Letters archive

I tend not to read my copy of New Scientist in page order. As a result, I came across your article about medical myths ( 12 February, p 40 ), which stated that "it's not just tabloid newspapers that misrepresent medical statistics for dramatic effect", before the "Insight" column (p 11) about employing "taste bud …

As a member of the team from the Agricultural Research Service, part of the US Department of Agriculture, that confirmed and genotyped all the US cases of BSE (mad cow disease), I would like to offer a couple of corrections to your story about the demise of the disease (29 January, p 6) . There …

I cannot understand why the doom-laden reports about limited resources I read in New Scientist , such as your recent interview with Lester Brown (5 February, p 27) , never spell out the blindingly obvious cause of impending global calamity: overpopulation. I realise that spelling this out is politically incorrect, but when things are so …

As a non-believer when it comes to dark matter, I was disappointed by your biased article on the subject ( Instant Expert, 5 February ). Dan Hooper gave the impression that evidence for dark matter is all around us. The small column "Did we get gravity wrong?" gave a different explanation for the higher-than-expected speeds …

Brian Greene explains the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics (5 February, p 30) by stating "if quantum mechanics predicts that X, Y and Z are possible, with different probabilities, then X, Y and Z will actually happen. All possible outcomes occur, but in different universes." This implies that the interpretation might ignore what the …

You report that software manufacturers are moving towards the use of full-disc encryption to protect computer data (29 January, p 17) . It has in fact been a standard part of the Linux operating system for at least two years. It works by encrypting information on parts of the disc using a password, which is …

Having read your interview with David Ferrucci of IBM about the company's Watson supercomputer, and having seen a picture of it, I am utterly unimpressed by the fact that it competed on the quiz show Jeopardy! (12 February, p 27) . What is so "super" about a computer that can beat two humans if it …

Feedback recently asked for evidence to support the idea that some dogs have better spatial awareness than others (12 February) . This immediately caught my attention, because of a simple experiment I once carried out on a couple of dogs: the first a Labrador retriever, the second a German shorthaired pointer. In turn, I took …

John Peisley complains that his beer has become less affordable, as its price has increased 32-fold while his salary has only gone up by a factor of 13, from £4000 to £52,000 (19 February, p 31) . In 1972 my salary was £1000; now it is £42,000. Following Peisley's reasoning, I should find beer more …

In response to Alan Chattaway's call to name the phenomenon of something being known more widely by an erroneous name than by its correct one (29 January, p 25) , I would like to suggest "hoovariation". The number of times I have heard people incorrectly refer to their vacuum cleaner must be inversely proportional to …

I think we should be careful about constructing maps of our brains (5 February, p 32) . I remember a science fiction story, I think by Arthur C. Clarke, about a team of neuroscientists who worked for years to construct a highly accurate map of brain functions. When the leader of the team eventually came …