A paradigm shift.

What a time, no? Filled with so much upside down oddity, so much counter-intuitive strange. Who could have ever thought that pumping tons and tons of free money into an economy makes the price of goods go up? Who would have ever dreamed that shark, generally misanthropic, hold the secret to curing mankind of its current dreaded ailment?

Not surfers, certainly, but a new study just released in the scientific journal Nature Communications makes it entirely clear that sharks, broadly man-eating, have proteins that act as antibody to Covid-19 and its variations.

Care to sample?

Single-domain Variable New Antigen Receptors (VNARs) from the immune system of sharks are the smallest naturally occurring binding domains found in nature. Possessing flexible paratopes that can recognize protein motifs inaccessible to classical antibodies, VNARs have yet to be exploited for the development of SARS-CoV-2 therapeutics. Here, we detail the identification of a series of VNARs from a VNAR phage display library screened against the SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain (RBD). The ability of the VNARs to neutralize pseudotype and authentic live SARS-CoV-2 virus rivalled or exceeded that of full-length immunoglobulins and other single-domain antibodies. Crystallographic analysis of two VNARs found that they recognized separate epitopes on the RBD and had distinctly different mechanisms of virus neutralization unique to VNARs. Structural and biochemical data suggest that VNARs would be effective therapeutic agents against emerging SARS-CoV-2 mutants, including the Delta variant, and coronaviruses across multiple phylogenetic lineages. This study highlights the utility of VNARs as effective therapeutics against coronaviruses and may serve as a critical milestone for nearing a paradigm shift of the greater biologic landscape.

I am almost loathe to share the wonderful news, as sharks have long been a natural deterrent to the VAL invasion but maybe no longer.

Maybe many soft toppers will head out to the lineup hoping to catch a little nibble along with the other great passion of clogging the inside.

The shark proteins have not been tested on humans yet but will be soon and I think surfers, for all the frontline work done amongst the toothy beasts, should be first in line.

Sensible.

Cocaine's a hell of a drug etc.

A forty-six kilogram shipment of “pure white cocaine”, compressed into bricks and sealed in black plastic, was found on the beach at Jeffreys Bay last Wednesday and handed into local police by a couple walking their dog. 

“The suspected drugs were seized for forensic examination and the docket was referred to Hawks Serious Organised Crime Investigation team based in Gqeberha for a further probe,” said the local head cop. “No arrest at this stage pending the ongoing investigation.”

It’s about now you play that little game of what-would-you-do? Forty-six kegs ain’t an amount to be trifled with. 

Cut into one-gram bags, street value in Australia $400, let’s say it’s diluted by fifty percent, and that’s thirty-six million dollars. (Unless my maths ain’t functioning.)

Yeah, South Africa is a hell of a lot cheaper. And, yeah, that’s someone else’s coke and they ain’t gonna be happy if you’re schlepping it around.

So what would you do?

Hand it in?

Cut a piece off for personal use, maybe a little extra for pals?

Go full Pablo Escobar?

Me?

Ain’t my favourite treat although I do subscribe to Aleister Crowley’s take in Diary of a Drug Fiend.

“Until you’ve got your mouth full of cocaine, you don’t know what kissing is. One kiss goes on from phase to phase like one of those novels by Balzac and Zola and Romain Rolland and D. H. Lawrence and those chaps. And you never get tired. You’re on fourth speed all the time, and the engine purrs like a kitten, a big white kitten with the stars in its whiskers.”

Much passion.

Days ago, it was announced that the World Surf League, headquartered in Santa Monica, California, had signed a stunning television rights deal with Latin America’s largest network, TV Globo out of Rio de Janeiro. Per the press release:

Today the World Surf League (WSL) announced that, beginning in 2022, Globo will be the official media partner in Brazil. The new three-year media deal will be effective from 2022 through 2024, providing multi-platform coverage that will be amplified on Globo TV, Globoplay, ge.com, and Canal OFF. This new media deal will give the passionate Brazilian audience the opportunity to watch the world’s best surfers in action, including all of the Brazilian athletes that are on the forefront of competitive surfing.

Questions immediately rose as to the use of the word “passionate” as it is the one and only adjective used to describe Brazilian surf fans and has, therefore, become a stereotypical trope. Racist-adjacent.

Why can’t Brazil’s fanbase be “informed” or “dedicated?”

“Loyal?”

In any case, calls are growing for the World Surf League to issue a formal apology to the federative republic. David Lee and I discussed, on yesterday’s podcast, and also discussed Neo-punk music. Worth your time, I think.

I’ll tell you what, training for a ballet premier is no easy feat. Curtains officially rise tomorrow night, after a lengthy overture, exposing a stage glittered with presents, a Christmas tree and glitter. A sense of awe, wonder.

Magical but hard yards getting there. I have spent the past two nights at the theater dress rehearsing with young daughter, a vision, and the remaining cast and crew of San Diego Ballet Academy’s iconic staging of The Nutcracker.

In makeup and dress until the wee hours.

Oh it’s all very much worth it but there would be no way I could handle the stress, the strain, without the guidance of my personal digital fitness and health coach.

WHOOP tells me how hard I’m pushing, when to sleep, what recovery is looking like setting me up for success the next exhausting morning. It also serves me with a morning journal exercise. A diary, of sorts, using the prompts “Yesterday did you… have any alcoholic drinks? Have any caffeine? Used marijuana in any form?” I ignore the marijuana question, as it is inapplicable, but think hard about answering the first two thereby keeping me on a very necessary straight and narrow. I also write the specifics of the previous day’s activities.

“Dear Diary…” I begin “…Yesterday was a doozy. I showed up at California Center for the Arts already tired, applied my eyeshadow, eyeliner, rouge, lipstick in the dressing room then put on my false breasts, hoop, corset, skirt and top back stage. It was very tiring. The Bon Bons were in fine form, playing tag between my legs and telling me that I looked like a ‘weird lady’ but thankfully my recovery was in the green so I was able to take it in stride only stepping on one. Wish me luck, tomorrow. xoxo. Yours, Surf Journalist.”

I am able to stop, reflect, be best. Does your fitness coach do that for you every morning?

It can.

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