- Email: [email protected]
Nuclear flaws
OPINION LETTERS Two become one From Mary Midgley Your special issue on the self repeats the errors of earlier thinking (23 February, p 32). The contributors give us a string of straw men – views such as “we regard ourselves as unchanging” (p 34). They say these are central to our idea of ourselves, but actually they are just a continuation of parts of the argument by 17th-century philosopher René Descartes for a separate, substantial soul. Finding it easy to class these views as illusions, the writers then provide a source for them. They imply, by using words like “tricked” and “elaborate”, that some conjuror – probably “the mind” or “the brain” – has played the part of Descartes’s deity-like Great Deceiver. Such drama would only make sense inside Descartes’s dualist world of separate mind and body, a place that we no longer need to visit. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Life support From Geoff Fisher, consultant in anaesthesia and intensive care Resuscitation specialist Sam
Parnia asserts that extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) support for cardiac arrest patients is not routine in the US and UK because of a lack of regulation (9 March, p 32). In my view, ECMO has been tried in these countries for several years, but not widely adopted because it offers little extra benefit to conventional CPR, given its considerable extra expense. Kinver, Staffordshire, UK
Friends for dinner? From Graham Compton I liked Brian Hare’s alternative theory on the origins of domestic dogs, in which “friendly” wolves that thrived on food scraps interbred, reinforcing their human-tolerant traits (2 March, p 30). I don’t suppose I will be alone in observing that we have, with the urban fox, another possible example of that process. However, the fox also highlights a problem: they apparently sometimes become confused about whether humans give food or are food, if their reported attacks on children can be generalised (23 February, p 26). I’m guessing that if a putative domesticated wolf became
Enigma Number 1741
Four squares IAN KAY I have before me five two-digit numbers, with no leading zeros. All the digits are different and none of the numbers is prime. The sum of the five numbers is a perfect square. If I remove one of the
numbers, the sum of the remaining four is also a perfect square. If I remove another number, the sum of the remaining three is again a perfect square, and if I remove a third number, the sum of the last two is again a perfect square. What are my five numbers?
WIN £15 will be awarded to the sender of the first correct answer opened on Wednesday 17 April. The Editor’s decision is final. Please send entries to Enigma 1741, New Scientist, Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS, or to [email protected] (please include your postal address). Answer to 1735 A pile of coloured cubes: 24 cubes are in the leftover pile The winner Bernard Ambrose of Little Melton, Norfolk, UK
30 | NewScientist | 23 March 2013
bolsters the argument that life, which emerged around 3.8 billion years ago, evolved around hydrothermal vents. These may have been more prevalent then. Hythe, Kent, UK
Nuclear flaws
similarly confused it would jeopardise the whole adventure, particularly as it is unlikely to have been content with a nibble. Most likely the whole pack would be dispatched. Ashbourne, Derbyshire, UK
Ariane inspiration From Graeme Fryer I wonder if a US-centric approach to the choice of rocket for the Inspiration Mars project represents an unnecessary delay to what otherwise looks a fantastic plan for a crewed fly-by of the Red Planet in 2018 (9 March, p 6). Requiring an estimated 10,000 kilogram payload delivery system, Inspiration Mars opts for an untested SpaceX rocket or, failing that, hopes NASA will step into the breach by 2017. But Europe’s established Ariane 5 ES rocket goes unmentioned. It is already used to send the Automated Transfer Vehicle to the International Space Station and can carry a 20,000 kilogram payload into low Earth orbit. Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland
Hot spots From Steve Field Stuart Clark’s article about the faint young sun paradox (16 February, p 44) said that liquid water was present on Earth more than 2.5 billion years ago, when the sun is thought to have been too cool for this. Perhaps this
From Stephen Ayrton There’s not enough space to go into all the valid arguments against nuclear energy, despite the lament in your editorial for the industry following the Fukushima disaster (9 March, p 3). But the three principal points of opposition are the unresolved issue of the disposal of nuclear waste, the secretive nature of the industry, and the fact that earmarking funds for it will weaken the will for energy conservation and the promotion of renewables. La Tour de Peilz, Switzerland
