Letters: Wrong blood
Frank of you to point out that genetic tests reveal transplant errors
(This week, 31 August). Quite likely the writer James Joyce died from a
mismatched blood transfusion in a Zurich hospital in 1941.
Joyce’s biographer, Richard Ellman, alludes to two separate blood donations
given to the writer shortly before he died after an operation for an ulcer.
If these two donations were grouped they were likely matched to a nomenclature
equivalent to our present A, B and O system, as this was the modern practice
of that time. The hospital could hardly have grouped the Rhesus positive
or negative differences, whose clinical significance was only established
in that same year of 1941 and whose crucial importance has been reaffirmed
over the past 50 years for millions of blood transfusions.
It is likely that James Joyce was one of many thousands of his time
who got the wrong blood.
Stephen O’Sullivan County Dublin, Ireland
Letters: Marine menace
I read with great interest your article on the International Maritime
Organisation (This Week, 6 July) and its inadequate safety controls for
high-speed catamaran ferries.
The IMO record in achieving safety standards for ships, in both a technological
design sense and with regard to operational standards and procedures, appears
to lag well behind that achieved by ICAO – the International Civil Aviation
Organisation.
My particular concern rests with the IMO design standards, or lack of
them, which permit huge oil tankers and liquid natural gas carriers to be
single-engined ships. The LNG ships are technological marvels as well they
must be, because they have also been described as mobile atom bombs. A recent
one carries 125 000 cubic metres of liquid gas. The possible consequences
of one of them being wrecked and/or catching fire are too horrible to contemplate.
Yet, the propulsive design of these ships seems to be mainly concerned
with the efficiency of the transport operation – not the possible consequence
of a mechanical failure in handling.
I suggest there are moral, ethical, technological, environmental and
operational obligations on the IMO and others involved to require that these
hazardous cargo ships must have twin-engines, twin-screws, twin-rudders
and separate steering engines, bow and stern thrusters, plus any other worthwhile
shiphandling safety devices known in the professions.
Greg Burns Canberra, Australia
Letters: Gray'n'green
All your writers about green sheep assumed that all mammals use their
senses in the same way as humans (Letters, 14 September). The primates are
the only mammals that can see in colour (hence blue-based baboons); the
others see in black and white. In a black and white photograph, green and
grey are the same shade. As most mammalian predators hunt by scent until
they are very close to their prey, the question should have been: ‘Why don’t
sheep SMELL like grass?’ PS To a bull the matador’s cape looks dark grey.
Derek Mayell Bourne End Buckinghamshire
Letters: Mandelbrot munchies
In regard to the Mandelbrot corn-circle, you correctly state that it
is impossible to draw the Mandelbrot set accurately dot by dot, as the image
would be constructed in a cornfield (In Brief, 24 August). This would suggest
we look ever closer at the implications of cornfields . . .
Within the swirls and seahorses of the set, once iterated, small but
perfect Mandelbrot sets present themselves. Where should we look for these
subsets?
I am pleased to be able to enclose the first piece of solid evidence
towards a proof of the hypothesis that a higher intelligence is attempting
to establish fractal communication with us. You will note that the ridge
near the point of the main set visible on the cornflake consists of a series
of peaks that may well be worth further examination under a scanning electron
microscope.
Jonathan Heywood Coventry, Warwickshire
* * *
Editor’s note: Sadly, the Mandlebrot cornflake sent with this letter
got squashed in the post, so we have been unable to analyse its geometry.
Letters: Platonic maths
The puzzlement of Peter Marcer (Letters, 7 September) that mathematics
is so important in physical law when evolution has only recently produced
mathematicians is easily solved once one makes the distinction between mathematics
itself and our grasp of it. When a statement of mathematics is true, it
is a discovery rather than a creation of the mind. How much of mathematics
we can understand may depend on the physical laws underlying our brain functions,
but what mathematics exists is independent of and more general than the
contingencies of brain physics (or indeed of any physics).
