Letters : Blinded by science
Reading
As a science fiction enthusiast, I naturally found your article on the
intelligence of our alien neighbours, the squid and the octopus, absolutely
fascinating
(“What is this octopus thinking?” 7 June, p 30).
But am I the only
reader to find two sentences in it quite repellent? “In other experiments,
blinded octopuses learnt to distinguish between differently shaped objects,” and
“Next, Young and Wells removed parts of the octopuses’ brains and repeated the
tests” (both on p 34).
These experiments were carried out in the 1950s and
1960s.
There was no hint in the article that the climate of opinion in zoological
circles has changed since those days. Has it?
Letters : Green line
Norwich
Are any readers interested in travelling by train and boat from Europe to the
UN Climate Convention in Kyoto this December? About two thousand delegates fly
to each major convention meeting, contributing significantly to the greenhouse
gas emissions which they are supposedly trying to reduce.
An international agreement is essential to solve such a global problem. So it
is important that people most concerned about climate change go to Kyoto to
encourage the politicians, and counterbalance the influence of the large
fossil-fuel lobby. For each passenger, the train would cause about one-third the
CO2 emissions of a plane journey. Planes also emit NOx, which
can have a significant warming effect.
The train journey we are organising will take about two weeks to reach Kyoto.
This travelling mini-conference will be a great opportunity to publicise issues
just before the convention, and to meet Russian and Chinese climate scientists
and campaigners on the way. We already have 30 people from seven countries and
several organisations involved.
If you think you might like to join us, please get in touch now because
details will need to be arranged well in advance. More information about the
journey, the convention, and emissions from aircraft can be found on our web
site http:// www.uea.ac.uk/~e256/ kyoto /journey.html.
Letters : Penguin power
Boncath, Pembrokeshire
Imitating penguins as a method of marine propulsion is not new
(Technology, 3 May, p 25).
There is a way of rowing a boat using a single oar over the stern. The action
is exactly the same as that described in the article. I have always been
surprised that the technique is not more widely used. It is a very efficient way
of rowing, and an experienced rower can propel a boat in this way just as fast
as someone with two oars.
Less room is required to manoeuvre without two oars to catch on things. The
only drawback is that it does not work well in reverse.
I dimly recall having a plastic toy boat that mimicked this action, driven by
clockwork. If the Proteus team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are
having problems, then they might browse through some old toy catalogues.
Letters : . . .
Colchester
Supersonic aircraft will only increase demand for a predominantly leisure
activity that has few rivals in terms of the amount of environmental damage a
person can do in a few hours. Let not the sins of the father be visited upon the
son of Concorde, let us instead practise contraception.
Letters : Travelling hopefully
by e-mail
I think Ben Iannotta (“Son of Concorde”, 7 June, p 40)
should tell us which
airline he uses to travel over the Atlantic at 700 kilometres per hour, so the
rest of us can avoid it. For the last 35 years, aeroplanes used on transatlantic
flights have travelled at speeds of 900 to 950 km/h, offering a considerable
saving of time. I just hope he gets a discount rate.
Letters : . . .
Midsomer Norton, Somerset
All front-line ambulances in Britain now carry defibrillators. This is a
direct result of research that showed that cardiopulmonary resuscitation within
4 minutes, defibrillation within 8 minutes and rapid access to advanced help in
hospital is the only way to save lives. Doctors on aircraft are superfluous.
What is needed is someone who has had two hours’ training in resuscitation and
flight attendants with four hours’ training to use a defibrillator.
Letters : Fatal flights
Marple, Cheshire
It is hardly surprising that airline passengers are collapsing in mid-flight.
With cabins only pressurised to 3300 metres, the amount of oxygen available is
reduced. Delivery of oxygen to the tissues of the body may be adequate at sea
level in patients with undiagnosed vascular problems, but the delicate balance
between oxygen supply and demand is upset by altitude and the excitement of
flying. Indeed, passengers with other diseases, such as incipient respiratory
failure or sickle cell disease, could become critically hypoxic during
flight.
It is completely understandable why airlines do not publicise these potential
problems to their customers, especially those wishing to visit grandchildren in
far-off lands, and prefer to rely on the likelihood of there being at least one
practising doctor on each jumbo jet.
Letters : Twister detector
Huntsville, Alabama
In response to the letter from Harold E. Brooks concerning the article
dealing with the seismic detection of tornadoes
(Letters, 3 May, p 56), I would
like to point out that the network version of the seismic tornado detector
(Technology 5 April, p 26)
is designed to be used in conjunction with radar and
other National Weather Service sensors. This is clearly described in our paper
in the Journal of Applied Meteorology (vol 34, February 1995).
Regarding the static effect of the tornado on the Earth’s surface, we have
long-period seismological data from two different stations which indicate an
effect of this type. Admittedly, the effect is more complex than the simple
plunger concept, but the signal appears to be unique.
