Letter
Nominative determinism was clearly at work in Ava Chase’s study showing that
carp distinguish between classical music and blues
(19 January, p 24). Surely
it’s no accident that the fish recognised blues tunes by John Lee Hooker and
Muddy Waters?
Corrections
In the feature on counterfeiting, the number of polymer
banknotes in circulation was mistakenly stated to be 100 billion
(19 January, p 36).
This number of course refers to the total number of banknotes in
circulation, 3 billion of which are polymer-based.
Also, the sole author of Distant Wanderers
(reviewed 2 February, p 46)
is Bruce Dorminey.
Name games
Reading your item about Keith Huggett and friends
(Feedback, 2 February)
reminded me of a similar situation that existed in the World Health
Organization. A group of malaria specialists in the 1970s and 80s caused some
hilarity when they published papers together, but sadly they never attained the
ultimate combination of Bang, Grab, Pull, Pant and Payne.
Blowing ice bubbles
I am glad others have considered blowing soap bubbles in really cold weather
(22/29 December, p 54). Here is my advice.
The bubble mixture must be hot and kept in a thermos. A pipe cleaner makes a
good wand, although other materials may be as good. At above 鈭�25 掳C, the
tops of the freezing bubbles will burst off and slide to the ground with a swift
rocking motion proportional to their size. Those that hit the ice will
fracture.
Between 鈭�28 and 鈭�35 掳C it’s a different, almost magical story. Bubbles
blown with a quick “huff” of breath freeze visibly and instantly. They will then
descend slowly, halt and gain height quite swiftly. The vast majority will
increase their height. I assume that the lack of pressure due to the difference
in initial temperature is responsible for this effect. As the bubble freezes,
the interior continues cooling and the pressure drops, so it rises.
Catching these frozen bubbles is near impossible, as they are fragile in the
extreme. Most implode with a high-pitched, and almost musical, tinkle. Enchanting
magic if one can hear it, and there is one final certainty: no one who has done this
would not be impressed by the beauty of their colours.
Still pretty fast
Steve Adams’s “Inside Science” on the speed of light piqued my interest by
suggesting that the velocity of light could be slowed and even stopped
(19 January).
However, the article did not concisely explain how this process
occurred. When I examined a referenced article by Lene Vestergaard Hau, it
became apparent to me that the velocity of light was not changed. Instead the
velocity of signal transfer that was encoded on a laser beam was slowed when it
encountered a Bose-Einstein condensate cloud of ultracooled sodium atoms.
The photon always travels at a velocity of 299,792,458 metres per second
while it is crossing the space between the atoms. It is the encoded signal velocity
that has been slowed or stopped in the condensate cloud, not light.
Letter
A free for all on the Web may sound splendid but someone, somewhere has to do
the original work.
As a specialist medical and health writer who spends hours and sometimes days
researching and writing features, how am I and my colleagues going to exist? The
virtuous and warm feeling of having broadcast an excellent and informative piece
will not pay the electricity or grocery bill.
Sleeping spells
After reading the advice to imagine a waterfall to get to sleep
(26 January, p 17),
I am moved to offer my own foolproof soporific, gleaned from the Home
Truths programme on BBC Radio 4. Some time ago it included an item on
insomnia, during which a young man rather sheepishly (no pun intended) admitted
to using his childhood tapes of Alan Bennett reading Winnie-the-Pooh.
At the time I was suffering from insomnia, and thought, yes, those whimsical
little stories in which nothing much happens, that wonderful lugubrious voice,
and the echo of childhood. There’s nothing like being read a story in bed . . .
I went out and bought the three tapes, and they work without fail. There are
three stories on each side of each tape, and I have never heard beyond the
middle of the second story on any of them. The tapes obligingly switch
themselves off at the end.
The final secret is getting the volume right鈥攋ust loud enough to hear
without any straining, and not so loud as to impinge on one’s eardrums or
consciousness.
Letter
Counting sheep may not be complex enough to occupy your brain, but I know
that I cannot count backwards from 100 to 0 while visualising the numbers
without falling asleep. This works every time and takes a lot less than 10
minutes. Often I cannot get past 70.
Soft on phone theft
In Australia, the issue of stolen cellphones
(19 January, p 3
and p 6)
currently lies with the law enforcement agencies (LEAs). Early in 2000, the
government forced the country’s three network carriers to combine resources and
supply information to the LEAs concerning the use of lost or stolen cellphones
by tracking their unique IMEI code.
