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Good ideas and essential ideas – a comparison

Good ideas are those that might be useful in some situations or with some fine-tuning to make them work well or to fit a particular situation.

Essential ideas are those that would be useful in all situations because they address basic facts about nature. Essential ideas would be helpful with fine tuning to particular situations or not – they pertain to physics and physiology. Gravity works basically the same in all situations on earth but would be different on different planets. Physiology – the physics of the human body and other life forms also works basically the same throughout all humans and for many types of species. Some fine tuning for slight differences across species or for different groups of humans might be needed for best results but the underlying physics of physiology works roughly the same for much of life. Nature loves a good design and repeats it from single celled organisms through much of the plant and animal world.

I keep sharing information in the hope that it can be useful for creating a more sustainable society. Our current trajectory is heading towards extinction for the human race and many other species because we are polluting the environment in ways that reduce health and fertility for our own species and across the plant and animal world and for single-celled organisms. We are also polluting the air and water and soil in ways that are affecting weather and climate and ocean physics/physiology. Ocean water is somewhat alive in that it is the host for many microorganisms and is somewhat like blood plasma for the planet. Between the rain and ground water and ocean water there is a cycle that can clean toxins but only within a range of acidity and then the chemistry is tipped towards less oxygen and less support of the life-forms that we are similar to and accustomed to living with. Much of geological history during the early years of Earth the type of life that predominated was sulfur-loving bacteria – humans would not have been able to survive in that environment.

Ignoring physiology and physics is not a good idea. Sustainability and respect for nature is an essential idea.

Examples from a few recent posts – the solar windmill air cleaning ideas are examples of good ideas that might be implausible as I wrote them but with some fine-tuning by mechanical and chemical engineers might become plausible and helpful ideas. (Imagining solar windmills)

The information about phospholipids and fertility and nutrition are essential ideas that will always be important for humans and in the care of the environment for supporting many other species that we value – more than we value or could survive if sulfur loving bacteria become the predominate type of microorganisms living on the planet again. (Phospholipid and infant formula) (Phospholipid and fertility)

The chemical invented by humans initially as an antibiotic and mineral chelator that is now being used in large quantities as an agricultural herbicide (glyphosate) may also be inhibiting the function of CYP enzymes which are needed for many important functions in metabolism for humans and plants and animals and single celled organisms – 195000 search results: (CYP enzymes and phosphorylation) Farmers are now being recommended to rotate fields where the herbicide Roundup/glyphosate containing herbicides are in use because it has been found to build up in the soil and can affect crop yield due to inhibition/destruction of the actively growing root tips.

Phospholipids can be made in average healthy humans but the process does require phosphorylation – the question to ask yourself is: What percentage of infertility and birth defects will be too much? When will we stop polluting our environment and our food supply with chemicals that cause infertility, birth defects and other types of chronic illness and cancer? Agricultural workers and people living near agricultural fields are the ones most prone to cancer and some other rare diseases. Is that what we want from our food supply?

Coastal areas near agricultural areas (ocean dead zones map) and some regions of the Pacific Ocean (Pacific coastal dead zones) are now without oxygen – sulfur-loving bacteria can survive without oxygen. Far more information on sulfur-loving bacteria than the average person probably knew existed, is available online, in free full text, thanks for sharing: (Biochemistry and molecular biology of lithotrophic sulfur oxidation by taxonomically and ecologically diverse bacteria and archaea)

Some of the types of sulfur-loving microbes are how life exists in extreme climates such as thermal heat vents in deep ocean areas. A few have evolved as symbiotic species living within larger organisms and which provide energy in low oxygen or oxygen free areas of the ocean for species of mussels and tubeworms. Sulfate sources allows growth in environments that lack oxygen and light. Even they need to be able to metabolize phosphorus – it is used in enzymes to metabolize energy. Sulfur loving bacteria may need to make the enzymes: “adenosine 5′‐phosphosulfate (APS) reductase” and “ATP sulfurylase” Other types of bacteria can grow in environments that lack oxygen but have light. Extremely acidic briny marshes and highly saline salty marshes also can support life for some of the group of anoxygenic (don’t need oxygen) photolithotrophic (can make energy from light) bacteria:

 “However, diverse groups of optimally adapted anoxygenic photolithotrophic bacteria thrive in moderately extreme temperature, pH or salinity conditions, and act as primary producers in such unusual habitats (Madigan, 2003).” – (Biochemistry and molecular biology of lithotrophic sulfur oxidation by taxonomically and ecologically diverse bacteria and archaea)

Even arsenic-loving bacteria able to grow in extreme environments  need phosphorus. Six nutrients are essential to all life forms, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulphur. there was some controversy over a new type of bacteria that was discovered because it can substitute arsenic for phosphorus in some of its chemical composition but further study showed that it also needs some phosphorus. (Arsenic-loving bacteria needs phosphorus after all)

Why care about phosphorus? Because we all need it and the Earth’s supply of bioactive phosphorus is in limited supply. Estimates suggest that at the rate it is currently being used in agriculture (wastefully, without being recycled back into the growing cycle) that we have about forty years supply left for the planet. That is two generations of people – what are we going to tell our great grandchildren? Sorry kids we enjoyed life but you have to figure out something else – or enjoy extinction.

More traditional farming methods used recycled fertilizers such as composted manure or compost made from other vegetative material such as last year’s leaves and lawn clippings. The current chemical fertilizer is more wasteful in that it gets washed off into ground water and eventually ends up in coastal waters where algae overfeed on the excess nutrients, using up available oxygen in the process and then dying off leaving dead zones with no oxygen and no more excess phosphorus in the coastal region. So returning to more traditional agricultural methods that conserve phosphorus and cause less runoff into coastal regions leading to less dead zones in those areas of the ocean seems like an essential idea for our great great grandchildren and like a good idea for us to tackle right now, this generation.

