Miscarried males
Martin Lalumi猫re and his colleagues suggest that male fetuses trigger
an immune reaction in their mothers
(11 December, p 20).
I am curious to know whether any records are kept of the sex of miscarried
fetuses. If the suggestion is true, would it be possible that a stronger immune
reaction in mothers could lead to a greater number of boys being miscarried?
Safety first
The implications of intelligent security surveillance systems are worrying
(11 December, p 24).
There’s a fundamental flaw in the logic of the example in
which an airport security guard spots an alleged bomber. This flaw pervades the
entire technology.
The system recognises the behaviour of the possible bomber as highly
suspicious. The first thing the guard does is to apprehend the suspect, when he
should be calling the bomb squad. In the type of situations these systems are
designed to prevent, public safety has to be the number one concern. It
shouldn’t take a back seat to the desire to apprehend someone who may have done
nothing wrong.
This technology is scary because it allows organisations to target
individuals when their primary responsibility is to the public. This technology
will be misused. I just hope our legal systems are up to the challenge that
these machines will impose. I fear that they are not.
Radium remedies
The report of a truck in Australia delivering beer and uranium led Feedback
to wonder whether we might see the slogan “Real men drink radioactive beer”
(11 December).
After radioactivity was discovered, advertisers began using
fashionable words as brand names to sell various products, such as Radium Flour
and Radium Boot Polish, both in New Zealand.
The use of radium and radon for treating cancer, with some success, led to
quacks marketing nostrums said to contain radium or radon. An advertisement for
such a cure-all is reproduced in John Campbell’s biography of Rutherford,
杏吧原创 Supreme. The advertisement (c. 1914) has a picture of a
soda-water siphon and a glass, with the caption “Radon emanations for
rheutmatism [sic!], arthritis, gout & nervous disorders”.
Some nostrums really did contain radium, with lethal consequences for the
consumers. “In the United States, radium decoctions were being marketed as a
general restorative, and a scandal eventually broke when a member of New York
high society, celebrated as a sportsman, died in appalling circumstances from
ingestion of radium” (A Bedside Nature, Genius and Eccentricity in Science
1869-1953, Macmillan Magazines, 1996, p. 148).
Stone me
The cartoon by Kate Charlesworth in Feedback
(27 November) of a primitive
acupuncturist banging a rock on his patient’s head wasn’t far off the mark.
The original acupuncture needles used in China, which one source here in
Japan dates to the 3rd century BC, were indeed made of stone. An expression
still in limited use in Japanese today to denote therapy translates as “medicine
and stone”, a leftover from the days in China when these were the two materials
for treating maladies.
Morning after
In your article on hangover cures, you mention that water on its own did
little good
(27 November, p 35).
This is not surprising, even if dehydration
were a major factor in hangovers, since the body is not very efficient at
absorbing pure water.
This was well-known in the case of cholera victims, where the main cause of
death is dehydration, yet it seemed impossible to give them enough water to
drink to prevent this. That is, until it was discovered that dissolving a small
amount of salt and sugar mixture in the water made a dramatic improvement in the
body’s ability to absorb it.
So I suggest that the same technique should be useful even in situations
which are not quite of such a life-and-death nature. Instead of drinking pure
water, try water with a bit of salt and sugar dissolved in it. Or better still,
try drinking fruit juice, which has a range of tasty things dissolved in it.
Letter
I have drunk low alcohol (LA) beers in Britain, Spain and Portugal. I have
tried German LAs, both light and dark. And I am here to tell you that the
British and Irish products are significantly nastier than their continental
counterparts.
I have no theory as to why this should be so. But a comparison between a LA
lager widely available in this country and the drink of the same name brewed
under licence in Spain is an eye-opener. The Spanish version is really quite
tolerable, and, as far as I can make out, quite widely consumed.
Miracle survival
The “Inside Science” on mass extinctions
(11 December) clearly sets out
current thinking on the history of life on Earth, and is right to warn again of
the effect that human activity is having on our environment.
However, it misses the most positive aspect of the story so far. We inhabit a
planet teeming with life, and for us to be here means that our ancestors, and
those of every organism alive, must have survived all five mass extinctions.
