Reef in context
Congratulations to Rachel Nowak and New 杏吧原创 for the accurate and refreshingly balanced account of environmental alarmism on the Great Barrier Reef (4 January, p 8). The article makes the important point that the allegations regarding damage to the reef are mostly made in unpublished or unrefereed reports, or in media statements and declarations that are of no scientific standing.
Scientific and public discussion on this matter has so far proceeded in the almost complete absence of historical context. The best way to make meaningful judgements about environmental change on the reef is to study its history. The relevant timescale is one of decades to at least tens of thousands of years, and such a perspective is completely lacking in the current environmental debate. It is also largely absent from research programmes.
Second, it is important not to fall into the trap of assuming that because global warming is occurring, and because coral bleaching also occurs, the first probably causes the second. Such a line of reasoning inevitably brings the highly emotive (and political) Kyoto Protocol into the discussion.
In fact, a recent authoritative study of the 1998 bleaching event on the reef by W. Skirving and J. Guinotte concluded that it “was caused by a coincidence of three local variables: neap tides, low winds and clear skies. These conditions were not all that unusual and could have happened at any time in the past, and will definitely happen again. The link to climate is not clear.”
Thank you for injecting some much needed balance into public discussion about the Great Barrier Reef.
Letter
The letter from Ove Hoegh-Guldberg and others (1 February, p 24) ignores the main points outlined in Rachel Nowak’s article. These are as follows.
鈥� The general public has been deceived into believing that the great barrier reef is in very poor shape.
鈥� This deception has been a result of a combination of overzealous media and deliberate manipulation of politicians and the media by scientists, conservation organisations and management authorities.
鈥� This deception jeopardises the credibility of science.
At no stage did the article dispute that the reef faces significant threats in the future, nor that it is our obligation to ensure that it remains in good condition.
Bananas and wine
Your article on the imminent demise of the edible banana (18 January, p 27) has many parallels with the late-18th-century Phylloxera aphid plague that devastated the vineyards of France and elsewhere. Just like the vine-destroying aphids, the fungal diseases that scourge bananas today attack the roots.
In desperation, viniculturists grafted millions of French vine tops onto Phylloxera-resistant American root stocks, thereby saving the world’s wine industry. Has anybody tried grafting edible-banana tops on fungus-resistant root stocks from inedible bananas?
Relative spin
Your editorial and accompanying articles on dark matter puzzle over an apparent paradox in astrophysics (25 January, p 3, p 28 and p 34). If galaxies spin as rapidly as they appear to, if they contain only the matter we can see, and if gravity behaves the way it’s supposed to, then the centripetal gravitational attraction should be too weak to hold the galaxies together and they should fly apart.
Only two of the three components of the paradox have so far been tinkered with to try to find a solution: either the galaxies must contain vast amounts of invisible but massive dark matter to hold them together, or gravity doesn’t work quite as we thought.
Perhaps the solution lies in the third component of the paradox 鈥� the rotation of the galaxies and the consequent centripetal force. Ernst Mach proposed that inertia and rotation, like motion, must be relative. A thought experiment called “Newton’s bucket” argues that a spinning bucket of water in an otherwise empty universe could not “know” that it was rotating, and wouldn’t experience the centrifugal forces which we’d see on Earth. As far as I can find out, nobody has yet determined whether Mach was right or wrong.
If rotation really is relative, and if it depends on some interaction with other matter that declines with distance, then perhaps galaxies are just too remote from other objects to “know” that they are rotating so rapidly and therefore don’t feel the full centripetal force that Newtonian mechanics predicts. In this case, neither spooky dark matter nor a tweaking of the law of gravity are needed to hold the galaxies together.
Breathing seeds
We were pleased to see that you have drawn attention to the interesting work of Stewart Wuest, which shows that seeds take up a large proportion of soil water as vapour rather than liquid (18 January, p 19). It seems that the accepted wisdom that seeds need good contact with the soil for fast water uptake is largely erroneous.
However, we believe that it is an over-interpretation of this result to suggest that seed drills need to be redesigned. The right degree of compaction above the seed will decrease the depth to which wind can penetrate and so help the seedbed stay moist. This will allow the seed to absorb water quickly, even if most of that comes from vapour. So although good contact with the soil may not be that important, farmers and gardeners who achieve this are likely to help their seeds absorb enough water to germinate.
Too much compaction, though, is definitely a bad thing. The seedbed must be sufficiently weak for the shoots to emerge from the soil surface, and for the roots to grow downwards.
