Migraine mistaken
To say that because migraine is the result of mis-sensing the world, this makes the pain unreal, is crass (21 June, p 36). As a migraine sufferer married to a migraine sufferer, I can tell you that whatever the cause of migraine, the result is pain, which is very real. The pain is, for me, worse than childbirth and worse than the breaking of a bone.
Migraine sufferers are already often stigmatised. I can see this being used as another weapon by the medical community to deny the seriousness of the pain, rather than as a way to understand and find treatments for this debilitating condition.
Peter Goadsby is misreading migraine when he refers to other symptoms people experience during an attack, such as too-bright lights. What he is missing is that for some people the bright lights are what trigger the attack, rather than the migraine coming first and the lights then appearing to be too bright.
Incidentally, the only thing that has brought real long-term relief for me is a daily magnesium supplement, which has significantly reduced the frequency, duration and pain of the migraine.
Clare Wilson writes:
鈥� While the article suggested that the pain of migraine might not be what it seems, the author repeatedly stated that attacks feel extremely painful. The word “unreal” was not used to describe them 鈥� the words “torture”, “agony”, and “worse than childbirth” were.
Killing with cleanliness
The report that children who swim in a chlorinated pool once a week score the same on one measure of lung damage as adult smokers provokes a thought (7 June, p 9). My wife, a medical microbiologist, immediately made a connection between the suggestion that regular visits to a chlorinated swimming pool could increase children’s susceptibility to asthma and allergies, and the observation that children from cleaner environments suffer more asthma.
Could it be that the more neurotic parents, by using household cleaners and sterilising solutions, are exposing their babies and young children to very high doses of chlorine-related compounds? Maybe it’s not the absence of germs that is sensitising children.
Looking happy
Mary Midgley makes the fine point that observation and experience play an important part in judging the happiness of a fellow human (14 June, p 30). But to my mind what was being said in Owen Flanagan’s piece on happiness was that both brain scans and observation play a part (24 May, p 44).
Psychologists will tell you that some people can become very good at “acting happy”. They can fool even those they are close to. So intuition is not enough on its own. And Buddhists are a very special case, in that it is possible that all that their hours of meditation achieve is to appear “outwardly” calm. As scientists we have to put all the facts together and not just run down one avenue. We must listen to both logic and intuition.
Exon valid
Your articles on evolution reminded me of the thought that I’ve had for years about DNA (14 June, p 32). A computer program viewed in a text editor looks like a load of gobbledygook with a few pieces of text scattered at random through it. Such things as the error messages can be read, but the main workings of it are only clear to someone who can read the machine code of the program.
Are not the genes that we see on our chromosomes just like those pieces of text, the easily understood parts of the code? It seems possible that the real workings of the program are in what has been called “junk DNA”. Should not researchers be looking here for the code that determines where and when different activities happen?
We need to get the hackers of the DNA world working to try to reverse-engineer its code 鈥� to discover what sorts of different instructions it contains by looking for a different sort of pattern in DNA. For example, they could look at DNA that contains similar genes but does different things in different species. Computers could help with the code breaking.
Pesticide pending
In contrast to the statement in your report on the clean-up of obsolete pesticide stocks in Africa, the industry meeting on 6 June did end with firm support and commitment to the African Stockpiles Programme (14 June, p 8). It is inappropriate, however, to discuss this commitment in the press before fully informing our partners in the project. These include the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the conservation group WWF and the Pesticide Action Network UK. We will soon be announcing the full details of our commitment to the African Stockpiles Programme in terms of an increased financial contribution as well as the provision of technical expertise.
CropLife International and its member companies have been full partners in the African Stockpiles Programme since its inception and our commitment to dealing with the problem of obsolete stocks has been clearly demonstrated by the many projects that we have undertaken in Africa, mainly in partnership with others but sometimes independently.
Industry feels that for this problem to be tackled effectively, it must be tackled in partnership with others. The majority of obsolete stocks in Africa originate from local producers, or have been a result of inappropriate purchasing policies. So it is vital that the problem is tackled at a local as well as international level.
CropLife International member companies are concerned to ensure that this problem does not happen in the future. This is best achieved through appropriate and responsible business practice.
Filthy lucre
Tom Dalyell wonders whether coins and notes, passed from hand to hand, can spread diseases such as SARS (14 June, p 55). Try this: grab a handful of change and hold it for 20 seconds or so; put down the change; smell your palm.
The metallic odour, which persists for several minutes, seems to suggest that something has been left behind 鈥� probably a suspension of metal oxides in grease. This greasy suspension, plus the bio-friendly environment of a trouser pocket, could well act as a medium for growing and spreading bacteria and other causes of disease.
