Is this why bioscience has a replication issue?
While the points made in “Failure to replicate” are all reasonable, there is a potentially valuable explanation for seemingly unreproducible experiments: an additional factor that hasn’t been controlled for (9 April, p 45).
For example, when researchers were faced with different results from genetically identical mice obtained from different suppliers, patient detective work led them to a . Interestingly, not only is the microbiome of people very variable, but so, too, is
Soil has huge potential to help us tame climate crisis
When it comes to ways to avert a climate crisis, we rarely hear about the capability of soils to sequester carbon, which far outstrips any technological “fixes” that are still largely hypothetical to date in terms of cost, feasibility, speed, simplicity and scale (9 April, p 8).
It seems that a global increase of organic matter in soil of just a few percentage points would be sufficient to make a real difference by reducing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, helping us confront global warming.
On the pros and cons of a zero-covid approach (1)
I agree with much of the logic in Michael Marshall’s appraisal of zero-covid policies (2 April, p 27). With no vaccines, governments and health bodies were right to attempt to limit covid-19 in 2020.
However, it isn’t clear how long one needs to persist with a zero-covid strategy 鈥� three months, 30 months, 300 months? It is crucial to set end points. Marshall also states that a successful zero-covid policy would mean omicron probably wouldn’t have evolved. This implies that a less damaging, more contagious variant is bad. Right now, most people see omicron as a good development.
On the pros and cons of a zero-covid approach (2)
You compare New Zealand and Vietnam with the UK. However, the UK has a huge proportion of non-UK citizens who want to be able to visit or be visited by relatives living abroad. Also, a large proportion of the UK population is abroad at any given time. They would be stuck there if there was a zero-covid policy.
The UK is also a leading international hub for air travel, far more so than New Zealand, Australia and Vietnam. Finally, China is finding a zero-covid approach is beginning to fail amid new subvariants.
Let's not get bogged down in consciousness problem (1)
“Trying to reformulate physics to include subjective experience as a physical constituent of the world”, as the article by Thomas Lewton puts it, seems unlikely to succeed (2 April, p 38).
If we were to look inside our heads while enjoying our rich, subjective experience, we would see none of it. It doesn’t physically exist; just as the emperor’s new clothes didn’t physically exist.
In any event, physics already allows for a non-physical domain. It is where virtual particles are to be found when they aren’t physically in existence.
Let's not get bogged down in consciousness problem (2)
Proposed connections between consciousness and quantum physics seem based on little more than both appearing mysterious, hard to fathom and a bit spooky. Imaginative humans can project consciousness into disembodied spirits, trees, rocks, quarks and the big bang, but there is no evidence for it originating or extending anywhere outside of a brain.
Charades is a fine way to communicate abroad
The idea in “Playing with words” that our language abilities evolved and developed thanks to charades-like exchanges struck a chord (26 March, p 38).
Like a lot of monolingual English speakers, I get by abroad with some basic French learned at school and a smattering of greetings in other languages. It is one of the rewards of international travel when you succeed in communicating at a level of common humanity. There is the stimulating buzz of improvisation using sign language, body language and lots of goodwill.
Claws out for idea of gene-edited hypoallergenic cats
I object to the idea of using CRISPR gene editing “to make hypoallergenic cats” and some of the language used to describe this (2 April, p 9). You can’t “make” cats, as cats aren’t objects; they are creatures made via evolutionary nature, influenced by breeding. No one has the right to alter genes to see how a cat will survive if it can’t produce the Fel d 1 protein, the main cause of allergic reactions to these pets in people. I’m allergic to them myself, yet have had beautiful cats as pets.
Earlier work paid tribute to science beyond Europe
James Poskett says that the debt owed by science to non-European scientists of yesteryear has been largely ignored until the past decade (26 March, p 27). However, The Cambridge Illustrated History of the World’s Science, published some 40 years ago, devotes about half of its pages to Greek, Arabian, Hindu and Chinese science before 1500 and shows how Muslim scientists kept science alive from about AD 800.
Did rats really need to be used in study of stroking?
Regarding the “Emotional touch” part of your look at chemical haptics, and the “mild stress” inflicted on rats for a study (19 March, p 46). Surely it wouldn’t have been hard to find students mildly stressed by exams or something similar who didn’t mind being stroked beforehand to test the ideas being considered. Instead, the default was to grab some (no doubt already stressed) rats. It is time such malarkey stopped.
For the record
Satellites reveal information on Earth’s magnetic field more than 3000 kilometres below our feet (26 March, p 12).
The image in our article on resurrecting extinct species was actually of Lumut Port in Malaysia (19 March, p 23).