A tornado could most definitely pass over the seismic tornado detector
network and touch down in a populated region. In such a situation, however, the
home-owner version of the detector would be invaluable because it could provide
warning to any residence within five miles of a tornado touching down.
We sincerely believe that the detector can significantly reduce false
alarms.
Letters : . . .
York
What is this octopus thinking? Answer: “I’m swimming about in a tank inside a
neuroscience lab run by a species that smokes carcinogenic leaves and tests them
out on dogs to prove how toxic they are.”
I appreciate there are complex and difficult arguments about animal
experimentation. There are human needs, illnesses to be cured, and important
fundamental things to be discovered. But I find it chilling to read that
neuroscientists are still trying to find out if other species are intelligent,
by removing bits of their brains and bodies in order to see what happens
next.
This is a great approach when you’re playing with mechanical systems. But can
it possibly work when you are investigating something as complicated as the mind
of a living organism?
Too many variables, I would have thought. And not very well controlled.
Letters : Powerful point
by e-mail
Interesting, your article about breakthroughs in solar cell panels
(This Week, 12 April, p 12).
But the accompanying photo shows an array of parabolic
solar reflectors鈥攁 quite different technology.
Letters : Digging deep
Nottingham
Nirex’s proposal for a rock characterisation facility (RCF) at Sellafield has
been rejected by a lengthy public inquiry, as Andrew Blowers notes
(Forum, 10 May, p 55).
The British Geological Survey has been involved in nuclear waste
issues as a contractor to Nirex for many years. Let me make it clear that on
present evidence deep burial is likely to be the best and safest long-term
option for disposing of radioactive waste.
Unlike Germany and the US, which are going ahead with RCFs, Britain still
seems as far away as ever of satisfactorily disposing of its radioactive wastes
despite many years of investigation costing many millions of pounds.
Blowers’s view that “Nirex now seems left with no politically viable
solutions” is questionable, for it is not impossible that other locations in
west Cumbria might be geologically more acceptable than Sellafield was.
But if the inquiry considers that invasive geological techniques, such as
shaft sinking, are likely to irreversibly affect the natural conditions, how
will it ever be possible to prove or disprove the suitability of an area? Remote
geophysical techniques can never be as reliable as a core or a shaft. Thus
Britain could be ruling out deep disposal as an option for the long-term
disposal of nuclear waste.
Over the past decade a number of excellent multidisciplinary teams, with
great expertise in radioactive waste issues, has been built up as a result of
Nirex funding. If this expertise is dissipated as a consequence of the
uncertainties now surrounding Britain’s radioactive waste programme, it will
take many years, a great deal of money and a great deal of effort to recreate
it鈥攊f we ever could.
Absence of the right expertise could in turn further delay the whole process
of safely disposing of radioactive waste. And this would not be in anybody’s
interest.
Letters : . . .
London
Greenpeace is alarmed that the British government is permitting oil
exploration and production to commence in the Atlantic Frontier prior to
considering the environmental impacts of this work. While extensive research is
being undertaken to assess the possible impacts of the oil industry’s activities
upon L. pertusa by the Scottish Association for Marine Science, the
results of this research will not be available for at least two years. By this
time tens if not hundreds of oil wells will have been sunk at the site.
Where damage to the environment is both potentially significant and uncertain
it may be appropriate to act on the basis of the precautionary principle. In the
case of L. pertusa this should mean at least suspending work until the
results of the Scottish Association for Marine Science study are published. How
sad and ironic that in the International Year of the Reef the British government
is failing to protect the coral reefs in its own backyard.
Letters : Coral peril
Plymouth
In the article on the threat to coral reefs in the Atlantic, I was dismayed
to read Keith Hiscock’s reported view that oil exploitation is unlikely to do as
much damage as deep-sea fishing boats
(This Week, 7 June, p 10).
As a scientist working on the biology of Lophelia pertusa may I say
that any reefs within areas of oil exploration are likely to suffer considerable
damage. While we have no specific data for L. pertusa, corals are
generally susceptible to the effects of increased sedimentation. This will occur
around oil platforms west of Shetland as drill cuttings are dumped into the sea.
There may also be toxic effects associated with chemical components of drill
cuttings, including oil and heavy metals.
L. pertusa is a very slow-growing coral, so recovery from any damage
is likely to be slow. If coral reefs are killed we do not know if they will be
recolonised because we have no idea how this species reproduces and whether it
is capable of long-distance dispersal.
While Hiscock is right to be concerned about the virtually unregulated
deep-sea fishing which is taking place in the North Atlantic, he should also be
concerned about the impact of oil exploration. As our exploration of the deep
sea for oil and minerals is only just beginning, this type of activity will
inevitably increase.
