I fear new HRT regime will prove to be a pipe dream
Personalised care for those going through the menopause is a lovely idea, but at the moment I can only think of it as a pipe dream (3 September, p 38).
Right now, I can’t get a doctor’s appointment to talk about menopause care. This isn’t official policy, just the result of having to go through a triage system mediated by receptionists, not medics, working with a tick-box system. Repeat prescription for HRT 鈥� yes. Someone just wanting to talk to their GP about that? Ask us next month, next year, whenever. Not now.
I am sorry to sound so downbeat, but the ideas in your article seem separated from reality. Menopause care is a huge issue, which needs a real solution, but getting there will require changing attitudes and systems so entrenched, it is hard to imagine how that could happen.
Quantum rethink throws up incredible possibilities (1)
Vlatko Vedral’s article about rethinking quantum theory offers the chance of “a route back in time” mediated by the possibility that the “younger and older versions of [a] particle are simply entangled in time” (27 August, p 46).
Of course, this could never be applied to an entire human body, but the theory that consciousness arises from quantum effects in microtubules in the human brain raises the question of whether such entangled particles could be present there.
Might this allow for the transmission of a small amount of information from an older self to a younger self, an act which could lead to changes in history and perhaps even the generation of an alternative reality?
Quantum rethink throws up incredible possibilities (2)
Once a projectile is fired, where it lands seems already determined. Does that mean the landing spot is entangled with the projectile when it was fired from the gun? Is the projectile in the past entangled with itself when it hits the landing spot in the future? Am I, as an older man, entangled with myself when I was born?
There is a better way to judge food's eco cred
You described a herculean, reductionist analysis assessing foods’ environmental impact (13 August, p 13). There is another green metric: price. It generally reflects energy and resource inputs. Even if pollution costs are externalised, price can act as an approximate green metric. The challenge is to add externalised costs, such as pollution, to the price.
Are Australia's favourite trees taking revenge? (1)
Contemplating possible sentience in plants can lead one to imagine some strange possibilities (27 August, p 38).
A magnificent species of Australian eucalyptus tree 鈥� the river red gum 鈥� recently topped a survey to be Australia’s favourite tree. However, it has a reputation as a “widow maker” due to its propensity for dropping huge branches that may land lethally on people in the forest, in particular on timber cutters.
The standard explanation is that the trees self prune like this to conserve water, but one may wonder if the branch dropping is more frequent as a self-defence strategy when timber cutters are working in the forest.
Are Australia's favourite trees taking revenge? (2)
Most writing on consciousness misses the point. All life is conscious, but each organism is conscious of different things.
Bacteria are conscious of certain chemicals. Plants of chemicals and electricity. I am conscious of weight and various frequencies of light.
Are Australia's favourite trees taking revenge? (3)
Your article posits that the Mimosa pudica plant’s reaction to anaesthesia may represent plant sentience. However, a reduction in the mimosa’s response to stimuli under anaesthesia doesn’t imply a human-like consciousness. The more likely, and more interesting, possibility is that putting a plant to sleep may point to a similarity in chemosensory systems over a broad range of organisms.
Give up the eternal chase for a fusion power plant (1)
I read the article about ignition in a nuclear fusion experiment with dismay (20 August, p 12). The experiment produced enough energy to sustain itself 鈥� theoretically. However, it lasted just “100 trillionths of a second” and couldn’t be reproduced.
And this is just heat energy. Before it can be truly useful, heat must be converted into electricity, and we haven’t even begun to design methods to remove heat from a fusion reactor.
We already know how to convert solar energy to electricity. We also know how to convert wind energy, itself derived from solar input, into electricity. And there are many proven ways to store electricity when there is neither sun nor wind.
Unfortunately, humans are attracted by the new and shiny. If the immense amount of money spent on nuclear fusion research had been directed toward building equipment to generate and store renewable energy, Vladimir Putin’s threats to turn off Russian gas would have lost some punch.
Give up the eternal chase for a fusion power plant (2)
Can a nuclear physicist please explain why we are spending so much on the seemingly hopeless quest for a fusion reactor when there is a highly reliable, cost-free one in the sky delivering more than enough fusion power for the entire planet?
Good reasons why AI won't crack ancient script
Maureen Clayson asks whether AI could be used to crack the ancient script known as Linear A (Letters, 20 August). The answer is not yet, and probably never, because we have too few texts and they are written in an unknown language. Insufficient data, in other words.
For the record
The area modelled to assess earthquake risk in California was about 1 million square kilometres (27 August, p 8).
We incorrectly stated that isopropanol was an extract of black cohosh. Isopropanol shouldn’t be ingested. Extracts of the plant black cohosh have been used to treat menopausal symptoms (3 September, p 38).