ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´

Letters : Kosher bulbs

Hillegom, The Netherlands

The Netherlands are, indeed, the hub of Europe’s bulb industry (“Vandals of
Suburbia”, 6 April, p 28). Most of the flower bulbs that consumers
buy are grown
in Holland, and a lot of bulbs that are grown in other countries find their way
to consumers all over the world via the Netherlands. In the 1991/92 season, the
Netherlands imported bulbs from Turkey to a value of 5 million guilders:
0.5 per
cent of the Netherlands’ own production.

In his article Fred Pearce states that the trade in snowdrops, cyclamen and
other bulbs that grow in the wild is largely illegal. This is absolutely
incorrect. Galanthus (snowdrops) and cyclamen are both listed in appendix II of
CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species). This trade is
strictly controlled by the countries that are parties to CITES.

Letters : Nothing fishy

We would like to comment on Debora MacKenzie’s article on Norway’s Maricult
fish-growing project (This Week, 13 January, p 4). Maricult is a strategic
research programme worked out by Norwegian and, later, other European marine
scientists in a three to four-year process involving senior
representatives from
universities and research institutes, including Norsk Hydro.

Maricult is a strategic research programme with long-term perspectives and
with the main aim of improving our rather poor understanding of the fundamental
processes of marine ecosystems. Maricult is not merely a fertilisation
programme
and, incidentally, not at all commercial. This explains why so many scientists
support it.

We would argue strongly that scientists are also obliged to ask questions
regarding the world’s future food supply. ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´s in Maricult
unconditionally
agree that systematic strategic research for decades is needed to establish the
knowledge required for implementing large-scale exercises.

Letters : Mission to be silly

Philip Wilson touches a raw spot with his delightful article mocking the
fatuous slogans that have been appearing in recent university advertisements,
such as that of Oxford Brookes University, “Working with students to achieve
excellence”, or the amazing news that the University of Wales, Lampeter,
“promotes higher education” (“Your mission, should
you accept it…”,
Forum, 8 June, p 49).

I recently conducted a little research on this matter for The University
in Ruins, a special issue of The Oxford Literary Review. Wilson
refers rightly to such slogans as “the product of conventional minds with
strong
herd instincts”.

It appears, however, that the taxation authorities are ultimately to blame.
By placing this inappropriate corporate rhetoric about “excellence” in
education
on advertisements and notepaper, British universities escape VAT by thus
somehow
confirming their charitable status (though one might have thought that, having
been awarding degrees for many decades, they were already entitled to it).

My own institution, I am ashamed to say, now cuts a ridiculous figure in
proclaiming to the world that it is “Investing in Excellence in Teaching and
Research”. Such slogans are not only banal, they substitute in a servile
way for
more genuine debate on the “idea of the university”. My own department now
guillotines off the bottom of its notepaper.

Letters : . . .

Beckingham, Nottinghamshire

A while ago we had a school staff training day devoted to management
techniques. It was led by expensive outside speakers—two experts from a
nearby university. During the long session on mission statements, we were told
many times how effective they could be—indeed, how much the speakers’ own
mission statements had improved their departments’ performance and ambience.

When they eventually finished and invited questions, I asked what their
departments’ mission statements were. Neither of them could remember.

Letters : . . .

London

The best university slogan, one almost surreal in its excellence, appeared a
couple of years ago in an advertisement for Kingston University (which I
attended in the days when it was a simple polytechnic).

“Kingston University, in association with Guinness—pure genius”.

How’s that for a slogan that combines the three essentials of student life,
exaggeration, alcohol and arrogance…

Letters : Chaos reversed

Dorking, Surrey

As a lepidopterist, I have been unimpressed with the analogy used by Edward
Lorenz to epitomise Chaos Theory—that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings
(in Brazil) could result in a tornado (in Texas) (“Where two worlds meet…”, 18
May, p 26). I am delighted therefore to report that this spring, a
butterfly has
produced clear evidence for what I call the Contra-Chaos Theory—that
unusual storms can result in the flapping of butterflies’ wings, thousands of
miles away.

Painted lady butterflies (Cynthia cardui) breed in north Africa and
Arabia and migrate north into Europe every spring and summer with a variable,
usually small, number reaching Britain each year. This spring, storms
(particularly in Morocco) produced a great flush of the larval food-plants and
vast numbers of adults survived to make the journey north. They have been seen
in clouds of thousands in Spain and observed flying in over the south coast of
Britain. They have now reached the Shetland Islands in the north of
Scotland and
Finland in continental Europe (details can be found in the newsgroup
sci.bio.entomology.lepidoptera).

Adult painted ladies, rather faded after their long journey, are now laying
eggs, particularly on thistles. There should be an emergence later this summer
of large numbers of freshly painted ladies to delight us before they fly south
again in the late summer and autumn.

We should all celebrate this wonderful invasion and if it serves to expose
the hollowness of Chaos Theory, then so much the better.

Letters : . . .

Varese, Italy

Why is the butterfly getting such a bad press? One can hardly read any issue
of New ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ without finding at least one article where the poor
insect is blamed as the instigator of hurricanes, tornadoes and other
meteorological disasters.

