Coral can cope
Fred Pearce’s article was subtitled “It’s curtains for coral as the oceans heat up”, but this raises a puzzling question (20 April, p 11). We live in the latest of several periods sandwiched between ice ages. These have recurred cyclically throughout the past two million years. During the previous interglacial, the Ipswichian, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration increased substantially and temperatures were higher than today’s. Even within our own interglacial, the climate was so warm in the late Neolithic/Bronze Age that the Antarctic ice shelves would have been much smaller, and may even have disappeared.
What happened to the corals during these periods of high and low temperature? They are a geologically ancient group and have survived all that climatic change has thrown at them. Presumably their swimming larvae have allowed them to move rapidly to higher or lower latitudes, and this will happen again.
The equilibration time of atmospheric CO2 and the oceans is measured in centuries, and it is likely that no immediate action of ours can prevent further temperature rise, or sea levels reaching that of the Ipswichian, some 10 metres above today’s. Huge numbers of people round the world live on coastal flood plains and relocating cities should be our priority. The corals have their own life rafts.
Sex and labour
I am expecting my first child any day now, and was surprised to read that having sex to induce labour is considered an old wives’ tale (13 April, p 15).
Practically every book or magazine I have consulted (as well as midwives and my obstetrician) has said that sex can induce labour, as the prostaglandins in semen can stimulate the uterus to contract.
Given that I am currently the size of a small whale, the gymnastics involved in attempting to have sex means it is almost an academic issue. But with so many different sources saying that sex can induce labour, there must be a lot of old wives out there.
Others feel too
Francis Fukuyama’s argument that subjective experience is the Factor X that defines humanity suffers from a fatal flaw (20 April, p 42).
He suggests that “what gives us dignity and a moral status higher than other living creatures is related to the fact that we are complex wholes rather than the sum of simple parts”. But we have no reason to believe that other living creatures are not “complex wholes” with subjective experiences too鈥攅xcept for a previously held belief that people are in some way special, which puts us back where we started.
Fukuyama makes a similar error when discussing the Turing test. The whole philosophical point of this test is that it is not “obvious” that a machine that can adequately imitate a person has no subjective awareness. If we believe that other people have subjective awareness, we should logically extend that belief to any machine that can behave in an apparently fully human way. There can never be any valid evidence that satisfies “reductionist, materialist science” in either case to support or contradict these beliefs.
Drug deaths
Your interesting article on ecstasy is marred only by the graph, which suggests that antipsychotic drugs kill only a small number of people (20 April, p 26).
There is ample evidence that deaths from both short-term and long-term use of antipsychotic drugs are under-reported. For example: “Cardiovascular mortality is higher among schizophrenic patients than in the general population, and it is possible that most unexplained sudden deaths among these patients are due to ventricular arrhythmias for which antipsychotic drugs are either the cause or a predisposing factor” (Encephale, vol 26, p 62).
Or: “Dystonic extrapyramidal reactions due to neuroleptic medications are a common entity in emergency medicine. However, it is not widely reported that dystonia can be associated with airway compromise and death” (The Journal of Emergency Medicine, vol 7, p 237).
Universe in a spin
There has been a lot of talk recently of the need for a mysterious “dark energy” to explain the way that galaxies are moving apart (6 April, p 23, and 13 April, p 7). However, I believe that this movement can be explained by assuming that the Universe is spinning. The centrifugal force would move the galaxies apart. Although we, inside the Universe, do not have a point of reference from which to observe this spinning motion, this is no reason to assume that it is not spinning.
Frog-friendly islands
As you report, I share concern over the future of New Zealand’s native frogs, given recent declines and the discovery of chytrid fungus infection in Archey’s frog (6 April, p 17).
The reference, attributed to me in your article, that “hikers and pig hunters carry the disease deep into the bush on their boots and clothes” needs qualification. The mechanism by which it is spread is by no means certain, and those of us studying these frogs are very aware of the need to follow meticulous hygiene protocols to avoid spreading the pathogen. It was in this context that I mentioned that many people visit mainland frog habitats unaware of the disease outbreak.
The sword of Damocles is poised over Hamilton’s frog and the Maud Island frog, presently stable on different New Zealand islands. Their insularity may hopefully confer some protection from disease, but it is vital that the strongest possible measures are taken to minimise risk of infection, even if this means reducing human access to the islands the frogs inhabit.
Quantum anxiety
Would you please give up on quantum mechanics? I lie awake at night worrying about this German cat being forced to transit two very narrow slits simultaneously, which must be an extremely unpleasant experience, and now you tell me that it is all to explain why a football doesn’t go two different ways when we kick it (20 April, p 7).
Just find the cat a good home, apply some old-fashioned empirical method to the football and get back to less worrying things.
Balancing magazines
The Feedback article on the Forever Flasher (13 April) reminded me of a story in 2000AD magazine called “The shop that sold everything”. Among the wares for sale were singing carpets, edible windmills, carnivorous sofas and little blue things that go “whoops” on alternate Thursdays. Perhaps the last item would be a suitable project for readers of Practical Everyday Electronics.
Concerning what happens if you leave your body during meditation (Feedback, same issue), T. Lobsang Rampa, in The Third Eye, tells us that the astral body is joined to the physical body by a silver cord, which dissipates after death. If you find yourself lost on the astral plane, you follow the cord home, being very, very careful not to snap it.
According to Fortean Times, T. Lobsang Rampa was actually one Cyril Hoskins, a plumber’s mate from Devon who “channelled” the Tibetan lama (or, more cynically, made it all up). This may affect your faith in this idea.
