Hot ice, cold story
Your description of “hot ice” sounds very like chemisorption of a monolayer of water molecules followed by multilayer adsorption (24/31 December 2005, p 38). This is described by the BET equation, so named because it was originally derived by Stephen Brunauer, Paul Emmet and Edward Teller.
In such systems phase changes between solid and liquid-like states at temperatures almost unrelated to normal melting points are well known. Moreover, to predict phenomena such as that described in your article, one only has to remember that only one part of the water molecule bonds with the surface and that its dipolar character makes it change its orientation in electric fields.
Badgers not to blame
Everyone seems to have forgotten, but the UK used to have a tuberculosis-prevention scheme for cattle that reduced the prevalence of the disease from countrywide to small hotspots in the south-west by the early 1970s (17 December 2005, p 8). Cattle-to-cattle spread was curbed purely by annual testing of cattle and movement restriction, without any badger culling at all. A similar scheme succeeded in Ireland and Northern Ireland. The latter has always regarded badgers as a spillover host of TB from cattle.
The present cattle TB crisis is, in my opinion, a direct result of the 2001 foot-and-mouth disease outbreak. The disruption of testing and movement controls has allowed TB to spread.
Cattle TB is in any case a respiratory disease affecting the lungs 鈥� a pneumonia 鈥� and after 30 years of trying, no one has been able to show how badgers supposedly infect cows. They can get TB by ingesting contaminated food or water, but need a dose of at least a million bacilli 鈥� so they would need to drink 3 millilitres of badger urine (about 300,000 bacilli are present in a millilitre), which is improbable.
At a nail's pace
In the article on “boring” activities, I was interested to read the box about William Bean, the man who studied his own fingernails, especially as he and I got similar results with regard to thumb nail growth (24/31 December 2005, p 34).
In the late 1960s I had the misfortune to bang my thumb, giving it a blood blister. Over the next few weeks I watched as the dark spot moved up the nail, and calculated that the nail grew at about 1 millimetre per week. Since then I have repeated the observations, with similar results, but I notice that my toenails grow about half as fast.
Incidentally, I also shaved a patch on my forearm for six months. When I stopped shaving it, the regrowth was identical to the surrounding hair 鈥� it didn’t grow back thicker because it had been shaved, contrary to popular belief. The old wife was wrong.
The editor writes:
鈥� Toenail growth lags as much as four times behind fingernail growth, due to reduced blood flow. And, as you may have noticed, the nails on your big toes grow faster than the others.
Stringing us along
I was reading Feedback’s piece on new-age “medicine” to my wife. It warns that dodgy products can be detected by their promoters’ use of words like “vibration” and “energy” (17 December 2005).
“Reminds me of string theory,” she commented.
Hyperdrive is no hype
New 杏吧原创 is to be applauded for giving such prominence to Heim theory in the article about the possibility of developing a hyperdrive motor (7 January, p 24). The theory’s apparent success in predicting the masses of particles demands that its underlying postulates be taken seriously and, dare I say it, be explained better. That this has yet to be done so long after the initial predictions were made is a pretty damning indictment of the way theoretical physics is funded. It probably also reflects on the conservatism of most theoretical physicists when it comes to protecting their careers and research grants.
If Heim theory is rubbish then let’s hear why and move on. Even if it isn’t fully satisfactory then some of the concepts may still be transferable to other work. On the other hand, maybe I’ll get to visit Mars after all.
Arsenic flushed away
Your article about the arsenic in Bangladesh’s groundwater unreasonably adds to fears about the dangers posed (17 December 2005, p 5). You summarise research that predicts no reduction in the arsenic hazard that afflicts over 50 million people. But there are good reasons to believe that the aquifers are being flushed and that over the decades exposure to arsenic will be reduced.
The concentration of arsenic in groundwater is being reduced by irrigating land using water from tube wells. This transfers arsenic from the aquifers to the soil, where iron hydroxides adsorb much of the arsenic. Research suggests that only a small proportion of this is taken up by crops, the rest being removed through methylation by micro-organisms and by surface run-off.
The stores of arsenic and organic matter in the subsurface are finite, so they must eventually be depleted or rendered immobile. Over the next few decades, arsenic concentrations in individual wells may increase, decrease or remain constant, but over a longer period the overall concentration of arsenic in Bangladesh groundwater will decline, although concentrations in soil may increase. Whether soil concentrations will reach dangerous levels is unknown.
It is to be hoped that the overall risk to human health will also fall, but this cannot be taken for granted. Predicting the long-term fate of groundwater arsenic involves great uncertainty, and at present no adequate research programme exists.
