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6 October 2010
From Tony Scanlon
Among the ideas Stephen Battersby discussed for limiting sea level rise was the option of flooding inland basins (18 September, p 40) . Yet he neglected to mention the only one big enough to make any difference. Most of the lowlands around the Caspian Sea are desert, up to 27 metres below sea level. To …
6 October 2010
From Richard Graham
Linda Geddes states that the first time DNA evidence was challenged in a UK court was during the trial of Sean Hoey for the 1998 bombing in Omagh, Northern Ireland (21 August, p 8) . While it is true that until then DNA evidence had not been substantially challenged on the basis of its scientific …
6 October 2010
From Alec Cawley
Evelyn Fox Keller expresses dismay at the persistent rejection of the answer "neither nature nor nurture, but both" to the perennial debate setting one against the other (18 September, p 28) . This ambiguity is unpalatable to many people because they want an answer that they can do something with. If we know whether genius …
6 October 2010
From Jann Else
It was interesting to read that cane toads have not had a devastating impact on Australian wildlife as was initially feared (11 September, p 18) . However, there is an impact in south-east Queensland that was not mentioned. At night the toads hop onto city roads to soak up the warmth coming off the asphalt, …
6 October 2010
From Jesper Valgreen
In Richard Elwes's otherwise excellent article on the arithmetical implications of the concept of infinity (14 August, p 34) , it is suggested that a finitist theory of arithmetic – one in which there is no infinity – will be truncated, or limited to only finite mathematics. The finitary approach, usually associated with the intuitionist …
6 October 2010
From Kathy Smart
Andy Coghlan discusses the rise in the number of white girls in the US reaching puberty at the age of 7, suggesting oestrogen-like chemicals or obesity as causes (14 August, p 16) . Indeed, when I moved to Maryland, as the mother of girls aged 10 and 8, I was shocked to meet a 9-year-old …
6 October 2010
From Geoff Lawrence, The Really Easy Imaging Company
Mick Hamer's article on the danger of oil pollution from sunken ships (4 September, p 34) and the uncharacteristically histrionic editorial on the same subject (p 5) seriously overstate the potential for disaster. Over the past two decades my company has used imaging radar satellites to map oil on the sea surface for 70 million …
6 October 2010
From Alan Wells
One explanation for the finding that an income of $75,000 is sufficient for maximum day-to-day happiness, while overall life satisfaction continues to grow with increasing income above that level (11 September, p 16) , may lie in the tendency to equate monetary reward with success and social recognition. I suggest that a scientist or writer …
6 October 2010
From Rosemary Campbell
I tried to spot the animals hidden in the picture accompanying your article on a new technology used to camouflage images, but I was foiled (17 July, p 17) . If this technique is indeed going to be used online to make Captcha images to distinguish real people from software bots, then a lot of …
6 October 2010
From David Jackson
A recent debate on your pages about whether one can observe the flow of glass, given time (12 June, p 27 , and 24 April, p 25) put me in mind of a falsehood I was told as a child. I heard that if a long piece of glass is supported at its ends and …
6 October 2010
• Due to an editing error, we incorrectly stated that the power consumption of a cold-chain refrigerator is less than a clock radio (18 September, p 24) .
Issue no. 2781 published 9 October 2010
