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for patients and their families. As an independent group adding an informed patient perspective to cancer research in the UK – including work with key tissue banks – we see an urgent need to raise awareness of the value of human tissue, blood and other health data in such research. Often, we find great interest and enthusiasm to donate, and anger that tissue has been or is stuck in tissue banks due to complex regulatory and pseudoethical hurdles. The main reaction from patients or their next of kin is to wonder why they weren’t ever asked for consent to use such tissue in research. This is mainly down to doctors “protecting patients” or their families at times of stress. We’ll carry on working with doctors to reduce unnecessary barriers. London, UK
Spy story From Larry Constantine Anti-terrorism vigilance as a result of misinterpretation extends beyond journalists with invoices for articles about chemical weapons in Syria (Feedback, 15 June). I am an academic, but also a novelist under my pen name, Lior Samson. After my techno-thriller Web Games was published in 2010, for many months I could not fly from or within the US without
I had based the novel on software that I designed in 2003, which bore similarities to the computer worm Stuxnet. After the Stuxnet exposé in 2010, I regularly corresponded with industrial security experts, one of whom in Germany assured me that our exchanges were monitored by intelligence services. Eventually, they seem to have realised it was fiction, as I can now get through airport security without being pulled aside. Rowley, Massachusetts, US
Calcium deposits From Andy Taylor I agree with Robert Gaines and Shanan Peters that if calcium and silica became more bio-available as unusually large amounts of rock were eroded, it could have prompted the Cambrian explosion in complex life forms (15 June, p 30). Levels of calcium minerals would have been so high that organisms had to find ways of removing them from their biochemical systems. Useful deposits such as spines, bones or shells would surely give an advantage. A similar argument can probably be made for silica. Additionally, could the carbon dioxide levels required to thaw out “snowball Earth” have been high enough to cause the melting that would be required for such rapid erosion? Bristol, UK
It takes two
getting “SSSS” printed on my boarding pass, an indication that I had been singled out for extra checks, including pat downs.
From Trevor Magnusson We don’t need the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory (newscientist.com/article/ dn9930). Its prediction that a single universe splits into two when a quantum measurement is made is indistinguishable from a pair of universes that evolve identically up to that point, and then diverge. If the cosmos is truly
infinite, that second explanation seems more natural. Therefore, the result of a quantum measurement does not tell you which universe you have “split off into”, but rather which one you have been in all along. Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Read my lips From James Fenton You discuss the need to create a new language of gestures to interact with computers (25 May, p 40), but if movement-sensing
accelerating. On the other hand, “anomalous acceleration” just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Epping, New South Wales, Australia
Who said that? From Ian Hill The views of Lady Randolph Churchill are quoted in The Last Word on the subject of nations that boast most Nobel prizewinners (29 June): “We owe something to extravagance, for thrift and adventure seldom go hand in hand.” How does this compare with “necessity is the mother of invention”? Cambridge, UK
Sequence of time
cameras are now sensitive to 1 millimetre, would it not be easiest to use lip-reading? Stanley, Falkland Islands
At the third bleep… From Geoff Thomas The Feedback article on the zero per cent power-setting on a microwave oven chimed with me (18 May). My manual specifically refers to this as a way of using the oven as a kitchen timer. Merthyr Tydfil, Mid Glamorgan, UK
Dark words From Ray Norris Letter writer Stephen Rowe is right to be confused about the use of the phrase dark energy (15 June, p 33). It is not a very good name to explain the observation that the expansion of the universe is
From Sebastian Hayes It is silly of (some) physicists to claim “there is no time” (15 June, p 34). Physicists, like the rest of us, experience life sequentially: they are born, grow up, die, read this line before the next. If mathematical physics does not recognise sequence, well, so much the worse for mathematical physics. As for mathematical physicists, they can stew in their own mathematical juice. Shaftesbury, Dorset, UK
For the record n We veered slightly off course in our look at citizen cartography (6 July, p 20). Kenya’s Map Kibera was a project of the GroundTruth Initiative, not the Humanitarian OSM Team. 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.
