April 2, 2025

2025.03.DisappearingMoment

I wish I could invest in Chinese companies. I don’t think it’s possible, and not just for me. I believe that it is impossible for anyone to invest in Chinese companies.

Investing is predicated on a company’s stock and bonds enabling investors to determine how much it would cost to buy the company. If you know the price of a company’s stock and how many shares of stock it has, then you know how much the entire company would cost to buy. Every share of stock multiplied by the number of existing shares equals the price of the company. Its bonds are a claim on the company’s assets, like your mortgage is a claim on your house.

Stocks and bonds, as a store of value, depend on free markets with equitable regulation. Social and legal contracts. Functional courts.

Investing is impossible when government agencies or corporate monopolies are corrupt or feckless. When nothing is true.

Investing is not the same as speculating. You can speculate by playing scratch-offs or slot machines. You can speculate in precious metals (gold, silver); cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum); meme stocks (GameStop, AMC Theatres).

Investing requires analysis. Analysis requires facts.

In 1934, the United States established a pathway for investing in American companies. In the intervening years, America fortified its position as the best place to invest. A place that rewarded thoughtful analysis. A safe place for people who could afford to save money for five years or more to buy mutual funds or exchange traded funds (ETFs). Those funds, in turn, invested in stocks or bonds.

I have always trusted the stock and bond markets in United States.

When a bubble burst in 2002, I invested more in growth stocks. Perhaps earlier and more stubbornly than was wise.

During the financial crisis in 2008, I invested more in large companies. It was a good decision.

I invested as much as I could in 2020 when the market crashed because of the COVID-19 crisis. It was another good decision.

Down markets did not frighten me. They struck me as opportunities to invest what we could in domestic stocks and stock funds. I attempted to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.

The rest of the time, we would stay the course. I picked allocation percentages for stocks, bonds, and real estate. Automatic withdrawals from each paycheck helped maintain those percentages.

Those automatic withdrawals went to funds that invested in the United States or other countries whose markets and regulation are modeled after America’s. I have always avoided China.

China’s economy is enormous and growing. I expect it to grow at a fast pace for a long time.

A lot of this growth is associated with Chinese companies. Many of them appear to be profitable. Many seem likely to remain profitable. Which does not mean that is is possible to invest in Chinese companies.

China is an autocracy.

Investing requires facts. Free markets and equitable regulation. Social and legal contracts. Functional courts. These do not exist in an autocracy.

I no longer feel confident that it is possible to invest in U.S. companies.

Two years ago, my investments were boring. The usual 35% in U.S. stocks, 25% in non-U.S. stocks, 30% in bonds, 10% in real estate.

It looks very, very different now:

• 13% US Stock
• 13% US Stock, Short Position(we have a net 0% position on U.S. companies. I don’t know why their stock prices would increase or decrease, or trust regulators or the courts)
• 23% Global Stock (because of a couple of international mutual funds that we hold in retirement accounts, .6% of our portfolio, or just over half of 1%, is allocated to China)
• 46% Bonds and Equivalent (includes a modest pension; 31% of our total investments are in TIPS and IBonds because I am concerned about inflation)
• 10% Real Estate
• -5% Cash and Equivalents (we have almost as much in cash as we owe on our mortgage)

None of this is investing advice. Never make an investment based on what you read in this newsletter. Or any newsletter. I know you and you know better.

I have shared this information because I want to be transparent. Writing helps me think through the implications of my beliefs. Maybe what I’ve written will help you.

If you feel confident in U.S. markets and America, this could be an opportunity for you to adjust your allocations. If you don’t, you might think about what that means for your finances.

Welcome to March 2025’s Disappearing Moment, an inventory of my experiences. I hope you enjoy it.

