Putting population on the policy agenda
Population growth poses problems, but the solutions are far from simple (25 May, p 24). For example, China’s one child policy has misfired because of a preference for boys, and its population is now disproportionately elderly.
Even if we were to halt world population at its current level, it may not help much when it comes to resource depletion. Medical advances are most likely to prolong the lives of those with high-impact, well-off Western lifestyles. Poorer countries aspire to these lifestyles, and it is often estimated that to provide everyone with this would use the resources of multiple Earths. Add in an economic system that boils down to “make more money, buy more stuff” and the outlook appears bleak for future generations and the natural world.
Young people are more energetic away from home
Adam Vaughan’s article implies that older people use more energy, but the study quoted only looks at residential energy consumption (25 May, p 9). This doesn’t include energy consumed outside the home 鈥� at work, school, while commuting, shopping or during any other activity that many people in the US under 60 engage in. People over the age of 60 spend more time at home because they are more likely to be retired and to be less physically capable.
Surgery is risky enough 鈥� don't do it over 5G
Yvaine Ye reports on doctors in China using 5G internet to do surgery from afar (13 April, p 8). A video data stream delivered by a mobile phone signal will still have travelled most of the way between the cities of Guangzhou and Gaozhou over conventional, land-based copper and optical fibre cables.
No matter how slight the signal delay in the final, short 5G wireless link, it will still be at the mercy of the rest of the signal path 鈥� it is the whole journey that counts, not just the 5G part. Every router and switch the data stream passes through 鈥� and there may be quite a few 鈥� adds to this, and the extra delay may depend on how loaded the network is at the time. It is possible to prioritise crucial traffic, but there is no widely agreed mechanism for this, as far as I know, especially between national carriers.
In any case, I should hope that an operating theatre that is used for very tricky procedures that need the help of a more experienced surgeon elsewhere would have a fixed line network connection with plenty of redundancy built in to guard against power failures and other problems. Using a mobile phone connection in this case strikes me as unnecessarily risky.
Smartphones were a luxury NASA didn't know
Richard Webb’s comment that “Apollo missions were launched on little more computing power than is found inside a smartphone” somewhat underestimates progress in computing speed since 1969 (18 May, p 25). Smartphones are more than 100 million times faster than an IBM 360 mainframe, which was probably the fastest computer that NASA had. Apollo engineers wouldn’t even have dreamed of such computing power.
Could pollution explain high twin rates?
You report a high incidence of twins in a small village in India (4 May, p 15). If this isn’t a statistical anomaly, and if the incidence of identical twins isn’t increased, I suspect the involvement of an anti-oestrogenic environmental pollutant. In veterinary practice, decreasing the availability of oestrogen in the hypothalamus, for example by using the oestrogen antibody drug Fecundin, increases the number of ova shed by sheep and the lambing rate. In humans, the effect would be increased incidence of fraternal twins.
The editor writes:
The researchers did report testing the water and diet in a previous paper, but that wouldn’t rule out a pollutant from another source.
We've got a way to go when it comes to wind and solar
The graph accompanying your report on renewable energy illustrates how far we are from having enough storage capacity to cover times when there is little or no wind or solar generation (18 May, p 15). There is a big dip to almost zero between 6 and 7 May, with consumption at about 25 gigawatts and rising. Where storage is shown on the graph as contributing to supply, it is only ever a tiny fraction and nowhere near enough to make up for frequent near-total loss of wind and solar generation.
If you live long then who prospers?
Your article on “living younger” greets the probable arrival of drugs to stay fitter in later life as a win for everyone (27 April, p 26). With any new technology, it is wise to consider possible outcomes that may not be a benefit to society.
One passage caught my eye. “Companies are popping up everywhere. Everyone understands senolytics is a gold mine,” says one CEO. It would be a gold mine because large numbers of healthy people would continue to use the drugs for decades.
Consider two possible marketing strategies. One is to aim to spread the benefits to everyone in the world, by supplying the drugs at low prices that poorer people or government health services can afford. The whole world could benefit. The alternative strategy is to target wealthier members of society, who are probably willing to pay high prices for the perceived benefits, and so to charge as high a price as possible.
