Cool thoughts
Some of the proposals reviewed by Stephen Battersby for geoengineering a cooler planet will be a hard sell given the polarised debate on climate change (22 September, p 30).
Who is going to tell the sceptics that meat is off the menu as a way of curbing emissions? Farming efficiency is probably at its sensible limits, while parasols in orbit and similar schemes are probably non-starters.
Carbon dioxide emissions are not going to be reduced; on the contrary, they are increasing, so carbon capture and storage seems the most feasible geoengineering approach. It could also be sold to the public more easily than, say, mass vegetarianism.
Although the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is very low, and the technology to extract it is embryonic and expensive, that’s never stopped anybody before.
It’s clear something must be done soon. Either that or we may have to move planet.
From Christopher Jessop
Roof whitening to reflect more sunlight was deemed unpromising as a global scheme to combat warming. But the primary intention of it is to cut an individual building’s solar gain, reducing if not altogether avoiding the need for air conditioning.
Making many surfaces over a wider urban area more reflective has the secondary benefit of reducing the “heat island” effect: often the impetus for installing power-hungry cooling. Alteration of Earth’s albedo could be seen as a tertiary benefit.
Marloes, Pembrokeshire, UK
The article ends by recommending the burial of “a bit of biochar” for carbon capture. It is worth mentioning that small-scale production of biochar from crop or forestry waste could be beneficial in other ways, bringing improvements in soil fertility and drought resistance. See the International Biochar Initiative (IBI) for details.
Menith Wood, Worcestershire, UK
Dying embers
Having read Brian J. Ford’s new theory on spontaneous human combustion (15 September, p 29), I feel that this myth should be dispatched.
As far back as 1861, in by Johann L. Casper (The New Sydenham Society, London), the phenomenon was dismissed as a “fable”.
Dualism doubt
No doubt some will feel uncomfortable, as your reviewer Kayt Sukel suggests, at Larry Young and Brian Alexander’s idea that the release of oxytocin during sex “tricks” women into nurturing their partners (22 September, p 46).
Unless you believe in a non-physical soul – which I’m sure Young and Alexander don’t – then everything that makes up your sense of self must result from your neurobiology, including the release of oxytocin. There is no rational basis for separating it as an independent agent with its own agenda.
Perhaps they don’t really mean it, and the image of being “tricked” by your own body’s chemistry is just meant to be an arresting metaphor, but a metaphor for what? It’s a choice of language which suggests an emotional attachment to the idea that somewhere there is a “real” self, whose aims get subverted by all those annoying distractions like love and parenthood.
Humble hero
Harold Kassel questions Neil Armstrong’s elevation to hero status (22 September, p 28). Yet Armstrong was the first to deprecate his own role and acknowledge the part played by all the NASA scientists and engineers involved in the moon missions.
The status he held as a result of his role he carried with great dignity. Uniquely, the Apollo 11 mission emblem does not name the crew, as the astronauts wanted to ensure it was applicable to all who worked on the mission.
Gull smarts
You report that crows can recognise different humans (15 September, p 13). I suspect that gulls can do the same.
A juvenile herring gull has been visiting our bird table for about two years and is now completely relaxed about being approached by me or my wife and will happily feed from my hand. When a visitor tries, however, it retreats to a safe distance and only returns when the unfamiliar human is back indoors.
Decisive moments
Rather than talking of free will (11 August, p 10), perhaps a more productive approach would be to examine types and degrees of possible choice. We exist in turbulent, non-linear systems where sometimes tiny differences in action can result in greatly differing outcomes and sometimes the most concerted efforts will yield no change whatsoever.
Is there a general principle that could allow us to locate those rare “speak now or forever hold your peace” junctures in life where free will exists? I foresee an iPhone app that alerts you when entering a “real choice” zone.
True today…
I read with interest Samuel Arbesman’s article “Truth decay” on the apparent half-life of what we believe to be correct (22 September, p 36). But I cannot resist asking: just how long will its conclusions remain true?
Neutrino extras
Being a theoretical neutrino physicist, your recent look at efforts to piece together the true nature of neutrinos was inspiring and shows that there are several unsolved problems in particle physics (8 September, p 30).
Indeed, it suggests that neutrinos will play a key role in some of the unanswered questions beyond the standard model of particle physics.
You mention that the Daya Bay reactor neutrino experiment in China has measured the parameter theta13. Readers might like to know the Double Chooz and RENO experiments in France and South Korea, respectively, have also made important contributions.
Finally, a value of zero for theta13 would not have ruled out the existence of leptonic CP violation, which could shed light on the dominance of matter over antimatter in the universe, but would have made leptonic CP violation impossible to find through neutrino oscillation experiments.
Mobile discretion
Feedback is puzzled about the advice to “be discreet” when using a mobile phone (25 August). This is standard on a host of advice websites from police, universities and others, and it is all to do with keeping your belongings – and you – safe from thieves.
Colour the way
Sriram Peruvemba of E Ink reacts to the development of glare-free colour e-ink for displays by pointing out, “Most long-form reading is done in black and white” (8 September, p 19). That may be true now but such thinking is short-sighted. I for one would like to be able to read web pages outdoors on a sunny day. The internet is not the same in black and white.
False hope
Further to Elizabeth Iorns’s discussion of disappointing reproducibility of results in the biomedical sector (15 September, p 24). Statistics alone are enough to produce a slew of “highly promising” drugs that do nothing, provided that null results remain unpublished.
Suppose 2000 drug candidates are, in fact, totally ineffective. Given that much research defines statistical significance as akin to a probability of about 1 in 20 that the result is due to chance (a P value of 0.05) and a culture where negative or null results are not published, the literature could suggest 100 of the drugs are promising. When the studies are reproduced, five will be “confirmed” as effective. To account for this kind of selection bias, researchers would need to carry out more rigorous testing than suggested by P values alone.
From George Taylor
Isn’t the so-called scientific method actually a myth? I am an advocate for research and scientific study that is empirically falsifiable and reproducible.
However, science takes money and money is terribly prejudiced. There really aren’t dedicated scientists struggling year after year in their tiny laboratories to find the real answers.
There are only large corporations and governments offering funding to justify the saleable benefits of ideas and products that have markets waiting for them.
Glencoe, New South Wales, Australia
Kill switch?
After reading the discussion on artificial consciousness (8 September, p 18), I wonder what would happen when a conscious machine is switched off and on? Would it regain consciousness, as after a sleep, or would it have a totally new self-awareness?
If it is the latter, and we have destroyed the “self” of a sentient machine, will this be the equivalent of death followed by a new birth? Here’s my alternative test for AI consciousness: resisting being killed via the off switch.
Online engagement
You report the rise of online schooling (8 September, p 6). As a teacher of 35 years and cynical of some aspects of technology in education, I’m all for it if it means disengaged children become engaged in their learning.
For the record
• In our article about applying special relativity to quantum systems (22 September, p 13) we should have said if you have three events and two are simultaneous, only four of the six possible orderings created by changing your reference frame work mathematically.
• Feryal Özel, quoted in a story on the discovery of the heaviest known pulsar (26 May, p 9), is at the University of Arizona, Tucson.