Not in Beersheba
“Tell it not in Gath 鈥� “
For “Beersheba” (Thistle Diary, 15 October) read “Askelon” (2 Sam. 1.20).
Letters to the Editor
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Annoying noise
Julie Johnson (“Beating Bedlam”, 15 October) misses the most invasive and continuous auditory nuisance, which is that from electromagnetic sources such as low-frequency or microwave transmissions and “Watchman” Defence/Air-Traffic Control radars. Since it is mainly the elderly who “hear” low-frequency noise, it has long been asserted that the condition of detection is sufferer-related (like tinnitus).
Unfortunately for those seeking to dismiss the matter, a recent plot of sufferers’ postal addresses in Britain indicates that all those old, deaf, imaginative people who hear noises just happen to live in bands at fixed distances from transmitters; these “sufferer-bands”, extended to form circles, enable a central point to be calculated.
Rules of Russian
I enjoyed Martin Gregory’s article on languages very much, but the inaccuracies of his calculations about the Russian language do require some correction (Forum, 5 November).
Russian adjectives do indeed have to agree in gender, number and case; there are three sets of long forms for the three genders and one set for all plurals, regardless of gender. There are six cases, which gives us a matrix of 4 脳 6 = 24 endings. This matrix represents all the different grammatical “functions” of an adjective.
However, some of the endings (as written or spoken) are the same as some others, with the result that there are only 12 actual endings to choose from for the 24 different grammatical functions.
As for short forms, these only agree in gender and number, so there are only four short form endings. We thus have a total of 24 + 4 = 28 grammatical endings, or 12 + 4 = 16 actual endings.
On the other hand, Gregory underestimates the complexity of the Russian verb. In addition to the different verbs for perfective and imperfective, and the different endings for the six people or groups of people who can be doing the verb, it is noteworthy that the same endings which relate to the present in the imperfect are to do with future actions when attached to a perfective verb.
An additional feature of the Russian verb that Gregory did not even touch upon is the delight of the participle. Of these there are four, making a matrix of present/past against active/passive. Each functions as an adjective, agreeing in gender, number and case; this gives us a total of 4 脳 24 = 96 grammatical endings for long forms, or a grand total of 112 including the short forms.
The total number of grammatical endings on a Russian verb, allowing one perfective and one imperfective, along with endings for the infinitives, all the different people doing things at different times, along with gerunds and participles, comes, by my calculation to 250, which works out to a mere 154 when allowing for the same endings having different grammatical functions.
Flies aren't fools
All this talk about flies and windows is getting silly (Letters, 20 August and 15 October). The fact is that flies do not exit from half-open windows because they don’t want to. They go to the window for the same reason that you or I do: to look at the view. This is obvious from the way they skip up and down and tap the pane with their tiny wings.
This debate is similar to that which might engage space aliens as they ponder why tourists leaning over the railing of a ship are unable to get to the water.
Flies which get too close to the edge face the risk of being carried outside by momentum, just as gravity has drawn many a traveller to a watery grave. But as Joachim Henkel points out, they always get back. Why would they want to leave a warm home with an infinite supply of bread crumbs and spilt jam?
Flies have been around for at least 90 million years, which is a lot longer than any of your readers. We should at least give them credit for knowing what they want.
Negligible risk
In a response to our letter of 10 September, Samuel Epstein (Letters, 29 October) alleges that we are not aware of evidence suggesting a link between IGF-1 and breast cancer. The matter is of interest in relation to suggestions that levels of IGF-1 may be higher than normal in milk from cows injected with the growth hormone, bovine somatotropin.
However, contrary to Epstein’s contention, there is no evidence that IGF-1 can cause neoplastic transformation in any cell type. Evidence does suggest that, in vitro, selected breast carcinoma cell lines are dependent on either exogenous or endogenously produced IGF-1, but they share this property with countless other normal and abnormal cell types. It is true that IGF-1 is permissive for expression of other transforming mutations, but again this is usually a general requirement for cell growth.
There is conflicting evidence as to whether the acquisition of breast epithelial cells of the ability to synthesise IGF-1 is rate limiting in breast tumourigenesis; the only consistent conclusion is that production of paracrine IGF-1 by the surrounding normal stromal tissue of the breast may contribute to the continued growth of tumours. It is important to draw the distinction between circulating and locally produced IGF-1.
If Epstein is correct, an increase in the incidence of breast cancer should be evident in clinical and experimental conditions where circulating levels of IGF-1 are elevated. The generation of transgenic mice carrying an overexpressed IGF-1 gene, provides no evidence for increased breast tumour incidence, despite somatic overgrowth and high levels of circulating IGF-1. Acromegalic humans similarly have greatly elevated bioactive serum IGF-1, yet have no significantly increased incidence of breast cancer.
By emphasising a negligible risk, Epstein diverts attention from potential effects of milk borne IGF-1 in the gut, an important safety issue, which we believe should be addressed as a matter of urgency.
Round the bend
Tam Dalyell reports (Thistle Diary, 22 October) that the Department of Transport does not propose to remove spiral transition curves from its standards for road bend design. As justification, it claims that its research reveals little evidence to suggest that accident rates are affected by the curvature of bends.
