Editor's pick:Prolonged peace is no blip
Aaron Clauset's analysis of the incidence of wars between 1823 and 2003 leads him to question if we have turned the corner into a new era of peace (3 March, p 15). But he seems to disregard any of the radical societal differences that have undoubtedly occurred across his study period.
Wars have been fought because of motivations including imperial aggression, religious or political differences, and simple human survival. The factors at work now are very different from those in 1823 when, for example, Britain was empire-building.
No mention was made of the existence and possible influence of the United Nations, a feature of Clauset's more peaceful third period (after the second world war); its precursor, the League of Nations, never developed into anything more than a brief talking shop. It would also be unreasonable to dismiss the fear of annihilation that nuclear weapons brought to considerations of superpower aggression.
Everybody knows what nobody knows
Arran Frood describes intelligence services using large groups of ordinary people to try to forecast geopolitical events (24 February, p 32). Perhaps the spooks read the 1975 novel The Shockwave Rider, in which John Brunner . One passage goes: “First you corner a large – if possible, a very large – number of people who, while they've never formally studied the subject you're going to ask them about and hence are unlikely to recall the correct answer, are nonetheless plugged into the culture to which the question relates. Then you ask them, as it might be, to estimate how many people died in the great flu epidemic that followed World War I, or how many loaves were condemned by EEC food inspectors during June 1970.
“Curiously, when you consolidate their replies they tend to cluster around the actual figure as recorded in almanacs, year-books and statistical returns. It's rather as though this paradox has proved true: that while nobody knows what's going on around here, everybody knows what's going on around here.”
Brunner tellingly ponders: “Well, if it works for the past, why can't it work for the future?”
First class post – 24 March 2018
The chase is over, that’s why they get fatter @IEatChawal greets news that couples tend to pile on more weight than singletons, despite healthier lifestyles (17 March, p 9)
Fertiliser may also be silencing plants
Marta Zaraska revealed how plants communicate by emitting chemical signals (17 February, p 32). She reported this being disrupted by emissions of ozone and nitrogen oxides from diesel vehicles and power stations reacting with the plants' volatile chemical signals.
But what are the effects of insecticides, herbicides and pesticides? The decomposition products of ammonium nitrate fertiliser, including .
Is cosmic computer game in single-player mode?
The fascinating question of whether we are alone in the universe graces your pages again, courtesy of John Harvey (Letters, 17 February). As with black swans, the only way we will ever know for certain is if we find an example.
There is, however, another way to look at this, which makes the question even more intriguing: the possibility that our universe is a computer simulation run by someone else. US physicist Sylvester Gates and his colleagues codes have been found in the mathematics of the relations between fundamental particles and their proposed supersymmetric partners.
Is this a sign that we inhabit a simulation run by someone else who is trying to find out whether their own universe is simulated, running code to test whether intelligent life is a cosmic one-off?
Touchy-feely better than glowing for e-skin
Edd Gent suggests that an “e-skin” could provide a visible reminder to elderly people when medication needs to be taken (24 February, p 7).
Something similar could be useful for those with visual impairments if it had a tactile rather than a visible reminder. Perhaps combining both may also allow a carer to notice the need.
There might be times when a tactile sign would be preferred anyway – not everybody wishes to advertise that they are on medication. Taking the idea to extremes, if the signal were an itch, it might be possible to make it increasingly aggravating as the dose becomes more overdue.
And finally – elderly people aren't the only group that includes individuals who forget to take their medication. A bit of ageism crept into your article there, if only in a quotation.
There is something between the stars
Has it struck anyone else that the LIGO experiment to detect gravitational waves (17 February, p 8) is just Michelson-Morley's 1887 experiment writ large and more accurate? They tried to detect Earth's movement through ether, the substance once thought to fill space. We do not stream through the luminiferous ether, but it does wobble a bit.
Did Neanderthal art brush off on us?
Michael Marshall reports the discovery of Neanderthal cave art (3 March, p 16). There is an oft-repeated myth that Cro-Magnon cave art – and even symbolism itself – “exploded” onto the European scene in 40,000 BC. Rather than proving how the Cro-Magnons made this great leap forward in civilisation, perhaps it shows that contact with Neanderthals sparked off the apparently fully fledged artwork that the latter had been developing for millennia?
Cash for DNA data could be a Faustian pact
Richard Kemeny discusses how big pharma might pay to access your genome (24 February, p 8). He is right that the era of the data economy is here. Organisations are desperate to collect, use and profit from our data. Kemeny is also right to highlight the chance for us to have some say in who profits. But we also need more detail on data protection.
The assertion that we can decide how much we should sell our DNA data for assumes a good understanding of the changing risks, both economic and personal, for any individual considering entering into such a potentially Faustian pact.
New data protection laws will sweep Europe this May. If they succeed in providing robust protections and remedies, it will be welcome. The trouble is, if our password is compromised we can change it, if our genome data is compromised… what then?
Put other anti-asteroid options to the test
In your story on using predictive models to guide how to combat an incoming asteroid, we are told that if one “was set to hit Earth, humanity would have to scramble to conduct the world's riskiest experiment” (17 February, p 6).
That is why it is important to carry out low-risk trials soon, even if it probably isn't possible with nukes. Conducting NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test sooner, rather than later, makes sense. The results may mean we don't have to scramble when nature compels us to act for real.
Tell the customer how their dinner was killed
Danny Chambers wants all meat labelled as stunned or unstunned at slaughter (17 February, p 22).
Shechita UK fully supports, and always has done, the notion that consumers have every right to know what they are eating.
However, if true consumer information is to be ensured, they need to be informed of the method of stunning at slaughter: captive bolt shooting, gassing, electrocution by tongs or electric water bath, low atmospheric pressure stunning, or any of the other approved methods. This proposal would be accepted by religious communities and animal welfare groups alike.
Dung vs fire sticks, the great bird-brain debate
I was intrigued by the reports of raptors propagating wildfires by moving burning sticks (13 January, p 4). However, I would not class this as tool use. It is better described as an advantageous modification of the animal's environment. This puts the raptors, I suggest, in the same category as burrowing owls, who bring dung near to their burrows to lure dung beetles to within easy range of capture.
Probably best to stick to the romcoms
Now there is an app that guesses our emotions to better suggest films or target ads at us (17 February, p 17). So, if those emotions are hateful, what is it going to do? Suggest A Clockwork Orange or Natural Born Killers? Bring up ads for assault rifles?
The best an ancient man can get
Cheddar Man may or may not have had a dark skin (3 March, p 12). But I am very impressed by the razor he had 10,000 years ago to give him the perfect shave shown in your picture.
For the record – 24 March 2018
鈥� Gian Giudice, head of theory at CERN, has no doubts about the usefulness of the naturalness principle (3 March, p 30).
鈥� The graphene layers from which Pablo Jarillo-Herrero and colleagues are building superconductors are one atom thick and separated by less than 30 nanometres (10 March, p 6).