Techy effect
Your item on the phenomenon whereby appliances work perfectly in the presence of, but only in the presence of, a repair technician has caused me to wonder what endows this “techie” effect (Feedback, 15 January). As someone who uses computers more than my friends I found myself in increasing demand to help others, until at some point the techie effect cut in, and it needed only my presence to fix problems. What endowed that effect 鈥� was it perhaps the approach to the computer with no trace or scent of fear, and is it an attitude that suitable enlightenment training could pass on to the novice?
From Joanna Wojnar
Wolfgang Pauli was notorious for his ability to make experiments and equipment self-destruct, break or fail, simply by being in the vicinity. This has even been dubbed the “Pauli effect” (not to be confused with the Pauli exclusion principle). I propose therefore, that the curious situation of equipment functioning perfectly only in the presence of a qualified repair operative be termed “the reverse Pauli effect”.
Wellington, New Zealand
From Alan Griffiths
You might like to know that in the theatre industry these sentient equipment faults tend to be known as SCUFs, or self-correcting unexplained faults. Lighting control desks and the tiny microphones that are clipped to a person’s clothing are particularly prone to such naughtiness 鈥� although there is a theory that most SCUFs are in fact merely undisclosed pilot errors.
Malvern, Worcestershire, UK
Walk this way
I was interested to read about research into falling over (25 December 2004, p 48). There is a way to reduce your chances of tripping and slipping while walking: change the way you walk.
Most people I have observed (and, I suspect, the majority of westerners) walk by “controlled falling”. That is, they pitch their bodies forward so that their centre of gravity is heading for a point ahead of their front foot, and their back foot then has to move forward in time to stop them falling. Hence, if the back foot is stopped from coming forward they fall on their face. Similarly if the foot does arrive on time but lands on a slippery surface, the foot slips forward and they fall.
In t’ai chi walking, the centre of gravity of the body is always moving towards a point over the front foot. When the weight has come off the back foot it moves forward and the foot is placed down without yet supporting the body’s weight. If the back foot is stopped, the weight carries on down into the other foot, so instead of tripping you just dip down onto the front foot. It takes most adults quite a bit of practice to learn how to do this without thinking, but once you do it is a very relaxed and efficient way of walking.
T’ai chi has been shown to be very effective at reducing falls in the elderly. It also strengthens leg muscles, which, as the article states, helps you to avoid falling over.
Radio rage
It was with disbelief and dismay that I read of proposals to send internet data over electricity power lines (15 January, p 26).
For over a century, radio engineers have increased the sensitivity of high-frequency radio receivers by many orders of magnitude, allowing communication worldwide using transmitter powers of only hundreds of watts.
The HF spectrum from 3 to 30 MHz is potentially capable of allowing something of the order of 10,000 short-wave speech channels in each continent of the Earth. Any imaginable tsunami warning system would certainly need to use that spectrum.
During the past 50 years, communication engineers have designed more and more subtle methods of modulation to make the best use of this spectrum. During the same half century, electronic engineers have worked assiduously to design ways of preventing equipment from interfering with that spectrum.
Now, for a quick buck and no more than a very temporary and partial solution to the desire for internet facilities in homes, some groups of ecologically ignorant or careless financiers are proposing to undo all that progress by squirting significant and very poorly controlled radio interference throughout the HF spectrum and all over continents.
It is not as if there are no alternatives. There are plenty, all offering better communication, without causing anywhere near such dreadful problems of interference.
Toxic moss
Your article on moss collection (25 December 2004, p 59) reminded me of a cautionary tale from Porton Down, the UK’s chemical and biological defence research station in Wiltshire. The story goes that a few years ago some intruders shinned over the security fence at Porton and removed some moss, which they subsequently sold to a florist’s shop in nearby Andover. After a few hours, both staff and customers became unwell and were taken off to hospital suffering from nausea and watering eyes.
It seems the area from which the moss was taken had been used to demonstrate CS gas deployment to soldiers. In the warm, humid shop environment the moss gave off the gas that it had previously absorbed. Moral: do not misuse moss.
Pendulum puzzle
Eddy van Dijk wants to know about Viviani (8 January, p 25). The reference is: Comptes rendus hebdomadaires de l’Academie des Sciences, 4 April 1851. It tells of a manuscript found in 1841 which cited a Viviani paper of 1660 or 1661: “We observe that all the pendulums hanging on one thread deviate from their initial plane, and always in the same direction.” That’s all. The paper of 1661 has not been found. This information is from the excellent book Pendulum by Amir Aczel (Simon & Schuster, 2003).
Simulation signals
I strongly agree with Easter Russell (8 January, p 25). There should be a media code of practice requiring that all simulations, artist’s impressions and so on are clearly marked as such. How authentic are the pictures of Titan we are being shown from Huygens?
New 杏吧原创 could set a good example by stating when its pictures are not real 鈥� for example, that of comet Tempel 1 on p 28 of the same issue.
From Roger Taylor
I agree completely with Russell, and the sooner the better. Modern imaging technology is so powerful, and presumably will become more so, that it could lead to all manner of fraud and deception, and ultimately to an Orwellian rewriting of history. This is not something we should tempt our politicians with.
