Green kittens
The exhibition of a young kitten with green hair at the Natural History
Museum in Arhus raises several interesting speculations (In Brief, 20
January). One is immediately prompted to think of excess copper as a potential
cause. Defects in the metabolism of other trace metals like iron, nickel or
cobalt may also be implicated.
Copper is an essential trace metal in mammals and is essential for iron
metabolism and in the formation of melanin and myelin. Swayback is a well
known complication of sheep grazing in copper-deficient pastures. Copper
serves an important role in skin wound healing and scar tissue formation.
However, there is a general lack of accurate information on copper
metabolism in cats, and I can find no useful data on dietary copper levels
necessary for maintaining normal health in cats or other species.
We do know that excess copper may be eliminated via the hair follicle and
that in humans exposed to high levels of copper occupationally or in their
diet, a “green hair syndrome” similar to that reported in the kitten, can
occur. This is a transitory condition and normal hair colour returns once
excess copper is removed.
As with many trace metals present in the body, much research is still
necessary to understand the mechanism involved in controlling the balance of
metal ions in the body.
What a gas
P. W. Agnew draws timely attention to the distortions imposed on Britain’s
energy market as a consequence of the government’s privatisation of the
electricity and gas supply industries (Letters, 23/30 December 1995).
Future generations will surely regard as criminal our profligate use of
this clean, premium fuel – gas. We are squandering a valuable resource for
which there is no equivalent. Can you imagine a car or plane powered by
coal?
The “dash for gas” and subsequent investment in combined cycle gas turbine
plant has already raised Britain’s gas consumption by nearly 10 per cent, and
much more will be commissioned shortly. CCGT manufacturers consider they are
doing well if they return 54 per cent efficiency.
A modern domestic condensing boiler will run at 83 per cent, and small
combined heat and power units can achieve over 90 per cent cycle efficiency,
after allowing for the additional transmission and distribution losses.
Even worse, we will soon be burning gas at a conventional fossil-fired
power station in England. If National Power has its way, Didcot Power Station
will soon be using gas at a marginal efficiency of around 35 per cent. Just
like the seventies when gas was used at West Thurrock and Hams Hall-cheap
“surplus” off-loaded by British Gas.
Why are companies doing this? Look at the structure of the expensive, long-
term “take-or-pay” gas contracts daisy-chained onto the sweetheart deals
between the so-called independent power producers and the regional electricity
companies. Look now at the ludicrous over-capacity and further deregulation of
the 100 kilowatt market in 1998.
Look in vain for a deregulated equivalent for the old CEGB’s public service
obligation to keep the lights on. Look at the collapse of the British coal
industry. How much will it cost to reopen a flooded mine when our native gas
reserves approach exhaustion. Look at the amputation of research into clean
coal technologies that lead the world. Look at the farce, in several acts, of
the privatisation of the nuclear generating sector. Look at the Byzantine
complexity and escalating costs of the Electricity Pool together with its
associated offshoots. This is the economics of the market place gone mad.
Meanwhile, the whispers among the peasants in the market place are “Sell
your electricity shares and buy into batteries and candles”.
Faceless fathers
The article “It’s a wise child that looks like its father” (This week, 16
December 1995) suggested that there is an evolutionary rationale for one-year-
olds to resemble their fathers. However, this article and the original paper
(Nature, 14 December) both overlook the problem that the father must first
know what he looks like to compare himself with the child and determine its
paternity.
Today our means of self-recognition are normally crisp images from mirrors,
photographs and video. Only wavy reflections in pools were available for most
of hominid history. Would our male ancestors have spent enough time in this
narcissistic activity to identify their attributes in a child? Furthermore,
would males wait for a year to find out the child’s paternity?
End the circuses
I was concerned to read the misinformed story on thee Indonesian orang-utan
reintroduction project (This Week, 23/30 December 1995). The Indonesian
Ministry of Forestry, with expatriate advisers, designed an orang-utan
survival programme in which laws to protect and reintroduce confiscated
animals are a priority.