Podcasts

• Fast People (I Loved It): Two of my favorite journalists: Sarah Lorge Butler on mic, and Alison Wade producing. They make cool seem effortless. And conduct great interviews with runners.
• The Real World of Technology (1989 Massey Lectures) (A Personal Favorite): Ursula Franklin is the best kind of smart. I expect to spend a lot more time reading and listening to her.
• Scratch & Win (I Loved It): The politics of lotteries and gambling. Ian Coss is one of my favorite storytellers. I’ll listen to anything he makes and so should you.

Nerdy Software

If YouTube you must, punch Google where it hurts. Your identity and attention span are yours. Use yt-dlp to download videos and watch them offline.

Free Font

HK Grotesk: sophisticated, lovely, versatile, and Open Source. Good job, Alfredo Marco Pradil! Thanks, Hanken Design!

Bougie Products

We bought a two-tier dish rack. It has a rotating spout under the drainboard that directs water into the sink. Bougie Valhalla.

Personal Finance and Investing

Shit, man, I dunno. See above? I guess I can reiterate my appreciation for Gotham Short Strategies. That gives me something for my Reviews page.

Reading

• Chris Bachelder and Jennifer Habel, Dayswork (2024) (A Personal Favorite): Just fucking read it. I’m serious. The world is ending. Treat yourself to something beautiful before you lose everything.
• John McPhee, Draft No. 4 (2018) (I Loved It): Why is living in New Jersey so expensive? Because it's worth it, e.g., the New Jersey Topics Shelf's downloads of McPhee reading his books.
• Ursula Nordstrom, “Assorted Thoughts on Creative Authors and Artists” (A Personal Favorite): She published all the transgressive, worthwhile writers. I want to read everything she wrote, everything about her.
• Heydon Pickering’s essays (I Loved It): Heydon Pickering is a humorist who writes about web design. Also, other stuff that web designers are wrong about which they are never wrong.
• Blake Watson, “My computer treats me like a computer” (I Liked It). AI bros are never wrong, either. Which is a shame, because a bit of empathy might save their souls and our asses.

Ursulas’ Lists

This is the apotheosis of my newsletter. My greatest artistic achievement. Erin Kissane and Mandy Brown brought out my best, as the often do. (See Ursalas Franklin and Le Guin, below.)

• Ursula Andress became a spokesperson for osteoporosis prevention: This is a really important cause, and it can affect anyone:

  • One in three women, and
  • One in five men. I know because eight or ten years ago, I found out that I too had it. (Editor’s Note: According to the the Bone Health and Osteoporosis Foundation, “Studies suggest that approximately one in two women and up to one in four men age 50 and older will break a bone due to osteoporosis.”)

• (Now former, then current) “Xerox CEO Ursula Burns Has Advice for Ambitious Women” (as reported by Leslie Kwoh in the Wall Street Journal, March 20, 2013):

  1. Find a good (older) husband. Her husband retired, allowing Burns to focus on advancing her career. “So the secret,” she jokes, “is to marry someone 20 years older.”
  2. Redefine work-life balance. “You should have balance, on average, over time—not in a day or in a month."
  3. Be selfish sometimes.  Burns advises “checking out” occasionally to put personal needs ahead of career and family.
  4. Don’t take guilt trips. “Kids are pretty resilient,” she says. “You don’t have to be at every volleyball game. We can’t guilt ourselves.” Her own mother missed many of her extracurricular activities, she adds, “and I’m fine.”
  5. Don’t take life too seriously. “Ninety percent of this stuff is just not that serious,” she says.

• Úrsula Corberó believes in:

  • Abortion (Legalization)
  • Atresmedia Foundation
  • Breast Cancer Awareness
  • Calzedonia
  • Climate Change Awareness
  • Falabella
  • Greenpeace
  • Maybelline
  • Multiopticas
  • Save the Children
  • Shiseido
  • Simon Porte Jacquemus
  • Stradivarius
  • Tampax
  • We Art Water (Film Festival)
  • Ymas

• Ursula Dubosarsky’s favo(u)ite book(s) when she was a child:

  • Biquette the White Goat by Francoise was her favourite

  • She also loved

    • Gone is Gone by Wanda Gag, and
    • Snugglepot and Cuddlepie by May Gibbs.
      • Now three of her favourite children's books are
    • Come By Chance by Madeleine Winch, 
    • My Dearest Dinosaur by Margaret Wild and Donna Rawlins, and
    • The Shack that Dad Built by Elaine Russell.

