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What are nitazenes? Benzimidazole opioids
Benzimidazole opioids, also commonly known as nitazenes, were first synthesised by CIBA Pharmaceuticals in the 1950s as putative alternatives to morphine and heroin for use as strong painkillers. They have never made it into use in clinical medicine because the risk of addiction, respiratory depression, and death in use is too high. Etonitazene has hundreds of times the potency of morphine The compounds are classified as opioid New Psychoactive Substances (opioid NPS). Their mode of action is to bind to the brain’s mu-opioid receptors, but their unique structure means that some examples are several hundred times more...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - December 11, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Chemistry Health and Medicine Pharma Source Type: blogs

Measles and immunity
The antivax brigade has a lot to answer for, not least the rise and rise of measles, which can be lethal, but is so easily staved off with vaccination. Even if it is not lethal for many, it can be a very problematic disease not least because in some ways it makes your immune system lose its memory of how to protect you from other diseases. While this effect may only be temporary in most cases, temporary can be long enough for another potentially lethal pathogen to take hold while you are vulnerable. I’ve seen mention on social media of the notion that measles can delete your immune system’s memory of other dise...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - December 10, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Health and Medicine Vaccines Source Type: blogs

Where is the best place to see Waxwings?
Where is the best place to catch sight of one of the most beautiful of winter visitors, when it comes to birds? The Waxwing, Bombycilla garrulus. Waxwing feeding on berries in a tree next to a bus stop near Newcastle-upon-Tyne You might imagine it would be some delightful hill or vale, a nature reserve, or perhaps a remote woodland. Well, that’s not the case. This distinctive species heads south to the UK when it gets too cold for it in northern parts and when the supply of berries on which it feeds dries up. As of December 2023, it seems like we are in the middle of an irruption of these birds with relatively large ...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - December 9, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Birds Source Type: blogs

A bird ’ s eye view
Birds have incredible visual systems. This is especially true of the birds of prey, the raptors, which includes the hawks, falcons, eagles, buzzards, harriers, owls, and others. Red Kite staring at me from its perch atop a conifer Unlike many other types of birds, the raptors have binocular vision, their eyes face forward, like ours, which means they have a 3D view of the world ahead of them. This allows them to pinpoint prey incredibly well even from great distances as is the case with the Peregrine Falcon. That species, and others, also have two fovea, the most sensitive regions of the light-sensitive retinas at the back...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - December 7, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Biology Birds Source Type: blogs

Peter Panto poetry
I’ve written a short poem to use with my video montage of a few of my photos from the 2023 Cottenham Theatre Workshop production – Peter Panto! Tickets on sale here. https://www.sciencebase.com/images/Panto-Poem.mp4 Peter Panto It’s panto season once more Oh no it isn’t! I hear the crowd roar We’ve tuned the ba-dum tsch, We’ve settled the score And stitched curtain calls for the walk-down encore The principals’ principles are sometimes ad lib The chorus-line parts are tight like a jib Cute kids play their part, There will be no damp squib And the drums they may crack your spare ri...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - December 4, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Fiction Source Type: blogs

Peter Panto 2023 – Cottenham Theatre Workshop
My annual view from the pit as guitarist with the band and as “assistant musical director” alongside our proper Musical Director Barbara Duckworth on piano. What a show it’s going to be. We’ll also have Adam out of off of C5 the band on drums, Christian on cello, and Tanara* on clarinet. Anyway, these are my photos of the grownup actors in no particular order. Cottenham Theatre Workshop (CTW) will share my photos of the youngsters in character on their website and socials. Still some tickets available for the Saturday matinee and early evening show, but those are almost sold out. Reasonable numbers...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - December 4, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Photography Source Type: blogs

Like a flame to a moth – a song
Having collaborated with two of my very good, musical friends this month on two distinct songs, I assumed that would be the end of my musical inspiration, at least until 2024. But, then I was on Threads, and happened upon the account of singer-songwriter janapochop. Cut to the chase, here’s my new song – Like a flame to a moth. It’s NOT about moths… Genre Fluid by Dave Bradley In the spirit of finding new music, I checked out her Spotify and there are some wondrous songs to be heard. In particular one called Pretty Please. Jana describes this, her latest song, as having been “produced by me in...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - November 29, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Music Source Type: blogs

