Soccer: fast lane to dementia?

When I was 8 years old I would ferociously head heavy old leather soccer balls to the point of getting the nickname "Bullethead Smith", and this continued on as I was playing in central defense throughout my teens. After that the balls became lighter, I would say, and nowadays when I head a ball there is no shock whatsoever. But, as that fish in the restaurant aquarium tank in the Monty Python movie "Meaning of Life" said, when it saw its friend being eaten, reports like this "make you sort of think, don't they"?

Just wonderful

It was just wonderful to welcome my ex-boss, Martin Karplus to ORNL for the Wigner Lecture the 25th birthday celebrations of the ORNL Leadership Computing Facility last week.

87 years old, but still unbelievably sharp, and still working hard, he is still asking important questions in his research.

In my opinion he is among the most accomplished of the Nobel Laureates.

43 years of losing

Well, last weekend, my team, Amazingly Average, won the 2017 Knoxville Metro Soccer League Silver  tournament.

There I am, in the middle at the back, victoriously brandishing our champions T-shirt.

The last time I won a soccer championship was 43 years ago, when my high school team (Earlham) won the city cup of Norwich.
The 1974 City Schools team is below, with me, again in the middle,  of course,
holding the ball.

Since then I haven't won anything.

Played a lot, every year, but never won a cup. Not a sausage. Bugger all.

43 solid years of losing. Not sure I anticipated that in 1974.

Life, eh?

The Column of Nelson

Our hometown hero, he is (or, apparently, was).
Born in my county of birth, went to school in my city, then commanded the British Fleet that gave Napoleon a right good spanking at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 (where, romantically, he died).





You could always tell the difference between Napoleon and Nelson, because Napoleon held his only arm like this, whereas Nelson held his like that.(*).

Now, apparently, enlivened by the Confederate monument debate, people want to remove his statue from Trafalgar Square because he supported the slave trade. But in that case should we not also be pulling down statues of Mandela, who was a terrorist, and Gandhi, who was an anti-African racist, and Churchill, who said that 'Ghandhi-ism and everything it stands for will have to be crushed'  and Reagan, who supported genocidal dictators, and for that matter, shouldn't we be destroying everything Roman and the Great Wall of China (which killed millions, including a million workers  who were forced to build it)?

Go ahead if you want. I don't care. Pull down Nelson's column. I never thought much of worshipping politicians or the military and I'm not a great fan of statues.  But if so, pull everything  down, please (**). Just like ISIS did in Palmyra...

* quote from 1066 and All That
** I'm not being serious, of course.

2017 ORNL Futbol Game

Mentors versus Interns  it was. The Mentors always win, of course. We can't let those young punks get too cocky. So this time we were 3-2 down at half time and so we cancelled the second half due to rain. Now, in TN when you abandon a game before the second half it becomes invalid, meaning the result from last year (which we of course won) carries over and applies this year as well. So we won. And, anyway, as Budhu stated in the official FIFA match report, the rain 'prevented the greatest Mentor comeback in history'. So there.

Outrageous Theory

I arrived to start a PhD at the Institut Laue Langevin in Grenoble in September 1982 a day late (having missed the boat and been 'repatriated' back to England with just my passport and 2 pounds).   I soon found the ILL to be organized into 'Colleges' of which 'College 1' was Theory. It was lead by a brilliant chap called Philippe Nozieres and seemed to be full of theoretical physicists.

I didn't have much to do with them, but there were quite a few grumblings about the theory college over the years;  about them not talking much to experimentalists, being aloof, superfluous etc. ORNL doesn't have one.

But just before I was at ILL, from 1977-1981, Duncan Haldane was there for a postdoc. He did work on quantum-mechanical spin systems that was so outrageous that nobody believed it and it was impossible to publish in  a journal,  residing just as an  ILL preprint. This work was later found by neutron experiments to be correct, and was critical to Haldane winning the 2016 Physics Nobel Prize. If you want more details, Tim Ziman (who I had a wonderful hike in Alaska with) wrote about it here and the ILL wrote about it here.

I don't think the way the national labs, and science in general, are organized particularly fosters the kind of research Haldane did at ILL. But a  theory group could be a good idea, and perhaps DOE might like to consider setting one up at ORNL, after all?

Helmut Kohl

An alumnus of Heidelberg University who championed German reunification.  I never really understood why the West Germans were so keen on this, as it came at a high  economic cost.

The Tennessee Torpedo

Christian Coleman - 9.82s. The fourth fastest American ever, and he's only a Junior!

The 2018 Trump Administration Science Budget

Scientists don't do universal good.
Take Fritz Haber, for example. He invented the technique for synthesizing ammonia, which has been invaluable to agriculture. The food production for half the world's population depends on his method for producing nitrogen fertilizers.  But he was also the "Father of Chemical Warfare". Hmm...

But it is easy to show that science is what propels technological development and that government-funded science is essential for this, so it is baffling why the administration want to cut the science budget of NIH by 22%, DOE by 15% and NSF by 13%. Yes, I know they want to cut overhead grants, and a sensible discussion about that is always useful, but who would then build the buildings in which science is done?

Are they doing it just to save money? In fact I might consider myself more of a fiscal conservative than most Republican politicians.  Why? Because I would be in favor of keeping both the military and mandatory elements of the federal budget under control, whereas they wish to inflate the former (through blind ideology) and ignore the latter (through fear of losing votes).

Let's hope the Congress does its job and reverses this policy. As President Obama said in 2011, cutting investment in innovation is like lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its engines. It may make you feel like you're flying high at first, but it won't be long before you feel the impact.

