Women still want babies
Sylvia Pag谩n Westphal reports that Bill Haseltine, founder of Human
Genome Sciences, believes that if women have economic and reproductive freedom,
then the human race will die out
(5 January, p 28).
This is an amazing statement from an otherwise intelligent man.
Many women in rich countries鈥攖he “have-it-all” generation鈥攕till
fight for the ability to reproduce using cutting-edge technology, of which
Haseltine is so fond. Yes, the educated and “free” woman will have fewer
children than her poor downtrodden counterparts, because the educated family’s
offspring are more likely to survive鈥攁nd become educated and successful in
turn.
All Haseltine demonstrates here is that even gifted men who have benefited
from the struggles of their parents (very often mothers) to raise them to be
confident鈥攕ometimes arrogant鈥攅nough to succeed, can have a blind
spot where the female of the species is concerned. So let’s hear it for free,
educated mothers.
Renewable argument
Angwin Marples is quite right about the problems of renewable energy being
glossed over
(12 January, p 48).
Enthusiasm for wind power, for example, is
based on optimistic predicted costs for this type of energy in its intermittent,
unstored form, which is virtually useless.
It can be stored by, say, using it to pump water into reservoirs for
hydroelectric power or to create hydrogen fuel from water鈥攂ut it then
becomes extremely expensive, both financially and environmentally.
The British Government’s “third way” is supposed to be about hard-headed
practical approaches to problems. Its energy policy, however, seems to be a mix
of political expediency, commercial propaganda, a distressingly soft-centred
“shut your eyes and hope” brand of environmentalism, and European agreements
designed to suit the Danish and German wind turbine industries.
Meanwhile energy use just grows and grows, with no real political will to
reverse the trend. When it all goes pear-shaped there will be a desperate rush
for nuclear power. Pity our children and grandchildren.
Letter
Marples is incorrect when he says, “Renewable energy . . . is impossible to
store in the enormous quantities necessary.” Innogy, an offshoot of National
Power, has taken regenerative fuel-cell technology out of the lab and scaled it
up to commercial proportions. Its Regenesys system, due to go on-stream in May
this year at Little Barford in Cambridgeshire can store 120 megawatt-hours of
electrical energy and release it at up to 15 megawatts鈥攁 sufficiently
large system to satisfy most engineers. Sufficiently large, in fact, to interest
the Tennessee Valley Authority, which has ordered a similar unit.
I should say here that I have no connection with National Power or Innogy. My
interest is simply as a local authority energy officer.
For the technically minded, the unit uses sodium polysulphide/ sodium bromide
electrolytes. These, I am told, are derived from sea water and are effectively
inexhaustible. Further details on www.regenesys.com.
As for protecting areas of natural beauty, I would be quite happy to see
Britain covered with multi-megawatt wind turbines and every town have its own
gasometer-sized electricity storage unit if that’s what it will take to get us
out of the carbon dioxide/nuclear deadlock.
Letter
Much could be done to mitigate the problem of intermittent energy sources,
since some uses of power are more urgent than others. At one extreme,
life-support machines, air traffic control systems and so on need uninterrupted
power. At the other extreme you’d hardly notice an outage of several hours in a
domestic storage heater.
Wind power suppliers could vary the price of energy inversely with the amount
currently available: windy days would mean cheap power, calm days would mean
expensive electricity. With the changing price transmitted minute by minute to
your home, you would be in a position to choose which of your devices to
run.
In practice, your electricity meter would be replaced with a small computer
that received the cost information as digital signals on the power line, and
could switch devices on and off as required. Equipment could be separated into
categories with rules like “keep running at any cost” or “switch off when the
cost rises above x pence per kilowatt-hour”.
Intelligent and informed use of power could do much to bring supply and
demand better into line with each other, and reduce the need for back-up
supplies.
Put your foot down
When I was in my twenties I worked briefly at a warehouse that had
forklift-type vehicles for transporting heavy materials. They were
battery-powered and had a single pedal for accelerating and
braking鈥攔oughly as suggested in your article
(12 January, p 16).
When drivers lifted their foot off the pedal, the braking mechanism took over and the
vehicle stopped.
However, as car drivers we were all so conditioned to using two pedals that
we often had accidents. That is, we would lift our foot off the pedal and then,
as a matter of conditioning, stamp on the same pedal again, unconsciously
treating it as a brake.
One accident was tragic. A young man made this mistake and somehow ran into
something that sheared off his feet close to his ankles.
