharing content from either SARS or MERS decides to make it's presence known to the world in the years of our lord 2022/3.

Gene flow is the transfer of alleles from one population to another population 

through immigration of individuals.

I want to share some information on Omicron with you, in particular evidence that Omicron is far more concerning than is generally being reported.

My intention is not to change your conclusions about Covid or your political views. I am simply presenting timely information for you to consider.

Omicron is incredibly contagious and not as "mild" as we've been told: here are a few of the twitter threads my well-informed (i.e. science-healthcare professionals) readers are sending me:

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1472589879179677700

Omicron is being compared to measles- this chart is some perspective on what that means. This was made about a year ago with original COVID-19. The implications are terrifying @DrEricDing

My sources say that folks inside the CDC are whispering that #Omicron is now **as contagious or more contagious than MEASLES**. We epidemiologists have been muttering it for a week. I haven’t heard any CDC or govt official admit on Television yet. They should —people need to hear it."

From one positive test to 500 (50% of all positives) in a week is sobering.

Addendum ...

As another frontline MD explained in a private email to me, the system has managed by shifting resources and staff from one hot-spot to the next as caseloads arose and fell across the country. If Omicron continues to spread at its current rate, caseloads will explode across the entire nation. The strategy of shifting resources and personnel will fail and healthcare systems will break down and cease to function, with predictably catastrophic results.

From the frontline MD:

"At least 5 states that I know of have now activated their national guard to fill holes, and multiple hospitals across New York alone have begun turning away expectant mothers or have shuttered their emergency facilities entirely. What's truly staggering is to wonder what happens if everyone gets hit simultaneously with the next wave of illness from whatever. We have so cannibalized whoever is left that most states are working on a sort of rotational system, meaning most nurses that fill are the same ones who fill across the board and have since this started. As most things have come in cycles at different parts of the country, it has worked thus far and alleviated true staffing shortages, or at least painted over them with a thin veneer of complacency. Now, as we head into a full force of fun (from whatever, doesn't have to be anything even remotely related to Covid now), there is no backup, no travelers, no cavalry to call in." 

And this ...

The omicron variant is spreading fast and makes up about half of Cleveland Clinic's positive tests.

The question to ask now is ...

COVID-19, SARS and MERS: are they closely related?.

Content: COVID-19 seems not to be very different from SARS regarding its clinical features. However, it has a fatality rate of 2.3%, lower than that of SARS (9.5%) and much lower than that of MERS (34.4%). The possibility cannot be excluded that because of the less severe clinical picture of COVID-19 it can spread in the community more easily than MERS and SARS. The actual basic reproductive number (R0) of COVID-19 (2.0-2.5) is still controversial. It is probably slightly higher than the R0 of SARS (1.7-1.9) and higher than that of MERS (<1). A gastrointestinal route of transmission for SARS-CoV-2, which has been assumed for SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, cannot be ruled out and needs further investigation.

A quiet dread indeed. 

Addendum:

Omicron overpowers key COVID antibody treatments in early tests

Nearly all of the monoclonal antibodies used to prevent severe disease fail to stand up to the new variant, laboratory assays show

Oh Oh ...

The Washington Post: Omicron Coronavirus Variant Possibly More Infectious Due To Sharing Genetic Code With Common Cold, Study Says 

Situational Awareness

Situational Awareness, a mantra preached by The Art of War and the OODA loop applies when it pertains to 2024 and the possibilities of a coup actually succeeding as America's splintering and all bets are off thanks to a succession of inept presidents beginning with W and ending with Agent Orange, the worst of the worst in the land of the brave and home of the free.

Coups usually take place in countries with an "underdeveloped democracy," or in "authoritarian" states. But the scenario is now being seriously discussed among Americans as a possible scene in the once "shining city upon a hill," the "beacon of hope." 

On Friday, three retired US Army generals published an article in the Washington Post entitled "The military must prepare now for a 2024 insurrection." 

"We are chilled to our bones at the thought of a coup succeeding next time," the article said. As the first anniversary of the deadly riots at the US Capitol approaches, the two retired major generals and a retired brigadier general voiced their concerns about a divided American military. 