Meols, Cheshire, UK
From Peter Strickland
It is a mistake to think of films or photographs as real. When you take into account the choices that go into what to point the camera at and when to film, there is an enormous amount of subjectivity involved. Then there are choices about zoom, focus and aperture, which all affect what is seen and how it is portrayed. And then, of course, the resulting film or photograph will be edited, which will involve various digitally applied modifications, and, in film, choices about timing, sequences and so on.
The difference between photography and digital imagery is more of a perceived idea about authenticity than any practical difference.
Leeds, UK
From Stu Witner
Once begun, where does one stop, I wonder? For example, all images from the Hubble Space Telescope are “simulated” in that the colours are computer generated. The colours are not only beautiful but enable researchers to learn much more from them than if they were “real”.
Then there is the philosophical argument, “what is truth?”, not to mention the obvious public taste for drama over reality. I’m afraid Russell may be tilting at windmills, 21st-century style.
Seattle, Washington, US
Fit or fat?
I found two items in the 18 December 2004 issue a tiny bit incongruous. Philip Cohen, in “To cool the world” (p 17), quotes Paul Higgins, an earth scientist, as saying of George W. Bush, “We have a president who is a very fit guy. If we were all to adopt his fitness plan, we would not need to adopt some of his energy policy.”
Yet Soundbites (p 10) has a quote from an item in The Times, London, reporting the president’s confession to an “unhealthy diet after a check-up revealed he had become overweight”.
Parking point
DaimlerChrysler’s car-security system is explained thus: “To set up personal unlocking, you choose a position to send the signal from, say, three paces sideways, halfway up one side of the car…From then on, the key will only work at that point” (15 January, p 25).
If you do this, you had better hope that no one parks next to your car while you are gone.
Miaowing babies
Following your story about dogs being dogs and cats being dogs but tortoises being insects (Feedback, 11 December 2004), I would like to draw your attention to a piece of Cambridge folklore.
Some years ago there were several married undergraduates at Cambridge, and on discovering that “many of their wives were lonely” Launcelot Fleming, then dean of Trinity Hall, arranged a tea party in his rooms so that the wives could meet each other. However, several had to turn down the invitation as prams and babies were not allowed into the college. In order to solve the problem, the college authorities called the babies “honorary cats”.
For the record
鈥� We misspelled two researchers’ names in our 15 January issue: Kristine (not Christine) Larson, in our story on earthquake “movies” (p 9), and Michelle Herman (not Hansen), in the story on the impact of the tsunami (p 14).
鈥� In the article on Pampa Mansa, the genetically modified cow whose milk could provide a cheaper source of human growth hormone (8 January, p 15), we should have mentioned that this project is led and funded by Argentinian biotech company Bio Sidus.
鈥� In “Meltdown” (25 December 2004, p 25) we said “the West Antarctic ice sheet is thinning following the collapse of the vast, floating Larsen B ice shelf”. That statement was misleading. Only glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula, on the western edge of this ice sheet, are thinning because of the ice shelf’s disintegration.
鈥� The Mayo Clinic mentioned in “Through the smokescreen” (18 December 2004, p 42) is in Rochester, Minnesota, not Minneapolis.
Fascist bees
I was fascinated by the description of social insect societies in beehives, but alarmed by Francis Ratnieks’s attempt to extend the conclusions to human society (15 January, p 42).
No doubt he is correct that among honeybees “good policing acts as a deterrent” and leads to the lowest levels of cheating by individuals. And he might even be right that a similar social structure 鈥� a police state 鈥� would lead to the lowest possible levels of crime for a human society, preventing, as he says, “individuals from disrupting the society as a whole”.
But humans, unlike bees, have other goals, such as freedom and happiness, and sometimes it is good when individuals disrupt society 鈥� Gandhi being an obvious example. Let’s not forget these concerns as we consider ways to decrease crime. Our modern obsession with being “tough on crime” often ignores the negative side effects of the consequent policies. We do not want, after all, to model ourselves upon honeybees, do we?
Awash with cholera
The theory that cholera outbreaks sometimes occur because tsunamis wash bacteriophage viruses lethal to cholera bacteria out of the soil should be treated with caution (15 January, p 8).
Marine forms of Vibrio cholerae, the bacteria that cause cholera, are common in marine algae and plankton in most tropical waters. But if growth conditions are unfavourable they revert to a dormant form that is probably immune to attack by bacteriophage viruses. So phage numbers may be low despite the presence of their target bacterium.
After tsunamis, the mixture of seawater and sewage provides perfect conditions for the bacteria to reawaken, multiply and become infectious again, threatening human survivors exposed to contaminated water. The persistence of the bacteria in puddles and wells ensures that the risk of infection remains for months.
Bacteriophages will undoubtedly increase once the bacteria reactivate, but the cholera bacteria are already present in huge numbers in the tsunami, and cholera outbreaks can occur as soon as 24 hours after an incident.
Don't get caught again
Tam Dalyell seems satisfied that the minister for communicable diseases is “keeping a very close eye on the [flu] situation” in Asia (15 January, p 49).
I am not. If avian flu mutates into a form that is transmissible between humans, as it might, we will need a vaccine and antiviral drugs in huge quantities. As far as I am aware, we have neither the existing stocks nor the facilities to produce either of them quickly, in anything like the amounts needed.
After the lesson of the tsunami, the death toll of which would have been much lower had governments done their jobs properly, we should not allow ourselves to be caught out by the next long-predicted natural catastrophe that might hit us.