Editor's pick: When rewilding is not conservation
Graham Lawton describes rewilding as letting nature run things, so it can right the wrongs we have done Earth's wildlife (13 October, p 34). It is easy to make a case for this in an area of virgin forest cut down a decade ago to produce palm oil. But where humans have been present and part of an ecosystem for thousands of years, the implications of their removal can be as destructive as the removal of any other major species. This is why the majority of reviewed by the Stockholm Resilience Centre showed a reduction in biodiversity, especially in Europe.
Some have tried to conflate rewilding with conservation to capitalise on the trend for it. In many or most cases the terms are diametrically opposed: rewilding an area where species have become reliant on humans means, by definition, their loss and replacement with others.
Evidence echoes the all-too-often-ignored observations and warnings by indigenous communities – but the wilding bandwagon continues to gain momentum at an alarming pace.
Cars need safe and legal design more than ethics (1)
Technology probably can't answer the question of whether to prioritise the lives of pedestrians or vehicle occupants during a driverless car crash (27 October, p 6). But it can be used to give pedestrians a better chance of surviving. The biggest claim made by car makers is that driverless cars will reduce traffic accidents. So it is reasonable for legislators to demand safety measures when giving permission for them to run on public roads.
Such measures could include that are soft for adult leg impacts, even softer for child leg impacts, but still stiff when hitting other vehicles. These would make the front bumper more pedestrian-friendly while still protecting the vehicle bodywork in low-speed crashes. Car bonnets could be modified to reduce the force of pedestrian head impacts, for example by installing pedestrian airbags. This technology has been available for several years.
Cars need safe and legal design more than ethics (2)
Chelsea Whyte's article on who to spare in an accident highlights the different views on this of various cultures. Culture also affects science and hence may influence research on this subject. Surely the way to eliminate cultural bias is to let those creating the risk die and save innocent participants who are in harm's way.
For example, a car with failed brakes should crash so as to avoid pedestrians. Its passengers haven't made it faulty, but their action of travelling creates a risk.
Cars need safe and legal design more than ethics (3)
Questioning people about who they think should be saved in a road accident might be useful in developing some sort of morality basis for driverless cars. But it is odd to frame this in terms of whether pedestrians are criminals or doctors. When an accident is imminent, neither any humans involved nor any controlling artificial intelligence will be in possession of the full facts.
Cars need safe and legal design more than ethics (4)
Driverless cars don't need ethics. What they do need is to be capable of following the rules of the road. The bits about not running into people are common sense. Leave the ethics to philosophers.
The wider point in this debate is that driverless cars wouldn't be distracted by mobile phones, drunk, drugged or irrationally aggressive. They would obey speed limits and not overtake dangerously. This would instantly save hundreds of lives.
Cars need safe and legal design more than ethics (5)
We are asked whose life our driverless car should spare in a crash: a family of four in the car or “a pregnant woman, a doctor and a criminal” who are standing nearby? Is the latter one, two or three people? Does the car's decision depend on how stereotypically it thinks?
First class post 鈥� 17 November 2018
I have serious concerns about how this will contribute to the debris environment
Alice Gorman () at Elon Musk's plan to put 4425 satellites into orbit every 5 years (10 November, p 5)
How a 'neo-liberal' free-for-all is illiberal
David Cole criticises Simon Oxenham for suggesting that a liberal outlook is the default in Western societies (Letters, 27 October), and then says that the large parts of society that haven't thrived under neo-liberal economics and bewildering social change deserve respect. This risks confusion over the word “liberal”.
A liberal democracy is one in which the universal franchise and the rule of law are essential: the interests of all people are served and not just certain sectors. It tends towards a welfare state.
Neo-liberalism is another name for laissez-faire liberalism, or laissez-faire economics, which sees all human interactions as competitive, market-driven transactions, in which it is both inevitable and right that some become richer and more powerful than others in the “free market”.
The two are pretty much polar opposites and it is unfortunate that the similarity of name makes it possible to confuse the two.
To Yoda's law listen very carefully for biodiversity
Sarab Sethi and his team have developed a device that cheaply gauges rainforest biodiversity by interpreting the collective sound of different animals (6 October, p 10). I predict the results will reflect ““.
This arose from efforts to maximise crops and is also called the “-3/2 distribution law”: if you chart the mean weight of plants against their number per unit area on a double-logarithmic plot, you get a straight line with a downward slope of –3/2. This quantifies the observation that the more plants are crowded, the smaller each is liable to be.
The finding was later extended to the distribution densities of animals and birds – and described as a law in search of a theory (). It should help in defining the area required to protect species. For instance, predatory birds require more territory than predatory mammals, followed by herbivorous birds, primates and herbivorous mammals.
Some downsides of destroying drugs
You reported on skin cells engineered to make an enzyme that destroys cocaine, which might be implanted to treat drug addiction (29 September, p 19). I wonder whether similar enzymes exist that destroy opioids and methamphetamine.
Though on reflection, I wonder how useful this might actually be. Would cravings lead someone to take successively larger doses to outrun the therapy's ability to destroy the drug? In the case of opioids, would similar therapy render the drugs useless if a person later has genuine medical need for them to relieve pain?
Cats pick fights with rats they can beat and eat
So cats are bad at catching adult rats (6 October, p 15). But cats do like catching and eating juvenile rats, which have a fighting weight a fraction of an adult's. I have seen the neighbour's cat trot by with a young rat in its mouth.
Stephen Hawking's carers deserve credit too
Tributes to Stephen Hawking rightly admire the mental resilience that enabled him to live a productive life with an overwhelming physical disability – including that by his daughter Lucy Hawking (20 October, p 42). None that I have come across mention the carers who enabled him to go on living. I have searched and found only that he needed four full-time carers, carrying out for him daily activities that most of us take for granted. Then there were the technicians who designed and built the equipment that enabled him to be mobile and to communicate. These people are also heroes of Hawking's story.
I'll just pop down to the battery-swap station…
Alice Klein's comparison between hydrogen-powered and battery-powered vehicles was interesting (8 September, p 20). In a country like Australia the limited range of either type of vehicle outside of the major cities will be a problem for some time to come, for example because of a lack of fast charging points.
But we can always learn from history, such as that of battery-powered buses in London a century ago (9 September 2017, p 35). They were turned around in minutes by swapping depleted batteries for fully charged ones.
If the manufacturers of battery-powered vehicles today could agree on a limited set of standard batteries, fuel stations could quite quickly offer battery swaps. This sort of service already operates for liquid petroleum gas (LPG) bottles – most users don't own a bottle but simply swap it for a full one when it is empty.
If a moonmoon has a moon, what to call it?
“Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, .” Now we have moonmoons (20 October, p 10). May some have moons: so moonmoonmoons? We might need to abbreviate to m3moons, m4moons and so on.
Future streets littered with high-tech e-gum
You report a new chewing gum that “consists of a piezoelectric element and electrodes wrapped in a thin plastic film” (20 October, p 7). What are the environmental consequences of such a product? Our pavements are already heavily stained with discarded chewing gum. Will the new chewing gum also be discarded, adding to the plastic pollution?
The editor writes:
• We foresee belated legislation demanding dedicated disposal bins at points of sale; and if the thing lasts as long as promised, these will take ages to fill up.
For the record 鈥� 17 November 2018
• Natalie Starkey is now a freelance writer and science communicator (3 November, p 38).