Tin soldiers
The complex issues of robot war that Chris Baraniuk discusses (15 November, p 38) can be boiled down to three questions.
First, do we accept the utilitarian principle that we should choose the option that maximises good and minimises harm, rather than being driven by absolute principles?
Second, do we agree that violence is the optimal way to achieve this objective? And third, is our technology sufficiently advanced that machines can do this better than fallible but still far more complex humans?
Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, UK
Tin soldiers
Chris Baraniuk discusses whether robot weapons should be banned. There is a long history of bans on new weapons technology, but most have met with little success.
As early as 1139, Pope Innocent II, agreed to ban the use of the crossbow against Christians.
Richard I failed to differentiate between Christians in France and Muslims in the Holy Lands when deploying his crossbowmen. This resulted in the ban disappearing quickly without trace.
Stoke Gabriel, Devon, UK
Tin soldiers
The implicit assumption in your article is that robotic weapons would be deployed against human combatants. This ignores the facts about arms acquisition in the modern world.
In many conflicts, the same manufacturer may ultimately have provided the weapons used by both sides. This was the case in the 1980 war between Iran and Iraq, where British weapons were procured by both nations.
What happens when both sides send in the same robots? Do we apply the principle of warfare expressed by first world war general Douglas Haig that both sides keep shooting until one combatant is left? Do we revert to human versus human trench warfare? Or do we all realise the stupid futility of it all, have a good laugh at ourselves and settle down to peaceful coexistence?
Glasshouses, Harrogate, UK
Picture this
Tiffany O’Callaghan explores fears that reading on screens will have detrimental effects on the development of literacy skills (1 November, p 40).
It’s unfortunate how many people hold strong positions on this, given that we have “such a shallow knowledge base”, as researcher Anne Mangan notes.
This is opposite to my own concerns, about the effect picture books have on the development of reading skills. In this case, the knowledge base is vast but almost nobody takes a strong position on the issue.
Dozens of researchers from the 1960s to the present day have produced overwhelming evidence that picture books are harmful to the development of reading 鈥� and they have been ignored.
Even the best young readers read more slowly and make more mistakes when pictures are present. I wrote about it for your magazine (19 June 1993, p 44), and have since completed a doctoral thesis on the subject.
As literacy levels continue to plummet, more use is made of the very teaching material that has been proven to be a major contributor to this situation.
I wish current researchers success in getting educationalists to heed their results about reading in the age of digitisation.
Upper Hutt, New Zealand
Without a trace
As a recent biographer of John George Haigh, the “acid bath murderer”, I was interested to read Erwin Vermeij’s article on the science of dissolving bodies (8 November, p 44).
I would take issue with two points, however. First, Haigh was only convicted of killing one person, Henrietta Helen Olivia Robarts Durand-Deacon, although he undoubtedly killed six people.
Second, acid will eventually destroy all organic remains, and if there’s no investigation, the killer is safe. Nothing was ever found of Haigh’s first five victims.
The remains of three were flushed down the drain of a basement flat on Gloucester Road, London. A year later when Durand-Deacon’s remains were found in the rubbish near Haigh’s shed in Crawley, there was no evidence left of the two victims also dumped nearby.
Iver, Buckinghamshire, UK
Fuelling change
Why does anyone suggest, as Paul Younger does, that divesting from the fossil fuel industry would cause more fuel poverty (15 November, p 26)?
Fossil fuel exploration subsidies in the UK total 拢750 million a year on average, largely as a result of tax exemptions for oil and gas activities in certain types of fields. These activities would not happen unless supported by taxpayers, and this money could instead be used to relieve poverty.
Worldwide, the fossil fuel industry receives more support from governments than renewables. If this was withdrawn then renewables and energy storage could compete successfully with fossil fuels.
Leek, Staffordshire, UK
Fuelling change
In justifying his stance against divestment, Paul Younger mentions that our plastics rely on fossil fuels.
Surely when oil is made into plastic, the oil should not be referred to as a fuel 鈥� fossil or otherwise. It is more akin to “plastic ore” in the same way that iron ore is used for making iron. Carbon locked into plastics does not contribute to global warming.
Kimberley, Nottinghamshire,UK
Trading places
I was very pleased to read your articles exploring the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) (1 November, p 32).
I live in New Zealand, where a similar trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, is being negotiated for the region, likewise undertaken in near-total secrecy.
