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Earlier spin
To join the debate, visit newscientist.com/letters
formally expressed is an invention, since there are many ways in which such things can be expressed. Hence a particular software implementation of an algorithm is patentable. West Perth, Western Australia
Killer coal From Robin Tucker In your editorial on the legacy of the Fukushima disaster, you say “relatively few people will suffer serious health effects” as a result (9 March, p 3). Unfortunately, this is not true, but the damage will be done by political rather than radioactive fallout. If Japan replaces its 53 reactors with a mix of coal and gaspowered plants, research suggests there will be about 20 extra deaths a year, mostly coal miners. Germany and other countries moving away from nuclear will add to this toll. Steventon, Oxfordshire, UK
Earlier spin From Roger Carlson It was interesting to read of recent US research on the use of rising vortexes of warm air to generate electricity (9 March, p 23). Earlier work in Canada by Louis Michaud produced similar results in the Atmospheric Vortex Engine, which has advanced to the prototype stage. Besides exploiting solar warming, Michaud’s engine has been proposed as a way to generate extra electricity using the warm air rising from power station cooling towers. Los Angeles, California, US
Ghost writer From Kevin Goldstein-Jackson Online bookseller Amazon is even stranger than Feedback’s report on very odd prices suggests (23 March). It lists books that never
existed, as both “new” and “used”. For example, Kevin GoldsteinJackson’s Sunday Times Personal Finance Guide To Buying And Selling Shares has seven “new” copies from £25.20. A “used” copy, available for £32.36, is listed on Amazon in the UK and US, while the Amazon Canada website has three new copies and one used. However, I know the book does not exist because I am Kevin Goldstein-Jackson. I was a Sunday Times columnist from 1995 to 2000 and was going to write it, but due to pressure of work I was unable to and returned the advance. It was never even written, let alone published. Poole, Dorset, UK
Web first From Robert Cailliau You reported the winners of the first Queen Elizabeth prize for engineering: Robert Kahn, Vinton Cerf and Louis Pouzin for developing key tools to transmit data on the internet, Tim BernersLee for creating the web itself, and Marc Andreessen for the first browser, NCSA Mosaic (23 March, p 5). However, the first browser was WWW, which I worked on with Berners-Lee at CERN. Prévessin-Moëns, France
Natural defences From Thomas Wilkins Leading medical authorities describe the prospect of existing antibiotics ceasing to be effective
as an “apocalyptic” threat (16 March, p 6). I disagree. Humans have survived perfectly well for thousands of years while exposed to many infections, with nothing to protect them other than their immune systems. St Albans, Hertfordshire, UK
Computer virus From Pete Eichhorn Norovirus is described as very contagious: as few as 18 virus particles can infect a person
Mitochondrial plea From Sarah Norcross, director of Progress Educational Trust As a charity dedicated to informing the debate on assisted conception and genetics, we welcome the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority’s recommendation, after gauging public opinion, that the UK government should consider permitting mitochondrial replacement (23 March, p 6). These are new IVF techniques that can avoid mitochondrial diseases being inherited. UK politicians can now lead the way in showing how policy and regulation can keep pace with the science, so that people can benefit without delay. The techniques were given the green light from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics last year, and have now won general public approval, so we urge the government not to create unnecessary roadblocks, and to pass appropriate legislation so that families blighted by mitochondrial disease can be helped. London, UK
Wrong butterfly From Wendy Strahm It is the monarch butterflies of eastern North America, all the way up to Canada, that overwinter in Mexico, not those from California as you reported (23 March, p 5). The population west of the Rocky Mountains has its own shorter, altitudinal migration. Burtigny, Switzerland
(23 March, p 42). Meanwhile, Feedback in the same edition refers to the use of touchscreens in GP surgeries. Need I say more? Nantwich, Cheshire, UK
Just an illusion From Ed Subitzky Could someone please explain the difference between the illusion of a self and a self (23 February, p 34)? Or the difference between an illusion of consciousness and consciousness? New York, US
For the record n Inside out! The Planck telescope’s map of the cosmic microwave background favours the slow-roll model of inflation in the early universe (30 March, p 8). We should have said this is akin to a ball rolling down the outside of an inverted bowl. 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.
