First class post 鈥� 3 February 2018
“Cows cannot produce harmful methane if they're eaten. I'm doing my bit for global warming”
Darryl Innes in response to our special report on veganism (27 January, p 26)
For the record – 3 February 2018
• The likely life-shortening effect of air pollution is generally estimated in months (20 January, p 25).
• Changes in the size of snail kites' beaks can be explained by altered expression of existing genes – through “phenotypic plasticity” (2 December 2017, p 7).
Their idle weapons from heaven dropped
Bryn Glover worries about the possible militarisation of space and the planets it holds (Letters, 13 January). He says the United Nations should step in and declare that space and the bodies therein should forever be strictly neutral, non-national and non-military.
The was set up in 1967 and some 107 states, including the US and the UK, are parties to it. It does precisely this. Someone should point Trump at his Department of State.
The editor writes:
• Now we reread the , we see that it bans nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in orbit, and goes on to declare “the moon and other celestial bodies shall be used by all States Parties to the Treaty exclusively for peaceful purposes”.
Was blind Homer of the wine-dark sea older still?
Your account of Eberhard Zangger's suggestion that the Luwian people caused the collapse of Mediterranean Bronze Age civilisations around 1200 BC was interesting (16 December 2017, p 40). It states that the epic poems attributed to Homer were written centuries after that collapse. But some people, such as author , propose that the Iliad and Odyssey were composed and faithfully passed down, if not written down, much earlier – maybe as early as 1800 BC.
A synthetic nucleobase by any other name
You report on two new letters being added to the genetic alphabet (2 December 2017, p 9). You refer to the nucleobases adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine by their initials, not by name, and identify the new synthetic nucleobases only as “X” and “Y”.
Is the article's significance not missed entirely by failing to identify the chemical compounds that X and Y happen to be?
The editor writes:
• The identifies X and Y as “dNaM” and “dTPT3” respectively. In full, the first of these is and we have found no better names.
Give me the child who's not convinced by religion
Graham Lawton says that “when children encounter religious claims, they instinctively find them plausible” (16 December 2017, p 34). Do they, though?
As , founder of the Jesuit order of the Catholic church, said: “Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man.” That doesn't describe an “instinctive” affinity for religion, it describes a deliberate seven-year campaign waged against the mind of an innocent child.
The trilemma of evil in a classical question
Elizabeth Belben observes that many people have committed atrocities regardless of whether they believe in God, and that this doesn't disprove God's existence (Letters, 6 January). I contend that there is proof that there is no consistently benevolent God.
In the 3rd century BC, the philosopher asked: “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?” Some complete it: “Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
Everest climbers more 'daring' than astronauts
Leah Crane reports that a fatality rate of 1 in 270 is the maximum tolerated by NASA for space missions (13 January, p 20). Later, she compares aspiring space travellers to climbers willing to risk death during a bid to reach the summit of Everest. According to a study on climber deaths from 1921 to 2006, the fatality rate on Everest is around 1 in 67 (BMJ, ). By this metric, the (fool)hardy climbers are four times as daring as prospective astronauts are.
Why extraterrestrials may be shy of contact
Ben Haller worries about transmitting signals to other worlds (Letters, 6 January). It is sobering to think that we may not have heard from extraterrestrial intelligences because they don't wish to take unnecessary risks with the long-term survival of their own species.
Editor's pick: Avian arsonists spreading fire through the ages
Andy Coghlan reports birds of prey spreading fire in Australia (13 January, p 4). Back in 1959, Maurice Burton, a zoologist at the Natural History Museum in London and a popular science author, summarised his research and experiences with fire-loving corvids in his book Phoenix Re-Born. I remember the cover showing a crow in a striking phoenix-like pose – and this image appearing on the cover of Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H.Lawrence in 1960 after and the book's belated release uncut in the UK.
Burton to “anting”, which typically involves birds disturbing ants' nests to expose themselves to formic acid that may act as a fungicide, bactericide and insect repellent. He cites a report by a fire brigade officer in 1950s Guildford, UK, of a nest smouldering in a tree, and he notes of a fire 8 metres up a tree in New York's Central Park that “it is one of the unfortunate features of these entries in fire-brigade journals that they are laconic in the extreme”.
Patient and painstaking research by experienced field biologists is needed. There was no shortage of such observers in Australia even before Captain Cook arrived.
Estimating population for the cosmic zoo (4)
Schulze-Makuch and Bains mention economist Robin Hanson's idea of a “Great Filter” that makes truly advanced life very rare. It seems likely that the harder thing for intelligent life to pass through is the “Green Filter”: can it get past the phase of energy overuse and pollution without destroying itself or devastating its home? If we do make it to star-faring and visit exoplanets, will we find shards of broken civilisations who didn't make it?
Estimating population for the cosmic zoo (3)
Life may be very common in a universe stuffed with planets. A second unique event seems, however, to be necessary for complex life: the equivalent of a cell trapping a bacterium that then mysteriously survived inside and evolved into the cellular power stations that are mitochondria. It may be argued that this event is essentially detached from adaptive evolution and more unlikely, perhaps, than the appearance of life itself.
Estimating population for the cosmic zoo (2)
It may be true that there is lots of life beyond Earth. But the fact that there have been major innovations here doesn't tell us how often life evolves and how common life is off our planet. Once there is life, we can reasonably expect it to evolve.
Estimating population for the cosmic zoo (1)
Dirk Schulze-Makuch and William Bains ask, in the words of the physicist Enrico Fermi, “where is everybody?” (13 January, p 22). The answer is: “a long way off”. Even if there were 100 advanced civilisations in our galaxy, the nearest is likely to be hundreds of light years away. So why would they come to see us? They might send intelligent, self-replicating robot ships. After a few thousand years, there could be billions of these. The fact that we haven't detected any supports the idea that intelligent life is rare.
We were environmental fighters back then too
Marc Smith-Evans says that when he graduated in the late 1960s, nobody was an environmentalist since “the concept didn't exist” (Letters, 6 January). I graduated from the University of Oxford in 1967. My colleagues, friends and I were deeply concerned about the environment. We called ourselves “conservationists”, but the aim was the same. The Australian Conservation Foundation was founded in 1965.
The word “environmentalist” dates, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, to 1916.
Can Mongolian throat singing help Alzheimer's?
Clare Wilson reports the finding that an acoustic frequency of 40 hertz shows promise in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (6 January, p 6). This suggests an intriguing possibility. Chanting Tibetan Buddhist monks, and throat singers in Mongolia and Tuva employing their style, may be able to reach this low pitch. Is there any evidence that those using these techniques may be less susceptible to Alzheimer's?
Editor's pick: Avian arsonists spreading fire through the ages (2)
Coghlan's account is fascinating. It reminded me of the “fowles” that spread “brennyng coles” from house to house in 1202, according to the .
In the London Fire Brigade library, I have read accounts by fire officers of birds spreading fire. And my father was given a tame rook that had been a fire hazard around its owner's home. Rehoused in an aviary, it would excitedly spread its wings over burning straw and skilfully peck matches into life before passing them under its outspread wings.