Editor's pick: Give victims, not murderers, fame
I want to thank Sally Adee for not mentioning the name of the killer in her report “What to do when murder goes viral” (5 September, p 10). It frustrates me that the murderers always get fame and the victims are usually doomed to become a forgotten statistic.
In the case of the murder of Alison Parker and Adam Ward, I know the victims’ names, but cannot remember the killer’s name; and that’s the way it should be. Sadly it’s usually not the case.
Take for example, the tragedy of the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut on 14 December 2012. I’m sure many remember the name of the killer: how many of us remember the names of the innocent children he killed, or the heroic teachers who gave their lives to protect the children in their care? I’ll admit I don’t remember them. Here’s hoping other media follow your lead, so the murderers become the forgotten statistic and the victims are the ones we’ll never forget.
Camberley, Surrey, UK
Editor's pick: Give victims, not murderers, fame
鈥� It was a fairly easy decision in this case: but we wouldn’t be surprised if, in future cases, ethical reporting required naming perpetrators. Self-publicity through social media will pose new challenges for the media, including 快猫短视频.
Saturated fat is not off the hook
You report a new Canadian study on the risks of trans fats and saturated fat (15 August, p 6). This meta-analysis of 41 previous reports looked at the data in two ways. One way revealed the dangers of saturated fat, while the other did not. Neither showed that saturated fat is safe.
The first analysis used more or less raw data, finding that people whose diets were heaviest in saturated fat had a 12 per cent higher risk of developing heart disease and a 20 per cent higher risk of dying from it, compared with those whose diets were lowest in saturated fat. Trans fats, found in many snack foods, were also linked to heart disease.
The second looked at data adjusted for cholesterol levels, body weight, and so on. This is statistically risky. For example, saturated fat increases cholesterol levels, which, in turn, increase cardiovascular risk. Adjusting the data for cholesterol levels as if they were an independent variable can make the link between saturated fat and cardiovascular risk disappear.
Meta-analyses are like metal detectors. If they find a landmine, you can be confident that it is there. But if they don’t find one, that does not mean that it’s time to go skipping through the field. It may be that your method is simply not sensitive enough.
Washington DC, US
<b>First class post</b>
Anyone else really want to go buy one of these now? I’d love a car that can cheat tests!
George Lees the revelations about Volkswagen’s emissions software (26 September, p 21) as seriously as some
Vegetables taste better with flaws
Marta Zaraska’s article on making fruit and veg less bitter neglected an important aspect of reduced nutrition (1 August, p 26). Plants produce various phytochemicals in response to pest attack. The practice of selling only perfect-looking produce necessitates zero tolerance for pest damage. Home-grown fruit and vegetables, complete with blemishes, taste more complex than store-bought produce and, I suspect, offer a wider range of phytochemicals and thus nutrients.
Heathcote, Victoria, Australia
Climate change as a conflict trigger
Debora MacKenzie’s article on welcoming refugees concludes with the comment that “climate triggered the crisis in Syria…” and says that more climate refugees are coming (12 September, p 10).
I would like to know more. Does she mean climate change? Have climate changes been so obvious in Syria? I thought that much of the trouble in the Middle East could be attributed, at least in part, to water wars but I would be interested in an article that laid out the climate changes that triggered the war in Syria.
Sheffield, UK
Climate change as a conflict trigger
鈥� It would have been more precise to say that a long drought, which researchers link to climate change (7 March, p 6), made many Syrians destitute; that is thought to have triggered the 2011 wave of protests that triggered the current crisis.
Safety and three-parent babies
I read with interest Justin Havird’s proposal that sex evolved because of mismatches between DNA in mitochondria and cell nuclei (19 September, p 28). It brought to mind a report on mitochondrial substitution as a new treatment for women unable to carry a pregnancy to term due to faulty mitochondria (4 June 2014, p 28).
If Havird is correct in his hypothesis then shouldn’t we question the use of enucleated donor eggs, carrying a second woman’s mitochondrial DNA, until we know more? Will these mismatches be a significant disadvantage to the resultant offspring? At least, should we not ensure that the “nuclear” and “mitochondrial” mothers are genetically related to each other?
