ET and DNA
I enjoyed Davies’s article describing the possibility of alien messages coded in our DNA. A chapter in my book Mazes for the Mind provocatively titled “Extraterrestrial messages in our genes” describes the hypothetical discovery of the digits of 蟺聽encoded in the DNA of a tarsier (a small mammal) and the incredible impact such a discovery would have on humanity.
The remainder of the chapter describes several ways in which 蟺 could be encoded in DNA, for example using base-4 arithmetic and assigning values to the DNA bases with G = 0, C = 1, A = 2 and T = 3. The number 314,159 in base 10 would be represented as 1030230233 in base 4. Therefore, CGTGATGATT would code for the first six decimal digits of 蟺.
For the record
Our report on the change in sea level since Roman times (14 August, p 14) incorrectly said that the land level along the Italian coast was uplifted 1.22 metres since Romans built sea-level fish pens along the coast. The coast actually sank 1.22 metres during that period, which added to a 13-centimetre rise in actual sea level to make the sea appear to rise 1.35 metres relative to the land.
Cut-out king
Feedback (24 July) gives an example of a truncated message from the 1970s, but we can go much further back. Vernon Watson was a music-hall comedian in the UK from the 1920s to the 1940s. At that time, railway stations had waiting rooms for passengers who smoked and separate rooms for those who did not. Large signs on the double doors showed which was which. The doors swung apart as people went in or out and Watson noticed the words that appeared: NOSMO on one and KING on the other. Thus was born his soon-to-be well-known stage name.
Free the phone
Ian Mansfield could have his free cellphone service (31 July, p 24). Most base stations can be eliminated, with a little application of existing technology.
About 80 per cent of the population now has a cellphone. Each will very rarely be more than a few hundred metres from another. They could easily communicate directly without requiring base stations. Software algorithms now exist that can route a call from phone to phone to its final destination 鈥� Mesh is an example. They can cope with individual phones dropping out or new, better routes appearing (New 杏吧原创, 11 October 2003, p 26).
Of course, this technology does mean that the phone companies are cut out of the loop and could not charge for connection time, so we can’t expect to see it in the near future. Battery life could also be a problem.
On the other hand, people are working today to implement a similar scheme for internet connections, using cheap Wi-Fi routers. As soon as the density of Wi-Fi routers in homes reaches about 5 per cent, the Mesh algorithms could give widespread, free, home-to-home network connectivity.
Tower of power
How long will it take the proposed solar-power plant to generate enough “green” electricity to offset the huge amount of greenhouse gases that will be generated by its construction (31 July, p 42)? Producing 700,000 cubic metres of concrete alone requires a lot of fossil fuel.
Precision accuracy
The 0.2 degrees would be the precision of the instrument, that is, the reproducibility of the measured data or the agreement between the numerical values of two or more measurements made in the same way. Accuracy is the closeness of a measured result to the actual (true) value. The precision of an instrument usually exceeds its accuracy.
Precision accuracy
Feedback’s report about Linda Hodgson’s baby-bath and room thermometer (31 July) is interesting because it raises the matter of two distinct, but commonly confused, measures of the performance of an indicator or meter.
There is no inconsistency between a stated precision of 0.2 degrees and an accuracy of plus/minus 1 degree, although the latter should strictly be qualified by a confidence level. Had the precision been stated as 1 degree, the reading could be in error by up to 2 degrees.
Prenatal sport
I was intrigued by the statement that after 24 weeks “the fetus is too cramped to move” (24 July, p 13). Presumably the writer and the researcher have never had any contact with pregnant women. I can assure them that all children move in the womb until shortly before birth, and will often disturb cups of tea placed on the bump. My second son used to practise boxing whilst playing football before he was born, and as I could feel and often see four different impact points, he was not just using his legs.
ET and DNA
Wouldn’t it be great if junk DNA contained alien picture messages? It occurred to me that if A = up, T = down, C = left and G = right, then DNA could be translated into a continuous line drawing. I have tested this with mitochondrial DNA sequences. See
Although I have not spotted any circles, the technique does create intriguing images. Perhaps readers with access to appropriate computing power could employ the same approach to visualise junk DNA. While you are searching for signs from an artistic alien, you might also take the opportunity to admire the art of nature.
Animal values
From a retired professor of medicine
I would like to add to your excellent leader on animal experiments (7 August, p 3). The whole point of the UK regulations is that animals must not suffer any pain as the result of experiments. To this end the regulations are carefully written and policed by local ethics committees. No other country has anywhere near similar standards. If animal rights terrorists cause this work to be located overseas they will be responsible for causing real pain and suffering to experimental animals.
