Letters: Stereo stumped
Firstly, bring the pattern very close to the eyes, so that focusing
on it is impossible. Then, imagine looking beyond the page and slowly move
the page away from your eyes. The 3D image is more easily found.
This will save a frustrating hour or two staring at the pattern trying
to ‘uncross’ your eyes. Of course, this technique may (or may not) be appropriate
if the pattern is on somebody’s T-shirt.
Derek Rothnie Tarves Aberdeenshire
Letters: Darwinian fever
Not all medical ideas based on evolutionary premises are for the good.
For example, it used to be believed that the body was replete with vestigial
organs, relics of some prehistoric existence. The list ran to over 150 organs,
including the caudal musculature, the thymus, tonsils, external ear muscles,
third molar, coccyx, recurrent laryngeal nerve, knee menisci, appendix,
pituitary etc. On the basis of this, many millions of unnecessary tonsillectomies
were performed. The pituitary was only saved by dint of its inaccessibility.
The appendix is now known to be part of the GALT (Gut Associated Lymphoidal
Tissue), with important immunological functions, and is not to be removed
lightly. ‘He would be a rash man indeed who would now assert that any part
of the human body is useless’ (Professor Goodrich, Oxford).
The Williams Flexion Exercises relied on evolutionary ideas and caused
even more back pain. On the other hand, the McKenzie Extension Exercises
were remarkably successful because they started from the premise that the
human spine is not an imperfect adaptation from some ‘missing-link’ walking
on all fours, but was created ab initio for the unique erect human bipedal
posture. It is safer to begin with the premise that the human body is not
the result of chaos and chance, but of plan and purpose. Every component
has been capably planned, and should be regarded with respect.
Willy Goldberg London
Letters: Darwinian fever
Your article ‘Shock of the past for modern medicine’ (23 October) is
a nicely put together perspective, but a lot of the understanding on which
it is based is surely not as new as you claim. Much of it has either been
the innate knowledge of traditional societies and traditional healers, or
the more conscious inspiration and deduction of radicals and paradigm shifters
of earlier times.
You suggest for example, that ‘fever has only recently been revealed
as a beneficial response to infection’. Samuel Hahnemann, nearly 200 years
ago, in his search to understand the role of cinchona in the treatment of
malaria, reasoned that it worked to cure the disease by creating an artificial
illness, similar to malaria, which stimulated the body’s own defence mechanisms
into action. He saw as functional the ‘healing crisis’ of heightened fever
before recovery. These observations, themselves based on the Germanic folk
medicine of his day, played a key role in his development of the science
of homeopathy.
If it is new knowledge to us that sleep patterns are normalised in the
infant who sleeps with its mother, maybe putting it less at risk from ‘cot
death’, this is no more than the convention of many traditional peoples
who sleep whole families and even extended families together. We might have
much still to learn from such societies in terms not just of protection
of the young by this means, but of protection of adults too against heart
attack. How many traditional societies, I wonder, commonly leave an elderly
bereaved person to sleep alone, as we normally do? Rather few, I would guess.
Having read this piece on Darwinian medicine with much interest, I wonder
whether I can now anticipate a profiling of Einsteinian medicine as propounded
best by Richard Gerber a few years back? It deserves better publicity and
discussion, particularly of how to resolve the classic Kuhnian catch-22
it is in at present: of how one paradigm can be brought to the serious attention
of those in another, when the latter inhabit a closed circuit of peer accreditions.
Helen Woodley Bath
Letters: Imperial medicine
It simply is not true that ‘Britain’s imperial doctors decided to leave
their indigenous subjects to the mercy of the virus’ (‘Fever in the urban
jungle’, 16 October).
In 1941 yellow fever struck in Bwamba, a remote area of Uganda sandwiched
between the great Ruwenzori range to the east and Zaire (then still the
Belgian Congo) to the west, a region inhabited by some 5000 indigenous Africans
and no Europeans or Asians. I was privileged to be a member of the team
that was sent to the area to investigate and, after isolating the virus
from one human patient and, for the first time, from an African species
of mosquito (Aedes simpsoni) other than the ‘classical’ vector (A aegypti),
we arranged for the whole human population to be vaccinated with the 17D
vaccine.
