Letters: Failure succeeds
As a jobless graduate I sympathise with Patrick Trotter (Letters, 1
February).
Disheartened by my lack of success when applying for graduate appointments,
I lowered my sights and started going for jobs where a degree was not required.
No joy here either – mainly, it seems, due to ‘overqualification’.
Imagine my surprise, then, to be rejected for the very same reason (by
a well-known experimental station) despite the advert stating that a graduate
would be a suitable appointee. The rejection letter spelt out clearly that
if my degree result has been a lower second or inferior I would have been
considered for the post. Because I had tried that little bit harder and
obtained an upper second I was, to use their word, overqualified.
Perhaps my current job prospects would be better if I had spent even
more time in the university bar!
Jane Darling Morden, Surrey
Letters: Failure succeeds
Unlike Trotter, I did get a SERC grant to research a PhD. I have completed
my research and recently applied for a scientific post advertised in New
杏吧原创. My application was rejected because I have a 2(i) and not a 2(ii),
and am thus overqualified. If I am overqualified with a 2(i), will a PhD
then make me unemployable?
Perhaps the apparent failure of the education system to train literate
school-leavers and good graduates is after all pandering to the needs of
employers.
Andrew Leak Tittensor, Stoke-on-Trent
Letters: Sink or store?
The idea that rainforests are a sink for carbon dioxide is very well
established among teachers and schoolchildren, to judge by applicants to
study biology at Oxford over the last two years. This view is reinforced
by statements such as ‘as we chop down the rainforests, we reduce the size
of the sink’. (Forum, 1 February). Is this true, or do they merely store
carbon?
Carbon fixation clearly occurs in a rainforest as trees grow. But plants
and animals in forests also respire, die and decompose, liberating the carbon.
Some carbon is being stored without oxidation beneath some of these forests,
but are the quantities and timescales of such fossilisation of carbon significant
compared to the rate of release from fossil fuel and biomass combustion?
Like pupils and teachers, I would like to believe that the greenhouse
effect presents an argument for protection of intact forests, but I am unsure
of the relative scale and rates of the processes involved. Until sufficient
data exist to clarify whether the forests are effectively neutral with regard
to the short term carbon budget, we should not risk causing confusion and,
worse, crying wolf.
Clive Hambler University of Oxford
Letters: Poison project
Barry Fox, in his article ‘Stalking the safe mushroom’, (18 January),
raises a very real problem regarding the identification of fungi for anyone
other than the trained mycologist or the very experienced amateur. This
view is supported by the many ambiguous inquiries that the National Poisons
Information Service of the National Poisons Unit, Guy’s Hospital, attempts
to handle every year.
The problem, however, is not limited to fungi; thousands of cases of
suspected poisoning due to flowering plants occur every year and the accurate
identification of these is just as vital as it is for fungi. In emergency
situations, medical professionals seldom have the botanical or mycological
expertise to identify the species of plant or fungus concerned – a vital
skill if their toxicity is to be determined and appropriate treatment given
speedily.
The National Poisons Unit is now working on a project, in collaboration
with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, to develop an interactive image-based
computerised identification system for poisonous plants and fungi. This
is being developed primarily for hospital medics around the country as a
rapid aid to species identification. We plan to release a prototype this
autumn for trial in hospital accident and emergency departments.
During this pilot phase of the project, we warmly welcome interest or
comments from your readers and will be pleased to provide further details
to those working in related fields of research.
Virginia Murray, Christine Leon, Christian Knott National Poisons Unit
Guy’s Hospital, London
Letters: Top heavy
Examination of the table showing numbers of scientists and engineers
employed in Britain’s research councils reveals something of a sorry state
of affairs (Careering Ahead, 1 February).
I have long suspected that the balance between qualified scientists
and engineers, and supposedly all-round competent administrators has been
too heavily weighted in favour of the latter. The table shows an average
of 52 per cent scientists and engineers employed by the four research councils.
But the one that is well below the average is the Science and Engineering
Research Council – at only 43 per cent. This figure certainly seems consistent
with recent decisions and actions of SERC as they affect the progress of
British science.
Anthony Gradie Swindon, Wiltshire
Letters: We're so lucky
As an academic scientist, I am deeply embarrassed whenever I read articles
such as Simon Wolff’s (Forum, 1 February) arguing that we are badly paid.
