On balance, life on two legs is complicated (1)
Caroline Williams highlighted the complex mechanisms involved in staying upright (10 October, p 34). As an ear, nose and throat doctor with experience in treating balance disorders, I do feel this subject is underappreciated.
In particular, I am aware of the link between balance and mental health Williams described, especially anxiety. I recall an audiologist demonstrating a moving platform posturography test to me, used to quantify balance. The subject is strapped into a box that tilts, and their centre of gravity is measured. The audiologist demonstrated that, upon tilting, a relaxed subject can adjust their centre of gravity much quicker than a tense one, greatly reducing the risk of falling.
In fact, this connection has been used by a team in Japan for a suggesting that cognitive behavioural therapy can significantly improve chronic subjective dizziness symptoms in patients with anxiety conditions.
On balance, life on two legs is complicated (2)
I cured my problem with loss of balance by accident. Williams is correct on at least two counts: movement is the key and swimming doesn’t help. During a period when I couldn’t swim, I went back to jogging. Almost straight away, I experienced a feeling of euphoria when I stopped running and walked for a while.
This was a definite physical sensation. I could feel myself being in a state of perfect balance. I can only assume the constant pounding equalised some fluid or other in my ears. A friend had a similar experience.
On balance, life on two legs is complicated (3)
In 1947, as a boy aged 6 on a slow voyage in a tiny cargo boat, moving our home from Cyprus to Aden, I was taught to go down stairs “navy fashion”. Now a frail 80-year-old, as my balancing powers deteriorate, I would suggest that this advice significantly reduces my workload risk to the health service.
On balance, life on two legs is complicated (4)
It has been realised that the main technique for balancing a bicycle consists of many micro adjustments of the steering. This is much easier when travelling quickly and almost impossible when going very slowly.
Might the equivalent process for correcting gait while on our feet be easier while running? If so, I think that humans originally “gorilla-knuckle-walked”, but then learned to run before they “human-walked”.
Don't forget the threat from false negatives
You highlighted the issues associated with false positives in coronavirus testing regimes (26 September, p 8). However, false negatives are a much scarier proposition. With a false negative result, infected people can merrily go out into the community spreading the virus. They would believe they are safe and possibly relax mask wearing, social distancing and other protective measures.
Could 'innocent' Venusian slime wipe out life here?
Yannis Gourtsoyannis and Anjaneya Bapat rightly point out the risk of bringing potential pathogens back from Venus (Letters, 10 October). If these organisms, supposing they exist, are harmless in the disease sense there could still be a danger.
Having evolved independently on Venus, it is highly probable they would have very different chemistry to life on Earth. Should these organisms find conditions here to their liking, they might reproduce unhindered. Imagine, for instance, a thin film of Venusian slime innocently covering everything and slowly smothering all life on Earth.
In the search for ET, the silence says it all (1)
Complex life couldn’t arise anywhere without an equivalent to the “mitochondrial event”, the symbiosis between an early single-celled eukaryote and a bacterium to create a more sophisticated organism, as Dan Falk suggests in his look at the chance of finding intelligent life beyond Earth (3 October, p 36). If Venus has life, this will suggest alien life is more common than we dared to hope. But the lack of signals from advanced civilisations implies complexity, and certainly sentience, are much rarer. It may indeed be a long search for ET.
In the search for ET, the silence says it all (2)
The evolution of mitochondria is the obvious chief example of symbiosis in the rise of more complex life, but it isn’t the only one. Such events aren’t of “mind-boggling improbability”.
Evolutionary theorist Lynn Margulis proposed that cilia and flagella arose from organisms taking thin spirochaete bacteria on board as endosymbionts. That is controversial, but the origin of chloroplasts as endosymbionts isn’t, and that seems to have happened at least three times.
Without wildlife, the future may be like this
Geoff Harding suggests that plummeting wildlife populations may mean humans having to deliberately take on some of their functions, like artificial fertilisation of plant species (Letters, 10 October).
This brought to mind Maja Lunde’s book The History of Bees, which is set against a fictional past, near present and future for bees and humans. The future story line, set in China in 2098, is about workers whose job, from around the age of 8, is to hand pollinate trees, since bees have died out.
Maybe nuclear isn't so bad after all
You report work showing improvement in greenhouse gas emissions in countries embracing renewables, but not nuclear-powered nations (10 October, p 14). However, it could simply be that in the latter, the improvement had already taken place. Renewables are fairly new. Nuclear, by contrast, is a fair bit older. Countries with it have mostly had it for decades.
For the record {24 October 2020}
鈥� The image with our “Doctor’s diary” article (10 October, p 10) showed people queuing for flu vaccines at Hamstreet surgery in Kent, UK, prior to the coronavirus pandemic 鈥� hence the absence of face masks and social distancing.
鈥� Video game Wasteland 3, which we reviewed (10 October, p 32), doesn’t feature aliens, unlike XCOM. Both have turn-based combat, though.