Pre-emptive patents
I couldn’t help noticing a that the patents described in the 18 January patents column (p 18) were all about disposable versions of familiar objects. I was wondering whether any environmental organisations have tried patenting disposable versions of such objects with the aim of preventing them being produced?
Royal etiquette
Feedback reports on the King of Sweden rebuffing Nobel prizewinner Richard Robert’s offer of a handshake (11 January).
In spite of the current practice of shaking hands every time you meet someone, traditionally gentlemen need shake hands only once, when being introduced for the first time, to show that they do not have a sword or other weapon in their hand (not much use if your counterpart is left handed). Then, on subsequent meetings, a verbal greeting or bow is appropriate as the two now know each other.
Perhaps this explains why the king politely pointed out that “once is enough, thank you”, as the two men had already met, and the king trusted that since he was not skewered on the previous occasion, it was safe to dispense with the handshake.
Roberts’s second offer of a handshake could be interpreted as a rather insulting display of his lack of trust in the king.
Addicted to the box
I was very interested by the seven criteria offered as indicators of addiction in your article on fast food (1 February, p 28).
Replace the word “substance” with “television” and almost any one of us will match the required three out of seven criteria. You could even consider obesity as the harm done by “continued use despite鈥armful consequences”, making a fourth.
Class action, anyone?
Bittersweet
Reader Ken Green states he’s confused by his hot chocolate and wonders what exactly he’s drinking (Feedback, 25 January).
Well, the majority of hot chocolate is indeed sugar. It’s not unduly sweet because it is offset by the bitter taste of cocoa. You can make hot chocolate by mixing 3 parts icing sugar with 1 part cocoa.
For the record
鈥� Our article on whether or not to censor research that could be exploited by bioterrorists (18 January, p 10) includes a quote attributed to Claire Fraser, president of The Institute for Genomic Research in Maryland. The quote, taken from a Nature Genetics commentary she co-authored with Malcolm Dando of the University of Bradford in Britain (vol 29, p 253), could give readers the impression she favours restrictions on the release of genomic data. In fact, Fraser is opposed to any such restrictions.
鈥� In the “Focus on Scotland” (1 February, p 48) we said Robert May is Westminster’s scientific adviser, when we should have said he is the former scientific adviser. David King took over the role in 2000.
鈥� In “Raising the Steaks” (21/28 December 2002, p 60) we stated incorrectly that Herman Vandenburgh, professor of pathology at Brown University School of Medicine in Providence, Rhode Island, heads a project to grow muscle cells on chitin beads that change size when the temperature changes. In fact, Professor Vandenburgh and his team have never worked on such a project.
鈥� The article on cows genetically modified to produce high-protein milk for cheese stated that GM products do not have to be labelled in Australia (1 February, p 6). In fact, any GM foods that contain intact novel DNA or proteins, or have altered characteristics, must be labelled in Australia and New Zealand, unless sold for immediate consumption (such as in a restaurant).
Letter
There are about 200 published scientific papers detailing GM safety investigations using animal feeding, compositional tests and toxicology of introduced traits. A bibliography by the International Life Sciences Institute is at ? pubentityid=60&publicationid=348.
None of these give any credence to the BMA or Zambian leadership’s position.
Let them eat GM
In your article on the link between starving Zambians rejecting genetically-modified food aid and a 1999 British Medical Association report, the BMA’s Vivienne Nathanson “denies the association has said that GM crops are harmful” (1 February, p 4). However, according to an article published in The Lancet (vol 353, p 1769), “BMA head of research Vivienne Nathanson cited evidence showing that some GM foods cause unexpected allergies in people and said that some animal experiments have suggested that GM foods can be toxic”.
Why the sudden forgetfulness on Nathanson’s part? Is it because no evidence for what she claimed in 1999 has ever existed? Might it have something to do with GM crops being endorsed by seven national academies of science, including those of the US, Brazil, China, India and Mexico, the Royal Society in Britain and the Third World Academy of Sciences?
Millions of people in southern Africa currently face the threat of starvation. Many are being forced to live on toxic wild roots. Meanwhile, many tonnes of safe, edible corn 鈥� the same nutritious corn Americans have been eating for years 鈥� are locked up in warehouses and watched by armed guards.
Just this week, a desperate mob of 6000 Zambians took their future into their own hands and “liberated” 230 tonnes of modified US corn from locked warehouses in southern Zambia. It is clear now that the hungry citizens of Zambia do not agree with their leaders or the BMA.
European policy makers who have allowed themselves to be persuaded by doomsday activists rather than their own scientists are more than partly to blame for the African situation.