Magnetic attraction
I was somewhat concerned when I considered more fully the implications of wearing a very strong magnet in your underpants, as reported by Feedback (2 February). The report suggests that products suitable for females will be developed shortly.
Consider what could happen if a magnetically-enhanced male encounters a magnetically-enhanced female, quite apart from giving a totally new meaning to the Friday evening sport of “going on the pull”. Never mind that your crotch area gathers a few knives and forks, you may find that a person of the opposite sex is powerfully attracted to you. Powerfully, but frustratingly, since two pairs of pants come between you, and once the pants are removed (if they can be removed) the attraction vanishes.
I recently purchased some rare-earth magnets from Middlesex university as a fun item. They really are extremely powerful: two will attract each other with a force that makes it almost impossible to separate them by hand. They will accelerate from 200 mm apart to a collision velocity quite capable of shattering them (they are very brittle) and of doing considerable injury if one’s fingers are in the way.
Two males wearing such magnets in their underwear could find themselves attached together so firmly that they might need to tear their underpants to get apart. Injuries caused on the way to this situation don’t bear thinking about.
I am talking about magnets a mere 20 mm in diameter. Larger ones are available.
Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire, UK
Dream physics
Paul Davies asks about the physics of lucid dreams (2 February, p 18). I did once become aware of falling from a tall building 鈥� at a uniform rate, not accelerating. When I hit the ground I simply carried on falling through the planet. So the tale about dying if you don’t wake up before you hit the ground in your dream is not true… unless this is all an afterlife dream…
Dream physics
Paul Davies has the right word, “respected” when he asks about how closely dreams conform to our expectations concerning “the laws of physics” (2 February, p 18). In hundreds of experiments in lucid dreams, investigating this topic has been one of my main concerns. The results of some of these are documented in Conscious Mind, Sleeping Brain edited by Jayne Gackenbach and Stephen LaBerge (Plenum, 1988).
In dreams one is not dealing with physics as normally understood but with the dream imagery generation system in the brain coping with demands put upon it by what seems to be the major expectation that “something” will happen next. The interesting thing is perhaps not so much to repeat old waking-world experiments, such as Galileo’s with falling objects, where expectations are already precisely defined, but to do things which have never been done and in real life could not be done.
For instance, in order to try to find out at what point in my line of sight my hands would obscure my vision in the dream world, I pushed my hands into the sides of my head and then moved them forward towards my eye balls, with the intention of passing my hands through my eyeballs to see if my hands would have to be in front of my eyes to blank out the scene in front of me or whether just in front of the retina would do it.
As often happens with these strange experiments the unexpected occurred. I had not allowed for the possibility that I would be able to feel the back of my eyeballs as part of my body image. When my hands reached my eyeballs and started pushing at them I felt as if I would push my eyeballs out if I continued. This is despite knowing, theoretically, that I was dreaming and no physical harm would ensue. I am sorry to say I bottled out.
Perhaps the most basic “respect” which dream imagery generation has for normal physics is, as one gathers from the usually undistorted appearance of objects in dreams, however bizarre they might be in the context, is that “light travels in straight lines”. But then, one guesses, dreams would not be doing their job, whatever it is, if objects in dreams were not represented and recognised as normal.
Vaccination illustrated
Jim Giles’s point makes a valid point that because immunisation has succeeded in many countries and parents do not see the illnesses prevented, it is often difficult to persuade parents that their children still need to be protected their children (26 January, p 37).
Comparisons of figures for deaths and disabilities from vaccine preventable infectious diseases of childhood in years preceding immunisation, with those following successful use of vaccines, is certainly understood by public health workers and some parents 鈥� but certainly not all. Alarmist and often irresponsible media reporting of alleged adverse effects, combined with the efforts of the anti-immunisation lobby, deters many parents from having their children vaccinated.
As appeals to reason are often ineffective, the approach needs to be emotional and graphic. A video or DVD recording of a little baby with pertussis, coughing and struggling for breath, steadily becoming more distressed and then cyanotic, is likely to convince most sceptics that such distress should be prevented if at all possible.
Some time ago I was involved in putting together a series of such clinical recordings, including diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, poliomyelitis, Haemophilus influenzae b infections (particularly epiglottitis), measles and complications, rubella embryopathy, and mumps. We showed these to young mothers 鈥� and convinced them to immunise their children.
