Letter
I use one as a handy office mirror for putting on lippie鈥攙ery
appropriate for an intellectual property lawyer.
Prematurely in print
Many will applaud your
editorial (28 March) in which you suggest that
“physicists’ track record on `revolutionary’ findings has been pretty abysmal of
late”, but not all will agree that “we shouldn’t judge them too harshly”.
Indeed, some think the present tendency for researchers to fly into print with
every wild conjecture, long before the evidence has been checked or the
consequences assessed, will hinder progress.
The reasons for this recent phenomenon are not hard to find. Young scientists
know that their promotion prospects depend upon the number of papers they
publish, while public bodies like NASA know that their funding depends upon
feeding the taxpayers exciting news at regular intervals, and the editors of
journals and periodicals know that sensational articles sell copies.
What chance have properly researched and confirmed discoveries of being
noticed amid all this noise? Einstein took a decade to get his paper on general
relativity into a fit state for publication, while Newton kept Principia
to himself for twenty years. Is it too much to hope that editors
of magazines and learned journals will discourage the publication of findings
until they have passed the speculative stage, particularly those which, if
confirmed, would have a great impact on other fields?
Not clean enough
While technology that reduces or eliminates the sulphur content of oil is commendable
(This Week, 11 April, p 17),
I wish to highlight a study released by
Yuzuru Matsuoka of the Kyoto University School of Engineering on 3 April.
Yuzuru identifies the burning of coal and oil鈥攁nd specifically the
particulates this produces鈥攁s a major cause of health problems, especially
in infants. In light of such evidence, should we continue investing time and
money in finding new ways of burning the remaining oil reserves, more cleanly or
not? Or should we concentrate on developing alternatives to fossil fuels?
Planners' blight
Fred Pearce
(This Week, 11 April, p 20) may be right to argue that
“brownfield” sites in inner city areas often harbour more biodiversity than the
staunchly defended greenfield sites in the countryside.
However, what has become the national test case of incursion into the green
belt鈥攖he proposed development of up to 10 000 houses west of the A1(M)
near Stevenage鈥攊llustrates a more subtle relationship between planning and
ecological advice.
Consultants said the site was of “negligible ecological importance”, ignoring
two meadows, Langley Meadow and Burleigh Meadow. These habitats featured in the
1967 Flora of Hertfordshire by John Dony, and are still mainly as the
author described.
Although there has been systematic ecological observation of this site over
the years, none of it seems to have affected the planning process. The planning
system does not encourage such carefully accumulated data to be taken into
account. Instead, decisions are made on the basis of hasty observations by
environmental professionals鈥攑lus, we assume, a trawl though published
literature, although even that is in doubt in this case.
This state of affairs makes remarks like “rich in wildlife” or “ecologically
negligible”, upon which important planning decisions are made, largely
meaningless.
Banking on genes
I would like to address several points raised by David Wood
(Letters, 14 March, p 59)
about the genetic resources which the Consultative Group on
International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) centres have placed under the
auspices of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United
Nations.
First, the architects of the Convention on Biological Diversity recognised
the complexity of implementing the treaty and called on the FAO to help. A key
issue is the difficulty of ascertaining the country of origin of many gene bank
accessions, and apportioning benefits accordingly. As defined by the convention,
the “country of origin” is the one where the materials could be found “in
situ” or “where they have developed their distinctive properties”. The 1994
FAO-CGIAR agreements are part of the effort to resolve this and other difficult
issues.
Secondly, the World Bank, a co-sponsor of the CGIAR, promoted the FAO-CGIAR
agreements to ensure that materials collected by CGIAR centres would be
available to the world community, both for public and private plant breeding.
The FAO-CGIAR agreements preclude intellectual property claims on these
materials. Due to expire this year, the agreements have been extended by mutual
consent, pending renegotiation of the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic
Resources for Food and Agriculture.
The purpose of this renegotiation process is to ensure that the technical
realities of conserving and using crop genetic resources are fully in harmony
with the convention. The extension will give governments time to consider and
resolve the issues related to in-trust collections.
Radio off
Radio may not be the ideal medium for science programmes, but nevertheless
the axing of the Science Now programme from BBC Radio 4 sends the wrong
signals to youngsters in schools and elsewhere.
As the arts have a whole channel devoted to them鈥擱adio 3鈥攁s well
as regular daily slots on Radio 4, it is quite clear who is in charge. It
appears to have been forgotten that without the work of many scientists and
engineers, radio and television programmes would be of much lower quality.
Useful temper
Impulsive violence is not necessarily maladaptive
(“Wrath”, 28 March, p 32).
