Chronic energy woes
Michael Brooks reports figures from the UK’s Office of National Statistics (ONS) to the effect that energy costs have risen to nearly 3 per cent of the average household budget (21 June, p 32). However, this figure gives no hint of the chronic problem of fuel poverty.
The ONS average is significantly skewed by a small number of households in the highest income bracket, and masks the long tail of low-income households spending close to or more than 10 per cent of their income on energy.
Many of these households appear to be gaining no or little benefit from upgrades in heating or insulation. As such they are seriously under-heating their homes, which could contribute to health problems, particularly among children and the elderly. Although the Scottish and UK governments have pledged to eliminate fuel poverty by 2016, neither can claim any real success.
The UK is not unique in having a significant proportion of its population unable to afford heating. But a comparison with countries such as Denmark, where very few households are in fuel poverty despite markedly higher energy costs, makes clear that the solutions lie in a commitment to affordable warmth, delivered through practical measures such as district heating systems, not in fudging statistics.
Glasgow, UK
Chronic energy woes
You mention that we want energy to be “cheap, reliable and green”, but you should have mentioned that we also don’t want it made in our back gardens. Nimbyism is a barrier to a more sustainable energy industry, and one of the reasons why politicians have been so keen to support offshore wind energy despite the relatively high cost of this technology.
Although you refer to solar and wind you forgot to mention one of the UK’s most important natural resources. Tidal barrages use proven technology and can provide predictable power generation as well as a degree of energy storage.
Of course tidal barrages can have a big impact on the local environment, but they must be part of the solution if we are serious about moving to sustainable energy.
Abinger Hammer, Surrey, UK
Lab-leavers sought
Joan C. Williams’s discussion of the issues faced by women in the workplace raises important questions (newscientist.com/article/dn25555).
Every year, thousands of students obtain a scientific degree, yet only a small proportion pursue a career in their field. The majority of people who leave science are women; in the UK roughly nine out of 10 jobs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are held by men.
We understand little about why people leave scientific careers. A better understanding of the factors that influence their decision is crucial for making the career path more transparent for the next generation.
To address this information gap, we’re inviting anyone who studied a STEM subject as an undergraduate or postgraduate, but decided not to pursue a career in that field, to complete our online survey (). We’d like to know what you studied, why you decided to leave the field, and what would have made you stay.
London, UK
Correction, 4 August 2014: Due to an editing error, when this letter was first published it mistook what the “M” in STEM stands for.
Slightly misinformed
I welcome Lyman Lyons’s critique of David Deutsch and Chiara Marletto’s article on reconstructing physics (14 June, p 32). It is time to reappraise the growing obsession with the idea that information is a cornerstone of modern physics.
The roots of this go back to Claude Shannon’s founding of information theory in 1948 with his paper “A Mathematical Theory of Communication”, and the philosophical overview of this in the book he co-authored with Warren Weaver the following year.
I don’t deny Shannon’s connection of information to communications theory, but I would suggest communication is a goal-directed activity and not a property of inanimate matter.
London, UK
Begone, xenon
You reveal that xenon and argon are to be banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency because the gases can apparently help athletes cheat (7 June, p 7). This is back to front. It is only cheating once these substances are banned.
It seems that these gases have a similar effect to altitude training, which may be prohibitively expensive for many athletes who are not already world-class professionals. By making the effects of altitude training available to those who cannot commit to lengthy training in another country, these gases may actually level the playing field.
The main reasons I can see for banning substances are health risks and exclusivity. Xenon and argon are both inert gases, so are unlikely to pose a health risk. But I admit I don’t know how widely available they are.
Braintree, Essex, UK
Olfactory settings
Thank you for the interesting article on smells (7 June, p 28). I find that smells are extremely evocative. For example, a certain cigar smoke takes me back 40 years to a tram stop in a large city in Germany. However, not all manufactured smells are equally welcome.
Certain aftershaves can make me feel ill when I smell them. If I am sitting on a bus behind someone wearing a particular aftershave, I have to move. I don’t know what research, if any, has been carried out into the components of fragrances which may be offensive, or whether particular scents affect different people differently.
In the meantime, if you find yourself on a crowded bus next to a woman burying her nose in a hanky, maybe it is me reacting to your aftershave.
