Letters: Net gain
My own feeling is that the ‘Net’ and its influence will grow as ordinary
people and businesses use it for the function it can provide, rather than
the kudos it can give to its users, or by the marketing of the service providers.
People like using the fax, for example, for what it can do for them in
terms of their personal/business needs, not because BT puts out some fancy
ad about fax machines.
In my case (I’m a commercial photographer) I correspond with other
photographers in the US on Compuserve’s Photography Section, information-mining
on ‘digital imaging’. I’m planning to buy a digital camera soon, and feel
that I’m gaining more information on-line than I ever could at trade shows.
For a start, I’m talking to people who are more knowledgeable than the
equipment dealers.
The CIS Internet gateway allows me to ‘mail’ old college friends in
the US, and my design work for my promotional work is done in Eastbourne,
with the artwork files modem’d to me in Bristol to be printed out by a bureau.
The wonderful things about this is that during times in your day, week
and life, you can take it or leave it. On Friday, I’ll leave the digital
revolution behind, and work on my allotment. But do I take the mobile? ‘Sorry,
on location today. . .back in the office on Monday!’
Martin Haswell 100014.2653@CompuServe. COM
Letters: Net gain
Although the scientific world is truly international, the supplement
was very much about the British (or should I say Anglo-Saxon) part of it,
except for the last two pages. Europe – despite the gateways between the
Minitel and the Internet – was conspicuous by its absence. One of the sad
things about the Internet is that few users are so far equipped to send
texts correctly typed in any other language than English, because they don’t
have software that supports the ISO standard character set for accented
characters.
Anyway, it’s good that you have made a start, and I hope to see more
signs that New 杏吧原创 is up and running on-line, with an e-mailbox on
its masthead and contact addresses in cyberspace for contributors.
Alan Reekie aree@dg13. cec. be
Letters: Net gain
I felt your supplement gave a fascinating insight into the field and
it has left me with the feeling that it will become essential for me to
have access to networks in the future.
The design company I work for has a modem link to its American office
in Atlanta but that is all it is used for at present, which I feel is grossly
neglecting the possibilities the networks offer for our business. Also,
having a Mac at home that my children (all under-fives) use daily, I now
feel a modem link to educational databases would be extremely advantageous
to them as they grow older.
My main hang-up is whether or not the Apple Mac is the right format
for the future. Will I be able to access all the databases and bulletin
boards I wish to from my computer, or will the Internet become more and
more alien to my home set-up?
Stuart Mayes Greenhithe, Kent
Letters: Net gain
The Internet is nothing new; hackers have been travelling it since the
early 1980s. So why is it suddenly getting so much attention?
It seems that the image of computers has moved from the realm of techno-freaks
and spotty schoolkids swapping games to the forefront of philosophical debate.
It is also evident that computers are becoming fashionable. Computers are
now associated more with anarchists, artists and youth subculture than they
are with the scientist who created them.
All this says to me what ‘Netropolis’ failed to point out: computers
are accessible. Far from being the clumsy, difficult, insubordinate machines
they used to be, computers are now usable and in most developed countries
affordable. It is no longer just techno-eggs who have computers (Bill Wyman’s
got one, for Christ’s sake). abeare@geog. ucl. ac. uk
Letters: Net gain
I was shocked by the typographic appearance of the ‘Netropolis’ supplement.
Text is meant to be readable, first of all. I hope we will not see any more
of this junk aesthetics, or I will be forced to cancel my two subscriptions.
As to the contents, I was surprised not to find any mention of the World
Wide Web (WWW), the most heavily used application on the Internet, actually
invented here at CERN.
Paolo Palazzi palazzi@vxcern. cern. ch
Letters: Depend on us
As Minister responsible for the Dependent Territories, I cannot let
Fred Pearce’s article (‘Britain’s abandoned empire’, 23 April) pass without
responding to some of the many inaccuracies it contained.
First, the article reflects a misunderstanding of the nature of Britain’s
relationship with its Dependent Territories. We retain responsibility for
their external relations and security. The reasonable needs of the Dependent
Territories has first call on our aid programme and in some cases this means
that we do provide significant amounts of aid. But the setting of domestic
policies and priorities is a matter for the Dependent Territories’ own governments.
The Ministerial Group on the Dependent Territories, which I chair, has
ensured that the Territories are fully aware of the agenda arising from
the Rio Earth Summit. We are consulting them on their priorities for participating
in those conventions and agreements which are most appropriate to their
particular circumstances. We have indicated a readiness to consider appropriate
legal, technical and financial assistance.
