Credit where it's due
I would like to inform your readers that the fibre-optic probe and the data
analysis equipment which have made it possible to produce a low-cost, high-spec
oxygen sensor (This Week, 30 May, p 17) were invented by scientists funded by
the Cancer Research Campaign (CRC) at the Gray Laboratories Cancer Research
Trust.
The invention was patented by CRC Technology, the technology transfer company
of the Cancer Research Campaign, and licensed to Oxford Optronix. Oxford
Optronix is making and selling the equipment as the OxyLite system, which has
already generated a lot of interest in the scientific and clinical communities.
The further clinical development of the oxygen sensor is also being funded by
the Cancer Research Campaign.
As you will appreciate, it is important for research charities like the
Cancer Research Campaign to be accurately acknowledged for the advances that are
generated through their charitable funding.
Genes and Gaia
It is good to see the debate over Gaia progressing (Letters, 27 June, p 52,)
(and 11 July, p 57) after a wasteful period of polarisation. Indeed, I think
there is already common ground between “Gaians” and Neo-Darwinists.
Both Bill Hamilton and James Lovelock argue that a theory that involves life
in maintaining the stability of this planet should incorporate natural
selection. I have argued that “density-dependent” ecological processes might
contribute to global stability鈥攁nd this brings in natural selection.
A process such as predation, competition or infection is density-dependent if
it increases in pressure as a species becomes abundant. The genes behind these
processes, which benefit by exploiting the abundance of other genes, may dampen
changes in the abundance of organisms鈥攁nd thereby incidentally stabilise
the abiotic environment.
For example, genes which favour animals switching between prey species (or
edible plants) in response to different foods becoming common, may increase in
numbers because of the benefits of “optimal foraging”. Likewise, genes which
reduce pathogenicity may flourish under some circumstances. Some aspects of
stability could be the accumulated result of genes benefiting from generating
local stability.
It’s possible that many such processes at a local level may interact to
induce widespread stability; this theory requires extensive exploration by
modelling.
Both Hamilton and Lovelock dismiss complexity theory, yet natural selection
has to work within this increasingly clear mathematical framework of the
Universe, just as it does within the framework of gravity and thermodynamics.
Complexity theory shows the conditions under which stability can emerge from the
interactions between entities. As such, it may be essential to build realistic
models of the webs of interactions between genes and species, and to predict the
success of genes which tend to stabilise or destabilise communities.
Tidal turbines
Fred Pearce mentions that a tidal turbine was tested as an irrigation pump on
the Nile in Sudan in the 1980s (“Catching the tide”, 20 June, p 38).
This turbine was not the end of the story: there are now at least four such
turbines in Juba, which use the energy of the current to pump irrigation water
and drinking water for displaced people’s settlements. These turbines were
developed by Thropton Energy Services and a Sudanese collaborator.
The project won the Shell Financial Times Environmental Award (
New 杏吧原创, 16 March 1991, p 28) and since manufacturing began in Sudan
in 1993, about thirty such machines have been commissioned to pump water and/or
generate electricity. They are in demand as a replacement for diesel pumps.
Securely blank
Talking of intentionally blank pages (Letters, 4 July, p 54), NatWest
Business Card holders receive statements that include blank pages captioned:
“Blank pages inserted in the interests of security and confidentiality” between
monthly statements and the company summary.
I have yet to work out exactly how these sheets of paper work.
Artist's millennium
Thank you for your congratulations (Feedback, 18 July). Mark Reddy has always
enjoyed working for New 杏吧原创 and appreciates the support you have
given him over the past years.
However, as Reddy’s agent, I can assure you that the artwork he produced for
the Millennium logo was not the same piece of work that you used on the front
cover of New 杏吧原创 on 29 June 1996. It is a new and original piece
of work, produced earlier this year.
Druid's millennium
My father, Mike Mannering, has an alternative explanation for Stonehenge:
that it was an early Neolithic version of the Millennium Project.
This would explain the lack of knowledge of its early history (clearly it was
such a disaster people just wanted to forget about it), its impossibly bad
transport links and its use of construction materials from an unfeasibly distant
source (government purchasing departments have been around for longer than we
realise).
It was undoubtedly managed by a distant ancestor of Peter Mandelson,
Britain’s minister without portfolio and the promoter of Britain’s Millennium
Dome.
Too many axles?
I became interested in the problem of axle weights and “beastly behemoths” in
connection with my work (This Week, 11 July, p 20).
We had a weighbridge which for over twenty years weighed vehicles up to 25
tonnes gross, with two and three axles. The approach
to the weighbridge was partially concrete and partially tarmac, and remained
virtually undamaged over the years.
