Letters: Heavy breathing
The wasps’ nest under our lounge floorboards periodically gives off
a sound like a large animal breathing heavily. At first I thought this was
due to nest cooling, but it seems unrelated to temperature, and in fact
is stimulated by sounds in the room. Once started, it may continue for an
hour or so.
Is this phenomenon known and is there an explanation for it?
Michael Kenney Milton Keynes Buckinghamshire
Letters: Missing quakes
Sue Bowler claims that magnitude 7 earthquakes happen every week (Inside
Science, 18 September) – but about once a month is more accurate.
More puzzling is her statement that ‘there is an earthquake roughly
every day, somewhere in the world.’ At the International Seismological Centre
we publish details of about 35 000 earthquakes a year. What has happened
to the other 99 a day?
Robin Adams International Seismological Centre Newbury, Berkshire
Letters: TV waste
If one concedes that burying nuclear waste is the currently accepted
method of nuclear loss accountancy, then maybe it could at least do some
good by absorbing the recycled cathode ray tube mountain that seems to be
causing Philips such a problem (Technology, 4 September). It would appear
that a product such as lead-infused glass would be the ideal vitrification
medium for medium grade radioactive waste. As muck is to brass perhaps nuke
is to glass?
Ceri Workman Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
Letters: Good old Concorde
I refer to the letter from AWF Edwards (2 October) boasting about the
part he played in limiting the number of Concordes which were built to 16
(thus making them a luxury means of travel).
One might have thought that in view of this design’s record of 26 years
of accident-free service that Concorde-knockers were now an extinct breed,
but apparently not so. Their most successful, if misguided, achievement
was to bring considerable relief to the American aircraft industry. But
to put this into perspective there have now been, in service, more than
20 000 aircraft of various sizes capable of supersonic flight. These include
a number of Aeroflot TU-144s (the Russian equivalent of Concordes) flying
on internal cargo services.
Arthur Cox Alton, Hampshire
Letters: Uncomfy coats
Speaking as an equally naive but unsweet 36-year-old male, I would like
to reassure Rebecca Wiseman (Letters, 2 October) that equality of lab coats
is already with us. I sympathise with her as I have never found a comfy
one, either. These garments are designed to not fit men as badly as they
don’t fit women. The only gender advantage that they confer is that they
can be used as maternity wear without alteration.
Over the years, I have come to notice that scientists do not wear their
lab coats, they inhabit them. Irrespective of gender, most lab technicians
sport shapeless robes that would disgrace a scarecrow. A little bit of style
would do us no harm, as I suspect that the lab coat contributes a lot to
the recently reported public perception of scientists as scruffy oiks.
Mike Letch Wickford, Essex
Letters: Uncomfy coats
As a male of only slightly larger than average dimensions, my lab coats
have invariably been too tight at the shoulder and possess sleeves that
come to mid forearm, a setup resulting in continuously burned wrists (both
acid and flame) and split shoulders to the coat. Perhaps the manufacturers
actually believe the myth of the perfectly proportioned androgynous hominoid.
Either way, it’s not just a problem for women, us males have our difficulties
also.
John Clavin Glenageary, Co. Dublin, Ireland
Letters: Python panic
In Feedback, New 杏吧原创 expressed surprise that a python lurking
in the loo was not noticed by the user before being bitten on the testicles
(21 August). But not all toilets are equipped with nice neat ceramic bowls.
Indeed, it is probably true to say that by far and away the majority consist
of a hole in the floor of a dark hut. Throughout tropical Africa such huts
are favourite daytime hiding places of pythons and I venture to suggest
that the same is true of pythons in all but the centre-of-town loos in Singapore.
I well remember, when isolated on Buvuma Island in Lake Victoria for
over a year, some of the Buvumaites coming to tell me that my cat was being
eaten by a python. We rushed to the scene to discover the python, which
had come out from its hiding place in a nearby loo, in the act of swallowing
my cat; only the hind paws and tip of its tail were showing. Together we
‘beat up’ the huge snake, whereupon it regurgitated the cat. We finished
off the python in the most humane way at our disposal, since it was a threat
not only to the local people’s chickens and goats but also to their smaller
children.
What seemed of great interest to me was that my cat – except for the
tips of its hind extremities – was encapsulated in a sort of gel, the whole
resembling a Rowntree’s clear gum of that era, 50 years ago.
Many years later I was living in what was then the capital of Uganda,
Entebbe. One day some Entebbeites came to me to say that there was a python
in their ‘toilet’. We rushed to the scene suitably armed with stout sticks
of various sizes, only to find that we could not entice the great animal
out. I returned to my house and armed myself with a long, stout, nylon clothes-line.
On reaching the scene again I borrowed a chicken from the family concerned
and tied one end of the line to one of its legs. I let out the line so as
to allow my living bait to wander past the doorway of the dark lurking-place
of the python.
