Nuclear threat must remain a priority
Reading Anders Sandberg and Thomas Moynihan’s article on the 75th anniversary of the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan brought back other reflections from visiting these cities several years ago (8 August, p 21).
Amid the heart-rending stories and factual accounts, I found it hard to understand why it was felt necessary to drop a second bomb, with a different design, so soon after the first. I concluded that one aspect of these events was that they were large-scale and horrendous scientific experiments, in preparation for the anticipated next conflict between the US and the Soviet Union.
Consistent with this was the choice of densely populated cities rather than military targets. The flat grid layout of Hiroshima seemed to me ideal for conducting extensive observations of the effects of the explosion that occurred.
Subsequently, scientists have also made important contributions to initiatives aimed at negotiating for the reduction or elimination of nuclear weapons. The risks remain, from intentional or accidental use, but seem to be less prominent in our public and political consciousness. I hope this anniversary acts as a reminder that nuclear weapons are still among our existential threats.
Even 'bad' decision can sometimes make sense
The article promoting The Brain: A user’s guide discusses the difficulty we face in making the right decision as our brains have inbuilt biases. However, it too falls foul of “blind-spot bias” when it assumes what constitutes a good decision.
For example, when discussing the endowment effect, it fails to consider the emotional satisfaction an “irrational” decision may give, such as someone “refusing to swap an item for something of higher value”. Sentimental value is something that can’t be expressed in money and is therefore hard to measure.
The growing dangers with our biological data
I agree with Maninder Ahluwalia about the problem of using biological material without the subject’s consent or knowledge (15 August, p23). The complete disregard for Henrietta Lacks, whose cancer cells were used in labs without her consent, is the tip of the iceberg.
We also need to protect against the use of our genome, epigenome, iris and retina patterns, fingerprints, voice, facial structure and so on. As technology advances, this list grows 鈥� gait analysis to distinguish people from video, for example.
The default should be that a person’s explicit prior permission is needed to keep, publish or share a copy of any of this information if it can be used to learn about health, habits, employment, associations or whereabouts.
Is there a hug-free way to get the same boost?
Those of us who come from cultures in which one seldom, if ever, hugs a friend or relative have watched the covid-19-related agonising of the more hug-dependent with a mixture of sympathy and bemusement (8 August, p 11). This reached a crescendo for me with your story, which contained a detailed list of instructions for low-risk hugging.
How desperate for a hug would anyone have to be to follow through on the spontaneity-destroying and buzz-killing strictures offered therein? (I ask out of genuine curiosity.)
The usual references to the psychological benefits of hugging are offered up, but as far as I can see the relevant research has, for obvious reasons, all been carried out in societies that value hugging. This is like carrying out research on the psychological benefits of watching cricket solely on the spectators at cricket matches.
Presumably those of us who are contentedly hugless in our social lives manage to raise our oxytocin and diminish our cortisol in other ways. This would seem to be a useful focus for research, particularly at a time when the alternative seems to be the self-conscious and stilted bodily contact described in your article.
Still not convinced life's parts arrived all at once
I enjoyed reading “Life’s big bang” and its new take on the origin of life on Earth (8 August, p 34). Michael Marshall covered a large part of recent research in this area, notably that by David Deamer, Jack Szostak and John Sutherland. But there were omissions.
Marshall alludes to the widely accepted idea of “chemical-rich pools” on land (Darwin’s “warm little ponds”), but the key feature of these ponds is that they regularly dry out, causing reaction rates to increase enormously as chemicals get concentrated, thereby generating new chemical species very rapidly. Then the pools get replenished by new cycles of incoming water with more “chemical feedstock”. This cyclic process would have been driven by the moon, which cycled around Earth at shorter intervals at the time we think life began, about 4 billion years ago.
These events speeded up the process of chemical evolution enormously and, although there weren’t yet any enzymes, there were mineral catalysts. The effect of this tidal process was critical.
I also take issue with the “everything first” notion that the key ingredients of life occurred together. I believe there had to be a clear sequence of events whereby certain chemicals accumulated first and then there was interplay with new chemicals that arrived in due course as chemical evolution progressed.
Plenty more work on new covid-19 treatments
Your pandemic coverage asks: “What are the most promising medicines?” Vaccines are among them, but we don’t yet know if they will work well (1 August, p 9). In any event, many people will be without a vaccine for a very long time. So, as you say, we also need therapeutics to treat those people acutely ill with covid-19.
On this front, Adam Vaughan chiefly looks at attempts to repurpose existing anti-inflammatory and anti-viral drugs, only briefly acknowledging that some firms are developing new ones to tackle covid-19.
In fact, there is a lot of work on antibody therapeutics against covid-19. The Antibody Society, of which I am the science and technology program manager, has noted 13 clinical trials in progress from nine companies, including several phase III late-stage trials. Fifteen more antibody therapies are planned to enter clinical trials before 2021.