Something in the air
You report on tests being conducted to investigate the efficacy of cerium oxide nanoparticles as a catalytic additive to diesel fuel for increasing fuel efficiency and decreasing carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide emissions (18 October, p 24).
As I recall, another additive was once widely used in fuels in order to increase the volumetric efficiency of internal combustion engines by preventing premature ignition: lead tetraethyl. The health and environmental impacts of lead in automobile exhaust were anything but benign.
How wise is it to introduce nanoparticles of cerium or cerium oxide into the already rich soup we all inhale thousands of times per day?
Software patents
Your article on the proposed European Union directive on software patents (4 October, p 5) and Geraint Bevan’s letter (25 October, p 32) both perpetuate the myth that patents are not granted for software and that the proposed directive seeks to change the law in the EU.
Patents have been and always will be granted for software in Europe. The only limitation is that not all software can be patented in Europe, unlike the position in the US.
Inventions involving software are patentable so long as they are “a technical solution to a technical problem”. Such a definition is intended to weed out “computer programs as such”. The problem is there is no definition of “technical problem” or “technical solution” or even “technical”. Distinguishing between what software is patentable and what is not is something that patent attorneys have to wrestle with daily.
The directive’s stated aims are to clarify and unify the law in this field across the EU, not to change it. This is something that the open source movement misrepresents.
My message is: software patents will not go away. Over 20,000 have already been granted in Europe and the number pending increases all the time. The boundaries of what software is patentable and what is not still require clarification for European industry.
People and lions
I have worked on conflict between lions and people in Botswana, and take issue with Kate Nicholls and Pieter Kat’s suggestion that intensive herding and corralling is not feasible in Botswana, thereby ruling out any prospect of people and lions coexisting (25 October, p 32). Changing traditional practice and overcoming social inertia is difficult, but I would not recommend throwing in the towel just yet.
If compensation for livestock losses has failed to reduce lion killings to acceptable levels in Botswana, improvements or alternatives to the system should be sought. These might include linking compensation payouts to a herder using approved preventive methods (a system similar to that employed to mitigate conflict with wolves and other carnivores in the US and Sweden). Botswana’s ban on lion killing has soured conservation/community relations, and by doing so, undermined its own contribution to conservation.
Maybe it is time for communities, government and conservationists to collaborate. In some instances, economic returns from wildlife may play a part. Elsewhere, international investment may be required. We should not expect magic bullets and overnight success but appreciate that each situation may require a fresh understanding of its own economic, sociological and ecological circumstances. Equally, we may learn from different but related settings, including Kenya and from studies even further afield (see 20 September, p 36).
I agree that conservation must be based on facts, but suggest sweeping statements about the impossibility of “peaceful coexistence” are opinion not fact. Such opinions do not assist those struggling to deal with these issues or help the rest of the world to understand that successes will be hard won.
The world is diverse and changing, and conservation aims at small moving targets. As such, misses should not surprise or discourage us, but rather inform our advances.
To die with dignity
Paula Boddington concludes that we need to provide old people with the means to live with dignity as well as to die with dignity (18 October, p 32).
This is uncontroversial, but she seems also to be implicitly attacking Philip Nitschke for focusing on the latter, and she concludes from the high average age of those attending Nitschke’s seminars that their attendance is connected to the low value accorded old people in Australia.
Those who are most interested in voluntary euthanasia in any country are likely to be older than average 鈥� old enough to have experienced the death of parents and to be contemplating the likely scenario of their own. As one who falls into this category, I can assure her that my interest in euthanasia is unconnected with my condition of life, but wholly to do with my possible mode of dying.
She accuses Nitschke of disingenuousness for claiming the support of the people for voluntary euthanasia, when such support was far from universal. This is either extremely naive or disingenuous in its turn. No social measure ever receives 100 per cent support in a democracy. The most one can expect is a large majority.
Of course, any rich society should pay attention to the needs of the marginalised. But this is a good in itself and ought not to need coupling with opposition to euthanasia.
