Letters: Women in Antarctica
‘Michael Cross wonders why Britain still bans women from Antarctica’
(Forum, 27 April). Many at BAS feel that this article does not reflect the
current situation for women scientists within the BAS and is both negative
and biased.
If Michael Cross had bothered to check his facts we could have told
him that during the 1990/91 season BAS had women scientists and support
staff (including most of the signatories to this letter) working in Antarctica
on ships, at bases and in the field, some camping for two to three months.
Others of us have worked in the Antarctic in the past and several women
have been recruited this year to work in the Antarctic during subsequent
seasons.
Of course, BAS has been male dominated, but this is changing and the
phased implementation of the BAS policy on equal opportunities for men and
women began in 1987. On the positive side, for example, the BAS ship RRS
John Biscoe has been used in biological and geophysical research programmes
within the Southern Ocean. Women have been part of the scientific complement,
increasing in numbers every year, since 1985/86. The 1989/90 season saw
the first BAS cruise with a woman chief scientist (Carol Pudsey) and with
women scientists actually outnumbering the male scientists. The cruise achieved
successfully all the scientific objectives well within the allotted time:
it is accepted generally that women on BAS cruises are no longer an issue.
It must be stated, however, that the situation is different at the bases
and in the field programmes, with relatively few women involved each season.
However, for the summer programmes this is a function of the small number
of women applicants and is not caused by restrictions imposed by BAS. In
order for the situation to change all those women who never apply because
‘BAS only employs men’ should put pen to paper! Women do not yet overwinter
at British bases, but this is part of a planned progression. We are confident
that it will be achieved in the future.
Carolyn Symon, Emma Hatfield, Debbie Gore, Debbie C. Armstrong, Ailbhe
Duane, Elizabeth Pasteur, Janet Thomson, Carol J. Pudsey, Marion E. Barber,
Helen Hill, Catherine Mitchell, Liz Morris British Antarctic Survey Cambridge
Letters: Any old alignment
The temple at Godmanchester (‘Godmanchester’s temple of the Sun’, 23
March) is indeed impressive. But I wonder whether the claimed sophistication
of its astronomical alignments owes more to the ingenuity of Stone Age astronomers
or modern day archaeologists?
Consider: first, the 24 obelisks in the temple can be used in pairs
to sight in 266 different directions. So, by carefully choosing the right
pair of obelisks, we could probably find an alignment to coincide tolerably
with any astronomical event.
Second, alignments in the solar and lunar cycles come in matching pairs
(midwinter sunset is diametrically opposite midsummer sunrise, etc.), thus
doubling the ‘significance’ of the alignments at a stroke.
Third, only 10 of the 24 obelisks feature in these ‘obvious’ alignments,
and one of the 5 major ones is not used at all.
Finally, the festival of Beltane was unlikely to be held on 1 May, unless
the Neolithic people used the Gregorian calendar. So the alignment with
sunrise on that day must be conjectural, or the product of a circular argument.
Am I missing something?
Stewart Robertson, South Croydon, Surrey
Letters: Deltas in danger
Your recent article on ‘The rivers that won’t be tamed’ (13 April) provides
an interesting commentary on efforts to ‘tame’ nature in dynamic natural
environments and their likely negative consequences. However, it fails to
note one of the most serious problems associated with conventional flood
protection schemes in deltaic environments: namely subsidence. Deltaic environments
naturally subside and the land surface can only be maintained at a constant
elevation if sedimentation occurs. If the sediment is prevented from accumulating
by levees or dikes, the ground sinks, producing a relative rise of sea level
which in the relatively flat deltaic environment causes large coastal land
losses. This is happening in the Mississippi Delta, Louisiana, where locally
sea level is rising and there is the largest coastal erosion problem in
the US.
Bangladesh is always cited as one of the major losers to accelerated
sea-level rise and, if successful, these flood protection schemes can only
exacerbate these problems. (Loss of the sediment supply due to upstream
dam construction would be equally serious). We support Fred Pearce’s suggestion
that soft methods of flood control should be investigated as an alternative
to hard stabilisation.
In this regard, it is interesting to note that large-scale water (and
hence sediment) diversions are being constructed on the Mississippi to flood
some of the areas protected by the levees in a controlled manner. It is
hoped that this will reduce wetland loss.
Let us hope that Bangladesh can learn the lessons of the Mississippi
Delta and manage the problems of flooding in the delta in a manner which
does not increase the future vulnerability of the country to sea-level rise.
Robert J. Nicholls, Karen C. Dennis, Stephen P. Leatherman University
of Maryland at College Park, US
Letters: Deltas in danger
An important factor which was not mentioned in ‘Floods in Bangladesh:
who is to blame?’ (13 April), is the loss of traditional soil-stabilizing
crops. As in India, hemp was grown in Bangladesh for thousands of years,
for fibre, cooking and lighting oil, and high-protein seed cake.
Hemp seeds sprout in a few days and put down a 10-12 inch root in the
first month, stabilising soil after floods or forest fires more effectively
than any other crop. The economy and ecology of Bangladesh were highly dependent
on hemp, so much that the very name means bhang-cannabis, la-land, desh-people.
In 1964 Bangladesh signed an ‘anti-drug’ agreement with the US not to
grow hemp. Since that time, the ‘cannabis-landpeople’ have suffered starvation,
disease and decimation due to unrestrained flooding.
Bonnie Camo Princeton BioCenter, Skillman, New Jersey, US
Letters: Off their rockets
Apparently Chernobyl was not sufficient as a lesson, because the Pentagon
now wants to test a nuclear-powered rocket (This Week, 13 April). But if
Timberwind is as safe as claimed, why not test it on a trajectory above
the USA from Boston to San Francisco, say?