The showing on national TV of a small baby struggling with pertussis convinced more people of the need for immunisation than much quoting of statistics.
These are horrible diseases; I have treated all of the above and do not want to see them resurgent in our communities, as they will be if we drop our guard.
Reclaim the climate
There is another paradigm to use when thinking about traffic congestion in cities, beyond that of accessibility by vehicle dealt with by A. C. Grayling (12 January, p 48). In the frame of global warming, our response must be to reduce the volume of traffic.
There will be more results than reduced traffic congestion: reduced pollution, including carbon dioxide, and increased exercise are two. These days we must consider global warming in every problem-solving exercise.
Bad news for a reason
Canada sends a dangerous message, as you say, to other nuclear nations when it is prepared to undermine its own nuclear watchdog and compromise the protection of its workers and the public in order to keep one of its reactors open (26 January, p 5 and p 6). There is another aspect to this unpleasant story: privatisation lurking in the background. Mike Burns, former chair of Atomic Energy of Canada, was reported in as saying before his resignation in December that it was time for the private sector to steer the course of Canada’s nuclear business.
At the end of November, Gary Lunn, the Minister of Natural Resources who fired Linda Keen from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, reportedly announced that his department was reviewing the nuclear energy sector. If an industry is made to look badly managed, it becomes much easier to promote the idea of its privatisation to the public.
Celebrating Darwin
There seems little doubt that religious communities are more likely to listen when people from within their own communities have something important to say, as with the Clergy Letter project (2 February, p 16). Though creationism is thankfully less of a problem in Europe, Michael Zimmerman may be interested to know that there have long been vigorous efforts within UK churches to educate Christians about science in general, and evolution in particular. For example, later this year Christians in Science () are holding a conference entitled Celebrating Darwin. Biologists who have a faith need to be active in explaining their science within their religious communities.
Nobody has explained how evolution over a period of 4 billion years can be made compatible with the Genesis creation myth. Of course compatibility can be arranged if you abandon biblical literalism, and believers stop using the Bible as a scientific textbook.
For example, recent research demonstrates higher semen viscosity in primate species that have a high degree of female promiscuity and thus more intense competition between rival males’ sperm: it evolved to help prevent fertilisation of the female by subsequent mates. So if there is a god in charge of evolution, he/she/it is condoning immorality by encouraging promiscuity.
And 99 per cent of all species that have ever lived are now extinct. Any god in charge of evolution is therefore either a monumental blunderer, or an evil sadist, or a squanderer of natural resources. And so on…
St Peter, Jersey, Channel Islands
Stem cell safety
Chris Mason suggests (26 January, p 24) that I overlooked the fact that induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells frequently produce tumours in the animals that receive the transplants, while I was arguing that women should not be subjected to the health risks of donating eggs for cloning therapy when iPS cells offer an alternative (8 December 2007, p 22).
While he is right that the very first iPS cells did have increased carcinogenic properties, due to the use of the oncogene c-Myc, recently published work by both Shinya Yamanaka’s team in Japan () and Rudi Jaenisch’s team in Cambridge, Massachusetts (), shows production of iPS cells without c-Myc. The animals into which these cells were transplanted have so far been cancer-free.
Even stem cells extracted from naturally conceived embryos are intrinsically far more tumour-prone than adult stem cells. This may mean that embryonic stem cells, whatever their origin, are less likely to be suitable for tissue transplants, however valuable they are as research tools. Of course, it is much easier to persuade the general public that cloned human embryo research is acceptable if they are told it will lead to cells that can cure diseases people they know are suffering from, rather than if they are told it is purely for research.
Terror networks
Nobody has contributed more to the understanding in the west of Al-Qaeda than Marc Sageman, but his proposed solutions (2 February, p 46) would do little to stem the movement. He ignores research into social dynamics and favours the “bunch of guys” hypothesis: chums get together, talk, and decide to blow something up. He tells us that Islamism is a fashion 鈥� but it has been with us for at least six decades since, for example, Sayed Qutb’s arguments that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood should attack all “bad Muslims”.
A better comparison would be to nationalist and separatist movements. Like the Irish Republicans or the Zionists, hard-line Islamists will not simply fade away. Recruitment would be significantly slowed by teaching schoolchildren about the basic and crude methods of persuasion that are common to all cults. Sadly, our educational system usually promotes obedience rather than critical thinking.
