Chilly

It’s been a wet and chilly day, so we’ve been wrapped up in sweaters and/or blankets most of the day.  Jerry is determinedly unhappy with this state of affairs.  He’s got a conundrum  — he hates getting his paws wet, so he avoids walking in the rain, but he needs to go out to survey his territory which means getting his feet wet in the rain.  His choice right now is to sit on my lap and climb on my tummy (which hurts) as he protests the weather and the unfairness of wet feet.  Don is feeling more like himself today — I’m very relieved about that— and he’s eating more.  My sugar did a drop last night, for the first time in a few days.  I have no idea why, I didn’t do anything differently.  I’ve been able to skip my insulin doses for several days as my readings were below the approved minimum at mealtime, and I was feeling smug about not needing it. I’ve been sleeping a little better, too, with usually about 5 solid hours a night, although today I needed a mid-afternoon nap, which is unusual for me.  Perhaps I’ve over exerted myself a little as I have a new ache and a limp, but I expect that both will disappear after a good night’s sleep.

I read today that researchers at Cambridge university have managed to create a synthetic mouse embryo with a brain.  That’s an awesome achievement in medical science, and the potential benefits are staggering to consider.  Simultaneously, there are a number of concerns that are raised by this breakthrough.  After watching far too many (or not enough) movies, or reading science fiction, every amazing discovery has the capacity for being abused horribly even as it helps develop humanity.  The ethical questions are just multiplying as I read the short news article on this.  Although it’s not yet a human embryo, what does it mean for humans?  Will there be a race of synthetic humans who are exploited for labour / organs / dangerous work because we don’t consider them to be fully human?  What are the implications for designing a new race?  Will companies be allowed to hold patents on the synthetic embryos?  What about unused embryos — will they be destroyed, and if so, are they considered human?  Will the availability of artificial embryos lead to further destruction of “undesirable” people?  You know — the poor, the marginalized, the non-industrialized?    I’d love to be proven wrong, and just see good coming out of this step.  You know, things like being able to grow artificial organs to eliminate shortfalls in transplants, or being able to cure degenerative diseases with genetic treatments, or being able to prolong life.  Some of this is already being worked on, and I look forward to seeing more development.

Also this week in the news was the release of some new photographs from NASA’s Webb telescope.  The images of Jupiter that show the polar auroral displays, and the newer images of its moons, plus the new deep space images showing more galaxies and star clusters than we originally thought.  It’s mind-boggling.  I know that the images have been coloured from readings taken in non-visible light (like X-rays, radio and infrared) so the colours may not be real, but still… it’s just staggeringly beautiful.  I’m looking forward to the images from the Artemis mission in the next few weeks — that one, at least, is short, just a 42-day mission and images should be available soon — as compared to, say, Voyager, which is still within a light day of Earth after 45 years of travel.  In that time, though, we’ve seen the images from the Hubble telescope, which gave new insights, landed several rovers on Mars, entrenched the ISS, discovered several thousand exoplanets potentially capable of supporting life, gained a better understanding of the planets, including images of the outer giants Neptune and Uranus… it’s just astounding how far we’ve advanced in just over a century of air transport.  We’re not as far as we could have come, but still, progress has been good.  It would be so much better if we managed to end warfare on Earth, and instead redirect those enormous resources to health, education, food, etc.  It’s just tragic that so much goes into death and destruction!

I just absolutely love seeing scientific progress in different fields.  I’m one of those starry-eyed optimists who enjoys knowledge for its own sake, and who would like seeing advancements being provided at little to no cost to people to improve the quality of life.  If I could set up the operations of things, I would ensure that everyone on the planet had access to safe, free energy, have clean drinking water and access to adequate food supplies.  Then people would also have high quality education, so that everyone would be literate and numerate, that there would be a good balance of life where we’re not destroying the environment and everyone would have excellent health care, and through the use of technology we could treat almost anything.   It would be amazing to be able to use the resources of the asteroids, for instance, instead of having to dig mines on Earth… OK, I’m clearly deep into a fantasy land!  Perhaps I’ll just relocate this to my bed where I can dream of a sparkling new civilization where we’ve managed to eliminate war, disease and suffering.  Good night!