Alas, there will no more new ones of these, as arguably the greatest of modern biology’s experimentalists, Sydney Brenner, passed away last year. One of his earlier quotes — the source I cannot find at hand — was that it is important in science to be out of phase. You can be ahead of the curve of fashion or possibly, better still, be behind it. But stay out of phase. So, no apologies for being behind the curve on these ones which I have just come across.

Sydney Brenner remarked in 2008, “We don’t have to look for a model organism anymore. Because we are the model organisms.”

Sydney Brenner has said that systems biology is “low input, high throughput, no output” biology.

Quoted in The science and medicine of human immunology | Science

Image source and credits via WikiCommons

“At a certain age, there is only one subject.”

The fuller quote is:

She [Sigrid Nunez] was already well into her next novel by the time “The Friend” climbed bestseller lists. “What Are You Going Through”, out now, is not exactly a sequel, she says, but “these books belong together.” Both are “preoccupied with death”. And with ageing: “At a certain age, there is only one subject.”

The night must be drawing in.

The sudden success of Sigrid Nunez. Economist.

Words, dear boy…

Two quotes from Fintan O’Toole in the NYRB. The first, quoting Saki (H H Munro).

The people of Crete unfortunately make more history than they can consume locally.

The second, his own.

In this demented solipsism, the entire American past is shrink-fitted so that it hugs Trumps own ample figure, cleaving both to his greatness and his victimhood as an object of unparalleled persecution.

No certification, here.

As miserable in the job as he was smart, autodidactic, and headstrong, he managed to escape a soul-destroying future trapped behind a shop on the counter by persuading his Latin tutor to hire him as a student teacher, then convincing his mother to pay off the indenture and set him free.

The Future was His, Maya Jasanoff in the NYRB, reviewing Inventing Tomorrow: H.G. Wells and the Twentieth Century by Sarah Cole.

In my ignorance I had always assumed that the ‘Haldane’ of the Haldane Principle¹ referred to the great and singular geneticist and physiologist JBS Haldane. Not true. JBS once remarked that God must have been inordinately fond of beetles because there are so many species of beetles, so with the Haldanes; (good) fortune is, it appears, inordinately fond of the Haldane clan. A relative of JBS, Richard Burdon Haldane — who did indeed come up with the Haldane principle — is the subject of a new biography by Philip Campbell, and a witty and sharp review in the FT by Philip Stephens.

Watching today’s politicians fall over their own mistakes as they fumble with the Covid-19 pandemic, it is easy to forget that securing high office once required more than a few years of dashing off political columns for a national newspaper. So the life and political times of Richard Haldane, the subject of John Campbell’s engaging biography, offers a fitting rebuke to the trivial mendacity and downright incompetence of the nation’s present administration.

Exaggeration, it is not. Haldane…

…an Edinburgh lawyer and philosopher-politician before becoming a minister in Herbert Asquith’s Liberal administrations, was an important champion of universal education and one of the founding fathers of the UK university system. He also found time to create the Territorial Army, and to have a hand in the foundation of the London School of Economics, the Medical Research Council and the Secret Intelligence Service…

As Asquith’s minister for war, he created the expeditionary force that saved Britain from defeat in the opening stages of the first world war. As Lord Chancellor, his judgments did much to set in place the federalist tilt of the Canadian constitution.

And if there is any doubt about his intellectual gravitas, the review is headed by an image of Haldane with Albert Einstein whom he hosted on the latter’s first visit to the UK in the 1920s. Just conjure up BoJo or Patel or Hancock when you read the above, or when you step on something unpleasant and slimy.

It also seems that Haldane might have performed slightly better across the dispatch box than some of the current irregulars. Clark McGinn writes

He [Haldane] is also one of the few men to have beaten Winston Churchill by riposte. Haldane was a portly figure and Churchill remarked on his girth by asking when the baby was due and what it would be called. Haldane retorted: “If it’s a boy it will be George after the King, a girl will be Mary after the Queen. But if it is just wind I shall call it Winston.”

1. The Haldane Principle is the idea that decisions about what to spend research funds on should be made by researchers instead of politicians. It is named after Richard Burdon Haldane. For a recent take on the Haldane Principle see David Edgerton, The ‘Haldane Principle’ and other invented traditions in science policy here. ↩

The following is from the Economist and is about schoolteachers.

A bigger question is how many of the new trainees will stay in teaching. Research in America shows that people who enter the profession during recessions tend to make better teachers than those who do not, perhaps because high-skilled workers have fewer other options during a downturn. But they are also a bit more likely to give up. England already has a problem retaining new teachers. About a fifth leave the job within two years of qualifying. About a third go within five.

I don’t have any systematic data on this topic, but the story appears familiar — if different in degree — across other public sector¹ jobs such as nursing, higher education and possibly medicine. I am not reassured by the account below, rather, I think we are seeing structural changes that will continue to play out. The change in professional status of teaching and the resulting decline in morale always seemed to me to be the model for what might happen to medicine.

Sam Sims at the UCL Institute of Education says “muscular” policies that were put in place before the pandemic provide reason for optimism. Last year the government said that starting salaries would rise to £30,000 ($39,000) by 2022, a 23% increase. It is offering annual bonuses to teachers of subjects with the biggest shortages. And it is promising more mentoring and training for people who are new to the job. The idea is that new teachers will eventually consider themselves better-paid and better-supported than peers in many other professions. That might make Mr Seadon’s cohort a bit more likely to hang around.

1. Yes, higher education can be considered a special case of ‘public sector’ to the extent that much of its funding is underwritten by the state and decision making is heavily determined by political factors. ↩

No, not that sort of skin trade, but inking¹. This is from an article in the Economist, and sadly, although I cannot show them here, the images are remarkable. But some nice word lines too about the acquisition of high level skills and apprenticeship — vocation, if you will.

In China several prominent tattooists are taking a different approach. They have set up schools. In Wu Shang’s studio four students are hunched over flat pieces of silicon rubber—mimicking skin, just like his model arms—trying to recreate images that they first painted on paper.

That might seem inoffensive, but it goes against a widespread but unwritten code. Masters may take an apprentice or two under their wings, but only if they are truly committed to the craft. The idea that anyone can just show up, pay a tuition fee and after a few months apply ink to skin leaves purists aghast. Even in China some are critical. Mr Shen, the neo-traditionalist, says that he honed his technique over many years by wielding needles by hand. “You need to learn about the relationship between skin and needle. You can’t just get that overnight in school,” he says.

Many university staff would echo these thoughts.

The new ink masters – China makes its mark on the world of tattoos | Books & arts | The Economist

1. Image of traditional Samoan tattoo via WikiP. Attribution CloudSurfer CC BY 3.0 ↩

Education is…

Mr Handy says this gave him the opportunity to learn from his mistakes in private. He argues that “education is an experience understood in tranquillity. You look back and see where you went wrong.”

Looking back over his career, he believes that teaching and writing is all about creating the “Aha!” moment. That occurs when people realise that an idea the teacher or writer has advanced is both useful and something they already knew but had not articulated.

No Excel or TEF here. The plain language belies the depth of the insight.

Charles Handy, Reflections of a business guru – Bartleby

Everybody wants growth but..

“Everyone wants growth but no one wants change.”

Paul Romer

Production functions: Those middle of the day blues

Every one of us has learned how to send emails on Sunday night. But how many of us know how to go to a movie at 2pm on Mondays? You’ve unbalanced your life without balancing it with something else.

Ricardo Semler

Via Status-Q. All too true. And now there is rugby on TV in the middle of the day on a weekday…