The 13th Newsletter of the International Quiet Ocean Experiment, now online, include updates on the Global Library of Underwater Sounds (GLUBS) and the World Ocean Passive Acoustic Monitoring (WOPAM) day.
News
David Thaler publishes Forensics, Genius, and Enthusiasm in the Genetics of Leonardo da Vinci
PHE Guest Investigator has published open access an insightful essay Forensics, Genius, and Enthusiasm in the Genetics of Leonardo da Vinci as part of the Leonardo Da Vinci DNA Project.
Why do we want the DNA sequence of Leonardo da Vinci? Three categories, or contexts, suggest themselves: The first is in support of art history, provenance studies, and forensics. The presence of DNA attributable to the master would be evidence of his physical proximity. Depending on details, molecular evidence might lend support to assertions that Leonardo had a hand in creating a particular work. The second category of reasons is to explore the hypothesis that Leonardo’s DNA sequence may contain clues to his physical qualities, materials of his work, diet, possible illnesses, and maternal lineage. The possibility that Leonardo’s DNA sequence might yield clues to his extraordinary visual sensibilities or even his singular genius deserves to be said explicitly. The third category is not a “reason” in the usual sense but an “apology” in the sense of explanation. It is that this quest is extraordinarily difficult and it engages our enthusiasm.
Jesse’s Afterword for book on genealogy of family of Leonardo
Later this year Pontecorboli Editions will publish in Italian a definitive history of the family of Leonardo Da Vinci from his forebears to the present day, a masterwork of scholarship by Alessandro Vezzosi and Agnese Sabato. An English edition should appear in 2025. We post Jesse Ausubel’s Afterword in both languages as well as the draft table of contents. The books should form a major legacy of the Leonardo Da Vinci DNA Project.
Iddo posts ‘A positive energy agenda for America’
Posted on RealClearEnergy https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2024/07/23/a_positive_energy_agenda_for_america_1046613.html
Jesse interviewed at Energy Forum in Washington DC
Mark Mills’s new National Center for Energy Analytics launched publicly with an Energy Future Forum organized jointly with RealClearEnergy. The meeting included a half-hour interview with Jesse Ausubel conducted by Peter Bryant about what makes energy systems green.
Economist magazine Back to Blue initiative refers to our oceans work
Adam Green, of the Economist magazine’s Back to Blue Initiative, interviews Jesse here about industrialization of the oceans.
And refers to our eDNA work in this article on Saving the Bays.
Jesse’s talk on “The Environmental Trinity”
Jesse’s talk on the Environmental Trinity opened the Breakthrough Dialogue 2024 in Sausalito. Roger Pielke Jr kindly posted the talk in his substack, The Honest Broker. A pdf of the talk is here.
Andrew Revkin also has a warm comment and link at his Substack, Sustain What.
Short video about passive acoustic monitoring for ocean life
The International Quiet Ocean Experiment (IQOE) in 2023 gave birth to World Ocean Passive Acoustic Monitoring (WOPAM) Day. The excellent 2024 WOPAM Day video can be seen at https://x.com/GLUBS1/status/1798995048522277190. The full soundtrack for WOPAM Day 2024 is at: https://www.wo-pam.com/wopam-2024 (scroll down and see the link). Congratulations to Miles Parsons and other team members on extending the 2024 monitoring to about 400 sites around the world!
Iddo posts on the problems with Batteries and Data Tyranny
See The Many Problems with Batteries posted at Real Clear Energy and The Bondage of Data Tyranny posted at Issues in Science and Technology
Jesse quoted on new way to lift yields
Doomslayer, Marian Tupy’s newsletter at Human Progress, features polyploidy and Ohalo Genetics in its 26 May post, and includes a comment from Jesse Ausubel about the good prospects for crop yields.