Further, we arranged for a ring of vaccination east of the Ruwenzori
mountains (women, men and children) to protect the indigenous peoples in
the rest of Uganda, even though, as far as we knew, the disease had never
occurred there, at least in epidemic form.
J. D. Gillett London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Letters: Don't rush it
In your leader on the Foresight Exercise (30 October), you say it is
odd that critics of the way this exercise is being managed – of whom I count
myself as one – should question its use to justify public spending in future
years. Of course it should. But the problem is that the Office of Science
and Technology seems to be looking for too rapid an impact. After all, the
Public Expenditure Survey (PES) process only has a 3-year time horizon.
One’s anxiety about this issue is greatly heightened by the sense of
urgency OST is imparting to the process. An example was the early (much
too early) identification of areas of technology to be singled out for support.
That sent signals that OST regards Foresight’s impact as short term. The
Foresight Exercise has much to offer but its thrust must be strategic. It
must not be rushed to produce ammunition in PES-round battles that may happen
to preoccupy OST in the short term.
Mark Richmond Science and Engineering Research Council London
Letters: Ethics acclaimed
Has Adrian Furnham had an unhappy experience with an ethics committee
(Forum, 16 October)? That could explain his rather incoherent attack on
them in general, although it would not account for his earlier jaundiced
references to the modern study of business ethics as ‘one of the current
darlings of the politically correct’ and a ‘so-called discipline’ appearing
‘to have achieved respectability’.
As recently appointed to the new Dixons Chair in Business Ethics and
Social Responsibility at London Business School I would, of course be expected
to leap to the defence of my subject. Fortunately, I am not alone in viewing
the application of ethical principles and standards to the conduct of business
as a matter of major social importance. The number of British companies
and business people developing a serious (not faddish) interest in the subject
is increasing daily, while more and more business schools and departments
are showing a practical concern to help future managers prepare for the
ethical dilemmas which await them, whether in their relations with colleagues,
customers, competitors or the wider community.
Jack Mahoney London Business School London
Letters: Fuel from farming
De Selincourt attributed the Environmentally Sensitive Areas scheme
to the Department of the Environment whereas it is administered (and was
originated) by this Ministry.
Martyn Smith Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food London
Letters: Fuel from farming
Kate de Selincourt gives the impression that British farmers are holding
up progress in the use of set-aside land to grow crops for industrial and
energy uses because they need more subsidies (‘Europe’s home-grown fuel’,
16 October).
In the next century as much as 30 million hectares of productive land
could be the main source of renewable feedstock for environmentally superior
products and for low pollution energy.
But the arable farmer is only one link in a long chain involving a wide
range of companies with differing scientific and industrial skills. It seems
to me that it is the latter who are being slow to realise the opportunities.
With one or two exceptions, the multinationals in Europe are at best
waiting, or at worst seem disinterested. In Japan and the US initiatives
are already under way with full participation of the private sector.
So far it is the European Community, national governments and, indeed
farmer financed groups, such as the Home-Grown Cereals Authority in Britain
that have applied research money to developing viable crop-derived industrial
products.
Managers and scientists in industry must now pick up the challenge and
exploit the resource to advantage. There are plenty of EC research grants
going begging.
The farmer does not want subsidies. He wants a stable market place for
his crops. He cannot invent a novel biodegradable plastic but he can grow
the crop from which it can be extracted.
Bruce Knight Bureau European de Recherches Brussels
Letters: Keep fit routine
I have read with great interest ‘The challenge to HRT’ (23 October).
I would like to suggest that one most important factor in human lifestyle
was omitted, that of sexual activity. As fit and well septuagenarians my
wife and I pay some attention to an old maxim (slightly modified) ‘An orgasm
a day keeps the doctor away’.
