Gravity trap
Can anyone explain why George Bush is so keen to climb out of one deep gravity well (Earth) just to jump down another (Mars)?
It makes much more sense, if (wo)manned space exploration is the aim, to target low-mass bodies such as moons, asteroids and comets where habitation resources and fuel for (far easier) onward trips also exist. Surely the moral is, when you’re in a hole, stop digging; not, let’s dive in another! Or is this just a case of the mountaineer’s motive “Because it’s there”?
Words for colour
Your article on perception states that 8 per cent of people have some degree of colour blindness (31 January, p 40). Just a few pages later, Alexandra Aikhenvald relates how she was surprised to come across the word for “purple” in Tariana, given that the language does not distinguish between green and blue.
I am intrigued now as to whether it is the language or the people that are colour-blind.
Incidentally, my husband and I have disagreed on more than one occasion over the colour aqua, which I say is blue-green: whenever I show him a sample of the colour he maintains it is either blue or green, never a mix.
Smoked out
I for one was heartened to read Sandra Bennett’s letter (7 February, p 30) making a connection between cannabis use and declining sperm counts. Surely in an ever overpopulated world, that is yet another argument for legalisation?
Friendlier farming
Ben Ayliffe is upset about genetically modified beet and skylarks (17 January, p 31). Skylarks in abundance were a product of the agrarian revolution that was necessary to feed the people congregating in towns, the result of the industrial revolution.
In the present day, the most effective and realistic ways of restoring balance to farming would be to ban winter crops and drastically reduce the impact of farming on the environment by growing higher-yield GM crops on a smaller amount of land.
If Greenpeace wants to restore outmoded agriculture, the population will have to fall by 80 per cent, or we will all have to get by on that much less food.
Intersecting orbits
In writing about an Apollo lunar mission Phil Scott says, “the third stage then ignited and propelled the cargo鈥ut of Earth orbit and onto a trajectory towards the moon” (31 January, p 26). But to conform to gravitational theory, it isn’t propelled “out of Earth orbit”. Instead, it changes to a different gravitational Earth orbit that intersects with the moon’s orbit.
Watch out Uranus
Leaving aside anything Einstein may have said on the matter, I hope Lee Baxter chooses the site for his faster-than-light “sweeping” skyscraper carefully (31 January, p 39). It would be terrible if the mailbag were to collide with Uranus at that sort of speed 鈥� which a quick calculation indicates could happen 鈥� as it would cause an explosion that would be visible all the way to Alpha Centauri.
Spot the difference
The news in your story on “mindsight” could explain why, for instance, when you get new glasses, people ask, “Did you have your hair cut?”, or why, when my dad started wearing a toupee, everyone said, “Did you shave off your beard?” (7 February, p 14).
Unusual units
I liked the Feedback quote about hot air balloons from the “department of unusual units” (7 February). Right next to it in my New 杏吧原创 newsletter was the following, also quoted on page 25 of the same issue: “Capacious crystal breaks roominess record: each gram of the new material has an internal surface area equivalent to 17 tennis courts.”
I for one welcome this comparison as I would like to see the old SI unit of area, which is of course the football pitch, replaced. Soccer pitches and American football pitches have different areas. Adopting the tennis court as the new SI unit will doubtless boost transatlantic co-operation between scientists.
No, no, no
Andrew McDonald is right (31 January, p 29). As a southern African myself I can confirm that we do indeed use “now now” as indicating time urgency.
However, I have observed that there is a similar use of repetition here in England, but in respect of location rather than time. For example, a broken yellow line painted near the kerb is said to mean “no”, as in “no, don’t park your white van here”. A solid yellow line means “no no”, while a double yellow line means “no no no”, and in inner London I have seen solid red lines which are said to mean “no, no, no no”.
Interestingly enough, none of these symbols appears to have any effect whatsoever on white vans.
For the record
鈥� Contrary to what senior international health officials told New 杏吧原创, a flu vaccine factory in the Czech Republic has not been turned over to smallpox vaccine production (31 January, p 4). The pharmaceutical company that owns it, Baxter, did not reply to requests for confirmation before publication. Baxter spokesman Otfried Kistner has since said that the factory is due to start producing flu vaccine next year.
Dangers of aspirin
I was dismayed to see, in your recent issue, yet another article extolling the benefits of aspirin without any mention of the side effects it can have for many people (7 February, p 36). The suggestion that governments might consider adding aspirin to the water supply is particularly horrifying.
