Letters : Strawberry fields
Upton upon Severn, Worcestershire
Stephen Young’s perceptive article on electroculture
(“Growing in electric fields”, 23 August, p 28)
failed to mention two of the most important exponents
of a technique that holds real promise as a nonpolluting, yield-promoting
technique.
Following Karl Selim Lemstr枚m’s original experiments in Finland, the
British physicist Oliver Lodge set up trials on 3 hectares of land, lasting from
1904 to 1909. He used about 100 kilovolts positive on wires 4.5 metres above the
ground. Yields of strawberries were raised to over 4.5 tonnes per acre.
The other great exponent of electroculture in Britain was E. C. Dudgeon, who
carried out experiments on many other crops at Linden in Dumfries from 1910, and
wrote up her work in a book, Growing Crops and Plants by Electricity.
Botanist Andrew Goldsworthy is right to suggest that this technique needs to
be looked at afresh to determine whether the electric field enhances yields by
scaring off predators, precipitating extra nitrogen by corona discharges, or
actually stimulating growth.
Letters : Taking the piss
New York
Urine drinking has the trappings of New Ageism and pseudoscience
(“The Fabricators”, 23 August, p 36).
I have not come across any reputable reference
to the benefits of drinking urine, but I have heard that certain Hollywood
luminaries do it and some claim that it has miraculous curative powers.
I hope that the museums where these fabricators work have a science
department that ensures the accuracy and educational content of their exhibits
to make sure visitors take an accurate message away with them.
Letters : Party pooper
Leeds
Reading your piece on the millennium bug
(This Week, 23 August, p 19) finally
prompted me to try the rollover to 2000 on my now rather ancient 486/33. I was
impressed to see that when I left the PC switched on, it rolled over to 1
January 2000. I then tested it when it was switched off ( which is the most
likely state it will be in when the time comes, if it hasn’t been consigned to
the bin), and it changed to 4 January 1980. This contradicts the aforementioned
article. I shall be leaving my PC on when I go out on that particular New Year’s
Eve.
Letters : Flagged down
hewitt@grindleybrook.force9.net
Perhaps we are obsessed with the symbolism of flags but there has always been
a right and a wrong way to fly the Union Jack, unlike the flag used as a graphic
in your editorial (13 September, p 3).
Letters : Lost cause
Max.Hammerton@newcastle. ac.uk
In your editorial (13 September, p 3),
you suggest that, “Deep down they
[scientists] believe the public is ignorant and irrational”. And how right they
are! But if, as you further suggest, they believe that, given a little more
media exposure “the public would soon warm to our cause”, they are deluded
indeed.
It would be as well to heed the observation of the scholar and poet A. E.
Housman, that science is “an aristocratic affair, not communicable to all men,
nor to most men”.
Letters : Reformed drug
The American authorities may well have started to authorise trials of
thalidomide for, among other conditions, mouth ulcers
(This Week, 13 September, p 5).
However, thalidomide has already been in use on this side of the Atlantic
for a number of years, treating intractable mouth ulcers in immunosuppressed
patients (mostly AIDS cases).
Letters : Good guano
Canterbury, Kent
The article by Sharon Levy
(“Ultimate sacrifice”, 6 September, p 39)
concerning the role of salmon in the ecology of the American Northwest was both
informative and enlightening, but I feel that it was perhaps a mistake to
highlight the statement “Salmon are the only animals that return nutrients to
the land from the sea” on page 41.
Any seabird biologist will challenge that view, attributed to salmon
biologist Jeff Cederholm. Substantial industries exist on the coasts of South
America and Namibia exploiting the most obvious manifestation of the return of
marine-derived nutrients to the land, guano. Seabird colonies are also
frequently littered with other marine-derived material, ranging from seaweed
used for nest-building to the hard, calcareous body parts of prey items ejected
in pellets and even the bodies of the birds themselves.
Letters : Controlled cruelty
One Tree Hill, South Australia
You have recently published several reports of research which used animals as
experimental controls. Most notable was the use of monkeys in transplant trials
(This Week, 16 August, p 9).
Here the unfortunate animals were subjected to
kidney transplants simply to prove that they would die if not given an
immunosuppressive drug regime. What is the point of that?