Cawood, NorthYorkshire, UK
Natural warming
In reply comments from your readers on the UK Independence Party’s stance on climate change, I would like to clarify our position (28 June, p 30).
UKIP believes there is evidence to indicate climate change but does not support the notion that it is due to human intervention. We are, of course open to the results of unbiased research.
We recognise that it is prudent to become less dependent on imported oil and gas, and rely more on domestic energy sources. Nuclear fusion is obviously the ultimate goal, but is some years away from full development.
In the meantime, UK business must not be disadvantaged and made less competitive by punitive EU carbon legislation that the rest of the world is not subject to.
If climate change is a real phenomenon, then we must learn to deal with the changes in a pragmatic way, as there are simply too many variables and countries involved to do anything else.
On a personal note, nothing would give me more pleasure than using money saved by the UK’s exit from the EU to subsidise the creation of the world’s finest electric car, to beat the German BMW i8 or the US Tesla.
Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, UK
Database disaster
Linking together all of the various hospital services to present an integrated database sounds fine, but personal experience has shown a severe downside to that approach (14 June, p 21).
Three years ago my wife was taken ill and was referred to a specialist who was part of a network of hospitals using linked databases. The first specialist misdiagnosed her condition and entered this into the database. From that point on it became impossible to obtain an unbiased second opinion. Everywhere we went, the first thing the new specialist did was log on to the network, access my wife’s records and then close their mind to any other possibilities.
After three years, we finally managed to find a specialist outside of the database network who made an accurate diagnosis of my wife’s problem.
Implementing these large databases presents the danger of one doctor recording erroneous data which is then locked to the patient for all time.
Lilydale, Victoria, Australia
Meat of the matter
The evidence for Adrian Williams and Robin Dunbar’s hypothesis that the tuberculosis pathogen could provide essential nicotinamide to humans is persuasive, but some of the arguments implying that meat is essential for good nutrition are not (21 June, p 28).
The pellagra epidemic in Europe arose from the exclusive consumption of maize, refined or not, which had been introduced from Central America. The Aztecs and Maya never had pellagra as they recognised that maize had nutritional limitations and complemented it with sources of nicotinamide, such as amaranth.
Pellagra is a socio-economic disease arising in low-income groups who are forced to subsist on the cheapest possible diet. Williams and Dunbar’s TB hypothesis is credible without the need for a superfluous critique of vegetarianism.
Hastings, UK
#catchmytone?
Tiffany O’Callaghan’s article on the apparent inscrutability of irony and sarcasm in printed matter (14 June, p 46) strikes a very loud chord of recognition.
Anyone who has experienced inter-office memos would no doubt hear the very same chord. Where I see this phenomenon shown in truly stark relief, however, is in social media.
Many times I have seen comments misinterpreted and remarked on with vitriol, provoking further anger in response.
What these emails, status updates and memos have in common is their brevity. The statements stand alone with no context except that added by the reader.
If literate, well-educated humans have trouble latching on to irony and sarcasm, what chance does computer software have?
Pakenham, Victoria, Australia
Practice++ = perfect
Thomas Webster suggests that because programmers learn computer languages with no spoken component, they may not be benefiting from the mental workout you get from choosing the correct expression in a spoken language (21 June, p 30).
But with programming you still have to choose the “correct expression”, in that you write statements and functions to achieve your objective. Computer languages, in common with spoken ones, share characteristics and fall into linguistic families. This makes it possible to switch quickly between similar computing languages.
There is a continual flow of information between those who are learning a new language and those who are more experienced in the idioms of that language, be it a human or computer one.
This flow, combined with the mental stimulation and daily puzzle-solving needed to communicate, are guaranteed to keep one mentally fit.
London, UK
Remote emote
Your report that scientists in California and Beijing have been studying what they describe as “contagious emotions” on social networks, with one user’s mood affecting the mood of another (28 June, p 22). The article concludes that “we don’t need to interact in person to influence someone’s feeling”.
What a waste of time, money and effort to discover the obvious! Novelists, dramatists and musicians have been influencing people’s feelings for centuries, all without personal interaction.
Swaffham, Norfolk, UK
For the record
鈥� We feel a bit dense: in our article on supercooled water, we meant to say that water decreases in density only below 4 掳C (21 June, p 17).