More vegan food please, but less processed fake meat (1)
I agree that reducing the amount of meat served in schools and other institutions would be good for the planet and could lead to changes in eating habits. However, rather than just vegan burgers, sausages and fillets, wouldn’t it be better to serve some of the many delicious vegan meals that can be made without highly processed products?
I am not saying that meat substitutes should never be used by these organisations, but a good vegan menu could show how the correct combinations of foods can produce well-balanced, varied and tasty meals, usually at less cost than those with fake “meat” and dairy(28 January, p 13).
However, I fear that the drive to turn this into a business opportunity for the plant-based “meat” industry will win out and good cooking with basic ingredients will be sidelined.
More vegan food please, but less processed fake meat (2)
It seems accepted that, if we cut our meat intake and eat more natural 鈥� rather than processed 鈥� food, we will be healthier and so will our planet. However, I don’t understand the fetish for the likes of fake burgers and sausages. When I gave up eating dead flesh a long time ago, the last thing I was interested in was fake “meat”.
Homework AI is here to stay, so we need to adjust
Concerns that the ChatGPT language AI will be used by students to compose their coursework have been a topic of conversation in my college staff room for a few weeks. This is after a student showed a colleague of mine how easy it is to get this freely available AI to write good, well-commented computer code(21 January, p 15).
As with most new technology, there is an initial drive to block its use for fear it will make “cheating” easier. However, as Jeremy Hsu points out, rather than banning ChatGPT, we need to find new ways of assessing students’ work.
For example, in an assignment for digital technology students, I could ask them to define some examples of security threats. But those definitions are easily copied from the internet. Instead, I ask them to analyse a case study and identify examples within it.
We should embrace new technology and teach students how to get the most from it.
The ocean mountain that just vanished from maps
I read your article on the power of huge marine avalanches to move massive amounts of material and reshape the ocean floor. I would like to draw your attention to the Pactolus bank off Cape Horn, which has long been a puzzle. Found in 1885, this seamount is thought to no longer exist(28 January, p 46). Perhaps it was all down to one of these events?
Not convinced by merits of human waste as fertiliser
The fear of ingesting pathogens via use of human-waste fertilisers parallels the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) problem. In that case, material from the brains of slaughtered cows was spread to other cattle via its use in processed feeds. It was impractical to ensure adequate heat-processing of the waste meat and the practice was later banned, but not before a consequent condition called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) emerged in people due to infected meat(28 January, p 17). Is it really easier to ensure adequate processing of human waste?
Ready to greet my sperm donation offspring
Name and address withheld
I enjoyed your article on sperm and egg donor anonymity, as did my son. Five or six of the 3691 people who will become eligible to contact their donor in the UK in 2035 are my biological offspring and his biological half siblings(28 January, p 14).
We await any contact in a positive way, but will be careful not to undermine the relationships of donor-conceived people and their real parents 鈥� the ones who love them and look after them.
On the progress in unravelling depression (1)
Your article on depression was fascinating. It is great to know that so many advances are being made. Another approach is worth a mention: gardening. Several mental health charities are now using it to improve well-being(21 January, p 38).
Communal gardening seems to be especially valuable. Social mixing, the achievement of taking produce home to family and friends, as well as being out in the open air and in touch with wildlife 鈥� all of these factors make vast differences.
On the progress in unravelling depression (2)
As suggested, there may never be a unified theory of depression. The clinical successes and failures of a variety of different treatments may mean that more than one hypothesis is true, and what we now call depression is in fact a collection of different conditions sharing a cluster of similar symptoms.
Much like cancer has come to be recognised as a number of distinct but related conditions, the same might be true of depression.
Tune in to the Echo of Eternity if you dare
Your feature on the use of sonification to reveal the sounds of space was intriguing. A few years ago, my colleagues and I applied the same technique to listen to the cosmic microwave background. This was achieved by downshifting its radio spectrum into the audible range and using this to filter the wideband random noise that is ubiquitous in nature. The sound was unearthly and frankly a little unsettling. We named it the Echo of Eternity(31 December 2022, p 46).
Are eels the strangest creatures in the world?
Your article on the European eel is a fascinating description of one of the world’s most unusual animals(21 January, p 42).
For most species, you can appreciate the Darwinian logic behind each of their features: the acute hearing and nimble legs of a deer enable it to escape predators, for example. But what Darwinian forces have driven the evolution of this eel?
Why not reproduce in a local river, rather than taking a 12,000-kilometre round journey? Why wait decades before making that trip, when there is always the danger of being eaten or dying of a disease in the meantime?