Solar uncertainty
Your editorial on solar storms says, “there will be another maximum in the early 2020s, another about 11 years later, and so on until… well, who knows” (4 February, p 3).
However, research from three independent teams of solar astronomers, reported at last June’s meeting of the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society, may be the last for the foreseeable future. In particular, we should already be seeing signs at high solar latitudes of the sunspots that would emerge closer to the equator for the 2020s maximum.
Solar-seismology measurements of the latitude of a jet stream under the sun’s surface . Also average magnetism in the centres of sunspots has grown weaker over the past dozen years. Below a certain magnetic-field strength, sunspots do not form.
Without solar storms, will our equipment in space really be safe from disruption? Are we going into decades of solar minimum, as we did hundreds of years ago during the so-called Maunder minimum from 1645 until 1715?
We can’t say for sure, and for that reason we should keep checking for signs of the next maximum and continue to prepare for it.
Tweeted and deleted
Your interview with Paul Mason was headlined “The revolution will be tweeted” (). Actually, it won’t. Not after Twitter itself said that it will implement regional censorship because certain countries “.
This policy means that future revolutions will not have the help of Twitter, and very likely will not have the help of Facebook or other social media – they will either conform to this kind of policy if they want to do business in certain countries, or will simply be shut out from them.
If this policy had been in place a year ago, Egyptians might not have been able to make use of Twitter to coordinate themselves.
White planet
The diagram accompanying your feature on the potential impact of green energy on climate says that Earth is radiating 380 terawatts (TW) less heat now than before the industrial revolution (28 January, p 34).
Could increasing the albedo of Earth so that it reflects, globally, 380 TW more be enough to counterbalance the warming? As a fraction of the 120,000 TW absorbed by Earth, 380 TW is a tiny amount, about 0.32 per cent.
If we could increase the albedo of 1 per cent of the land area of Earth by a factor of 3, at least until we get carbon dioxide levels back down to 280 parts per million, then it might help. This is approximately 1,500,000 square kilometres. What would it take to increase the albedo of this area?
A start would be to paint the roofs of all buildings white or to mirror them. How about painting dark rock white?
Michael Le Page writes:
• Earth’s surface is becoming less reflective due to shrinking sea ice and snow cover. This is one of the feedbacks that amplifies the warming effect of higher CO2 and attempts to counteract it may not have the desired effect.
Take the idea of painting roofs white, famously advocated by US energy secretary Steven Chu. Computer models suggest this will warm the planet very slightly overall because it reduces cloudiness above cities (less warm air rising, so fewer clouds). Plus, it could increase CO2 emissions in colder regions, as people turn up the heating to compensate for the cooling effect of a white roof.
A sack of potatoes
The explanation for the phrase “order may vary” appearing on a packet of potatoes of mixed colours is prosaic, despite Feedback’s best efforts (4 February). Even more yawn-inducing is the fact that the words are as stipulated by .
The list of ingredients on a food packet must be in descending order of their weight. The seller did not want anyone to complain that there were more blue spuds in the bag than yellow.
Path to change
Fred Pearce’s look at the efficacy of wildlife corridors is mainly about the lack of evidence of genetic mixing between groups from different ends of such corridors (4 February, p 26). The widening of the gene pool would not be their only advantage.
Adaptation to climate change necessitates and induces movement, as climate zones shift. Camille Parmesan and Gary Yohe reported in Nature in 2003 () that 1700 plant, animal and insect species had moved nearer to the poles since the mid-20th century at an average rate of about 6 kilometres a decade, unfortunately too slowly to fully match climate shifts.
Insofar as corridors facilitate such adaptation, they would be a major contributor to the survival of species.
Folkloric science
In his round-up of lost scientific treasures, Michael Marshall states that the possible existence of long-necked seals “is now relegated to cryptozoology, the search for semi-mythical species” (4 February, p 40).
We are in danger of starving promising avenues of research of attention and funding because cryptozoology is not considered “real” science. This is a worry, because, by definition, the animals sought must be, if they exist, few in number and therefore endangered. This is particularly so for the orang pendek, a bipedal ape that might exist in Sumatra. A full expedition would surely have been mounted by now if cryptozoologists had not reported their possible existence first.
It is time to recognise cryptozoology as a study in need of scientific attention, even if it becomes only a minor player in the world of zoology. Surely zoologists can accept that folklore might have a little to teach us. It’s how we found the okapi, a relative of the giraffe, after all.
The editor writes:
• Australian Laureate William Laurance examined this issue in an article in 91av last year (18 June 2011, p 30)
Ancient symbol
In his letter, Doug Legge proposes the light bulb as a universal symbol for science (21 January, p 29). The incandescent bulb is so last century, and his screw fitting would be out of place around here – our bulbs usually have bayonet connectors.
Could it be that we cannot have a universal symbol, since science is the act of striving to understand, while a symbol represents something that is well understood?
Heads up
In your editorial on advances in detecting speech from brain activity, you make the claim that “there is absolutely no prospect of anyone looking inside your skull without your consent” (4 February, p 3).
Really? What is to stop a government from immobilising a person and performing whatever invasive brain scans they wish, up to and including using implanted devices?
I believe that scientists must think about the ethics of the likely uses to which their discoveries will be put, and must refuse to work on technologies that are likely to be abused.
If that means science will be impeded in some areas, then all the more reason for us to work together to reform our society, so that we no longer have to worry about discoveries being used to spy, maim, torture, violate or kill.
What is life?
In your article exploring the progression of evolution (21 January, p 35), I found the idea of measuring complexity in terms of energy rate density (the amount of energy flowing through each gram of a system per second) new and fascinating.
I wonder if a threshold expressed in that unit could define “what is alive” and “what is not alive”. This would draw an objective, universal and quantifiable line between living and non-living things, and answer the eternal question posed by philosophers: “What is life?”
From Chris Smaje
The notion that energy rate density provides an objective measure of complexity sounds rather like the notion that GDP provides an objective measure of economic complexity – an ironically simplistic way of reducing complexity to a single quantitative scale.
On a wider note, beneath the article lurks an old-fashioned anthropocentrism, which defines complexity in its own self-image and then tries to read it into the structure of the universe.
Frome, Somerset, UK
Taste of justice
I was intrigued by the findings of Jonathan Levav and colleagues, which showed judicial decisions becoming more favourable for those in the dock after the judge had had lunch (28 January, p 30).
I will be making a study of fellow inmates’ results in court over the following month.
Big and bigger
Your story “Supermassive barely covers it” (10 December 2011, p 17), set me wondering how big a black hole can get. The masses quoted must be big enough to engulf entire galaxies, small ones at least.
Could even larger black holes exist, perhaps beyond the boundary of the observable universe and capable of engulfing significant portions of the universe?
For the record
• The word “equations” was misspelled on the cover of some copies of our 11 February issue. Apologies to readers in the US who picked one up. On the plus side, you now own a collector’s item.
• In the story on the threat posed by hurricanes to wind turbines (18 February, p 18) the $175 million figure was the cost of a wind farm.