Letters: Women at work
In ‘Making equality work for women’, Susan McRae points out that arrangements
for those returning to work are still not flexible enough ‘to meet the needs
of women’ (Talking Point, 25 May). But women do not need flexibility for
themselves. They need it to cope with the family responsibilities that our
society at present expects them to undertake with derisory backup. The phrase
‘to meet the needs of women’ manages to make women returners seem selfish,
and so lets employers off the hook.
Employers already extend tacit flexibility to male employees – this
covers the countless working hours lost due to drink-related problems and
to injuries sustained by men at play (‘sports injuries’). The NHS shares
these costs too, and it would be hard to show that either the employer or
the nation gets any benefits in return for absorbing ‘the needs of men’.
For women returners, flexibility at work means putting in the hours for
the pay and taking on the gruelling logistics of the double shift too. In
return, employer and nation get a splendid bargain – the next generation
of employees are raised at minimum bother and expense. Is this ‘making equality
work for women’?
Now if the extensive networking, sponsorships, donations, facilities,
land, hardware and public time and attention lavished on men’s sporting
events could be mirrored in the service of child-care and facilities for
under-16s, we would have a support system worthy of young Brits whether
their parents were in work or not. Then equality for women (and children)
might be on the way.
A. H. Turner West Yorkshire
Letters: Jolly laboratories
J. E. Enderby got it right. Visual images of the beautiful kind can
be exceptionally powerful in persuading youngsters to embark on scientific
careers (Letters, 8 June). Unfortunately, the positive stimuli of breathtaking
photographs publicising the activities of scientists are counteracted by
the dismal visual aspect of young people’s first-hand experience of science.
School laboratories are too often actual eyesores, despite every effort
of staff to enliven them with posters and the odd geranium plant. Junior
schools have always had jolly equipment in cheerful colours.
At last manufacturers are taking visual impact into account in the design
of apparatus and lab furnishings for secondary schools. So the inquiry into
‘funding . . . required to ensure the long-term health of the UK science
base’ will not I hope, ignore the base.
Jenny Kennedy University of Exeter
Letters: Heresy on Mercury
The article on the composition and position of Mercury (‘Mercury – the
impossible planet?’, 1 June) did not mention, even in passing, a scientific
heresy that explains the facts that so puzzled the writer.
The position and composition of Mercury are a puzzle only within the
standard theory of formation of the Solar System. As that theory was proved
completely useless by the Voyager encounters, it should come as no surprise
that modified versions of it do not explain Mercury’s position or iron core.
In contrast, the modern Laplacian theory of Solar System formation,
devised by Andrew Prentice of Monash University in Melbourne, accounts for
these facts about Mercury. It has even made successful predictions about
the systems encountered by the Voyager spacecraft. The theory’s problem
is that it is not accepted.
The modern Laplacian theory had the same spinning cloud of dust proposed
by Laplace, but uses a mechanism dubbed supersonic turbulence, a very strong
form of turbulence, which pushes angular momentum out into the fringes of
the cloud. The mechanism was probably very radical when it was first proposed,
and was the reason for the theory’s initial rejection.
Now supersonic turbulence is a less radical concept – there are indications
it occurs elsewhere in nature – but the modern Laplacian theory is still
not being acknowledged by other scientists in the field, not even as a form
of honourable opposition.
Prentice’s more reasonable critics admit that the theory must have found
an underlying pattern in the formation of the Solar System, even if they
reject the mechanism used to model that pattern. The modern Laplacian theory
must hold some sort of record as the most successful unacknowledged theory
yet devised.
Mark Lawson Sydney, Australia
Letters: Heresy on Mercury
It is interesting to compare Ken Croswell’s piece about Mercury with
the previous week’s article by John Gribbin, ‘Is anyone out there?’.
To explain some of Mercury’s anomalies requires the assumption that
the planet suffered ‘random acts of violence’ from one or more other bodies.
The Gribbin article dismisses Venus as a possible cradle of life simply
because it happens to be too close to the Sun and is therefore too hot.
This totally ignores one of Venus’s greatest anomalies, which is its slow
and retrograde rotation. If theories of planetary formation from an accretion
disc around the Sun are correct, Venus must surely have suffered some extremely
large ‘random acts of violence’ to have modified its spin so much. Could
this not also have had an adverse effect on its potential to develop life
or, depending when such an impact occurred, have destroyed any that already
existed?
P. E. L. Brooker St Albans, Hertfordshire
Letters: Guts and greens
Your news item on the mastodon from Ohio (New 杏吧原创, Science, 1
June) raises a number of interesting questions, one of which is whether
we can derive a picture of the vegetation of 11 000 years ago from an analysis
of its gut contents. Your reporter suggests that the animal’s diet of water
plants rather than the expected fir and spruce twigs indicates an open,
unforested environment.
This may well be true, but is not acceptable as proof since the animal
may have been deliberately exercising a dietary preference in selecting
water plants from the available vegetation. There is, in fact, a very telling
demonstration of such selection in the modern boreal environments of Canada
by the extant megafaunal animal, the moose.
Work by Botkin and others in the Isle Royale National Park in Canada
showed that the moose spends its summer grazing upon water plants in preference
to spruce and other trees. They put this down to the fact that the aquatic
vegetation contains up to a thousand times more sodium per unit weight than
coniferous twigs and without this essential supplement to their diet the
animals would be suffering from a serious sodium deficiency.
The mastodons of late-glacial Ohio clearly had a similar dietary preference,
and their gut contents should be interpreted not as a basis for the reconstruction
of past vegetation, but as a fascinating insight into the nutrient dynamics
of an ancient ecosystem.
