Saving our figures and the planet too
You review a new book on weight loss drugs that are taking off. Could these hold more promise than just reducing waistlines, one related to the link between food production and its impact on our planet? While many hope the drugs will make them slim, one side-effect could be that sales of fast food, highly processed food and snacks drop, assuming a lower appetite means fewer cravings for them (4 May, p 28).
If so, then perhaps this will also lead to less clearing of the biosphere for resource-greedy monocultures, plus the reduced production of tree pulp or fabrication of plastics from fossil fuels, both of which are used to package processed foods.
Direct air capture is just a drop in the ocean
In coverage of the direct air capture industry, you mention a plant being built to remove half a million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year from the atmosphere. This apparently impressive figure needs context (25 May, p 12).
In my youth, the colliery in my village was producing a million tonnes of coal per year, and within 20 miles were at least another eight similarly prolific mines. The current plans for carbon capture are frighteningly inadequate. I await, without holding my breath, any mention of this in the pledges for the forthcoming UK election.
Born to run? More like born to use our brains
It isn’t surprising that there has been criticism of the idea that humans evolved to chase down prey over large distances. The need to do this regularly would suggest an inability to hunt strategically or co-operate with others, which is somewhat insulting to the developing human intelligence (18 May, p 11).
Sensible strategies would have involved the use of hunting weapons and traps or driving an animal a short distance towards an ambush by fellow hunters, with factors such as wind direction considered to avoid detection by scent. This would have been highly energy efficient and both men and women would have participated.
Why aliens probably won't bother with Dyson spheres (1)
How feasible are Dyson spheres, signs of which may have cropped up in a survey of 5 million stars in our galaxy? The basic engineering logic behind these proposed alien structures that encircle a star to capture all its energy isn’t obvious (18 May, p 12).
It makes sense that you would start building in certain ways. A narrow equatorial belt 鈥� akin to the asteroid belt or Saturn’s rings 鈥� would have a degree of orbital stability for siting parts of such a structure, and components could be joined in their existing orbits. However, as soon as the structure is extended towards the poles of a sphere, this stability is lost.
Why aliens probably won't bother with Dyson spheres (2)
The ridiculous idea of a Dyson sphere is truly a waste of space. Any industrial beings even 500 years in advance of us would have solved any energy needs without resorting to this silly and clumsy idea. Even our own struggles to develop fusion power in order to boil water to make steam to drive a turbine to make electricity would seem like a primitive joke to them.
Is there no escape from environmental woes?
In my attempts to reduce my use of single-use plastics (refilling washing-up liquid bottles, using shampoo bars, toothpaste tablets and so on), I bought paper bags and greaseproof paper bags for packed lunches instead (11 May, p 36).
Having just read your article on “forever chemicals”, I am now wondering if I have substituted one problem for another. Which is doing most harm to me and to the environment: the plastics or the paper/greaseproof bags? We just can’t win, can we.
The easier way to simulate our reality
Your reader Lawrence Ryan is worried that the concept that our reality is a simulation is lacking in parsimony and asks: “How much information would be required to simulate the lives, and inner lives, of more than 8 billion people?” But the simulation doesn’t need to do any such thing. It only needs to simulate an “I” that believes that there are 8 billion people in the world. And for meeting one of the 8 billion, only the belief that the simulated “I” encounters some “other” with the relevant qualities needs to be simulated within the simulated “I”. The same goes for the rest of the universe: only what an “I” might know needs to be simulated. It seems to me that such a simulation would be highly parsimonious compared with the exuberance of what we take for reality (Letters, 11 May).
Getting older but I certainly don't feel it (1)
Thank you for your look at the ageing mindset. Although, at least according to this, I am already at the age when people start to acknowledge that they are old, I certainly don’t feel that way (18 May, p 32).
Maybe that is due in part to having a wide circle of friends, some decades younger than I am. They will never hear phrases like “in my day” from me. My only issue is when the perceptions of others get in the way of things I want to do.
Although I have never had as much as a speeding ticket in all the years I have driven, when asking about hiring a van, I found my age ruled me out. Car hire on holiday also gets harder with each passing birthday. Still, if I am able to carry on as long as my grandmother did, I have another quarter of a century to look forward to and I intend to make the most of it. I still see this very much as my day.
Getting older but I certainly don't feel it (2)
Your article reminds us not to stereotype all older people as frail, lonely or incapable. Ageism is one of many forms of labelling. Any group is in danger of that. It can serve a purpose by making us alert to specific needs, like offering an older person a seat on public transport. But when meeting an individual, it is good to be open-minded and let the labels go.