Strongarch Academic Services

It was an honour and a pleasure to be invited to present at the recent AANZP Scientific Meeting.

The presentations were very good, and were on the general theme of AI and the future of dentistry.

I spoke on my vision of how and why the future of healthcare lies in AI mediated diagnosis and treatment planning, as well as in fully automated surgery. I also spoke about what I believe to be the key role of autonomous robotic dentistry as the gateway technology for general autonomous surgery. In addition, some of the work from my dental robotics team was presented.

It was also the first time Strongarch supported a meeting with a trade display, which was ably handled by my beautiful wife and partner Xiyan.

Thanks to Ken Hooi and the broader conference committee for the opportunity to participate in a great meeting.

We Present at the AANZP Scientific Meeting It was great fun and a real honour to be invited to present at the recent Association of Australian and New Zealand Prosthodontists, on some of the work we h...

Campfires are a delight, but in bushfire prone country, are often unsafe, disallowed and frowned upon.

I’d not made a campfire since I was a boy, and like everything in our new ‘Nomad Professor’ mode, it was a challenge making the first one.

First Fire

First Fire We camp for the first time in an isolated desert location about 40 km North of Broken Hill at Mout Gipps Stay Station, which is on the traditional lands of t...

When I was made Head of my Discipline of Oral Pathology, and moved into the respective office, I decided to decorate the walls with images that I could point students towards by way of explanation and hopefully also inspiration.

One for example, was of great Australian scientists pictured on the ‘old Australian dollar notes’. Another was of a camera lucida drawing published in 1928 by a long forgotten scientist, Sandison. It clearly illustrated endothelial apoptosis contributing to wound maturation, a process I and other laboratories had been working for years to find, but that had just been published by a colleague. I only stumbled on Sandison’s image by accident, and had to laugh that we had all been unaware of Sandison’s much earlier work, done at a time before the term ‘apoptosis’ had been coined.

I also had a photo of the Acropolis I’d taken during a conference, because I saw that the roots of science were buried in Ancient Greek soil.

It’s nice to see that Bertrand Russel, for whom I have the greatest respect, had similar but of course far better thought out sentiments.

Why study Ancient Greek philosophy? Bertrand Russell explains the value and legacy.

“It is of course always invidious to make comparisons between different cultures, but if one were to characterise Western civilisation in a single short phrase, one may well say that it is built on an ethic of mental enterprise which is essentially found in Ancient Greece. In looking back over the philosophic endeavours of the Ancient world, one is struck by the extraordinary power of the Greek mind in discerning general problems. Plato has said that the beginning of philosophy lies in puzzlement, and this capacity to be struck with wonder and amazement the Greeks of early times possessed to an unusual degree. The general notion of enquiry and research is one of the great Greek inventions that has shaped the Western world.

The vital feature of Greek philosophy is that it basically aims at publicity. Its truths, such as they are, do not claim an aura of ineffability. From the beginning, great emphasis attaches to language and communication. There are, it is true, some mystical elements as well, and from quite early on. The Pythagorean mystical strain runs through the entire course of Ancient philosophy. But in a way this mysticism is really external to the enquiry Itself. It tends much rather to govern the ethic of the enquirer. Only when decay sets in does mysticism assume a more important role. As we suggested in discussing Plotinus, mysticism is opposed to the spirit of Greek philosophy.

If the failure of the Greeks had been due to a certain arrogance born of superior intellectual powers, the Romans failed from sheer lack of imagination. This heaviness of mind reveals itself in various ways, not least in the monumental architecture of Imperial times. The difference between the Greek and Roman spirit might well be symbolised by contrasting a Greck temple with a late Roman basilica. In Roman hands, the intellectual heritage of Greece becomes something rather less subtle and elegant. The philosophic tradition of Greece is essentially a movement of enlightenment and liberation. For it aims at freeing the mind from the bonds of ignorance. It removes the fear of the unknown by presenting the world as something accessible to reason. Its vehicle is the logos and its aspiration the pursuit of knowledge under the form of the Good. Disinterested enquiry is itself regarded as ethically good; through it, rather than through religious mysteries, do men achieve the good life. Along with the tradition of enquiry we find a certain cheerful outlook devoid of false sentiment.