• Ursula Engelen-Kefer wrote (in The International Economy, Winter 2017) (PDF): For the German authorities and the engaged non-government helpers on all levels and in all regions, processing more than a million refugees remains still a mindboggling task.

  • How are they to register still-pending difficult cases where refugees have no proper consular papers to determine a person’s true identity?
  • How can they find those refugees who disappeared without registration?
  • How are they to sort out, imprison, and deport criminals or potential terrorists to their home countries?
  • How will they develop efficient safety nets against terroristic attacks?
  • How can they keep mostly young men from becoming radicalized? (Her conclusion: For Germany, coping with a million refugees will continue to be a challenge, but one that can be met with the proper application of resources and organization.)

• Ursula Franklin (as quoted by Erin Kissane in Ursula's List): Should one not ask of any public project or loan whether it:

  1. Promotes justice;
  2. Restores reciprocity;
  3. Confers divisible or indivisible benefits;
  4. Favours people over machines;
  5. Whether its strategy maximizes gain or minimizes disaster;
  6. Whether conservation is favoured over waste; and,
  7. Whether the reversible is favoured over the irreversible.

• Ursula Goodenough (with Terrance Deacon, from “The Sacred Emergence of Nature”) (PDF): A religious person—and we would say that all persons are religious—may or may not self-identify with a religion. Rather, a religious orientation encompasses three spheres of human experience:

  1. The interpretive sphere (a.k.a. theological, philosophical, existential) describes responses to the Big Questions, such as, Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? Does the universe, or my life, have a Plan? a Purpose? How do I come to terms with death? Why is there evil and suffering?
  2. The spiritual sphere describes such inward personal responses to existence as gratitude, awe, humility, reverence, assent, transcendence, and at-oneness.
  3. The moral sphere describes outward communal responses such as care, compassion, fair-mindedness, responsibility, trust, and commitment.

• Ursula Kathleen Webb Hicks writes in The Large City: A World Problem (1974), “We may classify under three heads the major environmental changes that deserve to be started at once: (1) decongestion, (2) reduction of pollution, (3) improvement in the housing situation. These are closely related, so that progress on one front will help the others. Thus decongestion of the streets—better traffic flow—will reduce air pollution, building new houses will not only be an improvement in itself but will aid decongestion in the inner city and shanty settlements” (pg. 249).

• Ursula Iturrarán-Viveros (and Francisco J. Sánchez-Sesma) document “Seismic Wave Propagation in Real Media: Numerical Modeling Approaches” (PDF)

  • Direct Methods
    • Finite differences (FD)
    • Pseudospectral (PS)
    • Finite Element (FE)
    • Spectral Element Method (SEM)
    • Finite Volume (FV)
    • Discontinuous Galerkin (DG)
    • Discrete Element Method (DEM)
  • Integral Equation Methods
    • Boundary Element Method (BEM)
    • Indirect Boundary Element Method (IBEM)
    • Fast Multipole Method (FMM)
    • Domain Integral Methods (DIM)
  • Asymptotic or Ray Tracing Methods
    • Gaussian Beams

• Clinical and medical hypnotherapist Ursula James writes: Most people can be hypnotized. However, nobody can be hypnotized against their will. How receptive you will be to suggestions depends on a number of things:

  • How comfortable you feel with your practitioner (which is why it is a good idea to talk to them before coming for a session).
  • How motivated you are to make the changes. (Hypnotherapy can be used to enhance your motivation if required.)
  • How confident and calm you are currently. (Hypnotherapy will help with both of these matters)
  • If you are prepared to make the changes suggested in the hypnosis. (The practitioner will always work with you to make sure that the changes are appropriate for you.)

