Editor's pick:聽We must deal with the roots of domestic violence
I was interested by Alice Klein’s article on domestic violence and ways to tackle it (19 October, p 20). During the 1980s, I worked in a women’s refuge, then one of two in my London borough. This essential service for vulnerable women and their children has since been cut as a result of the government’s reduction of financial support to local authorities.
The male-dominated police and judiciary still don’t understand or take seriously the physical, psychological and emotional damage that the fear and actuality of domestic violence and abuse cause, not just to victims 鈥� who are, as Klein says, overwhelmingly women 鈥� but also to their children.
Women need to feel empowered and supported to resist abuse by promoting a culture of respect, both in the home and in schools. Children who witness domestic violence may come to believe that this is the norm within families and repeat the patterns as adults. By all means support men to prevent further abuse, but it is more important to provide support for women by empowering them and providing refuges so that they and their children have a safe place to run to.
Until we accept that we live in a patriarchal, misogynist culture and overthrow this system, very little systemic change will happen.
The editor writes:
For more on the origins of patriarchy, see 21 April 2018, page 33.
Eco-anxiety is just anxiety and may merit treatment
Graham Lawton makes some good points about the alleged condition of eco-anxiety (12 October, p 22). But in getting from these to his conclusions, he takes a strange route. At first, he seems to be generalising from his own experience: because his anxiety is rational, so is that of everyone else. This may give the impression, though, that eco-anxiety is something specific and different from other forms of anxiety.
Surely the reason not to classify eco-anxiety as a mental illness is that it isn't a special case. People react emotionally to situations, sometimes by becoming anxious.
This anxiety may be rational or it may not. Anxiety about climate change covers this whole range.
If someone needs treatment for an inappropriate response, this must not be obscured by a notion that eco-anxiety is always rational, any more than by the idea that it is a specific mental condition that is somehow different from other forms of anxiety.
Children often have incomplete models to assess what response is appropriate, and can thus suffer from irrational fears.
The current climate emergency, impinging so hugely on all our lives, may well be the trigger for some of these. This is neither a new phenomenon that needs a new name nor a non-existent one to be dismissed.
We have proposals for regulating animal work
We need a clear ethical framework for animal research, says Chelsea Whyte (12 October, p 18). Protections for human research provide a template.
In 1979, the , issued following the US National Research Act (1974), revolutionised research on human subjects by articulating key ethical principles: specifically, respect for autonomy and obligations to beneficence and justice. Such research now requires informed consent, a full assessment of the risks and benefits, and the just selection of participants. Vulnerable groups, including children and prisoners, have special protection.
In an article in the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, my colleagues and I envision an equivalent for animals that considers concepts like autonomy, justice and vulnerability to harm (). We describe how animals could be treated as vulnerable subjects, with greater attention to the potential harms they experience before, during and after proposed experiments. This includes separation from loved ones, confinement and the infliction of painful, deadly procedures and diseases.
We argue for a stricter risk threshold that recognises animals' status as a vulnerable population. We also describe new ways forward including more ethical, human-centred research methods and re-envisioning animal research as more akin to human clinical research – for example, enrolment of “animal patients” who live with “surrogate” human caregivers.
Animals overwhelmingly bear the burdens of research, despite their inability to provide informed consent or to benefit from it. This is a decidedly unjust proposition. Public concern, backed by our current understanding of animals, demands better.
Consciousness may be just a model of attention
Michael Graziano suggests our brains have evolved something he calls an “attention schema” (21 September, p 34). In an earlier issue, Donald Hoffman explained how we may see the world as a series of “icons” that represent real objects in the world but aren't those objects, because if we saw an object for what it was, we would be overwhelmed by its complexity (3 August, p 34).
An attention schema is a model of attention that our brains can manipulate to shift focus from one object to another, without having to worry about all the details of synapses and neurons that are actually the basis of our attention.
It seems to me that these two ideas are related. Graziano's attention schema is one of Hoffman's icons.
We experience the attention schema as consciousness. We could say consciousness is an icon that represents us to ourselves. It gives us the ability to manipulate objects and find pathways through an environment. If neurobiologists one day understand how our brains generate Hoffman's icons, they will be close to knowing how our brains generate consciousness.