Violent animals may do poorly in normal conditions, but better in times of
stress. When a colony of rhesus monkeys was established on Cayo Santiago island,
the animals suffered a great deal of stress in transit. A particularly bad
tempered individual, nicknamed Diablo, came to dominate his own troop and then
the whole island. Similar examples abound in human history. The extreme benefit
gained at such times would be enough to retain genes that favour impulsive
violence.
On a similar note, Andrew Prentice doubts that there is enough reproductive
benefit from slimness for the thin to inherit the Earth in a slothful society
(“Sloth”, p 36). This reasoning, on the basis that most deaths occur after
reproductive age, shows a poor understanding of evolution. Someone who dies from
obesity-related problems in their late forties or early fifties will leave any
dependent children at a severe disadvantage, psychologically if not
economically. And it ignores the power of sexual selection, obvious if we open
any magazine. On evolutionary timescales, traits will be selected for even if
they provide only a 1 per cent advantage. It would be surprising if the
advantages of slimness were not ten to twenty times as great.
The notion that we are no longer subject to natural selection is a bizarre
conceit. A few thousand years of agriculture have already left their mark on our
genes. Which is why there is a health benefit to natural forms of alcohol such
as wine, while concentrated alcohols such as spirits are harmful. It is also why
Europeans benefit from milk while many Asians and Afro-Caribbeans, whose
ancestors kept fewer cattle, are lactose intolerant. Nothing drives natural
selection harder than a radical change in the environment.
If current conditions continued for few more millennia, we might find that
hard liquor, smoking, organochlorides and long hours in front of VDUs became
good for us. And we would stay slim and healthy to an advanced age without much
need for exercise.
Letter
Note: In the article “In the beginning”
(This Week, 25 April, p 7) Subir
Sarkar’s collaborators were Jenni Adams at Uppsala University in Sweden and
Graham Ross at the University of Oxford.
Letter
If you have a pet canary that keeps pecking at its foot, slip its head
through the hole in a CD, and watch it try to peck at anything.
Surround a small goldfish bowl with CDs, shiny side in, to stop the fish from
feeling lonely, while giving them a feeling of spaciousness.
Dissolved in ethyl acetate, CDs are said to make an effective glue, but as we
old chemists say, he who acetates is lost.
Take the roof of a Volkswagen Beetle that has been cut off to make a
convertible, and line it with CDs, shiny side out: it makes a great solar
barbecue.
Four or five CDs will sort out even the wobbliest tables, while a large
group, epoxied together, make a fine paperweight.
Put through the blender, they make attractive Christmas glitter, and you can
also export them to the Amazon as lip ornaments.
If the music on the discs is rap (a rare example of a word starting with a
silent “c”), toss them in the air and bring them down with a 12-bore gun. I
thought Americans invented this one until I found out that “shooting craps” is
not at all related. Again, the remnants can then be used as Christmas
glitter.
If you ever happen to be caught up a creek without a paddle, CDs tied to a
stick make a surprisingly effective replacement.
When you are lost in a forest, nail the CDs to trees as you go, so you can
find your way back to your starting point: you’ll never be more lost than you
started out being.
If notched around the outside, CDs make effective circular saw blades for
cutting Styrofoam and balsa wood.
Glued to your shoes, CDs can make you a tap dancer. If you are unsteady on
your feet, glue them to your knees as well.
You can also make a rather effective boomerang from three CDs, but I must
remain silent on that matter till the patent claims are processed.
Letter
You can move heavy furniture over floors without scratching them by placing
CDs between the legs and the floor, and using them as sliders; you can make
lampshades with them; you can use them as unbreakable camping mirrors; you can
make trendy sunglasses out of them; you can stick loads of them together to make
a huge Smarties tube; you can use them at the Olympics if you forget your
discus; and you can throw them in the air and take photos of “flying
saucers”.
Letter
Used as a Frisbee, a single CD has a tendency to flip over and spin after
about three metres of flight. However, by placing a very thin sausage” of
Blu-tack around the edge of one and sticking another one to it, quite
satisfactory flight performance can be achieved.
This has the added advantage that it takes up two CDs, instead of just the
one. My model consists of a CompuServe and a BT Line One CD.
Letter
Contrary to Drage’s assertion, you can do things with CDs in the oven. I put
them inside a cereal bowl, nicely centred of course, and stand six more bowls on
the centre of the CD. Twenty minutes at gas mark 6 softens the plastic and the
weight of the bowls on top deforms the CD into a very nice indoor, low-speed
Frisbee.
The “hang” factor can be improved by taping over the centre hole. They do
tend to become unstable at high speed and distances over 5 metres, but are
perfect in the office.
Letter
The best thing to do with them is to tie them to pieces of string and hang
them in the garden to scare away birds.
The string should be long enough to allow the CD to twist and turn in the
slightest breeze. Even if the Sun isn’t shining, the flashes of light are
sufficient to frighten most birds away from soft fruit and peas and beans.
