Week 6 Roses in Our Winter
A quiet week...picking up clients, dentist, keeping the home fires burning...
I seem to have "found" quite a few things that struck a nerve - I copy them to Google Keep and then look again later - usually Sunday mornings.
I don't always make a note of where I read it or heard it...
I've had this one for a while - on aging - I'm keeping up with most of it...I dug it up again after news of an old workmate passing on - also aged 72...
1. Stay active. If you’re not active, start. Exercise is vital to aging well. Even something as simple as daily walking.
2. Companionship. Friends, even pets, are good for us. Especially when we lose a spouse.
3. Read. Your mind is like a muscle. Use it or lose it. Don’t sit on the couch absorbed in television. If your eyes are bad, try audio-books.
4. Healthy food. Doritos aren’t good for you at 30. They’re even worse at 80. Eat healthily.
5. Preventive medicine. Stay on top of medications and doctor appointments. Be proactive about your health.
6. Dress up. Don’t be that guy in the dining hall wearing pajamas or sweats. Dressing a bit more elegantly can make you feel better.
7. Laugh. I don’t know why, but humor heals. Also, it defangs the things that scare us.
8. Forgive. There’s just something liberating about releasing others from their sins. And it heals you, too.
9. Embrace memories. George Will calls memories “roses in our winter.” Celebrate them. They'll keep you warm when it's cold out.
10. Believe in something bigger than yourself. Your faith. The universe. There is more than we see here, and there is peace in that.
11. Passion. Creativity and art enrich our lives. Painting. Crafting. Woodworking. Quilting. Try one!
Global Warming
Global Warming worries me, but even more worrying is that most people can't do anything about it - we're all too busy simply making ends meet these days...
and those with a stake in the future wont look up from their phones....oh well...
If there’s one chance to find enlightenment in time before curtains, it’ll come out of today’s young people and the generations after them. Young people know the deal they’re facing and they understand it at a gut level. Older generations are mostly asleep or in denial.
The farmers seem to have the upper hand at the moment in their protests about having to do something (anything?) about nitrogen (nitrous oxide) production - something has to give...
The Al Franken Podcast this morning discussed the role of Big Money in American Politics - if only they didn't have such an influence on the rest of the world...(sigh)
Covid Related
From the BBC, I think
The story started off about how important one's curiosity can be... for example, a chap (scientist of some sort) spent his holidays going to Yellowstone National Park (early 1960's) - and was interested in the hot mud pools - one of the Rangers told him that there was algae, so he took some samples home over a period of 6 years and wrote a book about a life form that he had discovered - "Thermus Aquaticus"
But the story took an even more significant turn ten years later. Kary Mullis, a biochemist, was trying to create a faster way to copy DNA using enzymes — but the process he was designing required a lot of heat, he didn’t have any enzyme that could readily endure it, making it hard to scale.
Then one day he found the book : Brock and Hudson’s Thermus aquaticus. Bingo: It thrived in heat, which is precisely the condition he was looking for. Using T. aquaticus, Mullis found the enzyme Taq polymerase, which could do the high-temperature copying necessary. Mullis wound up creating a process that could rapidly generate millions of duplicates. It’s a trick that’s incredibly useful for everything from police investigators trying to isolate crime-scene DNA to doctors trying to diagnose diseases.
Mullis co-won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for inventing this concept. You’ve probably heard of it: It’s called Polymerase Chain Reaction, or PCR for short.
But the story took an even more significant turn ten years later. Kary Mullis, a biochemist, was trying to create a faster way to copy DNA using enzymes — but the process he was designing required a lot of heat, he didn’t have any enzyme that could readily endure it, making it hard to scale.
Then one day he found the book : Brock and Hudson’s Thermus aquaticus. Bingo: It thrived in heat, which is precisely the condition he was looking for. Using T. aquaticus, Mullis found the enzyme Taq polymerase, which could do the high-temperature copying necessary. Mullis wound up creating a process that could rapidly generate millions of duplicates. It’s a trick that’s incredibly useful for everything from police investigators trying to isolate crime-scene DNA to doctors trying to diagnose diseases.