20 July 2013 | NewScientist | 29
for patients and their families. As an independent group adding an informed patient perspective to cancer research in the UK – including work with key tissue banks – we see an urgent need to raise awareness of the value of human tissue, blood and other health data in such research. Often, we find great interest and enthusiasm to donate, and anger that tissue has been or is stuck in tissue banks due to complex regulatory and pseudoethical hurdles. The main reaction from patients or their next of kin is to wonder why they weren’t ever asked for consent to use such tissue in research. This is mainly down to doctors “protecting patients” or their families at times of stress. We’ll carry on working with doctors to reduce unnecessary barriers. London, UK
Spy story From Larry Constantine Anti-terrorism vigilance as a result of misinterpretation extends beyond journalists with invoices for articles about chemical weapons in Syria (Feedback, 15 June). I am an academic, but also a novelist under my pen name, Lior Samson. After my techno-thriller Web Games was published in 2010, for many months I could not fly from or within the US without
I had based the novel on software that I designed in 2003, which bore similarities to the computer worm Stuxnet. After the Stuxnet exposé in 2010, I regularly corresponded with industrial security experts, one of whom in Germany assured me that our exchanges were monitored by intelligence services. Eventually, they seem to have realised it was fiction, as I can now get through airport security without being pulled aside. Rowley, Massachusetts, US
Calcium deposits From Andy Taylor I agree with Robert Gaines and Shanan Peters that if calcium and silica became more bio-available as unusually large amounts of rock were eroded, it could have prompted the Cambrian explosion in complex life forms (15 June, p 30). Levels of calcium minerals would have been so high that organisms had to find ways of removing them from their biochemical systems. Useful deposits such as spines, bones or shells would surely give an advantage. A similar argument can probably be made for silica. Additionally, could the carbon dioxide levels required to thaw out “snowball Earth” have been high enough to cause the melting that would be required for such rapid erosion? Bristol, UK
It takes two
getting “SSSS” printed on my boarding pass, an indication that I had been singled out for extra checks, including pat downs.
From Trevor Magnusson We don’t need the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory (newscientist.com/article/ dn9930). Its prediction that a single universe splits into two when a quantum measurement is made is indistinguishable from a pair of universes that evolve identically up to that point, and then diverge. If the cosmos is truly
infinite, that second explanation seems more natural. Therefore, the result of a quantum measurement does not tell you which universe you have “split off into”, but rather which one you have been in all along. Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Read my lips From James Fenton You discuss the need to create a new language of gestures to interact with computers (25 May, p 40), but if movement-sensing
accelerating. On the other hand, “anomalous acceleration” just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Epping, New South Wales, Australia
Who said that? From Ian Hill The views of Lady Randolph Churchill are quoted in The Last Word on the subject of nations that boast most Nobel prizewinners (29 June): “We owe something to extravagance, for thrift and adventure seldom go hand in hand.” How does this compare with “necessity is the mother of invention”? Cambridge, UK
Sequence of time
cameras are now sensitive to 1 millimetre, would it not be easiest to use lip-reading? Stanley, Falkland Islands
At the third bleep… From Geoff Thomas The Feedback article on the zero per cent power-setting on a microwave oven chimed with me (18 May). My manual specifically refers to this as a way of using the oven as a kitchen timer. Merthyr Tydfil, Mid Glamorgan, UK
Dark words From Ray Norris Letter writer Stephen Rowe is right to be confused about the use of the phrase dark energy (15 June, p 33). It is not a very good name to explain the observation that the expansion of the universe is
From Sebastian Hayes It is silly of (some) physicists to claim “there is no time” (15 June, p 34). Physicists, like the rest of us, experience life sequentially: they are born, grow up, die, read this line before the next. If mathematical physics does not recognise sequence, well, so much the worse for mathematical physics. As for mathematical physicists, they can stew in their own mathematical juice. Shaftesbury, Dorset, UK
For the record n We veered slightly off course in our look at citizen cartography (6 July, p 20). Kenya’s Map Kibera was a project of the GroundTruth Initiative, not the Humanitarian OSM Team. 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.
20 July 2013 | NewScientist | 29