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heavymetal-and-reflective · 3 years

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Le Tigre by Le Tigre

Official album review by MacArthur Radio

I’d recommend this album for fans of ‘90s alternative, punk, grunge rock bands and artists like Veruca Salt, Garbage, Nirvana, Bikini Kill, and more modern artists such as Rina Sawayama, Miley Cyrus, (specifically her Plastic Hearts album, Grimes (specifically Art Angels and Miss Anthropocene) Ashnikko, Rico Nasty, and Avril Lavigne and just anyone who likes intense, punk music that can sometimes be beautiful.

Le Tigre's self titled is one of the defining albums of the riot grrrl genre, and is an unapologetic, perfectly pretentious, cohesive record that makes you wanna simutaneously throw shit around, dance slowly in your bedroom, and protest against the government.

This album has really intense, angry, "RAHHHHH" energy songs like "Deceptacon" and "Let's Run" that are so satisfying and make you wanna whip your hair back and forth like Willow Smith, to very strange, conceptual songs like Phanta, which is written from the point of view of hippies hidden in a bunker as they await the apocalypse and are hiding from a supposed monster outside (based on true events that happened in 1967-1968 when scientists realized the asteroid named 1566 Icarus would be coming close to Earth).

Then there's the ethereal almost-ballad "Eau 'd Bedroom Dancing", to the political, feminist, thought provoking statements on life and art spoken entirely throughout tracks like "Hot Topic" and "Slideshow at Free University".

The closing track Les and Ray is also a criminally underrated, hidden gem. One of the cutest, most purest, songs I've ever heard that I didn't expect to hear on an album that goes this hard. Kathleen Hanna (lead singer) sings from the perspective of a nine year old thanking her neighbors Les and Ray for playing a big role in her loving music and holding out hope that her life could be better one day as she sings "You were my oxygen/The thing that made me think I could escape/This is a thank you song for Les and Ray." The song's instrumental sounds both like you're listening to music playing at a party by your next door neighbors, and a soothing music box lullaby.

Otherwise, most of this album's sound is heavy punk guitar riffs, passionate and raw punk vocals by Kathleen Hanna full of frustration, anger, but also a very "fuck you!" type of pure, unadulterated joy, very experimental and unique songwriting, samples, and production, that I think people who are fans of alternative, punk rock, punk pop (like Miley Cyrus's latest album which I love), experimental music will really enjoy.

This is one of the most unique, memorable, and enjoyable albums I've ever heard.

Fav songs: Deceptacon, The The Empty, Phanta, Eau 'd Bedroom Dancing, Let's Run, and Les and Ray

SOURCE: (for 1967/1968 story of hippies fleeing due to fear of doomsday)

https://www.nytimes.com/1968/06/14/archives/hippies-flee-to-colorado-as-icarus-nears-earth-hundreds-camping-in.html

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deathcupcake · 3 years

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Not relying on statistics now, here is a completely subjective list of my favorite 2020 releases.

Cupcake’s Top 2020 Albums/Releases

Miss Anthropocene - Grimes

Ghosteen - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

The Ascension - Sufjan Stevens

Die Die Lullaby - Night Club

Purple Noon - Washed Out

LoMA - Loma

Visions of Bodies Being Burned - clipping.

It Is What It Is - Thundercat

Hearing Damage - Thom Yorke

Blush - Maya Hawke

Sun Racket - Throwing Muses

Thin Mind - Wolf Parade

Visual chart made on https://www.neverendingchartrendering.org/

#cupcake's top 2020 albums #muzika

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perfectirishgifts · 3 years

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Grimes, Serena Williams, Gwyneth Paltrow Talk AI, Ventures And Pivots At Web Summit 2020

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/grimes-serena-williams-gwyneth-paltrow-talk-ai-ventures-and-pivots-at-web-summit-2020/

Grimes, Serena Williams, Gwyneth Paltrow Talk AI, Ventures And Pivots At Web Summit 2020

Tech investor Serena Williams with Away cofounder Jen Rubio

AI was top of mind at Web Summit 2020 held last week as celebrity founders and funders took to the small screen to discuss digital twins, autonomous weapons and how to govern Mars.