I have counted at least 840 species of animals that are associated with
L. pertusa reefs in the scientific literature. The reefs are as diverse as
many tropical shallow-water reefs. Surely we should take this into consideration
before granting licences for oil exploration, not afterwards.
Letters : Compensation fight
Phoenix, Arizona
Kurt Kleiner and New 杏吧原创 did a tremendous service for the
American haemophilia community by bringing two issues regarding haemophilia and
HIV infection to the forefront
(This Week, 10 May, p 12). One is the potential
liability of the US Food and Drug Administration. The other is the median
midpoint of HIV seroconversion of the US haemophiliacs: the point at which half
of haemophiliacs were infected.
However, I do wish to clarify a few points. First, the FDA did not order any
pharmaceuticals companies during either 1983 or 1984 to implement heat treatment
viral inactivation techniques of factor VIII. In 1984, the FDA did license three
pharmaceuticals companies to use heat treatment, a process commercially licensed
and in use in Germany since 1978, to destroy the hepatitis B virus.
Secondly, I believe that the median midpoint of infection occurred somewhere
between 1 January and 1 July 1983. The FDA had more than enough information to
require patient warnings, to demand surrogate plasma testing for HIV by testing
for the hepatitis B core antibody, and by implementing mandatory donor
questionnaires. Prompt action by the FDA could perhaps have avoided HIV
seroconversion in more than half of American haemophiliacs. Even today, the FDA
does not require manufacturers of clotting factor concentrate to warn of the
possibility of infection with HIV.
Letters : Poison ice
Brushgrove, New South Wales
Your article on the problems being caused by the concentration of a number of
poisonous chemicals in the Arctic is a real worry
(“Northern Exposure”, 31 May, p 24).
I hope that we are not seeing the reverse of the ultraviolet problem we
have in the southern hemisphere, and which took a long time to be acknowledged
in the northern hemisphere.
The movement of poisons, such as dioxins, PCBs, insecticides, such as DDT,
and heavy metals, such as mercury, and cadmium has been explained by global
distillation and fractionation due to decreasing temperatures as you approach
the poles. But I found no mention of the effect of Hadley convection cells on
the movement of these materials. This appears to be an important omission.
To study the effects further afield of the disappearance of ozone over the
Antarctic, we created a model using Hadley cells, from which we predicted
significant loss of ozone over regions as far from the pole as 30掳 south. Later
measurement of ultraviolet radiation bore this out.
These results indicate that the Hadley cells have a role to play in the
movement of pollutants from the equatorial regions towards the poles. Since the
Hadley cells involve strong high-pressure areas in the regions of the globe
around 30掳 south and north, where cold air masses descend, it can be predicted
that these areas are getting a smaller dose of more volatile chemicals and a
greater dose of the less volatile chemicals.
As there are large populations living in these latitudes, the presence of
such chemicals should be investigated without further delay.
Letters : Changing times
Swindon
There was fine irony in the headline “Time for a change”
(Letters, 31 May, p 51)
which you used to present Mike Glazer’s proposals for the operation of
Britain’s research councils. He proposes that “the British science budget be
divided between all the various departments, based on existing quality criteria
and past research income”. This system consists of staring steadfastly into the
past and checking every four years that it is safe to change nothing.
Glazer suggests there are two objections to the present system. First, that
scientists are submitted to an unremitting treadmill of writing proposals.
Secondly, that the councils must keep an over-costly organisation to select the
winners. However, with success rates for research applications to the EPSRC
running at 40 per cent there is no need for scientists to spend time writing a
constant stream of applications. Sustaining this success rate achieves the
target of reducing administration costs, which Glazer seeks. This policy has
enabled us to channel 拢6 million from administration into research over
the past three years.
Letters : Who saw it coming?
Kendal, Cumbria
Igor Aleksander’s contrasting of the conditions of research in the US with
Britain’s contract-dependent research institutes and universities
(Forum, 31 May, p 48)
touched raw nerves, though probably not in those responsible for
creating that dependency. In Britain we seem to have done our best to destroy
enthusiasm for research and the conditions in which it is done.
The interesting question that has yet to be answered is why those of us who
have been responsible for managing British research allowed it to happen. We sat
on our hands when we should have opposed with every fibre of our being the
turning of scientific research into a supermarket commodity. I rehearse my own
excuses, but I do not find them convincing. When the full story is finally
told鈥攁s it must be鈥攚e will have to accept our share of the
blame.
But why is it that nobody in a position of responsibility, and who could see
what was happening, spoke out against the creation of the dependency culture of
today’s research environment in Britain?
Letters : Correction
The article “Wild dogs: handle with care”
(This Week, 24 May, p 5) stated
incorrectly that the dogs in Selous Game Reserve had been vaccinated against
rabies and fitted with a radio collar. The dogs were fitted with collars, but
they were not vaccinated.