Existing rehabilitation projects, for want of better support, had evolved
into open-air circuses for tourists and were a liability for conservation
because of the high risks of infecting the wild population. Therefore, in
1991, Willie Smits was asked to set up the Wanariset project to allow
confiscation of the many orang-utans kept illegally in villages in Borneo,
waiting to be smuggled from out of the country.
The new approach was formulated by a team from the Ministry of Forestry,
including myself. It was discussed and approved by experts at three
international conferences and was accepted as the official policy of the
Indonesian government. The programme puts extraordinary emphasis on quarantine
and emphatically avoids the risks of contaminating a wild orang-utan
population. At the same time it tries to preserve the extremely valuable
breeding stock of the officially protected, endangered apes, according to the
legal framework of Indonesia.
Groups of apes are reintroduced into forest areas where no wild species
occur and no visitors are allowed anywhere near the apes during
reintroduction. By labelling TB a “deadly human disease” which would “pose a
threat to other orang-utans”, your article falsely suggested this project
endangers the existence of the remaining wild ape populations. The medical
facilities at Wanariset are directed by the regional head of the Indonesian
quarantine service, supported by two vets. The staff are regularly screened
and work under strict safety regulations.
Despite the glossy image of orang-utans in the media, hardly anybody in the
US or Europe had been prepared to offer financial, political or practical
support for the Indonesian government’s programme. However, now that, finally,
animal welfare groups are coming to the rescue of a wild species and raising
the profile, and income, of projects such as this, it is sad to note that New
杏吧原创 can only discredit it.
Superior seats
I find it extraordinary that William Siuru’s article does not mention
Martin-Baker, a British company which has pioneered the development of
ejection seats for fifty years and has 70 per cent of the world market
(“Please keep your seat”, 13 January).
Your readers will have read reports in the national press of the six
successful ejections made last week from Tornado aircraft using Martin-Baker
seats. These bring the total number of lives saved by Martin-Baker seats to
6488. Our success rate in 1995 was 96 per cent. This compares with “almost 280
ejections and over 90 per cent of the pilots involved survived” with the ACES
11 seat.
Martin-Baker has supplied over 68 000 ejection seats to 88 air forces and
has achieved considerable success in developing a range of escape equipment
ranging from the Mk16 seat for Eurofighter 2000 and Ratale to a new
lightweight seat for JPATS – the Joint Primary Aircraft Training System
selected for the US Air Force and the US Navy.
In 1985 we were awarded a contract by the US Government to design, develop
and manufacture NACES, the Navy Aircrew Common Ejection Seat, which is fitted
to their F/A-18 F-14 and T-45 aircraft. Over 600 seats have been delivered and
15 ejections reported, all totally successful and without injury to the
pilots.
Martin-Baker is also working with the US Air Force and Navy and the three
prime airframe contractors to develop an ejection seat for the Joint Advanced
Strike Technology (JAST) programme. One candidate is our microprocessor
controlled NACES, which is already the most advanced ejection seat in service.
This seat’s modular construction enables it to be easily modified to
incorporate new technology as it becomes available.
You will, therefore, understand why any article on ejection seats is
incomplete without an account of the work which has been done, and continues
to be done, by the Martin-Baker Aircraft Company.
Worthy journal
I was interested to read the article “God in the Lab” by Margaret Wertheim
(23/30 December 1995). Its New York-based author naturally focussed on the
American religious scene. However, it is also worth emphasising that there is
a thriving British-based journal called Science and Christian Belief which
publishes articles concerned with the interactions between science and
religion (available from Paternoster Periodicals, PO Box 300, Carlisle,
Cumbria CA3 9QS). The journal promotes exchanges between scientists and
differing views about religion, and recently published a debate between
Richard Dawkins (atheist) and Michael Poole (Christian).
Back to front
You recently reported on Mitsubishi’s attempt to make a fuel-efficient
engine, without nitrogen oxide emissions (“Nice engine, shame about …”,
6 January).
Surely the problem is with the catalyst: it’s at the wrong end of the car.
If we had a catalyst on the air intake that removed all of the gases except
oxygen, we would have a much faster and cleaner car in one single stroke,
without the continuing need for manufacturers to develop expensive and
complicated electronics and lighter materials in order to meet ever increasing
emission regulations.