I feel that this issue should be reviewed in the UK by the in the very near future.
Fareham, Hampshire, UK
A chain of citation going nowhere
Fred Pearce’s pursuit of the origin of the statistic that invasive species have contributed to 40 per cent of recent extinctions (5 September, p 26) reminded me of my own investigation into another commonly repeated factoid: that 100,000 litres of water are required to produce 1 kilo of beef. After tracing the statistic back through a similar series of academic iterations, it emerged that it takes into account every scrap of precipitation that falls upon the land that a beef cow occupies 鈥� even though rain would fall whether the cow were there or not.
Charmouth, Dorset, UK
Octopuses, take aim and throw…
I was delighted to read about gloomy octopuses throwing things (29 August, p 14). Over 40 years ago, diving in Canada’s Georgia Strait, I happened upon an octopus in a rock crevice. It bombarded me with abalone shells. The aim was excellent: they all bounced off my face mask.
Many whom I told thought I was confabulating. Now, thanks to you, my credibility is restored.
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Happiness with and without children
As a mum of a 3-year-old boy, I was fascinated to read the article about parenting and happiness (5 September, p 40). I hadn’t stopped to consider whether I was more happy, less happy, or much the same since the birth of my son. Happiness is a tricky thing to define and even trickier to measure, with so many potential intricacies that I doubt it can be accurately assessed.
Parents, unlike non-parents, can remember what it was like before children. So we may think about things we gave up, things that we cannot do so easily now and, after a tough day, this may seem a little depressing. Those without children, generally, don’t know what they are missing, and are happier with their lot. I don’t think I am any less happy, and I would not be without the joys of being a mum, but my perception of happiness has changed.
Banbury, Oxfordshire, UK
Suspicions over trust for sale
Is a “trust hormone” pill really a good idea (29 August, p 14)? With the effect of enhancing “cooperation response”? I can easily think of a few more, or even less, authoritarian regimes who might agree with you.
Cudworth, Somerset, UK
Sowing confusion about bees
Beekeepers are not surprised that the current moratorium on neonicotinoid insecticides in the European Union has actually increased the oilseed rape yield this year in the UK (15 August, p 24). Farmers have become lazily addicted to chemicals in the mistaken belief that having no insects is better than having any, even pollinators.
There is a case to be made that the “open field trials” carried out by the crop protection industry underestimate the negative effects of pesticides on pollinators in the real world. An open field area treated with neonicotinoids may be as little as 2 hectares: bees, if not contained, will range over 3000 Ha. Work at the in Islamabad in 2007-2008 compared oilseed rape yields of plants in cages with honeybees compared with those in cages without them. Honeybees increased yield by 80 per cent.
Only banning neonicotinoids will ensure that the benefits of restraint will accrue to all. The moratorium on their use in the EU should be made permanent, not lifted as has happened in Suffolk as an “emergency” measure.
Sturminster Newton, Dorset, UK
The causes of the Tianjin explosion
Your report on the explosion at Tianjin in China mentions that “ammonium and potassium nitrate… would have exploded” (22 August, p 6). But potassium nitrate is neither explosive nor flammable, though it can intensify adjacent fires by decomposing to give oxygen. Ammonium nitrate is seriously explosive, though extensive pre-heating is usually needed.
Acetylene is explosive, yielding twice the energy per unit weight of TNT 鈥� though it will not do so unless compressed. And, more importantly in this context, it forms a very wide range of explosive mixes with air.
And as long-time critics of smoking should know, cyanide is a common component of fumes from charred nitrogenous materials. Nor is it that rare in the environment 鈥� I have a cyanide-manufacturing plant in my backyard (the laurel Prunus laurocerasus). And it will be cyanide, not specifically the sodium salt, which has been looked for, and found, in water.
Kenilworth, Gloucestershire, UK
<b>For the record</b>
鈥� Maurice Wilkins won a share of the for discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids, despite what we implied (12 September, p 40).