‘To Be Preserved Forever…’

A year after the brutal invasion of #Ukraine, the reflections of Lev Kopelev have never been more timely. As an officer in the Soviet army Kopelev had taken part in the invasion of the German territory of East Prussia at the end of WW2, and was ashamed and horrified at the treatment of the civilian population there. In his book ‘Aufbewahren für Alle Zeit’ (‘To Be Preserved Forever’), he asked:

What happened in East Prussia? Was such a brutalisation of our people really necessary and unavoidable– rape and pillage – did it really have to be like that?… In the newspapers, on the radio, we called for holy vengeance. But what kind of revenge was this – and on whom was our vengeance exacted? Why did so many of our soldiers turn out to be selfish thugs who raped women and girls at the side of the street in the snow, in the entrances to houses, who shot dead those without weapons and destroyed and burned whatever they could not carry – purely out of mindless vandalism. How did any of this become possible?

Kopelev’s stance cost him dearly. Charged with the ‘crime’ of having ‘shown pity for the enemy’, he was arrested and imprisoned for nearly ten years. Had he been around today, I am pretty sure that Kopelev would have been asking the same questions about the horror that is unfolding in #Ukraine. And I’m equally confident that the answer to his question about whether any of the misery that has been inflicted in the past year was necessary would have been a resounding ‘No!’ As for his ‘crime’ of having had the courage and empathy to imagine what it might feel like to be another human being, regardless of their nationality – let this be an inspiration to us all.

The Things You Have to Do in the Name of Science…

19th century Swiss physiologist Friedrich Miescher must have had a strong stomach. Because his work not only involved sniffing discarded surgical bandages to check that they were fresh, but then washing pus from them. Why was he doing this? Well, he was trying to isolated white blood cells in order to find out more about their chemical composition. And in the process he discovered a curious new substance – one that he named ‘nuclein’ but which is today known by the far more familiar name of DNA – the genetic material.

Find out more in Episode 1 of ‘DNA papers’ – a new series of podcasts hosted on the #chsmorg Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine website in which a panel of guests chat about…well, DNA and its story. And a massive thanks to Dr. Neeraja Sankaran for coming up with this great new project, putting it all together & the invitation to contribute! https://lnkd.in/e9A4Vkzj

A (Diabetic) Spy Among Friends…and a glaring error…

I’ve been gripped by the recent Cold War TV drama ‘A Spy Among Friends’ based on Ben MacIntyre’s book, but having spent the past few years immersed in writing about insulin and diabetes, I think I may have spotted glaring error in the portrayal of the condition in the TV dramatisation. In Episode 1, when MI6 officer Nicholas Elliott (played by Damian Lewis) suffers what appeared to be an attack of hypoglycaemia due to having diabetes, why did he suddenly break off from an intelligence debrief, to stagger out into the corridor, collapse against the wall and inject himself with a hypodermic syringe that I presume was meant to contain insulin??? This would have sent his already low blood sugars plunging even lower to dangerous levels!!?? A guaranteed way to put himself into a coma – or worse! Surely he would have known to grab a handful of sugar lumps from the tea he was sharing with Anna Maxwell-Davies and scoff them??? But I guess that’s maybe not as visually dramatic as a plunging a hypodermic needle into oneself?

‘I Get Knocked Down…But I Get Up Again…’

2023 is Leeds ‘Year of Culture’ and alongside Kaiser Chiefs, Utah Saints & Chumbawamba, the city has several other notable achievements include 2 Nobel Prizes, the first crack at solving the structure of DNA thanks to a ‘housewife’ with X-ray vision and an unsung scientific pioneer in a monkeynut coat…and not to forget…the life-saving drug Tamoxifen, thanks to Prof. Craig Jordan who, as PhD student found how a failed contraceptive had anti-breast cancer properties… Much to be proud for #LEEDS2023

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/jan/10/i-get-knocked-down-leedss-year-of-culture-rises-from-the-ashes-of-brexit