Some time later I felt a sudden pull on my line. I waited for a few
minutes and then hauled in. Alas, no python on the other end. I let out
the line again and for the second time I felt a sudden pull on the line.
I waited longer this time and then began to pull gingerly in – but we needed
four or five of us to haul, so great was the load. Sure enough there was
the 6-metre python on the end of the line with the chicken inside. For their
own satisfaction, I let my helpers dispatch the great snake while I pulled
out the poor chicken. It too was coated with a gelatinous slime neatly shaping
it for apparent easy swallowing.
The chicken was dead but the cat survived. As my cook on Buvuma Island
pointed out when I was laboriously and anxiously cleaning the gelatinous
muck off the unfortunate cat, ‘Usifikiri, paka ana roho saba’ – which may
be translated as ‘Dinna fash yoursel’, a cat has seven hearts’. It’s perhaps
not surprising that in the tropics a cat has two less than we in the West
are accustomed to think. The cat, by the way, lived for many more years.
I would be most grateful if anyone will let me know whether this encapsulation
before swallowing is a usual procedure.
J. D. Gillett Bourne End, Buckinghamshire
Letters: Access and safety
I am writing to clarify my position regarding the Federal Drug Administration’s
consideration of full marketing approval for the AIDS drug ddC, as described
in your article ‘AIDS activists change tack on drugs’ (This Week, 2 October).
Along with representatives of other AIDS advocacy and patient empowerment
groups, I testified before the FDA’s Antiviral Drug Advisory Committee against
any change in the regulatory status of ddC. As the FDA had already granted
the drug an Accelerated Approval, which includes commitments to further
characterise the drug’s safety and efficacy, this does not amount to a request
to ‘withdraw approval’ from the drug, as described in your article. Rather,
we were attempting to assure that study of the therapy would continue, while
safeguarding patient access to the drug.
Unfortunately, AIDS activists have often allowed members of the pharmaceutical
industry to characterise our interest as limited to patient access to new
treatments. We hope that our testimony before the FDA Committee has disabused
them of this notion. Thorough characterisation of the efficacy of new treatment
is vital to the ability of AIDS patients to make rational decisions regarding
the use of these potentially toxic and often marginally useful drugs.
Gregg Gonsalves Treatment Action Group New York, USA
Letters: No free lunch
I was in a state of deja vu reading the article on Stanley Meyer’s watery
energy source (Technology, 18 September) as two years earlier I had persuaded
a television science programme in Australia not to screen an item on this
invention.
Then, the reason for the machine’s apparently effortless production
of hydrogen from water was a process called ‘resonance’. It was explained
to me that just as soldiers walking in step over a bridge can cause its
collapse, or a suitable note on the church organ can bring the roof down,
so can an oscillating electric field delivered through ‘resonator tubes’
break up a water molecule to give hydrogen and oxygen.
Two hours later I had instilled some of the basic principles of the
First Law of Thermodynamics into a somewhat disappointed producer. Let alone
the energy argument, the problem with the resonance theory was that while
the most stable state of a bridge is in the river, and the most stable state
of the church roofs is in the nave, water is already the most stable form
of hydrogen and oxygen. So just as no amount of organ playing can reroof
the church, resonance is not likely to give hydrogen and oxygen from water.
However, the tune seems to have changed to atomic zero point energy.
This is a small energy that electrons in atoms must possess by virtue of
Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. Zero energy would imply total ignorance
about the position of the electron, which is not the case. So there must
always be a small bit of energy left.
That it cannot be got at is almost axiomatic, but let me try a traditional
first law argument. Consider a cycle in which water is turned into hydrogen
and oxygen, which are burnt to give water. If more energy is produced by
burning than is put into the water in the first place then we can go round
for ever producing energy from nothing. If not, then we are promised a rather
cool hydrogen flame, or a new breed of water that has lost some mystical
energy.
It is distressing that ‘orthodox scientists’ do not enter these debates
at an early stage before well meaning, but scientifically unsophisticated,
naval personnel give publicity to ideas of a chemical free lunch that do
not hold water.
Brynn Hibbert University of New South Wales Australia
Letters: No green empire
As international correspondent for a Japanese environmental organisation,
I read New 杏吧原创’s special on Japan (October 2) with great concern.
Listing series after series of undoubted technological achievements,
New 杏吧原创’s reporters fell for the myth of the ‘green empire’.
For example, great weight was given to pollution control. True, certain
pollutants are excellently controlled, but others, such as dioxin, are found
in high concentrations in many of Japan’s rivers. True, too, that ‘there
is much to be proud of with the construction of the Trans-Tokyo Bay Highway’
– but equally true that there is much to be ashamed of, as its construction
is destroying much of the last remaining marshland in what was – a mere
40 years ago – one of Asia’s most important wetlands for wildlife.
