Everyday Junglist
Bio
Practicing mage of the natural sciences (Ph.D. micro/mol bio), Thought middle manager, Everyday Junglist, Boulderer, Cat lover, No tie shoelace user, Humorist, Argan oil aficionado. Occasional LinkedIn & Facebook user
Stories (554/0)
An Update on the US Mexico Border Situation
Introduction As you go through life there are things you experience everyday that together form the reality of your world . Because you experience them personally and directly, you generally accept them as true and accurate. As a (hopefully) mostly sane and rational human you recognize that you may be being deceived and/or that what you are experiencing is not all there is. Moreover, you also recognize that other people's experiences, even in the same situation as you, are different then yours. However, even given those limitations of perspective, you feel that you understand the world you live in. You know, for example, that when you get in the car to go somewhere else, that you will be coming home later in the same condition as you left, alive, and unhurt. You know that you will not need to don body armor, or dodge a hail of gunfire as you swerve through crowded streets choked with smoke from burning barrels as far as the eye can see.
By Everyday Junglistabout 14 hours ago in FYI
Science, Magic, and Technology
In a story I published a few years back and more recently republished here I discussed the role of science in technological utopianism. For those who may not be familiar with technological utopianism a decent definition can be found at the beginning of Wikipedia’s entry on the subject.
By Everyday Junglista day ago in Futurism
The Greatest, Most Dynamic, Complex, and Diverse, But Least Popular Musical Genre Yet Invented, May Have Finally Erased an Enduring Blemish
If you are reading this then you are probably a junglist like myself. A lover of drum & bass/jungle music. Because of that fact there are at least three things that I know about you. Number one you are a very cool person with excellent tastes who I'd love to hang out with and happily call a friend. Number two you have had a variation of the following conversation way too many times in your life to count.
By Everyday Junglist14 days ago in Beat
The Depressing Truth on the Value of My Writing
I joined Vocal officially as a Vocal+ member in June of 2021. I began writing here shortly after my Medium account was suspended for the second time. It has yet to be reinstated despite multiple requests, and so I have continued to publish here for the past almost three years now. While at first I railed endlessly against their counterproductive censorship policies, absurd minimum word count requirements, bizarre "community" structure, and bare bones text editing capabilities I have come to accept the limitations and have developed something of a fondness for it. One thing that has not changed much since my Medium days is my popularity and viewership stats. I was never very popular there and that trend has continued apace. While I like to think I am a fairly decent to maybe even good writer, the general public continues to strongly disagree, at least based on the dollar value they have assigned to my work.
By Everyday Junglist17 days ago in Writers
Lawsuit Driven Decision Making
For the past nine months or so, my wife and I have been trying to conceive a child. It has been difficult for a number of reasons that would require an entirely different article to describe in detail. For purposes of this piece suffice to say because of our circumstances we have had to interact with medical professionals (obstetricians-gynecologists primarily but others as well) on a number of occasions. On two of those occassions highly consequential and difficult decisions with respect to course of treatment needed to be make. And when I say highly consequential I am not exaggerating, for my wife these decisions could mean literally life or death and/or the ability to ever conceive of a child naturally again.
By Everyday Junglist20 days ago in Psyche
A Writer's Warning to His Readers
When a person I know discovers I am a writer and informs me that they would like to read some of my stuff I am generally happy to point them in the direction of a few things I think they might find of interest. Depending on the person I may also give them one or more warnings about the content. Below you will find a list of some of those warnings and contraindications (to use drug industry parlance). I believe this may very well become the first thing I point any new reader to prior to reading anything else. It may save them and me from some serious future heartache.
By Everyday Junglist27 days ago in Writers
More Unsettling News on the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Situation
I was hoping today would bring some better news on the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) front, but was quickly disabused of that notion when I received word of what had transpired at a teleconference today featuring researcher's from Cornell's Veterinary Diagnostic Center. Unfortunately I was not able to attend but a colleague filled me in and provided a couple of relevant screenshots (included below) of some of the key information shared. I am currently trying to obtain a link to a recording of the event but as of this moment it has not yet been uploaded. Even in the absence of seeing that video the information in the two screenshots is disturbing for many reasons. From the dairy farm in Texas where 4000 cows were tested we see that dead birds (pigeons and grackles) were found on March 18 and then on the 20th, two days later, HPAI was detected in grackles and pigeons. Going to assume that means in the dead grackles and pigeons but not clear from this slide if that is the case or if was also detected in still living birds. That is a critical piece of information because with a 99% lethality rate there should not be many or any still living birds around to test positive. If there are it might suggest this particular variant has reduced lethality compared to wild-type. This is actually not a good thing as the ultra high lethality of the disease is one of the things that tends to limit its spread. Also, disturbing the fact that on 03/21 a cat on the farm (yet another mammal) tested positive for HPAI. No word on why the cat was tested, or if it was showing symptoms or its ultimate fate. HPAI has been detected in cats and dogs in European outbreaks but was thought to be incidental from them going after infected birds or playing with carcasses. They are usually not sick. In this particular instance if the cat actually gets sick that is a very different scenario and potentially highly problematic. I will be listening looking for news on the fate of this particular cat very closely and that information may be in the recording I am still waiting to be posted. Also on 03/21 we see that influenza sequences were detected in 2 cows nasal swabs which were then confirmed as H5N1 that same day. Then four days later on 03/25 the virus was isolated from milk, apparently within MSC cells. I believe these are Mesenchymal stem cells aka mesenchymal stromal cells or medicinal signaling cells, which are multipotent stromal cells that can differentiate into a variety of cell types, including osteoblasts (bone cells), chondrocytes (cartilage cells), myocytes (muscle cells) and adipocytes (fat cells). In any case the virus was present at very, very, very high levels and that fact, combined with some other data, suggests that the virus may actually be capable of replicating in milk.