As usual the argument is based upon some concept of ‘fairness’ and comparisons
with civil servants. Consider the benefits of our job: we work flexible
hours in usually comfortable surroundings; to a very large extent we can
decide to work on what interests us, and we get paid to travel about the
world. Now think about the sorts of job that most people in this country
do: they work rigid hours, sometimes in unpleasant conditions (would Wolff
like to swap his office for a coal mine?); what they do is determined precisely
from above, and trips abroad never happen. And yet we get paid more than
they do! Is this ‘fair’? This comparison on the basis of job quality is
just as valid as one based on qualifications, experience and so on.
Now I am only human and would be reluctant to see my salary reduced.
However, it is outrageous that people doing privileged and (by national
standards) well-paid jobs should moan about how badly off they are. Next
time Wolff is feeling the pinch, perhaps he could look down the scale as
well as up, and realise what a good deal he has got.
B. J. Craven Stirling, Scotland
Letters: Minor extinction
I think the supposed Permo-Triassic extinctions have been grossly exaggerated
(‘The day the world nearly died’, 25 January, and Letters, 8 February).
Part of the problem is the way people compartmentalise the data. If you
only have such information as ‘Devonian to Permian’ then inevitably the
number crunchers will ‘prove’ a ‘mass extinction’ at the end of the latter
period.
If we consider the three main groups of fossils used in the Palaeozoic,
the graptolites were extinct before the Permian, the trilobites were reduced
to a handful by Permian times and the brachiopods at least coped with the
transition. Permian type brachiopods are found in the Lower Triassic of
Greenland, trans-Caucasia and southern China. It is never enough to look
at the evidence from one’s own back yard or even one’s own continent.
When I dealt with a major group of brachiopods for the monumental R.
C. Moore Treatise on Invertebrate Palaeontology, our distinguished editor
inserted a paragraph about the big changes at the end of the Palaeozoic.
I had to ask him to withdraw this, because it just was not true. Admittedly,
the names changed and the classification changed; even the names of parts
of the anatomy changed, but I was able to trace all my lineages through
from the Palaeozoic to the Mesozoic.
Though environmental factors were important, notably the matter of worldwide
marine salinity (as suggested by Al Fischer), I think the organic changes
are largely a matter of psychology rather than palaeontology, simply because
Palaeozoic specialists rarely study the Mesozoic and Mesozoic specialists
rarely study the Palaeozoic.
Derek Ager Swansea, Wales
Letters: Science in soaps
Heather Couper’s article (Talking Point, 1 February), highlights one
of the problems a teacher has in trying to widen our pupils’ experience
of science. For the most part, programming of science caters for A-Level
pupils, yet the very people we need to educate in science, the 11 to 16
age range, are largely ignored. Yes, there are the school’s service science
programmes, somewhat dire to say the least, and the excellent programmes
such as Horizon, QED and Equinox which will service the brighter, older,
more interested pupils. But, where are the popular programmes that present
science in an entertaining, engaging way?
It is about time that science got its deserved slot of primetime viewing.
I would like to venture some ways in which science could permeate our current
British television soaps:
Coronation Street: Ken Barlow retrains to teach science; Derek Wilton
starts an O U degree in chemistry during his period of unemployment and
starts his own paper manufacturing business. EastEnders: Ian Beale undertakes
part-time study in microbiology specialising in a study of salmonella growth
patterns and optimum incubation periods. Emmerdale: Seth Armstrong is sent
by Alan Turner to qualify in environmental science, specialising in the
ecology of trout farms; Alan Turner undertakes a course in the biochemistry
of fermentation.
James Williams Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey
Letters: Microwave tea
Beth Grear’s error seems to be in adding the teabag after removing the
water from the oven. Such a small amount as 200-250 millilitres rapidly
loses temperature when radiation ceases. Tea infused at less than about
98 掳C can only be described as foul.
My sister always brews her tea in the oven. (As she is wheelchair disabled,
everything is cooked in it.) She heats the mugful of water and teabag together
and the results are reasonable enough, though to my taste not as good as
from a kettle of fast boiling water.
Perhaps leaf tea instead of a bag may be better? Surely millions of
litres of successful leaf tea have been brewed in beakers over laboratory
gas burners?
R. C. Ormiston-Chant Manchester, Lancashire
Letters: Microwave eggs
The explosions of egg yolks which had been in a microwave oven for only
one minute, on the puncture of the yolk by a fork, seem to be explicable
as a nucleation event (Letters, 1 February).