It is likely that the US and UK have spent more on deceiving their own populations about Iraq than Al-Qaeda’s entire budget. They have swollen the ranks of a group that numbered less than 500 on 11 September 2001 into the tens of thousands.
There is little chance of convincing young Muslims that the west is a fair and equitable model, unless the next US administration makes those who engineered the invasion of Iraq accountable. Public hearings could follow the model of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa: punishment is not a necessity, but international law should be applied. As a student of cults I am exasperated by the lack of initiative in educating the public and overcoming the very real menaces of both terrorism and the “war on terror”.
Autism treatment
It appears the debate on “autism” has become far too personal in the dispute between people with autism and the website (2 February, p 9). As the mother of a 7-year-old boy with an autistic spectrum disorder (ASD), it is infuriating that this squabbling is blocking advances that might help individuals with this disorder.
Why is it that we can offer help to individuals suffering from the negative symptoms of a host of conditions such as depression and bipolar disorder, without personal affront, yet adults on the autistic spectrum are offended by researchers’ attempts to find a way of mitigating some of the negative symptoms of ASD? Ari Ne’eman claims that “we can no more separate the autistic part of ourselves than we could our gender or race” 鈥� this is total and absolute rubbish.
As part of his ASD, my son used to suffer from terrible 鈥� and inexplicable 鈥� anxiety and irrational fears that impeded his life daily. Through groups like Autism Speaks we met other parents online, exchanged experiences and learned. With wheat and dairy products removed from his diet, my son’s anxiety stopped, practically overnight.
As his mother it is my responsibility to lessen his suffering. Would Ari Ne’eman claim that we have somehow separated a piece of his personality? It is ridiculous to imply that we parents are trying to “change” our ASD children. We are trying to help them and make them happier.
Industrious injury
Alan Jones may welcome a closer link between business and higher education (26 January, p 23), but I have serious reservations about the outcome. Governments are all too happy to relinquish some responsibilities, including the financial 鈥� so industry and business call the tune and dictate the agenda: a recipe for disaster, as they see education only in terms of their immediate interest.
Universities have lost much of their independence and soul. They should have the guts to state clearly what sort of education is best suited to satisfy the needs of, yes, society in the widest sense.
An education including a first-class foundation in the sciences should be supplemented by lectures and discussions on ethics, and some form of artistic activity, to ensure the development of responsibility and creativity.
Alan Jones makes good points about the need for more science graduates, but he needs to speak to students who considered sciences but chose humanities, as I did. Our college did well in performance league tables: an achievement that depends on minimising the number of students who fail. Many sports-science students also took biology. My biology teacher taught by dictating our notes, word for word, even dictating punctuation. To do otherwise would have risked her job, as there were students who were unable to take proper notes.
After drifting to sleep in every class for a week, I realised I was wasting my time: I reluctantly dropped biology, and with it any ambitions I had for biochemistry.
In chemistry, every time our teacher introduced a new term, he said: “Don’t try to understand this. Just learn this definition word-for-word, parrot fashion” (his exact words). Eventually he explained. He had been a very good chemistry teacher and his students’ mock exam results were excellent, he said. But their real exam results were disappointing.
He had found out why: the exam board had cut costs by employing non-specialist markers 鈥� people who knew nothing about chemistry. We lost marks for each word on their crib sheet not in our answers. Students who showed depth of knowledge, answering using their own words, lost marks. He, too, had chosen his job over good teaching.
Studying the sciences is hard, but most exams are hard. The problem is that sciences have been made mindless, dull, meaningless and disillusioning. The humanities engage students and encourage critical thinking and discussion.
Any fool can get an arts or business degree if they attend occasionally. Earnings progression begins immediately for those who become managers.
杏吧原创s endure four or five extra years of poverty to gain an MSc and PhD, earn less and end up with crappy contracts.
Managers do very little but boss around cleverer (“technical”) people, get ahead on the housing ladder, drive nicer cars, have nicer holidays, get more respect and, most importantly, get more sex.
Chimps do as well as stock market analysts in predicting price movements, but the latter earn enormous sums for nothing more than immersion in large capital flows.
Most clever kids are not daft. They ask themselves: “How hard do I want to work for how much wedge?” The daft clever kids become scientists.
Lichfield, Staffordshire, UK