A ready solution to storing excess renewable energy
You are right to highlight the importance of heat storage as a way to use surplus renewable electricity. A big but under-appreciated resource on this front is the hot water tank. We have about 9 million in UK homes, typically supplied from a gas boiler, with a 3-kilowatt immersion heater backup (Leader, 20 July).
Adding an inexpensive Wi-Fi controller to each would enable utility control of 27 gigawatts of demand, 18 times the size of the largest pumped storage scheme in the UK. This would be a lot less expensive than hydrogen storage, yet could absorb most of our peak renewable production.
One big step back to our distant past
Some things don’t change. Our ancient ancestors valued caves as a haven from the weather and wild animals. Now, we are considering using caverns on the moon as protection from space “weather”. Perhaps we should think about installing a copy of the Lascaux cave paintings in the first lunar cavern we use for habitation (20 July, p 13).
These scary aliens aren't even remotely feasible (1)
Having watched the first two A Quiet Place films, and reading Douglas Vakoch’s lament about the irrational fears raised by the portrayal of scary extraterrestrials in the third film, I wonder if I am alone in believing these blind movie aliens aren’t even remotely likely? Sharp-eared enough to hear a picture frame smash a mile away, but not the heartbeat of a person in the same basement? No sonar, but they can get down stairs? Unable to cross water, but space is no problem(6 July, p 21)?
The only credible explanation is that they are a genetically engineered weapon. Given the capabilities of modern robots and artificial intelligence, I would be more frightened of something like this emerging from one of our labs than landing from space.
These scary aliens aren't even remotely feasible (2)
The underlying debate is whether it is a good idea to send signals to try to reach intelligent aliens. The worry is there is no global entity that polices such transmissions and, even if there were, it would be impossible to enforce. But I agree with Vakoch that it doesn’t matter because aliens advanced enough to pick up those signals will already know we are here by other means.
If in doubt, it is best to stick with whole foods
As a scientist, I prefer to think in terms of components, causality and processes. It would be good to know more about these when it comes to ultra-processed foods (13 July, p 10).
There are many questions. Which additives might degrade the mucus lining of my gut, leaving me at risk of bowel irritation and infections? Which additives could perhaps kill good gut bacteria, affecting my comfort, nutrition and immune system? Which additives might contribute to the sabotage of my body’s ability to handle spikes in blood nutrients? Which bulk components of processed foods, by having all their micronutrients removed, are likely to contribute most to harming health through micronutrient deficiency?
Until we have answers, I guess the most sensible strategy is to stick to unprocessed whole foods.
Will roast dodo be back on the menu?
Bringing back the dodo might have commercial implications because it was apparently tasty to eat. I can imagine meat producers being interested in an edible bird twice the size of a turkey, especially if its growth or reproduction rates could be tweaked (15 June, p 40).
Maybe sentience can only arise in three dimensions
In your look at the possibility of extra dimensions, Georges Obied says: “There’s no reason why it has to be three. It could have been two; it could have been four or 10 (13 July, p 32).”
I wonder whether we can look to the anthropic principle as to why we have at least three dimensions?
It might be a fair assumption that for “observers” such as us to arise, information processors, such as brains, must evolve, and that a likely form for these is logical networks, whereby each node can be connected to any number of others. In two dimensions, to permit connections to all other nodes, connectors 鈥� such as synapses or wires 鈥� must cross each other. Some sort of gate mechanism, akin to a railway level-crossing, would have to evolve to allow this. Not impossible, but a bit of an engineering challenge!
Could it be that we exist in a three-dimensional universe because three is the minimum number of dimensions in which sentience can easily evolve?
Cosmic significance: A wise man once said…
Andrew Whiteley notes that the idea of our cosmic insignificance involves “equating physical size with significance”, which he rightly decries as absurd. A similar point was made by the polymath Frank Ramsey: “I don’t feel the least humble before the vastness of the heavens. The stars may be large, but they cannot think or love; and these are qualities which impress me far more than size does (Letters, 13 July).”
We need a proper substitute for fuel
As I see it, to replace a lot of fossil fuel use requires a chemical that would react, for example with water, to produce hydrogen on demand. A driver could go to a fuel station with a spent pack of this chemical, buy a new one and fit it in place and drive off in the time it takes to fill up with petrol (20 July, p 36).
For the record
Geshuang Chen’s photo shows an optical corona (13 July, p 25).
To gauge the ideal bowl size for spent pistachio shells, they were modelled as hollow half-spheres with 73 per cent of the packing density of the whole nuts in shells (13 July, p 9).
Boston Dynamics’s robots are banned from having weapons such as flamethrowers fitted to them. One used for agricultural research was equipped with a weed-suppressing propane blowtorch (27 July, p 13).