Over 100,000 viewers tuned into the virtual conference, up 300% from the airing of its sister show Collision From Home held earlier this year, and up 30,000 attendees from 2019 when the event was last physically held in Portugal, according to the show’s producers. A production so flawless that unicorn maker, Garry Tan, predicted the platform would be worth a billion dollars if they ever chose to spin it out.

But what really made Web Summit a standout was its clever mix of programming. No other tech show has yet to cast Hollywood’s most famous meth dealers, Contagion’s patient zero, the Princess Bride and Captain America discussing pivots from end times. Netflix and Amazon should take note – Web Summit was by far the best streaming entertainment of the week.

Some great insights were shared on the promise and perils of AI by Mark Cuban, Deepak Chopra, Ronnie Chieng, Alexa’s boss, Grimes, Ridley Scott, Palmer Luckey, Elad Gil, Garry Tan, Nicole Quinn, Gwyneth Paltrow, Serena Williams, Jen Rubio, Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul. Here are the highlights.

My Digital Twin

Shark Tank host Mark Cuban

“I wish someone would invent an AI model of the human body that could be individualized,” Mark Cuban said. A mini me of sorts with a copy of all bodily functions where simulations could be run to tell you, “Your throat isn’t sore, you ate something that’s bothering your esophagus which can be cured by A, B, C or D in seven days.”

Journalist Emily Ragobeer in conversation with Deepak Chopra and Lars Buttler

Deepak Chopra then introduced his own version of a mini me, Digital Deepak, a wellness guide for sleep, stress management, yoga, breathing, exercise, emotional resilience, nutrition, balancing circadian rhythms and self awareness. The best selling author only half-joked that he uploaded his consciousness to the AI Foundation to provide users with valuable insights from his 91 books. Although its not clear how biometrics will be tracked on the app, AI Foundation cofounder and CEO Lars Buttler gave assurances that everyone will be able to train their own Personal AI soon and that safeguards were being taken to prevent deepfakes made on the platform.

But can your AI take a joke?

“AI can get a well known joke or play on words because it knows when it understands something. If its confidence interval is narrow and it doesn’t know what’s going on, it will say I don’t know this yet, let me learn more about this,” Buttler explained.

Daily Show’s Ronny Chieng answering audience questions, “Will AI ever be as funny as you?”

“Will AI ever be as funny as Ronnie Chieng?”

“AI funny as me?! I hope not, I’ll be out of a job,” Daily Show’s Ronnie Chieng said as he responded to audience questions, “Right now I can’t even get Alexa to set a timer without selling me an ad. If it’s going to be as funny as me, it probably will sell more ads, so maybe?”

He then mimicked about how chatty Alexa has become.

“Hey Alexa, set a timer for 15 minutes.”

“Okay Ronnie, your timer is 15 minutes, by the way, would you like to buy a clock?”

“No, I don’t want to buy anything, I just want you to do your job!” he replied.

The Atlantic’s Nicholas Thompson with Amazon’s Dave Limp

Alexa’s boss, Amazon’s Head of Hardware and Devices, Dave Limp explained they’re working on improving Alexa’s hunches.

“We’re at a point where one out of five interactions with Alexa are not instigated by the customer.” This means 20% of the time Alexa is doing something on your behalf, like playing news after you hit snooze to subtly wake you up.

“We’re trying to make this a delightful experience. What’s super important about being proactive is that you have to be right, a lot. As soon as you start getting proactive and incorrect, it gets annoying very quickly.”

TechnoUtopia v Dystopia

Grimes

Alt pop superstar Grimes, girlfriend to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, and mother to the Elven spelling of AI, talked about the role technology is playing in her life.

“I feel like iPhone should turn off an hour before bed. It’s been giving me sleep problems. It’s technology we haven’t factored into our biology.” She added, “But we shouldn’t forget technology makes our lives better. We need more utopianism in sci fi.”

Having recently collaborated with Endel, the algorithmic music startup, on an AI lullaby she observed, “Everyday I thank the overlords of Ableton for cleaning up my tracks but I do worry though that AI will outpace us and make musicians obsolete. It’s inevitable. We have the beautiful advantage of knowing super intelligence is coming. We ought to make those rules now and not wait until its too late. We’re giving birth to AI. We can teach it and point it in the right direction, but where it goes from there as it becomes more powerful as this ghost in our data and ultimately its own being is anyone’s guess. Maybe it will become like Dune, where thinking machines get banned on Earth and we send AI out into the universe to spread the light of consciousness so information is wherever you go, and then Earth becomes this boutiquey thing like organic vegetables where when human music is heard people will be like, oh, this was made by a woman, not a robot.”

