Letters to the Editor
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Aurora metropolis
Fred Pearce writes with distress of the “aurora metropolis” (Forum, 18 March). I live on the Cardigan Bay coast where there is no substantial city within 60 miles. As an inveterate late night dog walker and dilettante star gazer, the sparkling winter skies were a treasure. Unbelievably, 10 to 15 years ago it became obvious that those best nights were now challenged by some sort of sky glow from inland. Any truly clear observation of the Milky Way and fainter stars was slipping away.
The glow is now far stronger than when it was first apparent. It is brightest due east from the Midlands urban complex centred nearly 100 miles away, but this has strong competition from the Merseyside illuminations in the northeast at 80 miles-plus distant. The rare Aurora Borealis has to put on quite a show these days to compete.
Better on balance
Your article about putting the DNA of criminals and suspected criminals on file (This Week 25 March) contains a statement from me, concerning the use of short tandem repeats (STRs) of DNA strands, which is potentially misleading.
Following an introduction that “some scientists say that the new method has serious drawbacks”, I am said to have said that “the potential for contamination is a particular problem with this method”.
As part of a telephone conversation in which I was consistently positive about the application of STRs, I mentioned that one of the advantages of the technique was that the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) step allowed a greatly increased sensitivity compared to single locus minisatellite profiling. Thus, a DNA profile can be obtained from a very small quantity of an assailant’s DNA from the scene of a crime.
I pointed out that such increased sensitivity must inevitably increase the danger of contamination from other DNAs, since now a small amount of contaminating DNA will not necessarily be swamped by the much more abundant DNA of the assailant. Thus the potential for contamination referred to is not a particular problem with the system but the inevitable byproduct of one of its advantages.
Backbonist
Oh dear! Yet more problems for our beleaguered wildlife, with bats suffering this time (This Week, 18 March). What will they do without their mercury streetlamp feeding stations?
But hang on a minute, isn’t there another side to this story? From a less backbonist point of view, this is a positive move. Not only are the new streetlamps more energy-efficient, but they are far less disruptive to Europe’s native moths and other insects. They are therefore of potential benefit to many more species than the few bats who will have to return to earning their living in the way nature intended.
In the interests of balance, I look forward to seeing a complementary article entitled “New streetlamps halt slaughter of Europe’s wildlife”.
Paint it white
The proposal to cool cities by the method described in “White paint on a hot tin roof” (25 March) invokes recall of Benjamin Franklin’s experiment of sitting in front of a fire with a white stocking on one leg and a black one on the other.
The property of many white paints to reflect infrared as well as visible light has had many applications. When I was on the Safety in Mines Research Board in the 1950s, it was recommended that woodwork should be whitewashed because this should help to inhibit the spread of fires, since it would decrease the heat absorbed by the woodwork when irradiated by a nearby flame and so delay the wood being heated up to combustion temperature.
As for the application to roofs, the principle appears to have been applied as long ago as AD 1212, when the City of London ordered its citizens with thatched roofs to white-wash them so that they would better resist the spread of fires.
Fungus fear
In many old buildings there are stories of ghosts. Although these apparitions have no substance 鈥� they pass through walls, doors, floors and so on 鈥� and therefore cannot act on matter, people are terrified of them. This is totally illogical.
I would like to put forward the idea that people are not terrified of the apparitions, but are terrified first and then see the apparitions. They are terrified because spores from fungal growths in the houses are acting on the chemistry of their brains to make them terrified. They may recall stories about ghosts, and hallucinate the images they expect to see. Or they may generate fresh images based on the things they fear most 鈥� usually death.
I would like to suggest that someone who has the time and access to funding should test haunted houses for airborne fungal spores, including those that may only be emitted at night. People who are “psychic” and “susceptible to auras” could be tested for an allergic response to any spores that are found to be common to haunted houses.
Urine with a chance
I was fascinated by the article on airborne urine’s effect on heaths and moors (New 杏吧原创, Science, 25 March), because it is neatly confirmed by my own domestic experience.
In common with gardens in most of southern England over the past few years, the grass on my lawns has been fighting a progressively losing battle against moss. Experiments with a number of proprietary preparations claiming to kill moss (some of which doubtless contain urea) result only in blackened patches of lawn which the moss happily reclaims within months.
I was on the point of giving up the unequal struggle (after all, moss is green too) when I noticed that in the area of lawn nearest to the house where my small dog is wont to relieve herself, the moss has disappeared and the grass has effectively re-established itself. There is a snag: excessive concentrations leave burnt circles of grass, but this is a problem of distribution which is relatively easy to solve.
So all is not lost. Moss never grows on land used for pasture. Perhaps dairy farmers, their livelihood threatened by EC limits on milk production, should offer their animals’ excess urine as a profitable byproduct to harassed householders.
Doctor's dilemma
In your Comment on the case of the 10-year-old girl with leukaemia (18 March), you seem to be arguing that a decision on whether costly treatment should be undertaken where there is only a minimal chance of survival should be influenced by irrational considerations.
