Editor's pick: A long wave of innovative power
Reading about powering gadgets with Wi-Fi (6 June, p 18) reminded me of something similar from a very long time ago, when everybody listened to the radio as few could receive a television service.
Investigators looking into a “blank spot” where long-wave (1500 metre) radio signal had been lost narrowed their search to a garden. They found the fence had been used to disguise an extensive aerial system, connected to a rectifying device inside the house that produced 12-volt direct current. This charged a bank of batteries and powered the house lighting, which had been converted to 12 volt using stolen British Rail fittings and bulbs.
It was also suggested that the perpetrator was in the process of installing a rotary converter to produce 220-volt alternating current from the 12-volt direct current, this being well before the advent of solid-state inverters. As I recall it, the perpetrator was prosecuted for interfering with the radio broadcasting system.
To progress from power from long-wave radio to “possible” power from Wi-Fi in 60 years is lamentable!
Droitwich, Worcestershire, UK
A Magna Carta for Mars, for whom?
Andrea Maltman discusses a new bill of rights for space colonists (16 May, p 36). For a right to have any meaning, society as a whole must agree it will collectively punish violators of the right, and defend those who exercise it. My right to free speech is meaningless if I can be threatened or even punished for speaking my mind 鈥� by my employer, my government or by a bully 鈥� and there is no consequence for those who are threatening me.
Rights are mere philosophical fictions if the society doesn’t believe in them, or if it actively protects those who violate them 鈥� as US governments notoriously have done with over-zealous, racist and sadistic police officers. In space, it shouldn’t be up to “leaders” to enforce rights: they are often the main abusers of rights because they hold power. It must be the society of space travellers themselves that agree upon a Magna Carta, backed in the final analysis by their own collective forceful coercion.
San Antonio, Texas, US
A Magna Carta for Mars, for whom?
We already have legal systems and United Nations agencies with remits to ensure that the zeal of spacefaring nations remains benign. They say that it is written that rights and sustainability should remain clear goals no matter how lucrative the heavens seem. Are we planning to trial any of these remits here on Earth any time soon?
Par, Cornwall, UK
A Magna Carta for Mars, for whom?
Andrea Maltman drives home the truth that space exploration will entail difficulties beyond the mere medical. It is possible that, to , we will have to invent a new people. Could genetic technology create Homo spatialis, robust in body and mind and able to deal with the rigours of radiation, isolation and boredom?
It may first be wise to look for parallel examples. Take the Inuit: a traditional culture hardened by centuries of physical hardship and claustrophobic igloo-bound isolation in winter. The old-time Inuit might have made the best Martian colonists.
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
A Magna Carta for Mars, for whom?
In your article, Rhawn Joseph is quoted saying that “our cosmic biological destiny is to go forth and multiply.” This isn’t a scientific idea but a religious one, stated in as part of God’s covenant with Noah. It is woefully short-sighted. The destiny of a dominant, tool-using species that multiplies unchecked is ecological collapse, something we are now seeing here on Earth.
We need a new cosmic destiny, one in which we don’t run away from our problems. How about “stay, stabilise and save”?
Hampton, Middlesex, UK
Since the wolves are deriving the benefit, is it possible they are domesticating the baboons?
on the story of gelada monkeys minglng with wolves (13 June, p 14)
Premonitions of a purple planet
Various aspects of the ridiculous idea of humans travelling to Mars are regularly discussed (for example 30 May, p 27), but I have rarely seen mention of the effect on the Red Planet itself.
Presumably, for their own well-being, anyone who travels to Mars will do so with their full microbiome. So rather than just a handful of earthlings arriving there, it will be trillions. It is hard to believe that there won’t be one group of organisms that just loves the environment on Mars.
Some will, I suggest, find or manufacture water and anything else they need, colonise the whole globe and overcome any endemic life. Will they in the process perhaps turn the Red Planet a lovely shade of purple?
Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia
Premonitions of a purple planet
鈥� COSPAR, the , is developing on this under the … slowly.
