Letter: Goodbye, blues
Your caption to a picture in ‘Astronomy takes off’, 7 April, reads:
‘The first space telescope stands ready for the wide blue yonder’. Isn’t
it the point of this device that it will rise above the ‘wide blue yonder’
precisely to overcome the problems associated with the ‘blue’?
John Davey Plymouth
Letter: Blue is the colour
No wonder Bill Stewart was keeping quiet about the colour of the cover
for next year’s corporate plan (Feedback, 7 April). This year’s blue cover
could indeed indicate his affections for Dundee, who play in that colour;
it is their neighbours, Dundee United, who play in tangerine tops. Stewart
1, New 杏吧原创 0 (own goal).
I. F. Gow Edingburgh
Letter: Job contracts
I was happy to see your feature (‘How to get on in science’, 7 April)
regarding the plight of science in general and particularly that of postdocs
on short-term contracts (of which I am one). Many of the problems inherent
in the short-term contract system are even greater for a particular group
of postdocs – those who entered science as mature students and who aspire
to an academic career. Those in this group are usually over 27 years of
age by the time they are looking for their first postdoc and are therefore
already in the ‘too expensive’ category. In addition, they often have a
lack of geographical mobility (due, perhaps, to a spouse’s job or to children’s
schools) which prevents their applying for the best postdocs for their careers.
It is said that the number of 18-year-olds is falling and that the number
of those going into science will not sustain scientific academia in this
country – the shortfall will not be made up by mature students while the
short-term contract system disadvantages them to an even greater extent
than it does postdocs who gained their PhDs at the ‘normal’ age.
Margaret Lofkin Congleton, Cheshire
Letter: Boom time
Your article on the space shuttle’s sonic booms (Science, 14 April)
may provide an explanation for a phenomenon which I observed while living
in Sussex in 1980.
The sonic boom of Concorde was regularly heard on its return flight
from America. A very short time in advance of the boom a pheasant would
give its alarm call. Did this pheasant know something the scientists of
Caltech did not and are other animals, perhaps even man, similarly able
to sense such low-level ground pressure waves?
James Bellchambers Totnes, Devon
Letter: Japanese citations
In your brief item headlined ‘The research that Japan keeps to itself’
(In Brief, 17 March) you stated that Japanese authors of scientific papers
cite their compatriots 29-38 per cent more frequently than do authors from
the rest of the world. This phenomenon appears to support a number of highly
plausible hypotheses. For instance, it is almost certainly the case that
problems of translation mean that Japanese scientists would have relatively
better access to Japanese scientific literature, and likewise US and European
scientists would have relativley better access to non-Japanese literature.
It might also be the case that patterns of research vary from country
to country, in which case one would expect to see a tendency for authors
to cite literature from their own country more than they cite other countries’
authors. Further, it is possible that authors from some parts of the world
may be led by various cultural biases to ‘under-cite’ or ‘over-cite’ authors
from other parts of the world.
However, while this citation pattern may suggest that other countries
could be making insufficient use of published Japanese material, there appears
to be no reason to infer that there is any deliberate withholding of scientific
information from the Japanese side. It is unfortunate that your somewhat
loaded and emotive headline implies that this is taking place.
John Shortridge Blackburn, Victoria Australia
Letter: Sterling work
John Emsley should not be too surprised if most of his students are
being grabbed by accountancy firms (‘Chemists as accountants’, Forum, 14
April). Although in Britain we train more accountants than the rest of Europe
put together, demand still outstrips supply. The result is that accountancy
is the highest paid profession. This is despite the fact that accountants
do not actually produce anything, but merely move abstract quantities around,
rather like John Emsely’s atoms, only less substantial.
I find this predominance of ‘bean counters’ (Lee Iacocca’s expression
– he of Ford and Chrysler fame) not so much alarming as deeply depressing.
I suspect that all these accountants are a symptom rather than the cause
of Britain’s economic decline. It is perhaps no coincidence that Britain
now employs the smallest proportion of its workforce in manufacturing of
any country in Europe (East and West) except Albania, and has a per capita
Gross National Product only slightly larger than that of East Germany.
There is a plus side to all this. Accountants are environmentally friendly,
producing marginally less greenhouse gases than industry.
TW Knight Manchester
Letter: Exaggerated Etna
Can the slopes of Mount Etna, and the layers of lava and scoria which
build it up, really be inclined at 37Degree ? The diagram illustrating ‘The
rise and fall of Mount Etna’ (3 March) suggests so.
The article discussed the horizontal dykes which feed eruptions on Etna’s
slopes. But why horizontal, apparently cutting across the steeply dipping
layers of ash, scoria and lava which make up the volcano? Redrawing the
cross-section at natural scale, with no vertical exaggeration, and using
the measurements of Etna given in the article, shows that the apparently
steeply dipping layers, and the surface slopes parallel to them, are actually
at angles to the horizontal of less than 10Degree .
So magma which does not follow the main vertical feeder pipes to the
summit craters will move almost horizontally as sills between the layers
of lava and scoria. As it approaches the surface, the magma will push up
the ground, generating a pattern of cracks along which it will move as near-vertical
dykes.
