Letters: Body of evidence
As the descendant of many generations of cannibals, I write to refute
the statement that ‘direct evidence for cannibalism is very rare'(This Week,
8 January 1994)
My own great-great-grandfather, second mate on a whaler, watched from
a tree as my great-great-great grandparents and the rest of our family,
ate his boat’s crew. His terrified captain upped anchor and abandoned him
on the notorious cannibal isle of Te Wahi Pounmau (the South Island of New
Zealand).
The date: 22 May, 1839. The place, Murdering Beach, part of the present-day
city of Dunedin. The evidence: the ship’s log in the whaling museum at New
Bedford (and my great-great-grandfather’s extremely vivid recollection).
On the other side of our family, one relative of my great-great-great-grandmother
is famous for eating his own brother-in-law during the Kai Huanga (eat your
cousins) family feud of the 1820s.
There was a Privy Council inquiry into the actions of Captain John Stewart
who helped a cannibal raid on some of my other relatives. Their bodies were
dismembered, cooked, packed in flax kits and carried back to Kapiti on the
brig Elizabeth.
Our cannibalism had nothing to do with burial rites or spirituality.
We enjoyed warfare. There was a shortage of mammals. We were practical people.
And we liked the taste.
The most prestigious gift one powerful chief could send another was
a prepubescent female child, preferably the child of an enemy. Very tasty
with a bit of puha, and better than muttonbird any day.
There were also cannibals in Australia. John King, survivor of the Burke
and Wills fiasco, shocked the world with his account of how the people of
Cooper’s Creek ate their babies during a drought ‘so they could live again’
(which seems eminently practical to me).
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of eye-witness accounts of cannibalism
in Polynesia and Melanesia. To deny that it happened may reflect cultural
or culinary arrogance on the part of the anthropologist or your writer,
but it’s damn poor scholarship and certainly is not science.
Judy Voullaire Waiheke Island, New Zealand
Letters: Women and violence
Hmm, Alison Brooks’s article (Forum, 12 March) left me feeling betrayed
as well as puzzled. Betrayed because Brooks fails to acknowledge the fundamental
differences for women in the way that they experience violence in our society,
puzzled because she talks of a lack of justice for men in the legal system
and in its treatment of victims, in the same breath.
The inequitable legal protection and insensitive treatment for all who
have suffered personal sexual attack is a serious matter. Women have had
to fight to obtain fairer treatment for themselves and the fight is continuing.
Please do not treat such a serious issue with a sideswipe at ‘feminists’.
Feminism takes many forms, and women have benefited enormously from the
constant struggle led by feminists from all walks of life.
Substantive evidence shows that violence against women occurs more frequently
in personal situations than in any other and is carried out by men whom
women know and trust. The violence is often sexual in nature. Sexism is
not the product of women’s interpretation of the world. It is the outcome
of male anti-women practices and ignorance.
Women’s struggle to obtain better and more equitable treatment under
the law has benefited men indirectly through the provision of more sensitive
legal processes.
Moyra Riseborough University of Birmingham
Letters: Female fellows
The election of 40 new Fellows of the Royal Society, including only
one woman, provides yet another opportunity to bewail the small representation
of women among our leading scientists (Comment, 19 March). The editor of
New 杏吧原创 blames the Royal Society; he should instead join us in our
campaign to improve the status and education of women scientists.
There is no merit in proposals to modify election criteria so as to
favour any sort of scientist, whether on grounds of subject, geography,
age or gender; the sole criterion is, and must remain, scientific excellence.
The editor notes that one third of our women Fellows live in the US.
It is also true that many Fellows live outside Britain because the Royal
Society exists to represent and support all British and Commonwealth scientists,
including women, as equals. Strikingly, all four mathematicians elected
in 1994, including Dusa McDuff (our only woman Fellow elected this year),
live and work in the US.
The Royal Society’s University Research Fellowship scheme seeks to support
scientists at the outset of their research career. Currently 46 out of the
200 University Research Fellows, about 23 per cent, are women.
We need the support of New 杏吧原创 in tackling the problem, not its
symptoms.
Francis Graham-Smith The Royal Society, London
* * *
The editor writes: We were not suggesting any modification of election
criteria but that the Royal Society should do its job properly. The number
of active women scientists who are fellows of the Royal Society seems to
us to demonstrate that the sole criterion used by the society is not ‘scientific
excellence’. This is a view shared by a number of women Fellows.
Letters: Women and violence
As Equal Opportunity Officer for a large manufacturing company, I was
absolutely delighted to read Brooks’s comments concerning the unacknowledged
victimisation of men as opposed to the highly visible women-equal-victims
equation. It is about time that the cause for men was expounded loud and
clear.
