Shaded by dirt
Barry Combs is concerned that dust and dirt exposed by melting ice sheets will speed up the melting effect by reflecting less sunlight (22 January, p 26). His worries are baseless. This summer in Iceland I was surprised to see black stones standing on little pillars of ice on glaciers, and dusty areas considerably higher than the clean white ice. It was explained to me that the stones and dust slow the melting of ice by shading it from the sun.
Lonesome queens
You claim that bumblebee colonies produce only one queen at the end of each breeding system (15 January, p 42). This implies that bumblebees should have died out long ago since only the survival of every queen would maintain population numbers. Numbers are declining but only because of environmental changes.
The editor writes:
鈥� Geoff Hearnden is right. Bumblebee colonies typically produce a number of new queens, and/or new males. These “sexuals” leave the nest and mate with those of other colonies. The males then die and the mated queens go into hibernation. So, if a colony produces new queens at all 鈥� and not all colonies manage to do so 鈥� it would usually produce more than one. The number could be tens or even hundreds.
Mossy mistake
As the only scientist studying the mosses found with the Tyrolean Ice Man, I can assure you that there were no mosses of any kind, lowland or upland, found in the Ice Man’s shoes, which had been insulated with grass (25 December, p 59).
Fluently dim
Apropos the article on linguistics (8 January, p 40). Some of my relatives speak quite a few languages, but the rest of us agree that they are not at all clever. In fact, one witty son quipped of his mother: “She is fluent in five languages and has never said anything sensible in any of them.”
Patents by stealth
Barry Fox’s article on the danger of granting patents on software ideas in Europe is welcome, but there is one slight confusion in it (8 January, p 22). The more than 30,000 patents on “computer-implemented inventions” already issued by the European Patent Office (EPO) are often, in fact, software ideas. For instance, patent EP0394160 covers displaying a “progress bar” that fills in from 0 to 100 per cent to show how much of some task has been completed. Nothing could be more clearly a software patent.
The EPO issues such patents in defiance of the Munich Treaty that set it up. The Internal Market directorate aims to give software patents validity by stealth, by proposing a directive that claims to distinguish software ideas from “computer-implemented” physical inventions that would later be interpreted so as to authorise both.
The major problems of software idea patents are that they impede progress and restrict every computer user. Creating a large program entails combining thousands of ideas. If each of these ideas can be patented by someone, only a megacorporation could afford to make a large program. Development of software is a process of constantly adding more ideas, many of which have been used elsewhere. Any system that impedes this activity is an obstacle to progress.
Because a software idea patent is a monopoly on a certain computation, any computer user can, in theory, be sued. Patents such as EP803105, which covers selling over the internet via client and server, are a threat to every business that does e-commerce.
Lots of best friends
In his interview, “lone” explorer Giles Elkaim says that his experience of solo travelling in the Arctic led him to recommend to the European Space Agency that only one astronaut be sent on long trips (8 January, p 44). What he seems to have missed is the fact that he was not alone. He had 13 dogs 鈥� his “best companions” 鈥� with him. What he seems to have proved is that astronauts will do very well if they are surrounded by obedient and loving (though not necessarily furry) shipmates.
Justified cruelty?
There are lots of fascinating things one can learn about life, like the finding that nerve cells responding to movement in specific directions are organised in a different way in the brain of a rat than in the brain of a cat (22 January, p 9).
But reading the piece more closely makes one feel uneasy. The way this was found was to open the skulls of these animals, inject a dye into the brain, and monitor the activity of the nerve cells while the animals gazed at moving patterns 鈥� which obviously means the animals were conscious.
Having never been observed with my skull open, I don’t know what it would feel like. But I suspect that, along with the operation preceding it, it would not be one of the most joyful experiences.
It makes you wonder: is it really that crucial for us to know the organisation of nerve cells in the visual cortex of rats and cats to justify this kind of research?
Nanoquakes
A NASA scientist was right to be sceptical of Peter Mockridge and Nathalie Bugeaud’s theory about the possible influence of global warming on seismic activity (15 January, p 28). The thermal conductivity of rock is tiny, approximately 2 watts per metre per kelvin. My back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that rock deeper than about 10 millimetres will not receive any warming and therefore will not expand. Instead of pushing sideways against neighbouring rock, the surface rock will find it easier to expand upwards 鈥� by less than the diameter of an atom.
This is pretty small beer compared with the gravitational effect of the moon, which, with a little help from the sun, raises 30-centimetre tides on the solid Earth 鈥� without causing earthquakes.
World language
I would have thought that Svein Gisle Apeland, a Norwegian, would have understood well why science has to be reported in English if it is to be read (22 January, p 27). English is the world language, and has been for a long time.
The French may not like it, but they can’t do anything about it. I had to phone a French space organisation a few years ago. Certainly, the operator answered in French, but at the first hint of hesitation she switched to English. Her opposite number at a German organisation didn’t bother speaking German at all. In Norway recently, I overheard an Italian backpacker trying to book a room. No prizes for guessing which language he was using.
Wherever you go in the world, people of differing nationalities use English as their common language. Not exclusively, but far more widely than any other.
All international projects and activities must have a common language, and by and large they choose English. Science is as international an activity as they come, and has done the same. This is dead lucky for English speakers. But it is also lucky for everyone else, because they have only one foreign language to learn.
It is also lucky for science. I wrote a book a while ago and I needed technical input from every country in the world that is involved in space research. If I had had to read reports in all the different languages, I could not possibly have done the work.
We English shouldn’t feel guilty that we are not good at languages. Instead we should feel grateful that there is no other language as widely understood as our own.
Peroxide planet
There seems to be an assumption about Mars. While it is obvious that there is, or has been, some liquid there, can we be certain that it is, or was, H2O? Couldn’t it be hydrogen peroxide for example? Or sulphuric acid, or indeed any liquid? Have I missed something?
David L. Chandler writes:
鈥� The evidence from earlier observations did not rule out the possibility of other fluids, but the latest evidence from the landing missions confirms that the fluid was water. For example, in some samples there are surface layers with concentrations of salts in proportions that exactly match the salts’ relative solubility in water, indicating that they were leached out by water and then redeposited when the water evaporated. It is findings like this, where the evidence is firmly pinned down, that has made this year of exploration so exciting.