Letters : Zeolite horror
Welshampton, Shropshire
I write with reference to your recent article entitled “One small step for a
tomato” (13 April, p 28), in which I was intrigued to see reference to the
development of a soil substitute by the Johnson Space Center, based on natural zeolite.
The produce is almost a direct equivalent to one that I have been working on
with Bulgarian scientists for almost 8 years. In fact, it originated with work
carried out for the long-term Russian space stations by the Bulgarians, using
their indigenous high purity zeolites.
I still vividly recall the reaction here in Britain all those years ago, when
I attempted to interest commercial growers in the use of zeolite-based,
nutrient-integrated growing systems for hydroponics (soilless growing). They all
threw their hands up in horror at the thought that any element of total control
of inputs should be relinquished, regardless of the fact that up to 40 per cent
of all standard soluble inputs are lost as run-off with the irrigation
water.
I also recall my return visit to the Bulgarian scientists at that time to
report the growers’ reaction鈥攖hey in their turn threw their own hands up
in horror and stated: “But who knows better than the plant when and how much
nutrient it requires over a growing season?”
This could well be seen as a simplistic approach to what has now become a
science, but over the following 5 or 6 years there has been intensive
investigation of the nutrient-integrated zeolite transference mechanism. In the
case of commercial carnation growing, for example, it has repeatedly been seen
that while lower-than-recommended levels of nutrient have been found in the
leaf, the cumulative blooms can be made at least equal to intensive-fed systems,
simply by the addition of irrigation water to the zeolite systems.
In addition, the method has been reused for a minimum 2 years without
supplementary nutrient inputs, and after hydroponic use, the it can be used as a
soil conditioner ad infinitum.
Let’s hope that the Johnson Space Center manage to make a more convincing
case for the exciting properties of natural zeolites than either myself or my
colleagues have managed to do so far.
Letters : It's the Muppets . . .
Nottingham
Could a children’s TV show of 20 years ago hold the key to an Antarctic
mystery? Support staff at McMurdo Station refer to scientists as “beakers” for
reasons which are said to be “obscure” (“The Far Frontier”, 3 April, p 33).
My guess is that the term comes from The Muppet Show which I used to
watch with my small children in the late 1970s. One of the regular cast was a
hapless lab assistant called Beaker. He was always on the receiving end of
ill-considered experiments by his boss (Bunsen Honeydew, if memory serves). An
explosion and charred, carrot-coloured hair were Beaker’s usual fate.
Surely this poor soul is the archetypical scientist for those who would like
to put scientists down.
Letters : Fur and freedom
Nottingham
The fact that the ban on the import into Europe of furs from countries that
still use leghold traps did not go ahead as planned on 1 January (This Week, 13
April, p 9) is a disgrace which makes a mockery of the European democratic
process. Furthermore, the way that the ban was shoved aside in the interests of
free trade highlights a growing trend that we should all be aware of and
concerned about.
The Canadian government was quoted in the article as saying that it was
“willing to defend [its] WTO rights”. That is, its World Trade Organization
rights to free trade. Should this desire to sell fur really be allowed to ride
roughshod over moral considerations as well as a ban that was passed by European
Union governments and by the European Parliament no less than three times?
What about the rights of the animals themselves? Using the example quoted, it
is said by trapping nations that the leg-hold trap can drown a beaver in 10
minutes. This 10-minute figure can be traced back to research reported in 1981
where some 20 beavers were placed in a tank of water in a laboratory in which
set leghold traps had been placed. The subsequent trapping and then drowning of
these wretched creatures was timed and observed. Although the mean time to loss
of measurable brain activity was approximately 10 minutes, for one animal in the
sample the time was 13 minutes 50 seconds and the times to loss of heart
activity exceeded 20 minutes for 5 of the animals (25 per cent of the
sample).
Drowning cannot be considered a humane method of killing and I know of no
veterinary organisation that would argue otherwise. Agriculture minister Angela
Browning has said that she knows of “no circumstances in which (she) would
consider the intentional drowning of conscious animals for which the department
has responsibility to be either acceptable or humane”.