• In “Goddesses, Witches, Androgyny, and Beyond?” (in *Women in the World’s Relgions*, which she edited), Ursula King writes: The essential challenge at the level of religious thought rather than practice can be summed up in two questions:

  1. How far has women’s experience been taken into account in the articulation and theological reflections of the world’s religions?
  2. How far can traditional religious teachings and theologies still speak to women today and remain credible?

• Ursula K. Le Guin’s Five Ways to Foregiveness, courtesy of Mandy Brown.

• Ursula Martinez’s cabaret shows:

  • Hanky Panky
  • La Soirée
  • Light My Fire
  • Viva Croydon
  • Quick Change, Sex Change

• Ursula Nordstrom (paywalled) wrote, “The topic I was assigned is: An Editor's Thoughts on Creative Authors and Artists. I'm glad I wasn't asked for ‘consecutive thoughts,’ ‘well-constructed thoughts,’ or ‘noncontradictory thoughts,’ because I just have some ‘assorted thoughts.’ A lot of them don't come from the brain, but they do come from the heart.” These are her thoughts about what an editor can do, has to do, or must do:

  • An editor can learn a great deal from creative authors.
  • An editor can do something for a creative author, and that is to try to create an atmosphere, a climate of openness and interest in which creative authors and artists can grow.
  • Editors must listen with all their senses and try to react as creatively as possible to the ideas of the truly creative person. Thus editors can learn. And, "First, do no harm."
  • An editor must love the creative ability. Then the editor can take anything. Creative people can, and apparently sometimes must, strike out at those close to them. Often the editor is the closest.
  • We have to give out a lot of love. We have to love the authors and artists. even when they are difficult, and in fact we have to love each other as much as possible and be supportive of each other. And you know, we just have to have a lot of love.
  • Editors can make terrible mistakes if they accept books just because they seem therapeutically good for a child or because they think the writing is psychologically sound.
  • Creative artists know more than all the psychiatrists and certainly more than all the editors know. We must, of course, take very seriously the total effect we think books will have on children, but we musn't publish a book just because we think it will help children avoid mother fixations. We must listen to the creative people.
  • One of the most important things for an editor is, I think, to be available and open—to let authors who come to see you feel that you are truly interested and that you have all the time in the world. An editor doesn't have to pretend to be interested, but that part about giving the impression that you have all the time in the world isn't always easy.
  • Editors have to go out and look for authors and illustrators. Many extremely talented authors do not know that the field of children's books can offer them an unparalleled opportunity.
  • Of course, some writers' blocks do last forever, but the ones I'm remembering didn't. In such cases all an editor can do is be patient and write lots of letters expressing not pressure but continued interest and concern; in general, try to get across the idea that the editor will sit out this dance with the author who isn't able to dance just at that moment.
  • As for helping an author to live through a time of unfavorable or unperceptive reviews—well, everyone bleeds. There is not much an editor can do at times like these. You can try, but not always with any degree of success.
  • The most helpful thing you can do perhaps is to remember what the author's original vision was. The author often comes in and tells an editor about the next book. Both grow excited and the author starts to write. Somewhere along the line, somehow, perhaps by being too close to the material, perhaps because writing is necessarily a lonely occupation, the author loses track of exactly what he or she wanted to say. An editor can remember the original vision and perhaps tactfully say, "Yes, but didn't you really want to do so and so?" This has to be done very gently.
  • We must try to remember that the children are brand new and we adults are not.

• Ursula “Uschi” Obermaier was famous for her modeling career, political activism, and dishing about her affairs with:

  • Jimi Hendrix
  • Mick Jagger
  • Keith Richards

• Ursula Pike interviewed six leaders in the Open Education Movement for OERigin Stories:

  • Tonja R. Conerly
  • Angela DeBarger
  • Liliana Diaz Solodukhin
  • Shinta Hernandez
  • Jessie Loyer
  • Ariana Santiago

• Ursula Quillmann (with Anne Jennings and John Andrews, in “Reconstructing Holocene palaeoclimate and palaeoceanography in Ìsafjarðardjúp northwest Iceland, from two fjord records overprinted by relative sea-level and local hydrographic changes”) writes (possibly in English): We reconstructed palaeoclimate and palaeoceanography of the Ìsafjarðardjúp fjord system while recognising the potential overprinting of RSL and local fjord hydrographic changes on these records.

