The difficulties with mindfulness research (1)
Your article added much-needed balance to the overview of medicalised mindfulness (5 June, p 34). It confirmed both uncertainties in theoretical understandings and systemic methodological weaknesses in experimental studies. A discussion of the potentially harmful effects of meditation was especially welcome.
However, the absence of greater historical insights left us with a snapshot rather than an overview of the current state of our scientific knowledge. For example, scientists have been criticising meditation experiments since the 1970s, but similar theoretical and methodological problems are visible in contemporary research.
The headline, “The truth about mindfulness”, reflects one of the main obstacles to the more effective clinical use of meditation technologies. We meditation scientists have been trying to prove the clinical effectiveness of mindfulness before we have a clear theoretical understanding of what meditation is. Assuming that reductive scientific methods alone can explain non-reductive human technologies of this sort is an approach that may need revising.
The difficulties with mindfulness research (2)
When it comes to mindfulness, I find that piloting an aircraft solo is an intense experience of being in the present moment. Just as well really, because the air is an alien environment and Isaac Newton doesn’t make mistakes.
I find that the presence of others dilutes the experience, because part of my mind is aware of them. You can tire during a long flight, but the elation and wellness felt afterwards are marked. Perhaps solo pilots would be a fruitful resource for studying mindfulness.
Let the pandemic lead to a better climate strategy
India’s battle with coronavirus shows that what happens in one part of a globalised world has the potential to disrupt life in other, seemingly distant parts (5 June, p 9).
The same may be true for that corner of the world for climate change. Under the business-as-usual scenario, people there will see glaciers shrink, their land dwindle and heatwaves and floods intensify. In a region already fraught with fragile geopolitical ecosystems, the compounding risks due to climate change make the stakes particularly high.
With the pandemic, in India and beyond, we saw what happens when an inadequately prepared system gets overwhelmed by a catastrophe that was considered likely to happen. It is time for governments and policy-makers to turn the pandemic into a lesson for the climate emergency.
When we are gone, will the dinosaurs rise again?
The aftermath of the extinction of Homo sapiens has been alluded to recently in letters, most recently suggesting that a new species will evolve with intelligence like ours (Letters, 29 May).
My understanding of Charles Darwin’s theory has been that there is no certainty that our intelligence will be replicated. However, having now read the fascinating , I realise that I may be wrong. I wonder whether a new species with the intelligence of H. sapiens is more probable than one with the strength of Tyrannosaurus rex.
Molecular machines seem to defy chemical rules too
Philip Ball’s article on strange chemical bonds brings to mind Nick Lane’s description of the ultimate molecular nanomachine, ATP synthase, in his book The Vital Question (22 May, p 44).
These exquisite protein motors spin at 100 revolutions per minute, converting adenosine diphosphate to the triphosphate. The machines are the means of generating all of life’s energy, and seem to do it without the moving components having to be chemically bonded to each other.
More on the riddle of the platypus's glowing coat
Following up the question of why the platypus pelt glows under ultraviolet light, I note that your article found such biofluroescence puzzling in a nocturnal animal (8 May, p 41). Isn’t it possible the glow evolved to enable platypuses to locate each another in murky water?
Just say no to growing stuff to burn for energy
Any trees or other biomass used for “bioenergy with carbon capture and storage” have already captured carbon from the atmosphere (5 June, p 13). To burn such crops and apply an energy-intensive process to sequester the carbon dioxide and store it, which carries the risk of future release of the gas, is either foolish or an attempt to continue business as usual.
We need to increase the use of farmed timber and faster-growing crops like bamboo and hemp as materials in construction and consumer goods. This would lock up more carbon, while meeting human need. Using land to grow biomass for combustion, when we need massive rewilding, reforestation and restoration of peatlands, is extremely irrational.
Sense is welcome amid lab-leak speculation
Graham Lawton’s article on the origins of covid-19 was the best I have seen (5 June, p 10). There is so much rubbish being run on the lab-leak theory that it is nice to see informed and sensible analysis.
Plenty of reasons to see nature as separate from us
Ralph Timms says the dams we construct are as natural as those built by beavers (Letters, 22 May). But if everything we do is natural, the word is meaningless. We like to classify things and have chosen to define natural in opposition to artificial.
As a conservationist, I want to keep some places natural (wild), where nature is still in charge. This helps rein in our hubris, and reminds us that we are not the be-all and end-all of everything.
For the record 鈥� {26 June 2021}
In our look at a quantum internet (29 May, p 36), we should have said that internet encryption schemes often rely on factorising the product of large prime numbers.