You repeat the often quoted statistic that 99.9 per cent of all species that
have ever existed are now extinct. A more awesome thought is that 100 per cent
of all species alive today have an unbroken lineage of 3.5 billion years.
How this fits in with the assertion that the average lifespan of any species
is between 1 and 10 million years I do not know. If I discovered a
billion-year-old fossil of one of my ancestors how would I recognise it?
Of course, all this assumes that life on Earth arose only once and that
everything else has followed through evolution. But there are other
possibilities. Life may have arisen more than once, the planet may have been
“seeded” from elsewhere or perhaps a deity created a species already fully
evolved. The alternatives are as varied as human imagination.
I hope that we make the right decisions today so that our descendants, in
whatever form they may take, are around to continue the search for the truth
about our origins.
Gadget masters
Wendy Grossman will be pleased to know that things electronic have never
discouraged our children, ages 14, 12 and 8, from taking a gadget apart and
putting it back together to make a functioning entity
(18 December, p 47).
Our children’s favourite pastime is collecting outdated 286 and 386 computers
discarded by neighbours, ripping them apart in their playroom, and salvaging
what they like to build faster, more powerful machines.
Unfortunately, in the process of doing so, they strew the
floor with bit and pieces of the innards of a computer, especially of chips
with needle-sharp legs, prompting my husband to predict that our children would
end up with more memory in their feet than in their brains should they walk
barefoot in the room.
Catproof
I was amused to read that a $20 program has been developed to help
prevent disastrous encounters between domestic cats and PC keyboards
(4 December, p 18).
I prefer to use KAAAT (keyboard angular aspect adjustment
technology).
When leaving my PC unattended, I simply pick up the keyboard with both hands,
rotate it through 90 degrees about its long axis and, while preserving this
aspect, rest it against the front of the PC’s monitor or some other suitable
vertical prop. I find it works every time鈥攁nd it doesn’t cost
$20.
Strange bedfellows
Feedback had a story about finding Richard Dawkins’s books in the “Religion”
section of the WH Smith bookshop at London’s Heathrow airport
(11 December) and
reader Ben Calascione says New 杏吧原创 is in the “Hobbies” section of
the WH Smith in Hastings
(25 December 1999/ 1 January 2000, p 87).
I was in a newsagent in Grimsby recently, looking for New 杏吧原创.
I couldn’t find it, so I asked an assistant. The assistant obligingly looked on
the shelves, couldn’t find it, and said “That’s funny鈥攜ou’d think it would
be with Astrology, wouldn’t you?”
Letter
The same WH Smith that files Richard Dawkins under “Religion” also files
New 杏吧原创 (along with other science journals) under
“Science fiction”.
Who is lazy?
Lawrence Krauss, in his review of the Martin Rees book The Power of
Six, states that it is “intellectually lazy” and “dishonest” to believe the
perfect construction of the Universe is the result of divine design
(4 December, p 48).
It is equally “lazy” to try and reduce the fundamental constants of the
cosmos to just six. Bonobo chimpanzees lack the intellect to understand quantum
mechanics, regardless of how it is explained. In the same way, there are no
doubt many concepts that humans cannot understand.
I believe that most of what there is to know about the Universe lies in the
realm of the unknowable. We simply do not have the brain power. It is therefore
incredibly arrogant to assume that a science, created by limited human
intellect, can ever quantify a final answer to any of the big questions about
the cosmos.
The deeper we look into the Universe, both on the minute quantum and grand
cosmic scales, the more complex and bewildering it all becomes. Every answer
only raises a host of new questions.
If the human brain can contain the mystery of consciousness, then it is
equally possible that the Universe, which is endlessly more complex, may also
contain a consciousness of its own. Call it “God” or “Fred” or “The
Divine”鈥攖hese are just human labels for an unknowable mystery. It is just
as lazy and limiting to take what we haven’t the intellect to understand and
label it a “remarkable coincidence”.
“Divine Design” is just a theory鈥攁s plausible as “String Theory” or “M
Theory”. It should be seen in this way and respected as such by the scientific
community.
