Phage Therapy on Farms

Therapy could stop superbugs on farms, by Pallab Ghosh, BBC News website.

Researchers at Leicester University have identified a range of viruses, called bacteriophages, that can be used to kill common pig infections. The aim is to reduce the risk of antibiotic resistant bacteria emerging on farms that could also infect humans. In the UK, 40% of all antibiotics are used to treat animals - they are the same as those used to treat people.

Phages occur in nature and are the natural enemy of many infectious agents. Each of the many phages is specific to different infectious bugs, homing in on them and injecting the phage's DNA into the bug, thus rendering it harmless. Like all viruses, phages reproduce inside the infectious bug and these new phages then hunt other infections.

Attempts to develop phage treatments have been carried out for more than a century but have mostly proved unreliable. However, researchers have now found more precise ways of isolating phages and assessing their effectiveness.

The research team has identified a range of disease-killing phages, and more importantly, have developed a powdered form of the phage which remains active. This would enable researchers to add the powdered phage to pig feed and see if it works in practice.

If trials in pigs work, other phage treatments could be developed for a range of animal diseases, and would speed the development of phage treatments for people.

Source: Therapy could stop superbugs on farms by Pallab Ghosh, Science Correspondent, BBC News 8 June 2017

Migrants and Cultures

Understanding motives is vital to combating terror.

In his Church Times column, Paul Valley notes that a Muslim psychiatrist "recently suggested that there are four ways in which the children of immigrants may react to the clash between the culture of their parents and that of the nation in which they have been brought up. All are stressful in different ways."

Deculturation: This leads them to reject their past in favour of their present.

Assimilation: This is where they retain a loose association with the old ways, but essentially adopt the host culture.

Integration:  This keeps stronger cultural ties, but the children of migrants function fully as members of the host society.

Rejection: They rebuff the host culture entirely. Violent jihadists are drawn from this group, but the process is not simple. There can be huge cognitive dissonance in the process of their rejection,

The crucial task is to re-educate fundamentalists into a more complete understanding of their faith so that they can no longer wrench verses of the Qur'an from their wider context.

While not becoming illiberal in our defence of our liberty, we need to consider a broader understanding of what kind of behaviour ought to be illegal - for example, should people who glorify terrorism, as well as those who incite it, be guilty of an offence such as breach of the peace?

However, it is important that anyone convicted and imprisoned under such new regulations should not simply be detained, but also be subjected to an intensive deradicalisation programme, run not just by secular psychiatrists but also by mainstream Muslim scholars.

Source: Column piece: Inside the mind of extremists by Paul Vallely in The Church Times, 9 July 2017

Passport Facts 2017

Avoid last minute passport panics by:

# Check your passport before booking a holiday. Your insurance will not pay out if you miss your trip because your passport is out of date.

# Remember some countries require it has 6 months left before expiry date, while others (e.g. South Africa) insist you have a least two blank pages in your passport. Check these requirements (and whether you need a visa) at gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice.

# Do allow four to seven weeks for a new passport to arrive. Streamline the service by using the Passport Check & Send service at the Post Office. It costs an extra £9.75 (2017) but useful if you are short of time.

# If you end up needing a last-minute passport, there is a premium one-day service costing £128 (2017).

Source: Item in Good Housekeeping, June 2017

Pensions, Triple Lock and Hoarding

Pensioners will carry on hoarding cash if state won’t step in by Phillip Inman.

The question over the state pension triple lock is part of a wider debate about incomes and wealth in old age and how, as a society, we adapt to the escalating costs of improved life expectancy, increasing care costs and, crucially, property prices.

Many do everything to avoid paying higher taxes and hoard whatever assets they have accumulated, as state support decreases. Now grandparents and parents feel obliged to provide more than just a good start in life for the youngest members, possibly for as long as they are alive. This explains why the Tory promise to raise the inheritance tax threshold for couples to £1m by 2020, and also why wealthy pensioners argue the state pension and winter fuel allowance should remain a universal benefit.

No one should want house prices to rise at double or treble the rate of earnings growth to reach affordability levels that effectively mean homes in places with decent jobs are out of reach for most people, but home owners are happy when a house or flat sells for more than the previous one and predictions of a downturn can spark panic. Pay as little stamp duty or capital gains tax as you can and recycle the proceeds to provide a leg-up for your own offspring.

In early 2017, a weakening economy, a squeeze on disposable incomes from higher inflation and stagnant wages growth, and the knock-on effect of lower tax receipts, means money must be raised elsewhere. One option is scrap the 2.5% annual rise part of the pensions triple lock, which links the basic state pension to whichever is the higher of earnings growth, inflation or 2.5% and scrapping the 2.5% lock.

Pensioner groups argue those on the lowest incomes will be the worst affected, which is true, especially when cuts in the real value of the state second pension, and the move to a flat-rate pension, are taken into account.

But keeping a universal benefit also benefits the better off. Why should today’s workers make sure pensions increase at a faster rate than their own pay, especially when it leads to greater income inequality among the country’s 12 million pensioners.

One answer is to means-test the basic pension. An alternative would be to design an income tax system specifically for the country’s 12 million pensioners; one that increases the tax burden for the third who have more than enough money to enjoy their retirement. Or, at least, charge the 1.1 million retirees who are still working national insurance.

It is impossible to change pensions and taxation while the state refuses to look after the elderly in care, and build enough homes for those on low and middle incomes to bring down prices, so wealthy pensioners will continue to take more out than they put in and hoarding it.

Source: Pensioners will carry on hoarding cash if state won’t step in, by Phillip Inman, The Guardian, 29 April 2017

Name Order in Ballot Papers

Did Trump win because his name came first in key states?

A leading political scientist, Jon Krosnick, has spent 30 years studying how voters choose one candidate rather than another, and says that in states where the margin of victory was narrow, elections were won because a candidate was listed first on the ballot paper, and that includes Donald Trump’s election as US President.

At first sight this seems to make little sense. Are voters really so easily swayed? Most of them are not and vote for the party they usually do. But a minority are swayed because of a human tendency to lean towards the first name listed on the ballot, which has caused increases on average of about three percentage points for candidates, across many elections. And candidates whose last names begin with letters picked near the end of the lottery have it tough, never getting the advantage that comes from being listed first on the ballot.

Political scientists call this the primacy effect. It has the biggest impact on those who know the least about the election they are voting in. You are more likely to be affected if you are feeling uninformed and yet feel obligated to cast a vote - or if you are feeling deeply conflicted between two candidates. When an election is very close the effect can be decisive, such as the 2016 election in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Some states always list parties in the same order. Some allow the state's officials to make a new choice each time. Some put the party that lost in the last election at the top of the ballot. Some list alphabetically.

Of the numerous cases where the primacy effect is thought to have influenced the result of an vote, one is Hillary Clinton’s unexpected January 2008 win over Barack Obama in the New Hampshire primary to elect the Democratic Party's presidential candidate. Her name was at the top of a long list. Obama's was near the end.

Source: BBC website: Did Trump win because his name came first in keystates? Published on 25 February 2017