pumpkinstrokemarrow

Now I only have yesterday's DT to go on, but it seems likely that the air traffic people will turn out to have overreacted to the volcanic dust drifting down from Iceland. The story seems to be that some years ago an airplane got into trouble in parts east as a result of flying through volcanic dust, on this particular occasion getting down in one piece. We then, along with everybody else, put in place some bureaucracy to worry about volcanic dust, with a brief to play safe. Didn't happen very often so there was no need for careful risk assessment or cost benefit analysis. Nor for experiments, perhaps using the drones now available, so as to reduce the risk to life and limb. But we did leverage the theoretical modelling work on the movement of radioactive dust done in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster. So now, some years later, said model raises an alert and the whole of western Europe grounds its' airplanes for days.

Now a politician, when deciding whether to back the geeks on this one, would be mindful that if flying was allowed and a airplane went down, his head would be on the block. As it turns out, flying was not allowed and his head is on the block anyway. Companies who have been hurt baying for compensation from government. Probably the same sort of companies which are usually baying for small government, less regulation, all that sort of thing.

I guess the answer is that, going forward, we will spend a bit more money on research so that next time around we will be able to make a better informed judgement. Maybe spend £10m a year on something which might happen every twenty years but costs £10b when it does. Put like that sounds like a reasonable investment.

Turning to loftier matters, puzzled by a whole page article about fake photosynthesis in the 'Independent' the other day. Leaving aside the possibility that they lost a whole page rather close to the time when the presses had to roll and that in consequence they had to patch in some stored junk in a hurry, I don't understand why fake photosynthesis is such a big deal. Plants have been turning sunbeams into baked alaska for a very long time and are presumably quite good at it. Where is the value add of faking? You are still going to need to spread a lot of something out in the sun for it to work. Why not just spread the stuff we get for free, like duck weed, like they already do in the southern states of the US of A?

I grant that there is the pure science buzz to the thing. Faking something tricky like this is fun. Might prove to be useful one day. But I don't yet see that it is a big deal, with the sort of bigness usually thought to be needed to justify a whole page in such an august newspaper. Option B, maybe I just skimmed the thing too fast and missed the essential factoid which made the whole thing fly.