  • Glacial marine conditions in the Ìsafjarðardjúp fjord system ended at ca. 10 200 cal. a BP, coinciding roughly with the deposition of the Saksunarvatn tephra layer.
  • A lower-than-present RSL in response to isostatic rebound was recorded in the foraminiferal assemblage and d18O records in B997-339 between ca. 10 600 and 8900 cal. a BP.

  • An interval of lower-than-present RSL was inferred from the MAR record in MD99-2266. This interval can be subdivided into two parts:

    • a. between ca. 10 200 and 8900 cal. a BP sediments were deposited under a falling RSL regime (forced regression);
    • b. between ca. 8900 and 5500 cal. a BP sediments were deposited with RSL rising in response to eustatic sea-level rise.
      • Fjord water overturning began at ca. 8900 cal. a BP in B997-339. No evidence of fjord water overturning was found at the outer fjord site.
      • Starting at ca. 8900 cal. a BP at B997-339 the foraminiferal assemblages began to resemble the modern fjord assemblage, in which arctic species dominate the assemblages despite relatively warm and saline bottom-water conditions.
      • Starting at ca. 7000 cal. a BP at MD99-2266 the foraminiferal assemblages began to resemble the modern assemblages found in Djúpáll. The outer fjord site had transitioned into a continental shelf site and therefore this site lends itself better to regional climate assessment than the inner fjord site, whose record is overprinted by local fjord hydrological processes.
      • The HTM at the outer site was recorded between ca. 8000 and 5700 cal. a BP, which is delayed in respect to the early Holocene maximum summer insolation.
      • The water masses of the IC were freshened by glacial meltwater in the early Holocene and became more saline at ca. 7900 cal. a BP.

• Ursula Rucker, “We Still HERE!..

  • We Shine
  • We Stars
  • We Rise
  • We Beautiful
  • We Brilliant
  • We Magic
  • We L.o.v.e.”

• Ursula “Uschi” Steigenberger, OBE (with Keith McEwen, who did not write this section with her), “Pulsed Magnetic Fields and Pulsed Neuron Sources” (“Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils”, Technical Report RAL-TR-96-063, August 1996): As a result of the discussions at the June Workshop in Abingdon, we have revised the “dream” specification for a pulsed magnet at the ISIS pulsed neutron facility. You will find that not only some of the parameters, but also the order in which they appear, have changed indicating a revision in the thinking of what are the most important aspects in the magnet design. Specification

  • Reliability and life time ≥ 100,000 shots
  • Repetition rate (fast pulsing option (a) and (c)) 2 Hz or
  • Quasi cintinuous operation, e.g. 1 s “on”, 24 s “off” yielding a duty cycle of 1/25
  • Pulse length (fast pulsing option (a) and (c)) 3 - 4 ms
  • Pulse length (for quasi continuous optoon (b)) 1 -2 s
  • Maximum field 30 Tesla
  • Pulse shape half-sinusoidal
  • Field homogeneity 1%
  • Magnet bore 20 mm ⌀
  • Maximum vertical divergence ± 5°
  • Gap 10 mm at sample
  • Horizontal windows 4 x ± 45°
  • Temperature range 1.5 - 300 K
  • Magnetic stray fields to be kept as small as possible

• Ursula Tidd, Simone de Beauvoir (Routledge Critical Thinkers, 1994, pp. 50–51): Described as ‘one of the most criticised and one of the least read works in feminism’ (Vintges 1996: 21–22) and as ‘a major philosophical text and the deepest and most original work of feminist thought to have been produced in this century’ (Moi 1999: vii), for over fifty years The Second Sex has been the focus of debate and dispute. Its wide-ranging and sophisticated analyses of women’s situation draw on existential phenomenology and anthropology, combined with a Marxist analysis of history, as well as providing an early feminist critique of classical psychoanalysis. If we were to summarise her text in two concepts, these would be:

  • woman is the absolute Other; and
  • femininity is constructed.