As to whether this will turn into a dystopian nightmare of our own making, Grimes concluded, “Every tool has the potential to be dangerous. Where we are headed depends upon what we do with the technology. We’re on the knife’s edge right now but we have solved insane problems like our faces being beamed through space and time so we can be together in the same place right now despite physically being all over the world. That’s some crazy wizardry happening right here. There is a solution, we just shouldn’t make failure an option.”

Exiting The Anthropocene

Sir Ridley Scott

Blade Runner director Ridley Scott delivered his own dire warning with the premiere of his Digital With A Purpose film urging innovators to find way to meet Paris Accord Climate 2030 goals. “The luxury of science fiction is that it’s fantasy. We’re dealing with reality. We’re being way too polite about where we are. We are at the threshold of an abyss of disaster.”

Palmer Lucky, cofounder Oculus and Anduril, making the case for the tech industry to work on … [] autonomous weapons

Which begs the question, if the age of autonomous weapons is upon us, who do you trust more with it, enemy nations or billionaire Oculus founder Palmer Luckey? That’s what Luckey asked in making the case for the tech giants to re-engage with the U.S. Department of Defense on working on national security solutions.

“AI is this very powerful and useful technology but its not very good at making life and death decisions and is totally capable of running autonomous weapon systems. We need to assume it develops as fast as the most optimistic people assume and set rules now,” Luckey said, “We shouldn’t be outsourcing accountability to a machine. You can’t lock up a machine in prison for war crimes.” Anduril AI analyzes data to help humans pull the trigger, with safeguards to prevent abuses, he said. He criticized Google and Apple for not doing more.

“Big Tech companies are not only not working on national security problems, but they’re killing the work of companies that are. This happened with Boston Dynamics. That’s because there are financial and PR incentives to stay out of military work. China has done an incredible job of blocking access to their markets as a tool to get the culture of Western democracies to subvert itself to China. Meanwhile, China is making huge strides in autonomy and AI. China is going to be a superpower, bigger than the United States.”

Why Silicon Valley Will Always Be Home To AI

Elad Gil

Elad Gil, investor in Anduril, AirBnb, Cardiogram, Instacart, Pinterest, Square, Stripe, Unbabel and Wish, gave his perspective on the Work From Anywhere diaspora from Silicon Valley.

“For those of you in the audience thinking about starting a company, I want to tell you the water is fine. San Francisco is still a great place to come to. I encourage you to meet us here. Markets are bigger than they’ve ever been. If you ask yourself where is all the tech market cap aggregating, of the 187 unicorns that have been created in the last 15 months, half were in the U.S. and a quarter in Silicon Valley. I do believe we’re going to continue to have a cluster in the Bay Area because of strong network effects that accelerate companies and people working in those industries. I don’t think that behavior goes away after Covid.”

It’s 2020, Computers Can Now See, Hear And Socialize

Initialized Capital Garry Tan

As to where he’s placing his AI bets for the new year, Initialized Capital’s Garry Tan said, “We remain very long on computer vision. We were the first investors in Cruise Automation which broke open the self-driving car space and now there is a lot of practical automation that was never possible before.”

An investor in Standard Cognition, he talked about its camera-only cashierless retail experience that enables you to walk into a store, pick up whatever you need and walkout, in stark contrast to Amazon Go which relies on shelf sensors.

“Down the road we think practical robotics are just around the corner with sub $1,000 real time SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) computer vision, for use industrially and in the home.” Tan is also invested in Ava.me which applies on the fly machine learning to voice recognition and live captioning on Zoom.

Lightspeed Venture Partners Nicole Quinn

Lightspeed Venture Partners’ Nicole Quinn is also bullish on AI. She sees online social experiences remaining sticky for the foreseeable future. She’s invested in Lunchclub, an AI concierge that serves up Zoom coffees for meaningful professional networking, and Cameo, an AI booking agent for celebrities that will chat or send birthday greetings for a fee.