What a hash
It’s not only written instructions for gadgets that can seem obscure
(Forum, 13 January). A recorded voice informs BT’s Star Service customers to
press “square” when terminating codes.
Baffled, I searched hard for a square on my telephone’s keypad. But there
was no such key, BT meant press “hash”. The entire English-speaking world
refers to the # symbol as a “hash” except BT. Also, their automated
directory enquiries recorded voice always refers to zero as “oh”.
Obviously BT aren’t too familiar with computers otherwise they’d know the
correct name for the hash symbol, and that there’s a considerable difference
between the alpha “oh” and the numeric “zero”.
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On another planet
I read the review of my book Thinking in Pictures which appeared in the
December 23/30 1995 issue. I would like to respond to David Cohen’s question:
“How can someone who is so good at introspection be so unskilled at reading
the social and psychological cues of everyday life?”
Since I have autism, I think in pictures, like video tapes running in my
imagination. I have no non-visual abstract thought. Abstract concepts such as
peace appear as visual memories such as a newscast of a peace agreement
signing. I learnt after interviewing many people about how they think that
most people react subconsciously and emotionally to the body language of
another person. I don’t do this. I am blind to subtle body language cues.
I can pass a simple theory-of-mind test where I have to figure out where
another person thinks a candy bar or a pencil is hidden, but I cannot read
subtle movement cues or facial expressions. I can however pick up obvious cues
– a person is angry if he is screaming at me.
Oliver Sacks, the famous neurologist called me “An Anthropologist on Mars”.
My predicament was like a scientist who had to spend years of study to figure
out that the inhabitants of the planet communicated emotions via radio waves.
It was a shock for me to learn only three or four years ago that most people
do not think in the vivid visual images that I have in my mind. I was
surprised to learn that there are some people who think only in words or very
vague generalised pictures.
The answer to Cohen’s question is simple. If one does not understand how
the natives communicate, one has plenty of time for introspection. Thinking in
pictures is a great asset for my work with animals. It is easy to figure out
how an animal thinks because my method of thinking is probably very
similar.
The right road
I was disappointed in your editorial about the Newbury Bypass (Comment, 6
January).
For too many years, the Tory government has pursued the party dogma of
deregulation and “the great car economy”. The Department of Transport has
gleefully trotted at the heel of government despite the warning voices over
the last twenty years that building roads won’t solve the transport
crisis.
But those who rejoice in the recent announcement of road cuts should
beware. If you believe that the Tories are going to invest heavily in public
transport, think again. If you expect to see railway tracks full of freight
traffic, don’t hold your breath. The road cuts are simply a means of cutting
public expenditure to make way for tax cuts. They are not the U-turn in policy
which you may be hoping for.
So, realistically we must accept that local traffic will continue to clog
the streets of Newbury. Long-distance traffic will continue to pound up and
down the A34 24 hours a day creating noise, pollution, and worst of all,
intimidating the residents on the east side of the town – unless the new road
is constructed.
I do not know Newbury well, and the proposed bypass may affect the open
countryside to the east. But the new road will improve the quality of life of
families who live near the present A34. No longer will children need to be
escorted everywhere for fear of succumbing to a simple error of the Green
Cross Code. No longer will the elderly stand for hours in the rain and spray,
waiting for a break in the endless sea of traffic to cross the road. The sound
of birdsong will no longer be drowned by the roar of traffic, and lungs will
again be filled with fresh air instead of the stink of hydrocarbons.
No wonder the locals want the new road. They and their elected
representatives voted for it, and they deserve it. All power to the protesters
who recognise the folly of unrestricted traffic growth, but they are targeting
the wrong scheme at Newbury.
Magic & mainstream
Congratulations on another open-minded article on dowsing (“Branches, twigs
and rods”, 23/30 December). As Arthur C. Clarke says, any sufficiently
advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. The evidence for dowsing
reminds us that our technology is not yet sufficiently advanced to understand
it.
