Claims of hate speech can be abused
I am by inclination a supporter of civil and courteous debate, as your Leader describes (24 February, p 3). But some supporters of the state of Israel and its policies and actions try to get any criticism of it labelled “hate speech” under the umbrella of “anti-Semitism”, and shut down debate.
So with regret I have to stand beside those who advocate free speech, as malignant as some of them are. No one has the right to have their beliefs and the actions of those who subscribe to them shielded from criticism.
For the record – 17 March 2018
鈥� John Hume breeds rhinos to harvest their horns (13 January, p 42).
鈥� Security researcher is at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (3 March, p 9).
鈥� Reaching for a clockwork calculator, we find that 30 years passed between 1975 and 2005 (Old 快猫短视频, 3 March).
Artificial stupidity meets face recognition again
Face recognition software that can “guess your gender with amazing accuracy” seems to be light years away from what's available on products such as the iPad (17 February, p 5). Mine identifies “people” in my photo album, including an individual I would not have thought of putting on my friends list, although other sheep may find it charming.
Veganism and lifestyle change, or bacon offsets (2)
The raging debate about being vegan reminds me of carbon offsetting (24 June 2017, p 35). I am offsetting my personal travel and power generation at a cost of about 拢82.50 for the year. I could add a bit on for a bacon sandwich.
Veganism and lifestyle change, or bacon offsets (1)
We were convinced by Chelsea Whyte’s discussion of going vegan (27 January, p 26) and the huge global warming impact of livestock farming. We are now willing to do our bit to save the planet by eating vegetarian. We have, however, just read Sandrine Ceurstemont’s report on the pollution caused by clothing (24 February, p 36). We are now equally concerned about the huge impact of fibre manufacturing and processing, and washing clothes. We sincerely hope the various ideas work out: it is much too cold this winter to turn nudist!
Another way to think yourself out of a seizure
Clare Wilson reports that some people with epilepsy can be trained to boost their mental alertness to avoid having a seizure (10 February, p 9). This reminds me of of people using the t'ai chi “pushing hands” work, which involves training to sense your partner's centre of gravity and muscle movements, through minimal hand contact. It is more mental than physical, and the process can be used to deal with an approaching seizure much as an approaching opponent.
I appreciate that the belief system and terminology may leave some science-oriented people a bit cold. But if we can accept it as a way of describing observations, we can appreciate the benefits of these ancient systems without getting hung up about “fruitloopery”.
The smart option to avoid sharing too much
You report on the latest worry for tech addicts, that “always on” smart glasses may transmit their users' intimate moments to the world (3 February, p 19). That would lead to a sort of “ménage à multitude“.
You also report that software called PrivacEye can turn the glasses off as required.
Alternatively… why not try not wearing them in the first place?
Rock art, a picture book for the kids
Jake Buehler's report on rock art in Saudi Arabia is premised on the idea that it tells us what animals lived there (10 February, p 8). But the artists may have been drawing African animals because they or their forebears came from Africa, and they aimed to preserve the memory for their children.
We can explain the Great Dying in the oceans too
Colin Barras describes the theory that the “Great Dying” at the end of the Permian period might have been caused by excess UV-B light reaching Earth, destroying plant life and causing extinctions (17 February, p 8). He also notes objections that this does not explain marine die-offs.
Such episodes might, however, have inhibited algal production at the base of the marine food chain, with considerable knock-on effect.
Editor's pick: Language and domestication, by whom? (1)
Colin Barras asks whether Homo sapiens domesticated ourselves to become more social and less violent than other hominin species, such as Neanderthals (24 February, p 28). He mentions language as an effect of this change, but I wonder whether it was not language that caused this initially.
If Homo sapiens was the first hominin species to have fully developed language, this would have allowed our ancestors to understand one another better, negotiate, network and deploy humour to defuse social tensions. The other adaptations described 鈥� less massive skulls and the rest 鈥� would follow as the better communicators got on at the expense of less articulate peers.
Scotland has a different and better health service
You refer again to “the UK's National Health Service” (16 December 2017, p 24). But NHS Scotland is very different from the English version.
Prescriptions are free; personal care is free; social and medical care are now closely linked; and the standards for times from hospital entry to treatment and discharge are much stricter. These benefits have been achieved despite the Scottish government having a fixed budget, and losing money whenever part of the English NHS is privatised or the Westminster government changes its accounting system.
Couldn't our interstellar visitor be round?
The tale of interstellar interloper 'Oumuamua was fascinating (3 February, p 28). But I was puzzled by astronomer Karen Meech's conclusion that it is elongated, with a length as much as 10 times its width, based upon the variation in its brightness as it tumbles through space.
Couldn't a spherical body with a bright and a dark side produce the same pattern of variation? We know of such a body in our solar system: Iapetus, a moon of Saturn, has a dark splotch on one side, perhaps as a result of accretion of debris in orbit.
The editor writes:
• The dip in the light curve is very steep, which is what you would expect from a spinning elongated object. If the shape were similar to Iapetus, the curve would be more sinusoidal. But the models do assume a constant reflectance across 'Oumuamua's surface. If this varies significantly then its length might be only four times its width, for example.
First class post – 17 March 2018
Now she’s just wondering when they’re going to leave home and pay their own bills Yvie Fuxianhuia protensa seen caring for four offspring (10 March, p 6)
Messages coming back from several futures (4)
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Messages coming back from several futures (3)
I was fascinated by your article on the future coming before the past. I started this congratulatory letter early next year, but set it aside when I saw that it didn’t get accepted. Upon reading the “Incontrovertible proof of the block universe” article after it appeared in next week’s issue, I thought I would pick up where I left off to commend you on your prescience. Now I hope that this didn’t get published and unravel the space-time continuum.
Messages coming back from several futures (2)
Retrocausality, the future’s influence upon the past, is not so weird. I often experience it. For example, if I am due to have an unusually early meeting in the morning, it causes me to set my alarm clock for an hour earlier the night before.
Messages coming back from several futures (1)
So, letting the future affect the past might explain quantum weirdness (17 February, p 28). That’s a mind-bending postulate for the desired effect.
Take your example of a measurement on one photon instantaneously affecting the measurement of its entangled partner, regardless of the distance between them and of the speed of light. Adam Becker reports proposals that the measurement sends a message back in time to when the photon pair was created, giving the partner particle information about what state it should be in when the first one is measured.
But this can’t be changing the past. It means that the message always was there when the photon pair was created. So the future is predetermined: at least when and where the measurement will occur, and by implication the future in general.
We might avoid this by considering “the message” as a probability cloud encompassing all possible messages about when and where either photon could be measured in the future. Or maybe the messages back in time create alternative universes where all the alternative futures happen. Hang on: these ideas sound rather like the quantum weirdness this hypothesis seeks to avoid…
Editor's pick: Language and domestication, by whom? (2)
Did we domesticate ourselves? Perhaps not. Domesticated species commonly have floppy ears. What species has been associated with us for thousands of years, but rarely has them? Clearly humans were domesticated by cats.