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Contrail cooling
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liquids, all of which require the application of abstract physical concepts during tool preparation. It is therefore absurd to use the behaviour of those subjected to institutionalisation as a generalisation of all chimps. It has been demonstrated that orphaned children brought up in institutions experience severe cognitive delays. Moreover, the longer they spend in these settings, the worse the impact (Science, vol 318 p 1937). Why would chimpanzees be any different? Brighton, UK, and Portsmouth, Hampshire, UK
Contrail cooling From Tony Budd Reading how contrails from second world war bombers changed the weather (16 July, p 14) brought to mind the flight marking the 10th anniversary of the wartime 1000 bomber raids by the UK’s Royal Air Force. I was living in west London, near Northolt airfield, and the weather was fine, clear and very warm. A huge band of aircraft appeared, probably higher than the original 8000 feet used for the raids. They covered the sky as far as you could see, leaving a “carpet” of contrails which soon merged. It immediately became noticeably chillier, and as far as I remember the temperature did not recover for many hours, if at all, that day. Wickford, Essex, UK
potential host nations for some of the thousands of antennae needed are not. The distances involved would make protecting the entire SKA almost impossible. Australia, the other potential host, also has vast, sparsely populated areas, with limited or no radio interference, as well as being in an appropriate location in astronomy terms. The difference between the two bids would seem to be that Australia has political stability. For a project with the potential to make ground-breaking discoveries of global impact, this should be paramount. Woollahra, New South Wales, Australia
Millions and billions From David Garnett In “Unsung elements” (18 June, p 36) James Mitchell Crow states they “make up a few parts per billion of Earth’s crust”. While correct for one of the nine – tellurium is about 1 part per billion (ppb) – he is way out with the others. With reasonable confidence, their crustal abundances are: indium 200 ppb; terbium 1000 ppb; europium 2000 ppb; dysprosium 6000 ppb; yttrium 30,000 ppb; neodymium 35,000 ppb; lanthanum 35,000 ppb; and cerium 60,000 ppb. Darwin, Northern Territories, Australia
Focus on stability
Baby talk
From Patrick Harley de Burgh South Africa’s efforts to increase its scientific capabilities should be applauded (16 July, p 25). However, the decision on siting the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), the world’s biggest radio telescope, should be made in the best interests of science, not to foster scientific development in any one region. Whilst South Africa is a stable and democratic nation, other
From David Crawford After reading of the connections between words and sensory perceptions and possible links to the emergence of language (16 July, p 30), I suspect that “the ancestral genius who invented the first words” was female. I can see language developing out of a game played by mothers and their babbling, curious children, with mothers
Men vs women
remembering and developing the children’s words, encouraging more, inventing connections and spreading the results. As the hunting males returned, they would have joined in. Bickley, Kent, UK From Colin Day Contrary to what was written in your article “Language’s missing link”, in linguistics a “b” sound is not a continuant – a sound made with an incomplete closure of the vocal tract. Like the “k” sound, it is a stop, breaking the airflow. The difference is that “b” is a voiced bilabial stop and “k” is a voiceless velar stop. Leyburn, North Yorkshire, UK
Faking it From Anthony Wheeler The real fault with lie detectors (25 June, p 46) is the assumption that lying is stressful. It is for most of us, but for sociopaths lying is no problem. Career non-sociopathic criminals are another matter, though they soon learn tricks, like a drawing pin inside the shoe. In the 1980s, my colleagues and I used polygraphs to teach students cardiovascular physiology. On quiet days we wired ourselves up and played games, seeing who could raise and lower their heart rate the best. We evoked images that engaged the autonomic nervous system to change our physiology. Beating polygraphs would have been child’s play for us. Mackay, Queensland, Australia
From Mary Searle-Chatterjee I was delighted to read Alan White’s thoughts on why being male is so bad for health (18 June, p 31). I have been irritated by the way feminist social scientists, among whom I count myself, often explain women’s higher rates of illness in terms of social factors, but men’s higher rates of mortality in terms of biology. If the tendency of men to die early were biologically programmed then we would expect similar differences in all countries. In most societies for which we have records, men do die earlier than women, but the difference ranges from one year in Japan to 15 in pre-1980s Finland. There are even a few societies where women die earlier, such as Afghanistan. Ulverston, Cumbria, UK
Tau’s day From Daniel Greenhill There appears to be a backlash against calls to replace pi with tau (9 July, p 5). After reading The Tau Manifesto by Michael Hartl (tauday.com), I took the document’s advice and did a review, looking back through my engineering and physics books. I was dumbfounded at how often 2pi showed up – nearly every time – and in cases where pi was alone or with another factor, such as 4pi, it was actually enlightening to replace pi with tau. Pi has always been one of my favourite numbers. Despite that, I agree tau is the winner. Houston, Texas, US Letters should be sent to: Letters to the Editor, New Scientist, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS Fax: +44 (0) 20 7611 1280 Email: [email protected] Include your full postal address and telephone number, and a reference (issue, page number, title) to articles. We reserve the right to edit letters. Reed Business Information reserves the right to use any submissions sent to the letters column of New Scientist magazine, in any other format.