If something goes wrong, the reactor could be sent crashing into Nevada.
There it would not add much to the level of radioactivity accumulated during
tens of years of atomic bomb testing, whereas over Antarctica it would be
disastrous indeed. Moreover, there is enough American rubbish at McMurdo
already, it does not need any more.
J. Woelki Morges, Switzerland
Letters: Not so little
Michael Kenward writes ‘The government has shown little enthusiasm for
nuclear power’ and this is about to change (This Week, 20 April). Really?
The International Energy Agency reported (1986) that Britain spends
88 times as much on nuclear research as coal research, but nuclear power
produces only a quarter of the electricity produced by coal in the UK.
This continuing imbalance was condemned by the House of Commons Select
Committee on Energy in June 1990. Most nuclear research funds are provided
by the government which spends trivially on clean coal technology and renewable
energy research.
The fossil fuel levy was recently introduced to tax fossil fuels used
for electricity generation and to subsidise nuclear power from the proceeds.
Without the levy, the cost of nuclear power would be about 3 times that
of electricity from coal.
The privatisation of the electricity supply industry was deliberately
structured to maintain the uneconomic and unsaleable nuclear industry at
its present size. Meanwhile, the government has closed three quarters of
the British coal industry and the pit closures continue.
The British coal industry is the major source of British electricity
generation. Perhaps it would benefit from the government showing ‘little
enthusiasm’ for it.
Richard S. Courtney Cheltenham
Letters: Raw Scots
Paul G. Bahn reports that concrete evidence for cannibalism is ‘still
proving hard to find’, (‘Is cannibalism too much to swallow?’, 27 April).
The late Alexander Keith in A Thousand Years of Aberdeen (Aberdeen University
Press, 1972) recorded that in the 15th century Sir Robert Melville of Glenbervie,
Sheriff of the Mearns, ‘was caught by his enemies and boiled to death in
a cauldron. ‘Sodden and suppit in broo (broth)’ was the technical term for
a popular form of lynching in Scotland, for the participants partook of
the soup boiled out of their victims.’
In a footnote Keith added that ‘at least one other instance of this
highly utilitarian method of liquidating obnoxious citizens has been recorded
in Scotland’, the victim being the Laird of Liddesdale in the Borders.
‘A raw Scot’ may thus have culinary as well as cultural overtones.
R. V. Jones Aberdeen, Scotland
Letters: Raw Scots
After the fuss about ‘Mad Cow Disease’ it is surprising that Paul Bahn
does not mention Kuru and ritual cannibalism in the New Guinea highlands.
Kuru or ‘Laughing Death’ is an endemic and invariably fatal condition
which has been convincingly linked to the tribal custom in certain areas
of eating the brain tissue of dead relatives. This is said to be done to
gain magically the powers of the deceased but it also has the effect of
transferring the infective agent in a manner similar to the transmission
of Spongiform Encephalitis to cows from the ingested tissue of scrapie-affected
sheep.
Martin Harris Melbourne Australia
Letters: Asthma agonists
William Bown is to be complimented on the breadth of his most recent
review of asthma and its treatment (‘Are asthma drugs a cure that kills’,
6 April). There are, however, one or two further points that should be made.
He states that ‘fenoterol excites the heart more than other beta-2-agonists’.
This has only been shown convincingly at doses which significantly exceed
the recommended dose of fenoterol and in healthy subjects or patients with
mild asthma. Further, the New Zealand data lead one to a variety of possible
conclusions, not least that patients with more severe asthma were at the
time being selectively prescribed fenoterol and thus that the association
with asthma mortality was not causal.
The data from the study by Sears et al did not conclude that fenoterol
made the asthmatics worse. The authors concluded that regular as opposed
to intermittent use of the beta-agonist made a proportion of asthmatics
worse.
Finally, I am unaware of any data in the asthma treatment literature
which confirms in any way the statement attributed to Glaxo that salbutamol
is ‘intrinsically safer’ than fenoterol.
What is more important is that chest physicians, drug regulators and
pharmaceutical company drug development professionals consider in a collaborative
manner how to optimise the clinical management of asthma with particular
emphasis on how best to use beta-agonists given their valuable and, at times,
life-saving properties.
D M Humphreys Medical Director Boehinger Ingelheim Ltd Berkshire
Letters: Going pop
Feedback (13 April) predicts the spread of popcorn as a packaging material
from USA to Britain.
He should write in the present, as The Whole Thing of Kendal, Cumbria
are already using popcorn. They claim it to be rapidly biodegraded, but
make no suggestion that one can eat all the packing.
David Cape, Cardiff
Letters: Literary fall-out
I am writing to take issue with comments in your leading article, ‘Truth and Chernobyl’ (Comment, 20 April).
As you know, I submitted for publication a 3500 word article looking at the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident. This was sent to you on 4 April, admittedly missing our previously agreed deadline. However, you had been told that this was likely to be the case in order to allow time for the normal clearance procedure within the MAFF. While you might think that we should have been able to speed up these clearance procedures, you have no justification for drawing the inference that ‘senior Government officials are still tempted to keep the lid on public debate about issues connected with the Chernobyl accident’.
How could it be so when it was the MAFF that originally suggested that we could provide you with an article on the subject? It is regrettable that our article could not be published at the same time as your own features on Chernobyl in last week’s edition. However, you have the MAFF article and I trust you will find space for it in the near future along with this letter so that your readers have the facts as well as the unwarranted allegation about withholding information which was contained in last week’s leader comment.
M. G. Segal Food Safety Directorate Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food London
Our conclusions were based on the fact that, several weeks after the article concerned had been offered, we were informed the offer was being unilaterally withdrawn. It was only after we protested that the ministry agreed the article could be submitted for publication. It will be published shortly. Ed.