All current medicines come from experiments on animals. Anyone being treated with heart drugs, antibiotics, drugs for depression and so on, owes their treatment to such experiments. Any medical advances that may come from genetics will also depend on animal testing.
Name and address supplied
ET and DNA
The problem with Paul Davies’s wish to find messages from extraterrestrials in our genetic code is that ET’s cells will have evolved in an entirely separate galaxy (7 August, p 30). Even if the principles are the same, the exact coding details and even the molecules involved could be different. This would make it difficult or impossible for them to inject messages into our code.
Jacques Monod said in his book Chance and Necessity that the randomness of the genetic code is proof of the non-existence of God. If Davies can find messages in our genome it is not ET that is responsible, rather the original designer and first cause, in person.
Games master
Spinney writes, “could we be on the brink of a brave new world where cautious CEOs might choose to pop a pill before taking a particularly risky decision?”
Consider this description: “It is also their general practice to deliberate upon affairs of weight when they are drunk; and then on the morrow, when they are sober, the decision to which they came the night before is put before them by the master of the house in which it was made; and if it is then approved of, they act on it; if not, they set it aside. Sometimes, however, they are sober at their first deliberation, but in this case they always reconsider the matter under the influence of wine.”
That was Herodotus, writing on the wise habits of the Persians, 2500 years ago.
Games master
I enjoyed Spinney’s excellent discussion of brain imaging and decision making, but her account of game theory was a travesty. The strategic interaction between the superpowers during the cold war was more like a game of chicken than one of prisoner’s dilemma. The worst pay-off for both players would have been mutual annihilation, whereas in the prisoner’s dilemma the worst pay-off goes to a sucker who cooperates unilaterally.
Had the superpowers been playing the prisoner’s dilemma, we still couldn’t say that defecting was “the only rational course of action”, because the interaction was repeated indefinitely. Cooperation is perfectly rational in an indefinitely repeated prisoner’s dilemma, and human players do indeed cooperate. The game theorist John von Neumann knew all this, and it is laughable to claim that he “got it wrong”.
Games master
Laura Spinney’s article on how to make choices is shot through with a damaging misconception (31 July, p 32). Repeatedly, she equates rationality with the decision-making processes of game theory and assumes that choices “swayed by a complex range of factors such as emotion, social context and uncertainty” are not rational.
On the contrary, it is those who equate rationality with emotionless, context-free decision making who are promoting irrationality. Such decision making is not, of course, emotion-free, it is premised on emotions related to greed, extreme individualism and lack of concern for others. Such emotions are at the centre of the plague of so-called economic “rationalism” and instrumental reason that has done so much damage to the world. John von Neumann of the RAND corporation arguing that it was rational to launch a first nuclear strike is just one glaring example of this irrationality.
Animal values
Biologists assure animal rights extremists that experiments that cause pain to living creatures are essential if we are to develop new drugs and therapies. Yet we read that it is common practice among conservationists to mutilate living amphibians by cutting off one or more of their toes, apparently up to eight in number, merely to assist in identifying them when they are recaptured (7 August, p 15).
This reflects an arrogant and unfeeling disregard for helpless sentient species, and the biologists involved should be ashamed of their cruelty. Incredibly, it appears that their only ethical dilemma is whether their research results are valid.
Animal values
Although pharmaceuticals are very high-profile, much animal testing is “routine” and done on other products such as cosmetics, consumer goods and pesticides. This is dictated entirely by the demands of government regulatory agencies, and even when a product is composed of known and tested ingredients a fairly small formulation change may often trigger a demand for toxicology data and hence more testing. This is set to become even worse when the European Union’s REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals) legislation kicks in, as a whole new raft of familiar chemicals will suddenly require greater scrutiny.
Much of this testing could be avoided by simply reviewing the legislation and allowing regulators more flexibility to extrapolate from existing data or make more use of models.
Animal values
Your editorial sounded more like a partisan political statement than an informed opinion. You ignored the fact that the majority of people who oppose animal experiments are law-abiding citizens and chose instead to highlight the activities of a few extremists. In fairness to the many who have been protesting peacefully for decades, you could have suggested that the time is now ripe for a public inquiry into the questionable efficacy of animal experiments. Regarding drug testing, the bitter truth is that preclinical animal data is an incredibly poor predictor of human adverse drug reactions. We need to use healthy human volunteers for drug trials.