Busy right brain
Your article states that hands-free phone kits increase the risk of car crashes (16 July, p 4). Two weeks later, you report that loss of sound quality in moving phones causes a higher workload in the right parietal cortex (30 July, p 15). But it was left to us to work out the connection.
A reasonable hypothesis might be that while the right cortex is busy deciphering the garbled sounds, it will have less capacity for processing visual data originating in the left visual field. This will be particularly important for assessing complex data such as relative motions of lights seen through a wet windscreen. Perhaps we have readers who can check crash data and find out if phone users more often collide with things in their left visual field.
Censored inventions
Paul Marks’s story about the imposition of patent prohibition orders struck a painful chord (9 July, p 24). Because the principal activity of my company is the development of equipment for defusing bombs, our patent applications inevitably attract the military’s attention.
Nearly 20 years ago, I caught the UK Ministry of Defence using one of my inventions soon after a prohibition order was imposed. They made the mistake of denying it 鈥� and it cost the government 拢50,000. But this was small beer compared to our likely profit had we been able to exploit the idea during the long years of its prohibition.
Perversely, as knowledge of its working principles became common knowledge around the world, we alone were specifically forbidden to sell it while other firms made millions.
The most recent prohibition has already cost us dear. We developed it and paid for the required tooling to meet a need that more than one country had approached us about. And putting myself in the place of a bomber, I cannot, for the life of me, work out how understanding my invention would make things any easier for him at all. But it is not easy to identify the anonymous civil servant who recommended the prohibition order, so I cannot argue my case.
If the fruits of an inventor’s labour are so summarily slapped down, with the grave financial consequences New 杏吧原创 describes, what will the inventors do next time they develop an important gadget? For my part, I shall most certainly think twice before applying for a patent and, in so doing, risk having my invention suppressed.
First Americans
I submit the rest of the story about the 9000-year-old man being “released” for study (16 July, p 4). The Indian Coalition claimed the skeleton of Kennewick Man under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990. This law gives tribes custody of human remains to which they can reasonably assert a cultural kinship. They can’t with Kennewick Man, but they were supported by the US Department of the Interior even though the Native American tribes’ “proof” of where they came from was simply, “From oral histories we know that our people have been part of this land since the beginning of time.”
In 1998, apparently in response to Native American fears that more skeletons might be unearthed and might prove through research and scientific study that Native Americans were preceded by other people, the US government buried the discovery site of Kennewick Man on the Columbia River under 1000 tonnes of dirt. So much for encouraging further discovery and research.
Unfortunately, in my country, political expediency often trumps the search for truth.
Pills cheer me up
Every day I take 40 milligrams of the antidepressant citalopram hydrobromide, the generic name for Celexa. I’ve been taking it for several years and I don’t care what anyone else says, it does help me significantly. I feel the difference the next day if I forget to take it.
I can’t help thinking that either the study reviews that Joanna Moncrieff and Irving Kirsch did were flawed, or the studies themselves were flawed (23 July, p 4). Perhaps they failed to allow for the fact that it takes about two weeks for an antidepressant to take effect.
Software patents
There is a widespread myth that it is not possible to obtain patent protection for computer-implemented inventions, or software. Your report adds to that myth (16 July, p 27).
Patent offices in Europe, and in particular the UK Patent Office and the European Patent Office (EPO), have for many years granted patents on computer-implemented inventions. Many thousands of them have been granted. It is true that some computer-implemented inventions such as business methods do not qualify for patent protection, but these are a relatively small proportion of cases.
The directive your article discusses began as an attempt to harmonise law in the European Union relating to the protection of computer-implemented inventions. It was not required in order to make such inventions patentable. The original directive in effect tried to codify the practice of the EPO at the time. It became the subject of much debate and subsequent amendment and it was an amended version of the original directive that was the subject of the vote in the European Parliament.
The fact that the European Parliament voted against the amended directive does not mean that it is not possible to obtain patents for computer-implemented inventions. Paradoxically, if the amended directive had been approved it would have reduced the extent to which computer inventions can be protected.
The situation now is that the patent offices of the European Union will be able to continue granting patents in this field substantially as they have for at least the last 20 years.
Brain coolers
Cooling the brain is known to be beneficial in strokes (16 July, p 44). The major blood supply to the brain, the carotid artery, passes through the centre of the cavernous sinus, a pool of venous blood that links the jugular vein and the tissues of the face. You report that cooling helmets applied to the scalp are being tested, but the veins of the scalp pass to the jugular vein directly. It is possible that cooling the face and the lining of the nose would cool the brain more efficiently. The carotid artery is also accessible for cooling as it passes up the neck. A water-cooled mask for the face and neck and a flow of cooled, humidified air through the nose might cool the brain more efficiently than a helmet.
