Letters: Flamingo file
Farm animals are well known for letting sleep be linked to half of their
brain at a time. In this way they can maintain a measure of alertness –
even while looking fast asleep.
Flamingos roost upon one of their legs while the other half of their
body is in the sleep stage. When the other half of their brain and body
earns a rest they change legs. A leg that is in the sleep stage would not
support the bird as a whole.
Leendert J. Los Evesham, Worcestershire
Letters: Flamingo file
Standing and perching birds normally face the wind and rain, so that
their feathers overlap from the front and penetration to the skin is prevented.
A flamingo standing out in the open on one leg can be seen to sway with
gusts from different directions, which would not be possible if it were
standing on both legs.
M. A. Ogilvie Bruichladdich, Isle of Islay
Letters: Flamingo file
It is probable that they stand on one leg simply because they are bored
with standing on two.
Ms Anna Geach Hitchin, Herts.
Letters: Video op
A video of one’s operation (Ariadne, 13 July) is probably a common perk
wherever medicine is big business. The ‘package’ of a prominent Calgary
eye surgeon’s private clinic features a video.
I was far too squeamish to take him up on his offer to ‘talk through’
the operation, let alone view the (presumably silent) video, but Canadian
friends were eager to borrow this bizarre bit of entertainment. In view
of the shocking state of relations between doctors and their patients these
days, a video record would help deter would-be-malpractice litigants. To
the same end I was recorded saying my name and which eye was to be operated
on.
The good doctor also sends birthday and Christmas cards to his patients
and will pray for you by name upon request.
Lee McVickar Blairmore, Canada
Letters: People's park
In her article entitled ‘The people who want their parks back’, Sue
Armstrong commented on new conservation initiatives (Forum, 6 July). I hope
you will allow us the opportunity to reply to her comments which refer to
KaNgwane.
Our conservation areas have been developed on tribal land and belong
to the tribes on whose land the developments have taken place. The reserve
was planned from the beginning as a community development project which
would enable a symbiosis of development and conservation in an area of low
agricultural potential. From the start the people of the area have been
involved in the development of the reserve and all major decisions affecting
policy changes and development are made by a committee comprised of five
members of the community and three members of the Parks Corporation. They
retain traditional rights to the landof the reserve and are full and equal
partners with the KaNgwane Parks Corporation in the profit sharing.
In our region unemployment is well in excess of 50 per cent and government
funds for development and social projects are inadequate. The development
option offered by the Mthethomusha Game Reserve is the best opportunity
for provision of employment in an area with poor potential for industrial
development or agriculture.
In the article, Ina Perlman of Operation Hunger states that the KaNgwane
Parks Corporation has prevented access by the community to a water supply
unless permission from a game ranger was first obtained. The local Operation
Hunger representative in KaNgwane, Kevin Lancaster, believes the issue referred
to was one where the KaNgwane Parks Corporation allowed the construction
of a pipeline to link a water supply within the reserve with a tap outside.
During the construction of the pipeline the warden insisted that a game
scout be present to limit damage to vegetation. The tap is outside the reserve
and is freely available to anyone.
Karl Lane KaNgwane Parks Corporation Nelspruit, South Africa
Letters: Useful truths
Maybe the following remarks will help Andrew Nichols in his discussions
with creationists (Letters, 20 July and 3 August):
No theory can be proved ‘true’, ie proved to be the only explanation
of a set of phenomena; any system of ideas that claims to explain something
is a theory only if it is falsifiable.
Truth is a matter for lawyers and theologians. We scientists are interested
in whether a theory is heuristically and practically useful; in other words,
is it a model of the world which works, and can it tell us what to do next
to solve a problem.
The fact that modern biological theories work is proved by the crops
and cattle of today being more useful than those from which they were derived
by the application of evolutionary ideas.
Creationist views are sterile because they neither help to make sense
of the evidence concerning the past, nor have useful implica-tions concerning
the future.
Peter H. Plesch University of Keele
Letters: Flamingo file
With regard to Kathy Marthan’s question (Letters, 27 July and 10 August):
why do flamingos stand on one leg? This is the most commonly asked question
by members of the public visiting the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust Centre
at Slimbridge where all six types of flamingo can be found.
Over the last three years we have been studying the behaviour of flamingos.