When the maximum weight of lorries was raised to 38 tonnes, we fitted a
modern bridge capable of handling the longest and heaviest lorries. At one end
the original concrete apron was left intact.
The introduction of the 38-tonne limit meant that a third trailing axle was
added to the articulated trailers to keep down the axle weights. When these
lorries began using our weighbridge, the surface of our approach apron
disintegrated within weeks.
The damage was produced not by the axle weight, but because the articulated
trucks had to turn through about 25 degrees coming on and off the bridge. The
twisting action of the three axle bogies was fierce, literally grinding the
surface away. So having three axles in a row is far worse than having a
single axle bearing a greater weight.
Having seen the damage these lorries were causing, I wrote to the Ministry of
Transport and had a very frank letter back. The writer admitted the damage
caused by the triple axle vehicles. I dearly wish I had that letter now.
Letter
New Zealanders seem to suffer the same fate in having no adjective.
The word New Zealand has developed as a modifier鈥擭ew Zealand lamb is
quite acceptable (grammatically and edibly)鈥攂ut whereas English lamb is
English and Australian lamb is Australian, New Zealand lamb is certainly not New
Zealand (but maybe New Zealand is lamb?).
Are there any other countries that do not have an adjective?
Letter
On the question of insectival adjectives: being a member of the clergy, I
favour insectarian.
From the OED's mouth
“Insectile” is not now as rare as the Oxford English Dictionary
implies (Letters, 18 July, p 56). Our quotation database shows it used in
The New York Review of Books (1995), Harper’s Magazine
(1994) and Cage & Aviary Birds (1993), as well as in several
novels. We shall amend the entry accordingly in the third edition of the
OED.
It is true that “insect” itself can be used as an adjective in most
situations, though one would hardly say “an animal of very insect appearance”: a
word like “insectile” or “insectoid” is preferable there.
Spell it out
You recently mentioned that a special symbol is being devised for the euro
currency unit (Feedback, 16 May) (and 6 June). This is an unfortunate and perverse
waste of time, liable to cause much inconvenience.
Nowadays bankers use three-letter combinations as currency symbols, such GBP
for pounds sterling. This has the advantage that every currency on Earth has an
internationally accepted symbol, that there is no need for symbols such as
$ or 拢, and that, for example, Canadian dollars (CAD) are
unambiguously distinguished from US dollars (USD).
No doubt there already is such a symbol for the euro. It would greatly help
if it and other three-letter symbols were widely used.
Leeds Flyer
When it comes to replicas of the Wright Flyer (Feedback, May 30,)
(and Letters, 4 July, p 53), I am aware of another full-scale version.
It was built by the staff of an RAF base near Leeds during the 1940s and
still exists鈥攊t can be seen hanging from the ceiling of the old Corn
Exchange in Leeds. Whether it was ever successfully flown I do not know.
Longer than long
Feedback wondered if
http://llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.co.uk/
really does have the longest domain name on the Web.
The website http://www.ntk.net/longerthanthis/ originally listed only
two longer entries,
www.do.you.think.really.that.we.created.that.host.only.for.fun.horus.ch and
www.a.b.c.d.e.f.g.h.i.j.k.l.m.n.o.p.q.r.s.t.u.v.w.x.y.z.internexus.net.
However, a later issue of NTK includes
http://www.do.you.really.think.that.this.is.the.longest.url.that.you.can.
find.huh.no.I.do.not.think.so.ein.cz and adds: “This correspondence is now
closed. We hope.”
But this in turn was followed by http://listen.the.longest.host.name.you.can.
have.is.255.characters.or.twohundredfiftyfive.if.you.want.to.see.it.in.its.full.glory.
therefore.the.longest.url.better.start.with.a.host.name.which.is.precisely.two.hundred.
fifty.five.characters.long.ok.666.assurdo.com/my.url.is.longer.than.yours
The site concludes that these “are positively the last we have to say on this
matter”.
Poison, British style
Jeff Howell’s statement that “the pesticides [permethrin] are water based and
hence less volatile” (Forum, 4 July, p 49) is inaccurate. The vapour pressure of
permethrin is constant whether it is in an organic solvent or in a water-based
emulsion.
The levels of permethrin in the air are extremely low even within two to
three hours after a spray-applied treatment. This is not surprising given the
material’s low vapour pressure.
The levels of permethrin in the air after spraying were obtained from a
number of tests in a variety of buildings, not laboratory simulations. It is
these data on which the independent Advisory Committee on Pesticides bases its
judgment for the use, precautions, restrictions and re-entry times for timber
preservatives.
The 250 cases of suspected permethrin poisoning in Germany are certainly not
reflected in Britain.