Dowsing is following the classical route of anomalous phenomena, from
repudiation (or even vilification) to elucidation. On its long journey from
the 16th century it enjoyed good travelling companions, such as meteoric
showers, bacterial infection, hypnosis, ball lightning, and acupuncture, some
still waiting to be welcomed by respectable science.
Dowsing has been embraced by many distinguished scientists, including the
Nobel Laureate physiologist Charles Richet, the physicist J. J. Thomson, and
astronomer Bernard Lovell, and by those many worthy practitioners (including
well finders, electric cable and gas pipe repairmen) who use it in their daily
work. Vindication by physical science will come later, and the recent
discoveries of magnetite crystals in the bodies of a range of animals
including bees, pigeons, dolphins and humans, suggest promising lines of
research.
Perhaps we should leave the last word to Lord Kelvin, whose dictum nearly
100 years ago “Physics is finished” comprises a lasting legacy to teach us
patience and humility.
Making a date
Your recent article on the various calendars of the world with their
respective and equally diverse dates for observing the New Year was
enthralling. I was however, intrigued that the most logical and practical
calendar in contemporary use was not even noted.
The Baha’i calendar in use by Baha’i communities in every corner of the
globe, is a solar calendar initiated by the Bab (Siyyid Ali Muhammad of
Shiraz, Iran), and ratified by Baha’u’llah (Mirza Husayn Ali of Nur, Iran) who
are the twin Prophet-Founders of the Baha’i faith.
The calendar consists of 19 months (named after attributes of God e.g.
Beauty, Perfection, Power, etc.), of 19 days with 4 intercalary days (5 in
leap years). The Baha’i New Year begins at sunset on 20 March and thus
coincides with the Northern Hemisphere’s Spring Equinox. Surely this calendar
appeals to many for its simple symmetry and regularity.
Come on you greys
Before John Bonner and interested parties launch a murderous campaign
against one of the most graceful, intelligent and friendly of our wild
animals, I think the defence’s case should be considered (“Red or Dead”, 20
January). How far can the grey squirrel fairly be blamed for the reduction in
red squirrel numbers?
In his article on virus infections in squirrels (This week, 14 October
1995) Bonner states that the parapox virus wiped out whole populations of red
squirrels in parts of southern Britain earlier this century. This would be
about a century after the grey squirrels were introduced here – a long time
for a new virus to take to get hold.
His informant Ian Keymer says that this virus may have been present in the
red squirrel when the grey arrived, and Paul Duff has now found it in the grey
squirrel. The grey squirrel took over the territories vacated by the red,
apparently without any record of “ethnic cleansing”.
The red squirrel populations are larger in the north and east of the
country. In Thetford Forest, where their numbers are threatened, several cases
of parapox have recently been described by Tony Sainsbury. Bonner states that
the Thetford population of reds “is declining as the grey advances”. It would
be just as true to say on the evidence of earlier movements that the grey
advances as the red declines.
There is evidence that the number of red squirrels in the north of England
is increasing. This could be due to factors other than the rarity of the
greys. Greys seem to flourish particularly in the warmer parts of this
country, and the reds may prefer the cooler areas as the climate becomes
warmer. So it does not follow that reds will automatically return if we
eliminate the greys from the south of England. This “unexploded bomb” may well
prove to be a damp squib.
As for the remedies proposed, warfarin is highly poisonous to human beings
as well as squirrels, and if it becomes easier to obtain, crimes and accidents
due to poisoning may well increase again. The proposed sterility vaccine seems
still a long way from becoming a feasible alternative, and you would still
have to catch your squirrel. One remedy which Bonner does suggest is that the
planters of large areas of conifer forest should forsake sitka spruce in
favour of planting a mixture of trees containing plenty of Norway spruce and
Scots pine, which shed their seeds later ind provide winter food for the red
squirrels.
Many people, Bonner included, will have a tough job persuading the public
that poisoning grey squirrels is necessary, because we perversely enjoy these
delightful animals, whose independent friendliness is totally unaggressive.
They are also excellent gardeners and many people must have found seedling
oaks, chestnuts and beeches growing in their plots some distance from parent
trees which must have been planted by squirrels burying their food supply.
Much more research by impartial investigators is necessary before a
campaign against grey squirrels is begun.