In the process of ‘women’s rights’ and ‘equal opportunities for all’,
the slant has been all too much in women’s favour. The unfortunate result
has been that men are forced to ‘put up and shut up’ to the detriment of
the very issue that women are insisting on – equality and the banishment
of sexism.
Let us recognise that men are entitled to the protection, care and security
that women have enjoyed and demanded, and, indeed, have come to expect as
their right. If we do not ensure that true equality means consideration
for women’s and men’s issues, women will become true victims of their own
feminist movement.
Jenni Gyffyn Parkville, Victoria, Australia
Letters: Essential junk
The letter from Hedley Lester (15 January) makes a good point about
the hasty labelling of 90 per cent of human DNA as junk. We are often too
quick to discount what we do not understand as being unimportant (or even
non-existent). Given the subtlety with which our Universe operates, it seems
more likely that this ‘junk DNA’ plays some kind of role which we are not
yet able to understand – perhaps a role all the more important because of
its subtlety. However, it will probably remain ‘junk’ until we discover
that it is vitally important.
‘The universe has no spare parts’ (I do not know who first said that),
but it has an awful lot of humans eager to throw out the bits that do not
fit their pet model.
Steve Brule Sarnia, Ontario, Canada
Letters: Collider collision
The report by William Bown, (This Week, 26 March), gives a very inaccurate
impression of the status of the Large Hadron Collider project.
The plan referred to as a ‘last-ditch effort’ to secure project approval
was part of a package of alternatives presented to the CERN Council in December
last year. The ’emergency meeting of member states in April’, at which,
according to Bown, this plan is to be presented, concerns a long-scheduled
meeting of the Council and its associated bodies as part of the normal
approval procedure of the LHC.
I also object to the statement that: ‘The new plan has been forced on
CERN by Llewellyn Smith’s failure to secure funding from outside Europe.’
No one expected the countries quoted to have completed re-assessing their
priorities in particle physics within five months of the cancellation of
the SSC.
The panel charged with this task in the US has already made a preliminary
report concerning the statement: ‘Collaboration with CERN . . . would provide
very important opportunities for US scientists to be major participants
in the most promising current effort to further advance our understanding
of nature on the high-energy frontier.’
The Canadian government has issued a brief containing the statements:
‘With the recent termination of the SSC, CERN will be the only laboratory
at which research at the leading edge of high-energy physics can be conducted
. . . The Director of TRIUMF (Tri-University Meson Facility) will examine
ways in which TRIUMF can act as Canada’s gateway to CERN’.
These are presumably the expressions of ‘vague interest’ Bown refers
to. However, from the very beginning it has been clear that a firm commitment
to the LHC project from non-member states can only be secured once the project
is approved. This was the very reason for presenting an alternative funding
scenario that makes no assumptions about extra income.
Finally, I would like to stress that the experimental programme of the
Large Electron Positron collider is defined as the top priority of the laboratory
until the end of the decade. CERN has no intention of shutting it down ‘earlier
than planned’.
L. Evans CERN Geneva, Switzerland
Letters: Not-so-happy pill
David Concar’s recent article ‘Design your own personality’ (12 March)
points out that the antidepressant drug Prozac has plenty of listed side
effects, including nausea and loss of libido. What the article fails to
stress, however, is that the effects of taking Prozac for extended periods
are still unknown.
According to the Physician’s Desk Reference, the US Food and Drug Administration’s
record of reported drug side effects, Prozac’s effectiveness has not been
tested in controlled trials of ‘more than five or six weeks’. The listed
short-term side effects include skin rashes, production of breast milk,
stomach ulcers, headaches, insomnia and paranoid reaction.
Malcolm Rowell Citizens Commission on Human Rights Poole, Dorset
Letters: Moonbeams
Q: Why does the Moon appear as bright as a cloud in the midday sky,
when it is a very dark body with an albedo of 0.07? The albedo of clouds
is around 0.6 to 0.8. (Albedo is the ratio of the intensity of light reflected
from an object to that of the light it receives from the Sun.)
Nigel Scott Altrincham, Cheshire
Letters: Still more questions
New 杏吧原创’s questions and answers section is up and running. This
is the fourth week that we have brought you a set of questions and soon
we will begin to publish the replies that have been pouring into the office
since we started this feature. In the meantime, please keep sending in your
questions, and answers to the questions that we have published so far. The
senders of all answers that are printed will receive a 拢10 book token.
Letters: It's a gas
Q: New 杏吧原创 has recently printed a number of letters discussing
the scum that forms on the tea of some drinkers and not on that of others.
This is not the only drinker-dependent phenomenon I have noticed. Australian
beer is always gassed, and something similar happens with the foam that
forms the head. Many drinkers end up with the full head of froth in their
glasses when the liquid is gone while others seem to ‘kill’ it after only
a few sips. This appears to be independent of the beer brand. Can anyone
explain it?