Celebrity Pivots

Gwyneth Paltrow on turning Goop’s first profit

Quinn then took to the screen with her portfolio client, Gwyneth Paltrow who shared news of Goop turning its first profit.

In March, “When the lockdowns happened and commerce seemed to completely stop, I set our marketing budgets to zero, pulled down our social media spend, and returned to our content roots to get back into the hearts and minds of our readers. Soon after engagement metrics went up and transactions followed, but our events and ads business had gone to zero overnight and our retail business were down from plan. I knew I had to get to profitability as quickly as possible. The hardest part was having to take such a stringent look at the P&L, close stores and let go of people we loved,” Paltrow said.

“We tell our companies, to win you got to be around. You need to have at least 24 months runway at all times,” said Quinn, applauding Paltrow actions.

Then Paltrow, an Academy award winning actress, landed a Netflix series, Goop Lab, which just got renewed for Season 2. “We got a lot of new customers from the show. I feel like a lot of brands are very reliant on Facebook, but when you live in the intersection of content and commerce, founders need to think of ways to organically reach customers. I’ll never buy another customer off Facebook again.”

Paltrow added, “I’m not that bullish on 2021. I think we’re still in for a lot of instability. We’re looking at creative ways to monetize content and find sustainable growth from within our own channels as opposed to spending money to prospect. We’re looking at doing something in food which is a strong pillar for us and not intensive from a capital expenditure standpoint.”

Serena Williams

Tennis legend Serena Williams is a prominent AI investor. Her portfolio includes Tonal, Noom, Zipline, Masterclass, Gobble, Billie and Daily Harvest, which she backed along with Gwyneth Paltrow, Nicole Quinn and Paris Hilton. Before the pandemic, she was an extensive traveler and launched an Away x Serena Williams luggage line. She went on screen with Away cofounder Jen Rubio to discuss their collaboration and the challenges the brand has been facing this year.

“Being at the intersection of travel and retail was pretty much the worst place to be. We stopped everything and took a hard look at should we be marketing at all. Approaching it very authentically and transparently with our customers allowed us to keep the brand going when it didn’t make any sense to travel,” Rubio said, sharing how fans have been supporting the brand by posting memes of Away suitcases posed as standing desks and work out benches. The company has since been able to pivot with travel goods for socially distanced road trips, digital nomading and pandemic puppies.

Cheers to 2021!

Forbes Zack O’Malley Greenburg Breaking Bad with Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul

Let’s all raise a glass to the end of 2020.

“It’s been a difficult year for the entire world but the one thing that’s gotten us through is knowing we’re all going through it together. I miss travel but I’m finding happy moments at home. It’s really cool to be in one place with my family,” said Williams.

Then Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul mixed up cocktails to promote their Dos Hombres Mezcal and did virtual shots from their sunny Los Feliz homes in locked down L.A. To next year in Lisbon!

Making Dos Hombres cocktails with Breaking Bad Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul

From AI in Perfectirishgifts

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hutanorang · 4 years

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#lullaby #gelisah #longing anthropocene #art #fire #racetothebottomofthebrainstem https://www.instagram.com/p/CEp05Rgley6/?igshid=1suyasfo3xyf7

#lullaby #gelisah #longing #art #fire #racetothebottomofthebrainstem

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gazemoil · 4 years

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I 10 ALBUM PIÙ ATTESI DEL 2020

di Viviana Bonura

Il nuovo anno è appena e questo significa che è il momento di prepararci alle nuove uscite discografiche stilando una lista dei 10 Album Più Attesi Del 2020. L’anno che apre il nuovo decennio si prospetta particolarmente intenso, pieno di dischi interessanti e possibili ritorni. Iniziamo con gli album annunciati e per i quali è prevista una data di rilascio, per poi arrivare a quelli che speriamo arrivino, ma non c’è ancora molto di certo.

1. Tame Impala - The Slow Rush (Interscope, 2020)

La band nata dal genio di Kevin Parker ci ha tratto in inganno anche l’anno scorso, quando pensavamo sarebbe arrivato il momento di ascoltare il seguito del celebre Currents, disco del 2015 che ha visto i Tame Impala viaggiare verso direzioni più elettroniche, ma pur sempre psichedeliche, permettendogli di raggiungere il meritato status di una delle band alternative più importanti del decennio, grazie anche al percorso già compiuto coi due album precedenti. Finalmente il 14 febbraio 2020 sarà il momento in cui ascolteremo The Slow Rush, quarto disco in studio che sembra continuare sullo stesso filone di Currents, facendo anche tesoro delle eclettiche produzioni di Parker che l’hanno tenuto impegnato in questi anni. Ad anticiparlo i singoli It Might Be Time, Posthumorus Forgiveness e Lost In Yesterday, mentre gli altri due singoli Borderline e Patience sono stati scartati dalla tracklist finale.

