Gorilla tactics
The article about monkeys not understanding when they are being copied (7 May, p 19) reminded me of an incident I observed at Melbourne zoo in 1983. It suggests that while monkeys may not be all that hot at recognising intent in others, gorillas certainly are. It also suggests they are emotionally sensitive and have well-honed critical faculties. What’s more, they are capable of formulating and executing an appropriate response to the behaviour of others.
I was at the zoo taking photographs for a book I was writing and noticed a crowd gathered in front of the gorilla enclosure. I stood 20 metres or so behind this gathering and saw a large male H. sapiens on its left flank doing a “King Kong” to the great amusement of several others. Effectively he was saying to the large male gorilla that was eyeballing him from some 30 metres away, “This is what I think of you, banana brain. Watcha gonna do about it, huh?” He got his answer soon enough.
After about 30 seconds of this nonsense, the gorilla, with what I interpreted as a “You’re about to make my day” sort of look, slowly rose from his sitting position. Then, he reached down and in one swift and balletically smooth move picked up a very large turd and hurled it at the man with unerring accuracy and, had it been a house brick, deadly force.
Everlasting oil?
In a Comment and Analysis article late last year, Peter Odell poured scorn on the idea that global supplies of oil might be about to go into long-term decline (6 November 2004, p 22). Those who claimed there was a problem, he contended, “were wrong on every count”. There are “enough reserves of conventional oil that can be economically exploited at last year’s prices to meet current demand for more than 40 years”.
Odell was kind enough to give us a means of measuring the accuracy of his predictions. “The current price of oil,” he told us, “just below $50 per barrel at the time of going to press, is abnormally high. The high price will not last: a fall in demand as a result of the high prices, along with an easing of political problems, should bring it down to around $35 per barrel by early next year.”
“Early next year” has now been and gone. At the beginning of January, the price of Brent crude was just over $40. That is the lowest it has gone so far (I write on 26 May). In mid-March, Brent crude hit a record high of $55.53. The average price in April was $53.42 a barrel, and in the first 25 days of May, $49.56. Yesterday, it topped $50 again. Yet OPEC claims it is pumping at full capacity.
Given Odell’s score in the only test that counts, how seriously should we take his claim that there is nothing to worry about?
Lightning risk?
Paul Marks reports on the plan to use composite materials for the bulk of the external components in commercial airliners. I wonder if lightning strikes might present a risk to such aircraft (28 May, p 21).
Conventional metal-skin aircraft seldom suffer any significant lightning damage. The discharge passes through the skin, leaving only small burn pits on exit and entry. The passenger compartment is protected by the Faraday cage effect.
Is it not possible that composite materials such as fibreglass could suffer more serious damage due to their high electrical resistance? A fibreglass glider was blasted out of the skies over the UK in April 1999 by such a strike 鈥� the event is described in detail in a document on the UK Air Accident Investigation Bureau website ().
Given that most commercial airliners will be struck by lightning during their lifetime, will the new composite material designs be protected from serious damage?
Missing dinosaurs
I was rather surprised when looking at the map showing dinosaur territories old and new (21 May, p 38). Nowhere to be seen is the most biodiverse dinosaur fauna on the Australian continent (much less one that has made the cover of Time magazine and Scientific American) from the Early Cretaceous of southern Victoria (Dinosaur Cove and Flat Rocks). Mentioned instead are the new Middle Jurassic and Early Jurassic sites, but surely the southern coast of Victoria and the central and western parts of Queensland should be on that map as well as the footprint sites at Broom.
And what about sites on the North Slope of Alaska from the Late Cretaceous which have produced literally tonnes of dinosaur bones, rivalling the Morrison in North America?
Staying home
Your article on “environmental exiles” falsely accuses Bangladeshis of migrating to India and gives an erroneous impression that we are always under water (7 May, p 8).
It is true that we do have floods every now and then, because of our geographical position, but it doesn’t mean we are always submerged. Even the biggest flood covers at most only one-third of the country and usually lasts less than a month during the rainy season. This flood is necessary for our survival. It has made our lands fertile and made us self-sufficient in food production 鈥� a country with a land mass of 144,000 square kilometres produces all the food necessary for its 144 million people.
Only a limited number of people migrate from the country and they are mainly middle or upper class. In most cases they go to rich countries like the US, UK, Australia and Canada. The poor people who are most affected by flooding don’t even migrate much within the country, let alone go to a neighbouring one. None of the surveys conducted has shown any evidence of people migrating from Bangladesh to India.
Gulf war toxin
Your item in the Invention column states that the polyacrylamide compound used to stop dust blowing off airfields and roads degrades to an arcrylamide monomer that is a neurotoxin (21 May, p 29).
After operation Desert Storm in Iraq, lots of American and British soldiers complained of illnesses described as Gulf war syndrome. In seeking a cause of these illnesses, did anyone think of looking at this apparently innocuous product?
Computer carbon
After reading the letter “Climate blog”, which talks about paper (including New 杏吧原创) using up trees and increasing carbon emissions, I wondered how much carbon you would actually save by publishing only on the internet (28 May, p 26). How much carbon would have to be made available to allow you to run your computer? A magazine will cost only a one-off carbon emission (excluding the carbon that the tree would have absorbed) whereas each time you have to access the website you will be slowly adding to the amount that an online magazine costs in carbon. Maybe someone could work it out?
Dinner mates
There is an obvious answer to why the “weird” female fishing spider attempts to eat a potential mate before copulating with it (21 May, p 20). She is making sure that only the most agile and tough males reproduce, giving her children these important qualities.
