Editor's pick: The big cheese pickle looks different down on the farm (1)
Graham Lawton is rightly concerned about the welfare of dairy cows (16 February, p 30). As an organic dairy farmer who, like most dairy farmers, is fond of my cows and has great compassion for them, I don’t think we should be tarred with the same brush as those in other countries. In the UK, it is illegal to dock the tails of cattle except where there is trauma or infection. It is illegal to dehorn cattle without anaesthetic. It is illegal for a sick or lame cow to be transported except in exceptional circumstances.
Dairy cows are bred for milk, and some make poor mothers. We don’t like doing it, but taking the calves early and raising them ourselves ensures they survive and are healthy. The male calves aren’t slaughtered at birth, which would be a terrible waste, but are sold on to be reared for beef.
Holstein cows do appear thin, because they carry their fat around their internal organs, not under the skin. They aren’t starving. If they were hungry, their milk production would drop and they would be uneconomical to keep. The UK does import liquid milk, but not from North America. British milk is welfare-friendly milk. The answer is for Lawton to buy British cheese, preferably organic, and waste none of it.
Editor's pick: The big cheese pickle looks different down on the farm (2)
I found Lawton’s article about the environmental and welfare impacts of the dairy industry very interesting, not least because it echoes my own beef with the industry. I was disappointed, though, that he limited discussion of the negative environmental impacts of cheese to its carbon footprint.
I live in one of the driest regions of New Zealand. Vast amounts of water are used to irrigate pastures. Pollution from poorly managed livestock often enters streams and we suffer soil erosion from hooves.
Agribusiness addressing the wrong problem
You report the suggestion of using CRISPR gene editing to limit the number of male calves (9 February, p 13). This is surely another example of agribusiness addressing the wrong problem.
To produce milk, a cow must give birth every year. During her productive life, she could give birth to seven or eight calves 鈥� although cows are now usually killed off much earlier as being “unproductive”. Only one of these calves is required to replace her: the others, male or female, are surplus to industry requirements.
Even for those of us who aren’t vegans 鈥� and I am not 鈥� a better approach from the viewpoint of the environment, animal welfare and our own health would be to switch to a largely plant-based diet with only occasional dairy products and beef produced by grass-fed, all-purpose cows.
First class post 鈥� 9 March 2019
Phew, it’s only our descendants that will live in hell. We’ll be alright
Caroline to the possibility that Earth could warm by 14掳C after 2100 as emissions destroy crucial clouds (2 March, p 10)
We should abandon the label cancer entirely
Charles Swanton debates ditching the term “cancer” when referring to low-risk tumours (2 February, p 24). This is long overdue, and I would go further. It would be hard to imagine a less suitable name for a disease. Cancer is, after all, Latin for “the crab”, an unsettling creature with ferocious claws that scuttles about sideways in the debatable lands between the tides.
Given that the many diseases falling under this name will see off so many of us, and that an optimistic attitude is valuable in dealing with them, I cannot think of a single reason to terrify people with it. If we used the term “metastatic disease”, we could lose the equally alarming “battling”. After all, no one battles high blood pressure or heart disease. Of the people I know who have had cancer, none has conjured up the image of someone launching an assault in clanking armour on a fantasy monster. They have just done their damnedest to get on with their ordinary lives.
I would not trust this AI's diagnosis of my child
Chelsea Whyte reports that an artificial intelligence system can diagnose childhood illnesses better than some doctors (16 February, p 19). Then we read that it is less effective than senior doctors. This makes it unsuitable for triage 鈥� deciding patients’ priority for treatment 鈥� which should be done by the most senior clinicians, who are more alert to unusual or subtle warning signs.
The AI “learns” from medical records written by skilled paediatricians and marked up by others to identify portions linked to a person’s complaint. It is recognising patterns of human intelligence in records using information humans have preselected, recorded and interpreted, not symptoms from examining sick children. I would not trust this AI with my child.
Nature's alarm bell splats on your windscreen
Perhaps you are correct that too few biologists were keeping watch to spot insects’ decline (Leader, 16 February). But surely at least some would have noticed how windscreens were crushing fewer insects by the mid-1960s (28 July 2018, p 28). Before then, many vehicles had and needed insect deflectors below the windscreen.
Why did dinosaurs not achieve kangaroo grace?
Your report on rethinking when kangaroos first hopped made me recall a question I have long pondered (16 February, p 20). Members of the kangaroo family exhibit magnificent racing and jumping ability due to their long hind leg tendons, elasticity of stride and counterbalancing tail, with smaller but useful front paws.
Many dinosaurs appeared to have the beginnings of similar traits. They mainly walked on hind legs with counterbalancing tails. But they seem to have continued to lumber along for tens of millions of years. Maybe it was just bad luck that they didn’t evolve the grace and efficiency of the kangaroo. But it would be great to hear the views of evolutionary biologists who may have pondered the same question.
Vote trading is what those elected already do
Donna Lu reports on systems that allow voters who feel strongly about some issues to give them bonus votes (16 February, p 16). The result is that the minority can win votes on some issues, but overall satisfaction is increased.
A comparable system is commonly used in many parliaments, in which minor parties, or factions within major parties, agree to support positions they mildly disagree with in return for support on key issues they are determined to get through. It would be great if the general public could have the same ability to trade votes.
I might prefer one party or candidate on economic policy, another on social issues and a third for environmental matters. Under current systems, I have no way to indicate those preferences.
Perhaps we could have multiple representatives for each district, each having bonus votes in parliament on specific issues, decided by extra referendum votes alongside their election.
Brexit omnishambles is a multiplayer game
Petros Sekeris tries to see the Brexit omnishambles in terms of a two-player problem in game theory (16 February, p 24). This may not work, as there are more than two players on the UK side.
Prime Minister Theresa May is playing against both the European Union and factions in her own political alliance, and has multiple goals. She is trying for a deal that she can sell to the British electorate as the best she could get under the circumstances, to improve her party’s chances of staying in power at the next election. As leader of a minority government, she has to keep her partner party onside. She also has to placate factions in her party to avoid being removed as leader.
I’m sure there are internal arguments on the EU side, but it is certainly much better at showing a consistent and reasoned position that appears to be in the best interests of the whole population of the EU.
We need a standard for LED indicator lights
Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura invented the blue light-emitting diode in the early 1990s. For this, they received the (11 October 2014, p 6). More than 25 years later, nobody can agree what it signifies.
A blue LED shines when my TV is on standby but not when it is on. A red LED shows when my set-top box is on standby and a blue one when it is on. My kettle has a blue LED until it boils. My PC speakers have green ones. My laptop has two blue LEDs on the front, although I can only guess at what they are trying to tell me.
Please let’s have a standard: red when on standby, green when working. I would give the Ig Nobel prize to anyone who invents a black LED for use when a device is unplugged.
Sailors have kept things shipshape for ages
Farah Mendlesohn interestingly and entertainingly cites historical sources for the labour of tidying up being, and always having been, assigned to women (Letters, 9 February). It does not follow that men are less tidy by nature. Look at accounts of life on board naval vessels from the 17th century onwards to see just how obsessively clean and tidy men of all ranks can be.
Time, consciousness and lunchtime 鈥� all illusions
Reviewing Grace Weir’s artwork at the Institute of Physics in London, Michael Brooks notes that any explanation of time has to bring together incompatible experiences 鈥� or show that time is the greatest illusion of all (2 February, p 44). I recall how often time is discussed together with the term “illusion”, as are consciousness and self-awareness. As , I probably shouldn’t ask, but I will: do scientists use the term “illusion” too easily when we just don’t get it?