Editor's pick: I am your perfect test subject on smell effect
Clare Pain reports research on the effects of exposure to fragrances, including the suspicion of some that they trigger migraines (10 June, p 34). I've had migraines most of my life, and have noticed an increased sensitivity to smells, but was never sure whether the smells were triggering a migraine or my migraine made me more sensitive to smells. However, as I age, I'm starting to lose my sense of smell: for example, I can no longer smell lilacs and lily of the valley (sigh), or boys' washrooms (hooray!)
I was recently participating in a parent-teacher interview and felt a migraine starting up. I was waiting for the interview to end before fetching my medication and the migraine was gradually getting worse. Then the parent went away, and my co-worker said, “you don't often see people who wear that much cologne any more.” I'd had no idea the air was permeated with scents, so I guess I made a fairly good blind test subject. I suppose my question is answered – the scent was triggering the migraine, even though I couldn't smell it.
Monkey see, monkey steal, all over the place
Brian Owens reports an investigation into monkey criminality (3 June, p 14). This reminded me of an incident at Mzima Springs in Kenya some decades ago.
Two American women were sitting on a rug to eat their picnic lunch. A female vervet monkey came and sat down about 3 metres in front of them, in full view, and started to play prettily with her baby – not something she would normally do. While the women were thus delightedly distracted, a male vervet that had wandered up behind them suddenly darted out, grabbed their sandwiches and made off at speed.
The mother vervet immediately picked up her baby and bolted after him. The two adult vervets appeared to have colluded in this little ambush.
First class post
I still wouldn't want to go head-to-head. They go for your genitals when they attack
Natalie Robinson by news that chimpanzees' strength has been exaggerated (1 July, p 9)
No one knows whether iron fertilisation works
Olive Heffernan mentions John Martin talking, in an informal seminar at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1988, about stimulating an ice age with half a tanker of iron (10 June, p 24). This gives the impression of extreme confidence.
In contrast, in a Martin expressed doubts by stating: “Clearly, the reasons for glacial-interglacial CO2 change are complex. Iron availability appears to have been a player; however, whether it had a lead role or a bit part remains to be determined.” This is still the case. Claims that we could biogeoengineer climate by fertilisation of the oceans are equivocal. Attempting it in ignorance of its effects could be disastrous.
Language games and generalisation in the crib
Your discussion of the importance for language development of the human ability to generalise was fascinating (3 June, p 38). It brought to mind my eldest son's early forays into speech.
With a limited vocabulary – barely half a dozen words – his favourite utterance was “me-mill”, a mispronunciation of “windmill”. He applied this to anything that showed circular motion: concrete mixers, windmills, hoops – and pictures of these. He could clearly both generalise and recognise symbolic representation from a very early age. This led to a game where he would spot a “me-mill” and I would spend the next little while working out what he had seen.
He is now a research scientist.
It takes a fiction writer to say the unsayable
At last you report a voice speaking the seemingly unspeakable, with Kim Stanley Robinson noting that “capitalism is the system we have agreed to live by. Its rules… are … destroying the world” (10 June, p 44). An economic system in which the planetary “capital” of mineral reserves, fossil fuels, clean air and water can be used up for apparently profitable activity would normally be recognised as a Ponzi scheme, selling our descendants' inheritance for our short-term gain.
The environmental crisis we face is down to bad bookkeeping. We need to correct the balance sheet, not dump iron into the oceans and deflect the sun (10 June, p 24) for the benefit of mega corporations. Stanley Robinson's New York 2140 looks like a must-read.
Does Stephen Hawking propose abandoning us?
Stephen Hawking proposes sending colonists to other worlds (20 May, p 22). How will this contribute to the future of our species or our current civilisation?
Sending a privileged few to try to build a sustainable existence elsewhere seems rather pointless when we haven't yet learned how to do it on Earth. Is there also a sub-plot that the rest of us are being abandoned to perish?
If the collapse of civilisation and perhaps the extinction of our species is regarded as inevitable, that is surely a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead, the resources required for colonies could be well spent learning how to sustain our planet's ecology and the civilisation it supports.
Can't the scientists and the politicians get along?
David Willetts sets out the deep mutual incomprehension between scientists and politicians (3 June, p 24). This is ironic given the difficulty some conservative politicians have accepting scientific evidence (see, for example, 29 October 2011, p 38).
The rain gets in and stops my mind from wandering
I agree with Caroline Williams that the best strategy against mind-wandering is to make use of it (20 May, p 26). But what should one do when the mind resists by simply continuing to wander?
To my knowledge, the best trick when you notice that your mind is wandering is to ask yourself: “What will be my next thought?” This not only stops mind-wandering at once, but gives you the (usually much wanted) opportunity to choose the next topic yourself.
The roles of radars in the Battle of Britain
Chris Baraniuk, recalling the invention by Russell and Sigurd Varian of the klystron radio amplifier tube, writes that the British won the Battle of Britain thanks in some measure to it (27 May, p 40). But that air battle was fought in daylight, with help from powered by other technology.
British historians from 10 July to 31 October 1940. The first time a klystron-powered Air Intercept radar in a plane enabled the shooting down of an enemy plane , but this technology wasn't crucial in the battle thus defined. Beaufighter night fighters with radar systems (, , rather than klystrons) entered service at the beginning of 1942.
You shall know us by our thin layer of polythene
Andrew Sanderson, discussing a possible Anthropocene Age, wondered whether concrete would be identifiable in 10 million years (Letters, 10 June). This put me in mind of articles a while ago in 快猫短视频 referring to the strange thin layer of iridium that can be seen in a number of sedimentary rocks dating from the end of the Cretaceous period and the demise of the dinosaurs (for example, 2 June 1990, p 30).
I recall one of these articles going on to speculate about how geologists 65 million years in the future (of whatever species they might be) would explain the microscopically thin layer of polythene that would probably appear in a similar layer across the entire planet, as they investigated the epoch we now call our own.
Fears about Fukushima are not at all allayed
The picture Shunichi Yamashita gives of the situation around the Fukushima nuclear power station conflicted with what I have been hearing (13 May, p 40). I wrote to a friend in Japan, who said Yamashita has been criticised and that she feels little on Fukushima is reported in Japanese news.
Her worries include contaminated soil, waste from the area being transferred across Japan, and cows being transported to other prefectures and their milk not being tested for contamination, outside very limited areas.
She still avoids buying food products from Fukushima and five surrounding prefectures because the Citizens' Nuclear Information Center they were contaminated.
New Zealand can take pride in this rocket
Readers of your story about a rocket launch from New Zealand might assume that Rocket Lab is a US enterprise and that the launch site was simply chosen for clearer skies (3 June, p 5). This is far from the case.
was founded in 2006 by New Zealand scientist Peter Beck, who still leads the company. It did become a US company, with US as well as New Zealand shareholders for legal reasons, but does retain the wholly owned subsidiary Rocket Lab New Zealand.
Readers may also be interested to know that the rocket is largely and unusually built from carbon composites, and that its main engine, the Rutherford – named for another significant Kiwi – was developed under the leadership of Rocket Lab's Head of Propulsion, NZ engineer Lachlan Matchett.
For the record
• Stub it out: the proportion of smokers among adults in the UK fell from to 15.5 per cent in 2016 (24 June, p 6).