C. Pitman Melbourne, Australia
Letters: Where it counts
Rosie Mestel (This Week, 5 March) may be interested to know that counting
in Welsh is structurally similar to that of the Asian languages quoted.
For example, eleven is un deg un – ‘one ten one’; twenty is dau deg – ‘two
ten’, and thirty-one, tri degun – ‘three ten one’.
Perhaps the Welsh would be the perfect foil for the Californian psychologists,
offering as they do an established Western education and culture coupled
with a language structure similar to that of the Asians.
Unfortunately, I cannot think of any brilliant Welsh mathematicians;
but I am sure there are plenty if the psychologists’ theories are correct.
Sharon Ellis Harpenden, Hertfordshire
Letters: Tea for toads
Your report that elevated levels of UV-B exposure are responsible for
egg mortality and consequent population decline of some amphibians (This
Week, 5 March) suggests the need for a sunscreen. While the topical protection
of individual egg masses is not feasible, UV exposure might be reduced by
raising the concentrations of dissolved humics, which are potent in the
absorption of short wavelength radiation. The efficacy of such natural sunscreens
has been demonstrated in arctic Canada, where UV-sensitive zooplankton are
restricted to ponds coloured by humic substances leached from terrestrial
vegetation.
Where natural humic levels provide inadequate UV protection, ponds might
be infused with tea. To test the feasibility of this proposal, 100 milligrams
of tea were steeped in a litre of boiling water for 10 minutes. Spectrophotometric
measurements established that UV intensity was reduced by 53 per cent during
passage through 1 cubic metre of the infusion.
The move from pilot studies to the field seems straightforward. As different
teas contribute similar photoprotection (Earl Grey provided only 19 per
cent more UV absorbance than Orange Pekoe), dosing requirements should depend
only on UV exposure and pond volume. Assuming, for example, that eggs are
laid at a depth of 10 centimetres, it would require approximately 100 milligrams
of tea to compensate for a 50 per cent increase in ambient UV levels for
a pond with a volume of 10 cubic metres. To prevent the intrusion of excessive
allocthonous material, treatment might be accomplished by suspending an
oversize teabag in the pond.
Fortunately, amphibians breed in small ponds which are most amenable
to photoprotective supplements. Since tannins, which are the major component
of the humics in tea, are recalcitrant to degradation, the need for re-treatment
may be infrequent. If required on an annual basis, treatments might be coordinated
with the spring spawning period to maximise their benefit. Moreover, the
rite of vernal infusion is one which is likely to appeal to local naturalists
who might enjoy a ‘cuppa’ from the protective brew.
Paul Hebert University of Guelph Ontario, Canada
Letters: Seeing the light
With reference to ‘Amateur videos catch a falling meteorite’ (New 杏吧原创,
Science, 12 March), the explanation for the six Hertz variation in light
from the meteorite was given as ‘molten rock dripping off’. However, an
alternative cause of this variation in light output from the fireball could
be periodic satisfaction of the conditions for total internal refraction
of light at the inner surface of the meteorite’s ‘bow shock’. A similar
effect gives rise to the characteristic ‘doublehumped’ light curve produced
by the fireball of an atmospheric nuclear explosion.
Kevin Jones Leeds
Letters: Left in doubt
Q: As a left-handed person I was both amused and annoyed by your article
‘Sudden death for left-handers’, (Science, 12 March) which suggested that
left-handed people are at greater risk of accidental death. How can this
be? Surely a right-handed person has just as much chance of dying accidentally
as I do. Or is there some unknown factor involved?
Alan Parker London
Letters: Screen psychedelia
Q: I have just read ‘Psychedelic breakfast’ (Questions, 26 March). I
have experienced a similar effect. While walking around at work, I notice
that computer VDU screens displaying black text on a white background flash
at the same rate as my footsteps. When I stop walking, the flashing ceases.
I also get this effect if I bring my teeth together reasonably hard. What
is happening and is this effect related to the breakfast phenomenon questioned
earlier?
Jon Bennett-Snewin Maidenhead, Berkshire
Letters: Hot sounds
Q: Why does the sound of pouring hot water sound so different to the
sound of pouring cold water?
Paul Cross Glastonbury, Somerset
Letters: Dry run
Q: My late grandfather often talked about the ‘Miracle Bath’ sideshow
that he once saw at the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show early this century.
Fully clothed volunteers splashed about in a tank of liquid, apparently
getting wet. When they emerged, the ‘water’ simply ran off them, leaving
them completely dry. Can anyone explain how this effect was produced?
K. Worthing Fishguard, Pembrokeshire