Letter
Hung off Xmas trees with a bit of thread attached by Sellotape, the disc
reflects fairy lights in all manner of wonderful colours, rotating gently as the
air moves.
However, I can’t find a way of cutting the discs into star shapes without
cracking the plastic鈥攁ny ideas?
Letter
I send them to my computerless brother-in-law, who uses them as reflectors on
his bicycle and tandem.
Letter
I once chopped some up to make very flashy earrings, but I never managed to
persuade anyone to wear a complete CD on each ear.
Letter
Use to them to make mobiles. My cat loves them, as sunlight gives her a
lovely set of reflections on the wall to chase.
Letter
They make very effective solar filters, but are not to be entirely
recommended for this, since the metal coating may be of uneven thickness.
They can also be used to make a cheap spectroscope. Tosh Lubek, writing in
SAGMag, the Scottish Astronomers’ Group newsletter, points out that the
closely spaced parallel lines form a crude reflection grating. He writes: “Using
a hacksaw, cut a small piece from the outside part of your least favourite CD .
. . then mount this at approximately 45 degrees to the optical axis of the
spectroscope; make some form of hood to keep out stray light . . . it will show
the major lines in the solar spectrum, and the emission lines in
streetlights.”
Letter
Marcus Chown proposes watching solar eclipses through exposed black-and-white film
(Forum, 4 April, p 51).
These days, when such film is not what most people have readily available,
looking through an ordinary CD (not the central hole, of course) should provide
the same level of protection. I have watched several eclipses this way.
Disc mania
No, you can’t turn unwanted CDs into plant pots but they do have other uses
(Feedback, 18 April).
You can sandwich them together back to back (shiny side
out) with some glue and a small piece of acetate (from the cover they come in,
say) to block the holes and use them as coasters or plate mats.
Alternatively, string them together with nylon to make a modern equivalent of
1970s bead curtains. I guess this would make up for not being able to make
1970s-style vinyl plant pots.
Count me out
Dyslexia has become accepted as a condition that afflicts some people and a
lot has been written about it. However, I have neither read nor heard anything
about a similar condition, which I call dysnumeracy, that afflicts me
mildly.
If told how many people live in a town, within seconds I will not only have
forgotten the number, but also be unable to recall if it was a number in the
thousands, ten thousands or hundred thousands. If I do remember a number, I have
a tendency to transpose the digits.
For example, I have lived in this area for almost thirty years and know that
my telephone code contains the digits 0,1,2,3 and 4 and that the first three are
013, but if asked for the code, I am as likely to quote 01324 as 01342 and
really not know which is right.
I am useless at mental arithmetic, especially if being watched, when I lose
all confidence in the possible accuracy of my answer. I failed GCE maths twice
because it was about numbers and didn’t mean anything to me. However, I passed
HNC maths with distinction, possibly because we used slide rules in those days
and the numbers were represented by lengths on the scales.
I qualified as a Chartered Engineer and know my IQ to be higher than average
so I don’t think that I am just plain stupid.
Are there people with severe dysnumeracy who, for example, are unable to read
a string of digits as a number? Is dysnumeracy a recognised condition?
Cashing in on 2000
This millennium bug thing has got out of hand. I was recently told by our
computer support company that to make my business network ready for 2000, I
would have to pay 拢7500 for a new network and software.
When I tested the system by changing the date to 29 February 2000, our
hardware passed. The only software failure was the dedicated package supplied
by鈥攜ou’ve guessed it鈥攖he same computer support company. After I
pointed this out, the company agreed to debug the offending program free of
charge, saving several thousand pounds.
I hope that other commercial network owners take a really good look at their
maintenance contracts.
Constant change
It is always satisfying to see a resurgence of the idea that universal
constants are not constant
(This Week, 28 March, p 12). Practically everything
in nature goes in cycles, so why not the so-called constants of nature too?
Ideally, such values should fall naturally out of a complete theory
describing the Universe, rather than being shoehorned in after empirical
measurements made during the rather limited time we’ve been around. Along with
many others, I cannot help feeling that if we understood a great deal more about
the internal dynamics and organisation of vacuum energy, understood as something
of a primary “source”, that many apparent complexities would fall away from
physics, leaving a far simpler and more satisfying mathematical description of
the Universe.
Letter
My home backs on to a site that was once occupied by a small farm and a
number of allotments. These have long since gone, and the land has been left
fallow for many years now. A remarkable range of trees, wild grasses and other
plants, birds, small mammals and insects live in and around the site.
Its future? Our local authority plans to bulldoze it to make way for “vitally
needed” fast food restaurants and a petrol station, among other things. As far
as I am aware no one from the authority has bothered to look at the biodiversity
of the area.