Editor's pick: Blackbird pooping in the dead of night
You mention carbon pollutants as a specific problem inhibiting solar panel output (1 July, p 7). I find that sand, wind-eroded topsoil and salt left by fine sea spray are also detrimental.
A particularly insidious problem, however, is bird droppings. My 6-year-old photovoltaic panels consist of strings of cells. If one cell in a string is obscured, that string will not function. In my small system, one well-aimed splat will wipe out one-third of a panel and 3.5 per cent of total output.
Washing works. Earlier this year, a complete wash improved output by 13 per cent when one splat and general dirt were removed. I see no evidence that annual washing has reduced performance.
I am rather surprised that panel-cleaning businesses have not sprung up to cater for the domestic market since panels are almost always on roofs too high for many people to feel safe accessing them.
I am tempted to suggest a solution to the bird problem for solar farms: site them near bird-culling wind turbines. I do fear the reaction…
Coming off drugs is hard to do without help
Clare Wilson reports on a movement to help people taking psychiatric medicines to hack their dosing (15 July, p 8). Having just come through a horrendous three-month taper to wean myself off the anti-anxiety drug diazepam, I applaud anyone who can provide the means to assist getting off any psychotropic drug.
I had to have my tablets made into a liquid solution by a compounding chemist at great expense. I also came off an antidepressant too quickly a number of years ago, only to end up in the emergency department of my local hospital.
These drugs have difficult side effects for those taking them and they are even worse when trying to stop. You need courage to do it alone and I haven't found much advice or assistance from the medical profession.
First class post
What does that mean for health insurance? Knowing about genetic diseases affects it…
Jette by the implications of a blood test to detect Alzheimer's plaques building up in the brain (29 July, p 18)
Power pose psychology problems persist
I am disappointed to see gushing reporting of research relating positive effects from adopting a “power pose” (24 June, p 24). Joseph Simmons and Uri Simonsohn at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton business school that selective reporting can account for the published studies replicating these findings. Of the original “power pose” researchers, Dana Carney has stated ““, and Amy Cuddy .
Lighting leading to better brain health
Linda Geddes reports on the health benefits of fine-tuned lighting (8 July, p 6). Staring at a bright, white light is very soporific, in my experience.
When I switched from using a computer with light, chunky text on a black background to one with slender, dark characters on a bright background, I kept falling asleep. I wonder whether it is a coincidence that graphical applications usually have a dark background… Feeling sleepy, must sign off now.
Lighting leading to better brain health
Further to your report on the benefits of dynamic “solid state” lighting, how soon before supermarkets introduce the technology so that retail therapy can be coupled with improved health outcomes?
Capitalism, climate change and two futures
Michael Le Page discusses how mismanaging moves necessary to combat climate change could precipitate the next big financial crash (8 July, p 20). I see this as one sign of a growing awareness that solutions to our environmental crises lie as much with politicians as with scientists.
Almost by definition, capitalism depends on continuous and perpetual “growth”. That is physically impossible. But capitalism has, throughout its five centuries or so, fallen back on imperial conquest to come to its rescue. The internet is one significant difference between now and the glory days of European empires – on top of the changes in availability of resources, the ability of Earth to absorb our wastes, and the burgeoning population. A century ago, the high-living of the imperial masters would be little more than vague notions to most people. Now the lifestyles of “affluent Americans” are clearly visible to any of our 7 billion fellow humans who has access to the net.
That lifestyle would need 30 Earths to support it, were it to be enjoyed by everyone. The way of life that most closely fits the capacity of our single Earth is that of Cuba – before it resumed links with the high-consumption US.
Will resources be divided equitably worldwide, or according to political or military might, enabled by continuing unfettered capitalism? An equitable division will be possible only with international agreement and voluntary reduction of consumption by all those who now use resources at a rate greater than Cuba's.
But quite how big is that big battery?
I am disappointed in your report of Elon Musk's planned battery in South Australia (15 July, p 6). It would be interesting to know what its capacity will be and its approximate efficiency.
The editor writes:
• The planned installed capacity is (460 gigajoules). Maximum output would, as we said, be 100 MW – enough to power 30,000 average homes. Efficiency depends a great deal on age and the “duty cycle”: of the car battery units to be used are typically in the range 80 to 90 per cent.
Is it that we took longer to become parents?
But quite how big is that big battery?
You report that sons born to older fathers are more likely to have “geeky” traits such as intelligence, an ability to concentrate and being unconcerned about fitting in (24 June, p 7). These traits are also often associated with autism.
Were the children in the study compared with siblings fathered by the same men at a younger age, or children of different men?
I am a geeky (and autistic) 36-year-old woman, recently married to a geeky (and possibly autistic) 50-year-old man. Neither of us had been in a successful relationship before. I wonder whether geeks like us tend to take longer than others to find a partner, and whether when we do get married and have children, we tend to pass on geeky traits, both by genetics and environment.
Once again, Stanisław Lem was there before
So a neural network writes poetry in a given style and on a given topic (15 July, p 14). The Polish author Stanisław Lem anticipated this in the story “Trurl's Electronic Bard”, in the 1965 collection . Asked for a love poem in the language of higher mathematics, the machine begins, in Michael Kandel's English translation: “, / Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn, / Their indices bedecked from one to n, / Commingled in an endless Markov chain!”
Killer robots will hunt you down after the war
I was brought up on the writer , the first of which demands that a robot will not allow a human to come to harm.
But despite this, Asimov managed to write of robots causing a lot of trouble. Now we are asked whether war robots should be allowed to kill on their own initiative (8 July, p 32).
Have we learned nothing from landmines, which kill more people after a war than during it? These robots will do the same, except that they won't stay in the minefield: they will be smart enough to come and find you.
Collapsing metallic stars go on and on and on
I enjoyed Prabal Saxena comparing the early moon to a rock star: “a metal-dominated thing that collapsed quickly and intensely” (8 July, p 17). It rather depends on the rock star, though.
Some indeed demonstrate this form of behaviour. There are, however, some who are more like Betelgeuse: they've been around for a few million years, and scientific theory suggests they must surely collapse soon, but they haven't yet. Just when you think they can't put out any more material, they do exactly that.
The chart of many colours doesn't work
I understand the difficulty of conveying multiple sets of data within a single image, map or diagram. But I ask you to give more consideration to the section of your readership who are colour blind or whose early cataract clouding causes dulling of colour.
As one example, your map of wildfires conveyed no useful data to such people (8 July, p 37).
The editor writes:
• We use filter software to give a view of how graphics will be seen by someone who is colour blind. We checked the wildfire graphic to make sure that areas could be differentiated. As you say, it is difficult to convey multiple sets of data, but we do try.
Oh, the ironing of a robotic home help!
I am glad to read that “robot butler” TEO will soon be doing my ironing for me (1 July, p 19), but how will the crease-targeting algorithm deal with pleats?
For the record
• The GameSpace game-finding tool was announced in (22 July, p 8).