Letters : Verminous Earthlings
Now those Martian bugs have put the high probability of extraterrestrial life
back on the front page, perhaps it’s time for a note of caution.
Our radio broadcasts form a sphere centred on the Earth and expanding at the
speed of light. Everything within that sphere possessing a radio receiver knows
that we’re here. The sphere is currently 200 light years in diameter and
contains about 60 000 stars.
Parts of the Internet use earthbound and satellite microwave links鈥攂oth
of which leak radio into space. Researchers on the human genome project are
sending results to each other over the Internet. By listening for a while, even
we could reconstruct that information with our current technology, so a
civilisation should have no trouble at all doing so.
If I were a Vogon rat catcher I would regard this as invaluable data if I
were minded to deal once and for all with some potentially very nasty vermin.
Not much energy is needed to accelerate a virus up to 99 per cent of the speed
of light 鈥�
Letters : Cybervandals
The urbane and tolerant attitude Netropolitan adopts to hackers, crackers and
phreakers suggests that he/she has never been responsible for systems
administration.
This summer, we and several other British and US universities have been
plagued by incidents of cybervandalism. Dealing with this severely eats into the
few weeks we have to improve our systems for the next band of new students.
In the main, cybervandals are not especially clever. There are dozens of
security holes in the adventure game known as Unix, and the tools and techniques
to exploit these are easily available over the Internet.
The argument that cybervandals do institutions a favour by drawing attention
to weaknesses is entirely specious. Please bear in mind that many system
administrators are scientists who happen to be in charge of a system as an
adjunct to their “real” job. Cybervandalism is very disruptive to their
research. Few universities have a coherent, properly enforced information
systems security policy, and probably none have had the resources to appoint a
full-time security officer.
Finally, it may be of interest that we have recently come across a program
called “milk” which spawns a dozen Unix processes which in turn ping a single
target site with 8000-byte data packets. The sole intention of this is to swamp
the target site with irrelevant traffic, causing the system to crash. All sites
are at risk. This irresponsible and stupid behaviour could easily bring the
Internet to a halt, despite Glyn Moody’s optimism (“Long live the Net”, 17
August, p 24).
Letters : Therapies on trial
Rita Carter’s article was a timely reminder that no worthwhile therapeutic
intervention can ever be totally harmless (“Holistic hazards”, 13 July, p 12 and
Letters, 10 August, p 49). For too long complementary therapies have been
obscured by a rhetorical smoke screen about “natural” medicine being
harmless.
Some of complementary therapy’s interventions are potentially dangerous, as
the author points out. So it is vital that practitioners are properly educated.
Degree courses (the ones we have recently established at the University of
Westminster are the first BSc courses available in Britain in homeopathy and
acupuncture) will encourage practitioners to think critically, to be
research-minded, to have a grasp of biosciences, health psychology and
communication skills. We see this core curriculum as being central to producing
safe practitioners.
Secondly, discomfort can be a part of the body’s response to certain kinds of
therapeutic intervention: soreness and stiffness commonly follow manipulative
intervention; mildly altered states of consciousness and tiredness are not
uncommon after acupuncture; the literature on homeopathy discusses the role of
“aggravation” of symptoms; naturopathic practitioners recognise the relevance of
the “healing crisis”.
Within certain limits, these reactions may not exactly be side effects. But,
clearly, they have to be distinguished from neurological damage caused by
manipulation, infection or organ damage from needling, or hepatotoxicity from
herbal medicines.
Thirdly, a risk/benefit argument depends upon whether one can actually
establish evidence for benefit. Randomised clinical trials are an essential way
of proving effectiveness. In the US, the National Institutes of Health’s Office
of Alternative Medicine has already put several hundred thousand dollars into
research initiatives. It is unfortunate that in Britain an important project
like the Traditional Remedies Surveillance should be curtailed, particularly at
a time when we should be deepening our investigation into the potential, as well
as the limitations, of complementary therapies.
Letters : . . .
London
The Research Council for Complementary Medicine has for nearly 15 years
promoted research and sought to improve communication and understanding between
complementary and orthodox medical practitioners. The council is an independent
charity, not beholden to any other organisation or specific therapy. Our
research database increases in size by over 3000 papers a year鈥攅vidence
that practitioners are seeking to improve their practice in the light of
scientific tests of efficacy.
