Editor's pick: Much of the world is in for a rough ride
Michael Le Page discusses record temperatures across the northern hemisphere (14 July, p 25). Here in Australia, climate modelling by the federal agency CSIRO and elsewhere has led to some sobering predictions for Australian cities in 2100.
Prolonged conditions above 35°C and 85 per cent humidity are considered to be beyond human tolerance or habitability. Northern cities like Darwin and Cairns now have several days each year that exceed these limits. It is that in 2100 Darwin will be uninhabitable for a large part of the year without full-time artificial modification to living conditions. Rural production in almost all mainland Australia will be affected, particularly in northern areas, by this habitability limitation for livestock and humans, as well as the threat of increased bush fires, greater cyclone severity and drought.
Regions with similar climatic zones, such as the Middle East, parts of Africa and South Asia, are likely to have a similar experience. The world is in for a rough ride.
Back in the world as it is, protect medical data
Luke Allen calls for “a single, integrated electronic record” for patient data (14 July, p 24). Given ethical, competent and efficient politicians, civil servants, medical professionals and IT contractors this would be a great idea. But we have none of these. We would get an expensive, insecure, inaccurate and buggy system, with records sold or given to companies as in the DeepMind affair (15 July 2017, p 24). No thanks.
The chat-doctor is in the doctor's waiting room
Clare Wilson reports doctors saying that you cannot replace their wealth of experience and “gut feeling” during consultations (7 July, p 25). But when discussion or examination of a patient isn't enough, doctors rightly send them for tests. We all dislike incursions into our expertise, but sometimes it can be more expert still with more back-up systems.
A computer consultation while the patient waits to be seen could give their doctor a head start and cut the appointment time.
How much are farmers to blame for wildlife woes? (1)
Chris Packham points out the role of agriculture in wildlife depletion (14 July, p 24). Farming has been blamed for years. Surely readers and viewers would be better stimulated into action by talking about the adverse effect of their gardening methods and pets. Garden centres have metres of shelves stocked with herbicides, pesticides and fungicides to give gardeners their “perfect” monoculture lawn and tidy beds. Domestic cats kill vast numbers of birds, and dogs, given the freedom of the countryside, wreak havoc on ground-nesting birds.
If people got their own plots in order, the birds and insects might come back to reward them.
How much are farmers to blame for wildlife woes? (2)
Packham confuses cause and effect when he says intensive farming is to blame for the loss of wildlife. The cause is in the low prices paid by supermarkets to food producers, which lead to intensive agriculture.
The United Nations report published on 3 July predicts that prices will fall by 10 to 20 per cent for most food commodities, despite this not covering the cost of production in the UK, for instance. In order to survive, food producers will have to intensify even further.
If Packham really wants to make a difference, he should lobby government and supermarkets to make sure producers are paid more for their produce.
Pasture land could be nature's carbon sink
Chester Peterson makes the point that not all the pasture land that livestock graze on can produce crops (Letters, 2 June).
Instead of using it for grazing, why not allow this land to be reclaimed by forest, or even afforest it, and let nature's carbon sink do its job?
Why must we listen to public views on GM? (1)
You accompanied an article on the public acceptance of genetically modified food with a comment piece by Lesley Paterson in favour of scientists asking for public views on where to take GM food (7 July, p 23). This is superficially appealing, but problematic.
Such consultations don't happen for most areas of science – so why for this? Should we ditch research on particle physics if we find that most people don't care or would rather see the money spent elsewhere?
Governments do intervene in capitalist markets, arguing that this is to correct market failures, for example “externalities” such as environmental costs not priced into the market. Unless GM food has a negative externality, we should allow business to produce food and consumers to chose. In this case, I see governments' main role being to ensure honesty in marketing, though that shouldn't mean mandatory GM labelling.
Governments also intervene where there are ethical concerns. But do we really want to elevate these when most of the genetic manipulation with techniques such as CRISPR looks remarkably similar to the genetic effect of traditional breeding, but less random, and evidence of it causing harm is lacking?
Why must we listen to public views on GM? (2)
I was interested to read about how the GM debate may turn into the gene-editing debate (7 July, p 22). Has anyone done any research asking people who are against gene-edited foods whether or not they are also against using gene editing in treatments for, say, cancer?
Human evolution could lead to longer lifespans
I am surprised Tom Kirkwood is so circumspect about the limits of human longevity (7 July, p 24). Most ideas about ageing explain how we age – mechanisms such as the shrinkage of telomeres at the ends of our chromosomes – not why we age, for example offering evolutionary reasons for an observed lifespan.
A notable exception is an idea proposed by Kirkwood himself, involving “disposable soma”. This predicts that lifespan is negatively correlated with death rate; highly predated species should have short lifespans. In support of this is the difference in lifespan between mice, which are heavily predated and live for up to three years, and pipistrelle bats, which are not and can live up to 12 years.
This suggests that, in the absence of predation and other non-ageing causes of death, humans would have evolved to have lifespans much longer than the current record of 122 years.
Tom Kirkwood writes:
• I was asked to comment on a report that was concerned chiefly with mortality plateaus. I touched briefly on the debate over a limit to human lifespan given our current biology. But you address a third point: whether there might be a physical limit preventing humans evolving longer lifespans in the future. I agree that it is conceivable that future evolution could increase human longevity, as it has done in the past. But this would take many generations.
Vigilance needed against crashing out by default
I was pleased by the unequivocal line you are taking concerning the possibility of a “no-deal” Brexit (Leader, 14 July). The phrase “crash out” would be most appropriate. I hope you sustain this approach, as I fear that already we are being subtly primed by hard-liners to accept “no-deal” as a valid option. Now that the UK prime minister has four politicians who originally supported remaining in the EU in , those who want total separation will be concocting strategies for the time until the UK is due to leave.
If I were one of their number, I would see delay, sabotage and undermining of the hopelessly weak official programme as my priority. Those of us who believe that the entire business is a load of monstrous nonsense need to sustain our vigilance to prevent hard-liners getting what they wanted by default.
I hope for a vaccine against Alzheimer's
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Sam Wong reports a link between herpes infection and Alzheimer's disease (30 June, p 12). This made me wonder whether a vaccine could help prevent Alzheimer's.
Immunisation against varicella zoster virus protects children and some others against chicken pox, and people over 60 against shingles. This virus is a member of the herpes family. Will it be too much of a stretch to develop vaccines against herpes viruses 6 and 7, which were found in the brains of people who had Alzheimer's? Perhaps longitudinal studies of those who have been immunised against chicken pox and shingles will reveal a decline in the prevalence of Alzheimer's.
The editor writes:
• It is worth investigating. But we don't yet know whether herpes causes Alzheimer's, or in how many cases it may have an effect.
Small is more beautiful than big energy schemes
Tidal lagoons aren't an easy solution to our energy problems, as Hans van Haren correctly argues (23 June, p 24). Private industry has been trying to get the UK government and taxpayers to underwrite large-scale energy projects like these for years. We should instead spend the money putting solar hot water panels on people's roofs. Everyone uses hot water and it can be stored easily.
If the £20 billion subsidy for the Hinkley Point C nuclear reactor was used to install such systems, they could be fitted in 4 million homes. The payback time is as short as eight years.
First class post 鈥� 4 August 2018
“So the space goat eating ice cream and telling me it needs a new lawnmower is OK… Phew!”
Rob Z Tobor that we have started to uncover the true purpose of dreams (21 July, p 4)
For the record 鈥� 4 August 2018
• In 2015, Norway's sovereign wealth fund was worth around $900 billion (21 July, p 27).