Secondly, the article misrepresents the process by which Britain’s Biodiversity
Action Plan, published in January, was drawn up. The exercise was not confined
to officials, but involved widespread consultation with academics, nongovernmental
organisations and other outside bodies. The conservation targets to which
the article refers were contained in a preliminary draft of the international
chapter of the UK Biodiversity Action Plan by a paid consultant, Sara Oldfield
(whom you quote in your article), and had never been discussed or agreed
with Dependent Territory governors or Foreign Office officials.
Special circumstances apply in the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT),
because of the defence facility and absence of a civilian population. But
conservation issues have not been neglected. As Charles Sheppard of the
University of Warwick reported in your Letters page (26 February), the Foreign
Office has recently appointed a conservation consultant for BIOT to develop
a comprehensive conservation programme, working closely with outside experts
who specialise in the territory’s ecology.
Mark Lennox-Boyd Foreign And Commonwealth Office
Letters: Net gain
it was a work of art by the typesetter – when the Internet can produce
something as classy it will be worth the hype it is currently getting. Having
said that I tend to think of it as a more useful form of the telephone but
with a much more complicated and expensive user interface, and it is the
interface that is going to limit access to the Internet to those who really
have some need for what is on offer. I can’t believe that any more than
a few (5?) per cent of the population will ever use it.
Maurice Childs mochilds@cix. compulink. co. uk
Letters: Net gain
Loved the ‘Netropolis’ supplement (16 April). As a net junkie for the
last few years, I’m glad to see that finally people in the ‘real world’
are catching on to the potentials (and, of course, risks) of global networking.
There’s been quite a burst of media attention recently, which can hopefully
only be a good thing.
It’s right now that the area is moving from a fairly private domain
of computer professionals, students and hackers to the much wider public
domain. And it’s not only the techies that need to speak to the wider public
and tell them what these magic boxes can do. The wider public needs to speak
to the people who actually design and run these systems: the needs of a
general user are going to be widely different from those of a computer scientist
working in academia. Things are happening now and people need to get them
right. The only way this is going to happen is if people know more about
what’s going on. And that’s where things like the Netropolis supplement
are so valuable.
PS: Call me a traditionalist if you like, but I do rather prefer to
read horizontal text, going from left to right . . .
Chris Richardson foop@sg2. pcy. kcl. ac. uk
Letters: Net gain
Yes, yes, yes. It was absolutely brilliant. I was most impressed with
what was discussed. I know that the supplement just skimmed the surface
of this subject, but can we have some more, maybe a little more in depth,
showing also what some of the major companies are up to in this field?
Mark Jackson m jackson@eleceng. ucl. ac. uk
Letters: Net gain
No no no no no no. I’m sorry guys, but I just have to say this. I don’t
think I’ve seen a less readable supplement for aeons. Why do you find it
necessary to put type all over the place, with different typefaces, sizes,
colours and orientations? I found the content of the mag very good, but
was dismayed at the layout. Better luck next time.
Vasariel aka Kevin (& Gill thinks so too) vasariel@cix. compulink.
co. uk
Letters: Collecting comets
As Stuart Henderson pointed out (Letters, 2 April) the proposal to terraform
Mars over a period of 100 000 years might be futile, since – in the absence
of a large moon – the angle of the Martian spin axis is variable, quite
likely making the climate too hostile to life before the terraforming is
complete.
If enough carbon dioxide and water could be supplied from an external
source to permit a self-sustaining greenhouse effect (and, possibly, the
establishment of a Gaia-type self-sustaining ecosphere) to take hold –
before the axial tilt grows too large – the new biosphere might be sturdy
enough to survive an axial tilt of 60o or more.
A fraction of the comets in the Oort cloud would suffice for the amounts
of water/carbon dioxide needed. With orbital velocities of a few hundred
metres per second, a gentle nudge would send them falling towards the Sun.
It would take them centuries to reach Mars, giving plenty of time to adjust
their course.
On this time-scale the technology for self-replicating Von Neumann machines
will become available – maybe already developed for building solar-powered
satellites from asteroid material, minimising development costs. These machines
would track down and send the comets towards the Martian orbit. Since their
numbers would grow exponentially, it would be no problem to collect some
hundred thousand comets, and terraform Mars, in less than the time since
the last ice age – a trivial time span by geological standards.
