Editor's pick: The grim loneliness of corporate wellness
Employers' attempts to imbue a sense of happiness in their staff lack an utterly vital ingredient: community spirit (10 December 2016, p 40). Employees are becoming increasingly isolated from their coworkers through practices such as working from home, reliance on email rather than face-to-face communication and a general frowning upon a reasonable amount of chat in the misguided belief that it is symptomatic of non-productivity.
Schemes such as awarding free gym membership merely condemn employees to lonely pounding on a treadmill. A constant focus on monitoring their own happiness simply adds to a depressing sense of introspection.
Regular, simple and affordable work-group outings and activities, enabling all employees and their partners to meet socially, would contribute more to employee contentment and self-worth – and in turn, better productivity – than a working life of pressure and isolation interrupted solely by the stereotypical annual drunken Christmas bash.
The heat is on and there are other answers
I am saddened and disappointed by Matthew Watson's call for more research on geoengineering the planet (3 December 2016, p 20). We are putting fossil carbon that took millions of years to sequester into the atmosphere.
It is very unlikely that we will be able to find a short-cut for this process. But we already have some good terrestrial carbon sequestration systems, including the vast subarctic peat forests of Russia and North America, the huge equatorial peat forests of Borneo, the Amazon basin and the smaller forests in New Zealand, Tasmania and South America.
These do not need to be invented: just protected.
The heat is on and there are other answers
Watson says we need massive geoengineering to curb climate change. His analogy of a boat in a river suggests that when we get to the bank, the problem is solved.
Unfortunately, the river will still run. Rather than planning huge schemes to put particles into the sky or sea to cause possibly uncontrollable feedback, we should be spending time and money on research into better ways to use the sun's near-constant energy output.
The heat is on and there are other answers
Agronomist at the University of Massachusetts School of Agriculture are among those studying no-till farming, which could sequester major amounts of carbon, offer drought resistance – and it is scalable. I can't help thinking Watson's call to investigate technological geoengineering is stuck on the wrong side of a paradigm shift. Wake up and smell the flowers!
Language use cycles are, like, sick, innit?
Sophia Chen describes a 14-year cycle in noun usage over centuries in many languages (3 December 2016, p 9). One possible source for this is that great engine of human lexicological innovation: teenage slang. As soon as people are linguistically dexterous enough to be able to play with language freely, they coin new words and revive old ones (often with specialised new meanings). They do this for fun and because they need a way to communicate that is impenetrable to their parents and other adults.
Observing my daughter and remembering my own teens, this creativity peaks around the age of 14, I think.
First class post
Great, self-driving cars having mental breakdowns on the motorway, just what I need
Jesstina Chibinski concern about the side-effects of automata gaining consciences (7 January, p 36)
Food from fossil fuel feels farcical
The suggestion that our food could soon come from methane is a fine example of the principle that just because something can be done doesn't mean it should be done – or even allowed (19 November 2016, p 10). It is stupid to use irreplaceable fossil fuels to produce food with the by-product of carbon dioxide pollution, when we can do the same using energy from sunlight and actually remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Conventional agriculture may have its downsides in terms of land usage and CO2 generation, but at least it has the possibility of being carbon neutral and of not squandering resources our descendants need.
But in any case, if you are going to go to the lengths of growing micro-organisms for food, why not grow those that can use energy from solar-farm style concentrators? That way you'd avoid the land use issues just as thoroughly as with the methane plan. The only reason I can see for governments allowing this is if politicians are still in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry.
These memories are made to entrain you
It's interesting to read about the similarities psychologist Janice Chen found between the brain scans of different people who watched the same episode of the television drama Sherlock (10 December 2016, p 6). I do wonder, though, whether this could be showing us more about the homogenising effects of media like TV than a general property of the brain.
After all, detective stories are specifically crafted to draw us into their narratives. It could be interesting to see the outcome of an experiment with a less tightly structured experience – perhaps listening to a sonata.
Immoral earnings promise anarchy
Michael Norton comments on pay inequality but addresses only half the problem (10 December 2016, p 18). So many rich people do not pay enough taxes. In Australia, and probably all other democracies, the government's solution to reduce a deficit is to stop paying for services to the poor, disabled and unprivileged.
The ideal solution would be to make rich people pay their fair share of taxes. Enforcing an 85 per cent marginal tax rate on incomes over A$200,000 and on business profits over A$2,000,000 would provide more than enough money for free national health, support for the underprivileged and infrastructure including renewable energy systems and subsidising electric vehicles to solve climate change.
Anarchy and an international revolution is not the answer because that would give the rich more reasons to suppress the poor. However, that is the likely outcome when inequality becomes unrealistic. The best solution would be to vote for a government that would genuinely address these issues. The problem is that most politicians are part of, or influenced by, the rich and not willing to change the status quo.
Our figures raised some blood pressure
You report that 594 million people had high blood pressure in 1975, but 1 billion did four decades later (19 November 2016, p 7). But in 1975 there were about 4 billion people on Earth; four decades later, 7.4 billion.
So the proportion of people with high blood pressure is about the same as it was in 1975.
The editor writes:
• We should perhaps have made room to point out that huge advances in preventing and treating high blood pressure have led to a decline in the developed nations – but not in poorer ones.
Whatever became of the Stirling Engine?
I read James Randerson's report of an interesting new machine for exploiting waste hot water just after visiting the East Midlands Parkway rail station (26 November 2016, p 26). This is next to the 2000-megawatt Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station. In the still, cold, evening air, a great cloud of steam from its eight cooling towers was a reminder of the colossal amount of heat our society wastes.
It has always seemed crazy to me that we find it acceptable to waste so much energy when another technology that could exploit this was invented two centuries ago. What happened to the heat engines invented in 1816 by Robert Stirling that could significantly boost the efficiency of these power stations?
Making things up when the world goes quiet
Helen Thomson describes some ways in which the brain makes up hallucinations to cover up gaps in perception (5 November 2016, p 29). I can add from experience another example: some now think of tinnitus as the brain supplying frequencies that are missing as hearing deteriorates. I now have hearing aids, in the hope that my brain will stop supplying its own noise!
Accepting the historical Jesus into your eyes
Nothing illustrates the innate prejudice that Caroline Williams exposes better than the stereotyped picture of Jesus Christ with arms raised in blessing (10 December 2016, p 26). The long, straight hair, the fair skin and blue eyes are typical of northern European men, not of those from the Levant.
Based on mosaic pictures of men from the time of Christ, he would have had olive-hued skin; short, curled hair; and a Roman or semitic nose.
For the record
• India's Interlinking of Rivers scheme looks set to submerge an estimated 58 square kilometres of critical habitat in the Panna Tiger Reserve (3 December 2016, p 12).
• But yes, so fast: the speed of an elite endurance runner is 23.4 km/h (10 December 2016, p 26).
• Hic. Women, having a lower water content, reach a high blood alcohol concentration sooner than men and, metabolising alcohol faster, sober up quicker (3 December 2016, p 33).
• Strike a light! It is only in a laser beam, however, that all waves are in phase (19 November 2016, p 9).
• More of the offspring of female red deer with bigger brains reach 1 year old (17/24/31 December 2016, p 15).