Nuclear waste power
You quote Ian Fairlie as saying it would probably not be practical to incinerate the waste graphite from nuclear power stations, because there is so much of it (21 May, p 17).
I suspect any self-respecting coal-fired power station could deal with this waste relatively quickly, and produce useful power from it too. But would the carbon dioxide emissions be debited to the coal-fired station or the original nuclear one?
Punk PhDs
Punk band Bad Religion’s singer Greg Graffin got his PhD (Feedback, 14 May). Two more punk singers started PhDs but did not finish: Hugh Cornwell of The Stranglers started one in Sweden in biochemistry; Dexter Holland of The Offspring started one in biology.
Group belonging
In Lee Dugatkin’s article on behaviour in conflict resolution no mention is made of the differences within and between groups (7 May, p 35). If an individual within a group enters into conflict resolution with another member of their own group, will they behave in the same way with an individual of a different group?
The key question is how one perceives one’s group. Conflict resolution behaviour would then rely on the perception of relatedness. Among humans, some would see “us” in the very narrow sense of our village, or, more widely, our ethnic group or our nation state, while others would view “us” as every human on Earth. When a bomb explodes, is the failure to pursue conflict resolution more a factor of “them” being from a different group, and so easier to go to war with?
If this is the case, then increasing everyone’s perception of relatedness is the answer.
Cheaper atoms
In reading your recent article on superatoms, it occurred to me that this technology could be used to replace expensive platinum and palladium catalysts with those based on far less expensive atoms (16 April, p 30). If these superatoms are used to create materials based on nanoparticles, the increased surface area could further increase the efficiency of many catalytic reactions, including those used to convert nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide in car exhaust and industrial processes. Superatom-based nanoparticles could also be used to improve the cost and performance of rechargeable batteries and solar cells.
Je ne sais what
I wish to enter a priority claim for redundant translation syndrome (French), going back 30 years (Feedback, 21 May).
In 1975, under the pseudonym “Cosgrove”, I published a cartoon in the student mathematics magazine Manifold (15 December 1975, p 36). The two characters (Ferd’nand and Gilbert) are studying a modern painting in an art gallery.
Frame 1: “It has a certain je ne sais quoi…”
Frame 2: “…but I don’t know what.”
From Laurence Berry
Peter Shaw may have coined the term redundant translation syndrome (Feedback, 2 April), but we in New Zealand have been experts in the field for many years. We have institutionalised the art through our place names, and challenge anyone else to better the following.
Consider: Lake Rotoiti (Lake Small Lake); Mount Maunganui (Mount Big Mountain); Awatere River (River Fast River); Whangarei Harbour (Harbour of Reitu Harbour) and Oneroa Beach (Long Beach Beach). These are just a few of the many similar but perhaps the final coup de grace comes from Northland where one might paddle in the Te Awaoteaouhi Stream, translated as the The Stream of Teaouhi Stream.
Northland, New Zealand
Not so jolly Rogers
Gail Vines is wrong in thinking the helm wind is the only UK wind with a name (14 May, p 50). We’ve got one here in the Norfolk/Suffolk Broads. I am currently researching a theatre show for the Broads Authority about wind, and came across this piece in Roy Clarke’s Black Sailed Traders.
“Sudden strong gusts of wind….are known locally as ‘Rogers’. They strike usually without any warning, and for twenty or thirty seconds blow with almost hurricane force…they have torn down windmill sails, stripped off thatched roofs, capsised haystacks and taken a wherry’s (sailing barge) canvas out of the bolt-ropes….on one occasion five wherries were crossing Breydon Water together in a gentle breeze when a Roger struck them. They heeled over at a terrifying angle sending quants, boathooks, buckets, brooms and all other loose gear over the side. Four got through safely, but the fifth, the Five Brothers of Yarmouth, lost her sail and drove up on the mud.”
From John Hamilton
Vines says that the helm wind is confined to Cross Fell. We are in Mallerstang, about 30 kilometres away, near the source of the river Eden, and have our own helm wind. A helm bar can form along the top of Mallerstang Edge, and warns of our own local version of the wind. Like its big brother, it can roar down our chimney for as long as a couple of days, and blows away anything that is not fixed down.
Mallerstang, Cumbria, U
For the record
鈥� Gary L. Francione’s article on our moral relationship with other species (4 June, p 51) should have carried the headline “Our hypocrisy”. The headline used 鈥� “You hypocrites!” 鈥� could have given the impression that the author was criticising individuals rather than making a comment about society as a whole.
Soliton sighting
While Alan Pollock is correct in his distinction between the Union Canal and the Forth and Clyde Canal (Letters, 7 May, p 29), he is mistaken about where John Scott Russell saw the soliton wave. Russell saw and followed it on the Union Canal at Hermiston near Edinburgh, where an aqueduct carrying the canal is now named after him. On 12 July 1995, an international gathering of scientists witnessed a recreation of the event (see ).
Bosco Pertwee, PhD
A recent episode of Quote Unquote on BBC Radio 4 discussed the quotation “I used to think I was indecisive, but now I’m not so sure” (Feedback, 21 May). According to presenter Nigel Rees, many years ago a listener wrote in, attributing this quotation to the little-known 18th-century poet Bosco Pertwee, and the attribution was broadcast.
Recently the programme contacted the listener again, and discovered that Bosco Pertwee was a name invented for the purpose of winding up people who claim to know everything. For example, the listener would start a rumour that the legendary jazz musician Bosco Pertwee was coming to town, and then wait for his jazz-enthusiast acquaintances to start discussing the fictional artist’s work.
I envisage a similar use at conferences and seminars, as in “Can you comment on the relationship between your results and the work of Bosco Pertwee’s group in the 1990s?”