Cyclone cleanup
Could a ship be constructed containing banked layers of funnel shaped, drip-fed centrifuges, instead of relying on settling to separate sea water from spilled oil (14 June, p 55, and 8 March, p 16)? The centrifuges would throw off separated oil at the top, allowing the remaining water/oil mix to drip down to the next layer of funnels, which would be tailored to separate the resulting oil/water mix. I’d like to think that some of the recovered oil would be used to power the ship and the centrifuges.
Water from the sea
If the world needs massive engineering projects to provide fresh water, why not massive offshore desalination plants (7 June, p 30). Coastal conurbations could be supplied directly, and inland rivers could be “topped up” at strategic sites with desalinated water pumped inland using wind and/or solar-powered pumps.
Western countries are already criss-crossed with pipelines, so why not a few more? In developing countries, building such networks would offer the opportunity to lay down other networks at the same time, such as telecommunications or gas.
As hare-brained and Heath Robinson as it sounds, this is surely no less ludicrous an option than the vast civil engineering projects detailed in your article.
Van Gogh's moon
I admire the dedication of the American team that travelled to France to verify the time and place of Van Gogh’s painting of the rising moon (7 June, p 12). It seems to me that their report contained some errors 鈥� but also the seed for a new interpretation of Van Gogh.
According to the astronomy software program Starry Night Pro, which allows one to travel through time and space to witness astronomical events, there was no full moon in Saint-Remy, France, on either 16 May or 13 July 1889.
The full moon that appeared at 19:20 local time in St Remy on 12 July 1889 was partially eclipsed as it rose. By the time it had cleared the low hills east of Saint-Remy, the moon would have been fully eclipsed by the penumbra. By 21:08 local time, the moon’s disc was also half covered by the Earth’s umbra. Since the moon often glows with an orange or coppery light in a penumbral and umbral eclipse, is it not possible that Evening Landscape with Rising Moon was painted on the evening of 12 July 1889, and accurately represented what was, in fact, an orange moon?
And, if the moon were an orange-copper colour, couldn’t the freshly mown hay in the foreground also have taken on an orange hue? Perhaps Van Gogh wasn’t hallucinating but was merely painting what he saw 鈥� and therefore his entry into the asylum was unwarranted or, at the least, premature?
Now, about that green sky鈥�
Joanna Marchant writes:
鈥� The astronomers considered 12 July, but realised that on that day the moon would have risen 10-moon-diameters away from the unusual cliff feature shown in the painting. The nearly full moon on 13 July rose where it appears in the painting.
For the record
鈥� The story on mercury levels in whalemeat (14 June, p 7) quotes Dan Goodman of the Institute of Cetacean Research as saying 60 per cent of whalemeat sold in Japan is from minke whales, and Clare Perry of the Environmental Investigation Agency as saying the true figure is nearer 35 per cent. In fact, both Goodman and Perry were specifically referring to minke meat from the Antarctic.
Dopamine of the people
Are people who get a regular dose of endorphins and other “feel-good” stimuli (dopamine, adrenaline, and so on) through activities such as taking recreational drugs, spending time in wilderness regions and taking part in extreme sports, less likely to have orthodox religious beliefs (14 June, p 38)? Might the increasing popularity of such activities be aiding the spread of secularist ideologies as people realise that there are other (easier and more enjoyable) ways of experiencing the same feeling of oneness with the universe?
As a research student looking for my next source of funding I would happily take up an offer of cash to test this hypothesis.
Letter
In the unlikely event of the chain of Robin Dunbar’s sociobiological assumptions proving strong enough to bear the weight of his global conclusion that “鈥� gods are created by big brains to prevent free-riders benefiting from cooperative society”, he should note that this strategy may not have been too successful. Could it be that the free-loaders themselves took charge of the god-project from the outset and that they have been administering it 鈥� forcibly where necessary 鈥� to the rest of us ever since?
We find priests, shamans, medicine men, monks, mullahs, druids and holy men wherever we look, securely tucked into their societal niche and surrounded by free lunches.
We will need better evidence than Dunbar’s to dislodge them.
Letter
The entirety of Dunbar’s article assumes that religious concepts are useful but fundamentally inaccurate beliefs 鈥� there is no other way to make sense of his line of reasoning. But where in your fine pages is an exploration or consideration of the logical alternative: that concepts of God occur in humans because 鈥� gasp! 鈥� God exists?
If that is so, then Dunbar’s prose becomes as silly as a search for the sociological roots of the belief in trees. Your response may be that religious writing is inappropriate in New 杏吧原创. I agree, but that means Dunbar’s article is inappropriate too.