It isn't fair!
Newspaper headlines may stand in the way of rewarding people for acting in their own best interests (24 November 2007, p 46). But a more basic obstacle is the common perception of “fairness”. Given that Jim Giles dwells on how people value utility of things and concepts, neglect of this is a rather a serious omission 鈥� especially given that it’s the “common people”, with that common perception, who foot the bill for reward schemes.
Many people struggle with their weight, grew up poor or 鈥� yes, even in white-collar jobs 鈥� and are faced with a working future scarcely more motivating than being unemployed. Wherever the cut-off for intervention, you will have people who are next to or have pulled themselves out of the targeted state wondering why they bothered, given that a reward system could’ve had them doing less for more.
This is likely to be a particularly pernicious situation given that those handouts don’t come from thin air: they mean, for example, that the semi-skilled person who has put him/herself through training with the promise of a slight wage increase feels they are seeing much of that disappear to fund “encouragement” of someone disinclined to make the effort.
What the *$%拢!?
Laura Spinney, in discussing swear words, seems to have overlooked the c-word entirely (22/29 December 2007, p 51). I was under the impression that this was the biggest taboo.
We went into detail about “fuck” and “shit” because they are the most commonly used swearwords. But, er, the c-word clearly is interesting if only because it seems in some areas to be so shocking that even we censor its use.
Naval architecture
Concluding her report on Bob Gagnon’s investigation into collisions with icebergs (5 January, p 32), Kate Ravilious summarises some of the means of mitigating the effects of a ship striking ice, including sacrificial ballast compartments, such as the proposed “Coulombi Egg” design for tankers.
Using a ship’s water ballast as protection against underwater impacts is, in fact, hardly new; the principle was employed by the Royal Navy to protect the new capital ships 鈥� those designed to lead fleets 鈥� it built between the world wars against torpedoes and mines, replacing the hollow “bulges” that were attached to the outside of WW1-vintage warship hulls.
In place of the void spaces in the external bulges, the Admiralty’s water protection scheme used internal compartments where fresh water, both for drinking and for the ship’s boilers were stored. As water is effectively non-compressible when subjected to a sudden shock, this arrangement, in theory, gave the warship the equivalent of a thick layer of reinforced concrete between its hull-plating and the major underwater compartments.
The only drawback to this cunning scheme is that, in practice, water protection doesn’t appear to have worked that well. Only two battleships so equipped, the Nelson and the Prince of Wales, were actually subjected to effective torpedo attack, and in the case of the Nelson, her novel underwater protection appears to have been no more effective than a conventional armour-and-void-space arrangement. Prince of Wales was, of course, sunk by Japanese torpedo-bombers, and while she might well have survived the four warheads that actually hit her, ironically she was actually sunk by a near-miss that severed a propeller shaft which then tore open a considerable length of her hull from the inside.
The only real answer to the danger from iceberg collisions, or, indeed, any peril at sea, is to ensure that all shipping is adequately informed of any potential threat, and, above all, that all ships have properly trained crews. That is (or should be) the responsibility of marine administrators, and ultimately governments, not scientists and engineers.
Pharaoh's pharmacy
I was surprised to find no mention in Stephanie Pain’s article on the Pharaoh’s pharmacy (15 December 2007, p 40) of salicylic acid as a pain reliever.
Diarmuid Jeffrey in his book notes: “One species mentioned in the Ebers Papyrus that stands out, precisely because it has been systematically investigated. The ancient Egyptian name for it is tjeret. The Latin name for it is salix. We simply know it as willow 鈥� and willow is vital to this story because it contains the key ingredient of the most remarkable drug the world has ever seen: aspirin.”
This fascinating article reminds me of my days as a practising pharmacist some 40 years ago, when many of the medicines used by the ancient Egyptians were frequently being dispensed. In fact honey, one of the most widely used medicines by the Egyptians, is still used universally used in cough mixtures and as a base for many other medicines.
However, honey for wound care should be sterile 鈥� which the author points out is not something the ancient Egyptians knew about 鈥� and derived from specified pathogen-free hives which have not been treated with drugs or gathered in areas where no pesticides are used 鈥� again problems the ancients didn’t have to bother about.
Furthermore, in these modern legislative times there are problems in providing standardised, quality-assured preparations although there are now a number of proprietary wound care products on the market in the form of honey-impregnated dressings.
