Mechanical mate
Your article about an autonomous shipboard firefighting robot built for the US navy (14 February, p 22) caught my attention, particularly because it is bipedal.
This surprises me, since bipedal robots tend to be cumbersome and slow 鈥� not ideal for a rolling ship, especially in stormy conditions.
Surely a robot using wheels or a caterpillar tread would be much more stable, and better able to mount steps without losing its balance? Or am I missing something?
Darmstadt, Germany
For the record
鈥� The light-activated nano-therapy used by Adah Almutairi to treat macular degeneration was tested in animals, but not the human variety (28 February, p 31).
鈥� In discussing assisted suicide, we wrote that Canada has legalised the practice (28 February, p13). We should have said the Supreme Court has ruled that it should be legalised.
Divine deduction
I have been agnostic for as long as I can remember, and atheist for most of that time. I’m aware of the supposedly untenable position this puts me in, but I prefer the term a-theist: I am without god.
Even if the ether is swirling with all the deities we have invented over the millennia, I subscribe to none of them. I know that if just one of them turns out to be real I am in a bad position, but on balance, I’ll take my chances.
Houston, Renfrewshire, UK
Divine deduction
Chris Ford writes that agnosticism is a more scientifically defensible position than the alternatives (28 February, p 55).
I agree that it is scientific evolutionary atheism that it untenable. How can a creature evolved to swing from trees and then survive in the savannah claim to have a brain capable of deciding on the existence of a god or gods?
For this reason I prefer to call myself, somewhat pretentiously, a “provisional atheist” 鈥� one who wishes to have a working hypothesis, and has settled on atheism, but knows he cannot know for sure.
Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, UK
Divine deduction
Mike Paterson places the blame on greed rather than religion for our overstretching of the world’s resources (21 February, p54).
But surely the doctrine of many religions to produce as many children as possible is the most basic form of greed. Every extra person produced will want the best life possible, and every parent scrabbles to get that life for their offspring, causing more resources to be plundered.
Chesham, Buckinghamshire, UK
Congressional cure
Oh, the praiseworthy efforts of optimistic youth at the hackathon to fix the US Congress.
Only when constituents give more money to Congress than lobbyists do will Congress be more responsive to them.
Hamilton, New Zealand
Congressional cure
Any attempt to reform the US Congress that requires the cooperation of Congress is unlikely to have much impact (14 February, p 22).
Deep reform requires a disruptive change from outside the control of the incumbents. What we really need is a political party 鈥� or more than one 鈥� that imposes strict controls on itself to limit special interest influence. This would include limits on campaign contributions as well as rules to guarantee transparency and accountability.
To be effective, these rules would not only apply to the party’s candidates, but also to all party officers. Even rank-and-file members should be forbidden to make or receive contributions above the limit, and those that violate these rules should be expelled from the party, regardless of seniority.
These rules could be made legally binding by enshrining them in the party’s Articles of Incorporation. I believe a political party that shows it is serious about governing itself would gain wide support, and do a better job of governing the country.
Longmont, Colorado, US
Faecal matters
Once again, 快猫短视频 shows that it is greater than the sum of its parts by the juxtaposition of two otherwise unrelated articles.
Writing about microbes in the human environment (7 February, p 38), Andy Ridgway reports that the bacteria found on the seat of a chair are associated with the gut and vagina. Researcher James Meadow concludes that “we’re incredibly leaky animals and our clothes are definitely not the impermeable barrier we like to think they are”.
The following week, Jessica Hamzelou discusses faecal transplants (14 February, p 8), writing that “the number of people thought to be conducting their own faecal transplants at home is rising”.
Maybe buses, trains and theatres were humankind’s first foray into facilitating this medical procedure.
La Tour d’Aigues, France
Rose-tinted
Paul Bowden says that he doesn’t consider pink to be a fundamental colour (28 February, p 55). In this respect he is perhaps more correct than he realises.
“Pinked” refers to petals with a serrated edge. This is the reason that scissors used by dressmakers to produce a serrated effect in fabric are called “pinking shears”.
Dianthus flowers are well known for having this type of petal, and are also the “light red” shade Bowden refers to. The close association of these two factors led to the use of the word “pink” to describe the flower’s colour.
Earby, Lancashire, UK
Mechanical mate
While the researchers admit that balancing on unstable terrain is especially challenging for bipedal robots, the goal is to create a robot capable of working alongside sailors. Such a robot must therefore be designed to have similar agility to humans.
