Letters : Searching for sex
Houten, The Netherlands
Arkin Kora wonders why search engines on the Web don’t concentrate on
academic sites when cataloguing the Web, and leave to some “entrepreneur” the
lucrative task of indexing sex sites
(Letters, 26 July, p 71).
The answer is, of course, that today’s well-known search engines are
entrepreneurs. They optimise their efficiency, not in helping any particular
person or category in the best possible way, but in generating a profit for
themselves. Academic search needs simply aren’t worth as much as sex needs. More
horny users, more advertisements, more income.
Letters : Missile myths
Barry, Glamorgan
If high-quality images of the Soviet Union had been available in the late
1950s, the myth that the Soviets had large numbers of missiles could have been
laid to rest, we are told in the 2 August issue
(This Week, p 18).
In fact, such photographs were available. In the early 1950s, American B45s
and British Canberra bombers, both crewed by the RAF, made high-altitude
photographic reconnaissance flights over the USSR. In 1956 the Americans took
over with the U2 spy plane. Western intelligence had an accurate knowledge of
the missile gap. So, why was it kept secret?
If it had been made public, it would have been difficult or impossible to
justify the large expenditure of the arms race, the main object of which was to
force the Russians to do likewise. We could afford it; they couldn’t. The Soviet
empire was finally defeated by bankruptcy, the final straw being the American
“Star Wars” programme.
People who criticise the enormous waste of defence expenditure during the
Cold War ignore the only alternative for defeating the USSR: a third world
war.
In that light, it was one of the best investments ever made. Another world
war was never an option for the Russians because they never came near to closing
the gap.
Letters : Delayed donations
Melbourne, Australia
Your article on the safety of donated blood clearly described the problem of
donors who have HIV but are not yet showing antibodies
(This Week, 26 July, p 14).
I was surprised that one possible solution was not discussed. Most blood, I
gather, is given by serial donors, so the scheme would be to delay using a blood
donation until the donor had given again some weeks later. Each donation would
be screened for antibodies once. If clear, the previous donation would be
released for use. The cost involved would be that of storing greater quantities
of blood. Is this cheaper than a PCR test?
Letters : Climate economics
Northumberland Heath, Kent
Both Greenpeace and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are calling
for policies which would “reduce economic growth, with resulting hardship to the
entire world”, according to Richard Courtney
(Letters, 9 August, p 50). He
correctly says that the IPCC states that “the balance of evidence suggests a
discernible human influence on climate”, but then adds that this “is a far cry
from an assertion that human-driven global warming is happening”.
Unless I have missed something, the IPCC statement is just that: an
“assertion” that human-driven global warming is happening. It is certainly not
asserting the contrary.
I will have to take Courtney’s word for it that the greenhouse policies of
the IPCC and Greenpeace are similar enough to both result in “hardship to the
entire world”. However, while I cannot comment on what Greenpeace has to say, I
have waded through much of the three main tranches of IPCC tomes, and they do
not make policy recommendations. Rather, the IPCC provides forecasts under a
number of “what if” scenarios, including what is effectively business as usual.
It is up to governments to determine greenhouse policy decisions, albeit using
the various IPCC forecasts as a guide.
However, there is considerable documentation in the peer-reviewed literature
indicating that improving energy efficiency and reducing dependence on oil, gas
and coal (through developing nonfossil energy resources) actually improves
nations’ economic prospects. Fossil fuels are finite, and most developed
nations鈥攏early all, in fact鈥攁re net importers of fossil fuel, which
means that they have a major problem of economic security beyond their
borders.
As stated in the conclusion of Jonathan Cowie’s Climate and Human Change:
Disaster or Opportunity (Parthenon), even if we completely ignore climate
considerations, there is sufficient impetus in the medium to long term to
motivate us to think about greenhouse policies now.
Letters : Field strength
Liphook, Hampshire
While it is always helpful to see reasonable coverage of the possible health
hazards of electromagnetic fields
(This Week, 9 August, p 16), it was
disappointing that your article did not mention that a growing number of studies
are finding strong dose-response links with various cancers only when the
electric field component is measured.