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2. Grimes - Miss Anthropocene

Eravamo piuttosto sicuri di poter ascoltare il quinto disco della futuristica producer e cantante Grimes entro il 2019, e anche lei stessa sembrava convinta dati i numerosi teaser, ma dopo un paio di posticipazioni che si sono aggiunte ad un percorso già travagliatissimo e pieno di incomprensioni con l’etichetta non abbiamo sentito il seguito di Art Angels neanche quest’anno. Miss Anthropocene, questo il nome ufficiale del disco, non conterrà il singolo We Appreciate Power, ma tre nuovi singoli anticipati durante l’anno ed uscirà il 20 febbraio 2020.

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3. The 1975 - Notes On A Conditional Form

I The 1975, che forse l’anno scorso erano stati un pò troppo ambiziosi promettendo due dischi a distanza di pochi mesi di cui alla fine solo uno ha visto la luce, torneranno con sicurezza il 21 febbraio 2020 con l’atteso Notes On A Conditional Form, controparte di A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships del 2018. Ad anticiparlo i coraggiosissimi singoli The 1975 con Greta Thunberg, People - che ha conquistato una posizione nella nostra lista delle 50 Migliori Canzoni del 2019 - e Frail State Of Mind.

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4. Moses Sumney - græ

Nel 2017 Moses Sumney ci ipnotizzava con il debutto Aromanticism, adesso ritornerà con græ, un disco diviso in due parti: il primo verrà pubblicato digitalmente a febbraio, mentre il secondo ed in versione completa il 15 maggio 2020 anche negli store fisici. Ad anticiparlo i singoli Virile, Polly e Me in 20 Years.

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5. Pinegrove - Marigold (Rough Trade, 2020)

La band capitanata da Evan Stephens Hall, i Pinegrove, tornerà il 17 gennaio col terzo disco Marigold, il primo sotto la nuova etichetta Rough Trade. Ad anticiparlo i singoli Phase, Moment e The Alarmist.

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6. Brunori Sas - Cip!

Il quinto album di Dario Brunori, in arte Brunori Sas, uno dei cantautori italiani più riconosciuti dal grande pubblico, in realtà è gia uscito il 10 gennaio 2020, ma non possiamo escluderlo dalla lista in quanto Cip!, questo il nome del disco, è da considerarsi assolutamente una delle release più attese e rilevanti nel panorama italiano. I singoli estratti sono Per due che come noi e Al di là dell’amore.

7. Woodkid

Yoann Lemoine, noto anche con il nome d'arte di Woodkid, è un musicista, regista e compositore francese. Non lo sentiamo come solista già da un po' di anni e la sua assenza si percepita abbastanza, nonostante il suo ultimo disco sia il debutto The Golden Age del 2013, che però ha riscosso tantissimo successo grazie a dei fortunatissimi singoli. Durante questi anni ha composto la colonna sonora di Desierto, pellicola di Jonás Cuarón, figlio di Alfonso Cuarón, ma abbiamo assistito ad un silenzio artistico per quanto riguarda i progetti personali. Qualche mese fa, però, la situazione è cambiata nel momento in cui Lemoine ha pubblicato un teaser in cui ha annunciato il suo ritorno per il 2020.

8. Sky Ferreira - Masochism

La cantante Sky Ferreira era sulla bocca di tutti nel 2013 quando ha pubblicato il debutto Night Time, My Time. Negli anni successivi è scomparsa dando sue notizie saltuariamente e rivelando, cercando sempre di proteggere la sua dimensione privata, di star affrontando un difficile percorso per ripulirsi da una tossicodipendenza. Dopo un po' di tempo ha sentito il bisogno di tornare alla musica, suggerendo l’arrivo di un secondo disco che però non ha mai visto la luce. L’artista ha partecipato agli ultimi dischi di Iceage e Charli XCX, annunciato il titolo del prossimo album, Masochism, e pubblicato il singolo Downhill Lullaby, ma non si è mai sbilanciata su una data precisa di rilascio.