It has been suggested that by tucking one leg up into their body feathers
flamingos could halve the heat loss from their legs in cold weather. One
would therefore predict that flamingos would stand on one leg more frequently
in winter than summer. But data collected by students at Slimbridge showed
no significant difference in the proportion of flamingos standing on one
leg between different seasons.
Flamingos are not the only birds to stand on one leg. Even the most
cursory glance around at resting wildfowl at Slimbridge will show ducks,
geese and even swans standing on one leg, as well as flamingos.
Also, if one looks closely at a crowd of people standing still, it quickly
becomes clear that many of them are standing with more weight on one leg
than the other. The question Kathy should be asking is: why do bipedal animals
often rest with more weight on one leg than the other?
Simon Pickering The Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust Slimbridge, Gloucestershire
Letters: Flamingo file
In the exceptionally long, slender legs of the flamingo pressure in
the veins is too low to return blood from the feet to the heart against
the force of gravity. By holding one leg against its body, the flamingo
reduces the distance which the blood has to travel against gravity, so standing
on each leg alternately prevents blood collecting in the feet.
William Smith University College, Dublin
Letters: Flamingo file
Why do flamingos stand on one leg? So ducks only bump into them half
the time.
Paul Hardy Osaka, Japan
Letters: Flamingo file
Australian aborigines were often seen standing, alone and on one leg,
during kangaroo hunting exercises. The second foot was rested on the knee
of the other leg and balance was maintained over long periods by the use
of a spear. Apparently kangaroos, while recognising and fearing two-legged
humans, do not recognise them in a monopodal stance and eventually approach
sufficiently close to be impaled.
With regard to flamingos, it is unlikely that a kangaroo would recognise
a flamingo standing on one leg, and this may be of some advantage to the
flamingo. Alternatively, perhaps aquatic predators may not recognise one-legged
flamingos as their prey.
David Yates University of Queensland Australia
Letters: Biotech benefits
On 25 May, an advertisement appeared in New 杏吧原创 for a Biotechnology
Coordinator for Greenpeace International. We considered the background requested
of the applicant to be surprisingly negative and pointed out in a letter
to Greenpeace that there were likely to be outstanding environmental benefits
in several areas from use of this technology. The response from Greenpeace
International included the statement that: ‘In fact it is likely that there
will be very few benefits developing from this technology and that genetic
engineering will cause more problems than it will solve.’
This attitude can only be based upon ignorance of the many new applications
of biotechnology now nearing commercial use. New medical and veterinary
drugs and diagnostic tests are obvious examples where enormous progress
is being made. In our own field of plant biotechnology, the development
of insect-resistant crops will reduce the use of environmentally polluting
insecticides in agriculture.
In those areas of the world with sufficient food we will be able to
use renewable crop resources to produce industrial products such as lubricating
oil or biodegradable plastics. In countries which are short of food the
insertion of pest and disease resistance into seeds of locally adapted varieties
will bring the benefits of increased yield and security of food production
for no extra input.
It is disappointing to see that an organisation such as Greenpeace which
purports to represent the public interest takes such a dogmatic stand against
biotechnology in the face of such obvious human and environmental benefits.
Iain Cubitt, Tina Barsby Nickerson International Seed Cambridge
Letters: Biotech benefits
Debora MacKenzie summarised quite fairly a vast quantity of data from
our Eurobarometer opinion survey on biotechnology (This Week, 13 July);
but I was sorry to read ‘the more they know, the less they like it’ quoted
as though it was an official view. That was an ironic summary – and it led
us naturally into further questions: namely, ‘Where do you learn?’ (Answer:
‘TV’), and ‘Who do you trust to tell you the truth?’
The answers to that were indeed unflattering to industry, politicians
and bureaucrats; but a more important point is that 50 per cent of the European
public trust environmental and consumer organisations. Since such organisations
are stronger in northern Europe, where one finds also the highest awareness
and negative perceptions of biotechnology, we conclude that the scientific
community has failed to explain to the public interest groups the central
role of the life sciences and related new technologies in improving consumer
health and safety and protecting the environment.
For the planet as a whole, and particularly for developing countries,
biotechnology is the best hope of improving health and nutritional status,
while reversing environmental degradation. We look to the consumer and environmental
groups – and of course to New 杏吧原创 – to give a lead in restoring confidence
in the scientific application of intelligence to our problems.