This Japanese steamroller of industrial and technological advance is
now driving up energy demand; it has already made much of Japan ugly; it
has led to widespread extinctions – both of cultures (like the traditional
and sustainable river culture) and of species (such as the river otter and
the revered Japanese ibis): it has taken precedence over everything (even
quality of life) and looks set to continue to do so into the foreseeable
future.
Here in southern Japan over 120 000 local people have petitioned to
stop the construction of a huge artificial island that will destroy the
ecology of Hakata Bay and the 100 000 to 150 000 migrant birds that depend
upon it (including the ibis-like black-faced spoonbill, with a world population
of only 228). However, in 1994, construction companies and government still
look set to proceed. What evidence is there here of international environmental
leadership?
Japan is already shrouded in many a myth. Please do not create another
– that of the ‘green empire’.
Nial Moores Hakata Bay Citizens Alliance Kyushu, Japan
Letters: Bank on the plan
Unfortunately, the article by Fred Pearce and Oliver Tickell on the
Flood Action Plan in Bangladesh is in several instances inaccurate (This
Week, 21 August). The quoted figures about the costs of the plan do not
originate from the plan itself. The plan only says that the studies and
pilot projects proposed could be expected to lead to an initial pipeline
of projects costing in the order of $500 million. The World Bank’s Andrew
Steer appears to be more ambitious than the Flood Action Plan could ever
dare to be, if he foresees a programme of works costing about $1 billion
for the next 15 years.
Statements that five million Bangladeshis, many of them living on ‘char-land’,
would be more vulnerable to floods, are premature and misleading. The productivity
of char-land will hardly be affected, since the average annual flood level
will not rise. Only extremely high floods could rise higher, although computations
done so far rather indicate that, due to morphological adaptations of the
river, flood levels will tend to be lower.
Critics appear to close their eyes to realities in the country. They
tend to think in romantic terms, as if the population only consists of small
farmers who can live in harmony with the land, as their ancestors could
in the past. That is not reality, however. There is a large and rapidly
growing group of landless, who cannot hope ever to find employment in agriculture.
The urban population is growing more rapidly than the national average.
Thirty per cent of the total population may soon be concentrated in urban
centres.
Already, about 60 per cent of the rivers of Bangladesh have been embanked.
The first efforts under the Flood Action Plan will concentrate on the rehabilitation
and extension of existing embankments.
Without the plan, the construction of embankments is continuing anyway,
in areas and to an extent (and alas, often of a quality) that the plan would
never dare to propose. The surprising thing is that the FAP critics do not
raise their voice at all.
It is an illusion to believe that without FAP there would be no more
construction of embankments. There will be external donors, as there have
been in the past and are at this very moment. Also, the population will
build their own protection works, as they have been doing for many years
and will probably continue to do at an increased pace, with the progressing
urbanisation.
Wybrand van Ellen Heilig Landstichting The Netherlands
Letters: Clean mine
On 18 April 1992 New 杏吧原创 published an article headed ‘UN team
to inspect suspect uranium mine’ (This Week). It referred to an impending
audit of the Rossing Uranium Mine in Namibia by an international team, and
also quoted allegations against Rossing by environmental activists.
In essence, the UN report on Rossing, which was released in May this
year, included the following points:
Rossing is a low-risk operation with respect to occupational and radiological
risks;
Radiation exposure levels at Rossing are very low, much lower than current
international limits;
The probability of radiation-induced occupational illness at Rossing
is extremely small, and well within acceptable levels of risk in safe industries;
The medical programme for workers and their families is excellent;
Rossing’s programme of monitoring radiation and radioactive contamination
is reliable and accurate;
Mill tailings management is state-of-the-art;
The International Atomic Energy Agency should make use of the expertise
available at Rossing in the areas of radiological and occupational medicine
in regional or inter-regional training courses on radiation protection.
These findings leave a substantially different impression of the Rossing
mine to that left by the New 杏吧原创 article.
C. A. Algar Rossing Uranium Limited Namibia
Letters: Charging up
I was fascinated by your recent article on the development of electric
cars (‘Electric dreams take to the road’, 2 October). However, surely the
most important pitfall of this energy source for a car is not the range
the battery permits before recharging, but the duration of the recharging
process itself.
Fuel-driven cars (be they petrol, diesel, and presumably hydrogen-driven)
have an effectively limitless range because it takes less than five minutes
to refuel them. This is much more important than the capacity of the tank.
An overnight refuelling is wholly useless. Perhaps some form of exchangeable
battery would solve the problem, with points-of-exchange doing the overnight
recharging.
S. T. Dobbs Market Harborough Leicestershire