Letters : . . .
London
Chinese herbs can be highly efficacious remedies for otherwise intractable
illnesses, but to be used effectively and safely the more powerful herbs should
only be prescribed by registered practitioners.
Problems with herbs which have been contaminated by heavy metals have arisen
in recent years due to the pollution of parts of China caused by rapid
industrialisation. Mayway and other responsible importers of Chinese herbs are
installing internal quality control procedures to ensure that contaminants
(which can include pesticide residues) do not occur in imported herbs in the
future. These procedures will also authenticate the ingredients in our
remedies.
In future, we expect that practitioners registered with the Register of
Chinese Herbal Medicine will only use herb supplies from quality-assured herb
importers.
Letters : Keep on culling
Pearl Beach, New South Wales, Australia
Your headline “Alien animal culls backfire” may alarm many conservationists
(This Week, 3 August, p 6). There is no scientific argument as far as I know
that the removal of all feral animals and invasive overseas plants will not be
good for the conservation of native species.
If the Aborigines do not regard feral animals as pests the aim should be to
educate them rather to stop the programmes.
For example, in northern Australia the cull of ferals did not force
Aborigines “to hunt native prey”. They always have done so, since wallabies and
magpie geese are abundant and still hunted. That the culling will also force
them “to kill rare native animals” is also untrue. Rare animals are hard to
catch. Why hunt bilbies when kangaroos are common? Crocodiles are no longer rare
in the north, turtles are still common and dugong numbers are gradually
recovering in some regions.
There is little evidence that Aboriginal hunting is threatening any species,
though the destruction of seagrass beds is far more alarming. Conservationists,
including Aborigines, are fighting the developers wanting to move into the
Hinchinbrook Passage, one of the dugong strongholds.
Letters : Split seconds
North Perth, Western Australia
Now that the dust has settled from the Olympics, I am wondering whether the
pursuit of accuracy has gone too far. I note particularly the swimming event in
which the times were measured to 0.001 of a second. A simple computation shows
that this time corresponds to about 2 millimetres for a fast swimmer.
I wonder whether the starting blocks are positioned to this accuracy? But
more importantly, the length of each lane between touch pads would have to be
accurate to 1 millimetre for a 100-metre race. Such precision in the
construction industry is hard to imagine. For a 500-metre race, a variation of 2
millimetres between two lanes results in a discrepancy of 0.01 of a second. So
how relevant is that third decimal place?
My advice to swimmers is to grow those fingernails. If judges are appealing
to the last digit to separate two swimmers, the nails could make the difference
between gold and silver.
Letters : Unfriendly to people
Munich, Germany
We are concerned by the possible introduction of methyl iodide as a fumigant
(This Week, 20 July, p 9). It may pose no threat to the ozone layer, but what
about its carcinogenic properties and its effects on the central nervous
system?
Letters : Dancing on a pin
Le Vesinet, France
How can anyone in a sane frame of mind speak about a hundred, or come to that
a million, parallel universes (Forum, 6 July, p 45
and Letters, 27 July, p 63)?
There is no concrete evidence of their existence鈥攕ometimes even the
reality of this Universe is put in doubt. This is like the scholastic argument
about how many angels can 鈥�
Let us stop this inane discussion and stay in the only Universe that we
experience.
Letters : Premature elation
Canterbury, New Zealand
“A gel that stimulates an erection when rubbed on the penis could provide new
hope for impotent men. The gel is being tested on 75 impotent men and results
are expected by the end of the year” (Technology, 27 July, p 18).
I have done a survey among female colleagues and we don’t think it is worth
the wait.
Letters : . . .
Correction: In “To catch a space quake”, (10 August, p 36), the cost of the
LISA mission was given as 700 million Ecus. This is equal to 拢585 million,
not 拢850 million as stated.
Letters : Tea and therapy
Brussels
Please congratulate Joan Hibberd on her tea cures (Patents, 27 July, p 22). I
run a caf茅 in the centre of Brussels. One of my barmaids has suffered
from a horrendously unsightly cold sore (herpes simplex) for several months,
thus shattering her confidence with the clientele. I told her about your cure,
and we started treatment on 1 August. I am happy to say it worked a treat and
Vivienne is back to her happy, bubbly self. Keep up the good work.