Letters : . . .
by e-mail
Silcock concludes her letter about induced depression in gerbils by asking if
we really want a world which is prepared to increase unhappiness in one species
in order to mitigate it in another. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to take this
question seriously but, just in case, the answer is obviously “yes”. I might not
enjoy doing it, but I’m certainly prepared to.
If my house is infested with contented rats or mice, I am quite prepared to
increase their unhappiness by booting them out, or even killing them. And I
would imagine that even Silcock would be prepared to risk making a dog unhappy
if it was enjoying attacking a child.
Yes, we (and I include all animals in this “we”) are prepared to increase the
happiness of one species at the expense of another. Humans may be reluctant to
do it (I expect I have common ground with Silcock on this), but when push comes
to shove, we rate human happiness higher than gerbil happiness. I expect I have
common ground with Silcock on this too.
Letters : . . .
by e-mail
Your mirth over the Walking Steering Group has obviously led you to overlook
the precursor of this group, the Standing Committee.
You will find that there are numerous Standing Committees still in existence.
I understand that most of them meet in the members’ bars in the House of
Commons. Exiting these meetings allegedly proved to be a problem for some
members and help was sought. This help came in the form of the Walking Steering
Group.
After particularly long sessions, the problem becomes even worse. Help then
comes in the form of the Crawling Committee. This could be linked to the M25
users’ group.
Letters : . . .
Oxford
The Ministry of Silly Walks is obviously what you were referring to.
Letters : . . .
Windermere, Cumbria
You rightly challenge the data analysed by Robert May before he draws the
conclusion that universities provide the “best setting for top-notch
research”.
While most active scientists might challenge the units used to calculate
productivity, it is clear that the proponents of schemes such as the Science
Citation Index use the results when they best suit their argument, their own
productivity or that of their field of research.
As far as the output of universities and institutes is concerned, it might be
salutary to determine how the performance of the latter has changed between 1981
and 1994 (the dates in question) and to ask how many university scientists are
required to earn 60 per cent (or more) of their salaries from contract research
(permission for the publication of which may be withheld or seriously
delayed).
Given the current interest in global change, it would also be useful, and
possibly more meaningful, to determine what proportion of the long-term data
currently being used (and highly valued) was collected in universities and
institutes. Both organisations have their place and deserve better than such
superficial analyses.
Letters : Prize nostril
Falmouth
An Ig Nobel prize was awarded in 1995 to a paper published in 1991 by David
Shannahoff-Khalsa, Michael Boyle and Marcia Buebel in the International
Journal of Neuroscience (vol 57, p 239) on the effect of “Unilateral Forced
Nostril Breathing on Cognition” (see Feedback, 21 October, 1995). I found this
paper quite sensible, since I have practised this form of yoga for many years,
and find that it gives me creative ideas as well as sharpening my senses.
I rejoice now in your article “The sixth sense” (25 January, p 36) which
argues for the existence of a vomeronasal organ in humans, and sketches the
implications for sexuality, communication and cure when this organ is
stimulated.
Yogis seemingly have been doing this for centuries. The standard book is B.
K. S. Iyengar’s Light on Pranayama, and on page 167 he seems to be
instructing the practitioner to find how “between the nasal bone and the
cartilage there are tiny inverted V-shaped notches”, and to manipulate them.
This he compares to “the fine adjustment of the aperture of the iris of a camera
lens for correct exposure of a colour film”.
I think he is referring to the vomeronasal organ. In which case practising
yoga is not subliming the world away; it is rousing the noble animal in us.
Letters : No direction
London
Following your report of our research concerning directiveness in genetic
counselling (This Week, 8 February, p 7), we wish to clarify the findings and
implications of our study.
Unusually among clinical practitioners, clinical geneticists and genetic
counsellors have long set themselves a standard of “nondirectiveness” in
consultation, believing that people should be informed and assisted towards
making their own decisions, rather than being given direct advice on specific
courses of action. It is widely recognised that this is a purist goal whose
absolute achievement is probably impossible and possibly undesirable.
However, no attempts to define or quantify “directiveness” during counselling
sessions have previously been made, so the discussion of how much and what type
of “directiveness” is necessary or beneficial was proceeding in a vacuum. In our
research, we deliberately used a very wide definition of “directiveness”
statements, in order to capture as much information as possible for future
analysis. Since our data are the first in this field, there are no grounds for
knowing whether the levels of directiveness we report are “high” or
“low”鈥攐ur guess is that they may be low, compared to most fields of
medical practice.