The doctors were right to assume that the yolk was heated above its
boiling point. This can happen because of the absence of any suitable nucleus
on which boiling can occur. This is a common situation in clean liquids.
The additional assumption by the doctors that the pressure inside the
yolk had risen was not correct. The superheated liquid would be only at
atmospheric pressure, explaining why the weak membrane of the yolk could
remain intact.
However, on puncture by the fork, the foreign surface introduced in
this way would contain an abundance of air pockets and nonwetted areas,
allowing prolific nucleation of vapour bubbles. If the yolk was highly superheated,
then the bubble growth would be explosively fast.
A fork which had been soaked for a long period (and not allowed to dry
out) in water, or possibly oil, might be a safe implement to enter a superheated
liquid. This is because the air pockets and films on the whole surface of
the fork will become perfectly wetted, and contain no gaseous nuclei.
However, all things considered, it seems safer to let the egg cool.
John Campbell University of Birmingham
Letters: Er . . .
Mike Burton’s article on face and name recognition (‘Good morning, Mr
. . . er’, 1 February) struck that familiar but tantalizing chord with me.
I can remember an occasion several months ago when I connected a face with
a name – a rare event.
An alternative research method is to collect others’ errors in remembering
your own name. My name is Neil, but I am frequently called Ian. I thought
it was due to some facial similarities to a close friend of that name –
but the error also arose from people who don’t know Ian.
An audiologist colleague, whose name is Bernadette, provided a satisfactory
theory. She is often called Rosemary or Genevieve.
The theory is this; names are stored in labelled pigeonholes, with labels
like ‘male, Scottish, short’, or ‘female, Catholic (!) long’, the face is
seen, the correct pigeonhole assessed, and the wrong name dragged out.
I just wish I could get that close!
Neil Clutterbuck Morwell, Australia
Letters: Odd little holes
I buy a brand of soft margarine in a plastic carton with a lid which
is kept in a refrigerator. Quite often upon opening the container I find
one or two depressions on the surface of the margarine containing a small
amount of melted margarine. If I investigate further with a knife I find
that the depression is in fact the top part of a tube of melted material
extending some way into the container. It looks almost as if a heated wire
has been pushed in and left just long enough to melt its immediate surroundings.
The only other time I have seen a similar phenomenon was in the bad
old days when I used to eat butter. This I also used to keep in the fridge
and in order to soften it up for faster consumption I would put it in the
microwave oven. This was by today’s standards a fairly primitive device
lacking a turntable to facilitate even heating. If I was distracted and
left the butter in for a while without rotating it, when it was retrieved
it contained, albeit on a larger scale, just such a tube of melted material
as I have described above.
Have I stumbled on a new form of microwave or perhaps energetic particle
detector? What do your readers think?
Ross Sargent Folkestone, Kent
Letters: Still inside?
A more insoluble enigma than the ones you publish is given by the modern
football. It is made from 20 hexagonal panels and 12 pentagons, all sewn
together from the inside. The little man who did the job must still be inside,
having imprisoned himself when he sewed the last panel.
E. M. Royds-Jones Fareham, Hants
Letters: By the bucketful
The article about the ‘traction trebuchet’ (This Week, 25 January) may
remind us that the counterweight trebuchet war machine had a similar appliance
used as a water raiser. It was known as a ‘sweep’ and was like the ‘shadoof’
still used in Egypt. The sweep drew water from a well or river and was certainly
used in London breweries. The English probably read the French word ‘trebuchet’
as ‘tree bucket’ and, as it was made of wood, contracted it to ‘bucket’.
Shakespeare knew a brewer at Puddledock and must have seen a bucket
in use there. He used the word in 2 Henry IV, Act III, scene ii, where Falstaff
says of the worst recruit, Thomas Wart, (play on ‘wort’, unfermented beer),
‘a’ shall . . . come off and on swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer’s
bucket.’ The man using the ‘bucket’ jumps up and ‘gibbets’ on the vertical
pole to raise the counterweight on the shorter limb.
Most editors wrongly confused the ‘bucket’ with a pail and said the
buckets were slung on each end of a yoke over the shoulders.
There is a painting by Henrik Avercamp in the National Gallery which
has a sweep (bucket) for drawing water from a lake for use in a building
which may be a brewhouse.
Edward R. Wood London