13 April 2013 | NewScientist | 29
formally expressed is an invention, since there are many ways in which such things can be expressed. Hence a particular software implementation of an algorithm is patentable. West Perth, Western Australia
Killer coal From Robin Tucker In your editorial on the legacy of the Fukushima disaster, you say “relatively few people will suffer serious health effects” as a result (9 March, p 3). Unfortunately, this is not true, but the damage will be done by political rather than radioactive fallout. If Japan replaces its 53 reactors with a mix of coal and gaspowered plants, research suggests there will be about 20 extra deaths a year, mostly coal miners. Germany and other countries moving away from nuclear will add to this toll. Steventon, Oxfordshire, UK
Earlier spin From Roger Carlson It was interesting to read of recent US research on the use of rising vortexes of warm air to generate electricity (9 March, p 23). Earlier work in Canada by Louis Michaud produced similar results in the Atmospheric Vortex Engine, which has advanced to the prototype stage. Besides exploiting solar warming, Michaud’s engine has been proposed as a way to generate extra electricity using the warm air rising from power station cooling towers. Los Angeles, California, US
Ghost writer From Kevin Goldstein-Jackson Online bookseller Amazon is even stranger than Feedback’s report on very odd prices suggests (23 March). It lists books that never
existed, as both “new” and “used”. For example, Kevin GoldsteinJackson’s Sunday Times Personal Finance Guide To Buying And Selling Shares has seven “new” copies from £25.20. A “used” copy, available for £32.36, is listed on Amazon in the UK and US, while the Amazon Canada website has three new copies and one used. However, I know the book does not exist because I am Kevin Goldstein-Jackson. I was a Sunday Times columnist from 1995 to 2000 and was going to write it, but due to pressure of work I was unable to and returned the advance. It was never even written, let alone published. Poole, Dorset, UK
Web first From Robert Cailliau You reported the winners of the first Queen Elizabeth prize for engineering: Robert Kahn, Vinton Cerf and Louis Pouzin for developing key tools to transmit data on the internet, Tim BernersLee for creating the web itself, and Marc Andreessen for the first browser, NCSA Mosaic (23 March, p 5). However, the first browser was WWW, which I worked on with Berners-Lee at CERN. Prévessin-Moëns, France
Natural defences From Thomas Wilkins Leading medical authorities describe the prospect of existing antibiotics ceasing to be effective
as an “apocalyptic” threat (16 March, p 6). I disagree. Humans have survived perfectly well for thousands of years while exposed to many infections, with nothing to protect them other than their immune systems. St Albans, Hertfordshire, UK
Computer virus From Pete Eichhorn Norovirus is described as very contagious: as few as 18 virus particles can infect a person
Mitochondrial plea From Sarah Norcross, director of Progress Educational Trust As a charity dedicated to informing the debate on assisted conception and genetics, we welcome the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority’s recommendation, after gauging public opinion, that the UK government should consider permitting mitochondrial replacement (23 March, p 6). These are new IVF techniques that can avoid mitochondrial diseases being inherited. UK politicians can now lead the way in showing how policy and regulation can keep pace with the science, so that people can benefit without delay. The techniques were given the green light from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics last year, and have now won general public approval, so we urge the government not to create unnecessary roadblocks, and to pass appropriate legislation so that families blighted by mitochondrial disease can be helped. London, UK
Wrong butterfly From Wendy Strahm It is the monarch butterflies of eastern North America, all the way up to Canada, that overwinter in Mexico, not those from California as you reported (23 March, p 5). The population west of the Rocky Mountains has its own shorter, altitudinal migration. Burtigny, Switzerland
(23 March, p 42). Meanwhile, Feedback in the same edition refers to the use of touchscreens in GP surgeries. Need I say more? Nantwich, Cheshire, UK
Just an illusion From Ed Subitzky Could someone please explain the difference between the illusion of a self and a self (23 February, p 34)? Or the difference between an illusion of consciousness and consciousness? New York, US
For the record n Inside out! The Planck telescope’s map of the cosmic microwave background favours the slow-roll model of inflation in the early universe (30 March, p 8). We should have said this is akin to a ball rolling down the outside of an inverted bowl. 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.
13 April 2013 | NewScientist | 29