Tropical history
Your story about the diversity of species on organic and non-organic farms mentioned the long history of intensive farming in Europe and stated that tropical wildlife lacks this history with intensive farming (8 February, p 6). However, this is disputable. Agriculture has been invented independently several times and some farming traditions are at least as old as those in Europe.
The large family of Niger-Congo languages, covering much of sub-Saharan Africa, spread because of agriculture. There is much evidence that the Amazon area was densely populated and had many agricultural practices. Such practices have existed for thousands of years in India, Indonesia, South-East Asia and New Guinea.
Cologne, Germany
For the record
鈥� We’ve been too negative. The decline in herb-like plants hastened the decline in the woolly mammoth population, leading to a cycle that decreased the plant diversity further (8 February, p 12). This is, of course, a good example of a positive feedback.
Chirpy idea
If birdsong led to the development of human language (8 February, p 36) then could it be that the first human communication was actually a tweet?
Wellington, Shropshire, UK
Pipe hogs
There’s another way to look at the subject of internet service providers charging companies more to supply their content at higher speeds (1 February, p 24), which has been described as an end to the principle of “net neutrality”. Instead of seeing it as a case of big business gaining ever more control, we can see it as making those who hog the bandwidth pay for it. Why should people who download movies and whatnot slow down the internet for those who don’t?
Les Essarts-le-Roi, France
Easy workout
You reported how Yong-Lae Park at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania made a robotic device with artificial muscles that could help people with cerebral palsy strengthen their foot and ankle muscles (25 January, p 21).
There may be another use: helping ordinary people develop a muscular body without having to pump iron. In the future, someone may simply climb inside a full-body version and develop a bodybuilder physique without having to lift a finger.
Hampton, Middlesex, UK
Trade off
Thomas Suddendorf’s book The Gap, reviewed by Anil Ananthaswamy (25 January, p 48), seems to deal only with traits that apparently make us superior to animals. If looked at from a different angle 鈥� by six-legged biologists from Alpha Centauri, say 鈥� might not more attention have been paid to the cost of these unique human developments?
In particular, our almost complete loss of the sense of smell would be noted, along with our diminished sensibility to other forms of perception. We have traded these capacities for speech and abstract reasoning. It is, of course, possible to argue that this bargain is a good one, but the details deserve examination.
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Drink to that
You asked for palatable non-alcoholic drinks. In Australia we have a company which makes a range of “brewed” soft drinks. The brewing gives a slightly sour taste. We also have Feb-fast, dry July and Oc-sober, when you give up alcohol (or some other pernicious habit).
Blackburn North, Victoria, Australia
Drink to that
I read Roger Kistruck’s letter in response to 快猫短视频‘s “dry January” experiment lamenting a lack of palatable non-sugary drinks, and the response that there is a need for grown up versions of these that can be savoured (1 February, p 32).
At the time, I had a pot of oriental spiced black tea on the go 鈥� which is very much an adult drink to be savoured, not guzzled 鈥� and it is wholly sugar-free. Chinese and Japanese tea houses have been delivering variants in a social context for a long time.
Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, UK
Cultivating crime
Your mention of West Germany using power company records in 1972 to track the Baader-Meinhof gang (25 January, p 5) reminds me of a hazard once faced by US orchid growers.
Growers like me, who live in chilly parts of the country and lack greenhouses, often resort to over-wintering plants indoors under artificial lights. This used to mean metal halide or high-pressure sodium lamps. The leap in electricity use not only resulted in big bills, but often a visit from the police. It seems that cannabis growers had the idea of using such methods first and the spike in electrical use was one thing authorities look for.
Nowadays, energy-saving compact fluorescents and LEDs are in much wider use among orchid hobbyists. I’m sure the cannabis growers embraced that trend before us, too.
Trafford, Pennsylvania, US
Molaison's legacy
I read with interest your story about the digital recreation of Henry Molaison’s brain for further research after his death. He underwent surgery for epilepsy, which involved removing some parts of his brain, and the problems that resulted were much studied during his life (1 February, p 14). Those of us lucky enough to have had surgery perfected by the knowledge gained from studying his brain owe Molaison a debt.
But we can all respect his legacy, and that of other volunteers with other illnesses who have allowed themselves to be poked and prodded by medical researchers. While being tested for my own operation (similar to but better performed than Molaison’s) I was only too glad to be involved in the phase 3 SPES (single pulse electrical stimulation) trials taking place at King’s College Hospital, London, in 2009. I am pleased that treatments developed from the work are now being put into clinical practice.
