Letters : Poised to prosper
London
Your article on the Commonwealth’s Iwokrama International Rain Forest
Programme in Guyana (This Week, 9 March, p 10) conveys an excessively negative
picture of its future. The programme is a unique experiment in the sustainable
management of forests which combines conservation with sustainable utilisation
of the rainforest’s resources. Your previous correspondent (Letters, 6 April, p
53) and Tam Dalyell’s subsequent comment (Thistle Diary, 4 May, p 53) rightly
capture the excitement and value of the approach which could provide a model for
sustainable tropical forest development everywhere.
Since the programme began, significant progress has been made in surveying
the site, in building a field station, installing a geographic information
system and in sharply reducing the incidence of malaria at the site and in
neighbouring Amerindian communities. The ecotourism potential of the site is now
being examined and partnerships are being created with local communities,
including one which is documenting their knowledge of the biological resources
in the Iwokrama forest. This could not have been achieved without the support of
the Global Environment Facility and United Nations Development Programme,
Britain’s Overseas Development Administration and Canada’s International
Development Research Centre as well as the Guyananese government and the
Commonwealth Secretariat.
Conrad Gorinsky’s opinion that Iwokrama “seems to be on its death bed” could
not be further from the truth. Several important steps have now been made to
assure the successful continuation of the project. Late last year, at the
meeting of the Commonwealth heads of government in New Zealand, the President of
Guyana and the Commonwealth Secretary-General signed an agreement for the
establishment of the Iwokrama International Centre for Rain Forest Conservation
and Development. All Commonwealth governments have been asked to support the
project.
Recent legislative action in Guyana will provide a further stimulus to
donors. A bill was enacted last March by Guyana’s parliament which guarantees
the legal autonomy of the 360 000 hectare reserve (2 per cent of Guyana’s total
land area) and of the international centre which will be responsible for
managing it.
A meeting hosted by the Commonwealth Secretariat in February adopted a
comprehensive strategy to mobilise resources which will put Iwokrama on a
financially sustainable basis. The interim trustees endorsed this strategy at
their final meeting in Georgetown in early May. We are already in touch with a
range of traditional sources, as well as nontraditional ones such as private
foundations and philanthropic organisations, as a basis for setting up a donor
support group for Iwokrama by the end of 1996. Later a consortium of
collaborating institutions will also be created, to draw together research
institutions who wish to collaborate on specific projects within Iwokrama’s
portfolio.
The programme is privileged in enjoying longterm access to 360 000 hectares
of forest, half of which will be maintained in a pristine state, with the
remainder exploited to provide economic benefits on an environmentally
sustainable basis. The programme will deliver practical insights and results
which can serve as a model for developing effective policies for the sustainable
management of tropical forests and biodiversity worldwide. Iwokrama’s many
friends and supporters are determined to ensure that the programme’s vast
potential is realised. Iwokrama faces neither starvation nor collapse. It is now
poised for a phase of vigorous activity.
We are glad to hear of the Commonwealth Secretariat’s optimism. Iwokrama is
an excellent project that deserves international support鈥擡d
Letters : Tragic time-lag
Palo Alto, California
I was delighted to read of the growing recognition of the serious
psychotropic and physical dangers of the anti-malarial Lariam (mefloquine)
(“Malaria pill stands accused”, 27 April, p 14). My letter warning of these
appeared in The Lancet (p 1605, June 19, 1993). It promptly
precipitated a retort by Feiko O ter Kuile et al implying that I had naively
generalised from one case, and rejecting my advice to use chloroquine with or
without proguanil, the treatment now being touted.
My letter of 6 July, 1993, to David Kessler of the US Federal Drugs
Administration evoked a mere delaying response. In the Federal Register of July
22, 1993, the FDA itself reported the results of a Government Accounting Office
study on the demographics of drug trials for new drug applications. This showed
that 89 per cent of those in Lariam drug trials were male, a sex bias so extreme
that the report singled it out, explaining that “the primary studies of
mefloquine . . . were conducted in Thai military personnel”.
Alas, Katherine Forrest, a friend who had merely followed CDC recommendations
in initially prescribing Lariam for me (and who had filed an adverse drug
reaction report), found this announcement a full year after it was published.