I believe reading New 杏吧原创, Fortean Times and 2000AD helps me maintain my psychic balance.
Lizards' anuses
Patrick Flynn wonders about his AOL password and the lizard references that it contains (Feedback, 20 April).
AOL recently announced that it will stop distributing Internet Explorer on its free CDs, preferring instead the browser technology developed by open-source community The Mozilla Organization.
The heart of the Mozilla browser is the component that renders the HTML鈥攊n other words, converts strange ASCII mark-up into beautiful fonts, tables and such. The name of this engine? Why, Gecko, of course. As for the “cloaca” part鈥攄on’t say AOL doesn’t have a sense of humour.
Letter
Long long ago, before there were Web browsers or CD-ROMs, my husband somehow got a password from AOL not unlike GECKO-CLOACA. His was RECTAL-VIXEN. Eeeeeew.
Safe in the sea
I read with interest the article on early humans being easy prey, but this thinking is not new (13 April, p 34). Over 40 years ago, Alister Hardy put forward the idea that the apes that came down from the diminishing African jungles with the potential to evolve into humans were predated into extinction, except on the coast where there was refuge in the sea (New 杏吧原创, 17 March 1960, p 642).
This was popularised by Elaine Morgan in her wonderfully readable book The Descent of Woman (1972). According to Morgan, there wasn’t the free time to develop the tool wielding, communication and social skills needed to survive in such an environment where everything was “larger, fiercer, and faster”. As she puts it: “In the circumstances there was only one thing she [woman] could turn into, and she promptly did it. She turned into a leopard’s dinner.”
The aquatic ape theory claims that refuge in the sea ensured survival, and over the millennia gave rise to true bipedalism, replacement of body hair with subcutaneous fat and various other uniquely human traits.
It is a pity this theory has been marginalised over the intervening decades. It would have been fascinating if Richard Coss, in his virtual prehistoric savannah experiment, had also offered a stretch of water as a potential refuge. It is unscientific to prejudge the outcome, but it would be a fascinating confirmation of Hardy’s idea if even children who could not swim opted to run into the water for safety.
See our feature on the aquatic ape theory (25 November 2000, p 28)鈥抬诲
Yes, it's true: pollutants pollute
Over a decade after New 杏吧原创 first blew the whistle on dichlorvos (26 August 1989, p 30), we are still reading that toxic chemicals used by salmon farms are killing off marine life (27 April, p 12).
Last week the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs finally banned dichlorvos in Britain after the Department of Health’s Committee on Mutagenicity expressed concerns that it was carcinogenic. How long before the government bans the current cocktail of chemicals鈥攅mamectin benzoate, cypermethrin, azamethiphos and teflubenzuron鈥攆looding Scottish sea lochs?
Like dichlorvos, these are categorised as “dangerous substances” and if you take the time to read it, the label clearly states: “Marine Pollutant”. Unsurprisingly, they do exactly what they say on the tin. It hardly takes a rocket scientist to work out that these marine pollutants pollute the marine environment.
Drugs and race
One aspect of Anil Ananthaswamy’s interesting article on race caused me some concern (20 April, p 34). His argument that research into possible correlations between the efficacy of certain drugs and therapies and the patient’s “race” should not proceed is anti-scientific.
Any reasonable hypothesis is worth testing. Either there is a statistically significant correlation, or there isn’t. If there is, a causal link between genetics and drug metabolism should be sought. If there is no such correlation, the hypothesis is falsified and the next reasonable hypothesis, for example genetic “clusters”, should be looked at.
We should not discontinue a potentially worthwhile line of enquiry on the grounds that it may offend a particular racial group, or that merely looking for a correlation may reinforce bigotry. The research may benefit the racial group, and bigots will always be bigots, regardless of scientific research.
Anil Ananthaswamy writes: While medicine seems to find correlations between skin colour and the efficacy of drugs, our feature points out that this correlation is simplistic, and often ignores other complex reasons that are hidden behind one’s race, such as diet, socio-economic status, education and so on. Overwhelming DNA evidence suggests that such simplistic research is flawed in the first place because biologically speaking, one’s socially constructed race does not correspond well to the underlying genetics.
Mouse model fails
Chris Nay and Vicky Cowell address the issues of animal rights and the right of patients to live (23 March, p 54, and 20 April, p 52). However, this is not science, nor is it the real issue at stake here.
In my capacity as a research scientist, currently working on AIDS therapies, I am certainly concerned about the patient’s right to live. But I am also concerned that Cowell’s assumption that her daughter is alive because of animal experiments has no basis in fact.
The genetic cause of cystic fibrosis was discovered in vitro in 1989. Animals do not exhibit the same changes in the pancreas that people do. Neither do they face the lung infections that CF patients do. Considering the fact that the pancreas and lungs are the main organs affected, one can say that the transgenic mouse model of CF is a failure. Moreover, the mice die of intestinal disorder before the lung abnormalities appear. This is fruitless experimentation and is of no benefit to CF patients.
Mortality rates from CF have fallen with the advent of physical therapy, antibiotic treatments and aerosolised medications, none of which are as a direct result of animal experimentation. The idea to place secretion-loosening medications in an inhalant spray came from clinical observation of tuberculosis patients in the 1940s.
Of course, Cowell has the best of intentions, but to conceptualise the problem as a choice between people and animals is mistaken. Animal research merely gives false hope to people who need real cures, and detracts financially and intellectually from more appropriate research. If I have any moral standpoint on the issue, this is it.