On the great hunt for life beyond our planet (4)
I should like to add some nuance to Dan Falk’s fascinating article on the possibility of advanced civilisations beyond Earth (3 October, p 36). The assumption behind the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is that such intellect is likely to be used to develop technology, but this isn’t inevitable.
The cultures of both classical Greece and imperial China had technological capabilities, but preferred to apply intelligence to the arts. Also, in some cases, technology may not be an available option. Isaac Asimov observed that technology as we know it started from fire 鈥� in which case, intelligence that evolved in a marine environment may never develop it.
The implication is that, if there are intelligent civilisations out there, they may not be interested in developing the means of contact, or may not be able to do so. Perhaps they are sitting on their planets or under oceans thinking great thoughts and making beautiful art.
On the great hunt for life beyond our planet (5)
Finding what is probably a sign of life in clouds on Venus (3 October, p 12) is eye-opening for anyone seeking extraterrestrials, a hint that we may be looking in the wrong places and that we shouldn’t just be targeting planets in the so-called Goldilocks zone.
On the great hunt for life beyond our planet (2)
If advanced ETs do exist in our galaxy, we have the technology to find them: 1000 radio receivers of the same size as the Arecibo telescope may be able to detect an Earth-like civilisation up to 13,000 light years away. The real challenge for us 鈥� and perhaps for ETs 鈥� may be to persuade our leaders to fund such large projects.
On the great hunt for life beyond our planet (3)
In your leader (3 October), you say that because there are so many planets, “even if the odds of life arising on a particular world are tiny, there is a good chance it has happened many times”. Let’s assume that there are 1012 planets in our galaxy and 1012 galaxies in the visible universe, making a total of 1024 planets. If the chance of life arising on any planet is tiny, say 10鈭�27, the chance of another planet with life in the whole visible universe is just one in 1000. I just picked 10鈭�27 out of the blue. Itcould be 10鈭�100.
Only people power will get this job done
Annalee Newitz is right to conclude that “we are going to need better political systems” to deal with climate change, but I would go further (26 September, p 22). To deal with it, we will require unprecedented cooperation between people, industry and governments.
The latter two groups will do nothing until they see which way the people are moving, and so we must stop looking to others and move ourselves if we want the issue dealt with. When many of us act it becomes a substantial force. Interrogating politicians about their decisions and providing them with reasoned argument and positive suggestions, all coupled with relentless persistence, is as important as any personal “green” behaviour we might be adopting.
Just as you reported it, so it happened
After reading the rather worrying story “US science coverage is biased against people with names not of British origin”, I found myself doing exactly what the article predicted: the only name I could remember was that of the Birmingham City University expert, Marcus Ryder (26 September, p 14). I had to re-read the article in order to find the author of the actual study: Hao Peng at the University of Michigan.
One part of diet science is a bit chicken and egg
I read your article on precision nutrition with great interest (12 September, p 34). It suggests that dietary response is, in part, associated with microbiome composition. Yet surely this is a catch-22, since microbiome composition is modified by dietary intake. It would seem that robust conclusions can only be drawn after long-term studies in which changes in the microbiome with time are also accounted for.
I was always a fan of the polyculture argument
James Wong makes the oft-repeated claim that monocultures give greater crop yields from a given plot of land (3 October, p 24). As I understand it, and as past research indicated, monocultures enable the highest yield of a single crop from a given plot, but polyculture can generate a higher overall yield, spread across a variety of crops, from the same piece of productive land.
This was the primary basis of the arguments that I originally heard 30 years ago for preferring multi-crop systems of agricultural production, plus the subsidiary environmental and food security reasons that Wong mentions. I am not an agronomist and I haven’t stayed abreast of the latest research, however, so I would be interested to know if it has now been shown that polyculture is less productive overall.
So nice to finally meet you all
I have just watched your online event on 快猫短视频‘s coverage of the pandemic. What a pleasure to meet you all. More please.
鈥� The editor writes: For more virtual events, see
For the record {17 October 2020}
鈥� A picture in our expos茅 on the plight of giant river fish was mislabelled (3 October, p 41). Both fish on page 43 were actually American paddlefish.