Fading diaper disgust or just plain, simple relief?
A reduction in parental disgust as an infant develops isn’t surprising, since breastfed babies tend to produce huge, explosive poos, which are like runny, yellow cottage cheese and can easily escape the nappy to coat the child, as well as their parent and surroundings. This often happens at inconvenient times, such as while at airport boarding gates (18 January, p 15).
Once weaned, babies make poos that usually emerge in more solid lumps that can be wrapped in loo paper and flushed away. Quick, easy and less urgent. I think the findings of the study you covered have less to do with disgust habituation and more to do with sheer relief!
Now for <i>Severance: The documentary</i>
Like Bethan Ackerley, I am completely hooked by the TV drama series Severance. People I have discussed it with are mostly horrified by the concept of workers having their brains altered so their office/home life memories are strictly partitioned, but I confess that I can see the attractions (25 January, p 30).
While trying to balance the demands of work with those of a young family, I constantly worried that time necessarily given to either would be to the detriment of the other. The ability to switch off totally from one role when in the other might have been a blessing.
On the causes of depression
Even if depression isn’t caused by low serotonin, as Joanna Moncrieff sets out in the book you reviewed, I am glad to see some researchers have pointed out that this doesn’t mean SSRIs, drugs commonly used to treat it, are ineffective (18 January, p 28).
In my view, the most obvious explanation for depression in the modern world is that we are in an environment grossly mismatched to the one we evolved for.
Smell and taste could be considered a single sense
When it comes to the importance of our sense of smell, perhaps the majority of the taste of food and drink is predicated upon the aromas we experience before and during the act of consumption. This is why anosmia can lead to nutritional deficiencies, when all food seems too bland. In fact, one could argue that smell and taste should be considered a single sense since they are so closely related, both in terms of the sensory apparatus and the brain systems that process the data (25 January, p 23).
How to experience a good read at bedtime
Disappointingly, due to the disruptive effect of lighting, sleep experts discourage reading in bed, which no doubt many find the only time for this enjoyable pursuit. Perhaps the best solutions are ebooks with a blue-light-blocking mode or the audio version of 快猫短视频. In the latter case, a potential problem is the highly worrying content of some articles, for example concerning climate change or possible pandemics, which may give one a sleepless night (25 January, p 32).
The space race is using up much-needed resources
Rocket launches are deemed environmentally OK if hydrogen is used as rocket fuel, because it doesn’t add to the carbon dioxide burden. However, the world must cut the total energy it consumes, and so any non-fossil fuel, such as hydrogen, ought to be used to replace fossil fuels in everyday life, not for a new space race (25 January, p 12).
Mars colony: Fiction may become reality
Harm Schoonhoven raises the concern that people in a Mars colony would never be able to return to Earth. This eventuality was covered by The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In essence, its message was that those chosen to colonise a new world are those the home planet never wants to see again. Could history be about to repeat fiction(Letters, 25 January)?
Space-time's true nature is a bit baffling
While the idea that the possible underlying structure of space-time could be to do with a strange geometric entity is fascinating, I suggest this raises another issue for many: the impossibility of comprehending the reality behind such descriptions (25 January, p 10).
Cheaper vanadium makes for a good flow battery
Considering redox flow batteries, you state that they rely on “metals like lithium and cobalt, which are in short supply”. In fact, many such batteries use cheap and common vanadium salts. This makes them attractive bulk electricity storage systems (18 January, p 19).
Glad to see the back of many worlds
I always found it hard to believe in the many worlds version of the multiverse that is proposed to explain quantum behaviour (11 January, p 32).
In essence, it says that a person, living on a tiny speck in the universe, measuring an even tinier subatomic particle that was in superposition, would create a new universe: a new Earth, sun, Milky Way, Andromeda nebula, etc. What’s more, any intelligent alien on some distant rocky planet billions of light years away doing the same thing would create another me-reality. It is ridiculous in my view. Sorry.
Getting the measure of ultimate precision
Your article on gauging vast distances with extreme precision says the 113 kilometres between two labs was measured to within 82 nanometres. I was wondering, was the measurement from the top of the grains of sand on the bricks or the bottom(25 January, p 17)?
For the record
Efforts to rewild the Scottish Highlands with lynx are being led by the Lynx to Scotland Project (1 February, p 22)