Letter: Private police
Your Feedback item of 12 June on the UKAEA Constabulary, while obviously
written with a view to milking the Group 4 stories to the full, is also pure
fiction.
While it is well known that the government is looking at the feasibility of
privatising the business operations of AEA Technology, the prospects of the
Constabulary being privatised are completely unfounded.
Our chief executive, Brian Eyre, has already stated that, if the government
decided to privatise AEA, he would expect the Constabulary, along with some
other operations related to work on our redundant nuclear plant, to remain
in the public sector.
Andrew Munn
AEA Technology
Didcot, Oxfordshire
Letter: Bring back bison
New 杏吧原创 recently featured the reintroduction of lynx to the Vosges and
Black Forest (Forum, 20 March). For some time the formation of a Trust to
encourage and promote reintroduction of extinct indigenous megafauna to
appropriate areas of Britain has been under consideration.
The list of species includes European bear, lynx, wolf, wild boar, great
bustard, beaver, bison and many others. It would consummate the fine work of
British conservation bodies to return these creatures to their natural
surroundings.
Would any readers interested in helping in the creation and operation of
‘The Smilodon Trust’ please contact: A. Cohen, Brown’s Lodge, 6, Church
End, Roade, Northants., NN7 2NP
A. Cohen,
Roade, Northamptonshire
Letter: Lucretius saw it
In his review of Arthur Zajonc’s book Catching the Light (Review, 12 June),
Ben Bova states that it was not until AD 974 that the misconception that
light emanated from the eyes was put right.
However, the Roman author Lucretius writing in 55 BC understood perfectly
that light emanates from luminescent sources, stating: ‘. . . the light and
heat of the sun; these are composed of minute atoms which, when they are
shoved off, lose no time in shooting right across the interspace of air in
the direction imparted by the shove.’
Lucretius also says: ‘When the pupil of the eye is said to perceive the
colour white, it experiences a particular kind of impact. When it perceives
black, or some other colour, the impact is different,’ and ‘Nature ordains
that every particle shall rebound from the reflecting surface (of a mirror)
at an angle corresponding to its incidence.’
These quotes are from On the Nature of the Universe, which was an attempt
to popularise the science (atomic theory) and philosophy of Epicurus (3rd
century BC) by writing it in poetry.
James Fenton
Inchture
Perthshire
Letter: Suck on this
During the last few weeks of warm weather I have been indulging myself with
ice-lollies.
Why is it that if you suck hard, the flavourings and colourants are released
into your mouth, but the basic ice structure is barely melted? I assumed (as
a non-chemist) that these substances had been dissolved in the water, so why
do they separate so easily, just by suction to the ice?
David Willacy
Exeter, Devon.
Letter: Every picture . . .
I recall a small boy commenting during a discussion on broadcasting that he
preferred radio to television because the pictures (his own) were so much
better.
H. Robert Mills
Salisbury, Wiltshire
Letter: No danger
As a diabetic, I found Rosie Mestel’s news that tight dietary and insulin
control can help prevent long-term complications for diabetics quite
revealing (This Week, 19 June). However, I am concerned to address her
suggestion that low blood-sugar levels are necessarily ‘dangerous’.
Diabetics are discriminated against regularly by motor insurance companies
and, I suspect, employers, who view diabetes as a condition likely to result
in major problems. This is despite the absence of any recent evidence to
suggest that diabetics are more likely to be involved in a road accident.
Today, the tighter insulin pen regime, coupled with quick and easy blood
sugar testing, actually allows diabetics to live with lower, healthier blood
sugar levels. While this may occasionally result in ‘hypos’ and the rapid
need for glucose, the vast majority of diabetics are well able to cope with
the situation.
Insurers and employers should recognise that the risks associated with the
diabetic condition – while ever-present – are diminishing rapidly in
significance thanks to the benefits brought to us by scientific research.
For many diabetics, the condition is ‘dangerous’ only in the way that
driving a car is dangerous: the risk is more often potential than real.
Trevor Lawson
Old Amersham, Buckinghamshire
Letter: Coffee fixes
I very much welcomed New 杏吧原创’s enquiries about our research on the
behavioural effects of caffeine (This Week, 26 June). However, while it is
true that regular coffee and tea drinkers do experience certain withdrawal
effects if they abstain from caffeine, it is quite clear that the addictive
potential of caffeine is low. It is a mistake to equate the experience of
withdrawal symptoms with addiction.
Addiction is properly defined in terms of the extent to which substance use
assumes control of an individual’s behaviour and what the major drugs of
abuse appear to have in common is their potent action on brain mechanisms of
reinforcement. Caffeine does not have such effects and is a relatively weak
reinforcer. Therefore, I have not suggested that caffeine is addictive –
although, also contrary to your report, I have argued that relief from
withdrawal symptoms may play a role in the acquisition and maintenance of
our liking for caffeine-containing drinks.
Peter Rogers
Institute of Food Research
Reading, Berkshire
Letter: Music room
The photograph which appears in In Brief (26 June) shows Andrew Lamb, a
conservation officer at the Horniman Museum, London. Andrew is shown working
on a trombone by Michael Nagel of Nuremberg, dated 1663, which is one of
1500 instruments being prepared for display in the museum’s music room, due
to open in late September.
The Horniman Museum not only prepares instruments for display but also
carries out detailed research programmes. The Nagel trombone shown in your
photograph is included in a group of brass instruments made before 1851
which have been x-radiographed and subjected to nondestructive analysis by
x-ray fluorescence.
David Boston
The Horniman Museum and Gardens
Forest Hill, London
Letter: Stony ground
There is a sad ignorance of local agricultural practices implicit in this
scheme to grow crops on Lanzarote using atmospheric water condensed by cold
sea water pumped from 3 kilometres away (Technology, 29 May).
