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considerable periods of time, possibly all the time. This would have a substantial impact on the greenhouse effect. While my computer consumes only 150 watts, about half what my TV uses, leaving it on for extended periods would consume more power over the whole day than watching the programme on television, which is switched on only for the duration of the show. Likewise, streaming digital radio to a computer consumes vastly more power than hearing the programme on a home stereo FM tuner – mine uses only 5 watts. Much of the progressive increase in demand for electricity in most western countries is due to proliferating electronic gadgetry. Faced with disastrous climate change, we cannot afford such luxuries. Indooroopilly, Queensland, Australia
Strategic offence From Mel Tisdale Your editorial on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, also known as Star Wars) lacked understanding of the role originally intended for it (22 March, p 5). Considering the much greater explosive yields of modern thermonuclear weapons compared with those of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic devices, plus the fact they are designed to explode at ground level and the accuracy of current missiles, it is clear these weapons are meant to destroy hardened targets: command, control, communication and intelligence (C3I) centres. It is thus clear that the role of modern nuclear weapons is to deliver a pre-emptive strike, whose primary purpose is to destroy the ability of the other side to mount any retaliation. No such strike could hope to be 100 per cent successful, so some form of protection from the odd missile fired in response is desirable. It is here that SDI comes into its own. www.newscientist.com
It is highly unlikely that Russia ceased developing the accuracy of its ballistic missiles. This should give pause when one considers the fact that relations are beginning to cool between the east and west. It is difficult to imagine any new cold war lasting very long. You recently reported difficulties in upgrading the W76 warhead fitted to Trident missiles(8 March, p 15). This could be an opportunity to step back from pre-emptive strike capability. If warheads were limited by treaty to atomic devices only, which have a maximum yield of about 20 kilotonnes, rather than thermonuclear devices, which have yields orders of magnitude higher, they would only be capable of destroying soft and semi-hardened targets and thus leave the C3I centres intact. Isleworth, Middlesex, UK
room of the British Museum, to see how posterity has judged his work. Soames finds himself dismissed in phonetic English as a fictional “thurd-rait poit hoo beleevz imself a grate jeneus” and Beerbohm’s story is decribed as “a sumwot labud sattire”. I imagine many modern-day teachers of English will find this prophetic. Biddenden, Kent, UK
Lacquer jitter
Unhappy anniversary
Grammar underlined From Martin Pitt We may not have the Académie Française (29 March, p 28), but English does have a central authority defining the language. It is the Microsoft spelling and grammar checker. In practice, people take its spellings instead of the dictionary (sometimes accepting completely the wrong word) and many meekly accept its recommended changes of grammar and style. Now that tools such as email are marking up what they deem incorrect, it may be computers not people that create future English. Leeds, UK From Martin Saville Michael Erard mentions a number of writers who imagined how the English of the future might develop. One of the earliest to do so must have been Max Beerbohm in his 1912 pastiche Enoch Soames, in which the eponymous poet hero sells his soul to the devil in exchange for being transported forward 100 years to the reading
(22 March, p 32). However, this presumes we know what we look like. Evolutionarily speaking this has only recently been possible with the advent of quality mirrors and latterly photographs and video: without these aids individuals would have only a vague impression of their appearance. It may be that knowing what we actually look like has distorted our behaviour. For example, we seek mates who smell different and this increases genetic diversity (23 July 2005, p 12). Should we not similarly be attracted to people who look different to ourselves? Perhaps this been subverted by seeing ourselves in the mirror. Maidenhead, Berkshire, UK
From Alastair Gentleman I was interested to see that a mystery which has been with us since the early 1960s has finally been solved, with the discovery of Microbacterium hatanonis in hairspray (15 March, p 7). Forty or so years ago, when “beehive” hairstyles were literally the height of fashion, a creature known to thousands of teenagers as the “lacquer bug” could be guaranteed to chew its way through the fashionable pile of hair and the lacquer required to hold it in place. It was also widely believed that this same creature was responsible for the stinging eye syndrome experienced by men after a night spent at a dance with the side of their faces pressed against their partner’s head. Linlithgow, West Lothian, UK
Mirror, mirror… From Robert-Andrew Horton Being egocentric, we are attracted to people who look like ourselves
From F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre I am certain that Jules Verne would have been pleased to learn he is the namesake of a spaceship (22 March, p 24), but I am not sure he would have been pleased by the timing of its launch. On 9 March 1886, Verne was shot in the left leg by his beloved nephew Gaston. He was permanently crippled, and Gaston Verne was declared incurably insane. In the 19 years until his death, Jules Verne always regarded 9 March as a tragic anniversary. Glasgow, UK
For the record G David Lambert is at the Allan Wilson Centre at Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand, not the University of Auckland as we said (29 March, p 17).
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.