Your headline “Gene counsellors say what’s `best'” may give a misleading
impression. The editorial accompanying our work in the American Journal of
Human Genetics concludes: “One of the most significant contributions of the
Michie study relates to the lack of association of rated directiveness with
client satisfaction…even when clients knew the counsellor had an opinion as to
what decision they should make, many clients did not feel steered by this
opinion.” This is a more accurate summary than that contained in your
report.
We hope that clinical geneticists and others read our original and draw their
own conclusions.
Letters : Game for the Net
Huddersfield
An article by Mark Ward on the Internet stated that it was necessary to own a
high-powered PC and significant disposable income to “play” (Technology, 15
February, p 22). I would like to point out that I know of thousands of people
who are without high-powered employment and who regularly use an Amiga “games
machine” to surf the Net. I am one of them.
Letters : Malaria beats AIDS?
Philadelphia
A number of articles in New 杏吧原创 and other publications have
excitedly reported the recent discovery and characterisation of molecular
cofactors, such as fusin and CKR-5, which are exploited by HIV for entry into
human cells. This fanfare is deserved because these discoveries represent a
major milestone in AIDS research.
As has been noted, fusin belongs to a class of molecules known as G-protein
coupled receptors. This class of molecules is used as a gateway into cells by a
number of organisms, including Plasmodium vivax, an agent of
malaria.
In 1990, Farzin Davachi presented a paper at the 5th International Conference
on AIDS in which 112 children with symptomatic HIV infection (that is, AIDS)
were studied. Of these 112, there were 41 who also had malaria, while 71 had
only HIV infection. None of the children infected with both AIDS and malaria
died, while 25 of the 71 children with AIDS and without malaria died.
Despite these striking statistics, the physician Henry Heimlich was roundly
criticised for suggesting that infection with malaria may provide a protection
from HIV by promoting an immune response. In the light of the molecular evidence
which has recently emerged, a re-examination of the immune response to malaria
and its relationship to HIV seems warranted.
Letters : Comet calamities
Tel Aviv, Israel
Nearly three years ago, on 16 July 1994, corresponding (as I pointed out to
you then) to the ominous Jewish date of 9 Av, 21 mountain-sized pieces of the
comet Shoemaker-Levy slammed into the planet Jupiter (Letters, 2 July 1994, p
46).
And this coming 23 March, corresponding to the Jewish date of 14 Adar and the
festival of Purim, the much larger Hale-Bopp comet makes its closest approach to
Earth.
Comets have always been taken to portend wars or epidemics, and they appeared
at the time of the Exodus from Egypt, the murder of Caesar, the destruction of
the Second Temple, the Norman Conquest, the Black Death, Napoleon’s invasion of
Russia, the First World War, Chernobyl and so on.
“Should a comet ever pass across the face of Orion, the Earth will be
destroyed” (Talmud Berachot 58). Comet Hale-Bopp’s path passes across the
constellation of Orion on 23 April, corresponding to the Jewish date of 14 Nisan
and the festival of Passover. The last time Hale-Bopp passed through the inner
Solar System was at the time of the Exodus from Egypt, 3309 years ago.
Letters : P-Braned theory
Roade, Northamptonshire
It was a pleasure to learn from “Into The Eleventh Dimension” (18 January, p
32 and Letters, 15 February, p 49) that physicists are at last approaching a
theory of everything. It seems obvious that, for completion, we need to extend
the P-Brane into one more dimension, thus creating an M-Brane. This M-Brane is
likely to share the elasticity of clingfilm and should be so described.
What does Super Clingfilm contain? A free lunch. Such a meal has, thanks to
quantum perturbations in false vacuums on the conference circuit, the singular
ability of reappearing again and again wherever hungry physicists may gather for
the next round of TOEs (a cheesy kind of cocktail, I believe).
Letters : Feedback's folly
Manchester
The enthusiasm of some people for displaying their ignorance to the world
never fails to amaze me, and the editor of the Feedback column for 15 February
is a case in point.
Feedback appears not to know or perhaps not to care that daffodil bulbs are
poisonous, but are easily mistaken for edible bulbs. A little thought would have
suggested this as the reason for the warning on the packet telling buyers not to
eat the bulb.
