Culpable spills
Your article on Dounreay and the radiation risk to wave engineers oversimplifies the views of the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee by stating that the radioactive metallic particles which have recently been found within the Dounreay site “originated from an explosion in a waste shaft in 1977” (This Week, 12 August).
The RWMAC was asked to report on the origin of the particles found on the beach outside the Dounreay site. It appeared to the committee that the 1977 explosion was the most likely mechanism that could have transported enough particles onto the cliffs to create a “reservoir” which then supplied the beach for the past dozen years.
The committee did not address the contamination within the site, which has been more fully identified since the report’s publication, as this could not so readily feed particles onto the beach. However, the report does detail a number of processes within the site, other than the explosion, which could have released particles in the past, including spillage during transportation.
The report states that “very occasional small spills of material while en route to the shaft, or accidental spillage around the top of the shaft while emplacement was under way” might have occurred. It now appears that these did take place, so there is probably more than one source of the particles found within, and outside, the Dounreay site.
Publish and be funded
Stephen Donovan overlooks an insidious factor imposed on scientists by university and government overseers (Forum, 12 August). An “active researcher” is frequently defined as someone who publishes a minimum of x papers per year in refereed journals, and the number of active researchers in a department is used in determining funding.
If there are two authors, each is credited with one half of a publication, if there are three or more they are credited with smaller proportions. However, students are not counted, so a supervisor who coauthors a paper with a student receives full credit. Supervisors are thus under strong pressure from their departments to coauthor students’ papers, regardless of how much or how little they may have contributed to the work.
Needless to say, this policy of rating active researchers solely by their publication rate also encourages “salami science”: slice the work as thinly as possible and publish lots of short papers.
Donovan makes a strong plea for the contribution of technicians and other collaborators to be properly acknowledged. He proposes that the terms “and” and “with” could be useful in differentiating primary authors from lesser contributors.
But why not go the whole hog? Even primary authors may have contributed unequally to the work, so why not ask each team of authors to assess and quantify their individual contributions. These would then be stated alongside the authors’ names.
At present authors use an undefined range of conventions, for example a strict alphabetical order, or a sequence respecting status but not contribution. Readers are left completely in the dark as to who is the “senior” author and who did most of the work.
My suggestion would overcome all this and leave each author with a clearly identified percentage contribution stated on the title page. An example, following Donovan, might be Hobbs (20 per cent), Hammond (10 per cent) and Sutcliffe (70 per cent). Hey presto! All doubt removed at a stroke. No need to worry about “and” or “with” or footnote acknowledgements.
Of course, this system would rely on the maturity of all the authors to accept the team’s assessment of their contributions. But my suggestion might offer real benefits. It would encourage all would-be authors to become actively involved in the work, its planning and interpretation and in the writing of the paper. Also, if a team assessed the contribution of a particular author to be minimal, this would probably encourage that author to request that his/her name be omitted. That would solve lots of the current problems. Who’s game to try?
Parrots lean left
I was interested to read the article by Peter Aldhous about humpback whales “leaning to the right”, in which he describes how handedness is perceived as being a uniquely human attribute, with the biases developed by other animals appearing to develop at random (New 杏吧原创, Science, 5 August).
While investigating the behavioural ecology of parrots a few years ago, a number of papers I came across discussed “footedness” in parrots. It seems that most parrots are left-footed, always favouring this side when holding food and manipulating objects. This phenomenon is not random, but appears with the regularity of right-handedness in humans.
Until reading Aldhous’s article I had assumed that this was an accepted behavioural fact and was unaware that such controversy over left-right bias existed.
Missing messages
Vincent Kiernan writes that UFO buffs are likely to be heartened by the General Accounting Office’s discovery that some government reports relating to claims that an alien spacecraft crashed in New Mexico in 1947 have been destroyed (This Week, 5 August).
I have the complete text of the GAO report, including congressman Steven Schiff’s press release. Schiff said in the press release that important documents, which may have shed more light on what happened at Roswell, are missing. The GAO report states that all outgoing messages from Roswell Army Air Field from this period were destroyed without proper authority.
Schiff pointed out that these messages would have shown how military officials in Roswell explained to their superiors exactly what had happened. In Schiff’s own words in the GAO report: “It is my understanding that these outgoing messages were permanent records, which should never have been destroyed. The GAO could not identify who destroyed the messages, or why.”
Why should someone destroy all documents describing the crash of a Mogul balloon? I think something strange happened in Roswell in July 1947.
Health and taxes
I am surprised that no one has commented on B. Bell’s letter (15 April) about people who resort to private health insurance “paying twice”. For the record, the NHS has no connection with National Insurance contributions.
This is a common misunderstanding and is a canard on a par with the belief that long ago insurance companies which provided fire engines would not put out fires unless the building displayed their company’s mark.