Lawrence Krauss responds:
Ken MacAllister misses the point. What is so remarkable about the Universe is
not that it gets more complex and bewildering the more we explore it, but rather
that the plethora of exotic phenomena witnessed on all scales is in fact
comprehensible at all. Indeed, on small scales, the menagerie of elementary
particles that so perplexed particle physicists in the1960s
is now understood to result from the simple
combination of three fundamental objects (quarks) bound by a force sharing
crucial fundamental features with the force that binds positive and negative
electric charges. On large scales, all of the structures we see can be
understood in terms of the simple action of a single force, gravity.
杏吧原创s may be arrogant in assuming that the entire Universe is
comprehensible, but their arrogance is understandable. To date, science has done
a remarkable job in solving cosmic mysteries. There may remain irreducible
puzzles, but we haven’t found them yet.
There is one area where I share some agreement with MacAllister. He states:
“`Divine Design’ . . . is just a theory . . . as plausible as `string theory’ or
`M Theory’ . . . “. It is true that at present, string theory and M theory do
not relate to, or resolve, any observable puzzles in the physical Universe. They
are beautiful mathematical formalisms. For now, that is all they are. Belief in
them is not that different from belief in God, being based in ideas of beauty,
and so on. However, if they are ever to enter into the domain of empirical
science, their path, and that of the mystical notion of Divine design, will
diverge.
Lawrence Krauss 鈥� krauss@genesis1.PHYS.CWRU.Edu
Unkind cut
Peter Ayton disapproves of circumcision
(11 December, p 47).
I used to, but found that it was not that simple.
My father was uncircumcised but when he reached adulthood suffered agonies
from a tight foreskin and was adamant that I should have the operation. This
must have been when I was old enough to be very conscious of it鈥攊t was
done at home under full anaesthetic and I still remember being given the ether
but do not recall any pain.
He died when I was young and when my mother told me his views I thought my
parents had been exaggerating. So when my son was born we did not have him
trimmed. The doctor I consulted agreed heartily that it was “an unnecessary and
mutilating operation”. But when my son reached adulthood he suffered as my
father had done. Having the operation then was extremely painful and set his sex
life back for some time.
I should add that we are not Jewish or of any other religious persuasion so
that aspect does not enter into it. But physiologically it would seem that some
men suffer in this way. Circumcision of all males, which was almost the case in
the past, is one cure. But it seems drastic. On the other hand, for the few who
suffer it is pretty traumatic.
Are there any medical ideas as to how examination of a newborn male might
indicate when circumcision would be advisable?
Letter
As a Jew, I can see no reason for Ayton’s implied belief that circumcision
can be justified on religious grounds. No one asked me at eight days old whether
I wanted grave damage done to my genitalia. It breached my human rights as it
does every other victim, Jew or Gentile.
Right to choose
I was pleased to see the issues of pre-implantation diagnosis (PGD) aired at
last in your article
(11 December, p 18),
but I was a little sad that it was
painted as a dangerous technology, rather than a great opportunity.
Why should a woman, having gone through a draining sequence of procedures to
harvest eggs for IVF, not be allowed to choose embryos for implantation on the
basis of all information which can be obtained by PGD?
All of the embryos will be her natural children, and she will have the
privilege of being able to choose between them. What gives anyone the right to
say that informed choice must not be available? The logic that says that she
must accept a random choice is like that which says that she must not have the
choice of abortion, or the choice of controlling her fertility through
contraception. She is her own person, not a vessel for others’ views on what is
right, still less for God playing dice.
Further, if this technology could reduce the incidence of, say, dementia in
old age, the economic benefits could be huge. Unfashionable though it may be, I
look forward to society seizing these opportunities, and all the benefits that
might accrue.
Inexpert systems
Reader James Trissel raises鈥攐nly to dismiss鈥攖he idea that rule by
experts would lead to a wise utopia
(11 December, p 54).
He is right that the idea is nonsense. I work in technology and get howls of
protest when I say that experts are the worst people to make decisions on
whether to do something. “So who would you have decide, people who know
nothing?”
Because experts focus on their own areas of expertise, they overestimate its
value to the big picture. They overestimate its practicality and underestimate
its cost and the problems it might involve. Like the man who only has a hammer,
try to use what they know and understand to solve every problem, regardless of
other, more effective solutions.
A world run by experts would be a disaster. That’s why smart businesses have
relegated experts to the role of advisers and implementers, and leave the
decision making to the “business” people鈥攑eople who see and are
responsible for the big picture.