Mullis co-won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for inventing this concept. You’ve probably heard of it: It’s called Polymerase Chain Reaction, or PCR for short.
Hydrogen as an alternative for home heating??
An industry lobby group has been pushing hydrogen as an alternative, but some argue that the race is already over, with so many electrical heat pumps already installed
On Thursday (9 February), the industry committee in the European Parliament will cast an important vote setting out how the bloc can decarbonise its building stock by 2050. (Don't know yet how it went).
This includes greener forms of heating for the approximately 130 million buildings within the member states, 90 percent of which are residential housing.
'Using hydogen as a source for general heating will push up the price for industries that actually need it, making industries less competitive' .
Heating is the single most important driver of energy consumption in Europe, responsible for 35 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. This makes the so-called Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) a crucial measure of success of the bloc's sustainability policies.
According to a feasibility study by the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology published in February, green hydrogen is two to three times more expensive than electrified heat pumps.
It is the latest in a long list of studies that similarly conclude hydrogen is not fit for heating.
This is due to energy losses incurred during hydrogen production, transport and direct use. According to research from Agora Energiewende hydrogen is up to 84 percent less efficient as a source of heating than direct electrification of heatpumpts in the residential sector.
And while hydrogen heating doesn't exist yet outside of a few small pilot projects, markets for heat pumps have already taken off and doubled in some EU countries in 2022, with some 20 million units installed in the EU.
European suicide rate...
(11 per day in Spain alone)
Within the EU, not all countries include psychological care within public health care despite the fact that in 2019 nearly 60,000 people committed suicide. In those that do, some link access to co-payment. In other words, a financial barrier to accessing this type of care.
More than half of those affected are adults aged between 40 and 64, who are more likely to be at the head of a family, plus particularly foreigners.
However, it is the youngest people who are not visible to the naked eye. Although the progression of the suicide rate among younger people has not increased so markedly, "there is evidence of an increase in risk factors and suicidal behaviour" in this sector of Spanish society, stresses the author of the study.
Not only in Spain. From 2018 to 2020, in Belgium, the prevalence of anxiety doubled among young people, the unemployed, and people living alone, who recorded higher rates of anxiety and depression.
Within the EU, not all countries include psychological care within public health care despite the fact that in 2019 nearly 60,000 people committed suicide. In those that do, some link access to co-payment. In other words, a financial barrier to accessing this type of care.
More than half of those affected are adults aged between 40 and 64, who are more likely to be at the head of a family, plus particularly foreigners.
However, it is the youngest people who are not visible to the naked eye. Although the progression of the suicide rate among younger people has not increased so markedly, "there is evidence of an increase in risk factors and suicidal behaviour" in this sector of Spanish society, stresses the author of the study.
Not only in Spain. From 2018 to 2020, in Belgium, the prevalence of anxiety doubled among young people, the unemployed, and people living alone, who recorded higher rates of anxiety and depression.
The Boat Trip
I have planned the first leg - With Janny to Utrecht - 190kms - approx 21 hours motoring - but probably more for me :) with stops at Blokzijl, Biddinghuizen, Almere Haven, Weesp and a few days in Utrecht before Janny catches the train home...
The last time Jacoba was in Utrecht - the train station is about 1km behind the boat.
Train Travel
There seems to be a lot of talk of new train travel projects...
The European Commission is going to ‘pull out all the stops’ to help new Dutch-Belgian rail operator European Sleeper start a nightly sleeper service between Amsterdam and Barcelona from 2025. The commission is supporting 14 schemes for international rail connections to promote sustainable train travel over flying.
Preparations for the construction of the Wunderline, the fast railway line between Groningen and Bremen, started this week. In Ihrhove, a village between Leer and Papenburg, the shovel was put into the ground on Monday and that is the start of a whole series of activities that should lead to the first trains running on the new railway line at the end of next year.
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