Editor's pick: The blazing sun can solve water shortages
Olive Heffernan says the idea of towing icebergs to Cape Town in South Africa is dubious and the city must consider alternatives to meet its future water requirements, including possible desalination of seawater (19 May, p 20). In fact, Cape Town is actively involved in a number of desalination projects, with the focus on reverse osmosis.
This technology has two problems: it produces concentrated brine that must be disposed of, and it uses lots of energy. The long-term investment of building pipes far out into the ocean can solve the disposal problem.
The cost of fossil or nuclear fuels is more significant. It can be argued, however, that Cape Town, and other coastal communities prone to drought, could benefit from an electrical grid supported by solar power.
Unlike some other applications of solar energy, the production of potable water requires no battery storage to cope with periods of darkness, since excess water can be stored in tanks or reservoirs for use at night. Nor would sunless, rainy days be a problem.
How not to 'catch' cancer from medical software (1)
The recent article about hospital software bugs (19 May, p 34) caught my eye because I have received no response to a complaint about a related problem. This resulted in a false diagnosis of a rare cancer being entered into my records, possibly twice, at two major public medical centres in Australia.
The first I knew about this was when a family doctor asked during an unrelated consultation, with a quizzical look, whether I had cancer. The name of the cancer incorrectly entered into my records was similar to that of an extremely rare but quite mild disease that I had been correctly diagnosed with in the 1990s. Both were named after the same doctor, who discovered them, as were a few other diseases.
As I recall, my correct diagnosis was absent from my records. I assumed that the clinic's software hadn't recognised my diagnosis when someone tried to enter it and had defaulted to the name of the cancer instead.
I was even more shocked years later when a letter from a specialist at a hospital listed the cancer – but not my correct diagnosis – as one of my existing conditions. I don't know whether the error occurred independently. When I explained the problem to one doctor, his response was to delete my correct diagnosis from my medical records.
A false diagnosis taking the place of a correct one on a patient's medical records has many potential negative consequences, especially when a serious disease is confused with a mild one. I hope someone in the world of medical IT will take this issue seriously and fix it. I also hope all patients with rare diagnoses are warned to check their medical records.
How not to 'catch' cancer from medical software (2)
I was interested to read about user error and electronic systems in medicine. But I was disappointed there was so little mention of the progress made in this field.
Since , European and associated texts and updates have attempted to introduce a rigorous engineering approach to making sure that medical equipment does its job and is intuitive and easy to use. Manufacturers have to assess the ways in which mistakes can be made and, as far as is possible, design them out.
The use of precautionary sticky notes in hospitals should be a thing of the past if policies mandate the use of equipment complying to this standard. I do not know how widespread such policies are, but highlighting the existence of the standard should help with their adoption.
First class post – 16 June 2018
Can we bring it back please because it's been missing for a long, long time? Helen Mahoney to a report that the gene that led to the boom in human intelligence has been found (9 June, p 6)
How would this placenta panacea work, then?
Catherine de Lange describes the ambitions of Bob Hariri and Peter Diamandis to use stem cells from placentas to extend life (26 May, p 42). Having studied the placenta, I have a few questions for them.
Where are stem cells located in the placenta? How do we distinguish them from the other types of placental cells? How can these stem cells be isolated from the placenta for clinical use?
An endless battle of faker against detector
Chris Baraniuk says that a machine learning system can now examine photos and detect fakes (26 May, p 10). It shouldn't be too long, then, before someone invents an algorithm that trains itself to repeatedly tweak a false image to avoid detection by the algorithm that spots fakes.
You can tell what I write about from my name
It is not surprising that our names affect how other people view our age and personality (26 May, p 9). You can guess the approximate age of many people from their name, since fashions come and go. Our personality is mainly derived from our genes and our early environment – both usually provided by the people who gave us our name.
But then, if your name doesn't suit your personality, you can do what half my family members have done: use a variant of the correct name or change it to something completely different.
Smart meters as a plan for peak power pricing
N.C. Friswell wonders whether the peak pricing on smart meters has gone away (Letters, 26 May). He is right to be suspicious: it hasn't.
The for the smart meters being rolled out in the UK contains the most complex pricing capabilities of any in the world. For example, it into eight blocks, which can be any multiple of 30 minutes. Within each block, there can be four tiers of pricing, so that the cost of energy can change depending on how much you use within each period.
The charging pattern can be different for every customer. This dates back to the days when some companies mis-sold energy plans on the doorstep. Some advocated customising tariffs for individual customers to persuade them to switch supplier.
Such complex tariffs were , but the capability to remotely program meters to operate them remains. The UK government insists on it in every gas and electricity meter.
Eco-labelling done right and independently
Thank you for Fred Pearce's comment on eco-labelling (12 May, p 22). Many of us share the concern about “greenwash”. Fortunately, there is a simple answer for consumers worldwide. Type 1 ecolabels all operate using independently established standards created for the goods or service in question. Individual standards are scientifically robust and transparent, and cover the product or service under scrutiny from cradle to grave.
The licensees are independently audited against the standards and all who issue licences subscribe to the – whose members around the world will be pleased to offer support to UK companies in implementing such a scheme.
We have more doubts on genetic modification (1)
Michael Le Page says “there is no reliable evidence that any existing GM food is less safe than conventional food” (26 May, p 28). If I were anti-GM, I would regard those as weasel words: in the hallowed phrase, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. More to the point is whether there is any reason to suppose that any of these GM foods might be less safe and how that stacks up against the arguments in their favour.
We have more doubts on genetic modification (2)
Le Page says “virtually every GM crop on the market is designed to help the farmer who grows it”. If it is publicly funded this may be true. But the first legal duty of private companies is to maximise shareholder profit.
So they generate patents and terminator genes that force farmers to buy new seed every year, and design pesticide resistance rather than disease resistance into many products.
Mixed recipes for saving the environment (1)
I frequently find myself wrestling with my conscience about my meat eating (5 May, p 30). I am concerned about the increasing numbers of people doing it and the environmental costs, and see animal treatment as a separate issue. Producers seem to try to serve vegans, vegetarians or meat eaters. I find a more amenable solution in cooking my chilli recipe with a mix of vegetarian meat substitute and real meat.
It still has the taste and texture of meat but with less of an environmental impact.
Mixed recipes for saving the environment (2)
Niall Firth overlooked a crucial factor in favour of non-meat meats. Some people simply like their taste, texture, aromas, convenience and earth-friendly aspects for themselves – not to satisfy a craving for the real thing.
Plastic pollution's past and present prevalence
Aisling Irwin reports the ubiquity of plastic pollution (19 May, p 25). This reminds me of a visit to my school in the mid-1960s by a photographer following an Antarctic expedition.
They claimed that, even then, every sample of Antarctic seawater contained microscopic fragments of nylon from fishing nets. Presumably now so do we.
For the record – 16 June 2018
• Cyril Burt was involved in developing the 11-plus school admission test system in England and Wales (10 February, p 45).
• Phnom Penh is to the south-east of Bangkok (26 May, p 26).
• Joseph Banks was a naturalist and funder of James Cook's expeditions (26 May, p 45).