6 August 2011 | NewScientist | 33
liquids, all of which require the application of abstract physical concepts during tool preparation. It is therefore absurd to use the behaviour of those subjected to institutionalisation as a generalisation of all chimps. It has been demonstrated that orphaned children brought up in institutions experience severe cognitive delays. Moreover, the longer they spend in these settings, the worse the impact (Science, vol 318 p 1937). Why would chimpanzees be any different? Brighton, UK, and Portsmouth, Hampshire, UK
Contrail cooling From Tony Budd Reading how contrails from second world war bombers changed the weather (16 July, p 14) brought to mind the flight marking the 10th anniversary of the wartime 1000 bomber raids by the UK’s Royal Air Force. I was living in west London, near Northolt airfield, and the weather was fine, clear and very warm. A huge band of aircraft appeared, probably higher than the original 8000 feet used for the raids. They covered the sky as far as you could see, leaving a “carpet” of contrails which soon merged. It immediately became noticeably chillier, and as far as I remember the temperature did not recover for many hours, if at all, that day. Wickford, Essex, UK
potential host nations for some of the thousands of antennae needed are not. The distances involved would make protecting the entire SKA almost impossible. Australia, the other potential host, also has vast, sparsely populated areas, with limited or no radio interference, as well as being in an appropriate location in astronomy terms. The difference between the two bids would seem to be that Australia has political stability. For a project with the potential to make ground-breaking discoveries of global impact, this should be paramount. Woollahra, New South Wales, Australia
Millions and billions From David Garnett In “Unsung elements” (18 June, p 36) James Mitchell Crow states they “make up a few parts per billion of Earth’s crust”. While correct for one of the nine – tellurium is about 1 part per billion (ppb) – he is way out with the others. With reasonable confidence, their crustal abundances are: indium 200 ppb; terbium 1000 ppb; europium 2000 ppb; dysprosium 6000 ppb; yttrium 30,000 ppb; neodymium 35,000 ppb; lanthanum 35,000 ppb; and cerium 60,000 ppb. Darwin, Northern Territories, Australia
Focus on stability
Baby talk
From Patrick Harley de Burgh South Africa’s efforts to increase its scientific capabilities should be applauded (16 July, p 25). However, the decision on siting the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), the world’s biggest radio telescope, should be made in the best interests of science, not to foster scientific development in any one region. Whilst South Africa is a stable and democratic nation, other
From David Crawford After reading of the connections between words and sensory perceptions and possible links to the emergence of language (16 July, p 30), I suspect that “the ancestral genius who invented the first words” was female. I can see language developing out of a game played by mothers and their babbling, curious children, with mothers
Men vs women
remembering and developing the children’s words, encouraging more, inventing connections and spreading the results. As the hunting males returned, they would have joined in. Bickley, Kent, UK From Colin Day Contrary to what was written in your article “Language’s missing link”, in linguistics a “b” sound is not a continuant – a sound made with an incomplete closure of the vocal tract. Like the “k” sound, it is a stop, breaking the airflow. The difference is that “b” is a voiced bilabial stop and “k” is a voiceless velar stop. Leyburn, North Yorkshire, UK
Faking it From Anthony Wheeler The real fault with lie detectors (25 June, p 46) is the assumption that lying is stressful. It is for most of us, but for sociopaths lying is no problem. Career non-sociopathic criminals are another matter, though they soon learn tricks, like a drawing pin inside the shoe. In the 1980s, my colleagues and I used polygraphs to teach students cardiovascular physiology. On quiet days we wired ourselves up and played games, seeing who could raise and lower their heart rate the best. We evoked images that engaged the autonomic nervous system to change our physiology. Beating polygraphs would have been child’s play for us. Mackay, Queensland, Australia
From Mary Searle-Chatterjee I was delighted to read Alan White’s thoughts on why being male is so bad for health (18 June, p 31). I have been irritated by the way feminist social scientists, among whom I count myself, often explain women’s higher rates of illness in terms of social factors, but men’s higher rates of mortality in terms of biology. If the tendency of men to die early were biologically programmed then we would expect similar differences in all countries. In most societies for which we have records, men do die earlier than women, but the difference ranges from one year in Japan to 15 in pre-1980s Finland. There are even a few societies where women die earlier, such as Afghanistan. Ulverston, Cumbria, UK
Tau’s day From Daniel Greenhill There appears to be a backlash against calls to replace pi with tau (9 July, p 5). After reading The Tau Manifesto by Michael Hartl (tauday.com), I took the document’s advice and did a review, looking back through my engineering and physics books. I was dumbfounded at how often 2pi showed up – nearly every time – and in cases where pi was alone or with another factor, such as 4pi, it was actually enlightening to replace pi with tau. Pi has always been one of my favourite numbers. Despite that, I agree tau is the winner. Houston, Texas, US Letters should be sent to: Letters to the Editor, New Scientist, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS Fax: +44 (0) 20 7611 1280 Email: [email protected] Include your full postal address and telephone number, and a reference (issue, page number, title) to articles. We reserve the right to edit letters. Reed Business Information reserves the right to use any submissions sent to the letters column of New Scientist magazine, in any other format.
6 August 2011 | NewScientist | 33