Aspirin intolerance is a far from rare condition and can present serious dangers. Some sufferers experience skin irritation and swelling in the mouth, eyes and hands; others experience difficulty in breathing, and there is evidence that frequent aspirin use can worsen chronic asthma. There have even been a few reports of aspirin triggering anaphylactic shock.
And this is only part of the problem. Aspirin interacts with a number of other drugs and may also worsen their side effects. It cannot be safely taken by people on many forms of chemotherapy, or who have stomach ulcers, or are taking corticosteroids. It presents an increased risk of bleeding for people on anticoagulants like warfarin, and can also cause complications if used in conjunction with certain diuretics.
There is also some evidence that it can interfere with maternal and neonatal blood clotting mechanisms if it is taken during pregnancy.
While these risks may not be an issue for everybody, they ought to be of serious concern to those recommending aspirin as a panacea for all.
Fast food
I don’t eat junk food or fast food, but when I heard of plans to sue the makers of it for causing obesity, I thought: “It can’t be as simple as that.”
However, I have recently learned three surprising things. First, Morton Spurlock managed to gain nearly 12 kilograms in 30 days, and made himself very ill, after eating three meals a day at McDonald’s for a month (31 January, p 12).
Secondly, a Christchurch boy ate only sweets and pies for two days, and measured his reading, maths and typing as 35 to 50 per cent slower (The New Zealand Herald, 4 February, p 15).
Thirdly, my children told me an athletic 20-year-old friend decided to eat only hamburgers for two months, and he put on 12 kilograms. Since he returned to his normal diet about five months ago he has lost 10 kilograms.
Perhaps it is that simple?
Infanticide happens
Let there be no doubt about it. Fabricated or induced illness does exist (31 January, p 3). It is rare, but hundreds of professionals involved in the care of children have seen cases.
I have seen two. In one of them the mother was filmed attempting to suffocate the baby. It’s hard to get proof like that, but harder to disbelieve it when you get it.
No one thinks all or most or even more than a tiny minority of cot deaths are infanticides. Equally, virtually no one thinks that deliberate injury to infants by parents and carers never happens.
So before dismissing Meadow’s syndrome of fabricated or induced illness as not having “stood up to scrutiny”, let’s all wake up and remember that we have a duty not only to protect parents against wrongful conviction for crimes they did not commit but also to protect infants from harm.
Who made MyDoom?
I read with dismay the claims made in the article on MyDoom, specifically that: “Suspicion over MyDoom’s authorship is centring on supporters of open-source software” (7 February, p 6).
This statement is completely contrary to the views of most of the computer security industry and has only been seriously claimed by one group: SCO.
Kaspersky Labs traced the outbreak to Russian networks and it bears all the hallmarks of similar worms created in the past by Russian spammers and criminal gangs: the worm installs an open proxy that spammers use to relay spam email, as well as a backdoor that allows criminals to install key loggers and other software to obtain credit card details, passwords and other kinds of confidential information.
If this was a revenge attack on SCO by the Linux community, none of these tools would be needed, and the source would be available as well. It is widely agreed that the attack on SCO is a smokescreen to divert attention from the real aims of the virus.
Claiming that the open-source community is responsible for such an illegal, ethically abhorrent act when the consensus among the security community is quite the opposite is libellous and insulting to the thousands of scientists, engineers and professional programmers who make up that community.
Growing old gracefully
Good luck and more power to James Beck (17 January, p 42) as he fights to keep those only interested in the profit potential of ill-advised art restoration from destroying the true beauty of our artistic heritage.
I remember the long, long queue I stood in during my last visit to the Vatican. I remember its painfully slow movement as I eagerly anticipated seeing Michelangelo’s amazing frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. Then the moment arrived, and I was there. I looked up. Horrors! What had they done to this beautiful, amazing work of artistic creation? I felt as if I was looking not at the original work but at some art student’s conception of what the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel should look like. To my mind, the restoration has grossly perverted one of the greatest artistic masterpieces of all time.
There is a parallel here with my profession. As a tattooist for the last 15 years, I sometimes get clients who come into my shop wanting me to redo or touch up a fantastic, skilfully done tattoo created by another artist in the past. I try tactfully to explain why I feel that such work would not be a wise choice: “The tattoo you have is in great shape. It looks great! When you got the tattoo, it climbed aboard your body and has journeyed with you through time. For me to redo it would ruin the character it now has.”
The restoration work being done on the art of past masters is an abomination if it removes the very experiential nature of a given piece that it has acquired over time, much as redoing a piece in my line of work destroys the same. Let the original artist and the journey the piece has had through time speak to us now and in the future.