It might be less grandiose than Henderson’s scenario, but would it be
more preposterous than, say, Reagan’s Star Wars plan?
Birger Johansson Umea, Sweden
Letters: Too costly
Helen Saul’s article ‘Screening without Meaning?’ (19 March) stated
that in 1976 the Medical Research Council ‘set up a pilot trial, and then
abandoned it because it was thought unlikely to reach definite conclusions’.
This was not the primary reason for abandoning the study. The pilot study
was established in the university department of obstetrics and gynaecology
at the Jessop Hospital for Women under my supervision and showed clearly
that it was technically feasible to monitor diagnostic ultrasound imaging
and Doppler assessment of fetal heart tones in early pregnancy and in labour.
To assess the potentially damaging impact of ultrasound modalities,
it was agreed by paediatric advisers that one should look at sufficient
numbers to identify rare but major congenital abnormalities or common subtle
abnormalities. Power calculations indicated that a total of 20 000 patients
would need to be recruited, 10 000 in the insonated group and 10 000 in
the control group.
Although it was easy to identify the rare gross abnormalities, it was
considered very difficult to identify the possible common subtle abnormalities,
particularly, for example, of hearing. Further, it was concluded that a
nine-year study period would be required. A three-year recruitment phase
would be required and a minimum of six years’ follow-up. Testing would require
sophisticated checking by trained and skilled professional observers.
Given the funding constraints at that time (and ever since) it did not
seem appropriate to fund such a major long-term commitment, so the decision
was made not to continue the study. This was to do with affordability and
not because the study design was inappropriate to allow it to reach ‘definite
conclusions’.
I trust this supplementary information expands the usefulness of the
article.
Ian Cooke University of Sheffield
Letters: Reducing rickets
The high incidence of cystic fibrosis in white people seems to be something
of a mystery. Suggestions have been made that carrier status conveys some
selective advantage in the way that it does with sickle cell anaemia. What
could this advantage be?
We know that the UV radiation in sunlight photolyses provitamin D3 into
previtamin D3, which spontaneously isomerises to vitamin D3, which is in
turn converted into the active hormone that plays an essential role in the
control of calcium and phosphorus metabolism. Peoples living in regions
of high radiation can therefore metabolise their own vitamin D3.
As peoples migrated northwards, sunlight decreased, particularly during
the wintertime; and the further north they went the worse the situation
became. Lack of vitamin D causes rickets and this could have been a major
limiting factor in these migrations. The change to a white skin was obviously
of selective advantage by letting through as much UV radiation as possible,
keeping the vitamin D production at acceptable levels.
Even this adaptation was probably not sufficient to prevent rickets
for those peoples migrating further and further north. The only alternative
was to supplement vitamin D by dietary means. Those living near the sea
could do so by eating fish, the oils of which contains high levels of vitamin
D. However, those living inland had greater problems. How was this situation
overcome?
Another genetic change associated with white people is their ability
to digest the disaccharide lactose so that adults were able to utilise milk,
which not only supplies vitamin D but it is also a rich source of calcium,
thus helping to reduce the incidence of rickets. The importance of milk
cannot be overemphasised, since even peoples that are lactose intolerant
have devised ways of converting milk into dietary products like yoghurt
and cheese that retain vitamin D and calcium, yet convert lactose into lactic
acid or remove it.
If you do not produce lactase then if you drink milk, lactose builds
up in the lumen of the intestine because there is no mechanism for the uptake
of disaccharides. A large osmotic effect ensues, leading to an influx of
fluid into the small intestine, causing a watery diarrhoea. Anything which
would reduce the movement of fluid out into the intestine would therefore
have selective advantage.
Does carrier status of the CF gene cause the mucus lining of the gut
to be less permeable to water? If so, it would have enabled adults to consume
quite large amounts of milk without causing diarrhoea, in turn preventing
rickets, surely a devastating condition for nomadic peoples.
Is there any evidence to support this hypothesis? How widespread was
rickets in early ‘northerners’? Do other groups of people that are able
to digest lactose also have a high incidence of cystic fibrosis?
Wilbert Garvin The Queen’s University of Belfast
Letters: Virtual escorts
Re ‘The future of work: it’s all in the mind’ (16 April). In your ‘Trading
places’ box you mention ‘escort services’ as a growth area for jobs because
of the importance of appearing sociable in public. What you forget is that
these public events can take place in virtual reality and so the escort
services can be done by software.