Evolution pressed
David Holzman says human evolution has accelerated over the past 40,000 years, evidently meaning an increase in the frequency of mutations (15 December 2007, p 8). He claims that this “contradicts the widely held notion that our technological and medical advances have removed most of the selection pressures acting upon us”.
It does not. In fact, a reduction in selection pressures can lead to a large number of mutations, because more individuals with “non-optimal” genotypes succeed in breeding. When the greatest selection pressures are applied, most members of a species fail to reproduce, leading to a reduction in genetic variability. It could be argued that it is under these conditions (for example, following a major extinction) that evolution is most rapid.
It really depends on what we mean by evolution. It is probably true that selection pressures on humans have reduced, but only for some human populations and only recently. For example, improved perinatal care has resulted in very premature babies surviving. To the extent that a tendency to give birth prematurely can be inherited, this will lead to an increase in the numbers of premature babies born over time. In other populations 鈥� for example, displaced people in insanitary refugee camps, or groups of people exposed to HIV infection without access to medication 鈥� selection pressures are very high and evolution continues apace.
Dance of death
Researchers are pondering why dinosaur fossils appear in a characteristic posture (22/29 December 2007, p 62). Scavengers scatter exposed bones, and a skeleton has a far better chance of being fossilised whole if its owner died by being buried alive.
Imagine a long-necked dinosaur running across deep estuary mud, then floundering. While the animal can still move, it will keep its head forward; but when it’s stuck and sinking it will need to raise it.
Unfortunately, a head is heavy and, in lifting it, the dinosaur will force its body down. To counteract this, it will raise its head further 鈥� and so on, until its neck is as perpendicular as it can make it (in practice an S-shape) and its body is tilted by as much as 180 degrees relative to the head.
So, for some fossils at least, I think the classic “dead dinosaur” position is that of a creature trapped, in danger of suffocation and manoeuvring to stay alive for as long as it can.
Did no one consider a study of the human skeletal remains from Pompeii or Herculaneum?
Pickering, North Yorkshire, UK
He said, she said
The recent studies on men and women talking (22/29 December 2007, p 60) reminded me of a study I conducted at Hewlett-Packard labs some years ago. The perception in the IT industry at the time was that men were much more interested in digital technology than women were, and therefore would have much more to say on the topic.
We happened (for some other purpose) to be running eight discussion groups, four male and four female, talking about the digital devices people owned or had in their homes. We analysed the discussions from all eight groups (90 participants) and categorised every comment.
We found that, contrary to expectation, the men and women talked about the technology in pretty much equal measure. But there was one big gender difference. The men talked almost exclusively about the technical devices themselves 鈥� the model numbers, capabilities, functions and features 鈥� but we struggled to get them to tell us what they actually used the devices for.
In contrast, the women talked enthusiastically and at length about all the different uses they had found for the devices and how their lives had been enriched by them. In their case, we struggled to get them to describe the actual model numbers they owned or the features these devices offered.
Heavy cars
The nine-page advertisement feature in your 10 November 2007 issue admits that making lighter vehicles is key to reducing fuel consumption and emissions 鈥� but perversely claims that this would make them less safe.
In any sane world, using a car weighing more than a tonne to transport four people or fewer would be considered as repugnant as drink-driving, as would using a car that uses more than 2.5 litres of fuel to travel 100 kilometres.
Yo! yo
The researchers who discovered the use of “yo” as a gender-neutral pronoun (5 January, p 7) could have saved themselves some time by turning on the TV. The critically acclaimed TV series The Wire, shot on the streets of Baltimore since 2002 and often using non-professional actors, has from the start had characters referring to each other in just this way. So it looks as though “yo” has been disseminated globally for five years. Has it caught on anywhere else yet?
Singular “they” has been used since at least 1526.
The word “yo” would make sense as a personal pronoun if it were a derivation from one of two English words which are sometimes used in that context. The first is simply “you”; maybe the more probable is the Scottish or Yorkshire dialect word “yon”. It has the basic meaning “that one over there” but through common usage it has been transformed into a pronoun: “Yon’s a fine wee bairn” means “he/she is a nice looking baby”.
