Beneath the mask lies a complex story
Jessica Hamzelou’s excellent piece on the science of the protective effects of face masks against the coronavirus inevitably didn’t touch on unscientific, but important, aspects of masks, which the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now recommends we wear in settings like grocery stores (18 April, p 11).
Masks are a form of theatre, saying: “I am playing the role of a responsible citizen.” They are a uniform expressing serious solidarity in the war against the pandemic. They are also a polite way to say: “Stay away from me. You don’t know whether I am wearing this mask to protect me from you or you from me.”
Perhaps most importantly, President Trump won’t wear one. So they must be an excellent idea.
Also worried about an epidemic of loneliness
With Moya Sarner’s article on the challenges to mental health during lockdown, one further group of particular concern is people who live alone (25 April, p 40). It is estimated that 15 per cent of the adult population of the UK, or 8.2 million people, are in one-person households.
Like everyone, they are being asked to stay indoors or, when outside, to keep 2 metres from others, going without human touch for months. Chances for interaction are inevitably limited.
In the discussions of how long lockdown may last, there is a worrying silence about the potential effects on the mental health of this group, and there appears to be little consideration being given to ways of mitigating their isolation.
Move to reopen gyms made me gasp
You looked at various claims that breathing exercises may protect people from covid-19, including the view that getting air into the depths of the lungs may be a strategy to minimise respiratory infection more generally (25 April, p 10). That brings to mind aerobic exercise.
There may be places where breathing deeply in this way isn’t such a great idea. In the US state of Georgia, gyms have been allowed to reopen. My fear is that the air in such places will be filled with a long-lived aerosol that, nowadays, is potentially contaminated. It follows that other people taking strenuous aerobic exercise in the same space will be taking virus-laden air deep into their lungs, their most vulnerable organs.
What will we be like when we finally emerge again? (1)
Here’s hoping that when we work out how to end the coronavirus restrictions, we will all be wiser: more cooperative, less selfish and aware of the balance between rights and responsibilities (11 April, p 10).
What will we be like when we finally emerge again? (2)
After the lockdown ends, it will be interesting to see what impact it has had on the health-promoting behaviours of the population. Perhaps we should create more opportunities for exercise to help combat obesity, heart disease and other conditions that remain a challenge for the UK’s National Health Service, and that seem to be risk factors for covid-19.
Another take on ice cream and shark attacks
As reported, correlation and causation are very different beasts (25 April, p 32). An example was given, that ice cream sales are correlated with shark attacks rather than there being any causal link, such as ice cream attracting sharks. Having seen this correlation claimed many times, I suspect it is faulty.
Sharks most commonly attack surfers, who like beaches with big waves, often in remote locations. Ice cream sellers prefer family-friendly beaches that shelve gently and have small waves. I suspect that a critical examination of the data would show that ice cream sales near a beach are negatively correlated with shark attacks.
Time to let fever run its course more often
Linda Geddes’s article on fever expresses surprise at some of its benefits (11 April, p 39).
What is surprising to me is that medical schools teach doctors to kill the messenger rather than focus on the message. Fever is a symptom of a disease, not a disease itself. In the clinic, the presumption that fever should be treated ought to be questioned more, given its benefits.
Cultured mouse might be a gourmet delight
Might I point out that the idea of cultured meat is older than it may seem (22 February, p 39). I suggested this approach in 1971 in two letters to Nature ( and vol 231, p 201). The idea was, of course, quashed as impractical by a biologist.
I also pointed out the possibilities of culturing meat that we don’t eat today, perhaps because the animals are too small to bother with, or for other reasons. Who knows, mouse might be delicious.
Yet more hints that none of this is actually real (1)
Ed Subitzky says that if we live in a simulated cosmos, then major anomalies in physics could actually be bugs in the programming (Letters, 28 March).
In the same issue, your columnist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (p 24) explains how different measurement methods return differing values for the Hubble constant, which describes the expansion of space-time. Of course, there is absolutely no connection here.
Yet more hints that none of this is actually real (2)
In his 1964 science fiction novel Counterfeit World (which was also published as Simulacron-3), Daniel Galouye, who probably originated the concept that we may be living in a simulation, was clear about the purpose of the simulated world: it was for market research and to investigate the likely public response to political policies in the real world.
As I receive yet another request for feedback on a minor purchase, I have no doubt that he was right.
For the record 鈥� {13 May 2020}
Work showing that “phi” doesn’t fall for sleep and general anaesthesia was published by Pedro Mediano (and others) before he joined Daniel Bor’s lab, and the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences is in Lillehammer (2 May, p 40).