Although I promptly wrote to The Lancet, it considered its pages could
deal with only more recent reports.
I provide this history so that readers and policy makers alike may realise
the time-lag involved and the tenacity required to challenge major
pharmaceuticals companies and government agencies about a drug once it has been
approved.
Letters : Close calls
I have read with astonishment David Hughes’s comments on my book Rain of
Iron and Ice (Review, 6 April, p 42).
Hughes purports to quote from the book in several places. He accuses me of
“being overfond of headlines”, and goes on to cite several supposed examples.
The first is: “Life on Earth under a death sentence from space?” I have
electronically searched the text for this strangely unfamiliar phrase and
neither it nor any close approximation of it appears in the text.
The next quotation cited by Hughes is: “Asteroid misses Earth by 100 000
kilometres; THAT’S CLOSE!” On page 43, I wrote: “A passage of 100 000 kilometres
from Earth would be only a quarter of the way from Earth to the Moon. That’s
close!” The misquotation by Hughes turns a correct and universally accepted
statement into a parody of logic. As to whether 0.0006 astronomical units is
“close”, the numbers can be judged by anyone. Approach within 0.0006 AU means a
probability of 1 in 200 of striking Earth. By my standards, that’s close.
Third, Hughes quotes me as saying: “Asteroid Arjunas barely missed this time
but it will back, you can count on it.” I searched the entire text for the
strange phrase “asteroid Arjunas” and did not find it anywhere. The Arjuna-class
asteroids are mentioned several times, but not in the context of any phrase such
as “you can count on it”. The latter phrase does appear in a context concerning
a discovery by the Spacewatch camera in May 1993 of a body whose node lies on
Earth’s orbit. Of course it will be back, repeatedly, until it is strongly
perturbed by another planet, or strikes one.
Letters : Remote learning
Edinburgh
I read with interest the article “Farming for distant degrees” (Focus, 25
May, p 14). I would applaud the University of Aberdeen’s increasing support for
remote students in Scotland but let’s not forget that the Open University has
had students in their homes and places of work in the Highlands and Islands
studying for degrees for more than 25 years.
The casual reader may have picked up the incorrect idea that, due to national
reductions in university funding, the OU could no longer offer quality distance
education in science in the north of Scotland. This is not the case. In 1996 we
are providing degree-level courses in science for over 300 students in remote
locations in Scotland鈥攏ot to mention the numbers taking mathematics and
technology courses. This year more than 110 new BScs graduated from the
Highlands and Islands.
It is true that, like other universities, our new student numbers will reduce
next year, but the impact this will have on our ability to provide effective
support for OU science students in the remote areas of Scotland is marginal. I
would thank Professor Carr for his suggestion that the Highlands and Islands
University project can “plug the gap” left by the cuts in OU funding. However,
all the evidence shows that there will be no “gap” and no reduction in our
ability to provide undergraduate courses up to honours level that students can
study fully “at a distance” across the whole of Scotland (and for that matter,
the whole of Britain, Europe and beyond).
Letters : Tunnelling event
Saratoga Springs, New York
In “World without end”, Gabrielle Walker’s sidebar to “The day time began”
(27 April, p 34), she stated that Alex Vilenkin of Tufts University “came up
with the idea that the Universe literally tunnelled its way into existence”. She
is in error.
The idea of quantum tunnelling of the Universe as a whole was first
introduced by the late Heinz Pagels and me in our paper “Origin of the Universe
as a quantum tunnelling event”, which appeared in the journal Physical
Review (vol D25, p 2065, 1982), and pre-dates all of Vilenkin’s published
work in this field.
In fact, our paper is cited in Vilenkin’s first published work regarding the
quantum origin of the Universe.
Letters : Handy robots
No address supplied
I read Mark Ward’s short article (Technology, 1 June, p 24), on Hans
Moravec’s work on a robot consisting of repeatedly branching arms, with
interest. For what it’s worth, the idea has been around for some time. Nor is
this the first time a NASA scientist has described it. In his science fiction
novel Flight of the Dragonfly, Robert Forward of NASA described
precisely such a mechanism, which he called the “Christmas bush”.