Meditation and mindful mayhem
Your article discussing a dark side to mindfulness and meditation neglected to mention that in the traditions cited, if you wish to attain a stable peace, living a virtuous life is a vital component (16 May, p 28). Right mindfulness is just one part of an eight-fold path advocated by the Buddha.
One can mindfully rob a bank or kill someone, but that would lead to negative consequences, hence the importance not just of cultivating awareness, but also of acting in a way conducive to peace and the relief of suffering.
This side of these spiritual traditions seems to have been overlooked in the development of “mindfulness” as a separate discipline in the West, to the detriment of our understanding and, inevitably, of our peace.
Sheffield, UK
Meditation and mindful mayhem
The meditation and mindfulness movement 鈥� like all movements 鈥� does suffer from some shallow interpretations, often based on egocentric and dualistic medical concepts. Both Buddhist and Hindu teachings point out the big problems with incomplete or unskillful instruction and practice. Both warn of the mental confusion and suffering that may arise. The ways to wisdom and freedom from suffering are certainly not by meditation alone.
Newton, Massachusetts, US
To pop, or not to pop, that pill
When you ask yourself “should I pop a pill?” the default answer should be no, unless certain conditions are met (16 May, p 30). Pills need to provide benefit and have minimal risk of harm.
Unfortunately, trial evidence is often garnered from middle-aged people despite the pills being given to elderly people who have a higher risk not only of the conditions the pills mitigate for, but also the potential harms.
Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
No monopoly on intolerance, sadly
Sanal Edamaruku gives a moving picture of the threats faced by those who stand up for rational thinking and freedom of speech in places where the prevailing culture is very different (23 May, p 24). It is surely incorrect, though, to see this as primarily about religion versus rationalism. It isn’t hard to find secular cultures in which those who speak up for reason and openness face persecution. Even scientists can cling tenaciously to their theories and vilify those who disagree. Indeed I would go further, and suggest that governments should defend free speech not only “for those who stand for science and progress”, but for everyone.
Holt, Norfolk, UK
The bright side of a brain infection
A third of the human race is infected by Toxoplasma gondii, which is implicated in ills from schizophrenia to car accidents (30 May, p 42). Its cysts are virtually indestructible in people.
It reproduces only in cats. Surely the primary attack must be against that stage of its life cycle? I don’t mean trying to get rid of domestic cats 鈥� human sentiment dooms that. But priming cats’ immune systems to attack the parasite in its vulnerable breeding phase, which lasts only a few weeks, would surely be possible. If this were included in the vaccinations that kittens get, we might be able to reduce the disease significantly.
Of course, we might then discover that the increased risk-taking the disease induces is essential to human success, and that it was a mutualist symbiont, not a parasite…
Foxham, Wiltshire, UK
Trickling down to community service
Ha-Joon Chang reminds us that trickle-down economics doesn’t work, essentially because wealthy folks choose to keep their money to themselves (25 April, p 28); and Richard Layard that happiness is not strongly related to income 鈥� family and community matter more than money (p 28). Perhaps we need creative and effective ways to encourage wealthy people to involve themselves with their communities and find greater happiness? Consider the TV programme in which wealthy people go among us undercover: perhaps this is a better approach than penalising them with high taxes.
Henderson, Nevada, US
The wrong end of the ruminant
Burping farm animals, not farting ones, are the cause of methane release (23 May, p 38). The gas produced in their rumen exits their oesophagus.
Les Essarts-le-Roi, France
At video games, I'm the granddaddy
Clare Wilson says that “most action video games are too fast for older adults” (23 May, p 36). Tripe. I am 70. My name ranks top at the Trocadero Piccadilly Circus arcade and at the Emirates Mall (bike racing); and in Bexhill (car racing). It’s about practice, not age.
Hastings, East Sussex, UK
<b>For the record</b>
鈥� We should have said that in the centuries of history of blood transfusions, thousands of people were infected with hepatitis C and HIV in the 1970s and 1980s (6 June, p 10).