Maybe a second wave won't be as bad as feared
You ask how many people have caught the coronavirus (20 June, p 10). This is relevant to possible levels of immunity to infection. A suggestion is emerging that only those who have had severe covid-19 , while detectable antibodies are fleeting in mild or asymptomatic cases.
Together with evidence that the virus came to Europe on many separate occasions and the fact it was as far back as December 2019, this picture of antibody duration may mean that antibody studies tell us little about the true extent of infection in the first wave. This could mean that swathes of the population fought off the virus and are likely to do so again, should there be a second wave.
This may mean that in places with poorly controlled outbreaks, such as the UK or the US, a significant proportion of those at risk of serious disease became ill and produced antibodies first time round. We may not actually need the approximately 70 per cent level of infection said to be required for herd immunity to avoid a second peak as devastating as the first. Only time will tell, of course, but I remain hopeful.
Keep watching for covid-19's full effects
If there are other potential long-term effects of covid-19, they may only come to light when much more time has elapsed (27 June, p 34). We should watch for any impact on fertility, the number of miscarriages and stillbirths and any health conditions in the next generation. We may therefore need to follow up with those who have had covid-19 and their families for decades.
Dietary change may help us avert future pandemics
Among the many steps we could take to lower the risk of the next pandemic, perhaps the most effective would be to stop farming animals for meat (20 June, p 30). By removing that viral vector, we would make humanity’s future much safer.
This isn’t another call for universal veganism. Rather, we need to work to modernise meat production and remove animals from the supply chain. By making “meat” from plants or cultivating it from cells, we will create a food system that is safe, secure and sustainable.
Yet just as we can’t depend on a private lab to come up with a vaccine for the coronavirus, we can’t count on a private company to shift global meat production on its own. As has been the case with just about every transformative advancement, public funding of fundamental research will be key.
We have seen this in communications, aviation, microprocessors, clean energy, the internet and many other fields. Shifting the agricultural research dollars of governments towards developing and deploying plant-based “meat” and cultivated meat will have countless pay offs, but the benefit of fewer devastating pandemics alone makes it a vital and compelling public investment.
Are we really the sum of our parts?
Laura Spinney’s interesting article on the role of the wider body in consciousness is a reminder of the degree to which Cartesian ideas of the mind as separate from the body still haunt cognitive psychology (27 June, p 28).
Seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, sensing and being conscious are all attributes of the whole person embodied in an actually existing world, not of an isolated brain. Medieval thinkers, especially those in the tradition of Thomas Aquinas, took this as their starting point.
Then the Renaissance, with Descartes, muddied the water and sent the psychological sciences off on a centuries-long wild goose chase from which they have only recently begun to return.
Are we really the sum of our parts? (2)
You show that consciousness depends on feedback from the body’s organs, and that this is an essential part of our sense of who we are. The article finishes by suggesting that a robot with no way of integrating signals from its body will never be truly conscious 鈥� but robots already have feedback from their bodies.
Any robot that can move its arms or legs must have sensors that tell it where its arms and legs actually are. If they relied only on sending signals to move their legs without feedback, they would fall over as soon as they encountered any immoveable object.
Robots must monitor their battery life in the same way that a phone does and automatically alter some functions to conserve energy when the battery level is low. Any robots with arms capable of picking up an egg must rely on feedback about the pressure of their fingers.
If the brain integrating signals from the body is an essential part of being conscious, then a lot of robots are probably capable of this already.
Are we really the sum of our parts? (3)
You emphasise the connection between body and consciousness. But what about consciousness when the body is clinically dead, as in near-death events? This was discussed in an interview that 快猫短视频 ran a while ago (9 March 2013).
For instance, there was a case in Spokane, Washington, in which a clinically dead man, later revived, could see and hear what was going on in the operating room (see , vol 31(3), p 179).
Are we really the sum of our parts? (4)
Your article certainly explains why I have long conversations with my stomach about what to order from the menu.
Neanderthals may have inspired folk tales
I’m happy to see that Neanderthals seem to be in vogue at 快猫短视频 this year (6 June, p 12). I would like to add a little speculation. All around Europe (and, for all I know, the world), there are folk tales of “the little people”: leprechauns, fairies, trolls, the green man, mountain dwarves and the like, beings that are near-human, but not quite.
Is it possible that such stories relate to Neanderthals suffering from catastrophic habitat loss and population decline? Could they have been around long enough while people were also in northern Europe that perhaps they were at the root of tales like these?
For the record 鈥� {18 July 2020}
Congratulations to the many readers who pointed out that the “Planning” puzzle reproduced in our extract from The Brain: A user’s guide () can in fact be done in five moves.