Leaders should be judged on their actions not style
Your article contrasting two types of leadership 鈥� prestige and dominance 鈥� emphasised style over substance (4 July, p30). Someone’s past and promised actions and agenda are important criteria when people consider that person for leadership. I would hope many would reject a leader who denied science, vilified immigrants and placed children in cages, be they dominant or prestige. In the end, actions should have a more broad and enduring impact than the style a leader adopts.
Leaders should be judged on their actions not style (2)
One major difference between leaders of countries and leaders of more traditional, small-scale societies is that the latter have to interact with their followers in person and command their respect or they won’t remain leader for very long.
National political leaders don’t necessarily require the same qualities. With a good team behind them to help cultivate their public image and the ability to respond in some manner to questions without stuttering to a halt, the job is half done. Even then, it can be enough just to be hated slightly less than the main opposition.
Hadza diet also holds lessons for healthier life
In “How to sit”, the authors suggest that squatting might maintain enough muscle activity to prevent triglyceride build up and lessen risk of cardiovascular disease (18 July, p28). They cite the Hadza of Tanzania as an example.
The Hadza diet is very fibre-rich. The microbiomes of individuals have been studied and they have an extensive population of microbes that varies with the seasonality of their food, almost all gathered from the wild. This seems to be a likely additional factor in lower triglyceride levels.
Hadza diet also holds lessons for healthier life (2)
The problem with how many of us sit may be a desk or table problem. If we are to squat on the floor to improve health, we would need desks that are much lower.
Let's make a pandemic wearable for everyone
The solution to the problems of developing a coronavirus contact tracing app in the UK for multiple devices could be to develop a single wearable packaged as a watch, brooch or key fob (Letters, 4 July). It would have to be backed up by a central database, but that would be under NHS control. The device would hold no personal details just, say, three weeks of contact info.
There is still time to do this. Such a device could be developed and tested by Christmas and manufacturing ramped up in the new year. There is, of course, the question of cost. Devices with similar hardware are available for 拢30, so equipping everyone in the UK for this pandemic, and future ones, wouldn’t be prohibitively expensive.
How long can you shut borders to control a virus?
You list places where the virus has almost been eliminated, including Iceland, Taiwan and New Zealand (25 July, p10). In Western Australia, the virus has been eliminated too 鈥� the few cases are inbound travellers who are in quarantine. As a result, life has returned to near normal. The hard lockdown of the state border is often credited for this.
But this raises a conundrum: just how long will we have to ban ingress? As the virus spreads around the world, are we going to keep borders locked down for years or, at some point, do we open them, accepting the spread of the virus as inevitable?
If the UK were, by some miracle, to eliminate the virus, it would face the same dilemma.
Blanket testing might beat covid-19 within weeks
To avoid a coronavirus resurgence, the UK should follow the guidance of the World Health Organization and test more widely (18 July, p7). How about testing everyone every week and quarantine under supervision anybody who tests positive?
I estimate this could be done for about 2 per cent of the cost of furloughing 7 million people. This way, the UK could be free of covid-19 in a matter of weeks.
Cosmology's fudge factors hint at a systematic error
You have lately had some great articles by giants in the cosmology field, including Jim Peebles admitting that there are huge gaps in our understanding (6 June, p30).
As a biologist, if I had to review results that required fudge factors in the way cosmology does (dark matter and dark energy, both lacking experimental evidence), to explain the data, I would suggest looking for a systematic error.
New take on gravity raises many other questions
I was a little surprised that Claudia de Rham’s article on new ideas about gravity made no mention of dark energy (11 July, p30). It seemed to be the logical next step to wonder, if gravitons have mass, and thus have finite range, whether there is any need, in considering the expansion of the universe, to invoke dark energy at all.
New take on gravity raises many other questions (2)
If gravity does have mass, as de Rham suggests, how does it escape a black hole?
Space rings may have an innocent explanation
Further to your story “Circles in space are like nothing we’ve ever seen” about inexplicable radio signals spotted by astronomers (11 July, p14). Could they result from gravitational lensing of other objects?
Use lightning rods to save the rainforests
You say that “half of the deaths of large tropical trees are down to lightning” (27 June, p40). One way to reduce this toll could be to fit such trees with cheap lightning conductors.
For the record
Andrew Wight was the author of the article on links between drug cartels and deforestation in Guatemala (11 July, p17).
Teijin is Elitac’s partner company in developing a vibrating belt for navigation use (25 July, p15).