Battle for reality
Your report on climate change sceptics targeting schools in the US (25 February, p 6) shows that we have entered a time of crisis and confusion, with what counts as knowledge seemingly up for grabs, and society’s hold on reality looking increasingly shaky.
Science attempts to understand things in a way that is independent of our thoughts about them. Our social constructions, on the other hand, would not exist outside of our shared web of beliefs, desires, intentions and expectations. We have become so preoccupied playing games with that socially constructed symbol we call money, for example, that we have forgotten the total dependence of the economy upon ecology, and seem to be destabilising the latter upon orders from the former.
What most conservatives fear is that the public will one day see this, begin to integrate scientific knowledge into their world view, and restore proper dependency relations, changing our social institutions accordingly. What the conservatives want to conserve, in other words, is an abstract conceptual scheme that is out of touch with reality, not the concrete Earth systems that actually support our lives and are now urgently in need of conservation.
Little wonder that they seek to cast doubt not only on climate change but also on evolution and the origins of life. The battle for humanity’s future, therefore, must be recognised as a battle over the nature of reality itself.
Wider lab threat
The closure of the UK Forensic Science Service is not the only set of laboratory closures of concern in the UK (11 February, p 10). The network of public analyst labs, which provides a similar service in the area of food law enforcement, faces a bleak future. By the end of this month, and all within the space of one year, labs in Durham, Leicester and Bristol will have shut. The service is demand-led and demand is falling due to pressures on local authority budgets.
Risks to consumers are not what they were 150 years ago, but we only need to look at recent scares involving the dye Sudan I, melamine in baby food and the risks of drinking fake vodka to see that food scandals continue.
Lab capacity, capability and expertise cannot be turned on and off like a tap. When a public analyst lab is closed, a wealth of experience is lost for good.
Digital grief
I have just read your story “Death in the digital world” (18 February, p 24), and agree that laws need to keep up with technology, and address the problems and needs of the bereaved who have to sort out the digital affairs of their loved ones.
Not only is dealing with this stressful, it proved impossible in my case. I needed to get into my late husband’s Hotmail account in order to let his friends and business contacts know about the funeral and memorial service. Email would have been more efficient and emotionally easier than making hundreds of phone calls, but Microsoft required so many documents to allow me access that it proved impossible.
Almost two years after his death, my late husband’s Hotmail, PayPal, Skype and Facebook accounts, along with his digital music files, are still not closed.
Who pays?
David Hone of Shell International makes a valuable point on the potential for carbon capture and storage (CCS) to reduce the impact of climate change caused by burning fossil fuels (4 February, p 30), but he fails to discuss how it would be funded.
It seems clear that the fairest, as well as the most economically efficient, way would be through a carbon tax, with every tonne of carbon consumed subject to a levy equal to the cost of final disposal through CCS. Would Shell, or any other oil company, back this? I suspect not. In which case, would this be just another example of polluters expecting other people to pay for the clean-up?
Ethical dilemmas
Ben Haller’s letter (25 February, p 36) about your editorial on brain-eavesdropping (4 February, p 3) makes a reasonable point regarding the possible abuse of scientific discoveries. However, I find his assertion that scientists must therefore “refuse to work on technologies that are likely to be abused” absurd.
Scientists have a responsibility to ensure that their research does not bring into question the ethics of the project. But to ask them to predict potential abuse of their work and base their project’s continuation on this would be ridiculous. A knife is a useful tool with many functions; it can also clearly be abused. Does that mean it should not have gone past the conceptual stage of invention?
The pursuit of understanding cannot be held responsible for hypothetical abuses, nor should it be impeded to reform society.
Call response
Your item on Jurassic katydid calls suggests that sounds at 6.4 kilohertz “can travel long distances” (11 February, p 18). In fact, there is nothing special about this frequency: lower frequencies can travel further because atmospheric absorption increases as the square of frequency.
The problem of locating a tonal source is exacerbated by wave interference caused by multiple reflections, as drivers know only too well when trying to work out the direction of emergency vehicles. Multiple reflections from forest trees would confuse katydid predators. Crickets in the grass cause similar confusion.
Dog days
Your article on dingo conservation and the Azaria Chamberlain inquest (18 February, p 28) reminded me of a pup I bought for my daughter from a dog pound many years ago. As she grew, the dog seemed untameable and tried to escape at every opportunity. She would snap at anyone who tried to pat her. Finally, she jumped over the fence, took off down the road and was run over.
Years later, I opened a book on Australian flora and fauna and there was a photo of what could have been our dog, entitled Canis familiaris dingo, supplied by Alan Newsome of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Canberra. He was the Australian dingo expert who gave evidence at the original Chamberlain trial. I had to laugh – Alan was my cousin.
The wrong teeth
I am a little concerned that the biomedical research department of the University of Hasselt in Belgium seem to have placed a set of upper teeth on the fabricated titanium lower jaw shown in the photo accompanying your report on printing jawbones (11 February, p 7).
One can spot the mistake by the size of the teeth and the natural curve they should assume in the mouth. I would hate readers to think that these teeth were the outcome for this patient.
I am, however, very impressed by the titanium jawbone.
Power naps
Further to your Instant Expert on sleep (4 February), I found a way to maximise the efficiency of sleep cycles when in Antarctica during the summers of 2009 and 2010. As a doctor and engineer in a small, isolated party at Mawson’s Huts, I was very busy with numerous projects.
Unencumbered by a domestic timetable or darkness, I would sleep heavily for about 2 hours around midnight. Thereafter, whenever I felt drowsy, which happened four or five times a day, I immediately found somewhere to sleep for 10 to 30 minutes.
Contrary to what you might think, this cycle was easy to adopt, and it kept me awake and alert for about 18 out of 24 hours.
Off-piste racing
Your report on electric racing cars mentions charging mats built into the track to allow inductive charging on the go, and suggests the mats be on the racing line that cars generally follow (11 February, p 22). But having the mats off the racing line would allow more passing, increase the spectacle and introduce a further dimension in team tactics. It would stimulate technology by encouraging designers to make the most of what is already on board.
Damascus, via India
In your lost scientific treasures article, you mentioned Damascus steel (4 February, p 40). This material was made from high-carbon “wootz” steel made in southern India, which contained small amounts of vanadium, giving it its banded structure. This, with heat treatment, was essential for the flexibility of the famed Damascus blades.
No one realised the importance of vanadium at the time, and wootz made from other sources, after the original ores were exhausted, was not as good.
Virtual swat
I realised I had become as much “at one with the machine” as Pam Lunn treating a real book like an e-book reader (11 February, p 33) when the futility of attempting to nudge a fly off the edge of my laptop screen by poking it with my on-screen mouse pointer dawned on me.
Gremlin twins
Did you notice that “colour palate” should be “palette” (14 January, p 44), and “the palette it was standing on” should be “pallet” (Last Word, same issue)?
What are the chances of that?
For the record
• The story about a fire at a Brazilian Antarctic base (3 March, p 5) should have said most bases use non-flammable building materials.
• Part way through our review of Mark Pagel’s book Wired for Culture (3 March, p 50) we misspelt his name. We also note that Pagel is an evolutionary biologist whose specialisations are not limited to evolution of language.