No study of either occupational or residential EMF exposure can claim to be
anything approaching definitive if it does not include measurement and analysis
of the electric field. Even despite this and the publicity accompanying Martha
Linet’s study for the US National Cancer Institute, reanalysis of the matched
data clearly shows a significant link with increased magnetic field.
Other research has linked EMFs to a variety of illnesses: male breast cancer,
which is extremely rare (5 studies), female breast cancer (3), depression (5),
headache (4), suicide (1), Alzheimer’s disease (2), cot death (2), asthma (1),
ME (1). Studies of higher frequency radiation have correlated EMF with a
different range of problems.
As for the question of mechanism, there are a number of theories, some very
complex, being investigated. Two of them鈥攖he worldwide work on the EMF
suppression of melatonin, a potent antioxidant and oncostatic, and the effects
of EMF on respiratory enzymes and on other membrane-related protein鈥攁re
particularly worthy of examination. Melatonin’s effect on the body’s overall
immune capability might help explain the range of the observed links.
Finally, it is fortunate that the British National Radiological Protection
Board had the good grace to modify its research protocol for the ongoing UK
Childhood Cancer Study to include measurement of the electric field after
suggestions from independent researchers. This study at least can lay claim to
being comprehensive, or certainly more so than the Linet study. Perhaps it would
be wise to reserve judgment on this aspect of the EMF hazard until it reports
early next year.
Letters : . . .
Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire
May I suggest it is not the salt that animals appreciate in Marmite, but the
yeast. The continuing popularity of Vetzyme/Kitzyme/Rabzyme tablets with the
appropriate animals would point to this.
I had a cat who not only adored Marmite but who seemed to be able to detect
from a great distance the tin of dried yeast being opened for bread-making.
There would be no peace until she had had a few grains of the stuff. In her
early teens she required hormone replacement therapy. The yeast-flavoured
tablets went down with no difficulty, unlike the worm pills that are such a
necessary part of a cat’s life. Pharmaceuticals companies, please take note.
Letters : . . .
Bristol
A little fact I remember from my childhood in Sri Lanka is that the elephants
love the fruits of the local wood apple tree. They swallow the whole fruit and
excrete it intact, minus of course the juicy stuff inside. So if you can get the
pills in the fruits . . .
Letters : Elephant fads
Bangalow, Australia
Charles Sedgewick has appealed for suggestions to make his elephant medicine
more palatable (Feedback, 19 July and
Letters, 2 August, p 50).
Elephants are enamoured of the plant Centella asiatica (Indian
pennywort). Their love of it would probably overcome the taste of the
antibiotics鈥攖hough I’m not convinced they would need the antibiotics if
regular huge feeds of Centella, which is an anti-inflammatory, could be
delivered.
Letters : Cashing in
Australia
According to Ron Freedman, social scientists can offer research labs valuable
know-how on monitoring the satisfaction of their customers
(Forum, 2 August, p 46).
And why not? After all, on the roller coaster of commercialised science,
social scientists are as much entitled to enjoy the ride as are accountants and
lawyers.
Perhaps Freedman could also advise funding bodies on how to monitor more
effectively the satisfaction of those scientists who are motivated not by the
desire to please clients and balance the books, but simply by (in Feynman’s
words) “the pleasure of finding things out”.
Letters : Rebellious spoon
Jeremy Webb’s explanation of the behaviour of “rebellious celts”
(“Torque of the devil”, 26 July, p 35)
took me back to the first year of my PhD鈥攖he
only achievement of which was rediscovering this strange behaviour for myself in
the coffee bar of the students’ union. It was good to learn the explanation
after nearly thirty years of mystification.
Your readers might like to know that a rebellious celt can be made by
snapping off the bowl of a plastic teaspoon, then snapping the bowl in half
along its long dimension.
Letters : . . .
London
I wonder . . . if you fed in the essential characteristics of the Beatles,
would the computer come up with the new Oasis album?
Letters : . . .
Tring, Hertfordshire
Your article reports that experts have criticised Experiments in Musical
Intelligence on the basis that it has no life experience. Some work reported
several years ago indicates that emotional responses to musical phrases are
inherent and not learnt, and that experience is irrelevant.
