No doubt about it, babies are conscious (1)
From
It is amazing that there are still doubts about whether human newborns are conscious and capable of experiencing pain.
Newborn foals and calves are born with their eyes open and are capable of walking almost immediately after birth. I have been at the birth of several spectacled flying foxes, amazing events to witness. As soon as the pup’s head emerges, not only are its eyes wide open, its little ears are swivelling, listening to everything. Even more interestingly, the pup will produce its first vocalisations to let its mum know that all is well.
Why is there any expectation that human infants are born with less awareness than other mammals?
No doubt about it, babies are conscious (2)
I can’t believe that scientists are conducting experiments to find out what every parent has known since the dawn of humanity, the moment they look in their baby’s eyes just seconds after it takes its first breath: there is someone there. An ignorant, inexperienced, inarticulate someone, to be sure, but a person ready to be met, cared for and taught.
Furthermore, anyone who ever accidentally stuck a newborn with a diaper pin knows they can feel pain 鈥� and protest the experience loudly.
In defence of the new breed of weight-loss drugs
From
Much of the backlash against “easy” weight loss via Wegovy and other GLP-1 drugs comes from culturally entrenched moralising, people leaping to judge others as “lazy” or “greedy” and not deserving to lose weight if they don’t “put in the work”.
The fact that these drugs are so effective shows that, in many cases, people who are overweight simply have ill-regulated hunger hormones. Taking Wegovy to help manage weight should be no more controversial than insulin for diabetes or SSRIs for depression.
Time to get on with tests of this geoengineering
From
So sulphur dioxide emissions from ships burning heavy marine fuel cooled Earth by brightening ocean clouds, but declines in such pollution since 2020 have resulted in warming. This unplanned experiment in geoengineering indicates that we should now fund tests of marine cloud brightening using ships to spray seawater into clouds to cut temperatures, as proposed by the late Stephen Salter.
Species counts can fail to capture biodiversity
From
Having read your piece about how to measure biodiversity, it is worth remembering that although the species concept is immensely useful, it does have its limits. This is because species descriptions, in order to be practical, have to encompass a lot of variation between individuals, both in their outward characteristics and their genetic codes.
For example, species in the marsh orchid genus (Dactylorhiza) readily interbreed to produce lots of fertile plants spanning the whole spectrum of characteristics. In such cases, a simple species count can’t easily capture the true diversity present.
No surprise that microbes are eating plastic waste
From
I was heartened to read of another organism that has taken to consuming one of our throwaway polymers. To be fair, given the high energy density of plastics, it isn’t surprising that microbes are evolving to feed on them.
I agree with Annika Vaksmaa about the dangers of introducing this fungi, Parengyodontium album, outside its existing ecology. In fact, it occurs to me that if we encourage plastic-eating microorganisms by selective breeding or gene editing, we might end up hoisted by our own petard. The non-biodegradability of plastics is one of the main reasons we use them, after all.
Let's hope fiction doesn't become fact
From
I see with some alarm that you describe the New Horizons spacecraft as “plucky” 鈥� a term usually defined as having courage in the face of adversity. This seems to imply that the probe has acquired intelligence, can understand what it is doing and experiences human emotions.
This isn’t far removed from the plot of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, where an earlier spacecraft leaves the solar system, only to return centuries later and wreak havoc while it tries to locate its creator: NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab.
There is simply no safe amount of alcohol
From
I take issue with claims that scientists are fairly unanimous that drinking alcohol in moderation is healthy. While I agree that this is preferable to excessive drinking, there is no amount of alcohol consumption that doesn’t affect health. In fact, the World Health Organization published a statement on this in January 2023.
On the strange result of the double-slit experiment
From
There is some misunderstanding about interference in the double-slit experiment. The electron doesn’t interfere with the next electron, but with itself.
Many good reasons not to tip rubbish into a volcano
From
Robin Stonor asks why not throw rubbish in a volcano. On contact with hot lava, many materials would vaporise, causing explosions. Due to the lack of oxygen, plastics and organic materials would decompose, not burn 鈥� this would produce flammable and toxic gases, including greenhouse gases.
For the record
In salt sensitivity, each extra gram of sodium per day raises blood pressure by an average of 2.1 mmHg (8 June, p 32).
A Kuiper belt object in a 2:3 resonance with Neptune completes two orbits of the sun for every three orbits the planet makes (22 June, p 40).