Bishop move
We were shocked to read that David Bishop had been dismissed from his position as director of the National Environmental Research Council’s Institute of Virology and Environmental Microbiology at Oxford (This Week, 25 March). We feel that the manner and justification of his dismissal deserves comment as it has caused considerable dismay among scientists throughout the world.
Bishop has for many years pioneered novel and high quality approaches to developing methods of biological control of insect pests that would avoid the environmental hazards created by the continued use of chemical insecticides. His experiments have been exceptionally well thought out and carefully controlled within the strict regulations of British and international guidelines. There has been no question of any inappropriateness or abuse nor any criticism of the quality of the scientific work carried out by members of staff in the institute under his direction.
During the 11-year period of his directorship at the NERC, Bishop has instigated a broader programme of research to take account of new interests in biodiversity and functional microbial ecology which have increasing importance for understanding environmental issues. We are told that there has been a change of “mission” of the institute introduced by the chief executive of the NERC, John Krebs “which will be refocused to undertake basic and strategic research to generate an understanding of the biodiversity and functional roles of microbial populations in the environment”, and that this change requires different leadership. This is indeed strange since it has been clear for some time that many of these changes were in fact initiated by Bishop some years ago and the new mission is only highlighting what is already in place.
Why then his sudden dismissal? Even if the grounds are justified, the reputation of British science management is greatly harmed both inside and outside the country by the manner in which the dismissal took place and the fact that an independent committee recommended that a review working group of microbiologists from institutes, universities and industry be set up, but never was. This sort of management practice is likely to lead to a diminished willingness by internationally recognised scientists to direct our research council institutes. This will have a detrimental effect on the quality of science carried out at these institutes, which is extremely important to all the scientific community.
We all pay our taxes to support research establishments. We all spend time advising and refereeing projects that form the basis of research council activities. The academic community deserves more information as to the justification of the action instigated by the chief executive of the NERC.
If this is the result of implementing the policy of wealth creation, “in line with government policy” as the top priority of the scientific community in Britain by one research council, what next? The situation at the NERC requires an urgent investigation to restore confidence in the management of research council activities among all British scientists.
Give them iron
Disputes over fish stocks, such as that between Spain and Canada, are likely to increase. Further international agreements and better policing may help in the short term, but they will also raise prices, thus providing a further incentive to break the rules.
The world needs more fish. This is often assumed to be impossible, but is this assumption correct?
Following the observation that iron is the rate limiting factor in the growth of marine algae, it was suggested that the release of iron into the sea might help to combat the greenhouse effect. When such a trial was performed, it was seen that the algae at first multiplied mightily. The effect was short lived, because the extra algae were soon eaten by zooplankton. Conclusion: ferrous sulphate release has negligible effect on marine carbon dioxide uptake.
Local fish were presumably too busy eating zooplankton to comment, but they must have thought it was the best thing since World War II.
It is well known that the waters around wrecks abound with fish, attracted perhaps by the effect of iron on plankton growth. Ecologists and climatologists may wish to comment on whether it would be safe and practicable to release iron in an area of ocean, say part of the North Atlantic, in order to observe the effect on fish stocks.
It is easy to accuse fishermen of greed and irresponsibility, but when your future is uncertain and your livelihood is threatened, it is always tempting to grab what you can while you have the chance. Proper management of the oceans, intended to raise fish stocks rather than restrict catches, could engender a very different attitude.
Green orange
Like Terry Cannon (Letters, 25 March), I have encountered difficulties with teachers failing to appreciate the problems in colour differentiation faced by my son, who has severe protan type colour vision (red weakness). This is seen at its most marked with maps. Anyone who has tried to read a monochrome photocopy of a coloured map will have some idea of the problem.
Another example, for those interested in electronics, is the colour coding system used on resistors and other components 鈥� difficult enough for those with normal colour vision and impossible for the colour blind.
However, the most intriguing case in our safety-conscious age is the bright orange colour cable used for lawnmowers and other outside electrical appliances. To my son this appears a beautiful shade of grass green and is virtually invisible when stretched across the lawn. The same applies to the orange variety of “high visibility” jacket used, among others, by workmen on roads. I wonder if they realise that to a significant proportion of male drivers they blend almost invisibly with the background vegetation.
One thing I rapidly learnt when I started demonstrating elementary plant anatomy to students (and a few colleagues) was that about 10 per cent of the men would promptly turn round from the slide and ask “which is the xylem [usually stained red] and the phloem [blue or green]?” I would state the stain difference; the student would say, more or less sweetly, “But I’m colour blind.” I might or might not retort that they ought to be able to tell from the differences in cell anatomy.