Perhaps the habit can be overcome with intensive driving training. But it
will take time.
Letter
Those of us with two feet and driving experience have found that positioning
the left foot above (not on) the brake pedal prevents any delay. Alternatively
the racing driver’s “heel-and-toe” position works very well, with the right foot
turned to put the toe over the accelerator and the heel over the brake.
Poor drivers will always find excuses for an “accident”.
Islamic variations
Both Anselm Kuhn and Olaf Swarbrick seem to miss the point that Islam brought
about a revolution in thinking that produced the great “Muslim” scientists in
Europe’s medieval times
(12 January, p 49).
More importantly now, some Muslims will always practise deviations from
Islam鈥攁s happens in any religion. The current “cultural” treatment of
women in the Middle East is one of these. This should not be used to taint all
Muslims, or indeed Islam.
“Islam will flounder along behind the ‘West’,” says Swarbrick. Muslims may,
perhaps, but surely not Islam.
It's a sheep's life
Left to their own devices, sheep have a lifespan of over 30 years, not 13
years as stated in your report about Dolly having arthritis
(12 January, p 11).
In an interview on BBC Radio 4 a few years ago, a farmer stated that his oldest
ewe was 30 and that he had in the past bred from ewes as old as 35.
Last year the RSPCA was called out to look into the case of a “mistreated”
ram. They reported that he was in very good condition, but his fleece was a bit
tatty鈥攁t age 23. He’d done his bit for the farmer every year since he was
a lad.
Dolly is a teenager, not getting on into middle age as the article implied.
The fact that most sheep do not live to see their first birthday, and few used
for breeding get past six, is to do with farming practice, not the sheep.
Incidentally, I can’t find anyone (vets included) who can tell me how long a
chicken should live.
Reboot
I was saddened to read John Gilbey’s attitude towards his computers
(12 January, p 41).
Although their innards can undoubtedly make a significant
contribution to art, computers can be reused in a way which is much more
rewarding, useful and guilt free. I am a volunteer with a small school-based
charity called Computers For Africa, which recycles old computers and sends them
to various places in Africa.
We have helped schools, colleges and hospitals鈥攖o name but a
few鈥攊n many countries, including South Africa, Lesotho, Kenya and Malawi.
The disused computers have been donated to institutions which would otherwise
have no access to such equipment. We also have an expedition each year with
senior pupils to help set up the computers, give training and provide
longer-term support.
Hob danger
It was in the 1980s that I first became aware of a possible correlation
between electromagnetic fields and miscarriage and birth defects
(12 January, p 4).
I investigated the fields in my own home and found that the electric cooker
generated the highest local field, due to the high current within the
hotplates鈥攚hich are also at the optimum height to “irradiate” a human
fetus.
Electronics World was active in drawing attention to potential
hazards of EM fields at that time, and published my letter proposing that a
survey comparing birth defects in families with electric and gas cookers would
provide relevant information. I believe that such a survey has yet to be carried
out.
Slow up!
I can suggest a way to check anti-gravity claims
(12 January, p 24).
Einstein predicted that varying gravitational field strength would produce time dilation.
So all you need to do is place an atomic clock within the affected area, and
compare it with a similar atomic clock elsewhere.
Letter
I suspect that the explanation for the current “anti-gravity” device stems
from the same probable source of errors in tests on earlier devices. Most
likely, there are alternating electrical fields or mechanical stimuli affecting
the measuring device being used. Failure to take this into account results in
the belief that the device is showing a real and measurable anti-gravity
effect.
Handbagged
Feedback reports how BBC security staff were told not to open bags or put
their hands inside
(12 January).
I was in the Territorial Army a few years back
and we were trained along the same lines. We were told that it wasn’t a good
idea to manually search people’s bags as we didn’t know what might be
inside鈥攔azor blades, broken glass or used tampons, for example鈥攁ll
of which had been encountered by our armed forces in trouble spots such as
Northern Ireland. Neither was it thought prudent to open bags, as they might be
booby-trapped.
Birds of a feather
Are you sure the two budgies in the picture are chatting each other up
(12 January, p 22)?
They both have the characteristic blue patch on the upper part
of their bills which indicates they are male. Females have a brown patch.
Boom industry
Duncan Graham-Rowe reports that exploding silicon chips could be used to
crack down on mobile phone threats
(19 January, p 18).
Many of us electronics engineers have been able to achieve exploding silicon chips for
many years. Until now, however, no one had ever suggested that this might be desirable.