  But how she develops these concepts needs more explanation!

• Ursula Utz (with Darhlene Banks, Steven Jacobson, and William E, Biddison in “Analysis of the T-Cell Receptor Repertoire of Human T-Cell Leukemia Virus Type 1 (HTLV-1) Tax-Specific CD81 Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes from Patients with HTLV-1-Associated Disease: Evidence for Oligoclonal Expansion” (PDF), Journal of Virology, February 1996, pp. 843–851): Three HAM/TSP patients were initially selected for analysis of their Tax-specific CTL repertoires on the basis of the following criteria: (i) at least a 9-year duration of disease, (ii) HLA-A2 positivity, and (iii) high precursor frequencies for HLA-A2-restricted Tax11-19-specific CD81 CTL in their PBL.

• Ursula Vernon’s Hugo Award acceptance speeches feature animals:

  • Sea cucumbers (YouTube) (Best Novella, Thornhedge, 2024)
  • Water beetles (Best Novel, Nettle & Bone, 2023; she also won for Novella, What Moves the Dead)
  • Slime mold (YouTube) (Short Story, “Metal like Blood in the Dark,” 2021)
  • Whales (later published as An Unexpected Honor (Novelette, “The Tomato Thief,” 2017)
  • Her boyfriend (YouTube) (Graphic Story, Digger, 2012)

• Ursula Wingate ruined everything for everyone when she published Academic Literacy and Student Diversity: The Case for Inclusive Practice in 2015. These are her Principles of Inclusive Academic Literacy Instruction:

  • Principle 1: Academic literacy instruction should focus on genres and their social context/communicative purpose.
  • Principle 2: Academic literacy instruction should be available for all students.
  • Principle 3: Academic literacy instruction should be subject-integrated.
  • Principle 4: Academic literacy instruction should be based on collaboration.

  She defines “academic literacy” as “the ability to communicate competently in an academic discourse community” (pg. 6). Placing it in context with her use of the word “genres”: “In academic contexts, the social situations and core activities are mainly concerned with knowledge construction, presentation and debate, and accomplished through genres (such as the lecture, the research proposal or the essay). These genres are in turn achieved through contextually appropriate language functions (such as reporting, reasoning, proposing, hedging). Thus, the capabilities of an academically literate, or communicatively competent, person involve, in addition to linguistic proficiency, (1) an understanding of the discipline’s epistemology, i.e. the ways in which subject knowledge is created and communicated, (2) an understanding of the socio-cultural context, i.e. the status of the participants in the academic community and the purpose of the interactions occurring in the community, and (3) a command of the conventions and norms that regulate these interactions. As these interactions are manifested in genres, communicative competence in an academic discourse community can be understood as the ability to understand these genres and express oneself through them” (pp. 6–7). By “subject-integrated” she means instruction that follows the same kind of process and leads to the same kinds of student outcomes as the ones in the “scaffolding approach” documented in “Scaffolding academic literacy with indigenous health sciences students: An evaluative study,” by David Rose, Miranda Rose, Sally Farrington, and Susan Page (Journal of English for Academic Purposes, volume 7, 2008, pp. 165-179). As Wingate writes (pp. 97-98): The four scaffolding levels for reading were (1) Preparing for reading, (2) Paragraph-by-paragraph reading, (3) Paragraph-by-paragraph text marking, and (4) Sentence-by-sentence text marking. The first level provided students with a general introduction to the content, background knowledge and an overview of the text. At the second level, key paragraphs of the text were read jointly with the teacher who offered beforehand a summary in accessible language and introduced academic terms appearing in the paragraph. After the reading, the key elements were discussed and new concepts explained…. Level 3 prepared students to locate and highlight key information in a paragraph. Position cues were used to direct students to this information, and paraphrases and explanations were provided to aid their understanding of specific wordings and meanings. In Level 4, students were supported in identifying wordings and expressions in individual sentences…. This procedure divided the complex task of reading into manageable steps…. Based on the knowledge gained from the reading activities, students were adequately prepared for writing.