Since the publication of the drowning experiments, millions of dollars have
been spent in the search for supposedly “humane” ways to trap animals. Yet
humane methods already exist (cage traps, for example)鈥攂ut these are
rejected by the fur trappers who insist on using their traditional and cruel
leghold traps.
Seventy per cent of the people of this country believe that fur trapping is
cruel and the leghold trap has been banned in this country for three decades.
Yet we are now forced to import furs that have been caught using these barbaric
methods against the will of the people, our own government, which supported the
ban, and the elected bodies of the European Union.
The European Commission has acted disgracefully and without scruples over
this matter but people should be fully aware that this is part of what being a
member of the European Union has now come to mean.
Letters : Mind about mines
Cambridge
Your report of Stephen Salter’s splendid Dervish machine for clearing land
mines (Technology, 9 March, p 25鈥攕ee also “Just one false step”, this
issue, p 32) has prompted some of us to establish an appeal fund to get this
project operational. To complete the R&D road-holding and radio-navigation
trials for the Dervish will cost about 拢10 000. To complete the initial
project to build 10 machines and to ship them to three affected countries
(probably Cambodia, Afghanistan and Angola) will raise the sum required to
拢348 000.
Donations should be made out to Church of the Good Shepherd (Dervish
Fund鈥� Account No. 40080950). The account is held in a Cambridge branch of
Barclays Bank (sort code 20-17-35). Donations can be paid direct, through a
bank, or sent to Dervish Project, 38 Metcalfe Road, Cambridge CB4 2DD. Please
enclose SAE if you would like a receipt. We hope New 杏吧原创 readers
will help publicise this appeal.
Letters : Did it jump?
Brecon, Powys
I write in reference to T. J. Stevenson’s letter about scrapie “jumping” from
sheep to cows (Letters, 13 April, p 48) whilst at the same time congratulating
Peter Aldhous on his piece on the studies set up to try and associate sheep
scrapie and BSE in cattle (This Week, 13 April, p 4).
The tests were inconclusive with no link proved between scrapie and BSE when
cattle were injected with brain tissue from sheep infected with scrapie.
It would seem that the MAFF theory concerning a highly resistant strain of
scrapie (This Week, 30 March, p 6) may well ring true, but no conclusions can be
drawn without scientific experiments.
Simply assuming that two and two make four without conclusive evidence is not
scientifically acceptable.
Letters : Ignorance is best
Chislehurst, Kent
Ian Hughes is undoubtedly justified in asserting that physics may fail to
find the answers to the big questions and may not result in the formulation of a
unified theory of everything (Forum, 23 March). However, can we really be
expected to accept our intellectual limitations and grow up?
As the most intellectually advanced animal, we have evolved to a state of
being concerned over our origin and the reasons for our existence. Globally,
throughout the ages, religion has reassuringly provided the answers for many.
Science has advanced and has out-proven the basis of many religions.
Now, to acknowledge that science cannot provide satisfactory alternative
answers to these questions might be discomfiting for many and perhaps too bitter
a pill to swallow. Humanity’s enduring drive to find answers through religion
and science suggests such an admission would be unlikely. Rather than grow up,
as Hughes suggests, would we not be better off remaining ignorant of our
ignorance?
Letters : Earthy philosophy
Tel Aviv, Israel
The letter quoting Ludwig Wittgenstein on Geocentrism (Letters, 23 March, p
64) reminds one of Bertrand Russell’s observation: “Whether the earth rotates
once a day from west to east as Copernicus taught, or the heavens revolve once a
day from east to west as his predecessors held, the observed phenomena will be
exactly the same: a metaphysical assumption has to be made.”