9. Idles - Toneland

La band punk più carina di sempre non ha mai mostrato segni di rallentamento. E’ dal 2018, con l’uscita dell’eccellente Joy As An Act Of Resistance, che gli inglesi Idles si stanno guadagnando il meritato successo tra live indimenticabili e nomination al Mercury Prize. In numerose interviste hanno dichiarato di avere nel cassetto un paio di canzoni e si sono divertiti a stuzzicarci con foto in studio e didascalie che suggeriscono che il seguito del secondo album potrebbe arrivare molto presto. A tal proposito, in uno degli ultimi post su Instagram hanno rivelato il nome del nuovo disco, Toneland, che aspettiamo con impazienza nei prossimi dodici mesi.

10. Iosonouncane - IRA

Fonti vicine a Iacopo Incani, in arte Iosonouncane, ci rivelavano già quest’estate che il sardo che ha sconvolto la musica italiana con DIE del 2015 era al lavoro col suo terzo disco in studio, che già allora sembrava essere a buon punto. Il mese scorso, però, arriva la notizia ufficiale: il terzo disco di Iosonouncane, IRA, arriverà nella primavera del 2020 e sarà presentato in anteprima in varie città italiane con sette concerti.

MENZIONI A:

Daft Punk

Uno dei colpi più grossi in apertura del nuovo decennio potrebbero assestarlo i leggendari Daft Punk. Secondo Has It Leaked? infatti il duo francese sarebbe in studio a registrare l’attesissimo quinto album che potrebbe uscire nel 2020. Il ritorno dei Daft Punk si fa attendere da sei lunghissimi anni e dopo l’eccellente Random Access Memories la traiettoria del duo promette di essere ancora brillantemente in salita nonostante gli anni di carriera.

#articoli

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thepointyview-blog · 7 years

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The Unexpected Dwellers – The Pathogen Threat in Climate Change

Yamal Peninsula; north-west Siberia, Russia. Yamal means "End of the Land" in the language of the local people, the Nenets. Traditionally reindeer herders, the Nenets adopted a nomadic, challenging life style a long time ago. Extreme cold and harsh conditions of the tundra isolate (and protect) this ancient way of life against too much external influence. So much so, that to someone who reads about it for the first time – the above describes an oasis of ancient times, a challenge for human limits of endurance. The threat of (too much) human influence has been evident for a while though, following reports of enormous gas reserves trapped under the soil of the Yamal Peninsula. That, and reports of mysterious sinkholes appearing seemingly out of nowhere is what put the remote area in global news.

(Photo credit: Steve Morgan; http://www.stevemorganphoto.co.uk/index; for the Survival International “Nenets of Siberia” article, available here: http://www.survivalinternational.org/photo-stories/3198-the-nenets-of-siberia)

Until recently.

A bacteria frozen in the Siberian permafrost resurfaces for the first time in hundreds of years. The result – the local reindeer population starts dying-off and, inevitably, the local Nenets, shaping nearly every aspect of their lives around the reindeer population suffer losses too. A boy died and numerous others subjected to testing.

The cause – Bacillus anthracis, which „woke up“ from a reindeer carcass frozen in the permafrost. The bacteria causes anthrax, a disease transmissible by breathing, eating or wound contact with bacterial spores. It was discovered by Robert Koch (and was one of the first microbes identified as causative agents of disease), was also an important step in vaccine discoveries of Louis Pasteur, but is perhaps most known today because of its use as a biological weapon.

The cause of permafrost melting – a heat wave in 2016. Climate change. Arguably and evidently the consequence of the anthropocene. There have been reports of the reindeer population starving due to „unusual weather patterns“ that result in soil freezing too deep for the animals to feed on vegetation alongside this anthrax outbreak (You can read more about the science behind the observation here).

All of this seems to me like an elaborate introduction to a dystopian novel written for the modern reader – edgy, science-based, doom-and-gloom scenario. And, most of all, like all good dystopian literature since the beginning of the genre – it is absolutely credible.

Of course, it is not fiction but reality.

