Letters : Keeping in touch
London
On the question of which computers the dead use
(Letters, 21 February, p 54),
evidence would suggest they have a taste for BBC “B” computers.
In the March issue of Fortean Times we have run a story by Ken
Webster, who claims to have received regular communication from an individual
from the 17th century via one of these machines.
Letters : Muddy moggie
rupert@easynet.co.uk
Fraser Borwick raises the questions of cats’ ability to scan documents by sitting on them
(Letters, 21 February, p 54). My cats refine this process by
coating their paws with a thick layer of mud, which appears to both speed up
scan times and act as a “digital watermark”, especially on important legal
documents.
Indeed, such is the speed at which they seem to absorb written information
that they will usually start scanning a sentence while I’m in the process of
writing it. What they do with the data is not yet clear, but it may explain the
knowing look that all cats seem to possess.
They also perform a useful secondary function by unerringly placing their
bodies between me and any form of potentially harmful radiation, such as TVs and
computer monitors.
Letters : Parrots in the parks
KRowell@compuserve.com
The green parrots at Syon Park
(Feedback, 28 February) are doubtless
ring-necked parakeets, Psittacula krameri.
Native to India, the Middle East and parts of Africa, they are commonly kept
as cage birds, and many have either escaped or been deliberately released, to
make their home in London and the Thames Valley, Kent and some areas of
northwest England. They seem to like it here, and places like Syon Park and Kew
Gardens will be ideal habitats, as they nest in holes in trees. They have become
familiar visitors to some gardens and bird tables, and this has ensured their
survival through the English winter, even without global warming.
There are now large roosting flocks of parakeets in some areas, and if
numbers continue to increase, they could become a serious problem for gardeners
and fruit farmers.
Letters : Look at the camera
Vancouver, Canada
Michael Cross complains of the unflattering view of the top of his head
afforded by videophones
(Forum, 24 January, p 46). As an occasional user of
these systems, I can reveal that the problems are not confined to the
hair-challenged.
If the camera is placed on top of the monitor, talking to the image on the
screen comes across as looking down, refusing to make eye contact with the
person at the other end. Positioning the camera to the side of the monitor makes
one appear shifty-looking, while placing it beneath the monitor gives another
unflattering view, this time of gaping nostrils.
To present a normal appearance, one must ignore the screen and address the
camera. Gluing a miniature camera to the screen or using some arrangement of
half-silvered mirrors might solve the problem.
Videoconferencing systems used for larger groups are largely unaffected,
since the greater distance from the camera reduces parallax.
Letters : Schr枚dinger's cake
Dublin, Ireland
While technical assistant to Erwin Schr枚dinger at Dublin Institute of
Advanced Studies in about 1950, I was often invited to spend Sunday afternoon at
his home, along with his scholars.
No cat was ever to be seen
(Feedback, 21 February). Perhaps this was to
safeguard the Austrian almond cake covered in dark chocolate and served with
spoonfuls of cream at tea time.
Letters : Century bug
Martin Gregorie has surely been carried away by millennium madness when he
writes that computer systems could postpone the effects of the year 2000 bug
“for almost 400 years” by switching to the Islamic calendar
(Letters, 28 February, p 53).
The year 2000 bug is not fundamentally a millennium bug, but a century bug.
It is mere coincidence that the first fin de si猫cle of the
computer age is also a fin de mill茅naire. The most we could gain
by switching to any other existing calendar is 99 years.
Letters : Sharing the catch
roberts@clover.com.au
I was intrigued by the article on the difference between human and primate
feeding of offspring, and the conclusions about human evolution
(This Week, 7 February, p 14).
Classically, hunter-gatherer societies divide labour between genders, with
women gathering and men hunting. Gathering typically provides the bulk of the
communities’ diet and is shared by the women with the men of their household
(fathers, husbands, brothers, children). Hunting makes a relatively small and
often unreliable contribution, which (depending on the size of the game) is
shared with the broader community.
My impression is that the vast bulk of women’s surplus gathering is shared
with the men and children, with only a very small proportion going to
grandchildren. It is also common that small children are not weaned until they
are five, by which stage they are able to collect quite a lot (though certainly
not all) of their own food. Of course, the proportion of food provided by
grandmothers may still be significant or the societies included in the study may
be different from others.
I would be very interested to see what the researchers had to say about the
cross-gender sharing of food and how it affects their hypothesis on evolution.
Letters : Very much alive
Reading Douglas Palmer’s comments on my new book on mass extinctions, I was
somewhat taken aback to see myself referred to as “the late Tony Hallam”
(Review, 21 February, p 48).
I hasten to point out that, in the words of Mark
Twain, reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
The confusion must have arisen because the list of recently deceased Fellows
reported in a Geological Society newsletter earlier this year included my near
namesake, Anthony Dominic Hallam.
Our sincere apologies for this embarrassing error鈥擡d
Letters : . . . . .