"On January 6, a disturbing number of veterans and active-duty members of the military took part in the attack on the Capitol," they said. And they are suggesting history will repeat again, noting, "In a contested election, with loyalties split, some might follow orders from the rightful commander in chief," while others might follow the loser.

They even proposed a solution: "The Defense Department should war-game the next potential post-election insurrection or coup attempt." In other words, this is equivalent to calling the Pentagon to be prepared to crack down on a possible uprising, which is unimaginable in any democratic country worldwide, Shen Yi, a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs of Fudan University, told Global Times. 

The three retired generals are not the only ones worrying. "Trump's next coup has already begun," The Atlantic analyzed earlier December, stressing "January 6 was practice. Donald Trump's GOP is much better positioned to subvert the next election."  

To ignore the implications of 2024 is folly.

The Art of War and the OODA loop apply.

OneZoom

 

Fractals rule. Fractals also graphically show complex relationships, especially 

when it comes to evolution and it's deep connect to life on earth. 

To whit. 

"We hope to give people a completely new way to appreciate evolutionary history and the vastness of life on Earth in all its beauty," said Imperial College London biodiversity researcher James Rosindell. 

"Two million species can feel like a number too big to visualize, and no museum or zoo can hold all of them! But our tool can help represent all Earth's species and allow visitors to connect with their plight."

Zooming in from the 'tree' of broader taxonomic groups down to the smallest of the chaotic fractals, each 'leaf' on the tree represents a species. A leaf holds a species's scientific and common names (accessible in multiple languages), and clicking on the name brings up a list of options for further information, including Wikipedia and Encyclopedia of Life entries and access to genetic information.

The tree also includes public domain images of over 85,000 species, which the creators encourage people to make use of.

Check out OneZoom. A true learning tool and time killer to the max. :)

Adaptation

Socotra’s gregarious Egyptian vultures are a bright spot in an otherwise sobering global story. Photograph by Oriol Alamany

This amazing shot of an Egyptian Vulture gives one pause as said bird is thriving while global warming, environmental degradation and resource depletion ravage the world 24/7. Nature can come back if we let it and the time to let this happen is now if man is to survive as a viable species on planet earth.

N. p. ginginianus in flight, India

The birds’ appetite for rich human cast-offs isn’t the only sign of their intelligence. They’re also one of the few bird species that have been observed using tools, dropping rocks on eggs belonging to other large birds in an effort to score a tasty, fresh meal. The specific targets of these assaults—the eggs of ostriches, pelicans, and flamingoes among them—depends on the location within the vultures’ considerable range, which stretches across three continents. Egyptian vultures also gather wool by winding it with sticks to fluff up their reeking nests, which may include fish bones, animal skins, and human feces among their branchy tangle.

Researchers R.F. Porter and Ahmed Saeed Suleiman suggest that Socotra’s anomalously healthy population may have benefited from a lack of feral dogs and pesticides in local farming, and the absence of diclofenac on the island, as well as abundant caves and sheltered ledges among the cliffs, rock outcrops, and mountains for nesting. Perhaps most important, according to a study published in 2013 by biologist Laura Gangoso and colleagues, is that a reciprocal relationship still exists between people and vultures here, helping make the population one of the densest in the world. Their abundance on the island probably first arose from settlers’ introduction of large livestock some 3,000 years ago, and even now, the birds play an outsized role in local waste disposal, eliminating between 16.6 and 22.4 percent of decaying organic waste produced on the island each year, from carcasses to feces. The Socotri teach their children to respect the birds, tell stories and jokes in which they feature, and refer to them lovingly as soeydu—literally, “garbage bin.”

Adaptation indeed. :)

Democracies very bad year

 

Voters wait in a long line to cast their ballots at Church of the Servant in Oklahoma City on 3 November 2020. A sign of a healthy democracy or the opposite? Photograph: Nick Oxford/Reuters

Thanks to Agent Orange, and significant others, (W, the repugs, the Real Owners) the US has dropped big time in terms of being a viable democracy over the past 10+ years.

