'Thinking' won't save plants from the axe (1)
You say that extending cognition to plants would mean a seismic shift in our view of humanity’s uniqueness (Leader, 27 August). No doubt it would to 快猫短视频 readers. But in a world where the Amazon rainforest continues to be felled, would it make any practical difference? We are still far from preventing the extinction of many animals, let alone plants.
'Thinking' won't save plants from the axe (2)
Aha! So the endless contemplation of consciousness has extended to plants! There is an important distinction to be made between consciousness and correlates of consciousness. My consciousness is something I alone experience, and whose explanation I regard as intractable. There are things (correlates) I do that clearly arise from my consciousness. That I observe such things in other people, and indeed some animals and conceivably plants, leads to the plausible conclusion that they, too, are conscious. The step from this to the deduction that they have rights that I should respect is a value judgement that I willingly make rather than one I can prove.
'Thinking' won't save plants from the axe (3)
It was once assumed there were many behaviours unique to humans. Now, we have found various animals that can recognise themselves in a mirror, use tools and behave in ways once thought to define us.
You recently reported on a pitcher plant that uses rain to vibrate leaves, causing ants to fall into the pitcher (13 August, p 22). I expect we will soon have evidence that climbing plants can make use of a mirror to locate themselves and find poles to climb.
Where to find solutions to the water shortage (1)
Your look at water shortages in England reports that consumers have a responsibility to restrict use, but skates lightly over the water industry’s responsibilities (20 August, p 9).
Despite very large profits since privatisation, these companies have failed to invest adequately in infrastructure to conserve water. In addition to leaking pipes, no new reservoir has been built in England since 1991, meaning that more water is pumped from groundwater sources, which stresses the environment.
Where to find solutions to the water shortage (2)
Regarding ways to address water shortages, it is pointless to avoid building surface water reservoirs on the basis that this reduces available farmland, as one reader argued (Letters, 27 August). If there is no water, there can’t be fertile land. Like energy supply, there is no single, simple solution to fresh water storage and supply. Every option has downsides.
Good luck to interstellar meteorite hunters
I hope Avi Loeb and Amir Siraj at Harvard University are successful in raising funds to search for fragments of the iron-rich, potentially interstellar object that landed in the Bismarck Sea north of Papua New Guinea in 2014 (20 August, p 16). Should they do so, I think their chances of finding their quarry are quite good as the depth in most of that sea is less than 2000 metres or so, and even at its fastest, the westbound South Equatorial current shouldn’t have taken the sinking fragments far from the 10-by-10-kilometre target area.
If the mission were successful, the scientific reward could be huge. It would lead to the first analysis of an object (including its age) from a source other than in, or fairly near, Earth’s own orbit. In turn, that could have implications for how the solar system evolved, as well as the object’s own origin 鈥� a cheap endeavour at $1.6 million.
Resolving the universe's most mysterious numbers (1)
The doppelg盲ngion number suggests an exact copy of me could exist in the universe (13 August, p 42). I don’t believe this is possible.
For someone to be exactly the same as me in this moment, that person wouldn’t just need to have the same arrangement of fundamental particles as me, which is what the number quantifies, but also to have had the same life experience: the same parents, friends, teachers and so on. For that to happen, those friends etc. also need to have had the same life experiences as those in my world have had.
Resolving the universe's most mysterious numbers (2)
You raise the issue of where all the antimatter has gone, assuming it was produced in equal amounts to matter when the universe began. It has been said that antimatter can’t be distinguished from matter moving backwards within time.
I suggest that all the matter observable to us is “moving” away from the big bang “forwards” in space-time. All the antimatter is “moving away” from the big bang “backwards” in space-time and so is forever hidden from us.
How much risk should astronauts accept?
You report that the European and Russian space agencies think that a 1 sievert dose of radiation is acceptable for astronauts (20 August, p 14). Given many estimates predict an average 5 per cent rise in cancer fatality risk per sievert, this sounds like an enormous level of risk.
Actually, the pie aisle may be greener than it sounds
That buying baked foods such as pies has a larger carbon footprint than buying raw vegetables is hardly surprising, since energy is always needed to prepare and cook them (13 August, p 13). The real question is, does buying a pie have a larger or smaller carbon footprint than buying the ingredients and baking your own? My money would be on the supermarket pie because of economies of scale. But I know which would be tastier!
Surely we can get our fizz from captured carbon
With ongoing research on carbon capture and storage, I am amazed that the US permits extraction of ancient, buried carbon dioxide for use in “bubbly beverages” and food processing (20 August, p 13). We must get back to a system in which by-products are used for something, rather than treated as waste to be dealt with by someone else, all the while buying in an equivalent product with all the associated environmental impacts.