Private show
I am surprised to see New 杏吧原创 use the space for two readers’ letters and an editorial comment to inform us that many Ig Nobel laureates display their prizes in the loo (1 November, p 33).
This is hardly news. Surely there can be very few of your readers who are not already familiar with the concept of the Igloo.
Mental space
Peter Lynds states that the flow of time is “entirely subjective and without foundation in physical nature” (25 October, p 33). Given that our ideas of spatial dimension and the passage of time derive from the same senses, it makes little sense to conclude that one relates to something real while the other is a mere mental construct. Or does Lynds equally deny the existence of spatial dimensions?
Of course, there is a sense in which all “reality” is a mental construct, but that is a separate matter.
Choice of viewing
Film-making using computer game engines seems certain to expand as people explore the new freedoms of the medium (18 October, p 28).
I find it surprising that the film-makers have so far limited themselves to recording visual images. If the information were published in a format that could be viewed from a game engine a viewer could watch a scene from any viewpoint. A number of scenes could be run concurrently and the viewer would have to chose which to watch. A cocktail party or a battle scene could be explored from different angles. On second viewing, you might follow a minor character whose adventures intertwine with the main plot.
Perhaps film-making is only the beginning.
Flight's magic number
Regarding the “magic number” that describes the locomotion involved in flying and swimming (18 October, p 14), I seem to recall having read somewhere that momentum transfer for rotating devices in liquids, such as ships’ propellers or steam turbines, is theoretically maximal when the angle of attack is 45 degrees.
With a little algebra, this is precisely equivalent to a Strouhal number, which certainly falls between 0.2 and 0.4.
Microwave overcooking
Having worked on microwave heating of foods for over 25 years I am always rather worried about comparisons with other cooking methods (25 October, p 14). Are they really comparing like with like?
In the paper quoted I find that steaming broccoli for 3.5 minutes was compared with heating it in a 1000-watt microwave oven for 5 minutes. I like steaming and often use it at home. It is a surprisingly slow process and gives me time to have a glass of wine while waiting. Microwaving small amounts, such as the 150-gram samples used in the study, is far faster. After 5 minutes in the microwave I would expect the broccoli to be much hotter and more cooked then after 3.5 minutes of steaming.
Instead of “microwave cooking zaps nutrients”, it could be that “overcooking zaps nutrients”.
Ivory smuggling
James Randerson’s analysis of the report by Esmond Martin and Daniel Stiles on the international ivory trade did not even begin to approach the standards of objectivity normally associated with your magazine (25 October, p 11).
Randerson cites the report by Tom Milliken on ivory smuggling submitted to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) last year but fails to mention the report’s central findings, which are that China is by far the largest importer of illegal ivory in the world and that, one year after it was agreed that the ivory trade ban could be relaxed, there was a massive upsurge in smuggling. Far from attributing this to “economic forces”, the Chinese government itself stated that it was because the Chinese public were confused over whether or not there was still a ban.
Randerson also refers 鈥� as though it were fact 鈥� to a “well-regulated” ivory trade in Japan, but neglects to mention that last year Singapore intercepted an illegal consignment of ivory weighing 6 tonnes on its way to Japan. Enforcement agencies in Africa have stated that this smuggling route has been used at least 14 times before, but this was the first seizure.
Finally, he asserts, without evidence, that the funds from the “experimental” ivory sale of 1999 were “ploughed back into elephant conservation”. Randerson is obviously in possession of information that the 160 member governments of CITES have yet to discover.
James Randerson writes:
鈥� The story does make clear that China is now the central player in the illegal ivory trade and that the country’s economic boom is fuelling an upsurge. However, Martin and Stiles state in their report that: “Ivory industry business personnel in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan did not believe that the 1999 southern African ivory auctions had a significant effect on either internal or external ivory demand.” What’s more, the authors describe the Japanese market thus: “The retail trade in ivory products is well controlled in Japan; the country has the most effective control system of any in Asia.”