The US has fallen to a new low in a global ranking of political rights and civil liberties, a drop fueled by unequal treatment of minority groups, damaging influence of money in politics, and increased polarization, according to a new report by Freedom House, a democracy watchdog group.

The US earned 83 out of 100 possible points this year in Freedom House’s annual rankings of freedoms around the world, an 11-point drop from its ranking of 94 a decade ago. The US’s new ranking places it on par with countries like Panama, Romania and Croatia and behind countries such as Argentina and Mongolia. It lagged far behind countries like the United Kingdom (93), Chile (93), Costa Rica (91) and Slovakia (90).

This decline is reinforced in Democracy Matrix whereby the US ranks 26th and in the Democracy index, the number's 25.

Prelude to winter ...

First ice

Blue Water

Endpaper

Off in the distance ...

On the beach

 Prelude to winter

Think OODA, Think Open

 [Images: marselelia/Pixabay; Wikimedia Commons]

Wikipedia's a treasure. A self governing, user driven dictionary, it's impact on the net, and to yours truly, cannot be understated, something needing protection, this time regarding China and its recent push to control all things relating to unfettered information as espoused by entities such as Wikipedia.

The war over Chinese Wikipedia is a warning for the open internet

How a group of pro-China users ‘infiltrated’ Wikipedia, launched a new encyclopedia, and exposed growing threats to Wikipedia’s free-knowledge mission.

This past July, before he was banned from Wikipedia, Techyan was one of dozens of volunteers preparing to speak at the free-knowledge movement’s annual conference, Wikimania. Born in China’s northeast, Techyan, as he’s known in the Wikipedia community, had been editing Chinese Wikipedia since his early teens. As one of its three dozen elected administrators, he hoped his presentation would put a more positive spin on what, lately, had become Wikipedia’s ugliest battlefield.

Rather than the edit wars and personal threats that had come to define some of its hot-button political topics like Hong Kong and Taiwan, Techyan planned to talk about how his three-year-old user group, the Wikipedians of Mainland China, or WMC, had thrived. It had done so in spite of government restrictions, and without official acknowledgment from the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that hosts the site in over 300 languages and hands out millions in grants.

Then in July, weeks before Wikimania, an email from the Foundation landed in his inbox: His presentation had been canceled. “Weeks later, I was banned,” he says.

The art of the lie ...

According to a September statement by Maggie Dennis, the Foundation’s VP of trust and safety, Techyan and six other high-level users were actually involved in “an infiltration” of the Chinese Wikipedia. In an interview, Dennis said a monthlong investigation found that the veteran editors were “coordinating to bias the encyclopedia and bias positions of authority” around a pro-Beijing viewpoint, in part by meddling in administrator elections and threatening, and even physically assaulting, other volunteers. In all, the Foundation banned seven editors and temporarily demoted a dozen others over the abuses, which Dennis called “unprecedented in scope and nature.”

Dangerville ...

The rhetoric and threats obscured a more sobering warning. At 20 years old, the encyclopedia that anyone can edit is now the improbable backbone of our information ecosystem, a place to rely on and get lost in, built on top of a similarly impressive volunteer-run infrastructure. Bottom-up and consensus-based, Wikipedia’s framework has proved remarkably resilient to vandalism and disinformation. But it can also be surprisingly brittle, weakened by a litany of problems from within, including harassment and bias. (Much of this stems from the stubborn fact that most Wikipedia editors are English-speaking men in Western countries.) The site’s weaknesses, meanwhile, leave it more vulnerable to manipulation by governments and non-state adversaries, who threaten not only its vision but also the safety of its volunteers.

You gotta speak the language.

Dennis acknowledged the Foundation had fallen short in its ability to address its human rights impacts and to communicate with Chinese users. At the time of its investigation, for instance, Wikimedia didn’t have a fluent Chinese speaker on its trust-and-safety staff. (Elise Flick, a Foundation spokesperson, said in an email that the Foundation “has added in-house Chinese language engagement support as of mid-October.”) In her September statement, Dennis apologized to the Chinese community. “You have not had the service you’ve deserved,” she wrote.

Situational awareness applies. Think OODA when dealing with Xi

Any questions?