Colour of pee
Andy Coghlan describes a chart which estimates a person’s level of
dehydration by evaluating urine colour
(16 June, p 10).
I have practised this
procedure since about 1974, because I had a problem with water retention in
tissues that related to migraine. My system compares seven grades of shading
from “clear” to “dark”.
I’ve found that colour and volume is a good guide to waterlogging or
dehydration, but there are certain things to beware of. Colour can be misleading
if you eat foods high in vitamin B. Wheatgerm or yeast extracts, for example,
give a strong yellow tinge. Beetroot, which may be concealed in pickles, gives a
deep orange to reddish tinge. Asparagus gives a green tinge and strong smell.
Experience is the key.
Another factor to take into account is the body’s ability to adjust to
ambient conditions, retaining a higher water content in hot weather, and
shedding some of this when temperatures fall. So caution is required in
interpreting colour, volume and smell, and I think trends should be noted over
24-hour periods, rather than relying on spot observations.
Anti-US bias?
Your correspondent David Yates is clearly frustrated over his preferred US
presidential candidate’s inability to accomplish a blessed thing since he took
the reins in the 2000 coup, other than to recast the US as the village idiot of
the global community
(30 June, p 58).
“Virulent attacks” and “anti-US bias”?
Rather, rightful criticism from New 杏吧原创 following the insults
that the Bush administration has heaved at the nation’s ostensible allies and friends.
That said, Yates’s rant may be distilled to a single point that is unique to
Americans, but not common to all of us鈥攖hat a statement of principles is
worthless if not accompanied by the organised means to verify obedience and
punish transgressors of the stated norms. This is ludicrous, particularly when
one acknowledges that Yates would rail against a more powerful world government
being granted these powers.
Throughout modern history, there are clear examples of the power of
unenforceable international norms to create change鈥攆rom the prohibition of
slavery to the end of colonialism, and the understanding that it is unethical to
hunt cetaceans into extinction. The fact that the US should turn its back on
existing or arising military and environmental norms naturally should give us
pause. Of course there will always be cheats, but the benefits of joining and
remaining in the society of “civilised” states outweigh the potential gains to
be had by opting out or by cheating and getting caught.
Yates may question the validity of this last statement, but his response to
New 杏吧原创’s editorial confirms it. Your magazine, along with
numerous other respected members of the European press, has made it clear that
the go-it-alone Bush administration is in danger of excluding the US from this
society (and has already lost it important posts at the UN). Yates’s petulant
rage is the same as that of the child left unpicked for the game by the other
youngsters on the playground.
Wall of water
Your article on rogue waves brought back some memories
(30 June, p 28).
During the inquest into the 1998 Sydney to Hobart yacht race, a helicopter pilot
gave evidence of a wave he and his crew faced during a mission to rescue a
stricken sailor. In his story he tells of being 102 feet above the sea when he
saw a wall of water approaching. The crest missed his skids by just 6 inches.
His aircraft was fitted with the latest altimeter and was tested to be accurate
to within millimetres.
Unfortunately, at the time one of the rescuers was in the water and this poor
fellow nearly drowned as he was dragged through the monster. I would like to
suggest that this is the largest wave ever recorded by a human.
Drug shuttles
I was very encouraged to read your report about deploying a patient’s own red
blood cells as shuttles for delivering drugs, and applying ultrasound waves to
release the drugs at just the required spot in the body
(30 June, p 22).
Readers interested in this story might like to know that, along with my
colleagues Bridget Bax and Murray Bain, I have been using a very similar
technique to treat patients, with some success, at the Paediatric Metabolism
Unit at St George’s Hospital Medical School in London. To my knowledge, we are
the only group worldwide to have successfully commandeered red blood cells as
drug or enzyme carriers for treating human disease in a real, clinical
situation.
The major difference between our technique and that reported is the use of
ultrasound to release the drug. But we’ve had good results using loaded red
blood cells to correct hereditary enzyme deficiencies that damage metabolism or
immunity. We’ve had particular success over the past three years in treating a
patient with severe combined immunodeficiency. Patients with this condition have
virtually no immunity because they can’t make an enzyme called adenosine
deaminase. We rectified this by supplying it in the patient’s own red blood
cells.