But if, as you acknowledge, resources are limited, then decisions on how these resources are to be deployed must be taken on rational grounds, and not on heart tugging emotional grounds, where the plight of a high profiled child with low life expectancy is allowed to reduce the funds available to treat anonymous patients, including children, who promise a greater return in health and happiness for resources expended.
Your attempt to justify your position on this issue by presenting a worst case argument where a 75-year-old patient deprives the tragic child of a chance to live is so transparently spurious that this septuagenarian withholds comment.
In an age when individuals and groups can use publicity to gain public sympathy and preferential treatment, I am reminded of the Josh Billing’s quip: “The wheel that squeaks the loudest is the one that gets the grease.”
Your articles on the girl who was refused treatment for her leukaemia and on the likely effect of “market forces” on health in America (This Week, 18 March) both refer to a worldwide process where the need for “rationing” has been accepted as proven. This cynical and self-fulfilling view is a favourite of the free marketeers. It points in the direction of social Darwinism: if you cannot pay then you do not deserve to live.
Rationing is something that happens after wars or shipwrecks, when there is not enough to go round. Not making 拢75 000 available for a treatment with a 10 per cent chance of lifesaving success while directors of privatised utilities pay themselves obscene amounts of money and the banks announce record profits cannot possibly be called rationing.
Doctors working in the NHS and scientists in general feel trapped in the “economic climate” as their livelihood direction of research and possibility of giving treatment to those who need it are more and more determined by the dictatorship of money. Instead of feeling part of the scientific community, co-operating in discovering the human potential, they have to compete with others for shrinking resources manipulated by financial markets.
Presumably, this child’s parents have paid their National Insurance all their working lives. The idea of National Insurance is that we pay it in; then, when we need medical treatment, we get it for free.
People seem to be losing their grasp on this idea. If the National Health Service refuses to pay for treatment, and people have to resort to private health insurance to cover their medical costs, they will be paying twice. What’s happening here?
Unlucky lakes
John Rodwell is rightly concerned about “the politicisation of a scientific activity” in relation to the annexes of the Habitats Directive (This Week, 11 March). He cites hay meadows, vital in our quest for enhancing biodiversity, as but one habitat omitted from the directive.
However, even habitats that have been identified as being of priority status may receive no formal protection whatsoever simply because of the wording of the directive.
Turloughs fall into this category. Turloughs are ephemeral lakes, usually found in limestone regions, that have no visible inlet or outlet streams but are fed from and discharged directly to the groundwater. They are unique environments both in terms of the geology and the rare wildlife which they support. Although the majority of known turloughs are found in southern Ireland, at least one example is found in mainland Britain, at Carmel Woods in Dyfed.
In the annex of the directive where the protected habitats are listed, turloughs are identified as priority habitats. Yet after the word “Turlough”, “Ireland” is parenthesised. It is completely absurd to place a geographical restriction on a Europe-wide conservation measure; a habitat is either of priority status or it isn’t. It transpires that the reason for this restriction was simply because it was thought that Ireland was the only place to possess turloughs.
Because of this anomaly, turloughs lying outside of Ireland will not be covered by the directive. This is sadly ironic for the Pant-y-llyn turlough at Carmel Woods. Because it is the only known turlough in mainland Britain, the need to implement measures for its conservation is even more pressing, especially since its very existence, along with that of an adjacent woodland site of special scientific interest, is threatened by large scale quarrying.
Power line puzzle
As a non-scientific reader of your paper (every issue from the first) I was puzzled by your item about power lines and cancer (New 杏吧原创, Science, 18 March). Since magnetite is found “almost everywhere” (including the bodies of many living creatures) could it not be found in the bodies of children, including those who may be adversely affected by low-frequency electromagnetic fields from power lines? If so, might not this magnetite help to explain how the ill-effects of the EMFs, if any, are produced?
Babbling babies
John L. Locke’s article “More than words can say” (18 March) does in fact say it all 鈥� almost.
No mention is made of a remarkable transformation which occurs in an infant’s throat around the age of six months. At that age the larynx is lowered, relative to the rest of the throat. This has two effects, the main one being a dramatic increase in the ability to produce a wide and subtle range of sounds. Perhaps the reason that younger infants do not babble is more one of “hardware” than anything else.
Humans are the only primates which exhibit this change. Unless a chimpanzee could somehow perform the same transformation on its throat there is no hope at all that it could successfully mimic our speech. The second effect of course is the price we pay. The lowered larynx greatly increases the risk of choking.
Locke comments that it is surprising that all the known languages are spoken: no people have communicated only by the use of a sign language. One has but to visualise two or three early people moving in forest or high grass savanna to realise that with a spoken language communication between the individuals can be maintained by words when they are not visible to each other. The selective advantage of sound over sight in such a situation seems clear.
Take a plane
“Paradise Lost?” (18 March) notes the pressure being put upon the budget for new station construction in Antarctica. I offer the suggestion that a potential solution to the problem is given by the pictures accompanying the article.