A television programme reporting the research demonstrated that the same
emotional responses occurred in all human groups tested, ranging from Australian
Aborigines to Europeans, whether or not they had had any previous experience of
Western music. Presumably, in primitive humans, instinctive recognition of
certain sound patterns assisted survival.
Letters : . . .
London
As in other areas of science and technology, real progress is likely to come
from a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms involved. At the moment we
don’t even know for certain why minor tunes sound sad and major ones happy. To
be sure, no more did Mozart, but then he could feel the results for himself.
When computers can do that, we will all need to worry, though musicians may
be among the last to be out of a job. But will a “pile of computer code” soon be
editing New 杏吧原创? It might at least be logical.
Letters : . . .
Oxford
Once original ideas and new systems of organising sound have originated, and
been theorised about, it is merely a platitude to reproduce and copy them.
It was the genius of Hildegard of Bingen, or Bach, or Mozart, or Stravinsky,
or Cage or Charlie Parker that surprised their contemporaries with new ways of
organising and perceiving sound. Much of the excitement and emotion music should
generate is from this creativity.
But once we have heard and understood, we should look for originality in what
we can’t predict. There are benefits in listening to Beethoven’s Fifth today,
just as there are benefits from rereading On The Origin of Species, but
it shouldn’t distract us from vital music-making and new music.
Computers can and will be valuable tools in the creation of new music. But to
suggest that computers or technically accomplished composers churning out
pastiche versions of dead composers’ works is what creativity is about seems to
me to be a category mistake.
Letters : Soul survivors
Sevenoaks, Kent
Douglas Hofstadter is quoted as feeling threatened by a computer program
capable of composing a mazurka “by Chopin”, although it has none of Chopin’s
“soul” or life experience
(“Requiem for the soul”, 9 August, p 22).
Surely this is where the thinking on AI goes astray. In the simpler case of
the chess supercomputer Deep Blue, many programmers are standing on the
shoulders of pioneers like Alan Turing, himself atop a mountain of mathematical
predecessors. All these synergistic work-years are combined with a vast input
from chess experts, rolled up into a few hours and dropped on Garry Kasparov,
courtesy of some clever electronics. It wasn’t a “computer” that beat him.
With comparable inputs, an adapted linguistics program imitates Chopin under
the guidance of David Cope, himself the product of centuries of Western musical
tradition. The program merely enables Cope to rehydrate powdered Chopin-soul,
and would be ineffective without the pre-existence of Chopin’s inner life. The
program does not appear to be truly heuristic, even when doing its own
compositions.
Far from containing the seeds of intelligence, computer programs seem to be
no more than an updating of the Pharaohs’ use of preparation, people and pulleys
to get stone blocks to the tops of pyramids.
Letters : Dam disasters
Watford, Hertfordshire
Your article on the possible climatic effect of the Aswan dam
(This Week, 26 July, p 10)
highlights a subject that has been troubling me for some time. My
concern is the effects on the world climate of the immense hydroelectric
reservoirs built in the 1970s in Siberia. These retain many times the volume of
water of the Aswan dam and intercept the flow of water northwards into the
Arctic. This could be crucially important for climate, as a spectrum of thermal
flows, most of them very complex, will be altered.
For example, by retaining spring flood waters, the flooding of large areas
will be reduced, cutting the warming of the water as it spreads out in a thin
layer to be warmed by the sun. The dams will release water at above freezing
during the winter, breaking up ice cover and exposing the Arctic Ocean to direct
contact with air at temperatures as low as 鈥�70 掳C.
The drying up of the Aral Sea has also been much discussed, but the climatic
effect is hardly mentioned. We have an additional effect here of 50 million
tonnes of salt, left behind as the waters evaporate, being blown into the air.
Every speck of it could refract light and act as a condensation nucleus to
produce rain somewhere else, wherever blown.
Letters : Correction:
It has come to our notice that the apparently foolish
remarks by US Representative Edward Markey that were quoted by
Feedback (9 August)
were in fact intended by him sarcastically. We offer Markey our sincere
apologies for the misunderstanding.