I. R. Lyon Devon
Letters: Alive and employed
It is always gratifying to read of one’s research efforts, but the sting
in the tail of ‘Field flowers bring in the aphid eaters’ (New 杏吧原创,
Science, 16 October) needs a reply. I can’t remember who, on reading their
obituary said ‘Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated’ but Clare
Putnam’s report of my former employment at The Game Conservancy Trust raised
several eyebrows at my present employer (The Game Conservancy Trust) and
the Inland Revenue.
I would like to make it clear to all eyebrow raisers that I am alive
and well and working very very hard at our Fordingbridge Headquarters and
my P45 has, for now, been put back into the file.
Nick Sotherton The Game Conservancy Trust Hampshire
Letters: Little coins
An addendum to M. Locker’s regret about the disappearance of the 1p
coin (Letters, 23 October. In Australia both the 1 and 2 cent ‘copper’ coins
were recently withdrawn from circulation as the declining value of the currency
made their metal content worth more than face value. The Federal Government
thereafter passed a law requiring the weekly shopping bill to be rounded
up or down to the nearest 5 cents (the size of the smallest remaining coin).
Strangely enough, we now have a need not for the English 99p coin, but for
the 95 cent version. Prices are now $10.95, $19.95, $99.95.
Eric Roche Booragul, NSW, Australia
Letters: Right kind of sand
I found Feedback’s little tale about the use of sand on railway lines
(16 October) rather interesting. The steam engines used on British Railways
until 1968 had sand boxes connected to pipes which pointed at the tracks
directly in front of the wheels. When the track was blocked by deceased
foliage, or rails were wet or greasy, the driver could deposit sand on the
tracks from the comfort of his cab. No fuss, no mess, no traipsing up and
down the line while your passengers cast aspersions on your sanity. Blackpool
beach sand was always supposed to be the best sort.
John Winder Penn, Wolverhampton
Letters: Stereo stumped
Help. I see the aircraft always as a hole, not elevated (‘How to play
tricks with dots’, 9 October). Some switch in my brain seems to be poled
otherwise. Can someone give me a hint on how to switch over?
Gerhard Lenssen Bernkastel-Kues, Germany
Letters: Gdansk grandad
Thanks to kindness of my friends from Oxford University, I am one of
the few East Europeans who can read your excellent magazine at home. Recently,
to my delight, I read about the (presumably) new ideas how to save the famous
leaning tower of Pisa (Technology, 21 August).
It is my duty, as I am a grandson of the late professor Romuald Cebertowicz
(1897 to 1981), to draw your attention to the fact that already around 30
years ago he proposed to apply electro-osmotic methods to change the structure
of the soil under the tower. At that time his proposal seemed to be too
magic and too inexpensive to be accepted (or so the family legend says).
I do not know whether my grandfather was the first to discover that
electro-osmosis can drain the soil electrochemically. I do know that he
discovered it for himself when measuring electric resistance of clay (in
Zurich, sometime during the Second World War). Thanks to the shortsightedness
of his lab assistant, who mixed up the electric wiring, the soil changed
into mud.
Later, at the Technical University of Gdansk, he improved the method
to transport not only the water in the soil but also some chemicals dissolved
in it, thus enabling one to solidify the soil (the method is called in Poland
‘cebertization’).
He applied this method in many places. The most famous were the saving
of the collapsing Baroque church of St Anne in Warsaw, 1949, and his contribution
to stabilising the walls of the Ducal Palace in Venice. He also stabilised
the Pisa tower – but only in a proposal.
Marek Zukowski University of Gdansk Poland
Letters: Fogmobile
The capture of fog water (Technology, 16 October) can be a lot more
active than hanging out ‘a giant’s washing line’. Some years ago in Swakopmund,
the capital of Namibia’s hyper-arid coastal strip, I heard of a man who
had spotted a business opportunity – providing the town with fresh vegetables.
The problem was no water. So he rigged up some netting across the back of
a truck, put some containers underneath them and then drove along the coast
road in the morning fog. By the end of an hour or so he had collected enough
water for his plants.