Wigan
Your report on cannabis made interesting reading, as yet another official
report failed to find evidence of serious harm or risk to public health from
cannabis use.
However, I note that many of the findings may be more appropriate for the US,
where herbal cannabis is normally smoked “neat”鈥攚ithout tobacco. In
Britain, cannabis resin is the dominant form, representing approximately 70 per
cent of the 拢3 billion to 拢5 billion annual market, and is normally
smoked with tobacco.
According to our surveys, many users smoke around 6 joints a day, and get
through between ⅛ ounce (3.5 grams) and 录 (7 grams) per week, with
some heavy users smoking up to 录 ounce per day.
Our latest survey results
suggest consumption of indoor-grown, higher-potency hybrids (“skunk”, for
example) have nearly doubled in the past three years, with growers able to
indulge heavier levels of use without having to pay. By comparison, Donald
Tashkin’s smokers got through three “neat” joints per day, representing a
similar weight of cannabis to typical British users, but without the
tobacco.
The British Medical Association report on therapeutic uses of cannabis quoted
particular studies from the US from 1982, which involved low-potency marijuana
without tobacco, results that may not be applicable to higher-potency hybrids or
to cannabis resin. The smoking of unfiltered tobacco joints must increase the
cancer risk, and cannabis smokers in Britain may be lulled into a false sense of
security by these US studies.
There is an urgent need for research into the composition of smoke from
tobacco and cannabis or cannabis resin joints, particularly of “skunk” and
similar types of cannabis.
Cannabis has often been accused, falsely, of leading to harder drugs such as
heroin and cocaine. It may instead be found to lead to the “hardest” drug of
all, nicotine.
In the light of increased government pressure on tobacco companies and the
decline in the number of cigarette smokers, a significant number of recruits
from cannabis smokers may provide a financial lifeline for the tobacco
companies.
Letters : . . .
The case for decriminalising cannabis seems to grow stronger with every
leaked report. However, the WHO seems to have overlooked an important side
effect.
The photograph on the top right of the contents page (21 February) is clear
evidence that cannabis affects the brain to the extent that menus appear legible
even when they are upside down. Either that or the young man in the photograph
has already decided that he wants a Mars bar, a Galaxy and three packets of
cheese and onion crisps. Oh, and ten Silk Cut and a packet of Rizlas please.
Letters : In the blood
Edinburgh
In describing the risk of disease being transmitted by clotting agents used
by haemophiliacs, Michael Day states “Clotting factors produced by genetic
engineering carry none of these dangers”
(This Week, 7 February, p 22). This is
incorrect.
Recombinant factor VIII is a biological product prepared using genetically
engineered animal cells, as well as a number of other animal substances, some of
bovine origin. It is likely that many of these animal substances will not have
been tested for the presence of infectious agents such as the prions thought to
cause BSE.
Although genetically engineered cell lines are screened for a range of animal
viruses, such testing will not detect viruses at a concentration that is lower
than the sensitivity of the test. Nor is it possible to detect infectious agents
for which no test is available, which are as yet unknown or which may emerge in
the future.
According to Day, haemophiliacs are concerned about “the next big virus”. It
is arguable, because of the type and variety of animal substances used, that
genetically engineered products are a much greater risk than modern preparations
of natural human clotting factors, which are treated to inactivate viruses and
derived from a well-screened, established population of healthy human blood
donors.
Letters : Plants and property
Milnthorpe, Cumbria
Your article on the Australian attempt to patent chickpeas grown in India and Iran
(This Week, 14 February, p 14) raises important issues.
The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA),
which is based in Syria, provided samples of a local fodder grain to Australian
scientists. Under the spirit of the Biodiversity Convention, ICARDA, as a
condition of access to collections in its gene bank, required that approval of
Syria be obtained before Plant Variety Rights could be established in Australia.
This model could lead to Third World farmers protecting their traditional
varieties when they are exploited in developed countries. This all seems to be
very sensible, with benefits for all parties.
However, the approach of ICARDA is under attack as various players seek to
undermine the Biodiversity Convention. One such player is the Rural Advancement
Fund International (RAFI), founded to represent the interests of North American
farmers. These interests include unrestricted access to genetic resources from
other countries.
RAFI therefore stirs up opposition to ICARDA’s pioneering efforts to
implement the Biodiversity Convention. This convention, with its endorsement of
national sovereignty, threatens the concept of “global common heritage” for
genetic resources adopted by the US, which has not accepted the convention.
Another player is the World Bank, which claims to be promoting the private
sector in developing countries. Yet it now attempts to restrict access and
tighten monopoly control over samples held in institutes of the Consultative
Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). This is damaging to public
and private sector plant breeding in most developing and developed
countries.
This is a dog-in-the-manger role, as the CGIAR’s own funds for plant breeding
have been slashed and key CGIAR institutes such as the International Crops
Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), based in India, totter
on the edge of bankruptcy.