Mark F. Cantley Commission of the European Communities Brussels
Letters: Mystery millions
It is not true that the SERC Council was told at its meeting on 17 July
that ‘the government has given the Science and Engineering Research Council
拢10 million to close the laboratory’; and that is even the case if
your correspondent meant the Nuclear Structure Facility and not the Daresbury
Laboratory (This Week, 27 July). Among the sums allocated to the SERC from
the Advisory Board for the Research Councils’ flexibility margin is a total
of 拢10 million over two years from 1 April 1992 for the support of
grants and studentships in the Science and Engineering Board sectors of
the council’s work.
Sir Mark Richmond Science and Engineering Research Council Swindon,
Wiltshire
Letters: Ground view
I was on the ground in Kuwait on 13 September, when Peter Zimmerman’s
KFA-1000 images from space ‘told him there probably weren’t a quarter of
a million Iraqi troops there on that day’, (‘Desert Storm: a space age war’,
27 July). I think he was misled.
The rear-echelon troops I saw were well dispersed in covered foxholes
and dug-outs, and many tanks were hull down in revetments, a favourite Iraqi
tactic. Such military traffic as there was would have been difficult to
distinguish from civilian traffic, which remained in circulation. Convoys
were not usual. Even tank transporters would have been difficult or impossible
to distinguish from ubiquitous semi-trailers.
There was very little evidence of military aviation in Kuwait. I saw
and heard infrequent helicopters. Presumably Iraqi military aircraft were
held at their home bases (now we know they made extensive use of shelters).
Iraqi troops made little or no use of tented accommodation, either living
in foxholes, one-or two-man cinderblock ‘hootches’ or in commandeered buildings
for barracks. Little military presence would have been evident with 3-metre
resolution.
This shows the necessity of ‘ground truth’ and regular coverage when
using space remote sensing.
I found the article technically fascinating – it is a pity thethird
LANDSAT image was mirror-imaged.
Anthony G. Hordern Canberra, ACT, Australia
Letters: Rough and ready
In his review of The Peat Alternatives Manual (Review, 27 July), David
Knight points out that amateur gardeners, unlike professionals, can afford
to experiment with different plant nutrients. But he also claims that ‘seeding
and potting composts must be stable and contain precise amounts of plant
nutrients’. Why? Obviously, such composts were used long before the modern
chemical industry and mechanical transport. They would havebeen made up
from materials ready to hand and would, like home-made bread, have been
slightly different each time.
As an amateur, I have not bought peat in 30 years. A mix of soil, home-made
plant compost, smashed plaster, bricks and eggshell, with other items as
available and no John Innes Base, produces perfectly adequate plants, allowing
for a few failures which cost nothing.
Contemporary plant standardisation, involving bureaucratic control,
complex hybridization, patenting and ultimately genetic engineering, is
no doubt the real reason for the need for precision composts.
Robin Oakley-Hill Sevenoaks, Kent
Letters: Open spectrum
Although undoubtedly it made a good story line, the implication that
the then prime minister played a key role in the approval of Spectrum-X
(This Week, 3 August) is incorrect.
British involvement in Spectrum-X was decided after a full and open
peer review by the SERC. This first major collaboration in space science
with the Soviet Union did indeed grow out of the more open attitude of that
country introduced by President Gorbachev. However, rather than being a
simple opportunistic arrangement, many space scientists are convinced that
there is great scope for collaboration in the peaceful uses of space between
the Soviet Union and Western Europe. If Spectrum-X turns out to be a forerunner
of such a programme, those of us involved will be more than pleased. It
should, however, be stressed that Spectrum-X remains an approved project
for the reasons it was first selected, namely, its enormous scientific potential.
The complementary strengths of Soviet rocketry and Western European technology
offer, for the first time, the possibility of examining the physical nature
of the many and diverse cosmic X-ray spectroscopy.
Although, British involvement in Spectrum-X was under threat, due to
the serious financial problems of the SERC at the turn of the year, the
decision to proceed did not, as implied in the article, lead to the delay
in the new 8-metre optical telescope project. This decision had been made
and announced before the end of 1990. Furthermore, the present funding difficulties
in Canada, sadly also occurring in the USA, and delay in the mirror manufacture,
are combining to endanger this important project. The difficulties of this
project are, at the most, only distantly connected with Spectrum-X.
K. A. Pounds University of Leicester