Hew Prendergast Royal Botanic Gardens Haywards Heath, West Sussex
Letters: Enterprising ear
Raymond Jeanloz (‘Mixed up over the mantle’, 16 October) invites us
to admire the intrepid seismologists, who ‘routinely study signals whose
wavelengths span several orders of magnitude, corresponding to frequencies
over a range of millihertz to hertz’. He contrasts this range of 1:1000
with the ‘pitifully narrow’ range of visible light available to us.
Jeanloz neglects to mention that the poor old human ear is able to respond
to acoustic waves with frequencies from 20 to 20 000 hertz over an intensity
range whose extremes differ by a factor of 1012. Perhaps we non-seismologists
are not so badly off, after all.
Bill Davies Leeds Metropolitan University
Letters: Garden scare
On page 5 of your issue of 16 October you print a picture captioned
‘Escaped: engineered rape on a Scottish moor’. At the end of the article
you say ‘A typical low-hazard plant might be a tropical species such as
. . . tobacco that has no natural relatives in Britain into which foreign
DNA might spread . . .’ No natural relatives maybe, but garden Nicotiana
plants are sold in any garden store. They look very like tobacco plants
to me.
Does this frighten you?
No one has, surely, the slightest idea of the full list of garden plants
grown in this country. Remember the Brits have been keen gardeners and plant
collectors since . . . well, let’s say Elizabethan times. So how ‘they’
can be sure that some engineered plant won’t end up crossed with a garden
plant beats me.
Alec Vans Newnham, Gloucestershire
Letters: Hot teenagers
Your article ‘Teenage TV couch potatoes’ (Sports supplement, 9 October)
ascribes the reduction of the calorific intake of modern children to a concomitant
decrease in levels of physical activity; this seems naively to overlook
the energy expended passively in keeping warm. The prevalence of central
heating in homes and schools, the transport of children in heated cars,
perhaps even changes in the climate, must mean children are exposed to a
warmer environment than in the 1930s.
I hope John Durnin has the funding to continue his work over the period
when VAT is introduced on domestic fuel: he should see a noticeable effect,
providing of course the government doesn’t spoil the data by taxing bread
in the same budget.
David Thomas Edinburgh
Letters: Never before noon
Stephen Young, in his piece entitled ‘You need rhythm’ (Sports Supplement,
October 9), states that ‘Top athletes are most likely to break records in
the afternoon or early evening when their bodies’ daily rhythms reach a
peak . . . Very few track and field records are broken before noon: since
1945 the only examples have been in men’s shot put and woman’s javelin
events’.
It may possibly also be relevant that no track and field events actually
take place before noon. Except, that is, for the qualifying rounds, in which
the top, potentially record breaking, athletes are most unlikely to have
to exert themselves unduly, in events such as the 100-metres heats, the
men’s shot put, the women’s javelin, etc.
Conversely, however, virtually all the major road racing world best
performances on record – from 5km to marathon – have been achieved in races
held before noon. Can this be because virtually all the major road races
are run in the mornings?
Max Jones Leeds
Letters: Changing constant
John Gribbin writes: The correct name for the number in question is
the Hubble ‘parameter’, which is a measure of how fast the Universe is expanding
(and therefore of how much time has elapsed since the expansion began).
As the Universe ages, the expansion slows down, and the parameter gets smaller.
The term Hubble ‘constant’ is cosmologists’ shorthand for the present day
value of the Hubble parameter.
Letters: Changing constant
So the greater the Hubble constant, the younger the Universe (New 杏吧原创,
Science, 9 October). But shouldn’t a Universe of Uncertain age, nevertheless
grow older? Wouldn’t the Hubble constant therefore be steadily decreasing
with the passage of time?.
Ursula Light Ashford, Kent
Letters: Tale with a twist
I wonder if anyone can help me. I want to know why the pitch of DNA’s
helix is the way it is. Is there any principle stopping it being in the
opposite sense, and what difference – if any – would this make to life on
earth?
Mark Burbidge Birmingham