That may appear to contradict the Californian research which found that bends are almost twice as dangerous if they include spiral curves. But the bends in the DoT study were to the current design standard, which requires these curves to be provided, so no comparison between bends with, and without, spirals could possibly be made.
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that no evidence relevant to this debate was revealed. What is surprising is that the DoT should resort to spurious claims to defend a design philosophy which is irrational and dangerous.
Right first time?
The commentary by Rob Edwards re Einstein’s “second thoughts” about general relativity (This Week, 22 October) is both fascinating and puzzling. The fact that Einstein came very close in 1912 to his 1915 final theory has long been well known.
Abraham Pais, in his definitive 1982 scientific biography of Einstein, discusses this issue extensively in chapters 11, 12, 13 and 14 (pages 192-265), and concludes, regarding a paper (published by Einstein and Grossmann in 1913, that this paper “contains profound physical insights 鈥� some correct general relativistic equations, some faulty reasoning, and clumsy notation” (emphasis added); and then goes on to consider explicitly the stumbling blocks of faulty reasoning (pages 221-223) which were not fixed up until 1915.
The Edwards report seems to say much more 鈥� no faulty reasoning, and all the correct equations of 1915 already in place in 1912, and rejected only because the 1912 theory “contradicted” the laws of Newtonian physics; Pais notes instead how the 1912 theory contained both irrelevant and incomplete arguments which arrived at a hybrid theory containing some basic elements of the ultimate theory (emphasis added).
Unless I am mistaken, Pais drew essentially on the same sources cited by Edwards in reporting the efforts of the German-American team reviewing some of Einstein’s unpublished sources. So why the profound differences in the treatments of the circa 1912 work?
Titanic bad taste
Your story “Priceless legacy of the Titanic” (1 October) properly drew attention to the remarkable technological advances which are occurring in the conservation of material recovered from maritime archaeological sites. However, the story regrettably overlooked the moral and ethical issues which arise from the recovery of Titanic material, and which are being debated by maritime archaeologists and museum curators around the world.
The Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology opposes the removal of material from any submerged site of heritage value except by professional practitioners in pursuit of a valid research objective. In the case of the Titanic, this institute has seen no evidence that any worthwhile scientific objective has been achieved by the recovery of material to date. Significantly, the work was done by a salvage company as a salvage project, rather than by archaeologists. There has been no mention of a research design or project objectives, and no archaeological report has yet been published.
The reasons for recovering material from the Titanic so far have been to do with the commercial gains to be made from exhibiting it to the public. The majority of maritime archaeologists in this country are of the view that reputable museums should have nothing to do with the Titanic exhibition.
There is also a non-scientific issue. The wreck of the Titanic was a major disaster which had an appalling impact on hundreds of families on both sides of the Atlantic within living memory. To make a profit from displaying the personal effects of its victims may be considered by many people to be in poor taste.
Only entropy
Charles Goodhart claims that the “regression to the mean” of IQ scores is evidence that intelligence is genetically inherited (Forum, 22 October and Letters, 12 November). This argument was developed by H. J. Eysenk in one of his early books but it is completely fallacious.
Consider a series of coin-tossing experiments in which 100 tosses are made in each and the number of “heads” is recorded. Suppose that in one experiment heads comes up 60 times. In the next experiment the probability of getting fewer than 60 heads is very high indeed. This series of completely unconnected events will show regression to the mean. Surely nobody in their right mind would claim that coins inherit the ability to come up heads approximately 50 per cent of the time?
Regression to the mean is a statistical result of the tendency for entropy to increase. The same edition of New 杏吧原创 contained a primer on thermodynamics (“Inside Science” no. 75); one hopes Goodhart read this, understood the implications, and blushed.
The inherited characteristics of living organisms show regression to the mean because the genes are randomly sorted at each generation. (Providing natural selection is not operating at some fantastically high rate.)
However, environmental factors may operate in a similar way if a large number of them are involved 鈥� they too may be “randomly” sorted at each generation.
That said, I can agree with Goodhart’s final point: the difference between chimpanzee and human intelligence must surely be inherited. Indeed, the claim that human intelligence is not the result of natural selection seems mystical/religious and has nothing to do with science.
Hot and cold
I refer to “Inside Science” no. 75, pages 2 and 3 (22 October) and the comments on Maxwell’s demon. A German physicist, Rudolf Hilsh, perfected a device which appears to make use of this principle.
The basis is a valute chamber similar to a centrifugal pump housing. Compressed air is blown in tangentially on the periphery, and spirals inwards toward the centre, where it escapes along two opposed axial tubes.
Entry to one tube is through a small hole in a diaphragm. The other tube has a throttle valve on the end.
By adjusting the flow of the inlet air, the size of the diaphragm orifice and the throttle valve, a temperature differential can be established between the two exhausts.
The device is fully described on page 514 of The Scientific American Book of Projects for the Amateur 杏吧原创 by C. L. Strong, published by Simon & Schuster.
It is claimed that the throttled “hot” pipe can produce air at 177 掳C, and that the diaphragm “cold” pipe can register 鈭�21 掳C.