Editor's pick: Embed data ethics into health DNA projects
Adam Vaughan explores plans for genetic testing by England's National Health Service (20 July, p 12). Such testing has the potential to offer significant benefits to individuals and to society. But it is misguided and even dangerous to talk of anonymised data in this context. There is much discussion about how easy it is to reidentify supposedly anonymous genetic information. The concern isn't how specifically the data may be linked to an individual; it is the fact that there is a possibility that it can be.
Health secretary Matt Hancock says that individuals will be asked to give their consent to anonymous sharing of their data. But when we talk about consent, we must address the fact that it isn't possible to unequivocally promise people that their data will remain entirely anonymous. Pretending otherwise risks further eroding the already fragile levels of trust the public has in data handling.
Genetic privacy may also be compromised for those who aren't tested. They can be identified from DNA data provided by others (20 October 2018, p 14). This long-range familial DNA research raises questions about ethics, consent and access by law enforcement and other agencies.
Consent is only legitimate when it is given with full knowledge and understanding. So long as companies that profit from our data continue to do so in ways that are far from clear and anything but accountable, the public will be on the back foot.
Data privacy advocates are often perceived as being opposed to progress. That is untrue: we seek a future that embeds data ethics into projects like this to ensure that progress builds on human values, rather than trampling on them.
Lessons of the moon mission for us on Earth (1)
The juxtaposition of your articles on the moon landing (13 July, p 36) and news of Arctic wildfires (13 July, p 14) was interesting . You imagine a moon base in 2069 producing textiles and art that command high prices back on our planet. And on Earth today, one of the feedback effects of global warming seems to be in full swing – rather sooner than had been predicted – as Arctic peatlands release carbon dioxide.
By 2069, we are likely to have a lot more to preoccupy our minds than going back to the moon. The best thing we can take from the story of the first moon landing is that it seemed impossible and was immensely difficult to achieve, and yet it happened. That gives us a flicker of hope. But all those who are aware of the seriousness of the situation need to acknowledge that the future of our species, as well as that of many others being driven to extinction, will be very grim if we carry on as we are or fail to do enough.
All is not lost if we fund a hunt for helium
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is correct to highlight the global helium supply crisis (13 July, p 22). We should worry enormously about the paucity of helium reserves, with production for export as aby-product of natural gas limited to the US, Qatar and Algeria. Each of these has its own quirks that could limit helium production.
The problem is that, until now, no one has looked for helium or even known how to look for it. Eight years ago, our team set about developing a strategy for this. With funding from Norwegian energy company Equinor, we considered not just the sources of the helium from radioactive decay, but also how it escapes and is concentrated in Earth's crust. Four years ago, we tested our strategy in the Tanzanian section of the East African Rift, where gas seeps from lakes in the Rukwa region (2 July 2016, p 7). Consistent with our geological model, the seeps contained up to 10 per cent helium with 90 per cent nitrogen. Concentrations of helium can be as low as 0.3 per cent in US gases and 0.05 per cent in Qatari gases. We have identified areas on other continents where we could start to look for helium.
Government support will be needed to provide the framework for exploration and commercial investment. So far, UK agencies have been unwilling to provide this, yet the UK hosts a huge and at-risk helium industry.
Don't repeat the climate deniers' ice age myth
Graham Lawton helps perpetuate a common climate denier myth by saying that in the 1970s scientists were worried that we were about to plunge into another full-blown icy spell (6 July, p 38). But a literature review finds that, even then, global warming dominated scientists' thinking as one of the most important forces shaping climate ().
The editor writes:
It would probably have been better to say “a few scientists”.
How convection works outside of textbooks
Michael Brooks writes that hot liquid iron rises towards the exterior of Earth's outer core, then cools, becomes more dense and descends (29 June, p 34). This implies, as do most textbooks, that hot stuff somehow rises spontaneously. It is gravity pulling harder on the denser material that starts things off, with the hot material, despite being attracted to the centre of Earth by gravity, being pushed up.
Neither finding shows that seals are conscious
The ability of seals to recall what they have just done and repeat it on command doesn't suggest awareness or mean they have “a degree of consciousness” (13 July, p 16). My computer can remember what it does and undo and redo those actions. But that is no reason to think it is conscious. Seals may or may not be conscious – we don't know and finding out will be hard.
You have also reported that seals show physiological changes up to 45 seconds before they dive and that this suggests their dive response is under conscious control (29 June, p 17). But a study of humans choosing between two buttons to press indicated that a neural signal can be detected up to 7 seconds before they consciously make a choice (19 April 2008, p 14). Why couldn't the seals' pre-dive response be unconscious too?
Perhaps it would be wise to leave consciousness out of it until we find a way to measure it.
An extended chain of the most complex objects
You say that the human brain is the most complex object in the known universe (Leader, 22 June). But it is part of the human body, which is an object, and so must be the most complex. But humans are parts of societies, which could be called “objects”, and…
Lessons of the moon mission for us on Earth (2)
Given all that SpaceX has done to open up the space frontier by reducing costs and developing reusable rockets, I was surprised to read that the best that could be said about SpaceX were comments about its chief executive’s use of the word “colonising” (13 July, p 42). If more rockets were reused, as SpaceX’s Falcon 9 can be, unlike NASA’s Space Launch System, that would help protect our environment.
Lessons of the moon mission for us on Earth (3)
You urge that we return to the moon “for all the right reasons” and say lunar bases will become staging posts for exploring Mars and the rest of the solar system (Leader, 13 July). The “right reasons” probably won't be a priority unless we first tackle the problem of our ancient hunter-gatherer brains.
Humanity is well-practised in making Earth uninhabitable, species extinct and air and water polluted. Climate change deniers count some of the world's most powerful political leaders among their ranks. Is there any reason to think that we would behave differently in space?