Depressed? you bet!
Is depression really an illness? It is now there is big money in the sale of antidepressants and medical treatment for what in reality is a natural human response to the stressful and strife-torn world we live in. Does Peter Kramer seriously believe genetic engineering to be a good way to make us less vulnerable to stress (16 July, p 48)? Wouldn’t working at the root of the problem be more sensible 鈥� by changing the structure of our relentless and fragmented modern lives?
Am I ill because I’m depressed in the face of terrorism, global warming, relationship breakdowns and the daily grind of an insecure and pointless job? Is it a malady to lie awake at night questioning the emptiness of my brief existence? Maybe I should start popping the pills and smiling through glazed eyes…
I feel better already. Have a nice day!
For the record
鈥� In “A new chimp on the block” (30 July, p 13), we published a map that showed a partially incorrect distribution for P. t. schweinfurthii. The small north-eastern area shaded light brown is in fact a forest area in Ethiopia, a country in which chimpanzees are not found.
鈥� In “Spellbound” (30 July, p 32), the correct page number for the reference to the study in which mediums were tested under controlled conditions is p 215. Ciaran O’Keeffe was the co-author.
鈥� Due to confusion during editing, the line, “The voltage of the country’s national grid fluctuates at around 50 hertz” appeared in our story about smart fridges (30 July, p 24). It was intended to read “the frequency of the country’s national grid hovers around 50 hertz”.
鈥� A zeptogram or zeppogram is 10-21 grams, and is thus one thousandth of “a billionth of a billionth of a gram”, or 1000 times smaller than we stated in our article on detecting terrorists’ explosives (16 July, p 10).
Gaia targets US
I am often amused by the relationship between separate articles in the same issue of New 杏吧原创. Two of them struck me in the 16 July issue.
One was the long-running refusal of the US to recognise any truth in the threat of global warming due to human (disproportionately American) activity (p 3). The other was the suggestion that hurricane intensity and frequency is likely to increase, and may already have started to (p 4).
These two made me reconsider my rejection of the Gaia hypothesis. Has Gaia recognised where the problem is and is moving in to remove it?
Memory of Mouse
The ability of IKEA’s clock to stop time (Feedback, 23 July) reminds me of a sign spotted some years ago on a storefront in Berkeley: “We’ve expanded space!” My friend Mouse exclaimed, without missing a beat, “So that’s who’s responsible!”
Mouse is no longer alive, but I’d be terribly pleased if this got printed, as a little nod to his memory.
And as for “nearly clich茅s” (same Feedback), I notice that “four words or fewer” gets only 35 hits on Google, which seems rather startling to me. “Going to regret this”, on the other hand, gets “about 19,900” hits.
Electronic pickpockets
Criminals must be rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of smart cards that recharge themselves automatically (23 July, p 40). I, meanwhile, am groaning at the very same thought.
Cards that can pay for goods by being waved in front of a scanner? Wonderfully convenient, until someone develops a hand-held version of the scanner and “invents” electronic pickpocketing. Your article on the matter mentions none of these negative consequences. Criminals have already adapted to chip and pin 鈥� instead of stamping out card fraud it has shifted the problem online. Introducing electronic-only currencies will merely exacerbate the situation.
You also fail to mention that social currencies will need to cope with the same kinds of demand as regular currencies 鈥� will I be able to convert my ePoints into Ithaca Hours should I happen to visit the New York area? How many ePoints are there in a PayPal pound? How much is my Oyster card worth if it is now empty but I am entitled to free journeys for the rest of the day 鈥� can I donate this value to charity? Who decides these conversion rates 鈥� and who regulates them?
In a similar vein: you mention that AirMiles “earned” with British Airways could be seen as an alternative currency, which also happens to be legal tender at Sainsbury’s, but fail to mention the social consequences of this. If everyone cashed in their AirMiles starting tomorrow, British Airways would quickly become insolvent and the value of AirMiles would crash.
Technology is a wonderful thing, but if we refuse to discuss, or even acknowledge, the negative as well as the positive we shall end up in a worse state than we are now.
Tourists welcome
We are writing on behalf of the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project (MGVP) to clarify some misstatements made in your article claiming that gorilla deaths show that tourists should “keep their distance” (9 July, p 17).
Our study makes clear that poaching is not the biggest killer of mountain gorillas as your article states. Most gorillas in this dataset did die from trauma, but only part of that was attributed to poaching. Also, we have no evidence that any wild mountain gorillas have ever died from influenza or parainfluenza viruses. We do know that the gorillas have been exposed to these, or other closely related viruses, but they have never been documented as a cause of death.
