The shift to farming gets my vote as a force for good
Was the shift to farming really the worst mistake in human history, asks Michael Marshall, concluding that the claim is at best an exaggeration. I would go further, drawing on relevant points made by the researcher Jacob Bronowski(25 February, p 28).
You can’t civilise on the move. No group of humans has ever been able to allow its smarter individuals to sit around, think and build useful stuff 鈥� like universities, contact lenses and vaccines 鈥� without surplus food to give them thinking time. Hunter-gatherers are too busy every day feeding themselves.
I can’t see an argument against the simple statement that growing crops was a good thing.
New climate technology would be a NET gain
To argue that a focus on negative emission technologies (NETs) is slowing the fight against climate change is to fall into a common trap. A look at plans drawn up to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement will tell readers that NETs are a baked-in requirement for meeting the 1.5掳C pathway(18 February, p 27).
Of the 400 scenarios with a 50 per cent or better chance of ensuring no more than 2掳C of warming, 344 assume the large-scale deployment of a NET. We need these technologies.
AIs may look like they know our minds, but…
On the subject of AIs with theory of mind, a machine will eventually be able to measure things 鈥� such as tone of voice, the look of a person’s eyes, body position and so on 鈥� that we observe when “reading another person’s thoughts”. This machine will compare these measurements with a database and use an algorithm to select responses with which to interact with us. Yet such a computer will still have no conscious feeling or understanding(18 February, p 46).
The rapidly diminishing need for dark matter (1)
Surely, every time we find a new source of normal matter, this decreases the amount of dark matter we must hypothesise to explain the behaviour of galaxies(11 February, p 46).
One recent example is the discovery that there are far more red dwarfs than we thought. There are other candidates, too. How about cosmic rays: naked nuclei that travel at near light speed through galaxies? The density is low, but the volume is measured in thousands of cubic light years. There are many other possible answers out there.
The rapidly diminishing need for dark matter (2)
We know that one form of energy without matter is the photon. Could it follow that gravity without matter is the graviton? Could free gravitons, still exerting a pull, explain the gravitational effects of dark matter?
Black hole energy idea is ringing another bell
The idea that vacuum energy at the cores of black holes may be the source of dark energy is awfully reminiscent of steady state theory. Instead of matter continuously being created everywhere in the universe in the latter, it is energy being spontaneously created only in black holes. Not so different(25 February, p 19).
Future Homes for all seems a long way off
One day, I hope to be able to have a “Future Home” of my own and reap the energy-saving benefits. However, houses are built to last, so the vast majority of homes won’t be replaced soon. Green technology has to make its way into current homes, with better incentives to retrofit, replacing energy and carbon-intensive heating and electricity systems with cleaner improvements. My room, in a rented shared house, has single-glazed windows and not even my thickest jumpers and blankets keep me warm in winter(25 February, p 11).
Rivers campaign: Lack of investment landed us in it
I passionately support your campaign, together with the i newspaper, to highlight the state of the UK’s rivers(Leader, 18 February).
Their current deplorable condition is surely down to the years, if not decades, of chronic underinvestment. For example, the UK government has left the Environment Agency without adequate resources to inspect and monitor water quality in England, or enforce regulations and impose hefty fines on polluters. And privatised water companies don’t do enough to maintain, repair and upgrade their ageing and now inadequate infrastructure so that it isn’t overwhelmed by storms.
Could veterinary advance explain tick results?
It was always going to be a big ask to remove sufficient ticks from a semi-forested US area to truly affect Lyme disease rates for people. And yet, the rate of disease among pets did fall significantly. One possible explanation might be the fact that there is a vaccine for pets, but not people(18 February, p 15).
AI search engines may skew their own inputs
The article “Searching for answers” raises interesting questions about the use of AI language models such as ChatGPT in internet search engines(25 February, p 12). With AI also used to generate increasing volumes of internet content, will these systems end up training themselves with their own output? If so, what effect will this have on the accuracy of information on the internet?
Drastic energy saving is entirely possible
Your 2000-watt challenge article seems overly pessimistic about the difficulty of cutting energy use. We run our research station, with 12 buildings, on around 14 kilowatt-hours a day, generated by a solar power system with a battery backup. We have lighting, fans, dehumidifiers, power tools, a plethora of lab equipment and a good, basic washing machine. In no way do I feel that we are living in a state of deprivation(11 February, p 36).