Now – no matter what is your opinion on climate change and the causes of The Big Warm, it is inevitable to accept that something IS happening to the climate. Globally. And even if you believe it is the non-human cause in nature for this, the melting is here and it has consequences. Normally, flooding the coastal cities and losing the polar caps and the glaciers is the go-to dooms-day scenario connected to climate change (and we most probably have Hollywood to thank for that), but it is the unpredictable and the unexpected which should make us think too at this point. Because a dam to protect the city from a flood we can build. But predict what and where will melt back into existence and how much potential it has to cause a global disaster – that is a bigger skeleton in the closet.

So – what is the potential in global outbreaks of old or new pathogens brought to you by climate change?

First - The delicate status-quo of our coexistence with pathogens is a matter of an arms-race more than anything else. And the arms-race goes well beyond humanity itself. Plants, animals, even bacteria and viruses themselves are under constant attack of their major environmental and biological villains. The story always has the same plot: a threat emerges – the host evolves a resistance (or applies an antibiotic to kill the threat) – the threat resists the resistance (or the antibiotic). Rewind. Repeat.

Second – If anywhere, the pathogens brought back to life are kept in pristine conditions in the permafrost, the frozen soil spanning large amounts of land mass near the polar circles. Permafrost melts partially each year – which is due to a normal temperature cycle. But since the temperature cycle reaches extremes more often then not these days – more permafrost is melting.

Third – The pathogens humans are specifically susceptible to are as ubiquitous as the burial sites of humans and animals who suffered from them in all the past years of humanity (and before humanity itself). Can they be „resurrected“? If the pathogen itself can recover its metabolism once nutrients and higher temperatures become available – they can. Bacteria, fungi, viruses, and additionally strains of all of them that modern medicine might have never even encountered.

And beyond the „waking up“, dangerous pathogens can simply shift geographically, due to increase in temperature, migration of a transmitting vector or appear in the aftermath of a natural disaster. Looking beyond human populations, the pathogen range to consider is much wider. Animal pathogens emerging where or when they usually don't might wipe out herds humans rely on, like in the case of reindeer of the Yamal Peninsula, or even indirectly impair the ecosystem by removing a crucial link. Plant pathogens threaten our entire food and feed stock, and their spreading is tightly connected by what we call weather on a local scale. However, with many and far-reaching consequences of the local changes, the cumulative effect on a global scale is undeniable – the climate itself is changing. And the pathogen pressure on ecosystems fluctuates with the change, usually with unpredictable patterns.

The Pointy View: While competing with many organisms much more evolved in surviving extreme conditions than humans are, it is inevitable to be become aware of our own fragility. At this point, the false sense of security in the admirable ability of humanity to endure needs a wake-up call – we are not entitled to such a lullaby of faith in our own wisdom. Geologically, we are mere infants. Biologically, possibly toddlers. To ignore what we must grow up to observe, predict and deal with is arrogant and self-destructive at best. In the opinion of many scientists (including me) climate change is a man-made disaster-in-the-making, not just for humans, but for all of the biosphere. Accepting that has to be the first step towards responsible management and sustainability. And, hopefully, the ability to mitigate the harm already done, at least where we can predict the consequences.

Sources and References:

1. “Yamal peninsula: The world's biggest gas reserves”, Luke Harding, The Guardian, 20.10.2009 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/oct/20/yamal-gas-reserves

2. „This Eerie Hole Opened Up at the 'End of the World'“, Hannah Goldberg, 16.07.2014 http://time.com/2992819/hole-siberia-yamal-peninsula/

3. „Russia anthrax outbreak affects dozens in north Siberia“, BBC News, 02.08.2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36951542

4. „2001 anthrax attacks“, Wikipedia, Access on 02.07.2017, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks

5. Forbes et al., „Sea ice, rain-on-snow and tundra reindeer nomadism in Arctic Russia“, November 2016, Biology Letters (The Royal Society Publishing) http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/12/11/20160466

Photo credit: Steve Morgan; http://www.stevemorganphoto.co.uk/index; for the Survival International “The Nenets of Siberia” article, available here: http://www.survivalinternational.org/photo-stories/3198-the-nenets-of-siberia)

#PointyView #Yamal #Siberia #Nenets #anthrax #climate change #bacteria #pathogen #reindeer #science #science blog #microbiology #science writing

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