RIP Molaison, an incredible man, an extraordinary life. Thank you.
Okehampton, Devon, UK
African return
Your discussion about the discovery of Eurasian genes in southern African tribes focused on the Khoisan tribes (8 February, p 10). It is also worth mentioning the Lemba people of South Africa and Zimbabwe. Many of their religious practices are similar to those of Judaism, and the Lemba say they have been passed down orally through the generations. Genetic studies indicate a Middle-Eastern origin for the Y-chromosome in many men.
Their traditions put their arrival in the area at more than 2000 years ago, which could well account for the presence of Eurasian DNA in Khoisan tribes.
Jomtien, Thailand
On schizophrenia (2)
It is important to distinguish between the different antipsychotics available for schizophrenia. For example, for some 鈥� including myself 鈥� risperidone can result in a complete loss of interest in everything, and a sense of all-pervasive loss and panic, whereas Seroquel (quetiapine) can rebalance systems of self-soothing and quiet the voices, leading to the first experience of peace that a patient may have had.
I do not just want a talking therapy, and I say this after having had the benefit of some of the best therapy. I also want to have my effective and reliable medication.
Name and address supplied
On schizophrenia
Clare Wilson’s article on drug use and schizophrenia (8 February, p 32) examines the benefits of talking therapy over medication. I have schizophrenia and learned this first hand. I was put in a specialist unit where I saw a clinical psychologist who taught me how to use talking therapy.
It has helped change all aspects of my life. My delusional thoughts have almost vanished. I can deal with stress much better, and found the confidence to go abroad again. I am also thinking of getting my drug dose reduced. Talking therapies are important because they deal with thought processes causing the problem.
London, UK
Dredge reckoning
You reported on plans to dispose of dredge spoil in Great Barrier Reef waters (8 February, p 7).
The dredging is being done to enlarge the Abbot Point port in Queensland. I would like to add a few thoughts.
Obviously, securing removed sediment behind sea walls will not avoid dredging, it just avoids the dumping of spoil offshore. Long jetties into water deep enough for ships are the only option to avoid both dredging and spoil dumping.
It appears the jetty option was ruled out on cost grounds, but there is no technical and economic analysis of all the options that is fully independent of the port developer. At least four options should have been compared on the basis of technical feasibility, damage to the reef and cost.
They are: dredging and inland disposal of the spoil, dredging and spoil disposal behind a sea wall on the coast, dredging and spoil disposal offshore (the option chosen) and finally a long jetty into deep water, with no dredging or spoil dumping.
Townsville, Australia
Early ecstasy
Those researching ecstatic epileptic seizures described in your article (25 January, p 44) might be interested to learn of a study from the early 1960s. For a seminar presentation in 1975, Donald Hebb, one of the founders of modern neuroscience, assigned me Ecstasy: A study of some secular and religious experiences by Marghanita Laski (Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, vol 4, p 106).
Laski describes ecstatic experiences in non-epileptic adults. Many of them reported brief and very rare periods that they described in terms of feeling whole, connected with the universe, at complete peace and so on, similar to those of the ecstatic seizures.
Gillies Bay, British Columbia, Canada
Civilised talk
Matthew Stevens, a “non-religionist”, adds to the now trendy practice of bashing atheist Richard Dawkins by saying that religion, “has evolved by natural selection because of the benefits it confers on its practitioners” (8 February, p 31).
In Dawkins’s defence, I’d say that to many of us he is a breath of fresh air, in a world whose history is strewn with cruelty, violence and mass murder perpetrated by religious practitioners. Did violent behaviour also evolve to benefit members of our species willing to engage in wars? The long process of civilisation is 鈥� or should be 鈥� about controlling the evolved beast in all of us.
Johnstone, Renfrewshire, UK
Gender gap
Elizabeth Pollitzer comments on the under-representation of women in preclinical, clinical and epidemiological studies (8 February, p 30). Although it is true that women are under-represented, such research has some practical constraints.
Clearly, epidemiological studies have to make do with the composition of the population of interest, while a clinical trial could recruit the sexes equally. However, a trial requires many more participants in order to detect a difference in response between men and women than to detect a general effect. Such a trial will likely run out of time, money or participants before the issue of a sex difference can be proved.
Yes, there may be differences in response, but these are unlikely to be large compared with the overall benefit, and are at least partly accounted for by factors correlated with sex, such as body weight.
Bamford, Derbyshire, UK