Lanzarote’s farmers have already perfected techniques of cultivation in
desert-like conditions. A layer of the volcanic gravel lapilli, or of coarse
sand, greatly reduces both evaporation and weed growth, enabling a wide
spacing between plants which may aid direct foliar interception of
atmospheric water.
Proven local knowledge about stone mulch use is ignored while a
capital-intensive alternative is promoted. Surely EC funds should seek to
document and support, not replace, successful local systems.
David Riebold
Lanzarote, Canary Islands
Letter: Animal resource
Mary Cole stated that ‘Zimbabwe’s radical policy for conserving its wildlife
looks as if it is about to bite the dust’ (This Week, 12 June and Letters, 3
July). The policy is indeed radical but not in the sense that she implies.
Zimbabwe has recognised the need for cultivating grass roots conservation
incentives by allowing people, who daily face the cost of living with wild
animals, to use them as a valuable resource. Contrary to the implication of
Cole’s article, this remains Zimbabwe’s official policy and forms the basis
of the Communal Areas Management Program for Indigenous Resources
(CAMPFIRE).
What does constitute a threat to CAMPFIRE is the activities of international
preservation and animal rights groups to foreclose hunting as a legitimate
revenue earning option. For example, under pressure from such groups, the US
Fish and Wildlife Service recently proposed prohibitively stringent
regulations for the importation of sport-hunted ivory. Since 65 per cent of
all CAMPFIRE related income during the 1990s was derived from ivory
sport-hunting by foreign clients, mainly Americans, the implementation of
such regulation is likely to destroy the CAMPFIRE initiative. Wild animals,
especially elephants, would revert to pure liabilities for rural people
coexisting with them. This would once again provide them with incentives to
eradicate rather than conserve wild animals.
Urs Kreuter
CAMPFIRE Representative
Texas
Letter: Squashing ants
Obviously, Ian Stewart was never one of those youthful enquiring naturalists
who observed how ants turned corners before crushing them to see what
happened when a trail is stopped (New 杏吧原创, Science, 26 June).
The secret of why ants straighten all routes into a straight line from a
random zig-zag results simply from the fact that they pick up the scent with
swivelling antennae but deposit it from their tail, 3 or 4 millimetres
behind. When encountering a corner they stop, search with their antennae,
find the scent going left, say, and set off again, with their tail dragging
fresh scent cutting off the corner. When the next ant comes to the junction
where trail 1 goes straight on to the corner and trail 2 curves left to
round it, this ant has a choice, but the last ant’s scent is newer and
stronger, so the ant follows the newest curve, trailing its own scent that
further straightens the corner. When trails 1 and 2 recombine at the end of
the corner, the scent becomes doubly strong and it computes that this is the
right track.
Bruckstein’s model is flawed since the ant cannot ‘head toward the scout’ –
it can’t see that far. Nor is Feynman’s explanation of overrun needed. All
Ian Stewart needs do to find the mathematics of it all is to draw it and he
will find that the shape of the first curve will also vary depending on how
much the ant can turn its neck and bend its antennae and body.
Graham Gibberd
London
Letter: Every picture . . .
For some time I have been developing and using black and white reading and
maths materials without illustrations (‘Are picture books harmful?’, Forum,
19 June). These are always received positively by young children. No child
has ever objected, or even appeared to notice, the lack of colour or
pictures.
I am beginning to suspect that these decorative extras are there simply to
sell the materials to teachers, parents and governors who feel that such
subjects need sweetening. But, as has happened with so much of our food, the
sugar has become the principal ingredient. With so much ‘junk food’, our
children’s minds are in grave danger of losing their teeth.
Jenny Murray
Aldeburgh, Suffolk
Letter: Every picture . . .
Our daughter has been reading since the age of two, taught by me using a
library book (Teach Your Baby to Read, by Glen Doman). This method uses
differing sizes of word cards. At the stage in the method where actual books
needed to be read, I couldn’t find any that weren’t elaborately illustrated
with very little text. To solve this problem, I wrote a reading book for her
to which we added words as we went along. There were no pictures in this,
and she loved it.
She began school with an exceptional reading ability and I was asked not to
broadcast the fact. Now reading lessons have started, and the books she is
bringing home are getting easier and easier. On asking our daughter what the
lessons were like, we were told: ‘We cover up the words and look at the
pictures.’
We have queried the use of these books but the school believes that the
pictures make the books exciting and encourage children to read.
Anna Barrett
Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire
Letter: Every picture . . .
Things may not be so simple. Some pictures might bring to the text ideas
that could only be expressed adequately in relatively complex language.
Others merely reiterate the words and might make reading redundant.
Illustrators may need to review their use of pictures in young children’s
readers and consider carefully the functions they can usefully serve.
Douglas Newton
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Letter: Every picture . . .
Now I know why I don’t like windows. The two items ‘The man who made
computers personal’ and ‘Are picture books harmful?’ (both 19 June) explain
why. The windows and icon/mouse (in other words, pictures) approach was
apparently based on research into the development of child learning
according to Piaget and Brunner. Thus a system designed for the developing
mind is now being paraded as the ideal interface between adult and computer.
I contend that far from promoting experimentation, the use of icons and
interfaces unrelated to the memory structures underpinning the computer
stultifies any desire to understand and react with the computer’s full
potential.
The natural computer interface is a menu structure which relates to the
features and files available and is far more likely to promote ‘what if’
responses than an arrow or turtle manipulated by a mouse. But it has taken
a generation or so to realise that traditional teaching methods produce
better readers, and no doubt it will take as long (or longer, considering
the commercial pressure) to revert to adult interfaces for adult computer
users.
I. G. Payne
Coulsdon, Surrey