Genre Fluid
Just packaging up six of my most recent songs and musical collaborations that cross over some diverse styles. I’m releasing them as a maxi-EP or a mini-LP, depending on whether you’re glass half-full or half-empty, under the title Genre Fluid for the bargain-bin price of $5 or a dollar each if you want each song separately. AI generated album art – surreal desert scene It’s Not Our Time for the Sea is the most recent of the collection with lyrics by Andrea Thomson (from C5 the band) and me. It’s about the abusive relationship between man and Mother Earth, a mish-mash of prog, pop, funk, rock a...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - November 24, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Music Source Type: blogs

It ’ s not our time for the sea – a song
Andrea T from C5 the band, mentioned in passing that she’d had a dream where she wrote a song, but she could only remember the following line – “She said, it’s not my time for the sea”. Hipgnosis-style generative art cover Well, having worked with co-founder and erstwhile member of our Arts Night collective Simon Oliver on a song last week (My Light, My Sky), I felt like I was on a roll and came up with some lyrics to hang around Andrea’s phrase. The words evolved over the course of a couple of days with input from Andrea as well as a beautiful additional verse from her. I then set about...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - November 21, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Music Source Type: blogs

Birders versus Toggers
Broadly speaking, birders are avian enthusiasts, people interesting in seeing birds. Sometimes birders are twitchers, they like to see a bird so they can “tick” that species off a list, often it involves travelling far from their patch to see a species new to them. Twitchers are often not birders, they’re more akin to collectors, but aren’t necessarily interested in the birds per se. Then there are people with cameras who are also birders, twitchers, or both. Birders and twitchers often refer to these birding photographers as toggers, it’s a rather derogatory word. Now, if a bird of interest s...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - November 18, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Birds Photography Source Type: blogs

My Light, My Sky – AI artwork for a song
I realise there’s a lot of ongoing debate regarding generative AI tools, especially those that have putatively been trained on copyright material without permission from the creators. It’s generally impossible to know what work has been used as source data for the likes of Dall-E, ChatGPT, and MidJourney etc, unless you work in their back office, presumably. However, I do know that some of my copyright material, books, potentially website content, photos, and perhaps even some of my music, will have been used to train various AIs over the last few years. AI-generated artwork with sullen sky, mountains, a centra...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - November 17, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Artificial Intelligence Music Source Type: blogs

Chronic collaboration – My Light, My Sky – a song
TL:DR – Latest song from David Bradley out now on BandCamp, original lyrical inspiration from Clive-upon-Sea: My Light, My Sky. I’ve worked with Simon Oliver (Clive-upon-Sea) on various musical collaborations since April 2012. At that time, we set up what we hoped (in retrospect) would be a Bowie-style Arts Night. It was very successful with a lot of people passing through the doors over the years. One of the concepts was to pick a discussion topic and write a song or a poem, or create an image for the next session. We wrote a lot of songs in the first few years. Eventually, we played a few gigs, I produced a...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - November 16, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Music Source Type: blogs

Settling into social media
I’m usually as early an adopter as I can be with the various tools and apps that come online in the world of social media and social networking. For instance, I was one of the very early users of Plurk and subsequently twttr, although I think when I signed up in June 2007 it had already become twitter. Anyway, there’s lots of activity at the moment with people shuffling allegiances. As you’d expect, I’m on Threads, BlueSky, Mastodon, even Spoutible. If you want to find me on your favourite site, and I will almost certainly be there, just use a URL like this: https://sciencebase.com/social Swap the w...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - November 11, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Social Media Source Type: blogs

Three songs
I have lots of songs that have been with me for many, many years. Beatles stuff, Bacharach and David covers, Bowie, Queen, Chic, and on and on. But, three songs written and recorded in the late 70s are not only close to my heart, but feel like they are related. The first is Message in a Bottle by The Police. This song hangs on Andy Summer’s arpeggiated riff, which goes from a C#min9 to an Amaj9, B7, and finishes with an F#m. It’s a fairly standard chord progression, although Andy Summers plays it with an interesting, wide inversion of each chord, which I discussed in my Classic Chords series some time ago. Inci...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - November 10, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Music Source Type: blogs

Invasive species in the UK
Invasive species, a term referring to non-native species introduced to new environments, often establish self-sustaining populations with negative impacts on local ecosystems, economies, or human health. These invaders, encompassing plants, animals, fungi, or microorganisms (refer to the foot of this article for examples), typically arrive due to human activities such as trade, travel, or intentional release. In rare cases, invasive species might reach the UK through natural avenues, such as animal migration or wind dispersal. Climate change exacerbates the situation, creating new ecological niches due to shifts in tempera...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - November 10, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Biology Environment Science Source Type: blogs