No useful information is coming from the mainstream print or broadcast media in this part of the world.
From what I have been able to glean, it appears that the TPP would effectively mean that laws and regulations would have to be made for the benefit of US corporations, even to the detriment of the other parties to the deal. I suspect that the end result would be very similar to that expected of TTIP.
Milton, New Zealand
The birdie song
Whatever one may think of the hermit thrush, nobody who has listened to Australian butcherbirds can doubt that birds make music (8 November, p 12).
Their varied songs can all be transcribed 鈥� both pitch and rhythm 鈥� into Western notation. Many Australian composers have used their songs, and Brett Dean even incorporated an actual recording in his Pastoral Symphony.
Furthermore, butcherbirds use other “human” musical tricks such as adding ornamentation, or singing a melody followed by its inversion. They duet with others, and even with different species such as the Australian magpie.
I once got a butcherbird to duet with me by whistling its song back to it. The bird replied, slightly changing the melody. This delightful musical conversation carried on for a minute or two before it flew away.
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Age of polyethylene
Jan Zalasiewicz ponders whether human action has pushed Earth into a new geological age (8 November, p 26).
Discussing anthropogenic changes like new minerals (concrete being an example), one other unique long-lasting material was omitted 鈥� plastic. This material is possibly more widespread than any. With that in mind, we could call the new age the Plasticene.
Sutton Coldfield, UK
Climate control
I was deeply shocked to read that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calculated emissions must be “capped at 2.9 trillion tonnes to give a 66 per cent chance of avoiding global warming of more than 2 掳C”, widely held to be the threshold for dangerous climate change (8 November, p 8).
By implication, there is a 33 per cent chance that warming will be more than 2 掳C, even if emissions are capped successfully.
Those don’t sound like good odds to me. If I was in charge of the IPCC, I would therefore be encouraging investment into geoengineering.
This may not be the best solution, nor the least controversial, but it may buy us time if the odds go against us or, at the very least, allow us to mitigate some of the worst effects of dangerous climate change.
Abinger Hammer, Surrey, UK
Air power
Steve Orchard illustrates the inefficiencies of storing excess wind power as compressed air (15 November, p 31).
Compressed air isn’t the best option for storing energy unless one has a proper use for the huge quantities of very cold air that will be available when the bottled air is released.
Combining wind-powered air compression with a gas-fired power turbine is a much better bet, thermodynamically. Gas turbines require air to be heavily compressed before it is mixed with fuel and burned, a process that requires a lot of energy.
Having “pre-compressed” air on tap makes it possible to operate a gas turbine generator set at remarkably high efficiency.
These compressorless gas turbines needn’t consume fossil fuel. They could burn biogas, or liquid biofuels.
Admittedly, compressing air does produce a significant amount of heat, as Orchard says. However, that heat needn’t go to waste either: manufacturing plants or district heating systems could certainly exploit it.
Moorlynch, Somerset, UK
Sleep furiously
Looking at the difference between skinny and larger people, Linda Geddes comments that inactive skinny people move about more during the day, but may also burn more calories at night (15 November, p 32).
Perhaps this is also due to moving about more? Individuals’ movement during sleep varies enormously.
In our house, the skinnier person is notorious for dragging the covers into an untidy heap, while the one who is larger leaves the bed looking as though it has hardly been slept in.
Perhaps a hidden cause of the obesity epidemic is that modern beds are just too comfortable.
Melbourne, Australia
Reef relief
Michael Slezak refers to the widespread coral bleaching seen during the last spike in ocean temperatures as evidence of the harm these changes have caused (15 November, p 8).
However, coral bleaching 鈥� the expulsion of symbiotic algae by the coral 鈥� is an adaptive response, akin to sweating in humans. In most cases, the organism will return to normal as soon as the temperature falls to a more agreeable level.
Only if the raised temperature is sustained for a long time will the coral die. It should also be noted that corals are not as delicate as some people believe, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to ride out the coming and going of ice ages.
Jomtien, Thailand
Quantum countdown
The illustration accompanying your piece on the first run of historic quantum software (1 November, p 10) was captioned with the phrase “Testing, 1, 2, 3”. But surely it should have been “0, 1, both”?
Berlin, Germany
For the record
鈥� Flight of fancy: we referred to Lynn Rothschild as creator of a biodegradable drone; in fact she led the team that created it (15 November, p 21).