• In “Achondrogenesis: Case report and review of the literature” (Journal of Pediatrics, April 1973), Ursula F. Xanthakos and Marian M. Rejent, two physicians in the Department of Pediatrics, Medical College of Ohio at Toledo, did the heartbraking work of documenting a case study of Achondrogenesis. They also produced a list, presented as a table, distinguishing between Achondrogenesis, Thanatophoric Dwarfism, and Homozygous Achondroplasia. This is the kind of delicate, determined, necessary work for which content warnings were invented. You can read the paper if you wish. I don’t recommend it, won’t link to it, and won’t reproduce the table here.

• Ursula Yamaguchi-Koll (with Klaus Wiegers and Rudolf Drzeniek in “Isolation and Characterization of 'Dense Particles' from Poliovirus-infected HeLa Cells,” Journal of General Virology, 1975, Volume 26, pp. 307–319) lists the four bands that she sees during poliovirus purification, two of which she docmented for the first time:

  During poliovirus purification (Drzeniek & Bilello, 1974) we usually see four bands after CsC1 density gradient sedimentation. Two of these were previously described (for review, see Rueckert, 1971) and are 'top component' (1’29 g/ml; Fig. 1, fraction 23) consisting of virus capsids free of RNA and infectious poliovirus particles (1.34 g/ml; Fig. i, fraction 20).

  The third band (1’44 g/ml; Fig. 1, fraction 7) has not been described previously. It could be labelled with both [³H]-uridine and [¹⁴C]-amino acids (Fig. 1). Since synthesis of host-specific RNA and protein was inhibited during labelling (Summers et al. 1965; Baltimore, I969), this suggests that it contains virus-specific ribonucleoprotein. For this reason it is called ‘poliovirus dense component', and its particles accordingly are 'dense particles'.

  In addition to the three radioactively labelled bands, a fourth band was seen at the bottom of the tube, which had neither [³H]-uridine nor [¹⁴C]-label. The high density ( > 1’65 g/ml) of this material together with an E₂₆₀ to E₂₈₀ ratio of > 2 suggests the presence of cellular nucleid acid(s).

  It is quite surprising that these dense poliovirus particles have not been described earlier. Since they are visible as a band in CsCl gradients and are easily identified in radioactively labelled poliovirus preparations, their presence may be ascribed to our special purification procedure, including the chloroform treatment of virus concentrates….

• Urszula Zielenkiewicz’s Main Scientific Achievements:

  • We showed that ClpXP protease is responsible for ε degradation.
  • We characterized the microbial community of exceptional rock biofilm from the ancient Złoty Stok mine and proved that these microorganisms play a key role in releasing arsenic from rocks into surrounding water.
  • We designed and experimentally tested a potent inhibitory peptide for PPI on the basis of the ε-ζ complex.
  • We identified ancestral protomitochondrial apoptosis factors and found that loss of the main apoptotic factors is beneficial under anaerobic conditions.
  • We confirmed several peculiarities of Mucoromycotina, such as lipid production, making them distinct from Ascomycetes.

Don’t mess with Ursula. At least in the U.S. (according to Nameberry), the name peaked in 1901. After a slow decline, it had a bubble around the time I was born, then crashed. If Disney hasn’t ruined it, and humans continue to human, I expect a renaissance. Who wouldn’t want their child to make this list?

Thank you for spending a few moments with me. I appreciate you and look forward to corresponding again next month.

Brett

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