And in a letter to New 杏吧原创 (16 August 1979, p 543), Darcy
Readyhoff, lecturer in navigation at RAF Cranwell, wrote: “One can of course
believe anything one likes as long as the consequences of that belief are
trivial. But when survival depends on belief, then it matters that belief
corresponds to manifest reality. We therefore teach navigators that the stars
are fixed to the Celestial Sphere, which is centred on a fixed earth and around
which it rotates in accordance with laws clearly deduced from common-sense
observation. The Sun and the Moon move across the inner surface of this sphere,
and hence perforce go around the Earth. This means that students of navigation
must unlearn a lot of the confused dogma they learned in school. Most of them
find this remarkably easy, because dogma is as maybe, but the real world is as
we perceive it to be.”
After all, the most straightforward explanation of the zero-velocity result
of the Michelson-Morley experiment and the positive-velocity of the
Michelson-Gale experiment is that the universe really is going around a fixed
Earth!
Letters : Off the rails
Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire
I found your article about faster trains surprising, to say the least (“Star
Wars express” 6 April, p 32).
To start from where we are now, most existing railway tracks that join useful
places are already used by a mixture of freight and passenger trains, and those
that do not carry such traffic tend not to go to useful places. Most existing
tracks in Britain and mainland Europe pass through towns and along winding river
valleys. Where traffic and geography permit, these old routes have been
upgraded to maximum speeds ranging from 160 to 200 kilometres per hour, and
some up to 220 kilometres per hour.
Several tilt body trains are being introduced to raise restricted speeds on
curves, but these will not usually increase the maximum speed. If it had been
feasible to further upgrade the old routes to allow speeds of, say, 300
kilometres per hour, there would have been no need to build the new
high-speed routes.
Thus the implication that “minor modifications to existing tracks” will
enable high speed to be usefully obtained over existing railway tracks linking
useful places is not supported by the facts.
So a key issue to be resolved before worrying about top speed is whether
compatible operation can be achieved to get access to useful places at
acceptable cost. Many questions need to be answered. To list a few: Can the
Seraphim’s reaction rails be mounted far enough from the running rails to clear
the ordinary trains? Does this cause the electromagnets to be so wide that they
will foul structures near the line such as platforms? Is it practicable to
obtain clearance over all routes desired to be traversed by Seraphim, and how
much will this cost? Will Seraphim need reaction rails over all routes over
which it travels, or will it have conventional traction equipment for normal
express speeds on existing railways? And how much does this weigh and cost?
Further: can the reaction rail/magnet system cope with ordinary railway
curves and can the reaction rail have gaps at points? Are the usual mechanical
clearances and tolerances involving the wheel and the running rail, with some
lateral spring-controlled movement, compatible with a narrow air gap
between the electromagnets and the segmented aluminium reaction rail? (Any
mechanical problem here is likely to demonstrate a quick way of large-scale
manufacture of aluminium confetti).
No doubt these and similar questions have answers but past experience of
altering existing railways suggests that this is not easy or cheap.
Letters : No reply
Oldham, Lancashire
Whenever I hear university academics bleating about the lack of funding for
research, whether from government or industry, I remember the time I tried to
spend industrial money on university research in 1989.
I was working at the time with a company involved in quality assurance for
the food industry, and had a number of innovative ideas concerning methods for
the detection of contaminants in processed food.
You may remember that at the time there were quite a few blackmail attempts
and other scares concerning food contamination, and I’m sure you will remember
that Thatcher’s cuts were biting very hard and universities were complaining
bitterly that industry was not making up the shortfall.
I thought it might be best to enlist Britain’s academics in researching the
possibilities, so I carefully investigated the research being carried out at all
the universities in Britain and identified those which claimed to be currently
investigating the technologies concerned.
I wrote to a dozen of these, asking them if they were interested in us
spending some money with them on furthering their research. I also outlined
what we were hoping to achieve, and asked if they had any other ideas for
research topics for us to spend money on.
Despite the fact that some of the universities concerned had “business
development managers” whose jobs, apparently, were to find sources of industry
money鈥擨 did not receive a single reply of any sort. Not even a “Thanks,
but no thanks”.
Needless to say, I have not tried to spend any money with universities again.
Although all this happened a few years ago, I am sure that very little has
changed. Has anyone any experiences that might persuade me otherwise? How do my
experiences compare with those in other countries?