Hard to swallow
Andy Coghlan’s two-page report on giving up alcohol for a month was disappointing (4 January, p 6). The article starts by pointing out that there is no scientific evidence of health benefits of doing this, so it sounds worth reading. It then goes on to outline an anecdotal, uncontrolled set of observations on a group of self-selected journalists as if it were evidence.
The subjects “consider themselves to be normal drinkers” and some abstained while others continued “as normal” 鈥� with no information on how groups were selected. Blood tests show a difference in fasting glucose, something that can be attributable to many factors.
This is an uncontrolled study with no description of testing conditions, but reported in detail as if it had been published in a peer-reviewed journal. The word “significant” is used casually without any indication of analysis, and rating scales 鈥� entirely undefined 鈥� are used to claim benefits in lifestyle such as sleep quality with single-digit percentage accuracy. Worst of all, these non-findings are extrapolated to imply that “stopping drinking for a month alters liver fat, cholesterol and blood sugar” on the basis of “evidence” that would be rejected in the first round of submission for publication in a journal.
Hobart, Tasmania
Hard to swallow
Congratulations to the 快猫短视频 staff who gave up booze for a month. It is encouraging that so many health parameters improved. Changes in liver fat, cholesterol, glucose and weight can be clearly seen, but I am less sure about the changes in sleep, wakefulness, concentration and work performance, which were self-assessed. Is it possible that feelings about these were as much affected by a quieter social life as by the absence of alcohol?
Incidentally, as a long-term abstainer, I have struggled with the lack of palatable non-sugary drinks. If sparkling mineral water is too boring, I suggest lacing it with Worcestershire sauce. If nothing else, it scores a few points on the “What on earth…?” scale.
Long Melford, Suffolk, UK
<i>The editor writes:</i>
鈥� 快猫短视频 is a magazine, not a journal. As the editorial accompanying our news story explained, we were surprised to learn that there had been little investigation of the effects of a period of abstinence, despite the increasing popularity of “dry January”, and so we carried out one of our own, working with specialists to design an experiment with appropriate controls and oversight.
We hoped it would be clear that our experiment was just that, and not a clinical trial, by pointing out the small scale of the project and that it could merely “yield clues” as to the health effects of giving up alcohol.
Such preliminary experiments 鈥� common in most fields of science 鈥� are useful in making the case for the expensive, large-scale clinical trials required to robustly confirm an effect. We believe, as do our research partners, that we found an indication that such trials would be worthwhile, and we hope we have spurred others on to conduct them. In addition, we are pleased to have stimulated a public conversation about the social and psychological consequences of abstinence.
In reply to Roger Kistruck, we entirely agree that there is a need for “grown up” non-alcoholic drinks that are not loaded with sugar; drinks that can be savoured over time and not guzzled.
Insane reality
Having just read the review of Max Tegmark’s latest book (18 January, p 46) I have to ask: do physicists who believe in the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics really think that in a version of reality everyone in my street has just run outside naked screaming “Yumple is a Bumbler”? And in another version are they screaming “Yumple is a Bop”? While in another, do they have saucepans on their heads? I could continue, infinitely. Sometimes I wonder if I am living in a version of reality in which physicists who believe such things are considered sane.
Oh and by the way, my latest book is called… [editor’s note: in this reality shameless adverts for books tend to be edited out, as the correspondent predicted].
Dunning, Perth and Kinross, UK
Japanese lessons
From William Grant, Sunlight, Nutrition and Health Research Center
While you highlight decreasing dementia rates in England and Wales (11 January, p 32), in China, Japan and the developing world the rates are increasing. For example, .
According to my own research, there is a correlation between the , with a 15 to 25-year lag. Higher food consumption and obesity rates may explain increases in developing countries.
San Francisco, California, US
Free ways
The discovery that removing roads from a road network can improve, not worsen, traffic flow is not news to me (18 January, p 30). In 1988 my job required me to drive about 1000 miles a week in the East and West Midlands in the UK. On 8 January 1989, the Kegworth air crash blocked the M1 motorway near where I live.
I dreaded the days ahead, expecting that with the M1 closed all roads would be jammed. What actually happened was that for the week of the closure the roads were quieter and driving was much easier than usual.
Kimberley, Nottinghamshire, UK
Think on
Michael Brooks is on the right track in saying that we need agile thinkers rather than just ever more science, technology, engineering and maths graduates (21/28 December 2013, p 38). From the late 1960s onwards, Edward de Bono advocated the teaching of “thinking” in schools. Venezuela adopted his recommendation, and it would be interesting to examine the effect there.