The idea that there is a Platonic world of mathematics existing objectively
may be difficult for the modern, anti-metaphysical mind to accept. But the
results of mathematics are resistant to our will in just the way the physical
world is. We cannot, for instance by an act of will make the value of pi
other than what it is.
Ian Dunbar Warrington, Cheshire
Letters: Foolhardy experts
The analysis in ‘Risk perception and the real world’ (Talking Point,
17 August) appears to pay little attention to the basic problem regarding
HIV prevalence.
With HIV prevalence not being uniformly distributed it is difficult
even for ‘clever experts’ to perceive risk in concrete terms. In a recent
study, my colleagues and I demonstrated that physicians of all grades in
a particular specialty significantly underestimated the prevalence of seropositivity
to HIV/Hepatitis B when practising in relatively high-risk areas. Even when
perceiving a higher risk of accidental occupational exposure they failed
to take appropriate action to avoid or reduce their own risk. This is typical
of the attitude of the general public to many more general health care issues
such as smoking or diet.
Stating the public idea of choice as being the ‘most valid’ surely misses
the point. The current research programmes in this field need to focus on
why ‘invalid’ decisions are made by people who actually understand the concept
of high and low risk behaviour strategies. Clever experts are in some cases
just as susceptible to poor judgement as any other member of the public.
Paul Buss University of Wales College of Medicine Cardiff, Wales
Letters: Problems of disposal
I was disappointed that in your report (7 September) on the latest annual
report of the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee there was
no reference to our study of the disposal problems of small users of radioactive
materials. This is a subject which must interest a significant number of
your readers, including those who work in hospitals, higher education institutes
and non-nuclear industry.
During 1989, RWMAC was advised that Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Pollution
was unaware of any major problems with the current system of control and
that the inspectorate had no reason to believe that the present arrangements
were other than satisfactory. This was contrary to the experience of some
members of RWMAC. We have, therefore, carried out a study of this issue
and circulated a questionnaire to the 1200 registered small users of radioactive
materials in Britain, obtaining 857 replies.
More than one in three of the completed questionnaires indicated problems
with the disposal of waste, several of which were common and substantial.
Experienced small users also reported a change in approach of HMIP from
a helpful and constructive attitude to a strictly inspectorial (or even
confrontational) line. We have proposed, amongst a list of more detailed
recommendations, that a national consultative service be established which
could eradicate or minimise many of the reported difficulties.
John Knill Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee Newbury Berkshire
Letters: Rimmy Jim's crater
I greatly enjoyed ‘Will we catch a falling star?’ (7 September) but
cannot swallow the ‘crater at Barringer’. When I was last there it was not
really located anywhere and the only habitation was Rimmy Jim’s eating house
and cool beer parlour on Route 60, about 6 miles from the crater. ‘Barringer’
was a late Victorian iron master who drilled for a large nickel iron body
at depth and who, not having the benefit of a modern understanding of asteroid
dynamics, did not know it had gone. Much money was spent and it is instructional
to visit the floor of the crater where the original machinery for drilling
still stands (or did), a mass of gear wheels, cone clutches and brake band
faced with leather.
For those who have not visited the crater, it is impossible to convey
the shock of the realisation that it was all created in an instant, and
recently at that.
Robin Cross East Lothian, Scotland
Letters: TM stands the test
In her pertinent article on the effects of meditation (‘Is meditation
good for you?’, 6 July), Susan Blackmore discards many of the benefits which
incite people to keep up with the practice for years on the basis of increasing
rewards. These include measurable improvements in skills, changes in patterns
of electrical activity in the brain, reduction of bodily responses to stress,
and a tool to relieve depression.