It has been common knowledge for decades that transplants will fail if not
accompanied by other treatments, so there was absolutely no point in inflicting
suffering, and ultimately a death sentence, on these unfortunate animals. We
learn nothing by it.
I wholly support the use of animals in medical trials as long as the use is
carefully thought out and the treatment humane. But usage of the sort referred
to above makes a mockery of the process of research and will make it harder for
scientists to justify their actions in future.
Letters : Don't blame badgers
I am delighted to see the generally positive response from the National
Farmers’ Union to the results of the survey of badgers in Britain
(This Week, 23 August, p 10).
This is a major development from their 1995 report, which called
for farmers to be allowed to kill badgers.
There are just two points with which I would disagree with Brian Jennings of
the NFU (Letters, 13 September, p 56). We looked for evidence that maize had
benefited badgers and found none. Also, badgers have been killed for the past 22
years to try to reduce tuberculosis levels in cattle. This policy has been
dramatically unsuccessful. What we need now is a fresh look at the whole issue.
Let’s hope that the Krebs report, due later this year, will provide those much
needed innovative ideas.
Your correspondent Willie Stanton seems to be confused about the history of
badgers in Britain. Country people did not “harvest” them, they drove them to
near extinction. While numbers are recovering, badgers are still absent from
two-thirds of rural Britain鈥攈ardly the position from which to devastate
the populations of other species. In many areas badgers, hedgehogs and slow
worms coexist.
We do not need ill-informed anecdotes on which to base management strategy
for our wildlife. Only when we fully understand species interactions will we be
able to have an informed debate on the management of our wildlife populations.
Meanwhile, let’s stop blaming badgers for every perceived problem in the
countryside, and rejoice in one more conservation success.
Letters : Dirty green
Munich
I was not surprised to read about the scheme in the US to “save the
environment” by giving hotel guests the option of not having their sheets and
towels washed every day
(Feedback, 6 September). What is now sailing under the
environmental protection/water and energy-saving flag seems to be an old
practice, formerly justified by simple financial savings.
In the 1970s I lived in a village outside Munich. Once, when I was waiting in
the local laundry, an employee of a nearby hotel brought in a basket full of
bedclothes and was asked what he wanted done with it: “Laundering and ironing,
sir?”
He sniffed the heap and responded “Ironing will do!”
Letters : The hole truth
As head of the unit of “bureaucrats at the UN Environment Programme” which
deals with efforts to save the ozone layer, I can assure Fred Pearce that we did
not change the report of the Methyl Bromide Technical Options Committee (MBTOC)
or that of the Technology and Economic Assessment Panel (TEAP) [the panel to
which MBTOC reports] for the Montreal Protocol
(This Week, 30 August, p 4).
The advice, allegedly rewritten, which is strongly objected to by MBTOC
member Colin Smith and others, is given by the TEAP, a panel of experts which is
entrusted by the parties to the Montreal Protocol to analyse and present
information on ozone issues to the signatories to enable them to take
decisions.
UNEP facilitates the work of the TEAP but does not interfere with it. Anyone
whose opinion differs from that of the TEAP can present their views during the
meetings of the parties to the protocol or of the working groups so that the
parties have the benefit of these opinions. The Crop Protection Coalition of
America did make a statement at the recent meeting of the working group of the
parties in Nairobi in June, strongly criticising the report of the TEAP.
Where experts differ, it is this kind of open dialogue that assists the
parties to make sensible decisions on technical issues.
Letters : Costly energy
Melbourne
Ian Hore-Lacy of the mining companies’ Uranium Information Centre
(Letters, 23 August, p 48)
quotes the usual figures for energy investment in enrichment of
fuel for nuclear power production. Enrichment, however, is only one factor in
the energy equation. Others include reactor construction, the mining and ore
treatment process, research, health monitoring, and down-time due to age of
reactors.
More important are losses due to accidents, storage and disposal of waste,
and decommissioning of reactors. Apart from their human tragedies, the energy
loss involved in decommissioning and containment operations after Chernobyl and
other accidents is incalculable, and goes on.
While increased nuclear energy production may solve some of the problems of a
beleaguered nuclear industry, it will not make a dent in the greenhouse problem.