12 April 2008 | NewScientist | 19
considerable periods of time, possibly all the time. This would have a substantial impact on the greenhouse effect. While my computer consumes only 150 watts, about half what my TV uses, leaving it on for extended periods would consume more power over the whole day than watching the programme on television, which is switched on only for the duration of the show. Likewise, streaming digital radio to a computer consumes vastly more power than hearing the programme on a home stereo FM tuner – mine uses only 5 watts. Much of the progressive increase in demand for electricity in most western countries is due to proliferating electronic gadgetry. Faced with disastrous climate change, we cannot afford such luxuries. Indooroopilly, Queensland, Australia
Strategic offence From Mel Tisdale Your editorial on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, also known as Star Wars) lacked understanding of the role originally intended for it (22 March, p 5). Considering the much greater explosive yields of modern thermonuclear weapons compared with those of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic devices, plus the fact they are designed to explode at ground level and the accuracy of current missiles, it is clear these weapons are meant to destroy hardened targets: command, control, communication and intelligence (C3I) centres. It is thus clear that the role of modern nuclear weapons is to deliver a pre-emptive strike, whose primary purpose is to destroy the ability of the other side to mount any retaliation. No such strike could hope to be 100 per cent successful, so some form of protection from the odd missile fired in response is desirable. It is here that SDI comes into its own. www.newscientist.com
It is highly unlikely that Russia ceased developing the accuracy of its ballistic missiles. This should give pause when one considers the fact that relations are beginning to cool between the east and west. It is difficult to imagine any new cold war lasting very long. You recently reported difficulties in upgrading the W76 warhead fitted to Trident missiles(8 March, p 15). This could be an opportunity to step back from pre-emptive strike capability. If warheads were limited by treaty to atomic devices only, which have a maximum yield of about 20 kilotonnes, rather than thermonuclear devices, which have yields orders of magnitude higher, they would only be capable of destroying soft and semi-hardened targets and thus leave the C3I centres intact. Isleworth, Middlesex, UK
room of the British Museum, to see how posterity has judged his work. Soames finds himself dismissed in phonetic English as a fictional “thurd-rait poit hoo beleevz imself a grate jeneus” and Beerbohm’s story is decribed as “a sumwot labud sattire”. I imagine many modern-day teachers of English will find this prophetic. Biddenden, Kent, UK
Lacquer jitter
Unhappy anniversary
Grammar underlined From Martin Pitt We may not have the Académie Française (29 March, p 28), but English does have a central authority defining the language. It is the Microsoft spelling and grammar checker. In practice, people take its spellings instead of the dictionary (sometimes accepting completely the wrong word) and many meekly accept its recommended changes of grammar and style. Now that tools such as email are marking up what they deem incorrect, it may be computers not people that create future English. Leeds, UK From Martin Saville Michael Erard mentions a number of writers who imagined how the English of the future might develop. One of the earliest to do so must have been Max Beerbohm in his 1912 pastiche Enoch Soames, in which the eponymous poet hero sells his soul to the devil in exchange for being transported forward 100 years to the reading
(22 March, p 32). However, this presumes we know what we look like. Evolutionarily speaking this has only recently been possible with the advent of quality mirrors and latterly photographs and video: without these aids individuals would have only a vague impression of their appearance. It may be that knowing what we actually look like has distorted our behaviour. For example, we seek mates who smell different and this increases genetic diversity (23 July 2005, p 12). Should we not similarly be attracted to people who look different to ourselves? Perhaps this been subverted by seeing ourselves in the mirror. Maidenhead, Berkshire, UK
From Alastair Gentleman I was interested to see that a mystery which has been with us since the early 1960s has finally been solved, with the discovery of Microbacterium hatanonis in hairspray (15 March, p 7). Forty or so years ago, when “beehive” hairstyles were literally the height of fashion, a creature known to thousands of teenagers as the “lacquer bug” could be guaranteed to chew its way through the fashionable pile of hair and the lacquer required to hold it in place. It was also widely believed that this same creature was responsible for the stinging eye syndrome experienced by men after a night spent at a dance with the side of their faces pressed against their partner’s head. Linlithgow, West Lothian, UK
Mirror, mirror… From Robert-Andrew Horton Being egocentric, we are attracted to people who look like ourselves
From F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre I am certain that Jules Verne would have been pleased to learn he is the namesake of a spaceship (22 March, p 24), but I am not sure he would have been pleased by the timing of its launch. On 9 March 1886, Verne was shot in the left leg by his beloved nephew Gaston. He was permanently crippled, and Gaston Verne was declared incurably insane. In the 19 years until his death, Jules Verne always regarded 9 March as a tragic anniversary. Glasgow, UK
For the record G David Lambert is at the Allan Wilson Centre at Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand, not the University of Auckland as we said (29 March, p 17).
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.
12 April 2008 | NewScientist | 19