Desperate characters
I was most interested to read Tony Farmer describe Captain Bligh’s “Who shall have this?” sharing system as “transparently fair” (Letters, 29 July). It reminded me of Henry Barber’s experiences of the same system when he was wrongfully transported to Norfolk Island aboard the Agincourt in the 1840s. His seven mess companions (“no more desperate characters”) employed the “who shall” system to share out their rations but, as he soon discovered, “under this ostentatious parade of fair play there lurked the grossest injustice 鈥� and I learned there was a well-understood confederacy between the adjudicators”.
Barber was a sensitive, educated man who had to endure his companions’ continual “obscene and blasphemous songs and schemes for future crimes”. When even these diversions palled, they would “gravely narrate irnperfectly remembered versions of childish stories like Jack the Giant Killer”, which often occasioned heated and “ridiculous discussions of the facts”. Barber tried the experiment of “some stories from English and Roman history which they listened to with eager attention and urged him to repeat”.
Happily Barber eventually obtained a pardon and after a number of death defying adventures made his way home via China, India and Egypt.
Bagging your air
Alan Chattaway (Letters, 22 July) argues that a) interlocking car airbags to the ignition switch is illegal since a car may be struck whilst occupied, but without the key in the ignition; b) that putting a sensor on the seat to detect an occupant is too expensive.
Car airbags were designed to prevent chest injuries to the driver in the event of a head-on collision, then extended to the passenger side when their value was fully appreciated. As a stationary car tends not to run into objects head-on, any collisions experienced are likely to come from behind or from the side, making the airbag largely useless.
An interlock to the ignition is thus a sensible idea, why not change the law? The carindustry does not normally shirk from lobbying!
Chattaway’s second point is simply incorrect. Many cars already have sensors in both the seat belt assembly and the seat, simply to inform the driver or passenger that they aren’t clipped in. So the same sensors could easily be used, with minimal cost.
Probably the best system would be to interlock the airbag system and the ignition to all of the front seats or seatbelt sensors. The system then becomes active only when the car is occupied, and starting the car is only possible when the seatbelt is connected 鈥� without which an airbag is ineffective.
Lastly, the US engineers mentioned in Feedback (17 June) are attempting to analyse the difference between a vandal’s baseball bat hitting a car and a true collision. This is not simply a matter of amplitude as Chattaway seems to think, but an immensely difficult, time-consuming (and hence expensive) characterisation of the impact wave form. To provide a solution this must be totally reliable; proving this alone will be costly, even if it is possible.
I have to agree with Feedback that the American car industry is ignoring the simple, cheap and reliable solution to apply technology for its own sake.
Useful junk
“Many biologists would dismiss around 85 per cent of the genome as simply ‘junk DNA’,” states Bob Holmes in “Message in a genome?” (12 August). One point struck me when reading this article. Has anyone investigated the statistical benefit that “junk DNA” may confer to the genome, vital areas of which could be protected from damage simply by having so much apparently useless DNA surrounding it?
It would be interesting to note whether puffer fish, which have very little of this junk DNA, suffer more from genetic mutations than salamanders, which have a great deal.
If I wanted to ensure that important bits of my DNA were not affected by randomly occurring bursts of high-energy radiation, then I would intersperse the good bits with long sequences of “throwaway” material. The greater the ratio of “useless” to “useful” DNA, the safer I would feel that most of my important genetic material would survive.
This hypothesis could be tested by comparing the intron to exon ratio of species that are subjected to high levels of radiation (such as animals living at high altitudes) to those of species living in places largely protected from radiation (deep-sea animals for example).
If there does indeed turn out to be a relationship between radiation exposure and the percentage of the genome taken up by introns then this may provide a way of investigating the existence of previous ozone-depletion periods (prior to human intervention).
It is possible that junk DNA is used to absorb the foreign DNA produced by retroviruses, thereby saving the functional DNA from damage. As only about 10 per cent of the DNA is used for cell functions, this would mean that invading DNA would only have a one in ten chance of damaging the cell. The chances may be even less if the extra DNA is formed into some sort of shield around the functioning parts.
Public 'secret'
Edward Davies describes bow Mitsubishi Materials has patented a process for turning gold into a “malleable putty” that incorporates a “secret” binder (Technology, 12 August). The essence of the patent system is that, in return for the grant of a patent, the patent owner should make a full disclosure of the invention. The article, which reports that the resulting product recently went on sale in Britain, demonstrates a lamentable, but not uncommon, lack of understanding of this fundamental point.
A brief search reveals that European Patent Publication No. 0 457 350 (published 21 December 1991) in the name of Mitsubishi Materials Corporation describes a mouldable mixture of precious metal powder and a binder.
According to the abstract of the publication, the binder is a mixture of cellulose and water which is left to stand for a predetermined time before being mixed with the precious metal powder. The final mixture is said to contain 50 to 90 per cent by weight of precious metal powder; 0.8 to 8 per cent water-soluble cellulose binder; 0.08 to 3 per cent surface-active agent; and 0.1 to 3 per cent oil, with the balance being water.
I have not consulted the full patent specification, but I have no doubt it will give complete details of the various constituents and the manner in which the mixture is formulated. If this is not the case, the specification is deficient and any patent that might be granted would be liable to be revoked.
Men's labour
Re your article “Fighting fat with feeling” (22 July) 鈥� you’ve slipped up.
