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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

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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.

The Group of Eight universities organisation celebrates that the Australian Financial Review has reported two of it’s prominent members are now amongst ‘the most powerful people in education’. I am sure they are right, especially with regard to Mark Scott, Vice Chancellor of the University of Sydney.

The difficulty, however, is that there is a distinction to be drawn between ‘powerful’ and ‘able’, and I am sorry to have to say that Mark Scott has fallen far below the requirements of a Vice Chancellor. This is not surprising given that he has never previously worked in a university, and has no relevant academic training or experience.

There are significant problems where the university’s management has badly breached fundamental academic values, and that the University of Sydney Association of Professors has brought to him. Mark Scott has studiously ignored these.

As an ex staff member and life long alumnus, of special concern for me is that he has not dealt with profound problems of probity and academic quality in the Sydney Dental Scool.

Details can be read in Section (i) of my submission to the current Federal Dental Inquiry. The University’s response to the concerns I have raised, and presumably supported by Vice Chancellor Scott, is embarrassingly weak, to the extent that neither the VC nor any of his staff were prepared to sign the document, and it even lacks the usually obligatory University logo.

Please do read for yourself and make your own mind up.

Vice Chancellor Scott might not be a bad sort of fellow, and may be happily celebrated for his power and influence, but it is what he does with that power that matters, and thus far in my opinion, he has done nothing worth celebrating at all.

https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=4546ef31-5894-4421-8a5b-fdf4a755f3bf&subId=743090

https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=fe5b07f6-ca22-4ebb-ad00-7a5fb5a328d5&subId=743090

www.aph.gov.au

I was honoured to enjoy the benefits of a post-doctoral research fellowship named after this great scientist. Working in Vienna was a wonderful experience where I learnt a lot and was given total scientific freedom as an independent investigator, but still with the support of a wonderful laboratory head, Berndt Binder in Physiology. I shall always be grateful to the people of Austria for that extraordinary opportunity and experience, as well as for the kindness and friendship shown me and my family at that time.

It was the summer of 1938. For Lise Meitner, a Jewish scientist in Germany, the time had come to escape. Emigrating was no longer an option. A group of scientist friends who had become increasingly worried for her safety assembled a plan to smuggle Lise out of the country.

On July 12th, with two small suitcases of summer clothes in hand and accompanied by a male Dutch scientist, she made it to the Netherlands by train. Then a few weeks later, to Sweden. Where she settled and, while struggling with adjusting to her new life, continued to work.

Approaching sixty years old at this time, she had dedicated her life to science and friendship. Shy as a child, she grew up enthused by math and science, a researcher in mind almost from the beginning. By eight, she kept records of observations in a notebook. And after years of private schooling, as her hometown of Vienna did not permit women to receive a higher education during most of her teenage years, Lise graduated college and then earned a doctorate in physics.

After earning her doctorate, Lise became a physics professor. In the work she found purpose. And while she would deal with discrimination throughout her career, she became an essential contributor to the research in her field.

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To join our mailing list and subscribe: https://historicalsnapshots.substack.com

Sources: Portrait of Lise taken in 1906 / Image reprinted in Lise Meitner and the Dawn of the Nuclear Age with the caption "Shy Lise the doctoral candidate, 1906, Vienna.” (Courtesy Master and Fellows of Churchill College, Cambridge, England) / Wikimedia Commons / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lise_Meitner

This remarkable finding that Bisindole appreciably inhibits S Mutans and caries, may well foreshadow widespread reduction in dental disease. It’s a bit too early to know, but it might be a game changer.

https://scitechdaily.com/90-reduction-scientists-discover-natural-molecule-that-eradicates-plaques-and-cavities/?fbclid=IwAR0NKtoAJsh1_uIvo63mOL8L81G3yalaFFR6rU1_ZOkT2O7J3_wgd2I2Yh8_aem_Af1HXt2Oic4rQQ9yluSkMj1FvAvPHCVJ_hLvnUBoy0S3uyOESuHx5eQqvhJhQX0Kx_4&mibextid=Zxz2cZ

90% Reduction: Scientists Discover Natural Molecule That Eradicates Plaques and Cavities 3,3′-Diindolylmethane (DIM) decreased the Streptococcus mutans biofilm, a leading contributor to plaque and cavities, by 90%. A significant portion of the global population experiences persistent issues with dental plaque and cavities or will face them at some time. While toothpaste, mouthwash, an...

Brilliant!!! Bloody Brilliant!!!!!!

The traditional academic values that built our universities, have been replaced with corporate values that degrade the institutions instead. This article describes the invasion by corporate consultants that is part of the dynamic of destruction. It is astonishing, that it is now easier for me to work as an academic with complete commitment to academic values, outside of a university, than in. If universities don’t turn themselves around soon, they will almost as soon make themselves redundant.

Universities waste a fortune on consultants. When will they learn? Consultants are now deployed at enormous expense to help universities corporatise their operations. Young students have never paid so much for so little.

A fascinating advance in management of cerebral aneurysm by pharmacological means, as opposed to surgery. For me, the most surprising aspect is the underlying basis for the treatment.

It transpires that the great majority of cerebral aneurysms are the result of somatic mutations in a key cytokine receptor gene. Clonal proliferation of the affected cells results in the localised lesions, making cerebral aneurysms biologically more similar to benign neoplasms than they are to local reactive lesions, the class of condition I had till now vaguely thought them to belong to.

