Wrinkly smokers
You state that Akimichi Morita doesn’t know whether smokers have more
wrinkles just because cigarette smoke causes increased production of MMPs in
skin cells
(15 April, p 18).
In a review of 37 years of literature on smoking stress, Irwin Stone
mentioned in 1976 the phenomenon of “smoker’s scurvy”, wherein the biochemical
stress of the toxins in tobacco smoke drastically reduces levels of vitamin C in
blood and urine.
In one cited study of 500 smokers, “[it was] found that excretion of
ascorbate in the urine was stopped by smoking 20 or more cigarettes, indicating
destruction of the body’s ascorbic acid”.
Since sufficient reserves of vitamin C are vital for collagen formation and
repair, it seems reasonable to suppose that being marginally scorbutic
contributes to smokers’ wrinkles. Not only does smoke apparently damage skin on
contact, but also, once inhaled, it impairs ability to repair the damage.
W. J. McCormick (1952) and A. Bourquin and O. P. Musmann (1953) suggested
that habitual smokers should increase their intake of ascorbic acid to offset
the problems caused by smoke-induced depletion of vitamin C in the blood.
I would suggest that the whole story of smokers’ wrinkles lies rather beyond
the behaviour of cultured skin cells.
Bubbling over
Your correspondent D. C. Ferrier’s plan to create solar-radiation-dispersal
bubbles in synchronous orbit around the Earth
(29 April, p 51),
while obviously motivated by the best of intentions, is flawed because he has ignored a basic
property of the blown bubble, as we know it.
Any (terrestrial) bubble depends for its stability, and longevity, on
maintaining a delicate equilibrium between the pressure inside the bubble, the
pressure outside the bubble, and the surface-tension characteristics of the
stuff making up the bubble.
Outside the atmosphere, any bubble constructed according to our experience on
Earth will simply continue to expand until it “pops” when its film can no longer
contain the pressure within.
Witness the analogy with hydrogen or helium-filled balloons which have a
limited lifespan as they ascend into regions of much-reduced atmospheric
pressure.
Letter
If I understand Ferrier’s idea correctly, he proposes to put bubbles at the
point where the gravitational forces of the Sun and Earth balance out.
Unfortunately, this is an unstable orbital position. Without some kind of
shepherd to keep them in place, they would begin to drift, moving faster and
faster away from the desired point. They would end up strung out in long arcs
around the Earth and the Sun.
Letter
Space reflection will be restricted by the very high cost of sending material
into orbit in the quantities required.
Initially it would be better to consider Earthbound solutions. The simplest
would be reflectors on the high plateaux largely above the carbon dioxide, such
as the Andes and Tibet.
As someone who lives in Bristol, home of hot air ballooning, I prefer the
more picturesque idea of fleets of balloons in the stratosphere, held aloft
mainly by solar warming.
Any solution would be more acceptable if it made some use of the huge
volumes of waste plastics, especially the I million tonnes per year used for
fizzy drinks bottles, that we currently burn and bury.
Clothes on fire
Feedback pours scorn on the warning on children’s clothes, “It is advisable
to keep your child away from fire…”
(15 April).
The warning is serious鈥攂ut dangerously unclear. It would have been
better to state: “These clothes could kill your child when burning if they are
made from polymer filaments (polyamides, polyesters), not from cotton or other
conventional material.”
Most of the polymers are flammable and they shrink and melt when burning,
causing them to stick to the skin. After nylon lab coats were introduced here in
Hungary, several laboratory workers were injured in fire incidents, and there
was at least one fatality. Now non-cotton lab coats are forbidden in labs using
Bunsen burners and solvents.
Hedgehog alert
Feedback regularly reports on useless advice provided by manufacturers on the
labels of their products.
However, you missed the advice given by Chris Mullin, the junior minister for
the environment, transport and the regions quoted by Tam Dalyell
(11 March, p 55).
Asked about the potential health threat posed by hedgehogs, the advice seems
to be not to handle hedgehog droppings. Ian Keymer, in the same report, says
young children in particular should refrain from handling them.
Now, as an avid amateur biologist and father myself, how do I tell my
children the difference between hedgehog droppings and anything else they may
happen to come across on the ground?
I have looked at several reference books and can find illustrations of deer,
fox, weasel and toad droppings but not a single reference or picture of hedgehog
things.
What we need here is either a poster campaign illustrating exactly what we
need to be afraid of or simply a message not to handle hedgehogs.
One in the eye
Following the letter from Low Hu Liang about amusingly named genes and gene products
(Feedback, 29 April),
I remembered a gene I read about several years ago. It is a Drosophila gene,
and replaces eyes with genital structures. Its name is “cockeyed”.
Don't shoot those monkeys
I find the attitude of British zoos and safari parks towards dealing with the
issue of people contracting the simian herpes B virus from monkeys very arrogant
(22 April, p 16).
Simply slaughtering the monkeys is not acceptable. People have taken these
monkeys away from their natural environments and so have a responsibility to
provide them with artificial environments where they can live happily. However,
the attitude seems to be that if providing this environment becomes at all
difficult or means that humans can no longer view the monkeys as easily (and
they become less profitable) then all responsibility can be shed and the monkeys
can be shot.
Many people go to zoos and safari parks to view animals they would never see
otherwise. The problem is people also like to view the animals in a sanitised
way. It is silly to think that wild animals can be taken into captivity and then
expected to behave well and be disease-free. Injury and disease are part and
parcel of a natural environment and people should be willing to accept this if
they wish to keep animals in captivity.
Still in danger
Your news story about the CITES conference just finished in Nairobi chides
those who don’t wish commercial whaling to be reopened yet by referring to
“fast-growing stocks of minke whales”
(29 April, p 6).
There is no scientific evidence that this is happening. We know very roughly
how many there are (plus or minus about 50 per cent), but not in what direction
the population is changing, if at all. The claim you cite is merely pro-whaling
propaganda, not supported by the many scientists working through the
International Whaling Commission.
The DNA technique you say was suggested by Japan was in fact successfully
developed, tested and applied by scientists working with conservation
organisations. It is ready to be used, but Japan’s officials and whalers refuse
to accept arrangements that would make its application transparent and under
international auspices. Given the long history of collusion between Soviet and
Japanese companies and authorities to conceal massive falsification of whale
meat production and trade statistics, small wonder that concerned individuals
are not willing to relax their vigilance while Japanese (and Norwegian)
authorities set up their own closed monitoring system.
As to the elephant, you cite anonymous “elephant specialists” entirely
selectively, giving the impression that all or most experts would agree that
Kenya’s claims about increased poaching are misleading. That is not so. And
anyone who knows about the problem of counting wild animals over huge areas will
take claims that “elephant populations are soaring” with a large pinch of
salt.
The fact is that they feel the need to “cull” large numbers of elephants in
South Africa not for the sake of the elephants or of their habitat, nor
primarily to prevent them killing or injuring local people, but in order to keep
the game parks neat and tidy. That has nothing to do with conservation.