Anti-liberalism From Des Pickard Responses to the article by Alex Berezow and Hank Campbell on anti-science attitudes among progressives (2 February, p 24) ignore the view of many leftists who think liberalism is an elite world view fitted to the interests of the well-educated professional class to which scientists belong. Working-class people often lament the manner in which their competence and general worth to society is discounted by liberals who are bent on justifying not only their own authority within the economy, but also their disproportionate share of its rewards. So perhaps in the US the liberal tendency among scientists might not be a consequence of Republican anti-science bias, but rather its cause. A backlash against liberalism’s worst excesses could inspire a widespread and likely catastrophic dismissal of science. Chicago, Illinois, US
Life support From Geoff Fisher, consultant in anaesthesia and intensive care Resuscitation specialist Sam
Parnia asserts that extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) support for cardiac arrest patients is not routine in the US and UK because of a lack of regulation (9 March, p 32). In my view, ECMO has been tried in these countries for several years, but not widely adopted because it offers little extra benefit to conventional CPR, given its considerable extra expense. Kinver, Staffordshire, UK
Friends for dinner? From Graham Compton I liked Brian Hare’s alternative theory on the origins of domestic dogs, in which “friendly” wolves that thrived on food scraps interbred, reinforcing their human-tolerant traits (2 March, p 30). I don’t suppose I will be alone in observing that we have, with the urban fox, another possible example of that process. However, the fox also highlights a problem: they apparently sometimes become confused about whether humans give food or are food, if their reported attacks on children can be generalised (23 February, p 26). I’m guessing that if a putative domesticated wolf became
Enigma Number 1741
Four squares IAN KAY I have before me five two-digit numbers, with no leading zeros. All the digits are different and none of the numbers is prime. The sum of the five numbers is a perfect square. If I remove one of the
numbers, the sum of the remaining four is also a perfect square. If I remove another number, the sum of the remaining three is again a perfect square, and if I remove a third number, the sum of the last two is again a perfect square. What are my five numbers?
WIN £15 will be awarded to the sender of the first correct answer opened on Wednesday 17 April. The Editor’s decision is final. Please send entries to Enigma 1741, New Scientist, Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS, or to [email protected] (please include your postal address). Answer to 1735 A pile of coloured cubes: 24 cubes are in the leftover pile The winner Bernard Ambrose of Little Melton, Norfolk, UK
30 | NewScientist | 23 March 2013
bolsters the argument that life, which emerged around 3.8 billion years ago, evolved around hydrothermal vents. These may have been more prevalent then. Hythe, Kent, UK
Nuclear flaws
similarly confused it would jeopardise the whole adventure, particularly as it is unlikely to have been content with a nibble. Most likely the whole pack would be dispatched. Ashbourne, Derbyshire, UK
Ariane inspiration From Graeme Fryer I wonder if a US-centric approach to the choice of rocket for the Inspiration Mars project represents an unnecessary delay to what otherwise looks a fantastic plan for a crewed fly-by of the Red Planet in 2018 (9 March, p 6). Requiring an estimated 10,000 kilogram payload delivery system, Inspiration Mars opts for an untested SpaceX rocket or, failing that, hopes NASA will step into the breach by 2017. But Europe’s established Ariane 5 ES rocket goes unmentioned. It is already used to send the Automated Transfer Vehicle to the International Space Station and can carry a 20,000 kilogram payload into low Earth orbit. Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland
Hot spots From Steve Field Stuart Clark’s article about the faint young sun paradox (16 February, p 44) said that liquid water was present on Earth more than 2.5 billion years ago, when the sun is thought to have been too cool for this. Perhaps this
From Stephen Ayrton There’s not enough space to go into all the valid arguments against nuclear energy, despite the lament in your editorial for the industry following the Fukushima disaster (9 March, p 3). But the three principal points of opposition are the unresolved issue of the disposal of nuclear waste, the secretive nature of the industry, and the fact that earmarking funds for it will weaken the will for energy conservation and the promotion of renewables. La Tour de Peilz, Switzerland
Anti-liberalism From Des Pickard Responses to the article by Alex Berezow and Hank Campbell on anti-science attitudes among progressives (2 February, p 24) ignore the view of many leftists who think liberalism is an elite world view fitted to the interests of the well-educated professional class to which scientists belong. Working-class people often lament the manner in which their competence and general worth to society is discounted by liberals who are bent on justifying not only their own authority within the economy, but also their disproportionate share of its rewards. So perhaps in the US the liberal tendency among scientists might not be a consequence of Republican anti-science bias, but rather its cause. A backlash against liberalism’s worst excesses could inspire a widespread and likely catastrophic dismissal of science. Chicago, Illinois, US