Peter D. Moore King’s College London
Letters: Crystal credit
The discovery of discotic liquid crystals at the Raman Research Institute
in India, mentioned in your article (‘The fourth state of matter’, 4 May),
was the joint work of three people – S. Chandrasekhar, B. K. Sadashiva,
and K. A. Suresh, who are in fact the authors of the original 1977 paper
‘Liquid crystals of disc-like molecules’ (Pramana, vol 9 p 471).
Rajaram Nityananda Raman Research Institute Bangalore India
Letters: Long-life trees
In reply to John Brunner Letters, 8 June, whether a tree is coniferous
or broad-leaved is irrelevant to its effect on the carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere. Plants immobilise carbon dioxide by converting it into sugars,
starch, and the various constituents of wood; thus the plant which is quickest
growing will absorb carbon dioxide fastest. Plants release carbon dioxide
to the atmosphere when they decay, are eaten by animals, or are burnt. Thus
a long-lived tree with durable timber will retain carbon dioxide for a longer
period than a shorter-lived perishable plant. The ideal would be a tree
living many years with a high average rate of growth throughout its life.
In this country it might well be a conifer; perhaps in the tropics a species
of eucalyptus.
J. K. Jackson Pinner, Middlesex
Letters: Stalking the stork
I was unhappy to read the letter by Philip Jones of Cornwall who voiced
concern over the satellite study of the jabiru stork in the Pantanal of
Brazil (Letters, 25 May). His statement, ‘Discovering where they go will
mean that the area will almost certainly need protection,’ is exactly the
reason this sort of research is undertaken. How can a migratory species
be saved if all its critical seasonal habitats are not also protected?
Mr Jones’s concern, although sincere, is founded not on scientific reasoning
but on a romantic view of how the world should be. In fact there no longer
exist places where humans don’t venture into wild areas, where exotic and
mysterious species (such as the jabiru) have undisturbed refuge from the
misactions of Homo sapiens. Indeed, what in Central and South America is
not put into protected areas by the end of the century will invariably suffer
the fate of much of the region: ecological degradation due to drainage and
deforestation for cattle ranching, agriculture and urban settlements.
The frontier days have passed. We need to approach conservation from
an educated and realistic perspective; good science will be the tool by
which we accomplish this objective.
My hat’s off to the satellite work on the jabiru; may it elucidate the
unknowns that will allow our Brazilian colleagues to protect this magnificent
sentry of the marshes.
Charles S. Luthin Caribbean Conservation Corporation Florida
Letters: Trigger happy
In Luxembourg – and in my experience most other West European countries
– the trigger on petrol delivery hoses in filling stations has a small lever
attached whose function is to lock the trigger in position while filling
up the tank, thus relieving sore or arthritic fingers and allowing motorists
to distance themselves a little from the unpleasant fumes of (especially
unleaded) petrol.
In England at least (I can’t speak for Scotland or Wales), this lever
on the trigger never works because the small metal bar against which it
locks is simply not there. At first I assumed that this was a case of English
vandalism on a par with non-working air hoses and suchlike, but it would
be a strange sort of vandal who would go around knocking out the (very small)
pin concerned.
Is there some sort of UK legislation forbidding the use of this very
handy little device, or is it petrol company or filling station policy?
Graham Chambers Luxembourg
Letters: Royal Fellow
I recently enquired about the qualifications of HRH The Duke of Kent
for Fellowship of the Royal Society, in the absence of scientific achievement.
It seems that under Statute 11 ‘Any one of Her Majesty’s subjects who is
a Prince of the Blood Royal may be proposed . . . by any Fellow’.
Proposed, possibly, but why elected? Surely the letters ‘FRS’ imply
scientific achievement of world class, and their use should be restricted
to such cases.
The foundation of the society was blessed by Charles II, which may explain
this statute. However, its use today is bizarre, and the statute should
be abolished, or revised. At least in such cases the letters ‘Hon. FRS’
might be substituted.
In view of the international standing of the Royal Society, this is
a matter of public concern, not just a private concern.
Colin Forrester Epsom, Surrey
Letters: Famous copy
Barry Fox, in his intriguing piece ‘We shall trick them in the speeches’
(Technology, 18 May) showing that the voice on recordings of some famous
Winston Churchill speeches was that of Norman Shelley, strikes a familiar
chord on a further piece of Churchilliana.
Churchill’s masterpiece of 4 June 1940 – ‘we shall fight on the beaches,
in the fields . . . and in the hills’ – was, in fact, lifted from a famous
speech delivered by the Irish patriot Robert Emmet on 19 September 1803
– to ‘fight them on the beaches . . . in the country . . . and dispute every
inch of ground . . . until the last entrenchment of liberty should be the
grave’.
Churchill is known to have admired the Emmet speech, which was his last.
It was delivered from the dock.
Emmet was speaking of the French, had they arrived uninvited.
Kieran McGovern Dublin
Letters: Historic witnesses
C. H. W. Lilley’s letter (1 June) about the team from BTH in Rugby who
worked with Sir Frank Whittle in 1936-37 is part of an interesting pattern
– the small numbers of eyewitnesses at such great but lonely moments in
the history of technology.
The Wright brothers had five witnesses in 1903; only a 16-year-old office
boy, William Taynton (1910-1976) saw Baird’s television breakthrough on
2 October 1925; Goddard’s first liquid-filled rocket launch was seen by
a crowd of four, and only John Atanasoff and his assistant Clifford Berry
(1918-1963) were privy to the first functioning of an electronic computer,
on an unrecorded date in October 1939.
The names of the four other witnesses of the vital fourth test-bed run
of Whittle’s engine, the WU-1, on 12 April 1937 were Harry Webb, Harry Bentley
and Messrs. Bailey and Berry. If any reader has any personal details such
as places and dates of birth and death of these historic witnesses, I am
sure other readers, including myself, would be delighted to learn of them.
Norris McWhirter London