March for Science?

Did ancient astronauts perambulate on Earth?  Does the Full Moon influence human behavior?
Do we need  medicine to be evidence-based; or should we try some colon cleansing,  or a detox, or faith healing, or homeopathy, or Ayurveda based on quantum mysticism?

In the absence of facts and proof, people need something to cling on to, something to believe in. That's normal, and has historically determined a large part of human behavior. But in the last couple of centuries a discipline has been embraced that can separate fact from fiction: science. Science tells us what the result will be when  the natural world is acted on in a certain way - what happens if we strike a ball, or mix chemicals together - and often tells us why, in a logical, theoretical framework.
The West  embraced science, and it fueled the technological revolution of the last century. But there is much more to do; we need to cure harmful diseases, find efficient, non-polluting forms of energy, new materials, and to understand the environment.

But since I have been back in the USA, i.e., for the last 10 years, reason, in general, and science, in particular, have been  under particularly strong attack,  from people who can't accept proven facts. They are denying the science because it doesn't fit their beliefs or feelings or desires.

For example:

- Many people still don't believe in evolution; others think GMO is dangerous.
- Many people don't believe in climate change; others think vaccines are  dangerous.
- Many people believe the Earth is only a few thousand years old; others believe in astrology.

These beliefs don't tally with the demonstrated facts, and so people believing them live at least to some degree in an alternate reality.

The problem is that more and more people in power in the USA are not accepting these facts as well. They are ignoring established facts in setting policy, and sometimes don't even want the truth to be determined, and so they advocate axing the science research programs that find the facts out.

Take climate change. Arguing what, if anything, to do about it is one thing. That is politics.
Denying that it exists, or saying you don't want to know whether it exists (which is effectively what stopping climate research would do)  is another. That is dangerous.
And the same goes for other critical issues in health, technology, energy and the environment.

Now, I am probably not going to March for Science on Saturday, mainly because the marches do not appear to be just for science, but for other issues as well, such as  diversity, inclusion, equity etc; and in choosing Earth Day they seem to be choosing which science they support most. Not that I disagree with these other issues per se, but I think that they are complicated and deserve separate consideration.

More importantly, though: welcome back to ignorance, America; I guess you were never very far away from us.

Snap UK Election

So Theresa May has called a snap general election in the UK. A sorry affair. Sadly, she will have scant opposition. This is regretful, given her stance destroying Britain's relationship with Europe. The British only very narrowly (52:48) voted to leave the EU. This means that, of the various choices, a Soft Brexit should have been pursued, in which the free trade area is maintained. In contrast, though, May and her cohort have insisted on a Hard Brexit, effectively cutting all ties, which will do irreparable damage to the UK. This is clearly against the will of the people.

But opposition to her party has imploded.  The Labour party is useless, failing to oppose Brexit, and with a deeply unpopular Marxist leader who even his own parliamentarians hate. Nationalist UKIP has no further reason to exist. The Lib Dems, the only politicians talking any sense these days, will profit but are a tiny parliamentary party.

Things look grim in the Sceptered Isle.

United or City?

Well, the soccer team that I have fervently supported since I was 6 months old (ahem!) has gone down the tubes. Norwich City, languishing in the hinterlands of the English Second Division, has now lost all hope of promotion back into the limelight this year, has fired their coach and, even worse, failed to beat our sweet, dear associates Ipswich Town, even though this time I was there to see them. Inconsiderate!!

In the meantime a new entity has been born, bloomed, expanded and is enticing us.

Atlanta United!

The newest MLS franchise. 55,000 fans at the inaugural game.
Excitement. Passion.
The chance to give those Red Bulls a good licking.
Just 3 1/2 hours down the interstate.
Hmmm.......City or United? Will allegiance here be threatened?.....

Lignocelluose + cellulase

Untreated lignocellulose

Gorgeous pictures (of our simulations).

Thanks to Thomas Splettstoesser of scisstyle.com for doing these graphics. This one is lignocellulose with cellulase enzymes. More to follow....

The Trump Travel Ban

OK, here's a "drunk blog". I may regret it in the morning.

I don't like too many immigrants, even though I am one. The reason is I don't like them is that immigration is fueling the population explosion in the USA and this is leading to environmental stress.

And I don't like terrorists. 57 virgins? Good luck with that.

And I don't mind 'racial profiling'. Makes sense to me.

And I don't cow-tow to this 'welcoming refugees' soppiness (although I do think that, having been a major initiator of their distress, we should do a hell of a lot more to alleviate their problems wherever they happen to be right now).

But a blanket ban on LEGAL immigrants? On scholars? Entrepreneurs? SCIENTISTS?

An INDISCRIMINATE blanket ban?

The collateral damage is just too great from this one.

Welcome back to the Dark Ages

Just finished watching Theresa May's "Brexit speech".  So a "hard Brexit" it is then. She claims Britain cannot remain in the single market because then it would be "just as if we hadn't left". Not true, Theresa. The UK voted to leave the EU, and that is exactly what a soft Brexit, in which the UK remains in the single market and accepts free movement of people, would do. The UK voted very narrowly to leave, by 51% to 48%. The narrowness of this victory should obviously be interpreted as a vote for a soft Brexit.

Now I agree with all who state that the EU has failed miserably in protecting its borders. Putting in place practical measures to strengthen this should be central to talks. But May's speech shows that the wingnut, Empire-harking  isolationists have taken over the Government, in a foretaste of  years of political uncertainty in the UK; years of efforts wasted in massive renegotiations that could have been avoided.

Welcome back, the Dark Ages.