What effect would the second strategy have on society? Wealthier people could extend their maximum earning period, increasing their wealth and passing it on to their descendants. People who can’t afford the drugs wouldn’t get this advantage. Even worse, they would have to compete against “younger” people in the later years of their shorter working life. We live in a time of increasing inequality. I can’t see how the second strategy would reduce this.
Which marketing strategy is more likely to be implemented, given that private companies’ foremost priority is to maximise profit? We have plenty of evidence from tobacco and fossil fuel firms that morality counts for little against profitability.
Possible ID for mini mystery bacteria
You report “a recently discovered group of ultra small bacteria” (13 April, p 28). One of my tutors at the University of Birmingham, UK, in the mid-60s was Phyllis Pease, who was researching pleuropneumonia-like organisms, spheroplasts and L-forms, which later became known as cell wall-deficient organisms.
These are typically parasitic, with reduced genomes and, in the cases studied by Pease, were found within mammalian blood cells. They also readily absorbed fragments of host DNA into their genome. The image you publish of an ultra small bacterium bears all of the hallmarks of a bacterial L-form.
Supporting a boycott of Burmese blood amber
Graham Lawton unveils a monstrous situation surrounding the mining and sale of amber in Myanmar (4 May, p 38). If amber sales are funding bloodshed there, then a strict boycott of Burmese amber is absolutely necessary.
If you make tools, you know the first words
I read your article on the origins of language in music, mime and mimicry with interest (4 May, p 34). Those of us who make things with our hands know the origins of tool-making language and terminology. The first words would have been “Aaargh”, then “F@#k”! Some things never change.
Will a space-wide web obstruct other launches?
You describe proposals for a space-wide web and mention the problem of space junk in orbit (4 May, p 44). But won’t adding more than 15,000 satellites to low Earth orbit, used in crewed space flight and traversed by other launches, cause problems by making the selection of safe launch windows much more difficult?
As for the 4000 satellites in the Amazon, Telesat and OneWeb proposals, these constellations would be flying too high to be much affected by atmospheric drag. So even if only 1 per cent fail to de-orbit, they will add undesirable debris in more or less permanent orbits.
The editor writes:
Satellites have predictable orbits and launches can be timed to avoid all trackable objects. We haven’t heard of satellite density affecting any launches to date. Yes, the debris issue needs more work.
Panic at the climate will inspire more action
Mary Rose criticises my belief that people should panic at the threat of a climate breakdown (Letters, 18 May). She objects to “stopgap measures”, but, in an emergency, such actions are necessary to prevent the issue worsening.
Her preferred approach 鈥� prioritising economic growth and hoping for a technological fix 鈥� is what got us here, and caused global emissions to rise by 2 per cent last year. Our problem is that governments are making neither the short nor the long-term changes that are needed. They continue to encourage coal production and new runways while cutting support for renewables and energy efficiency.
Yet we know most of what we need to change. What is lacking is the will to do it, and that can only come from strong feelings. I think panic is entirely rational.
For cyclists, being safe means being seen
Keith Oldham discusses how cyclists tend not to be penalised for improper or dazzling lights (The Last Word, 27 April). I was a lawyer involved in a prosecution for careless driving, where a van driver ran into a stationary cyclist on a busy street at dusk and knocked her into the path of an oncoming lorry, causing life-changing injuries.
The cyclist had a single non-flashing rear light and the driver didn’t see her. The dashcam showed that the point of continuous red light disappeared into the stream of oncoming cars’ headlights and fog lights (of course, it wasn’t foggy). Evidence from two experts convinced the court that the van driver couldn’t be held responsible because the cyclist wasn’t sufficiently visible against the glare.
Cyclists are aware of how vulnerable they are, and of the indifference towards their safety demonstrated by so many other road users. Flashing lights offer much more contrast and visibility. Of course, cycle lights shouldn’t dazzle others, and some manufacturers offer products that carefully mask this portion of the beam.
Many will surely have noticed the number of cars that seem to get away with illegal lights. In my experience, I see approximately 1000 cars with incorrect lights for every such bicycle. That is partly down to insufficient policing of all road users.