Sheffield, South Yorkshire, UK
In character
Feedback’s note on the Geoclimatic Studies hoax mentions the use of Thai and Serbian characters in equations (8 December 2007). This is, to meteorologists, a delightfully sly dig in the ribs. In his 1922 classic Weather Prediction by Numerical Process, Lewis Fry Richardson used so many symbols in its formidable mathematics that he exhausted the Latin, Greek and Hebrew alphabets, many printers’ dingbats and got well into the Coptic alphabet before he had all the variables nailed down. Artistic verisimilitude, indeed.
For the record
鈥� As several readers have pointed out, the correct answer to the puzzle “which box has been opened up?” on the cover of 12 January issue is “none of them”: a symbol was rotated through 30 degrees.
鈥� The article “The D’oh! of tech” (22/29 December 2007, p 54) claimed that the BLAST telescope weighed 180 kilograms when in fact it weighs 1800 kg; and Autosub 2’s missions in 2003 were to take physical oceanography measurements, not to survey biodiversity. They were its first under a permanent ice shelf, following trips under seasonal sea ice in 2001 and 2002.
Stem cell prospects
Jennifer Swift assumes that the recent achievements by Shinya Yamanaka’s and Jamie Thomson’s teams in reprogramming adult skin cells into a state resembling embryonic stem cells represent a quick alternative to human embryos for regenerative medicine therapies (8 December 2007, p 22). Yamanaka and Thomson are at pains to point out that their present methods of inserting genes into adult cells produce induced pluripotent stem cells (IPS cells) that are not suitable for therapeutic use.
This is because using disabled viruses to insert genes can lead to cancer, as has happened in France when treating severe combined immunodeficiency disorder by modifying the patient’s own bone marrow cells.
Addressing this problem could take some years. In the meantime, embryonic-derived cell lines offer the prospect of treating several serious medical conditions.
Alternative revolutionary scientific methods, such as producing IPS cells for clinical use, must proceed cautiously and with much care and checking. The proper approach to this dilemma is to explore embryo-derived treatments now for people with, for example, spinal cord injury, Parkinson’s disease, heart failure or severe diabetes 鈥� under very rigorously controlled conditions with transparent regulation.
It is likely that treatments with embryo-derived cells will set the standard for IPS-cell-derived treatments, brought in as soon as they are judged safe. I hope that there will be an interregnum during which stem cells can be produced from spare embryos left over from IVF, in spite of sensible developments to switch to stimulating release of fewer eggs.
Climate change genes
Perhaps genetic engineering could help to increase the efficiency with which crops absorb nitrate from soil (5 January, p 28). However, the claim by Arcadia Biosciences that this will substantially cut agricultural emissions of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide appears Utopian rather than Arcadian.
Measurement of nitrate uptake by roots shows that this step in the nitrogen cycle is already remarkably efficient. In farmers’ fields most nitrogen is lost when inorganic forms of nitrogen (nitrate or ammonium) are still in the soil, before crops have a chance to take nitrogen up: the “nitrogen uptake gene” will not mitigate these losses.
It is well established that nitrogen losses, whether as nitrous oxide or by other pathways, can be greatly decreased by changes in crop management. These include better timing of fertiliser application and using a range of techniques to estimate realistic nitrogen requirements in specific situations taking account of cropping practice, soil type and local weather. Such practices are often poorly communicated to farmers, especially in developing countries where an effective advisory system is lacking.
For example, research at China Agricultural University, Beijing, has shown that nitrogen fertiliser in the wheat-maize rotation in north China can be cut to a quarter, while maintaining crop yields, through better timing of fertiliser and irrigation.
Arcadia are testing their gene in China with the idea that more efficient nitrogen use will cut nitrous oxide emissions, thus qualifying the growers for payments under the Kyoto treaty’s clean development mechanism (CDM). If such cuts were achieved through better advice to farmers, could payments under the CDM be used to fund this? And might this reach more farmers than a GM approach?
Eric Rey of writes:
鈥� A casual review of peer-reviewed research would demonstrate that there is an inefficient relationship between nitrogen applied to agricultural soils and nitrogen absorbed by crops. We have demonstrated in numerous field trials that experimental crops incorporating our technology require substantially less nitrogen fertiliser to achieve the same yield as control crops: so the amount of nitrogen available to impact on the environment decreases. We believe that our approach is one of several that can help improve the efficiency of nitrogen use in agriculture. Utopian or Arcadian? Let farmers decide.