The confusion and intrigue can be stopped by a simple change in the agreement
between the UN Food and Agricultural Organization and the CGIAR on access to
collections. This agreement is due for renegotiation this year and the new
agreement should certainly encourage the ICARDA initiative of putting potential
breeders of germ plasm in touch with the country of origin.
Letters : Raw deal
Wagga Wagga, NSW
Jack Kinzley is not necessarily correct in his view that raw foods are
healthier than cooked foods
(Letters, 24 January, p 50). In carrots, for
example, cooking actually increases the amount of vitamin A, while in potatoes
the amount of resistant starch, which helps prevent bowel cancer and
constipation, increases each time they are cooked and allowed to cool.
Also, raw mushrooms contain significant amounts of the carcinogenic
4-hydroxymethylbenzene-diazonium ion, which is destroyed by cooking. While these
benefits may be at the cost of others, they still show that the view that raw is
better is not necessarily true.
Letters : Brave initiative
Ponticelli, Italy
I have worked, with others, for 25 years to bring an end to the cruelty of
whaling. I write to express my dismay that some who have the same goal are
prepared to justify their attack on Michael Canny, the International Whaling
Commission (IWC) Commissioner for Ireland, with a series of half-truths and
distortions
(Letters, 28 February, p 51).
This discredits our long, hard efforts.
First, the IWC has not defined “coastal whaling”, still less has it done so
as 200 kilometres from coasts. The figure of 40 per cent quoted is one of
several estimates of the fraction of the ocean within 200 nautical miles of
coasts; a better estimate is 25 per cent.
Of that 25 per cent, more than half consists of waters already designated as
“no whaling” zones under the domestic laws of the coastal states. These
countries are not going to resume whaling. In those waters not covered by
domestic law, whaling would resume only if those states could sell their whale
meat to Japan鈥攏one except South Korea has a significant domestic market.
And before any new countries could start whaling, they would have to carry out
several years of costly surveys to satisfy rigorous criteria established by the
IWC.
Second, most of the conditions for reviewing the original moratorium on
whaling have been met, and there is an agreed, very conservative regulatory
mechanism in place, incorporating the precautionary principle, though it has not
yet been implemented.
The minke whale鈥攖he only current target species鈥攊s definitely not
endangered. It is far more numerous than was thought in 1982.
Only two countries鈥攐ne of them Britain鈥攕aid anything about
cruelty when the moratorium was adopted. There is even now virtually no support
among governments for retaining the moratorium solely on humane grounds,
unfortunately.
Third, it is untrue that the so-called Revised Management Scheme “offered
little more than whaling nations policing themselves”; the agreed purpose of the
scheme is to ensure full international inspection and control, and Ireland
reaffirmed this.
The issue we now face is whether fewer whales will be killed in the future if
there are successful, transparent negotiations leading to a consensus (which
must include a cessation of Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean and its
so-called scientific whaling), or continued confrontation between the two
whaling nations and the others. The latter ensures that the international
community has no effective regulatory power through the IWC or any other legal
instrument, and that the actual catches increase every year. Norway now kills
more whales than it did before the moratorium came into force.
The Irish initiative is far-sighted, brave and timely. And the whalers don’t
like it, so it can’t be all bad.
Letters : The dope debate
Torquay, Devon
I agree that marijuana should be legalised for medical purposes, and that
penalties for possession are needlessly harsh
(Editorial, This Week
and Special Report, 21 February).
But I am not convinced by the arguments for removing all
barriers to its recreational use. Almost invariably, these arguments largely
consist of efforts to prove that alcohol and tobacco are worse.
A familiar argument for legalising marijuana is that legalisation would
enable us to regulate it. But this ignores our long experience with alcohol and
tobacco. If this proves anything, it proves that making something legal gives no
assurance that we can effectively regulate it.
Alcohol and tobacco have both been legal for centuries, but we have
conspicuously failed to prevent their abuse. Despite all legal prohibitions and
restrictions, drunk drivers kill and injure thousands of people every year, and
smokers persist in slowly killing themselves and damaging the health of others.
Meanwhile, despite all efforts at regulation, underage drinking and smoking are
apparently increasing.
I wonder, moreover, about the effort to discount findings unfavourable to
marijuana. It is suggested, for example, that some of its apparent ill effects
might not be caused by marijuana at all, but might be traceable instead to some
predisposition in the user. Reasonable enough鈥攂ut why not give alcohol the
benefit of similar doubts? It is widely accepted that some individuals are more
inclined than others to abuse alcohol and become alcoholics. And why should it
surprise us if irresponsible drivers are also irresponsible drinkers?
On the other hand, nowhere in your special issue on marijuana is there any
mention of the positive health benefits attributed to alcohol by recent studies.
These suggest that the moderate use of alcohol could help millions of people by
making them less prone to strokes and heart disease. I have yet to hear of any
such evidence with regard to marijuana.