Letters : Pole position
Kettering, Northamptonshire
I have been following with amusement the correspondence on the subject of the
orientation of the polar wind
(Letters, 30 August, p 50;
2 August, p 50).
It is important to define what is meant by the North Pole. The Pole is not a
region, but a discrete zero-dimensional point on the planet’s surface. Eva
Koudela’s suggestion about a whirlwind centred at the Pole does not help. Since
the centre of a whirlwind (at the planet’s surface) is also a discrete point, it
has zero velocity and therefore can have no direction. Furthermore, any
horizontal wind passing over the pole must be southerly as it approaches the
pole and northerly as it recedes. The question “What is the wind’s direction at
the pole?” is therefore moot, because it is effectively either zero or both
northerly and southerly simultaneously.
The conclusion I arrive at is that there is no wind at the North Pole. So can
I now go about the business of promoting the North Pole as a “Wind-free holiday
zone”?
Letters : Hate mail
Pentadact@btinternet.com
I came across an interesting link on the Internet just now to a “hate page”,
a page where you are encouraged to say what you really hate in life and why. I
followed the link, and while I waited for it to load I was thinking of what I
really hate. Eventually, my browser helpfully gave me a suggestion. It displayed
the error message: “Not found. The requested object does not exist on this
server. The link you followed is either outdated, inaccurate, or the server has
been instructed not to let you have it.”
The server has been instructed not to let me have it? Gosh, I really can’t
think of anything I hate more. Unfortunately, I’ll never get to the page to say
so.
Letters : . . . . .
Pakistan
While some ancient medical practices have value, quite often they can be very
harmful, notwithstanding the romantic view taken by those who look at them
uncritically.
“The Fabricators” gives a very interesting example of what seems disgusting
to most people: drinking one’s urine. This was something that Morarji Desai, the
late Indian Prime Minister used to do. Some Indians also drink cow’s urine.
In northern Pakistan and parts of India, external wounds are treated by
washing with the person’s urine. A bizarre and dangerous practice in Pakistan is
to treat a wound on a finger by inserting it in a hole dug in the ground filled
with urine. This is surely a quick way to get tetanus and Lord knows what
else.
It would be useful to know about the uses and abuses of this yellow liquid.
Can New 杏吧原创 commission a medical expert to enlighten us?
Letters : Revelations
I am researching a TV documentary about dreams and problem solving. There are
a few famous stories of scientists in the past who made discoveries in their
sleep鈥攕uch as August Kekul茅, the biochemist who discovered the
structure of the benzene molecule while nodding off in front of his
fire鈥攂ut I am not aware of any striking current or relatively recent
examples.
I would be very interested in hearing from scientists, of any discipline,
from any part of the world, who have achieved some form of intellectual
breakthrough while asleep. I can be contacted on (+44)171 915 5487 or at Diverse
Production, Gorleston Street, London W14 8XS.
Letters : Small world
Neil Harris quotes Paul Hirst, administrator at the Royal Microscopical
Society (RMS), as saying that he thinks there might be room for an amateur
microscopist division in his society
(Appointments, 23 August, p 50).
I am amazed that the RMS appears to be unaware that there already exists a
club for the amateur microscopist鈥攖he Quekett Microscopical Club, founded
in 1865. The club has a Web site currently under construction, hosted by the
Natural History Museum, at http://www.nhm.ac.uk/quekett/.
Further information can be obtained from: Mr P. Greaves, The Membership
Secretary, QMC, 4 Combe Common, Woodside Road, Chiddingfold, Surrey,
GU8 4QR.
Letters : Medical parable
Sydney
I was amused by the summary of the history of medicine reported by Tom
McCarthy (Feedback, 6 September),
so much so that I e-mailed it to several
friends and colleagues. But when I told my wife, I was surprised to learn that
her amusement was founded on a completely different interpretation.
My interpretation was that the return to root eating indicated the forces of
anti-intellectualism that exist in our society鈥攖hat although our medical
practices have progressed, there are some who prefer a simpler, less
sophisticated age.
My wife’s interpretation was that medical practice just goes in cycles
without getting any better. The dismissal of each previous cure shows that we
are unjustified in considering any one cure better than any other.
Two colleagues offered a third interpretation: that we are constantly seeking
to improve things through change, and that the ironic return to root eating
shows what happens when we run out of new paradigms to replace the old ones.
This is indeed a deep parable. What do your readers think?