Smoking bans
David Robson’s article discussing the mud-slinging aimed at those who do not accept the anti-smoking lobby’s views on passive smoking (4 April, p 34) should remind us that policy debates involving the tobacco industry have always been contentious. The key issue is always to get the science right.
This will be helped by the rigorous evaluation now under way of the health effects of legislation in England banning smoking in many locations. Until this has been analysed and published, it is inappropriate to describe the English data as a “body blow to the side who say bans cause a fall” in rates of cardiovascular disease.
Two further, systematic reviews on the impact of smoking bans on cardiovascular disease are due to be published later this year, which will provide an overview of peer-reviewed research in this area. Hopefully, this should finally put an end to the sort of mud-slinging Robson describes.
On your “Smoking clampdown” map, Singapore and Malaysia showed “no information”.
In fact, Singapore was one of the first countries to introduce national bans on smoking, albeit gradually. The process began in 1970, but it wasn’t until 1989 that the first major legislation banned smoking in most public indoor spaces. Ten subsequent acts extended the ban to further public spaces, indoor and outdoor.
The latest legislation, in 2008, bans smoking in virtually all indoor and outdoor public spaces. So Singapore should have been shown as having the highest level of ban. In 2004, Malaysia introduced a ban similar to the one Singapore had in 1989.
In both countries the initial legislation covered only air-conditioned locations, but most public buildings have air conditioning; due to the climate any buildings without it are open and airy, so that the distinction between indoors and outdoors is even harder to define than it is in the UK.
Leeds, UK
Norway, labelled as having smoking bans “in some indoor public spaces, usually excepting bars and restaurants”, actually banned smoking in absolutely all indoor public spaces in 2006. This included bars.
We also have bans on smoking in a lot of outside spaces, for example, outside hospitals.
Oslo, Norway
Let's talk about sex
Avis Pearson criticises New 杏吧原创 for asking the next head of ATLAS what she thinks about becoming the first woman to head a particle physics experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and asks “what has her sex got to do with anything?” (28 March, p 24).
The answer must surely be “quite a lot”. The importance of role models is well recognised, and women are still under-represented in senior positions 鈥� so much so that many organisations specifically are trying to increase their numbers.
Women should be proud of their achievements, rather than be made to feel guilty for observations on their gender. Criticisms like that made by Pearson only hamper the progress of women everywhere.
Arctic erosion
The consequences of an “Arctic meltdown” reach further than carbon release (28 March, p 32).
Much of the land surrounding the Arctic Ocean resists erosion only because it is frozen. Once the thawed wetland edges are exposed to storm waves and currents, they will rapidly be eroded, increasing the amount of sediment entering the ocean.
The effect on the oceanic and seabed biota will undoubtedly be detrimental. Erosion could also produce sharp cliff edges where there were once shallow slopes. Such slopes favour ice formation at the coast: their loss would impede its re-growth.
One must ask, how will Russia, Canada, the US and Scandinavia react when their territories start to wash away?
Fred Pearce’s article on warming in the Arctic concentrated on methane leaks from melting permafrost. However, warming would also release any deposits of methane clathrates that may be present under the Arctic Ocean. That “burp” could be both sudden and unexpected, injecting a large amount of methane into our atmosphere.
Instead of wasting money on nuclear power stations, we should be funding research into how to collect and use methane clathrates to fuel electricity generation. Burning methane to produce carbon dioxide would dramatically reduce its global warming potential, decreasing its impact on our planet.
Barrie, Ontario, Canada
How science works
Although the atheist majority in science will no doubt agree with Amanda Gefter (21 March, p 23), I would suggest that she is wrong about what science is and how it works.
There is no reason why scientific explanations should be limited to exclusively material causes; science is about methodological realism. Hypotheses must necessarily be based on, or be testable by reference to, empirical, publicly accessible physical data. This does not preclude non-material explanations of the data if they can be objectively assessed and thoroughly tested.
Metaphysical materialism is neither logical, nor based on any scientific methods, nor even rational, so it seems strange that it should be judged regulative for science. Limiting science to atheistic explanations is indeed anti-scientific, since it predetermines its outcomes before doing the science itself.
Chill out
Emma Young’s article on the link between sleep and mental illness (21 February, p 34) prompted me to write of my experiences as a doctor in an addictions facility.
H. F. Molloy reported in 1993 that overheating the body during sleep can result not only in severe skin disease but also in disturbed sleep (). Using his “cold turkey” approach to treating nocturnal overheating, I have noticed that mental health problems such as depression, nightmares and unrefreshing sleep improve markedly in most instances. From my observations, I suspect overheating may also play a role in sleepwalking and schizophrenia. I venture to hypothesise also that children overheating at night, and also during the day due to heavy school uniforms and enclosed shoes, may contribute to symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Religion on the brain
Andy Coghlan’s report on whether praying to God causes the same brain activity as talking to friends (11 April, p 9) made me wonder which areas become active when a person claims God is communicating with them.
Would there be activity in the usual auditory areas? And are the communications connected to creative or other centres?
The findings by Uffe Schj酶dt, reported in Coghlan’s article, demonstrate another example of neural plasticity, used by various groups of people to achieve control over others who are unaware of the process. Supernatural and exaggerated beliefs have been almost universal in achieving the cohesion needed in groups. More research from Schj酶dt, please.
E-ciggies and health
Further to Helen Thomson’s article on the effects of smoking an electronic cigarette (14 February, p 33), it must be emphasised that the World Health Organization is not certain that research funded by manufacturers of these products is independent or legitimate. This is particularly true in the absence of sufficient information to evaluate the reliability or validity of the research, without publication in its complete form or thorough assessment by an appropriate regulatory authority.
Electronic nicotine delivery devices such as the electronic cigarette may have the potential to be effective for smoking cessation. However, criteria for safety and efficacy have not been satisfied, and scientific evidence sufficient to establish cessation efficacy is not yet available.
Morbid research
In his letter, Tom Verberne quotes Ilkka Henrik M盲kinen on suicidology: “Neither the individual-level causes nor the general-level correlates of suicide have been clarified to a satisfactory extent” (11 April, p 23). There is actually a lot of information available on the subject, accessibly brought together in The Neurobiology of Suicide: From the bench to the clinic (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol 836).
The real problem is that this is a depressing field of research and, as such, it attracts fewer researchers. Suicide is a taboo topic for the layperson and people contemplating it as a line of study may fear that it will make them seem morbid. Finally, the idea of neurobiological predispositions to suicide seems fatalistic, going against our intuitive sense of spiritual selfhood.
Vitamin warning
Feedback commented on the incongruous warning aimed at pregnant or lactating women on a men’s multivitamin supplement (4 April). The explanation is simple: the tablets contain vitamin A. By UK law, all supplements containing vitamin A must carry a warning to women who are either pregnant or breastfeeding.
This is because vitamin A in excess can cause devastating problems for the developing fetus, including blindness, hydrocephalus and spina bifida. Breastfeeding women are included in the warning due to the risk of overdose for the baby.
For this reason, you will find the same warning on children’s products containing vitamin A.
For the record
鈥� The arxiv URL in our article on internet surveillance should have been (4 April, p 17).
鈥� The figure of 3400 road fatalities per month in the US is for overall road accident deaths, not just pedestrian deaths (18 April, p 18).