Editor's pick: As a nurse I never had the guts to speak out
Someone has more courage than me! Clare Wilson reports a new programme, “Fed is Best”, designed to ensure that babies whose mothers have trouble breastfeeding do not end up dehydrated and jaundiced (18 March, p 25). For so long, the “baby friendly hospital” initiative has been the basis for advice about feeding a new baby. It has unintended consequences, like so many well-intentioned interventions.
“Fed is Best” is anathema to many who believe that all women can, and should, feed their baby exclusively on breast milk. This dogma is so strong that I, as a paediatric and child health nurse, have never had the guts to say what I really believe – that not all women can breastfeed, nor should they be coerced to do so.
Mothers carry a burden of guilt when they decide to pick up the bottle and formula. It is well known that breast milk is best for babies, but surely, when this isn't going to be possible, the mother's mental well-being, bonding with her baby, and mother and baby's physical health are more important than dogma.
Be careful what you wish for with alliances
Owen Gaffney is undoubtedly right when he suggests that cheap, clean energy would send the Russian economy into a death spiral (25 March, p 24). So Vladimir Putin favouring Donald Trump as president of the US makes superficial sense.
But Trump's clear intention is to reduce energy prices by promoting fracking, which is hardly in Russia's short-term interests. And in the longer term Trump will be gone.
While on the subject, it may be that Trump's “admiration” for Putin looks positive for Russia: but which would you rather have – a predictable “enemy” or a highly unpredictable “friend” who is rearming? The 1939 didn't go too well. Be careful what you wish for.
Be careful what you wish for with alliances
It seems to me that there is a mechanism by which Donald Trump can be used to good effect to reduce the scepticism over global warming. It just needs a few helping hands in the media.
Every time there is an event that is palpably caused by global warming, our friends in the media will report it along these lines: “This is not caused by Global Warming, as Donald Trump will tell you. And Donald Trump is an honourable man.”
As I recall from my English Literature classes, repeating stuff like this had a profound effect on Brutus in William Shakespeare's . And we're in desperate need of some profound effects if we're all to prosper.
First class post
Do I need to bring when I get my period, since we're going Old Testament?
it is getting harder to access sexual health services in the UK (8 April, p 7)
Cannibalism may have looked different then
Colin Barras thinks it paradoxical that Neanderthals with a largely vegetarian diet may have been eaten by cannibals (11 March, p 9). There have been various reasons and targets for cannibalism.
Forty years ago, an old man living among swamps in southern New Guinea commented to me that “if you eat a diet of sago every day, then meat is welcome, including people”. He said that cannibalism had ceased, but in his youth, early last century, the typical occasional victim was an unrelated woman or child on their own, not warriors killed in battle. Cannibalism may seem unpalatable to people now, but Neanderthals subsisting on wild plants and fungi may have viewed strangers as desirable meat.
Quantum socks are more tangled than that
Brian Horton hasn't quite got there with his sock analogy for quantum entanglement (Letters, 1 April). The thing with quantum entangled particles is that there are two ways to perform the measurement of the entangled property – up/down or left/right to put it simply – and you have to decide in advance which measurement to make.
So if you have four quantum entangled socks, two red and two green, and you get dressed in the dark, it all depends on which foot you look at first.
If you decide to look at your left foot first and you have on a red sock, then you know your partner, if they look at their left foot, has on a green sock. Similarly, if you both look at your right foot. But if you look at your left foot and your partner looks at their right foot, then you can make no prediction. Fifty per cent of the time you will have on socks of the same colour.
Furthermore, once you have looked at one foot, if you look at your other foot, the sock there will have mysteriously turned grey, as will your partner's.
Point that sexism-meter at yourselves, please
I was interested to read about gender bias in films being laid bare by software (18 March, p 16). Then I turned to read about what's up with gravity (p 28). This would appear to show this effect in other areas: your graphic for the article shows a male predominance of three to one.
How to remove a tick safely from your skin
I was fascinated by your article on the increasing distribution of Lyme disease (1 April, p 20). But I would take issue with your advice on what to do if you find a tick. Using tweezers could squeeze the tick body and inject the contents of its gut into your skin. This could inject you with the disease-causing bacterium from the gut.
A better method is to use a tick remover, as found in pet shops. Failing this, a loop of very fine thread should be passed between your skin and the body of the tick – easier said than done – then tightened so that the body is not squeezed in the removal process.
The editor writes:
• The US Centers for Disease Control suggests you use fine-tipped tweezers to grasp the tick as close to the skin's surface as possible… and not twist or jerk the tick (). Your methods may be safer still.
Soya might protect against breast cancer
You say that some studies have suggested that soya milk may increase the risk of breast cancer (11 March, p 32). Research in mice shows that the drug tamoxifen was more effective if they had been fed soya phytoestrogen all their adult lives rather than starting after tumours had developed.
This may explain the finding that Asian women, who consume lots of soya, than that of Western women.
Why not grab a passing moon for your own?
It is interesting that each observed Trans-Neptunian Object seems to have a moon of its own (18 March, p 19). You state that “these moons probably formed when a large rock collided with the parent body and the debris coalesced in orbit”. That is a plausible way to form a moon, but is it not as likely that, in the “crowded, chaotic past” you mention, these TNOs grabbed a passing body for a moon?
The habitable zone of planets in locked orbits
Leah Crane reports that three planets of the star TRAPPIST-1 are supposed to be within its habitable zone (18 March, p 14). But what about the effect of tidal locking on the habitability of such planets, where one side of the planet always faces the star?
Is it assumed that planets in the zone are rotating fast enough to keep the diurnal temperature variation within a reasonable range? If the planet is in the outer half of the zone, would there be a sea or lakes at the centre of the sunlit hemisphere, and hence the possibility of life? Or would all the water travel as vapour to the cold trap on the dark side and freeze?
You could end up with a bone-dry desert in the middle of the sunward side, and a wet ring, possibly harbouring some sort of life, in the twilight zone between the desert and a polar icecap in the middle of the dark side.
A personal reason to be concerned about viruses
Congratulations on that most excellent article about plagues (25 February, p 28). I was a bit disappointed that the influenza virus didn't get more space, since it has killed about as many people as the Black Death.
The sinister-sounding names and origins of the World Health Organization's list of nine priority pathogens makes them newsworthy. You are right to focus on that key feature, the genetic sequences associated with person-to-person spread.
I have worried and wondered whether these nasties would ever acquire such sequences since my first encounters with the West Nile, Zika and chikungunya viruses, all discovered in the Uganda laboratory where I began work in 1953.
Unfortunately, I accidentally infected myself with Rift Valley Fever virus – but luckily this meant no more than an uncomfortable few days in hospital and it didn't spread to anyone else.
How big is that heart in blue whales?
Sandrine Ceurstemont mentions the small size of the blue whale's heart (18 March, p 44). This suggests to me that some of the pumping work may be done elsewhere. The movement of the tail is rhythmic: I wonder if it has the effect of squeezing the blood vessels and thus augmenting the action of the heart.
Reeling and writhing against poaching
You report on the use of artificial turtle eggs to track poachers (25 March, p 22). Could these be linked to the in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland? Could they be made into soup, as an alternative to the recipe at ?