In addressing the very important issue of measurable effects of meditation
as a practice in general, it is to be lamented that the argument should
be so biased against TM (transcendental meditation) from the outset. Readers
of New 杏吧原创 enjoy healthy scepticism as a hallmark of the journal:
tabloid-like, insidious points on the lucrativeness of TM teaching, levitation
and the ‘Maharishi effect’ are in poor taste and do not correspond to normal
standards. It is not acceptable that controlled experiments on TM, duly
subjected to scientific peer review, should have been dismissed out of hand
on the grounds that their aim is to ‘prove’ the efficacy of TM.
Inconclusive as it is, under the pretence of open-mindness, the article
is neither an unbiased survey of quantitative research on meditation, nor
an exploration of perception in meditation.
This correspondence is now closed – Ed
F. Barbira-Freedman University of Cambridge
Letters: Boiling over
In his reply to Debora MacKenzie, David Heathcoat-Amory MP treads old,
if not dangerous, ground (Letters, 7 September). I heard contractors using
the same arguments years ago – to cheat clients.
It is not convincing to claim casing losses from small boilers are negligible,
still less to say it will cost 拢300 to 拢1000 to reduce them.
Small boilers have a greater surface ratio than large ones and insulation
is the cheapest form of energy saving.
It is downright misleading to say 90 per cent of this lost energy is
useful. The majority of these boilers also heat the hot water – in summer
as well as in winter. Who wants extra heat then?
Tony Johnstone Bristol
Letters: Plenty of peat
I am writing to correct some of the inaccuracies which appeared in ‘Growing
alternatives to peat’ (3 August).
The discrepancy between the holdings of 7318 hectares and the 11 158
hectares quoted by the Peatlands Campaign is due to applications by non-members
of the Peat Producers Association for planning consents to cut fuel peat
during the coal strike in the 1980s. In most cases production was never
implemented and production has now virtually ceased on the few small-scale
areas which were worked.
PPA holdings of raised basin and blanket mire together comprise less
than 0.5 per cent of the 1.5 million hectares of peatland in Britain. Most
of these have been worked for many decades, if not for generations.
There are sufficient reserves in current workings to maintain supplies
for over 50 years. In addition, areas of little or no conservation value,
such as peatlands damaged by afforestation, could extend supplies further.
Given the above, it is inconceivable and irresponsible to suggest that
peat bogs in Britain will disappear as a result of peat extraction.
Iain Richardson The Peat Producers Association London
Letters: Plenty of peat
Sphagnum peat is a renewable source. It is produced by a growing plant
which lays down, admittedly slowly, layers of peat as it dies. To thrive,
however, it must grow at approximately the level of the water table. Any
practical peat operator knows that the raised, dried out peat is dead and
that sphagnum moss will only grow where it is in contact with water. Therefore
removal of peat down to the level of the water table, leaving, of course,
a metre or more of peat below it, will result in recommencement of growth
of sphagnum moss which would not occur if the top layers were not removed.
Peat producers hold barely 5 per cent of the area of ‘raised mire’ peat
reserves in Britain. Peat reserves are therefore not in danger of being
exhausted.
Peter Clery The Lands Improvement Group London
Letters: Mend the pipes
Oliver Tickell (Forum, 7 September) made the point that if water supplies
were metered, the anticipated 15 per cent reduction in demand would save
several new valleys from being flooded for reservoirs and would prevent
rivers from drying out.
Surely the greatest contribution to reducing the water deficit would
be to mend a few leaks and replace a few ancient pipes. In the run up to
privatisation of the water industry, tables were produced showing that between
one quarter and one third of water was lost in underground leakage. I was
surprised that anyone was prepared to risk investing money in an industry
which lost such a high proportion of its finished product.
Brian P. Moss Tamworth, Staffordshire
Letters: Balancing act
One of the balance sheets of advantage that I would like to see is how
much acid rain removal will add to the greenhouse effect. Lime must be produced
and its production drives off carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Fuel will
be used to make the lime and thus two lots of CO2 will supplement
the greenhouse effect.
If we really are serious about limiting this effect, every allegedly
environmentally friendly process should have its associated CO2
liability assessed with it.
Frank Roberts Norwich, Norfolk