Sexist! At the end of the article you write that “16 per cent of the population have a dishwasher and more than half have a washing machine”. What about the motor mower, chain saw, countless electric tools, huge machinery that has taken over from men’s manual labour? Shame on you.
Dangerous dust
Although your In Brief news item on the level of platinum in London dust was worded in a very light-hearted manner, and I would not want to be alarmist, there does seem to be reason to worry over the safety of this (12 August).
Very fine platinum particles reaching the lungs would probably stay there. Previous experience of finely dispersed stable materials in the respiratory system suggests that they can have a disastrous effect, regardless of the initial concentration in the air. This has been especially true of materials with highly active sites or catalytic properties.
Unless the safety of allowing very small particles of platinum to build up in road dust and, if fine enough, in the atmosphere, is clearly shown, then there is a good case to be made for looking again at the widespread use of this metal before increased lung problems surprise us. Perhaps this is why the Department of the Environment has sponsored the study.
Letters to the Editor
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Engineering passion
To date, whilst working as a female professional engineer, I have observed an interesting phenomena. The majority of the male engineers that I have encountered are married to women who work in the teaching or nursing professions.
Can any of your readers provide an explanation for this observation? Could it be that this is just a statistical anomaly, a regional variation (observations recorded in the South of England) or the effects of an engineering career on the Y-chromosome?
Quicker by Tube
I travel regularly on the London underground from Paddington into the City. The other morning I was waiting at the platform, the train arrived and everyone got on as normal, except that on this occasion the passengers included a pigeon. The bird hopped on rather nonchalantly and began to peck around inside the carriage. True to form none of the other commuters seemed to notice.
The doors then shut and I expected the pigeon to panic, knowing how birds normally react to being in a small space. But this truly urban bird didn’t appear to notice, even when the train moved off from the station. A few minutes later we arrived at the next stop. The doors opened and the pigeon hopped out quite calmly.
As the pigeon seemed so unconcerned I can only imagine that it had done this little journey before. With their renowned navigational abilities is it possible the pigeon knew where it was going I’d be interested to know if any other readers have observed these avian fare-dodgers.
Bottle party
In response to Feedback’s comment on our summer party at the Natural History Museum:
We certainly didn’t intend to offend guests by adding to the Invitation that revered line “please bring a bottle”. Far from it being a grandiose function of corporate style, the party was funded by a small team of five, as a thank you to our scientific colleagues and journalists alike.
This was an informal gathering and the revelry (fuelled by copious amounts of wine) ensured that the party was enjoyed by all, so much so that our colleagues have offered to set aside their scientific research again, so that we can make this an annual event.
In the meantime, in between those evening trips to Paris and lunch at The Lanesborough, we hope our invitation will be reciprocated 鈥� and then of course the drinks will be on us.
Not so common
I am working jointly with the art historian R. J. M. Olson on a book dealing with images of comets and meteors in British art of the 18th and 19th centuries. The earliest comet photograph was taken of Donati’s Comet in 1858 by a commercial photographer named Usherwood from Walton Common at an altitude of 700 feet above sea level. No other information is known.
We have been unable to find Usherwood’s first name or where this Walton Common was, much less the original photographic plate. If any reader can help, we would be grateful. Readers could reply to me at Hopkins Observatory, Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts MA 01267 or e-mail to: jay.m.pasachoff@williams.edu.
Unfair to Florey
I have studied the biography of Howard Florey by Gwyn Macfarlane, referred to by Mitchell J. Notaras (Letters, 8 July), and that of Alexander Fleming by Andr茅 Maurois, both substantial books.
Macfarlane rightly admired Florey, but mistakenly denigrated Fleming. I am therefore glad to read Milton Wainwright’s defence of Fleming (Letters, 5 August). However, I am sorry that Wainwright in return criticises Florey, supposing that he should have started work on penicillin sooner.
We now know how valuable penicillin is, and it may be difficult for us to imagine the situation as seen by Florey, and by Ernst Boris Chain, when there were but indications of its possible clinical value, and when other lines of research also appeared promising.
Fleming showed that juice from a mould, Penicillium notatum, inhibited the growth of some important disease-causing bacteria in vitro. He carried the work forward so far as his facilities allowed, and attempted unsuccessfully to purify penicillin, between say 1928 and 1932. Florey and his team from 1938 onward worked upon the production and purification of penicillin with resolute skill, devoting more resources to the project as it came to show increasing promise. By the end of 1942 their investigations had shown the great value of penicillin.
No doubt Fleming received much more publicity than Florey’s group, partly owing to a reticence forced upon Florey by complex reasons of honour, which Macfarlane explains. However, the news media understood their public, who could picture Fleming’s initial observation of a culture dish containing a mould colony surrounded by an area free of bacterial colonies.
The public would find it less easy to understand the process of penicillin purification which included unfamiliar procedures such as choice of solvents, adjustment of pH, freeze-drying and bioassay. Credit is owed to Fleming, to Florey, and to all the members of Florey’s team. Their investigations on penicillin benefit the human race.