Cooking is also great for keeping disease at bay
Michael Marshall’s interesting discussion on when human species started to use fire 鈥� particularly for cooking food 鈥� suggests an increasingly early date. Inevitably, the evolutionary advantages of cooking are raised, focusing on the fact that it significantly increases the digestibility of many foods(31 December 2022, p 24).
My long years in agriculture lead me to point out another possible reason that fire was adopted early for cooking food: basic sanitation. Cooking kills parasites in foods such as meat. These internal parasites, generally known as foodborne zoonoses, are calculated to still affect 10 per cent of the global population.
Don't let crypto woes derail the blockchain
Annalee Newitz highlights the grim year experienced by big tech, including in the blockchain-based cryptocurrency market. However, there is plenty to cheer about the blockchain, which is essentially a very efficient ledger. Even its critics admit the technology works well(17/24 December 2022, p 31).
What we are seeing now is the Perez cycle playing out. This is a pattern identified by economist Carlota Perez. New tech is created, gets hyped and is appropriated by chancers before they are found out or the roof caves in. Then, everyone backs off and the tech is written off. Once the air clears, assuming the tech is sound, mature users adopt it, find a sensible way to use it and go on to build real value.
In 2023, we will see more rational uses of the blockchain grow and, within a few years, it will just be a part of the operating system on which the world runs.
Driverless revolution isn't coming… ever (1)
Matthew Sparkes correctly assesses the total failure of developing anything like a truly driverless car, yet he still feels compelled to end his piece on a relatively optimistic note(17/24 December 2022, p 13).
We have already had over a decade of broken promises, with endless vows that autonomous cars will be available to all in two to three years. You need to examine the obstacles forensically before bandying about statements that claim, for example, that general availability of level 4 cars 鈥� those with total autonomy in, say, a city 鈥� is “likely to still be more than five years away”. Try never instead.
Driverless revolution isn't coming… ever (2)
It is really no surprise that the developers of self-driving cars have at last cottoned on to the difficulties in reaching their objective of total autonomy in all circumstances. It would have been far better for them to target the limited conditions of close-convoy driving on controlled highways such as UK motorways, with communication between cars to ensure they stay close and safe. This is about as simple as it gets and the benefits of reduced congestion by increasing road capacity are enormous.
Gel could be the answer to neutron bomb dangers
Your story on a biogel that could be used in body armour focuses on fending off supersonic bullets(17/24 December 2022, p 13).
I think it could do so much more. If used on tanks, it could protect against neutron bombs as well as armour-piercing rounds.
Neutron bombs were proposed as a weapon to use against tanks. They would be detonated above a battalion of these vehicles and the burst of neutrons would penetrate their armour, with lethal effects on the crew. Hydrogen-based materials, such as biogel armour, protect well against neutrons.
Feeding wildlife can do more harm than good
Your feature on animals that don’t move much suggests that, in the case of urban foxes in the UK, this may partly be due to feeding by the public. A look at wildlife-oriented Facebook pages suggests that this practice is indeed widespread. Large-scale artificial feeding of much-loved wild animals like foxes and red kites is unsustainable and damaging to the animals and their ecology, and it should be discouraged(17/24 December 2022, p 72).
When it comes to aliens, silence is the right policy
I agree we should be far more cautious in unilaterally trying to communicate with aliens, on the grounds that they have apparently been far more circumspect in communicating with us(17/24 December 2022, p 64).
Arguably, the probability of intelligent life evolving elsewhere long before we did is high, but our most sensitive telescopes have detected nothing that proves its existence. Maybe extraterrestrials agree with the 98 per cent of astronomers surveyed over a decade ago, who urged caution. Aliens may have learned by bitter experience that communication isn’t worth the risk.
Universal, swappable car batteries are a non-starter
Regarding Sue Cannon’s idea of quick-change batteries to get electric vehicles “refuelled” rapidly: for modern cars, but abandoned it, though the company now appears to be entertaining the idea again. has plans to use swappable batteries(Letters, 17/24 December 2022).
The problem with this idea is that no single car maker can build swapping stations globally. They would have to cooperate, which would mean standardisation in chassis design between firms. I don’t see that happening.
Does the delete key also wipe magnetic memory?
I very much enjoyed the article about cloud companies’ storage of material on magnetic tape. However, the story of Google accidentally deleting emails from Gmail accounts and then restoring them from the magnetic tape archives made me think(17/24 December 2022, p 66).
What about that embarrassing photo of me with long hair, a kipper tie and flares uploaded to an Apple iCloud account? If it was deleted on the cloud, would it still be on Apple’s magnetic tapes? Do these companies scrub the tape too when we delete our content?
For the record
In our look at magnetic tape (17/24 December 2022, p 66), the 1970s IT storage system shown was a disc drive.