For Socrates, the unexamined life is not worth living. Aristotle holds that what is important is not to live long but to live well. Some of this freshness, it is true, is lost in hellenistic and Roman times, when a somewhat more selfconscious stoicism gains ground. It remains nonetheless that all that is best in the intellectual framework of Western civilisation goes back to the traditions of the thinkers of Greece.“

— Bertrand Russell, Wisdom of the West: a historical survey of Western Philosophy in its social and political setting (1959), Ch. III: Hellenism, pp. 120-21

━━
Image (detail): An elder Plato walks alongside a younger Aristotle in
The School of Athens (1509 - 1511) by Italian Renaissance artist Raphael.

The School of Athens was part of a commission by Pope Julius II to decorate the rooms now called the Stanze di Raffaello in the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City. The fresco depicts a congregation of ancient philosophers, mathematicians, and scientists, with Plato and Aristotle featured in the center. The identities of most figures are ambiguous or discernable only through subtle details or allusions. Italian artists Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo are believed to be portrayed through Plato and Heraclitus, respectively. Raphael included a self-portrait beside Ptolemy. The School of Athens is regarded as one of Raphael's best-known works and has been described as his “masterpiece and the perfect embodiment of the classical spirit of the Renaissance“.

I argue that psychopathic leadership can account for why the world seems to be going horribly wrong in multiple ways, and trace this to poor examples set by university administrators, and the rise of business schools. You may disagree with my analysis, but I hope you will agree with my conclusion, that we should - ‘Make Lying Wrong Again.’

Management in the Destruction and Repair of Academia - Make Lying Wrong Again! Why are our 'leaders' so lethargic about the crises that worry the rest of us so much? How do we explain their moral paralysis, and what can be done?This vid...

I do feel honoured to speak at the upcoming 16th January (8,30 PM, AEDT) on-line Oral Pathology 360 meeting on the topic of psychopathic academic governance, and what might be done about it. Please do attend if interested.

www.linkedin.com

Please do sign and share this petition seeking to reinstate the outstanding academic, Professor Manuel Graeber, who was dismissed from the University after making public interest disclosures to the ICAC about alleged misconduct and corruption in the University of Sydney.

Freedom of speech and speaking the truth as you see it, is inherent to the academic mission. If it is suppressed in a university, the basis for trust in the university's work is lost, and the paying public and students are short changed.

My own experience of the university's managerial response to speaking the truth as I see it, is comparable to that of Professor Graeber, and it is sad to say that ours are not the only cases. For this reason, the petition calls for government inquiry into the circumstances of Professor Graeber's dismissal, and further managerial abuses.

If you believe that free speech and the truth matter in a university, then please do sign and share this petition.

Sign the Petition Reinstate Prof Graeber! Restoring the University of Sydney by Defending Academic Values

A fascinating article on the acquisition of organelles and metabolic capacity by microorganisms by uptake from other species.

This relates to our own work where we discovered that mammalian cells transfer bulk cytoplasm including organelles by what we are calling ‘cell-projection pumping’.

Cell-projection pumping uptake dramatically alters recipient cell behaviour, and although we discovered this in context of cancer, it also occurs between non-cancerous cells. We think the implications for how multicellular life establishes harmonisation between highly divergent cells within tissues are profound, and the work outlined in this article accords with the notion that cell-projection pumping and probably other mechanisms for intercellular transfer, have ancient evolutionary roots with significance far beyond my immediate capacity to imagine.

Please do look up our and others papers in this area, and consider how cell-projection pumping and similar processes might impact on your own area of research.

It certainly has changed the way I see tissues, in that I no longer think of cells being active agents in their own isolated rights, so much as semi-syncytial, swapping contents and metabolic capacity in the course of their normal function.

Holly Moeller Finds Keys to Ecology in Cells That Steal | Quanta Magazine The ecologist Holly Moeller studies microorganisms that expand their range by absorbing organelles and gaining new metabolic talents from their prey.