By Everyday Junglist29 days ago in Earth
Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Has Made the Jump to Mammals and That is Very Scary
Had a very scary telephone call this morning with a number of my technical and business colleagues discussing various aspects of the news that highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI-H5N1) has apparently made the jump to mammals with confirmed or suspected cases in dairy cattle herds across the country and several people who had been in close contact with said cattle are said to have symptoms of the flu though there has been no official confirmation of either humans with symptoms or any confirmed human infections. Rumors are flying that beef cattle have also been infected though there has been no confirmation of that of which I, nor anyone on the call, was aware. The persons taking part in this particular call were some of the most well connected to all aspects of the dairy and beef industries as any in the world, so if it were known, they would have known it. I don't take much comfort from that fact however, and was very disturbed to learn this morning in the very first email I opened in my overflowing inbox that cases, or at least symptoms, in humans working with the infected dairy cattle had also been reported. If this is in fact accurate then we have the possibility that highly pathogenic avian influenza has not only made the jump to mammals in the form of dairy cattle, but that this particular variant of the H5N1 strain also has the ability to be transmitted from cows to humans. This is scary stuff and I will admit I am much more nervous about this then I ever was about Covid19. Highly pathogenic avian influenza is not called that for nothing. It is in fact highly pathogenic. Fatality rates in susceptible bird populations regularly reach 99%. The jump to mammals is a thing that has always been highly feared but felt unlikely to occur due to the ridiculously high virulence of HPAI. In addition to limiting the spread of the virus the high lethality rate means that it has historically been under very little evolutionary pressure to mutate and thus potentially gain the ability to more readily infect a non- avian species. This is very unlike seasonal flu in humans which is under a ton of selective pressure and mutates left and right. Thus the reason we need a new flu vaccine every year. The fatality rate in infected humans is closer to 50% which might sound like a good thing, but is actually probably a net negative as it gives the virus more time to spread. That said for a human to become infected takes a ridiculously high exposure as the virus is not at all well adapted for survival and replication in humans and there has never been a confirmed case of human to human transmission. If that ever were to change, thankfully we always have optimal virulence to save us from a human species level extinction catastrophe even in the worst case scenario.
By Everyday Junglist30 days ago in Earth
On the Rarity of Highly Virulent Human Pathogens
Author's note: Confirmed reports of highly pathogenic avian influenza in dairy herds and unconfirmed reports of humans working closely with said cattle showing symptoms of the flu have me more then a little uneasy today. Working on another story to publish shortly with more on that however it got me thinking about optimal virulence and an article I had published many years ago on the topic. When I searched for it I could not find that I had ever published here on Vocal so presenting it now here again for the first time. I was thinking a lot about computer viruses at the time so that is a big part of the discussion.
By Everyday Junglistabout a month ago in Humans
In Defense of Chaos
Chaos gets an undeservedly bad rap. As someone who admittedly has something of an attraction to chaos I have spent a great deal of time pondering what it is exactly about chaotic things and situations I find so appealing. An easy and lazy answer relates to my dread of boredom. Let's face it, order is a lot more boring than chaos. While this may be part of the answer it is not even close to all of it, and in this piece I will provide alternative arguments in defense of chaos. First off, I don't think it is much of a stretch to suggest that my opinion of the value of chaos runs counter to the majority of persons who it seems hold the exact opposite viewpoint. To most, chaos is a thing to be avoided and minimized. It provides no positive benefit, instead it only sows confusion, or reduces efficiency, or is responsible for a million other negative consequences. In the past I have been called both an "agent of chaos" and "bringer of chaos." I took no offense at the time and believe both to be fairly accurate characterizations which I take pride in, though I do not believe they were said necessarily as compliments.
By Everyday Junglistabout a month ago in Humans