Letter
Make the Internet work for you is the title of a booklet from the
Yellow Pages that I received recently. Apparently it’s posted to everyone who
responded to the offer of a free home page at the Yellow Pages website.
On page 3, it recommends that potential Web surfers use a computer “with at
least 16K of RAM”, and as for modems “the minimum to go for is a 28.8 bps,
although a 33.3 or 56 will be better”.
Was it a slip-up, or is BT, which owns the Yellow Pages, hoping for a
thousand-fold increase in connection times to boost its profits?
Letter
“If you surf the Net, install a second line at half price,” runs the BT
promotion. But if there are no spare circuits in your street, BT will “DAX” your
line, which involves fitting a box that squeezes two lines onto one pair of
wires by using two carrier frequencies.
However, my BT engineer was honest enough to tell me that DAX supports modem
speeds only up to 14.4 kilobits per second (kbps) on either line. Some
surfing!
I cancelled the second line. Other modem users, take note.
What's up, BT?
Britain’s biggest phone company has taken to cold calling customers to
encourage them to take on extra services. Part of this procedure is to ask the
customer their name and their postcode “for security reasons”. This is not very
good practice, as I’m sure there are a number of con tricks people could do by
pretending to be BT sales people and asking people questions.
For example, they could phone up unsuspecting house owners, get their name
and postcode and, using a postal code CD-ROM, work out their address. As they
possess the phone number and the address, they can now simply phone up before
coming round to burgle.
BT should be educating people never to give out important information over
the phone. Instead they are encouraging them. Good practice for a
telecommunications company?
A lukewarm start
After reading about Stanley Miller and Matthew Levy’s claim that life evolved
in the cold (This Week, 11 July, p 10), I was left perplexed as to why it is
assumed that life originated in either hot or cold climates.
In general, biological activity does not occur at either of these two
extremes but somewhere in the middle. It would make much more sense if the first
organisms evolved at a moderate temperature, say between 15 掳C and 45
掳颁.
This temperature range would certainly have been certainly found near
undersea volcanic vents.
Eat up your dirt
I was very interested in your article on the possible dangers of excessive
hygiene (“Let them eat dirt”, 18 July, p 26).
As a child I remember being told by my mother that “you have to eat a peck of
dirt before you die”, a peck being two gallons.
Is this another case of scientists catching up with what has been common
knowledge for generations?
All in the mind
Congratulations on drawing attention to the study which indicates that the
placebo effect of antidepressant drugs may be greater than previously assumed
(Editorial, 11 July, p 3).
As you pointed out, the evidence was correlational in nature and open to
other interpretations. I would therefore be intrigued to see the results of a
study which included, as well as an active antidepressant and an inactive
placebo, a placebo which mimicked the side effects of Prozac. This would test
more directly how much the conviction that one is on active medication
influences recovery in depression owing to “giveaway” side effects.
While a full account of depression must be incomplete unless it incorporates
neurochemical information, it is becoming increasingly clear that depression,
along with other psychiatric disorders, is maintained by processes that are
better explained at the psychological than the neurochemical level.
Innocent algae
John Gribbin is mistaken when he says those who want to encourage algal
growth to reduce global warming have missed something (Letters, 18 July, p 54).
His statement that algal blooms warm the oceans is the reverse of what really
happens.
Photosynthesis begins with the absorption of sunlight. This energy is
eventually stored in the chemical bonds in glucose and starch, which the algae
build up from carbon dioxide and water. The energy is released鈥攁nd is
therefore able to heat the oceans鈥攐nly when glucose or starch is broken
down.
If anything, algal blooms cool the oceans, as the incoming sunlight would
otherwise almost certainly have been absorbed by the water. The sunlight is
there anyway鈥攖he algae merely use it.
Photosynthesis involves only a very small percentage of the total light
energy reaching the ocean surface. Of that tiny proportion, most is converted
into chemical energy. Though there is a little wastage, it is unlikely to be
enough to have any significant effect on the surrounding seawater鈥擡d
Too old to teach?
Your comments on the shortage of maths and science teachers are misleading
(Appointments, 27 June, p 55).
For many years, it has been virtually impossible for a maths teacher over 40
to obtain employment in Britain. From 1991 to 1993 I made 280 unsuccessful
applications and from 1995 to 1996 I made 120 unsuccessful applications, in
spite of having excellent experience and qualifications.
The Middle East is full of superannuated teachers of maths and physics who
would gladly return to Britain if jobs were available.
In touch
Your editorial “Men in white” (4 July, p 3) suggests that the letters U, F
and O cause people to lose their critical faculties.
I couldn’t agree more. As a scientist with whom extraterrestrials are in
telepathic contact, I find it impossible to have a rational conversation with
anyone on the subject. All you get is corny jokes and macho bluster.