Blind ban
The article on “dazzle weapons” was concerned with them not being “eye-safe” (24/31 December 2005, p 10). It is relatively simple to make them eye-safe by diverging the beam to maintain a constant level of illumination at the target as the range 鈥� which must be measured 鈥� decreases.
Furthermore, although, as the article states, the 1995 Protocol IV addition to the Geneva Convention bans blinding devices, sometimes international agreements fall by the wayside. This is nothing new. It happened in 1139, when the Catholic Church’s Second Lateran Council attempted to outlaw the use of the crossbow 鈥� at least between Christians. It worked for a while until the English king, Richard I, “failed to distinguish” between Saracens and the Franks and the ban fell apart. Be warned.
Choosing homeopathy
As homeopathic veterinarians, we would like to point out that we all started out as evidence-based practitioners, after undergoing orthodox training (10 December 2005, p 8). After many years of practice we often found ourselves treating the same animals over and over again for recurring problems. Conventional, “scientific” methods were just not working.
It is our scientific training and open-mindedness that allow us to find a better way to help our patients. Clinical results in homeopathy are not a matter of faith. Yet the group of UK veterinarians quoted by Andy Coghlan claim that all of our clients are delusional, and only imagine improvement in their beloved pets.
Yes, we sorely need more critical studies that show the effectiveness of homeopathic remedies. Good studies do exist, however. Homeopathic veterinarians in the field, practising good, responsible medicine and keeping close records of their cases, should be supported by local veterinary associations, rather than discouraged or dismissed.
If a trained veterinarian, after taking a detailed case history and performing a thorough physical examination with pertinent and necessary diagnostic tests, decides, together with the owner, to treat an illness homeopathically, is it appropriate to limit this choice? Who decides?
Ultimately, it is the patients who will be the arbiters of the effectiveness of homeopathic therapy.
Social theories first
Bruce Brew speculates whether relativity theory and the uncertainty principle contributed to the development of the social theory of moral relativism. Actually the situation was the reverse (24/31 December 2005, p 27). Moral relativism preceded Einstein’s relativity theory of 1905 and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle of 1927.
For that reason Albert Einstein was unhappy about the name “theory of relativity”. He preferred “theory of invariance”. The reason is that a cornerstone of his 1905 theory of relativity is that the measured velocity of light is the same (invariant) regardless of any relative motion between a laboratory and the source of light. What Einstein feared came to pass when the popular catchphrase of his theory became “everything is relative”. It was snatched up by people not acquainted with the scientific context, who regarded the theory as evidence in support of their own social views.
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle refers to the ambiguities, uncertainties and indeterminism in the atomic world. It makes no claims about the behaviour of human beings or why societies are in a state of uncertainty, of chaos, or about to collapse, as was the situation in Germany during the 1920s where Werner Heisenberg lived and worked. Nevertheless, his results were taken as support for prevailing political views. It is important to point out that the uncertainties and seeming randomness of everyday life in Germany had no influence on Heisenberg’s scientific work.
Don't fight fat
The letters discussing the connection between health and body weight made me wonder why people who successfully lose weight have a higher risk of dying sooner (17 December 2005, p 22).
My suggestion for what may be going on occurred to me while reading Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring. She wrote about the quantities of toxins that people are exposed to in the course of their lives. There are many such chemicals in the food we eat and the water we drink, including the residues of organophosphate pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dioxins. They are all soluble in fat and can accumulate in our bodies.
When body fat is metabolised, all the poisons that are stored in it are released. Many of the toxic effects of these chemicals are unknown, but if they are additive or synergistic they are likely to have some effect on the individual. This could be a contributing factor to the increased mortality associated with weight loss.
From Robyn Daly
John Lee is quite correct when he talks about the possible health benefits of being overweight. As someone who has been through chemotherapy, and who knows others who have endured it, I can assure readers that anyone who says there is “no plausible biological mechanism” that might lower death rates is talking through their hat.
Just about any oncology doctor or nurse will confirm that patients who are plump deal far better with the side effects of chemo. Plump people doubtless also handle infectious illness better too, especially when one of the symptoms is loss of appetite. Having fat reserves to call on in such circumstances is of immense benefit, as I discovered when I had a bout of viral pneumonia several years ago.
I also concur with Chris Elliott that the calculations for body mass index are out of whack for tall people. Like Elliott, I am 1.8 metres tall, and if I had been at my “ideal” BMI when I went into chemotherapy I would have come out of it looking like a skeleton.
Noosaville, Queensland, Australia
For the record
鈥� In our story on the computer system that uses a neural network to help predict the success of movies (17 December, p 25), we should have attributed the original idea to Edith Bodnar, who came up with it while at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1998.