Poor products run rings round circular economy
By coincidence, just after reading your article on the circular economy, our blender (only a few years old) stopped working (12 February, p 38). After attempts to repair it using YouTube videos, we have had to give up. It, like so many modern appliances, suffers from built-in obsolescence. To buy a new spice and nut grinder, we decided to google “sustainable and repairable kitchen equipment”, without much success. Isn’t it time this aspect became a fundamental part of reviewing products of this kind and isn’t there also a huge hole in the market for a producer of equipment that meets such criteria?
Poor products run rings round circular economy
I have a suggestion in response to your interesting article on the circular economy, “Waste not… want not?”. There should be mandatory return of used items and packaging from end users via their suppliers to manufacturers. This could utilise delivery vehicle fleets on return trips, encourage design for disassembly and reuse (fostering the latter), reduce excess packaging and minimise waste-processing activities.
Green heating is about saving Earth, not cash (1)
Amid worries about energy price hikes, it is naive for anyone to think that the shift away from gas boilers to electrically powered heat pumps is going to save householders money on energy in the short or even medium term (12 February, p 12). Energy prices in the UK are set in a way that means that if you have to pay high prices for even a small amount of gas-fired electricity, you pay them for all your electricity.
The reason for the shift to heat pumps isn’t to save money 鈥� it is to save the planet. We shouldn’t pretend it is going to be cheap: high per-unit costs now are the price for our earlier neglect.
Green heating is about saving Earth, not cash (2)
You report that some MPs are pushing hard to bring forward the ban on new gas boilers in England to speed up their replacement with air-source heat pumps and other systems within a couple of years. For these heat pumps, efficiency drops as the temperature falls and so the . The electricity grid and local wiring may not be able to support this demand without upgrading.
Megabats have some pretty mega differences
You report on a study on the two major groups of bats that claims the only significant difference between Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera is a single ear bone (5 February, p 25). However, the megabats, or Pteropodidae, have completely different brain structures and visual systems to both the rest of the Yinpterochiroptera and all of the Yangochiroptera.
Mass extinctions may also mark the Anthropocene
Amid debate about the location with the best record of the start of the Anthropocene epoch, it could be argued that it started in Australia some 50,000 years ago, in America 12,000 years ago and in New Zealand 700 years ago, when the first people arrived (29 January, p 14). In a geological blink of an eye, most of the megafauna disappeared.
Birds double down on breeding in good times
Further to the observation of fairy wrens breeding out of season in Western Australia in recent years, since drought ended in Australia in 2021, we have had some of the wettest years for a while (15 January, p 25). It isn’t uncommon for native species to bring up two batches of babies in a good season, when conditions are favourable.
Wildlife doesn’t consult the calendar, then act accordingly. Animals do a weather check. If the season looks good, they will go for bust to bring up another brood.
Perhaps classical space doesn't always commute
I had to chuckle while reading the section “Does space-time commute?” in your feature on quantum reality (5 February, p 38). The example for classical space being commutative is that it doesn’t matter if you travel 5 kilometres south and then 3 kilometres west or vice versa, you end up in the same place. But, of course, that falls apart when you are near a pole and is only approximately true elsewhere, although the error quickly becomes very small the further from a pole you are. In a sense, this makes the point perfectly: what we hold to be self-evident in fact doesn’t work under extreme conditions, with proximity to a pole or at the very small scales of the quantum world.
Migraine can be enough to make you vomit
For me, migraine involved a lot of nausea (29 January, p 38). There were times when I was actually sick. I discovered after some years that taking a travel sickness pill greatly reduced the nausea and made the headache symptoms more bearable.
Birds could have beaten chimps to insect medicine
You report that chimpanzees may be the first animals seen to apply insects to wounds, but there are a number of bird species that use ants to treat skin parasite infestations, exploiting the formic acid from their stings (12 February, p 10).
Does icy moon also have a secret atmosphere?
Your article says an ocean may be hiding under the ice on Saturn’s small moon Mimas (22 January, p 18). Given the suggestion that water is sloshing around under the ice, is it possible there is a layer of gas between the ice and the liquid? If the minerals beneath were releasing gas, then perhaps it couldn’t get through the ice, making a thin atmosphere.
For the record {23 February 2022}
The International Garden Photographer of the Year competition (12 February, p 30) is organised by IGPOTY.
Quick quiz (12 February, p 55): Titan, which is the second largest moon in solar system, orbits Saturn.