David Whipp Plymouth
Letters: Thrice is right
For a couple of decades I have been using the imagery of Lewis Carroll’s
‘snark’ in many ways (Forum, 9 April) and have found the word Bellmanism
most apt to describe the activities of bigots, fanatics and their ilk –
‘What I say three times is true!’
The word is the best I know for the policies of our present government,
that knows all the answers and disregards all conclusions from research,
however well-founded. The picture of Margaret Thatcher answering questions
on the health service, repeating ‘we are spending more. . .’ in reply to
everything, is burned into my mind as the best example.
Do you think we could all start shouting ‘Bellmanism!’ whenever we hear
a minister doing the same thing?
Steve Drain Portland, Dorset
Letters: Get your fax right
It used to take four to eight weeks for a letter to reach our colleagues
in Nepal, India and Africa. It took only five to eight days for a similar
letter to reach various parts of the North American continent. However,
with the coming of the fax, it now takes seconds to reach our colleagues,
but still the same time to America because no one there seems willing to
add the fax number to their letterhead. The same is true for most of the
developed nations, including our own.
May I make a plea that all laboratories now consider it a priority to
quote a fax number on their letterhead? All of the commercial scientific
companies do this. When we are striving to save money, it should be noted
that a single-page fax costs less than one- fifth of the letter post cost,
and saves the cost of envelopes, etc, and the cost in time. We should all
plan to enter into the 20th century before the 21st arrives.
Ivor Smith London
Letters: Old-fashioned
I was amused to read in the article ‘Blue laser hits a harmonious
note’ (Technology, 2 April) a description of the frequency-doubling crystal
used as ‘phosphoric titanic kalium’. It is funny, but I thought that terminology
like that went out with apothecary shops and alchemy. I do remember going
into chemist’s shops in my youth and seeing bottles labelled ‘chloride of
natrium’, or things like that. However, these days it is conventional, at
least in scientific circles, to use proper chemical terms. Oh, I nearly
forgot: the crystal is potassium titanyl phosphate, formula KTiOPO4, and
known in the trade by the acronym KTP.
A. M. Glazer University Of Oxford
Letters: First TV watcher?
A few years ago, a series of letters published in New 杏吧原创 proposed
various candidates for the role of first person in history to see a Baird
television image in the 1920s. For example, Norris McWhirter (22 June 1991)
suggested that it was a 15-year-old office boy, one William Taynton (1910-76)
who saw the first image on 2 October 1925. However, I have still not seen
mention in your magazine of my distant relative Norman Loxdale in this respect,
who died in Wales last year aged 84.
In the early 1920s, Norman Loxdale, then a young schoolboy, helped
the Scottish inventor John Logie Baird (1888-1946) make simple bits of apparatus
for his television experiments. A Radio Times article dated 13 August 1988,
entitled ‘Mad Baird and Dangerous’, described Baird’s technological achievements
and recounted the events surrounding the invention of television. It clearly
stated: ‘Norman Loxdale, from Hastings, was the first person to see a Baird
image in 1923. He was a 13-year-old Scout. ‘I made the first object seen
on television – a Maltese Cross,’ he says. And for BBC2‘s tribute,
Norman has rebuilt Baird’s first equipment.’
Later, Loxdale admitted that a hand belonging to Baird’s assistant Victor
Mills was actually the first object to be seen on the screen, but it was
subsequently not mentioned because it was a mistake.
Without doubt, television is one of the greatest inventions of the 20th
century, one that has had – and still has – far-reaching cultural and social
influences. The person who actually saw the first television image (whoever
it was) was indeed privileged.
Hugh Loxdale Harpenden, Hertfordshire
Letters: Handsome worms
I really must protest at the description of the hookworm as repulsive
(In Brief, 16 April). Did you not notice the cephalic glands, the head
papillae and the ventral and pharyngeal teeth, that are constructed with
the other component parts to produce a creature with exquisite and truly
aesthetic patterning?
Since it clearly cannot be the appearance of the worm which is offensive,
could your repulsion be something to do with its habits? The ‘human’ relatives
of the ‘dog’ hookworm do tend to attract a very bad press, but this may
be the consequence of their negative aspects only being reported.
But what of the anaemia? Definitely not good! Is it not, however, of
the iron deficiency kind, and if not too severe, will this not afford some
protection against bacterial infection? And, well, reduction in inflammatory
bowel disease.
In these days of political correctness, should we not be more positive
about the role of the hookworm? Repulsive indeed!
John Hay Paisley, Strathclyde