We load the enzyme using dialysis techniques not unlike those used by Gendel,
the company reported in your piece. We also think our existing techniques can be
applied in other enzyme-deficiency diseases, such as the so-called “lysosomal
storage disorders” where patients lack the enzymes to get rid of cellular waste
properly. Gendel’s extension of this technology to offer the potential of
breaking open the loaded cells with ultrasound is a welcome extension of our own
technology, and it will be interesting to see how it fares in the clinic.
Music to the udder
We frequently took family holidays on small farms in the 1950s. I remember
several farmers who deliberately chose the tempo of the music played to cows,
with identical results to those you reported (30 June, p12). Written records for
each cow recorded the increase (or decrease) in milk yields.
Letter
Old McDonald does not need psychologists to carry out research to tell him
that music (or a soothing human voice) increases production.
I have known that since I was Young McDonald鈥攁nd so have most
farmers.
Motorists' tax back
I read with great interest the interview with Phil Goodwin on charging
motorists in city centres
(9 June, p 40).
The best idea may be to charge a fee or tax which is given back to each
motorist by way of public transport vouchers鈥攁nd at full value, so a
拢1 tax would equal a 拢1 voucher. This would encourage motorists to
change their habits, and use “nil cost” public transport once they have been
taxed. Then changing habits and ditching the car for public transport won’t cost
any more.
Aid to public transport is direct, with minimum bureaucracy, and potentially
100 per cent of value is transferred, which would encourage privately funded
public transport to perform better. A little seed money from the government
would be needed to oil the wheels, but relatively little.
Global regulators
I am startled that Fred Pearce essentially ignores the microbial biosphere as
the site of the overriding respirers and putrefiers that must do most of the
work of unfixing the carbon accumulated by plants
(16 June, p 30).
I do not know of any calculations, but the microbes must vastly outweigh the
animals (and indeed participate in animals’ digestion).
Titanium in space
Reading the article on titanium extraction
(30 June, p 44), I was very
impressed that this method could allow titanium to be mass-produced.
Interestingly, it generates oxygen as a by-product. Could this process be
used to produce building materials and oxygen on future missions to Mars or
other planets? It would certainly be a novel use of the technology, which would
save on payload and therefore cut costs.
Men and fridges
Recent correspondence has explored ways, some high-tech, some just ingenious,
to tell if the light in the fridge goes out when you shut the door
(16 June, p 55).
I mentioned this to my wife and daughter, one a nurse and the other a
trainee physician: they burst out laughing.
“It’s easy to tell,” they said. “You put out your finger and press the switch
inside the fridge door frame.” I had to admit to them that almost all the
correspondents had been male.
Letter
It shouldn’t be necessary to go to the lengths of Sean Langley and colleagues
and actually get inside the fridge
(7 July, p 57).
The light switch of the
fridge will operate before the door is fully closed, so it is possible to see
that the light goes out before the door closes completely.
I suppose, though, that you can’t prove that the light doesn’t come on again
once the door has closed鈥�
Stink bombs
In one of those happy coincidences that life provides, shortly after I had
read your article about the development of a “stink bomb”
(7 July, p 42),
I turned to one of Isaac Asimov’s short stories, “Prince Delightful and the
Flameless Dragon” from Magic, The final fantasy collection (currently
out of print). This story describes how just such a weapon enabled a single
fighter to overcome an entire army. He described it as “a vast cloud of turbid,
putrid gas”, with the soldiers “concerned only to get away from the incredibly
foul odour”.
The only significant difference between this and the method devised by Pam
Dalton is that Asimov used a Bronx-speaking dragon to produce the pong.
Together we can save the world
I like Aubrey Meyer’s plan for everyone to cut their own greenhouse
emissions
(7 July, p 46).
But how do I reduce my fossil fuel use to 0.4 tonnes of carbon per year or less?
I suspect there are lots of people who are concerned about global warming,
but don’t do anything about it. Other than getting frustrated at the inability
of governments worldwide to do something about it, that is. For example, I know
I should walk to the shops instead of driving, but in reality I’m running late,
so I drive anyway. If I could work out how much carbon that decision sacrificed
I might be motivated to plan things a bit better.
I would like access to some sort of instructions on how I can reduce the
emissions I am responsible for to less than 0.4 tonnes per year, along the lines
of a diet sheet. This way anyone concerned about global warming and government
inaction could take a small step in the right direction, by budgeting their car
use, for example, according to individual guidelines.
An accurate assessment of carbon production from everyday activities might be
impossible to work out, but a general estimate would be better than nothing.