Recognizing that phosphorylation is an essential part of health and fertility and that some people, such as infants, need an external source in their diet seems like an essential idea for this generation if we hope to have a healthy generation of grandchildren or great great grandchildren.

Disclosure: This information is being provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of Fair Use. While I am a Registered Dietitian this information is not intended to provide individual health care guidance. Please seek an individual health care provider for individualized health care guidance.

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Connecting to the past through words

The written word allowed mankind to share knowledge in the present and across time. We can learn from others experience when it is shared in a written or audio format. Storytelling and reciting from memory was how history was passed down through generations for much of human history. The alphabet and written text in its various languages and appearance changed human culture.

Kurt Vonnegut was an exceptional wordsmith, crafter of words both real and of his own creation. To connect any interested readers or writers, in brief, I returned to the bookstore for a copy of Timequake to give to a friend and instead found a book that fills in yet more gaps in the biography, The Brothers Vonnegut, and autobiography/novel Timequake. Armageddon in Retrospect, And Other New and Unpublished Writings on War and Peace, (Berkley Books, 2008, New York), by Kurt Vonnegut, Introduction by Mark Vonnegut (one of his sons who is also a writer) is a collection of unpublished short stories and letters including one that was mentioned in both Timequake and The Brothers Vonnegut.

The letter was published in a newspaper after WWII. It is the initial, oh, you may not have heard yet family, but I’m not dead and no longer Missing In Action, letter to his lived ones. I haven’t read past the letter. Tears in my eyes make it difficult to read – or write. War is bad. We need to be reminded of that everyday until we figure out how to manage life more humanely. I share the hope that humans can do that soon.

Learning to write better may be a goal which reading well written words can help achieve. Learning to live better may be a bonus.

Previous post about The Brothers Vonnegut: https://transcendingsquare.com/2018/03/01/who-owns-science-or-should-all-ideas-be-shared/

Previous post about Timequake: https://transcendingsquare.com/2018/03/05/timequake-a-novel-by-kurt-vonnegut/

Disclosure: This information is being provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of Fair Use.

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Timequake, a novel by Kurt Vonnegut

Timequake as a work of fiction isn’t quite and as an autobiography might also leave a few bewildered readers unless they were regular readers of Kurt Vonnegut. Surreal fiction that isn’t quite science fiction but which also isn’t quite based in the real world is a norm for the books I remember besides the book he is best known for. Slaughterhouse Five is novel that describes his experiences in World War II during which he was captured and held as a Prisoner of War. Conditions were intolerable and many other soldiers who were captured died. The experience left Kurt Vonnegut going that peace would be achieved after the war.

Timequake (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1997) is the last novel Kurt Vonnegut wrote and he was in his seventies at the time. In a recent post I discussed a biography that is a history based on a variety of archived material about he and his brother Bernard Vonnegut, a weather/cloud seeding scientist, and other scientists from the era, and interviews from a few surviving family members. https://transcendingsquare.com/2018/03/01/who-owns-science-or-should-all-ideas-be-shared/

The nonfiction book and novel include some of same stories from the family’s history but written in different styles. Both books provide an interesting look into the effort involved in building a successful writing career. While the nonfiction biography/history was written more recently it was helpful to read it first as it provides more detail in consecutive order about Kurt Vonnegut and his family and it helped provide a better understanding of some of the pain and difficulty that may have led to some of the more surreal and cryptic stories that Kurt Vonnegut included in Timequake. 

Part of the book includes a storyline that is fiction but which is also somewhat autobiographical because the main character is an author that he considered somewhat of an alter ego. Nice to have a fictions voice to say the things that polite society wouldn’t say or might not want to hear. The storyline is what the title is derived from, all the characters including Kurt Vonnegut are supposedly trapped in a Timequake and they are having to repeat everything they did in the previous ten years over the course of the next ten years. When time unfreezes again people aren’t prepared for a return of free will. The author character tells them:

‘You were sick, but now you’re well again, and there’s work to do,’

The phrase catches on and more people start to repeat it.

The underlying theme is about peace and ending gun violence. It is also about appreciating each other and the little things in life more than television shows. It is about self respect and holding yourself together when it might be difficult. The book is timely and may leave your self respect slightly shredded at points but you may arrive on the other end of the Timequake stronger and ‘there’s work to do,’ so it may be worth the slight shredding. An example:

‘Men are insane. Women are psychotic.’

Having survived being a Prisoner of War and the Allie’s carpet bombing of Dresden may give some license for questioning human nature and the line isn’t flattering to either gender. Six of one, half a dozen of the other – who among us is completely sane at all times?

The title may have to do with an experience mentioned on page 129 that occurred after the Allie’s won WWII but Kurt Vonnegut hadn’t returned home yet. He and another soldier found a Nazi soldier as he lay dying. The soldier asked them to leave him to die and then signaled that he had something else to say. Last words? They listened:

‘I have just wasted the past ten years of my life,’ he said.

Kurt Vonnegut followed the story with a line describing the last words as a Timequake.

The Nazi soldier is dead and far more than ten years were lost in WWII but there is always tomorrow for the rest of us who are still reading and thinking.

‘You were sick, but now you’re well again, and there’s work to do.‘

Disclosure: This information is being shared for the purpose of education or entertainment within the guidelines of Fair Use. Opinions and any errors in the summarized material are my own.