Any structure appears likely to have a limited life in the harsh environment depicted and therefore a series of temporary structures with a rolling replacement programme may be preferable. If a freight aircraft (Jumbo, Starlifter, big Antonov or even humble Hercules, as shown on the ice) which was approaching the end of its airframe’s service life was stripped of nonessential equipment and converted into an accommodation, laboratory, service, storage or recreation module, it could be flown to the site, winched into position and jacked up on piles as per the expressed preference for new construction. The wings engines, fins, tail and undercarriage could be removed and returned for reuse. Linking passageways could be fabricated easily and cheaply.
I understand that there are appreciable quantities of redundant aircraft around the world which could be employed in this manner.
Climate clash
We shouldn’t be too surprised about the continuing uncertainties in climate change science (Comment and “Fiddling while Earth Warms”, 25 March). This is a consequence of the sheer complexity of the scientific and policy issues, the increasing involvement of disciplines relatively new to the field (such as ecology, chemistry, geography and increasingly the social sciences) all with their own ways of doing research, and the inevitable backlash from those whose current operations are challenged by emission controls.
Scientific uncertainty might well increase in the future precisely because of the new research interlinkages being forged in the emerging arena of “earth system modelling”. Does this imply that policy actions should therefore be reduced?
The danger is to imagine that we need to reduce scientific uncertainty in order to reach political consensus and a commitment to taking precautionary policy (such as reducing emissions and designing adaptive responses). That approach to scientific uncertainty is based on an increasingly discredited notion that policy makers and politicians are paralysed without reliable predictive knowledge of the future.
Some policy makers are no doubt using the uncertainty argument to avoid policy actions. But it surely behoves scientists to resist lending credibility to this strategy by promising to deliver definitive, policy-useful knowledge of climate change in the near future especially as we just aren’t sure when and in what form such knowledge might emerge.
Removing the current stigma which attends scientific “dissensus” would allow the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, policy makers and researchers more generally to explore questions, such as: What sorts of institutions, resource-use practices, social relations and technologies would help in building resilience to environmental and socio-economic change more generally? What past experiences of environmental and social change may serve as useful exemplars of future possible responses and what can we learn from such experiences? What processes might improve interaction between scientists, “users” of scientific knowledge (such as policy makers) and members of the public?
Researchers are already addressing such questions, but unfortunately their work goes unnoticed beneath the heated battle for scientific consensus.
On the subject of global warming, New 杏吧原创 appears to have decided to follow an “editorial line” rather than a scientific” one.
You assert “the physics 鈥� is uncontested”. Agreed, and very welcome too, as without the greenhouse gases Earth would be a lot colder than it actually is (and has been for centuries). What is neither certain nor “uncontested” is what effect extra carbon dioxide emissions are having/will have.
This uncertainty is based on the “uncontested” knowledge of CO2‘s limited infrared absorption capabilities, especially when compared with the much superior capabilities of water (which is much more abundant in the atmosphere); and on the similarly “uncontested” knowledge that atmospheric CO2 is part of a complex cycle involving uptake by plants and solution in sea water?
Climate models have developed considerably since 1988 and continue to do so, as they attempt to take account of the many variables involved, so that many scientists are not as certain as they may have been (including IPCC). Fred Pearce’s Focus article in the 25 March issue is more balanced than his This Week article of 18 March, but he spoils it by the comment that criticism of IPCC 1988 comes from a “handful”‘ of scientists “in order to grab headlines”; and that Matt Ridley “debunks” greens, rather than questions them, and anyway he is published by the “right-wing” Institute of Economic Affairs. Slurs of this nature should have no place in New 杏吧原创.
Your Comment “Hot air in Berlin?” should have ended by saying that decisions in Berlin may be crucial for the planet’s climate, rather than will be.
Your editorial is remarkably unscientific in its acceptance of the physics of global warming and the consequent prediction emanating from it. In the same issue John Gribbin reports that climatologists have just realised that clouds absorb some 30 per cent of solar radiation and will have to alter their models of the atmosphere. This might just alter the results of the modelling programme.
The editorial commits an error by stating that “carbon dioxide lingers in the atmosphere for more than a century”. This same incorrect statement is repeated in the caption for the map accompanying Pearce in his This Week article of 1 April. The accepted figure for the atmospheric residence time of carbon dioxide is 3.4 years.
Submarine fossils
Justin Mullins focuses on how new technology can make the deepest parts of the sea accessible for detailed survey (“Voyage to the bottom of the sea”, 25 February).
On the opposite end of the depth range, why not apply new submarine technology for palaeontological research? In shallow marine settings, the chances for preservation of fossils are greater than for land biotas, but we can today only study old marine sediments which tectonic activity has transformed into land.
In addition, we might gain access to the fossils that were deposited on the continental shelf as it rose above the sea level during the last glaciation, the coast providing a rich habitat for many species, including humans.
Even when land organisms are buried and mineralised, they are threatened by erosion, so submerged sediments on the former coastal plains would have fared better, after a brief phase of wave erosion, as the rapid influx of meltwater made the shore rise.
If we could learn to process large amounts of fossil-rich sediments under water, we will get a source of untapped data on the Pleistocene fauna, perhaps including archaic Homo sapiens.