Synaesthesia for all
Your look at tapping multiple senses to enhance enjoyment of food seemed to be describing undiagnosed synaesthesia – a crossing of the senses (22/29 December 2012, p 60). Perhaps, rather than being either synaesthetes or “normals”, we all exist on a scale of greater or lesser synaesthesia. And for most people this synaesthesia could be subconscious.
As a synaesthete myself, I don’t think I could ever associate yellow with sourness because it is the colour of “9” for me. But then I haven’t tried putting a printout of this number next to my dinner plate to see what the taste effect would be (if any).
Flintstone flicks
I am grateful to Catherine Brahic for confirming my belief that animation is deeply embedded in the human psyche. Her wonderful article describes some of the ingenious methods that our ancestors came up with to create a sense of movement in cave art and artefacts (22/29 December 2012, p 44).
Animation predated the cinema, with “toys” such as the modern zoetrope creating the illusion of movement, but until now few people would have appreciated that animation began thousands of years ago.
However, there is more to the astonishingly skillful, beautiful and stylistic imagery of such ancient artists. It implies highly ordered social groupings, a storyteller, an audience and perhaps music and dance. The stories may have had a purpose – to teach, to recall, to worship. It requires little imagination to understand how potent such an experience would have been.
Perhaps cinema-going could be interpreted as a modern manifestation of that ancient cave experience. Urgent research is required into any grains or seeds found on the cave floor. I’m betting they had popcorn too.
A walnut would do
Bob Holmes explores ways of avoiding a scalding while carrying a hot drink (22/29 December 2012, p 65). I am sure the answer to this appeared in 91av about 25 years ago. The solution, at least for African women carrying pots of water, is to float a coconut shell in the liquid.
This acts as a damper on surface motion and prevents slopping. In a cup a smaller device would suffice. Another way is to drink cappuccino; the milk froth is an efficient damper.
Astro-pology
Feedback, and correspondent Bryn Glover, need to go back to their roots (22/29 December). The word “astronomy” has nothing to do with naming, but everything to do with nomos – law, order, arrangement. But I agree that “astrology” might be a better word for what astronomers do.
Drink to that
Your article on logician George Boolos’s hardest logic puzzle ever and related problems (22/29 December 2012, p 50) reminded me of the truth teller/liar problem set by science writer Martin Gardner in 1959. Readers had to find the correct road to a village by asking one question of a liar or truth teller, knowing the status of neither, nor the words for “yes” and “no”.
After his original problem was published in Scientific American Gardner got a of Ann Arbor, Michigan, suggesting an alternative question to solve the puzzle: “Did you know that they are serving free beer in the village?”
The truth teller answers “no” and sets off for the village; most liars will answer “yes”, but still set off for the village. In each case, the questioner simply follows.
This would work just as well today. Philosophy and logic may change and develop, but the desire for free beer is timeless.
Gut reaction
Your look at the influence of the enteric nervous system notes that a lot of the information the gut sends to the brain affects well-being, but not in a conscious way (15 December 2012, p 38).
Perhaps the subconscious ” gut instincts” and “gut reactions” that we experience may involve not just us, but also our symbiotic gut bacteria communicating information to our bodies, perhaps not just for our benefit but for their own.
The editor writes:
• See our recent feature for the latest on the influence of gut bacteria (12 January, p 30).
From Alastair Dobbin
It is always unhelpful to separate the brain and the body into distinct entities; this only leads to inaccuracies and supports the discredited idea that we can, for instance, “think” our way out of depression. The brain cannot survive without the body, and without the body there can be no consciousness.
Edinburgh, UK
Seeing red
Your report on detecting longer wavelengths of red light with a modified human visual protein (15 December 2012, p 19) suggests a way for us to see auras.
If some people naturally have mutated versions of such proteins that are stimulated by infrared radiation, then the phenomenon would be possible.
The editor writes:
• We recently published a story on auras (5 January, p 13). They do exist for some people, but it’s likely they stem from rewiring in the brain rather than differences in proteins in the eye.
Expert view
Jeremy Howard of Kaggle, a website that hosts problem-solving competitions, champions data science over experts for solving predictive problems in many disciplines (1 December 2012, p 28). This struck a chord, as I have found that expert knowledge can get in the way when trying to solve cutting-edge problems.
But before we decide to shoot the experts, let’s take a broader look. It’s only human to value our hard-won knowledge, and most of it will turn out to be correct.
We do need curious and creative people unconstrained by existing ideas to advance any field, but we also need knowledgeable people to guide their efforts so we don’t keep reinventing the wheel.
Blowing a fuse
The “electric universe” described in Greg Shanahan’s letter (22/29 December 2012, p 41) is a misconception supported with naive analogies to laboratory plasma effects, and refuted by the vast majority of astronomers.
He mentions physicist Anthony Peratt as a proponent. But Peratt accepts the standard model for thermonuclear stars and has disavowed the idea of electrical engineer Donald Scott, also mentioned by Shanahan, that stars are powered by massive flows of galactic electrons rather than fusion.
From W. T. Bridgman
Peratt’s plasma galaxy model, while an interesting alternative in the 1980s, failed later key observational tests.
The orbiting and the later Probe found no trace of the spaghetti-like streamers of microwave emission that Peratt predicted would be created by galaxy-powering electric currents. Peratt’s models could not reproduce the uniformity of the cosmic microwave background.
And if stars were powered by external electric currents rather than fusion then the accompanying particle fluxes and fields would damage satellites and kill astronauts, which of course is not something we see happening.
Silver Spring, Maryland, US
Language loss
Why do so many languages coexist in some parts of the world (8 December 2012, p 38)? Most languages, like many species, become extinct, making the history of language, especially how it dies out, a bit of a sketchy affair. However, I believe when states form they squeeze out small languages.
Regions of the world where state formation is relatively recent – such as New Guinea and eastern Siberia – are the areas with greatest linguistic diversity. China and Europe, with a long history of strong states, have fewer diverse languages. New Guinea’s multiplicity of languages is remarkable – but I don’t believe it can be explained by inter-group rivalry and tropical climate.
Mosquito Nobel
You reported research online showing how the mosquito avoids infection by the malaria parasite as it passes through its body (11 December 2012, newscientist.com), with talk of bioengineering its immune system to prevent transmission altogether.
If this can be made to work in mosquitoes and leads to a series of attacks on other diseases transmitted in a similar way, there should be a Nobel prize in it.
More than ice
You told the tale of research during the second world war on ships made of ice under the guise of Project Habbakuk (22/29 December 2012, p 63). I suspect it was a cover for wider work.
When at the National Physical Laboratory in the late 1960s, a colleague showed me a film labelled Project Habbakuk. It showed a test of something which was definitely not an iceberg ship. In fact, it resembled a semi-submersible rig, with a deck above wave height on very stout columns supported by a pair of submerged pontoons. What other ideas might Habbakuk have included?
Bitter lesson
How ironic that coffee should become a victim of global warming, considering that its export worldwide is one of the causes (5 January, p 33). The mass transportation of products across the planet has a huge carbon footprint, and is a major contributor to climate change.
For the record
• In the map to accompany our look at how to protect New York from storm flooding (5 January, p 6) we wrongly labelled the Bayonne and Jersey City area as Manhattan.