The fact that gorillas have antibodies to these disease-causing agents does not prove they have been transmitted from humans. It is possible that viruses circulating in the gorilla population have been transmitted from native wildlife, or have been transmitted from animals around the park. This is an area of ongoing research.
Finally, the headline for the article is very misleading. MGVP is in no way recommending that people do not visit, study, monitor or protect gorillas. Tourism is critical in creating the economic incentive that allows for gorilla protection, and nothing in our study implies that tourism poses any additional health risk to gorillas. All of these human activities with gorillas need to continue to be very strictly controlled, as they currently are, but their prohibition would surely spell the extinction of mountain gorillas in their natural habitats.
Supplement safety
In your article on the European Union’s decision on vitamin supplements, you quote a dietitian who says she supports the ban because she sees half a dozen patients a year suffering adverse reactions to vitamins, such as diarrhoea (16 July, p 5).
Firstly, diarrhoea from excess vitamin C is well known to be self-limiting, non-contagious, and not dangerous once the vitamin C is stopped. Bowel intolerance limits generally vary in different individuals between 3000 and 15,000 milligrams a day. This is vastly more than the minute doses the directive will confine manufacturers to.
Second, compared with, say the widespread misuse of broad-spectrum antibiotics that has led to the problems with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and recently with drug resistance to Clostridium difficile, half a dozen diarrhoea cases a year is small change. The safety issue with supplements is, in practice, dwarfed by the safety issues with pharmaceutical drugs.
Finally, whether by coincidence or not, this article appeared opposite another article detailing the extravagant sums of money spent by pharmaceutical companies on “influence”. It doesn’t exactly take rocket science to put two and two together, does it?
Dulce et decorum est
Michael Bond’s description of the methods employed by militant groups to recruit suicide bombers, though undoubtedly true, is reminiscent of the methods used since time immemorial by every nation state and political body ever to have existed when trying to raise an army (23 July, p 18).
To die in defence of one’s country and for one’s fellow soldiers is, it should be remembered, regarded as the greatest of sacrifices in our own culture also, and such individuals are accorded great status by virtue of their actions. This spirit is integral to the warrior ethos of every culture worldwide and is probably best exemplified by the line from Horace: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori 鈥� it is sweet and right to die for one’s country.
Substitute ideology for country and you are essentially describing the belief system of suicide bombing.
Chronic fatigue bacterium
The research reported by you today affirms the patients’ belief that chronic fatigue syndrome is physically based (23 July, p 9).
The reported findings would be consistent with persistent viral infection, and the author writes about the idea that CFS is sometimes triggered by viruses such as Epstein-Barr, Q fever, enteroviruses and parvovirus B19. We note that the Q-fever agent is not a virus at all but a treatable bacterium called Coxiella burnetii. Medical science must not overlook the fact that non-viral pathogens can provoke an extremely similar immune activation.
Being certain of the agent or agents involved in the development of an illness has crucial implications for creating an effective treatment. Many of our Lyme borreliosis patients were misdiagnosed as having chronic fatigue but have in fact responded to long-term antibiotic therapy.
Welsh to pay for TV
It isn’t just in the US that many people are going to find themselves having to pay to receive digital television when the analogue signal is turned off (16 July, p 27). I live in South Wales in one of the first areas to be changed from analogue to digital. Like many households in this area, we have no Freeview signal due to hills being in the way. Sky has come up with a package where you can pay a one-off 拢150 and receive Freeview through their satellite. Unfortunately, we have no Sky signal either because a hill is in the way of that too. We are not alone in this: whole villages locally will have no television when the analogue signal is turned off in 2008.
For the residential homes and blocks of flats that can receive the digital signal, the cost of the change-over is going to be very high, unless everyone watches the same channel that the person who has the central box is watching.
Among the elderly the uptake of digital receivers is very low, and many of them will have no idea why their televisions suddenly stop functioning, nor have the money to be able to receive the digital signal (if available). There has been some talk in Parliament about giving free set-top boxes to the over-75s, but there will be many other house-bound people on low incomes left without any television. Civilisation marching backwards for them.
The size of…
Since the Luxembourg referendum on the European Union constitution, I have heard, on BBC Radio 4, Luxembourg’s population described variously as the size of Stoke, Portsmouth and Dundee in the UK. The populations of these towns are about 259,000, 187,000 and 155,000 respectively, and Luxembourg has some 468,000 inhabitants. Is it not time for a unit standards system to be established before doubt is cast on the weight of elephants or the area of Wales?