Given the millions of butterflies in the world (what about moths—does
the effect only work in the daytime?) and the relatively small number of
hurricanes, is it not more likely that the flapping of their wings actually
stops hurricanes from forming, rather than starting them?

Hurricanes presumably only ever happen when a large number of lepidoptera
suffer disasters such as being squashed, eaten by birds, or killed by
insecticides.

Letters : Strange refs

Frankston, Victoria, Australia

The article “Chaos Pitch” (8 June, p 24)
made interesting reading. However, I
wonder if the researchers really are devout football fans. Football followers
the world over know all too well that in any football match, there is a source
of great unpredictability—and it gets no mention in the article. It is,
arguably, the single most influential factor in the match.

I am talking of that strangest attractor of all—the match referee. As
the recent Euro 96 matches have shown, his actions and decisions can
dramatically affect the final result of the game and in a somewhat
unpredictable
manner. One could argue that the (debatable) penalty decision in the
Scotland-England match, followed by the save, unsettled the Scottish players,
changed the pattern of play and led directly to the Gascoigne goal.

Coaches and football players understand the referee’s role and players often
try to influence his decisions by, for example, “taking a dive” in a tackle or
by using the well-known “hand of God” goal-scoring technique.

The dynamic match referee provides feedback (strict or lenient attitude to
fouls), multiple stable equilibria (sending off two players from opposing
teams)
and instability (sending off one player). And, aided by the attractors running
the lines, his decisions are a fountain of perturbations which can certainly
grow to become the dominant influence on the final score.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to discover (using, of course, hindsight and the
scientific method) how many of the results of Euro 96 matches would have been
different if God, Jimmy Hill or high-technology (the video replay) was the
source of decision making?

Letters : Case for a code

Chichester, West Sussex

An “Interlingua” is surely a code (Forum, 8
June, p 48). As soon as we hear a
word or see an object, we all recognise it for what it is, and the spoken word
we use to communicate it to another person is largely irrelevant. So it can be
encoded—not in yet another language which our long-suffering children
would have to learn, but as a code that every computer would carry as part of
its operating system.

We already have software that is sophisticated enough—word processors
and publishing software have simple “find and replace” functions, for
example—in which a “universal code” could be built. And the code could be
simple. All the keyboard characters could be used, so the full ASCII set of 256
characters could each stand for the most common and shortest words, and
combinations of two and three characters would stand for longer and less-used
words.

These combinations, plus any other symbols we care to use (my Macintosh for
example gives me a vast range of characters from √ to © would
represent a
vocabulary of more than 30 000 nouns and prepositions, far more than most of us
need in a lifetime.

I say nouns and prepositions, because it is these that make up the world.
Verbs, adjectives, adverbs and the rest are all related to nouns or to each
other, so they could simply carry a relationship code. For example, (V=verb):
where “c” was “cloth”, “Vc” could indicate “clothe”.

The concept would have advantages other than universal understanding. It
would, for example, save telephone charges—maybe a cut of 90 per cent in
your fax and data transmission bill; it would save resources such as paper and
ink; it would enable more written words to be fitted into small spaces, such as
on medicine bottles or pesticide labels.

Such a code would work with any language. There may be initial difficulties
managing the code from Arabic or Chinese, but these could be overcome.

We don’t need another language, we need an automated language intermediary.
So come on you software wizards, let’s have one soon. Someone will make a
fortune if they come up with a workable version—but please, please, just
one version. It makes sense to use computers to solve one of the biggest
obstructions to human understanding. The only problem will be getting everyone
to agree.

Letters : Dead safe

Washington DC

Clarification of Kurt Kleiner’s article on Mexican tuna fishing is vital if
your readers are to comprehend the issues behind the campaign to maintain the
integrity of the “dolphin-safe” label in the US (This Week, 25 May, p 10).

Legislation moving swiftly through the US Senate and House of
Representatives
is designed to modify the current ban on importing tuna caught by cruel fishing
practices. In effect, this legislation allows tuna caught by chasing,
encircling
and killing dolphins to be labelled “dolphin-safe”. But the procedure of using
powerful noisy speedboats to chase dolphins and set mile-long purse seine nets
on them cannot be made safe.

Congressional testimony by cetacean physiologist Albert C. Myrick Jr. shows
the direct harm from the chase and encirclement of dolphins. Myrick concludes:
“1. If the dolphins were under acute stress as early as [the] chase, and since
they died in the nets from no other apparent cause, then it is quite possible
that their deaths in the nets were due to or associated with the acute stress.
2. …it seems likely that those members of the herds that were released
alive were under some degree of stress as well. 3. …If the dolphins died
from stress in the nets, then at least some would be expected to have died
before they reached the nets (and sank unobserved).”

Myrick’s conclusions are especially significant because the proposed changes
to US law would allow tuna to be imported and labelled “dolphin-safe” provided
there is no observed mortality. Clearly, significant numbers die from
stress during the chase and encirclement—deaths that go undetected and,
therefore, unreported.

If the US legislation is passed, foreign fishing fleets will again chase,
encircle and kill dolphins when they catch tuna and the US market will again be
open to imports of this dolphin-deadly tuna. The American public will be
subjected to consumer fraud and the dolphins will be subjected to stress so
intense that the weaker ones will die. The US must keep the dolphin-safe label
safe for dolphins.