But other things are potentially far more dangerous 鈥� electrical wiring for one. I had briefly a technical assistant, an Australian, with whom I went over many times the correct wiring code for mains electricity. On a field trip I left him 100 metres away to connect two leads to a 7.5 kilovolt generator, while I connected the mobile lab.
Suddenly I landed flat on my back. Fortunately the ground was bone dry and I was wearing rubber soled joggers. Only about two years later, when I met his former wife, did I discover his colour blindness. Incidentally, English and Australian colour code conventions differ.
As red/green blindness is so much commoner in males than females, I suspect many males would be very loath to admit their colour blindness to an unattached female. I would certainly shrink from asking any cab driver, be they in Sydney, London, New York, Tokyo or Delhi, if they were colour blind before I engaged them. Yet, particularly in bright town lights, colour blindness must be a major hazard.
Fuss about nothing?
Stephen Cook’s letter (4 March) replying to points raised by Phil Colquitt (11 February) proposes the abolition of a cheap, accurate, portable measuring device for gauge pressure. This succinctly describes the standard, open-ended mercury manometer, introduced with the Riva-Rocci cuff in 1896, and available in hospitals and GP surgeries as the sphygmomanometer.
We are in strong agreement with Cook’s views on the potential toxicity of mercury vapour. However, the low vapour pressure of mercury (0.2 Pascals at 20 掳C) should limit the risk of acute heavy-metal exposure. This of course assumes there is adequate ventilation of the area affected by a spillage of mercury and that safety guidelines are followed. In addition, we agree that chronic exposure is the greater worry and the there must be no complacency shown when dealing with such an environmental hazard.
The COSHH (Control of Substances Hazardous to Health) guidelines, which are by no means precise and perfect, are available in all hospitals and it is obligatory for all staff to be familiar with the concise and current safety advice and procedures.
However, we must dispute Cook’s argument of encouraging the abandonment of mercury-containing pressure gauges. Their value in the calibration of scientific and medical instruments is unrivalled.
Danger for drivers
Nowadays, there is a great deal of information and comment about the levels and possible effects of air pollution 鈥� much of the latter caused by motor traffic. However, while a lot of localised data is available from specific places, I have never seen any published study of the possible exposure to SO2, CO, NOx, hydrocarbons and PM10 particulates by the people who actually drive the vehicles concerned, over the length of a typical journey.
It occurs to me that sitting in a car on a motorway or in an urban traffic queue on a hot summer day 鈥� windows open, ventilation fan at full blast 鈥� must be one of the most certain ways of suffering high levels of exposure to these substances. Nor can it be particularly beneficial to drive mile after mile swallowing exhaust from the vehicles in front.
It should not be difficult to gather some data on this 鈥� a suitably equipped monitoring vehicle could drive around in congested traffic for a week or two, for example.
I think the results could be very interesting. Who knows 鈥� they might persuade people that it was worth planning to avoid traffic congestion on the grounds of potential health risks. Just think of the beneficial effects if all those reformed smokers gave up driving on the M25 as well.
Carry on drilling
Oh dear, IBM is at it again (Patents, 25 March). Their first attempt at providing a product for my profession was in the form of a grossly overpriced and overcomplicated computer soft and hardware combination. After reading the marketing literature I predicted that within a year the product would be withdrawn. I believe it lasted less than six months.
Now they are producing a laser to remove enamel, detine and decay. I estimate that 95 per cent of my “drilling work” is involved with removing existing fillings and preparing already filled teeth for crowns, inlays and bridges. None of this can be done with a laser.
Early decay can be treated with non invasive techniques, and decay in virgin teeth is becoming a thing of the past due to my profession’s efforts in preventive dentistry.
Dentistry has great potential for product development. Why don’t these companies ask us, the practitioners, what we want to see developed, and save themselves millions of pounds on wasted product development creating machines which are unaffordable and useless.
One area which needs serious research is in providing totally pain free tooth and gum “numbing”.
Planets in chaos
Gwydion Williams suggests that the exact position of the planets should be used to enable a future discoverer to date the plaque precisely (Letters, 25 March). I’m afraid I’ve heard theories that while the planets’ orbits are deterministic over the short term, they are chaotic over the long term.
If we applied retrospective deterministic calculations today, we would probably get results that would disagree with Tycho Brahe’s observations, and that is only 200 years ago.
