Walk with a beep, walk with a squeak
You report that beeping shoes boost walking ability in people with Parkinson’s disease. Around 40 years ago, I was working with people on the autistic spectrum, one feature of which can be difficulty feeling the ground you walk on. When a colleague of my husband’s got Parkinson’s disease and was having difficulty walking, I suspected that he wasn’t getting enough feedback telling him when his feet touched the ground (27 January, p 14).
It sounds absurd, but I gave him a couple of teddy bear squeakers to put in the soles of his shoes. He was immediately able to walk across the room, an improvement he maintained, until, being a scientist, he constructed a more sophisticated version.
How to explain and avert impending spermageddon (1)
When it comes to how to improve sperm count, remember that if sperm were deeper inside the body, and therefore at body temperature, they would be overactive and burn themselves out. Humans have external testicles to keep sperm cooler and dormant. When they enter another body, they reach the temperature needed to get active. To help, guys should wear loose, thin underpants (20 January, p 40).
How to explain and avert impending spermageddon (2)
There may be many lifestyle factors affecting sperm count and quality. Among those not discussed are alcohol, nicotine and anabolic steroid use. The problem with correlating sperm data with these factors in a large survey is that an honest admission of the degree of consumption may be difficult to obtain. In addition, stress can have a negative influence. It may be that all the above partly contribute to lower sperm counts and motility.
How to explain and avert impending spermageddon (3)
Has anyone considered that the decline in sperm count and quality could be an attempt by Gaia to reduce the population of a harmful species? Perhaps Gaia is experimenting with gene drives in Homo sapiens in the same way that we have in mosquitoes, to make the vast majority of males infertile.
There is no need for fish waste to end up as rubbish
You report on the issue of organic waste generated by cod fishing. When I visited the Lofoten Islands in Norway, cod waste was turned into fertiliser. A little forklift trundled back and forth all day feeding cod heads, bones and skin from the fish finger factory into a fertiliser plant. It smelled horrible, but the Lofoten people cheerfully said it was the smell of money (20 January, p 22).
Just forget the idea of supersonic airliners
Why is NASA wasting time and resources on commercial supersonic flight? Is it simply a demonstration of engineering ability? Such flight will only satisfy the egos of the super-rich, while helping to trash the environment for the rest of humanity. When Concorde was conceived in the mid-1900s, there was a need to speed up the flow of information and ideas across continents, which, at the time, still relied on printed material or personal interaction a fair bit. That no longer applies. Information now flows online and personal interaction can be achieved via ever-improving virtual formats (20 January, p 16).
Not buying the quantum theory of consciousness (1)
Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose’s proposal that gravitational instabilities cause “collapse” of quantum wave functions in intracellular microtubules in the brain seems like a leap. To go from that to Penrose’s suggestion that each time a quantum wave function collapses in this way in the brain, it gives rise to a moment of conscious experience is a bit like a physics proof that includes the phrase “then a miracle occurs”. Consciousness is simply an emergent biological result of a brain’s unimaginably complex interneuronal connectome. Just biology, nerves and anatomy engaged in simple functions. No magic required (20 January, p 32).
Not buying the quantum theory of consciousness (2)
The idea that the brain may exploit quantum effects in its operation left me with a profound sense of “so what?” Consciousness, however defined, is a phenomenon of the mind, which is embodied in the central nervous system. This is a biological entity, that relies on chemical and electrical processes, which themselves arise from quantum mechanics. After all, as far as we know, everything is quantum, except perhaps gravity. Whether or not the brain uses explicit quantum effects is interesting, but makes no difference to explaining how consciousness arises unless there is a testable idea that explains the mechanism. So far, that doesn’t exist.
What seems symbolic may just be utilitarian
When archaeologists are confronted with observations for which they have no clear explanation, they often tend to attribute religious, or symbolic, significance, as with the straight roads between settlements found in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Might it not be that for some mundane, technical reason, such as a mode of transport, the roads needed to be straight? It all reminds me of a guide in Utah who described ancient rock paintings to me. He said signs like a hand with eight fingers were so non-factual that archaeologists had theorised these must be religious symbols. Then he said that older Indigenous people had told him an open hand signed “we come in peace” and the eight fingers meant “we are a party of eight”. Just factual communication on a shared message board (20 January, p 12).
Black hole measurement could prove rather tricky
In reading about how to solve the black hole paradox, assuming that all of the physical problems of making a measurement within an atom’s width of an event horizon were overcome, then how long would it take to make such a measurement, given the time dilation effects of being so close to a supermassive black hole (13 January, p 10)?