Etna is noted for the many historic scoria cones on its upper flanks.
These lie along the upper parts of radial fissures, the downslope ends of
which fed lava flows before they became sealed off. The process at Etna
is actually similar to that occurring in current eruptions on Kilauea, Hawaii,
where lava moves sub-horizontally to emerge on radial rift zones, with the
activity generally becoming confined to a single vent as the rest of the
rift is sealed off.
EB Joyce University of Melbourne, Australia
Letter: Women and science
I read with great interest the article by Karen Gold on the small number
of women scientists in Britain (‘Get thee to a laboratory’, 14 April).
It is because we appreciate and worry about this that our department
at University College London has organised a three-day Women and Physics
conference for the past few years. We target sixth-form girls with the aim
of countering the preconception that physics is a subject which will not
give them equal opportunities with boys. We also emphasise the variety of
career opportunities open to physics graduates, by inviting several women
speakers with physics degrees to talk of how they use their scientific expertise
in their daily work.
We are convinced that this is an effective way to help recruit girls
into science. This year, for instance, undergraduate entrants into our department
reached an all time high – at least by the standards of recent years – largely
as a result of the recruitment of a significant number of young women. Female
students make up 30 per cent of our current first year. And the 120 places
available at this year’s conference (which will run from 27 to 29 June 1990)
have been oversubscribed by almost a factor of two.
Recently, I have had experience of another, more personal, way to encourage
possible recruits: I have been ‘work-shadowed’ by one of the girls who will
attend our UCL conference in June. Jeanette is keen to become a space scientist,
and wanted to find out for herself what that really entails. So she followed
me during a ‘typical’ day at the laboratory last week.
I am Italian: as far as I am aware, the problem of girls being ‘scared
out’ of science does not exist in my native country, or at least not on
the scale seen in Britain. Certainly, I did not notice it when I was going
through secondary school. I attribute this mainly to one fact: in Italy
boys and girls planning to enter higher education go through identical secondary
education, and are obligated to take all subjects, and the same subjects,
including Maths, Physics and Chemistry, up to the age of 18.
So there is no way for a girl (or any student for that matter) to choose
to drop a subject; in this way the choice of undergraduate degree can be
made later in life, with hopefully more objectivity and understanding of
one’s interests and abilities.
Graziella Branduardi-Raymont Mullard Space Science Laboratory University
College London
Letter: Protected areas
Fred Pearce, in his article ‘The green missionaries of Africa’ (Forum,
21 April), has missed the point about the role of protected areas in the
developing world, preferring no doubt to emphasise the negative aspects
of his one-sided argument.
While it is clear that organisations such as WWF and IUCN must assess
in depth the effects and consequences of their activities on rural folk,
their approach to conservation of natural resources through protected areas
is based on sound principles.
Given the widespread deterioration of all natural resources in the Sahel,
and the overwhelming dependence of the Sahelian peoples on these same resources
for their survival, sound management practices are urgently required. Correctly
designed, protected areas provide an ideal framework to deal with resource
management in a sensitive, realistic and site-specific way. They allow limited
financial resources to be applied directly to conservation problems as diverse
as soil erosion, overgrazing and habitat rehabilitation, in a way that general
measures such as legislation or public awareness cannot hope to tackle in
the short and medium terms.
What is at stake is not the principle of protected areas but the way
in which they are managed. While there will, in my opinion, always be a
need, nay an obligation, to preserve major elements of our planet’s natural
heritage in traditional parks and reserves, the design and management of
protected areas is rapidly changing to accommodate human needs and desires
for a sounder future.
John Newby WWF representative Niger
Letter: Medium rare
I was surprised to read that ‘tornadoes do not occur in Europe’ (Feedback,
10 February). Although popularly associated with the US, tornadoes occur
in most parts of the world. Work by the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation
(TORRO) has shown that in Britain tornadoes are roughly as common per unit
area as in the US, although the US ones are in general more severe.
TORRO also has a considerable number of reports from other European
countries. A few of these tornadoes were severe even by US standards. Indeed,
two French F5 tornadoes (the most violent category on the Fujita scale,
and rare even in the US) were in the extreme north of the country, suggesting
that tornadoes of this intensity could occur in Britain.
Mike Rowe TORRO Lymington, Hampshire
Letter: Poly anomaly
Your article ‘Polytechnics demand an end to ‘intellectual apartheid’
‘ (This Week, 7 April) contains a serious inaccuracy. It dwells on the anomalies
of the operation of the dual-support policy for research and, in particular,
on iniquities in the way it applies within the polytechnics via the PCFC,
compared with the treatment of universities via the UFC.
Polytechnics are not, as stated in your article, all within the PCFC
sector, since the Polytechnic of Wales is in the third sector within England
and Wales, MFHAE, within which it has recently received significantly less
all-round support than any other polytechnic.
In spite of this, in research terms it has performed above the average
of the other polytechnics as measured by the external indicators of funding
from SERC and research degree achievement. Within the statutory legal framework
of England and Wales the University of Wales is treated no differently to
universities of England which raises the question: why should the Polytechnic
of Wales be treated differently to the polytechnics in England?
Bill George The Polytechnic of Wales