As to whether the original “bush robot” idea was Forward’s, one he borrowed
from Moravec, or simply a clever and potentially feasible concept that was being
tossed around at the time, I have no idea. It’s fascinating to see its
implementation become a possibility, however, and I await developments with
interest.
Letters : In praise of Popkiss
Martin Anderson and Tony Jones have got the academic titles misplaced in
their references to the puppet series Supercar (Letters, 18 May, p 59).
Supercar was invented for no apparent reason by Professor Popkiss. Dr
Beaker was his research assistant (post-doc?) and they both gave technical
advice to Mike Mercury. Professor Calculus appeared in Herg茅’s adventures
of Tintin.
Popkiss probably had traffic gridlock in mind as the vehicle could travel in
space, in the atmosphere and under the sea as well as on the road.
Letters : Long and short of it
Northwich, Cheshire
Many ideas have been proposed to account for the origin of gamma ray bursts
(New 杏吧原创, Science, 18 May, p 17) but none of them gives a really
convincing explanation. The suggestion by Feng Ma and Bingrong Xie that the
bursts are due to the collapse of the core in rotating neutron stars fails to
address one of the central mysteries of this phenomenon鈥攖he huge range in
the duration of bursts. The shortest ones last fractions of a second but the
longest recorded so far is at least 90 minutes.
The neutron star theory might explain very brief bursts鈥攂ecause the
collapse time of objects as small as neutron stars is short (less than a
second)鈥攂ut it is difficult to see how the theory could account for
monster bursts lasting more than an hour. Indeed, the vast range of burst
duration strongly suggests that there is more than one type of source involved
in this phenomenon.
Letters : Hair splitting
London
As the hair expert for the defence in the Vicky Calder case, I read with
interest Leigh Dayton’s article (“Body of evidence”, 25 May, p 38). However, I
am compelled to write since I feel she has missed the real issue of this
case.
The main problem involved the use of evidence derived from analytical
procedures which lack, or have not undergone, proper scientific validation.
Whether the jury can or cannot understand complex forensic evidence is
irrelevant if the data presented is flawed to start with.
It is imperative that any bioassay or analytical procedure be fully validated
and independently peer reviewed before the data generated can be relied upon in
a court of law. This was not the situation with regard to the hair data given in
this case. The hair evidence turned out to be a major difficulty for the
prosecution, primarily because no scientific support could be established for
the findings. The evidence should never have been used.
Letters : Space oddity
Corsham, Wiltshire
Any event as spectacular and as costly as the destruction of the Ariane 5
deserves a decent conspiracy theory, and here it is.
The superb photographs published in newspapers of the controlled destruction
of the rocket depict a performance which would have done any pyrotechnist great
credit. The uniform shower of equally sized fragments, each igniting as it was
blown from the centre, and continuing to burn like a brilliant star, with its
spiral trail of white smoke, each apparently consumed just before striking the
ground, was a great achievement. In a display rocket this effect would be
achieved by using a small charge of gunpowder to ignite and eject a large number
of equally sized stars of compressed star composition or of pieces of easily
ignited metal. Designing the stars to have a burning time matched to the height
of ejection would be very important.
But, in the case of the Ariane, we are considering a pretty massive rocket
with a payload not of stars but of satellites. Were I to be asked professionally
to design an emergency destruction system, for example, to stop its motors, vent
its fuel tanks and break it into less potentially destructive pieces, I would
use mainly small cutting charges of high explosive to sever vital components and
perhaps explosive bolts which would allow the structure to break into its main
sub-structures. I would certainly not be invited to use as much explosive as
would be needed to resolve the entire structure into such small, sharp-edged
metallic components as would catch fire.
Where, then鈥攍ooking at the photographs鈥攚ere the chunky bits? What
were the uniformly sized fragments which ignited? Where did they come from? What
were they made of?
Can there by any grounds for hoping that the missing and exceedingly
expensive satellites are actually stashed away in someone’s garden shed, waiting
for the next rocket to be prepared? Or have they been spirited away to a secret
research station hidden beneath the waves of the Pacific, for clandestine and
awesome purpose? Is this curious event indicative of raised stakes in the beef
crisis?
I think we, and James Bond, should be told.