Editor's pick: Electric cars are no panacea for clean air
Michael Le Page reports some clever ideas about wirelessly charging electric cars (16 February, p 22). This leaves me feeling quite dismayed.
There is an assumption that we can solve our roadside pollution problems by switching to electric cars. But you have previously reported that half the fine particulate matter that gets into people's lungs from traffic on busy streets comes from tyres and brakes (29 October 2016, p 16). So electric vehicles aren't a complete solution. Electromagnetic braking can help reduce dust, but the tyres still generate copious particles.
It seems to me that the only solution to the problem of fine dust from vehicles is to have far fewer of them in towns and cities. We must reduce the need to travel, for example by working at home where possible. We also need to improve public transport – and the article did show we can wirelessly charge buses.
An upside of such changes would be town and city streets that are quieter than today, which would be a great benefit in itself.
A ghost in the machine of the origins of life (1)
Paul Davies, for whom I have the greatest respect, seems to be invoking a “ghost in the machine” in proposing that we need to consider information as a physical quantity to explain how something made of matter can exhibit the behaviours of life (2 February, p 28). This seems to be invoking an overarching power for information – which seems to me to be an abstract concept.
The universe is what it is, irrespective of our attempts to explain it using language, including mathematics and information theory.
A nucleic acid base just does what it does. In my humble view, information is a human concept – a very useful one, but not “something out there” – and perhaps we risk creating a new mysticism in our own image.
A ghost in the machine of the origins of life (2)
Davies spends a lot of effort trying to explain how life's organised, self-sustaining complexity doesn't really fly in the face of the most sacred law of physics, the second law of thermodynamics, which says entropy in an isolated system tends to increase. It is simple: life doesn't break this law. It merely creates a local, low-entropy system by shifting excess entropy to its environment along with other waste products.
The editor writes:
• That is what life does once it has got going. The puzzle is that in the framework of thermodynamics, the beginning of life – molecules coming together into complex systems that spontaneously do stuff – is vanishingly unlikely. Davies frames this problem in terms of its thermodynamical peculiarity, and seeks the answer in terms of information.
First class post 鈥� 2 March 2019
If research shows harm, report that. I don’t think they have a secret anti-cheese agenda
Andrew Coe after we highlighted the environmental and welfare costs of cheese (16 February, p 30)
Home is a hearth plus a door, or more (1)
Sitting in front of my gas fire with faux logs, reading your account of Neanderthal homemakers, I'm reassured that the hearth is the psychological centre of the home, a phrase attributed to architect Frank Lloyd Wright (9 February, p 28). Laura Spinney's description of the oldest known fireplaces, found in Neanderthal homes, provides an enigmatic glimpse into the prehistoric past.
The emphasis on fire, keeping warm, cooking and storytelling, chimes with neuroanthropologist John Allen's that home is a cornerstone of human cognition, as basic perhaps as language.
Home is a hearth plus a door, or more (2)
Spinney says that a Neanderthal home preferably backed onto solid rock and had at least one entrance. Preferably? I'm not sure I'd want a home that has fewer than one entrance.
Pain and suffering aren't the same
I'm glad to see that someone else has noticed that there is a difference between pain and suffering. You report that silencing brain cells in mice can make them no longer care about pain (26 January, p 19).
The first time I was given opioids, I waited for the pain to go away, but the “painkiller” didn't seem to have any effect. The second time, I realised that it wasn't making the pain go away, but did make it easier to tolerate.
The meat of the problem of saving the planet (1)
Graham Lawton's seven steps to save the planet seem to rely on systems for carbon capture and storage (8 December 2018, p 31). The financial and energy costs of storing several cubic kilometres of liquid carbon dioxide a year will be considerable.
I suppose we could turn the former Texas oilfields into a storage site, but this could raise some of the issues that are brought up regarding fracking and radioactive waste disposal, not least worries about leaks. A catastrophic release of stored CO2 to the surface, similar to the release of CO2 trapped in lakes in Africa, could kill humans and other animals over a large area. I think any plan for setting up a storage site would be met by “not in my back yard” opposition.
The meat of the problem of saving the planet (2)
Lawton's seven steps include consuming less meat. But there is a world of difference between intensive, high-input, grain-fed meat dependent on fossil fuels and fertiliser, and small-scale, locally sold, naturally grazed, pasture-fed meat. Big herbivores play a critical role in creating ecological diversity and enriching soil organic matter, which supports other animal life and absorbs carbon from the air.
The savannahs of Africa and the Americas, maintained by mega-herds of herbivores, used to be .
It is naive to think that a landscape of vegetable and fruit monocultures will maintain any ecological diversity.
Switching government subsidies from supporting unsustainable, high-carbon emitting, intensive livestock production to no-input, natural grazing techniques can make livestock an agent of biological and ecological creation.
Technologies will drive climate change solutions
Jane Rawson takes a generalised shot at economic growth as a barrier to climate action (Letters, 12 January). Maybe the two aren't so incompatible.
While the notion of infinite economic growth is illogical, developing technologies, soft and hard, will be the major instrument of climate change moderation. And Robert Solow for showing how technical advances drive economic growth.
Yes, politicians need to avoid simplistic populist appeals, such as “Trump digs coal ” or “freeing” the UK from EU standards. But they will always try to be popular to survive. They should note Greta Thunberg's at Katowice in Poland last December.
This smells like a solution to a statistical puzzle
Richard Harris is surprised that, while one in 20 participants in a study carried the gene for either cystic fibrosis or spinal muscular atrophy, only one in 40 has a partner who also carries one (Letters, 2 February). You note that there were just 15 such couples.
If an explanation is needed, it may lie in a study involving student volunteers smelling T-shirts previously worn by other students and rating the odours for sexual attraction (24 August 2002, p 20). The personal scents of people with similar genetic profiles were much less attractive than those of others.
If the numbers of carriers of the two disordered genes in the study were similar, if the percentages give a fair representation of the population and if the personal scent effect had protected some participants from forming attachments to people with the same disordered gene, then the one in 40 figure is what random distribution would predict.
No open-plan office can be the right temperature
Yvaine Ye discussed pitfalls of open-plan offices (12 January, p 33) and readers expanded on them (Letters, 2 February). Another is the issue of temperature.
I am surprised how many buildings have air-conditioning systems that can't cope with open-plan spaces behind expanses of glass, so occupants of the south side are baking hot while those on the north freeze.
I recently worked with people from East Africa who wanted 25°C, western Europeans who wanted 20°C and northern Europeans and Canadians who complained of heatstroke at 16°C. The result is open offices cooled, at great expense, to a temperature at which many feel too cold and have to wear additional clothing.
A key question with a mixed readership
Readers gave several excellent answers to a question about how many rotors on a key safe one should move to lock it (The Last Word, 26 January). These will doubtless find applications in others' everyday lives. A problem is that, sadly, not all honest householders read 快猫短视频 and, presumably, a number of intelligent rogues do.
Even my kitchen can't agree on serving sizes
With Kayt Sukel's guide to keeping your mind sharp, you present food recommendations measured in “servings”, defined as roughly half a cup (26 January, p 30). Who measures vegetables in “cups”? According to my kettle, the cup I use for coffee holds two cups; my coffee maker thinks it's three.
The editor writes:
• Researchers tend to discuss servings, meaning the amount of a food you would normally eat as part of a meal. defines an adult portion of fruit or vegetables as 80 grams ().