Apps won't reliably spot mental health symptoms
Jessica Hamzelou reports on a smartphone app that could spot signs of schizophrenia in facial expressions and speech (28 September, p 7). This may be confounded by the fact that medication, notably neuroleptics, can alter voice and facial expressiveness. Alcohol and other drugs can have similar effects.
A bigger issue is the notion that schizophrenia is a single illness distinguished from other conditions by such signs. Reduced facial expression and altered voice and content of speech can be part of many emotional and psychological problems. Shyness might also produce these effects.
The notion of smartphone surveillance as a way of monitoring people's mental health, even with formal consent, is worrying. We should instead rely on key relationships with mental health staff, which we know help in many ways other than just monitoring.
Phone surveillance seems like one more blow to the idea that we should develop humane services based on understanding people in their social context.
Carry on with life on your solar-powered airship
I enjoyed reading Donna Lu's article on a solar-powered airship scheme while my wife Margaret and I returned to Glasgow from 快猫短视频 Live (12 October, p 15). It concludes with the view that low speeds would be a deterrent to using airships for passenger transport.
Instead of our 5-hour rail trip, we could have travelled by air in 1 hour. Eco-anxiety prompted us to take the train. While perusing the article, it occurred to me that our decision hadn't cost us any time. We were doing what we would have done at home: reading, listening to music, emailing, chatting and eating snacks.
Sunscreen formulators still have work to do
As midsummer approaches here, I return to Jessica Hamzelou's report that, of the 16 active ingredients for sunscreen listed as “safe” in the US, only zinc oxide and titanium dioxide are certainly safe and effective (27 July, p 20). After nearly 40 years of research into sunscreens, I note that the medium for the active ingredient is also important. Most sunscreens are oil-water emulsions using surfactants, which help the passage of substances through the skin. A small number are surfactant and water-free. These tend to be greasy, but avoid the problem of emulsion-based sunscreens washing off, which makes a mockery of their sun protection factor ratings.
Zinc oxide and titanium dioxide have their own problems. The finest particulate sizes have the least whiteness on the skin, but have run up against studies confirming that they can enter tissue and do damage. Larger particles are safer and good blockers of ultraviolet light, but require users to look like white-painted circus clowns. Sunscreen formulators still have work to do.
Lack of funding leaves satellite data inaccessible
You report findings on the melting Greenland ice cap (21 September, p 10). Many amateur scientists and school pupils have witnessed this. In the mid-1970s, I worked on remote sensing in science education.
But the closure of Dundee Satellite Receiving Station due to the withdrawal of funding has left us without data from polar-orbiting weather satellites. The other UK-funded satellite receiving station at Plymouth doesn't offer such data.
Yet another problem with electrolysing seawater
Clive Semmens discusses ways to get around obstacles to electrolysing seawater to make hydrogen (Letters, 12 October). But electrolysing a salt solution is the standard way of making bleach.
Sodium hydroxide and hydrogen are produced at the cathode and chlorine at the anode. Reacting sodium hydroxide and chlorine produces sodium hypochlorite. Using seawater to produce hydrogen would be complicated by these reactions.
Cyclists don't need or use gyroscopic effects (1)
Several answers in Almost the Last Word refer to the gyroscopic effect of bicycle wheel rotation helping to maintain balance (Almost the Last Word, 5 October). This has been discussed before (Last Word, 9 December 2006 and 3 February 2007). Michael Brooks reported experiments showing it to be false (28 May 2011, p 44).
Balance on a bicycle is maintained solely by continual correction of rider and handlebar positions. The faster you go, the smaller the corrections you have to make.
Cyclists don't need or use gyroscopic effects (2)
The gyroscopic action of the wheels is negligible in balancing a bicycle. Think of a child’s scooter with its tiny wheels, or an ice skate with no wheels at all.
Balance is achieved by the rider constantly moving their centre of gravity slightly to one side or the other. To stay stationary, a rider moves slightly back and forward, as well as shifting side to side. This is observed with unicyclists.
For the record 鈥� 9 November 2019
鈥� There is at least one other rearrangement of a dartboard in which each neighbouring pair adds up to a square number: 20, 18, 15, 10, 6, 19, 17, 8, 1, 3, 13, 12, 4, 5, 11, 14, 2, 7, 9, 16 (Puzzle, 28 September; solution, 5 October).
鈥� Tardigrades, or “water bears”, have eight legs (12 October, p 34).