Inequality Archives - The Sciku Project

led
into gold . . conflict
of interest
by Jerome Berglund

It’s fascinating how black swan events and emerging innovations can effect scarcity and perceived value, one thinks of lab grown diamonds disrupting industry and also removing needs for exploitative mining practices. Here’s hoping they continue by making food readily accessible, water drinkable, air safe to breathe!

This poem is also about how divisive inequality is created intentionally, and removal of caste boundaries built on arbitrary material constructs is not desired by the opulent few in the upstairs most comfortable waited on hand and foot. But now thankfully… Robots, ai! Perhaps they can even eliminate brothels and patriarchy, servitude with Siri and company. Until Skynet gets a bee in its bonnet at least! ?

As per ABC News: ‘Scientists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider have successfully transformed lead into gold atoms, achieving an ancient alchemist dream through modern physics.

The Large Hadron Collider is a giant particle accelerator that smashes atoms together at super-high speeds. Scientists there have found a way to knock three tiny particles called protons out of lead atoms, turning them into gold atoms.

Instead of crashing lead atoms head-on, the team behind this discovery looked at what happens when the atoms just barely miss each other.’

Further reading:

‘Scientists turn lead into gold for 1st time, but only for a split second’, 2025, Louallen, D., ABC News, available: https://abcnews.visitlink.me/tfEWuW

‘How CERN turned lead into gold (very briefly) in the Large Hadron Collider’, 2025, Petras, G. & Beard, S.J., USA Today, available: https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2025/05/16/how-cern-collider-turned-lead-into-gold/83651264007/

Author bio:

Jerome Berglund, recently nominated for the Touchstone awards, graduated from USC’s film program, worked in the entertainment industry before returning to the midwest where he has been employed as everything from dishwasher to paralegal, night watchman to assembler of heart valves. Recently relocated to Louisiana, Jerome has exhibited many haiku, senryu and haiga online and in print, most recently in the Asahi Shimbun, bottle rockets, Cold Moon Journal, Failed Haiku, Frogpond, Mainichi, Presence, and Seashores. You can follow him on Twitter @BerglundJerome and find more of his poetry here: https://flowersunmedia.wixsite.com/jbphotography/post/haiku-senryu-and-haiga-publications

Check out more sciku from Jerome here.

acts buy our brains time
but dementia risk runs deep . . .
let’s change society
by Timothy Daly

Following years of failed drug trials to find a cure for dementia, many researchers have turned to the strategy of promoting healthy lifestyles to improve brain health. A recent article of mine argues that from the point of view of fair and far-reaching prevention, lifestyle approaches are only the tip of an iceberg of dementia risk, below which we find social inequalities and unhealthy environments. We should encourage lifestyle changes alongside changes in society itself to improve access to health and reduce inequalities.

Further reading:

‘The iceberg of dementia risk: empirical and conceptual arguments in favor of structural interventions for brain health’, 2024, Daly, T., Cerebral Circulation – Cognition and Behavior, 6, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cccb.2023.100193

‘Individuals with dementia and populations with dementia’, 2024, Elizabeth Shaaban, C., Cerebral Circulation – Cognition and Behavior, 6, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cccb.2024.100221

‘A whole-population approach is required for dementia risk reduction’, 2022, Walsh, S., et al., The Lancet Healthy Longevity, 3(1), E6-E8, https://doi.org/10.1016/S2666-7568(21)00301-9

Author bio:

Dr. Timothy Daly researches dementia and writes poetry. You can follow him on X/Twitter @PhilAlz