Basically, if a mobile is reported lost or stolen, the details are held in a
third party database that is accessible on the Web (www.findaphone. com.au).
Their IMEIs are passed on to all three networks, which scan all call records for
the use of these IMEIs and report their use back to the central database. This
information is then passed on to the LEAs.
The information is available to the police, but as far as I am aware they
have not done a lot with it. The system was supposed to stamp out theft of
cellphones but a lack of commitment by the LEAs has let it continue.
Hold the soda
Douglas Fox, in his article on the effects of cheese on bones, has made an
error when he refers to potassium bicarbonate as “essentially baking soda”
(15 December, p 42).
Baking soda contains, almost exclusively, sodium bicarbonate and there is
evidence that increased sodium in the diet worsens the body’s balance of
important bone minerals, including calcium. The critical component of a diet to
maintain a neutral balance is the consumption of potassium-rich alkali-forming
foods鈥攇ood old fruit and veg. So while the term, “hard cheese” may indeed
be appropriate, be sure to choose the right bicarbonate.
Douglas Fox responds: Susan New and colleagues are correct that potassium
bicarbonate and sodium bicarbonate are different. However, bicarbonate in either
form can neutralise acid in the body, which arguably is good for bone. On the
other hand, as New points out, the sodium in sodium bicarbonate can, through
another mechanism, encourage calcium loss, illustrating that bicarb treatment
for bone loss is experimental and should not be tried at home.
Smaller than small
Ian Stewart provokes some interesting speculations as to whether some
infinitesimals are smaller than others, just as some infinities are bigger than others
(26 January, p 26).
But is it valid to apply the mathematics of infinitely small
quantities to a physical world in which quantum mechanics puts
a finite limit to the smallness of anything greater than zero?
No more milk
I was very pleased to see the article on lactose intolerance
(19 January, p 13).
This condition can be identified with a relatively simple test and needs
much more publicity. I was diagnosed with lactose intolerance here in Puerto
Rico. I stopped taking milk products and everything that contained lactose, and
my quality of life improved tremendously. It seems, however, that British
doctors do not readily accept that the condition exists.
My mother and sisters who live in England also suffered severe digestive
problems and have all undergone intensive investigations for irritable bowel
syndrome and various chronic gastric conditions, without result. Last year I
suggested they ask their doctors for a lactose intolerance test. One GP said
“Lactose intolerance is an old wives’ tale” and the hospital gastroenterologist
said lactose intolerance was not likely, and he didn’t know of any test for
it.
Despite these unhelpful responses, they decided to avoid milk products and
lactose, and I am happy to report that their gastric problems have
disappeared.
Computer feng shui
Feedback comments on the instruction to set a computer monitor to face the
east, saying that this indicates the influence of Islam
(2 February). But Islam
does not ask the followers to face east when praying. It asks people to face
Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Consequently, people in countries to the east of Saudi
Arabia (like India) will be facing west.
The monitor facing east is in fact designed to deliver a better performance
due to the interaction with the Earth’s magnetic field.
Global warming's double whammy
I wonder if mega-tsunamis could trigger the rapid global warming episodes
your article refers to
(2 February, p 18)?
Several months ago, I advanced a theory about a climatic change mechanism in
the alt.global-warming newsgroup. The theory centres on the consequences of a
mega-tsunami, such as the one that the collapse of the Canary Island La Palma
would cause, which would threaten the East Coast of the US.
The wave produced might reach down to the ocean floor, disturbing methane
hydrate deposits on the seabed from Central America to Greenland. Massive areas
of the sea floor could collapse, releasing methane, and the sea along the coast
of North America could be set on fire or even explode with the massive release
of gas.
In the past, the Earth may not have been sufficiently warm for such a release
of gas to have an effect on global warming. However, if such a tsunami did occur
and the recent predictions about the instability of other methane hydrate
deposits are correct, the next major warming event could be catastrophic.
Cooperate, copyleft
I work in the drugs discovery field, and I wonder if copyleft on our work
would produce better, more efficient drugs faster and with less effort
(2 February, p 34).
It would be nice to think that in 20 years’ time, all the
chemists in the world will work together, without major companies competing
against each other, to reach the same goal.
Letter
There was one huge omission from the article鈥攖he fact that the General
Public License embodies the spirit in which the majority of scientists have
always freely published their ideas, and which has brought us almost everything
we have.