Furthermore, the reason for the Department of Transport wanting to develop a
strategy for walking is that walking is on the decline. As one would have
thought the writers for New 杏吧原创 would be aware, increasing car
use is not sustainable, but the use of the sustainable modes of transport is
falling. The government may not have the guts to tackle the real
problem鈥攖he general public’s love affair with the motor car鈥攂ut at
least they have started to do something. It ill becomes what I thought was a
responsible magazine to sneer at these first few steps.
What with Feedback’s smack on the wrist for the writers supplying topical
lines for The Mikado, perhaps a Feedback competition to find the most
pathetic item in the Feedback columns might be appropriate. I would nominate the
above three items.
Letters : Clear about cloning
Arlington, Virginia
Mark Twain once said that there’s nothing more correct than public opinion.
In fact, he joked, “some say it’s the word of God”.
Well, in the past few days “the word of God” has addressed the cloning of
sheep and the ethical questions surrounding this scientific advance. Television
news programmes have trotted out one ethics authority after another. Each one
says the same thing: the cloning of animals is fine and dandy, as long as we
don’t try cloning humans.
They’re half right. We’d better not try it on humans. I find it deeply
disturbing, however, that not one of these so-called experts has publicly
questioned whether or not we ought to do this to the animals.
Not one of them has challenged public opinion on the fundamental question of
whether animals were placed on this Earth for the sole purpose of serving
humankind. They act as though animals are our slaves, to be used and abused at
our convenience. I disagree with that whole philosophy. Animals have rights.
They don’t have the right to vote but they do have the right to be free from
human exploitation.
Letters : Depression drugs
Cardiff
Perhaps by accident, Sheila Silcock combined two issues and did real damage
to both, namely the questions of vivisection and depressive illness (Letters, 15
February, p 49).
There are very good reasons for believing that the brains of “unhappy
gerbils” might provide us with clues for the better treatment of human
depressive illness, on much the same basis that animals have been used
successfully to discover a range of antihypertensives, synthetic hormones, drugs
for the treatment of arthritic and other inflammatory conditions, and
Parkinsonism, to name a few examples. In the central nervous systems of rodents
and humans, there exist some marked similarities in the physiology and
pharmacology of neurotransmitters. Understanding how to tweak these in rodents
may well provide us with ways to develop new treatments for human affective
disorders.
However, implying that someone who is suffering from depression should shut
up and put up really does the cause of laboratory animals no good whatsoever. It
is clear that Silcock, or a close friend or relative, has never suffered from
depressive illness.
About 75 per cent of the people who commit suicide in Britain each year will
have been suffering from depressive illness. If this country is to meet the
Department of Health’s target of reducing suicide by 20 per cent, then better
diagnosis and the discovery of better antidepressant drugs should be major goals
that everyone could accept.
That there are so many different antidepressant drugs on the market is a very
clear indication that none of them provides an entirely satisfactory treatment.
All of them are marked by prolonged delays in improving the patient’s condition,
and most of them produce adverse effects serious enough to interfere with
patient compliance. New, effective antidepressants, free of side effects, are
eagerly sought.
Had Silcock attacked those animal-tested prostheses used in some forms of
cosmetic surgery, she might well have advanced the cause of laboratory
animals鈥攊n the event, she has associated the RSPCA with the antiquated but
oft-held lay view that “mental illness is all in the mind” and requires only
some stern talk or a cold shower to dispel it. The RSPCA deserves better than
this.
Letters : Out in the open
London
I was interested to read your editorial on my article in Science
which “benchmarked” the British science base (Editorial, 15 February, p 3 and
This Week, p 9). The two charges made (the concealment of my position as Chief
Scientific Adviser and the use of “unpublished data”) are ones that would give
me cause for concern were they well-founded. However, they are not.
First, the article in Science quite clearly gives my address as the
Office of Science and Technology, which seems sufficient to identify me as a
government official. I grant that it would have been even better to add a
personal identifier as Chief 杏吧原创 (even a CV!) but, alas, Science
only gives the addresses of authors.
On the second point, references in the paper (albeit in small type), made it
clear that the paper was drawing on published bibliometric data from the
European Union, the Science Policy Research Unit and the Australian Bureau of
Industry Economics, themselves all based on the Institute for Scientific
Information database which is readily accessible.
The full OST paper will be available from the Office of Science and
Technology in a week or so, and interested readers will be able to get a copy by
contacting Chris Adams on 0171 271 2042.