No experience
During “National Science Week” I received another rejection for my request for a summer science work placement. Over the last two months I have written 20 letters to firms, both commercial and government, asking for a two week work placement for July 1995 so that I can get hands-on experience of working in a scientific environment. From the four firms that have bothered to reply, I have received four form letters of rejection.
I would have thought that the current rhetoric which encourages students to study science A-level subjects as well as that which encourages female students to venture into “traditionally male academic disciplines” might have meant that there would be some practical encouragement for a young person who is interested in obtaining some hands-on experience of working in a scientific environment to supplement the academic learning from three science A-level subjects.
I guess I should have stuck to child care and domestic science for A levels and Tesco for work experience. Silly me.
Red light district
Rosie Mestel (“Molecules to make plants tick”, 4 March) suggests that Dutch bulb growers create their own red-light district by driving around “on tractors in the middle of the night with big booms of red light to induce flowering in tulips”.
In fact, flowering in bulbs is not generally induced by light, but by the temperatures they undergo during their development.
Whereas red lights can be found in certain neighbourhoods of Amsterdam, the only red lights to be seen in our peaceful bulb fields are the rear lights of tractors.
Tipping the tutor
It is indeed sad to learn that students may soon be expected to pay towards the cost of the tuition they receive in university, even though the student grant continues to shrink.
However, such a situation is not new. My great-uncle, Dr. Thomas Ellis Lewis (TEL), gained the first PhD awarded by the University of Cambridge in law in the late 1920s. While I was a graduate student at Cambridge in the late 1970s, I used to complain to him that my supervisor was an elusive individual who was hardly ever in the department 鈥� not an uncommon occurrence.
My complaints to TEL only elicited the unsympathetic comment that you were better off not seeing your supervisor too often. He went on to tell me that when he was a graduate student, his supervisor, Lord Winfield, was a most eminent and distinguished lawyer, and that any supervision with him was treated by his lordship, as a meeting with a client which had to be paid for.
Apparently, my great-uncle, who was from a very modest background in South Wales had to pay up front two gold guineas a time for a supervision.
Rotten at writing
As a nurse studying part time for a degree in philosophy at Nottingham University, I read John Croucher’s article (Forum, 1 April) with great amusement until I came to the case of the history student who asked for extra time in her exam because “for ten years she had used a word processor for all her writing and was now incapable of using normal handwriting”.
Maybe this student was merely stating a fact and not presenting an outrageous excuse.
As a nurse I am used to writing small documents by hand, but over the past five years I have become accustomed to using a word processor for all university work and essays. A few months ago, on finishing a late shift, I came home to do the final edit and print out of a 2000-word essay on Sartre which had to be in for the next morning’s deadline. My word processor ceased to function and I sat from eleven at night until four in the morning writing the essay by hand.
I reiterate the history student’s claim wholeheartedly, for I found I was not capable of normal handwriting anymore. The crossings out and restarts on fresh sheets of paper were innumerable. Indeed the final result embarrassed me to the extent of feeling constrained to attach an apologetic note for the tutor concerned.
Granted my tiredness after a long shift may have had some effect, but having spoken to others who habitually use word processors for essay and article work, all their answers uphold the history student’s claim.
Yes, constant use and dependence on word processors diminishes both handwriting speed and legibility.
“Snails ate my exam paper” could not have been a more apt title. A few years ago my son had left his A-level project on our sideboard which is close to a servicing hatch that leads into the kitchen. I had collected some vegetables from the allotment and left them in the kitchen close to this hatch. In the morning we found a magnificent slug enjoying a meal.
And, yes, it had found the paper upon which the project was written a delicate hors d’oeuvres. There was no time to rewrite the project and so a note was appended to explain why the paper was eaten 鈥� by a slug, not a snail.
Winning numbers
Your choice of numbers will not affect your chances of winning the National Lottery but, as the wide variation in the number of those winning the jackpot shows, an intelligent choice will greatly increase your expected gain.
The aim should be to make unpopular choices. I have two suggestions to make in this respect.
There seems to be a psychological tendency for players to spread their choices. However the probability that the six numbers drawn will include a pair, n and n+l, of consecutive numbers is much higher (0.495) than most people would guess. Hence:
Proposition 1: Only play the National Lottery if your choice includes a pair of consecutive numbers.
As has been widely observed, small numbers and round numbers are more popular than large numbers that do not factorise. Hence:
Proposition 2: Only play the National Lottery if you restrict your choices to prime numbers greater than 10.
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