Light dark matter
Given the potentially smaller size of the hypothetical particles known as weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) (31 August, p 36) and in view of their elusive nature, should they now be know as WISPs?
London, UK
Unusual unit #37
I see we have another unusual unit of measurement to add to Feedback’s ongoing collection, in this case of carbon storage. The unit is a Humvee-year, as in “the amount of carbon stored by 1 hectare of bog is equivalent to that emitted by 325 Humvees over a year” (21 September, p 40). I’m sure we can all relate to that.
Feniton, Devon, UK
All-seeing eye
There was an interesting correlation between two articles in your 7 September issue. Biologist Russell Gray wants to use his tools for analysing the spread and evolution of languages to uncover what gods our ancestors believed in (p 32). One theory mentioned says complex social structures couldn’t have developed without a belief in a moralising god or gods to keep cheats in check.
In the very next article, Katia Moskvitch describes our surveillance society and computers that can automatically issue fines for misdemeanours such as speeding or being drunk in public (p 36). She then says awareness of such surveillance may well modify our behaviour.
It would seem that, these days, computers are taking the role of the gods of old!
Folkestone, Kent, UK
Beat paste
Your interview with anthropologist David Howes on the use of multiple senses to sell products was interesting (14 September, p 28). It brought to mind a related example. Poet Allen Ginsberg once told how he earned money in the 1940s working for a market research company, and how a plan to market toothpaste as “glamorous” had to be abandoned because research found that people associated glamorous with the sensation of fur. Not a feeling you want for your teeth.
Berlin, Germany
Sickly shake
It is interesting that Valerie Curtis says manners evolved at least partly to stave off disease (21 September, p 28). One of the most common ways of spreading influenza is by the well-known gesture of politeness known as “shaking hands”.
Hamilton, New Zealand
Quantum causation
Further to George Ellis’s idea that macroscopic effects can have an effect on the microscopic world, reversing the classical bottom-up idea of cause and effect (17 August, p 28). If the superposition of quantum states is only determined by observation, surely this is the ultimate example of top-down causation?
Hereford, UK
Climate concern
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest assessment offers little room for those who doubt the human role in global warming and its consequences (28 September, p 6). To me, it is like going into a hospital ward and seeing a patient twiddling with the controls of their life-support machine. You wouldn’t know the exact consequences of what they were doing but you would be right to fear that it was going to end unhappily.
Earth’s climate is the life-support system of society and we are twiddling with it. We shouldn’t expect it to end well.
Staveley, Cumbria, UK
Cats' cradle
Cats are often infected with Toxoplasma gondii, a protozoan that is passed on to other animals, , via their faeces. Most people don’t have any obvious symptoms, but it is known to affect the brains of small rodents, making them behave recklessly and so be more likely to become cat food. This symbiosis of cat and protozoa must have evolved over many thousands of years.
Perhaps this solitary predator has parasitised humans so successfully, despite its withdrawn and aloof behaviour, through similar means.
Lower Hutt, New Zealand
Cats' cradle
I can relate to the inscrutability of domestic cats as spelled out by John Bradshaw (14 September, p 44). My cat, Her Supreme Highness Sophie, leader of the World Cat Domination League, has twice within the last 12 months given me a dose of Bartonella (cat scratch disease); the first by a playful bite, which caused an ankle to swell; the second by an affectionate pawstroke to my face.
Both required antibiotics, but HSH is still, as I write, stretched across my lap, purring and expecting her dinner.
Bletchley, Buckinghamshire, UK
Feast of fortune
It was vaguely annoying to find once again the invocation of religion to explain G枚bekli Tepe (17 August, p 14). One could similarly imagine humans in 10,000 years’ time musing on which deity was worshipped, and whether human sacrifice was involved, when examining the ruins of observatories atop Mauna Loa or at Cerro Paranal or Siding Spring.
If it walks like an astronomical observatory and quacks like an astronomical observatory, it’s an astronomical observatory. No temples, religion or worship actually required.
Albury, New South Wales, Australia
Outside influence
Malafouris states that “using a stick, the blind man turns touch into sight”. As a carer to a blind child, I am made aware that the “stick” not only serves to give tactile feedback on the environment, but also auditory feedback, thus turning touch into hearing too. In some cases, however, it offers no tactile or auditory feedback, and is just there to alert others to the bearer’s visual impairment.
Incidentally, I am often told off for calling it a stick, the correct term being “cane” or “symbol cane” in cases where no tactile feedback is used.
Bristol, UK
Outside influence
I enjoyed reading Lambros Malafouris’s article “Mind into matter” (7 September, p 28) on the idea that the human mind isn’t contained within the walls of the skull or even the skin but can encompass the entire body and beyond 鈥� what is widely known among cognitive scientists as “embodied cognition”.
It is probably worth saying that this continues a debate that has been running among philosophers and cognitive scientists for decades. Malafouris’s new book can be welcomed as another contribution to it.
Godalming, Surrey, UK
With subtitles
Your look at the healthcare potential of Google Glass suggests many potential applications (28 September, p 22). As an 80-year-old my hearing is weakening and in a crowded situation I can miss bits of conversation. If a sufficiently sophisticated speech recognition program could be developed, the glasses could relay subtitles to the wearer.
Newbury, Berkshire, UK
Loom of language
Historical linguists have been borrowing techniques from biological taxonomy, including models based on genetics, for years (7 September, p 32). The results are interesting, but biological organisms differ from languages in at least one important way: complex organisms diverge genetically over time and reach a point where exchange of genetic material is all but impossible.
Languages never reach such a stage. No matter how distantly related, they can and do exchange words, sounds and grammatical devices. Microorganisms might be a better model, as genetic exchange is more common even when distantly related.
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Space pups
I read with interest the views of the Apollo 8 astronauts on the International Astronomical Union disregarding their suggested names for lunar features (14 September, p 30 and 21 September, p 30). No one has more right than they do to name the features they were the first to see. This has always been the privilege of explorers.
On a more mundane note, during the Apollo 8 flight in 1968, the guinea pigs in my school animal house produced a litter of three pups. We named them Borman, Anders and Lovell. This was life, Jim (Lovell), but not as you knew it.
Hawley, Hampshire, UK
Thought thoughts
In Tim Bayne’s essay on thought he suggests that “we can think about nothing at all” (p 32). He later writes that “to think of something is to bring it to mind in some way”. Although I think that I am not thinking when doing something that has become automatic through repeated practice, I find it impossible to bring nothing to mind.
King’s Somborne, Hampshire, UK
Thought thoughts
The editorial prefacing your article on thought suggests that our ability to think in many ways 鈥� “from idle reverie to determined problem-solving” 鈥� may be what defines us as human (21 September, p 5).
But other animals are known to solve multi-stage problems, . Doubting purposeful thought in all non-human organisms seems to be an arbitrary distinction. A bird may well not think in the way we do, but then not all people think the same way either.
Grove, Tasmania, Australia
Feast of fortune
Your report that the G枚bekli Tepe temple predates agriculture raises an intriguing question: could such religious sites have given rise to arable farming, via gatherings of Mesolithic litter-louts?
Imagine pilgrims congregating at the temple on festival days, bringing provisions, including grain, foraged en route. There would be spillage during exuberant feasts 鈥� including seeds. Come rain, a denser than usual mass of cereal would grow. Astute temple caretakers would soon put two and two together. They might even capitalise on the harvest, stocking up and charging pilgrims or refreshments. Word would spread and 鈥� hey presto 鈥� agricultural revolution.
Roade, Northamptonshire, UK