Donvale, Victoria, Australia
Strangely absent
Adrian Bowyer remarks that if strange-quark matter were ejected by the “shock wave of a collapsing neutron star”, then lumps of it should have landed on Earth (4 January, p 29).
Supposing such an ejection were possible, there is a reason why strange-quark matter would not be found on or near the surface of the Earth.
If it is true, as some physicists say, that contact with strange matter would cause all the normal matter to violently convert to strange matter, then clearly Earth and the rest of the solar system have not been exposed.
So it seems that the formation of strange matter in neutron stars is rare or non-existent, and ejection rare and difficult, so very little is in space outside intense gravitational fields. It would also take longer than the current age of the solar system for an object the size of Earth to encounter a free-floating chunk of it.
Canberra, ACT, Australia
Sweet thoughts
The campaign group Action on Sugar aims to convince manufacturers to reduce the sugar content of food so slowly that UK consumers won’t notice (18 January, p 4). Your report states that it isn’t known whether our palates adjust to eating food that is less sweet. Forty-five years ago, the concern was that sugar routinely added to tea and cereal caused tooth decay, so my wife and I decided to give it up. It took about two days to get used to this.
Bedford, UK
Sweet thoughts
There is a small cohort of people who will have adjusted their sugar consumption in the past who could be studied, at least for recall of experience 鈥� it is those people who lived through the second world war.
Longfield, Kent, UK
Dark ages
After reading about the hunt for the cause of the year of darkness in AD 536 (18 January, p 34) I turned to my copy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a record of ancient England. Between 534 and 544, there are just two entries, in the years 538 and 540.
The first reads: “Here on 16 February the Sun grew dark from early morning until nine a.m.” And in 540: “Here on 20 June the Sun grew dark and the stars appeared for well nigh half an hour after nine a.m.”
Here “nine a.m.” is a translation equating to the third hour of daylight, so these remarks indicate abnormal darkness for the first 3 to 3-and-a-half hours past the expected sunrise. The fact that these are the only entries for an entire decade implies something very memorable.
There were no solar eclipses visible in England in 538 or 540. Consistent with the evidence cited in your article, the chronicle shows the abnormal conditions persisted for some years after 536.
However, the remarks imply that, at UK latitudes, the effect was limited to early morning and that stars were visible during the abnormal darkness. These observations might be significant as regards potential explanations.
Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, UK
Our loss
Chris Thomas was not reassuring about the way that biodiversity will regenerate after the “anthropocene extinction” (11 January, p 28). The one question that I waited in vain for was: “How long will this regeneration take?”
Speaking as one of the humans in north-eastern America, I still mourn the loss of the elm and the chestnut a hundred years ago. Thomas perhaps takes too lofty a scientific perspective, and forgets that the replacement he predicts may take millions of years. Even if it takes only a geological instant 鈥� a few thousand years 鈥� for us, this regeneration may be more than the “inconvenience” he describes.
Bedford, Massachusetts, US
Our loss
While Thomas promises opportunities for new life forms to those worried about mass extinctions, might it not be a glut of insect forms rather than cuddly koala-type creatures? And what about new pathogens?
Birmingham, UK
Keep it deep
Thank you to reviewer Jonathon Keats for illuminating the “dark underside” of Who’s Bigger? Where historical figures really rank (21/28 December 2013, p 84). By proposing that celebrity should be the rule whereby children are taught history, the trivial but salacious trumps anything of depth, let alone repercussiveness.
Nowra, New South Wales, Australia
I fear not
In his letter commenting on inherited fear responses in mice, Stephen Durnford says that DNA must be the mechanism of conscious and unconscious memory (4 January, p 28).
But he overlooks the capacity of neural machinery to hold and store information and meaning, and also that of culture, an external database which far exceeds genetic storage.
Dunford’s own belief in the power of DNA is not in his DNA, but comes from information he has acquired perpetuated in culture, that genes are all powerful in terms of structuring organisms, even humans.
Glasgow, UK
Missing you already
I feel I must add my voice to the (doubtless) many others expressing their sadness and regret at the passing of Enigma (21/28 December 2013, p 5) 鈥� a most stimulating adornment to 快猫短视频. My weekly practice was to turn first to Feedback and Enigma before any other pages.
Bedford, UK