It seems inevitable that many other localised conditions will be similarly found to be the result of somatic genetic injuries, and this will profoundly change the way we understand many diseases.

Once again, I am brought to reflect on what a wonderful time it is to be a scientist.

Cancer drug from Pfizer appears to stop aneurysm growth, opening door to nonsurgical treatment About five of every 100 people have a ballooning, weakened artery in their brain called an aneurysm, though the vast majority will never know it. | Brain aneurysms at risk of rupture can only be treated with surgery, and that may not be possible if the aneurysm is in a hard-to-access location. But a...

This mind-blowing article on sound quantum phenomena adds both to my utter bewilderment of the quantum world, and my excitement that sometime soon, the fabric of physics as we have all leaned it to be, will be rewoven into something entirely new. Before understanding comes bewilderment, and before bewilderment comes the inexplicable observation. Right now, it’s still early in the process.

Researchers 'split' phonons in step toward new type of quantum computer When we listen to our favorite song, what sounds like a continuous wave of music is actually transmitted as tiny packets of quantum particles called phonons.

This is an excellent article that outlines some of the most critical problems our universities currently face. The crisis in academic values must be addressed, and I am glad that the media is starting to speak of it.

Professors rebuke uni bosses for profit obsession, foreign students, sagging standards - Michael West University professors speak out against redundancies, lack of accountability, and diminishing quality control at Australian universities.

A very good overview of legitimate fears about uncontrolled AI, from an interview with one of the originators of the technology. I started a dental robot team a few years ago, partly because I could see that was the future of dentistry and also the gateway to fully automated general surgery (currently, one third of global deaths annually are from inability of people to find a surgeon). At the time, I thought it was a neat idea but a few decades away. Now, I suspect it is just around the corner. An exciting time to be working in biotechnology, but also one where we have to start seriously and quickly addressing concerns of safety.

Geoffrey Hinton tells us why he’s now scared of the tech he helped build “I have suddenly switched my views on whether these things are going to be more intelligent than us.”

3D printing electrically conducting structures in C elegans with laser light, by first pre-loading the worms with unset ‘ink’, is a clever idea that paves the way towards integrating electronic circuits with human tissues. That sounds a long way off, but given the current incredible pace of technology and change, I suspect the true cyborg human might be just around the corner.

Scientists Merge Biology and Technology by 3D Printing Electronics Inside Living Worms Learning to integrate electronics into living tissue could be crucial for everything from brain implants to new medical technologies.

Another astonishing feat by AI - Mind reading!! Not enormously accurate, but astonishing nonetheless. As exciting as it all is, the increasing calls for caution developing AI, seem increasingly warranted.

Mind-reading machines are here: is it time to worry? Neuroethicists are split on whether a study that uses brain scans and AI to decode imagined speech poses a threat to mental privacy.

An interesting article linking epigenetic changes to the production of non-functional cryptic proteins by senescent cells in ageing.

Mysterious 'cryptic' molecules made by zombie cells may drive aging, scientists say Aging cells undergo a mysterious process called "cryptic transcription," and scientists now think they know why.

I do believe that the core problem besetting universities at the moment, is infestation of the managerial and senior academic ranks with ‘managers’ who often lack academic training, and who fail to understand or work by academic values.
Some of my professorial colleagues and I published an article in ‘Pearls and Irritations’ today, that outlines that argument with respect to the current Federal Government Accord on universities.
Please do have a look, and consider the case we present.

https://johnmenadue.com/the-crisis-of-academic-values-and-inadequate-governance-in-australian-universities/

The crisis of academic values and governance in Australian universities - Pearls and Irritations Australian university senior management has become distressingly disconnected from and unaccountable to academic values.

The farming out of university curriculum ti third parties will likely increase, whilesoever universities continue to replace senior academics with non-academic managers.

Academics trained by their mentors to adhere to academic values, make decisions in accordance with those values. Managers shrug with blank looks, when academic values are insisted upon.

The on-line only course structure, does not well support rigorous intellectual debate, and by eroding basis for staffing by discipline experts, erodes the breadth and depth of research conducted in universities.

In time, universities simply won’t have the expert staff to do anything other than engage third parties to deliver courses, at which point the legitimate question will be, why attend a university at all? Universities are rushing head-long making their own redundancy.

While I lament that as a backwards step, I live in the times I am given, and now establish a freelance academic service, that will ultimately be part of the ugly new world, these non-academic managers now create.

‘No actual teaching’: alarm bells over online courses outsourced by Australian universities Exclusive: degrees marketed as being from major universities are increasingly run by third-party companies with pre-recorded lectures and no tutorials

The future of healthcare is entirely different to that we have all come to know. AI is already having significant impact, and that is likely to increase enormously in very short time. I have long urged a merger between Biomedical Engineering and Clinical Schools, not only because I am convinced that clinicians educated isolated from engineering, will be functionally ineffective and rapidly redundant, but also because I am equally convinced that the community will soon need true clinical engineers more than it will traditional clinicians as we have been trained and function.

FDA has now cleared more than 500 healthcare AI algorithms More than 500 clinical AI algorithms have now been cleared by the FDA, with the majority just in the past couple years.