Heading for trouble
My grandfather’s favourite saying was “you cannot put an old head on young shoulders”. Soon you might be able to, literally (28 February, p 10).
The wisdom of Alvin Toffler in his book Future Shock echoes from the past. We are being dragged into the future behind our technology, out of control and not thinking where it might lead.
Would it not be better for surgeon Sergio Canavero to use this developing technology to help people with paraplegia? In this case, the nerves to be joined would be from the same body, avoiding the problems of rejection. Now that would really bring hope to thousands.
St Blazey, Cornwall, UK
Infected by obesity
While reading Edward Archer’s article about the link between maternal inactivity and childhood obesity (28 February, p 32), I wondered if he and other researchers have considered the significance of the adenovirus AD 36. This was described in some detail in 快猫短视频 around six years ago (17 October 2009, p 47).
At that time, there appeared to be a strong correlation between infection and subsequent obesity. Comparing the presence of antibodies against AD 36 in obese children and their mothers 鈥� who may have been infected while pregnant 鈥� could supply further evidence for Archer’s theory.
Richmond, North Yorkshire, UK
Genetic repair
In his passionate case for genetic engineering, Michael Le Page suggests that the limiting factor in germ-line genetic engineering is mainly technological (14 February, p 26).
If only. The real obstacle is appropriate knowledge of the effects that even the simplest genetic manipulations have. So far, we are only good at restoring deleterious mutations.
The proper term for this is patching up, not engineering, and adopting it would provide us with a good analogy to convince opponents that it is right to do so. Rather than engineering a race car, we are simply taking our modest sedan to the repair shop.
Baltimore, Maryland, US
Celestial spectacle
The researchers do indeed address this in their paper. If the black hole was lensed, you would expect to see multiple objects or some other imaging artefacts. However, microwave imagery suggests they are seeing a single object.
Celestial spectacle
I was intrigued by the report of a black hole with a mass 12 billion times that of the sun, which apparently existed 12.8 billion years ago (28 February, p 14).
I can understand how the researchers estimated its distance, and therefore age, from the stretching of light wavelengths. However, the estimation of size is based on apparent brightness.
I wonder how they allowed for gravitational lensing events while the light was en route. After all, even a small lensing event 12 billion years ago would have had a large effect on apparent brightness, and therefore size, as observed now.
Jomtien, Thailand
Truth by consensus
Hal Hodson reports that Google’s software for ranking pages on their trustworthiness will make its judgement by drawing on a store of facts gathered from the internet. Isn’t this circular logic?
How would the Google system handle a statement such as “glass is a liquid”? On the internet, the notion that glass is a slow-moving liquid, resulting in medieval windows that are thicker at the bottom, seems far more prevalent than the truth 鈥� that glass is a solid and medieval glaziers placed the thicker end of blown glass sheets at the bottom.
Since nothing on the internet is unanimously agreed, Google’s software would have to take the majority consensus. If this happened, there is a good chance that any site dispelling a popular misconception would appear far down the list of search results, making it harder, not easier, for people to learn the truth.
Popular fiction would dominate because the software would add it to the Knowledge Vault and use that reference point to downgrade the truth. Intelligent people can make clever software, but no one makes intelligent software.
Hampton, London, UK
Truth by consensus
There is an obvious problem with Google’s plan to rank websites according to their trustworthiness (28 February, p 24).
Doing so by cross-referencing facts may be appropriate for current events, but perhaps not when applied to scientific facts. It is well known that scientific facts have a half-life, as existing research is superseded by the latest results (22 September 2012, p 36). If Google does not consider this, its search results will not display the most up-to-date but as yet unestablished scientific ideas.
Hampton, London, UK
Heading for trouble
Helen Thomson’s article reminded me of the sci-fi classic That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis, in which a shady government research establishment is controlled by a reanimated severed head.
Through this, Lewis addresses the question of what happens to the human soul when you separate the head from the body.
Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK
Heading for trouble
Apart from the technical difficulties of head transplants yet to be resolved, one of the ethical concerns would be whether or not the donor body was the same sex as the original. The implications are intriguing.
Glasshouses, North Yorkshire, UK
Heading for trouble
Before we get carried away with the idea of head transplants, recall the article in the same issue about people who received bionic replacements for their hands (p 8).
Since we can make human-like robots, perhaps we should use the technique to transplant the head of someone with quadriplegia onto a robot body.
It may be easier to source robot bodies than human body donors with no serious damage anywhere other than the head. Learning to drive a robot body with preset functions might be easier than attempting to relearn the precise movements for a biological one.
West Launceston, Tasmania, Australia