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Twister logic
OPINION LETTERS Water conflict From Olivier Hamerlynck, Kenya wetlands biodiversity research team Fred Pearce rightly points out that what we call land-grabbing is often also water-grabbing, and calls for global estimates of the problem (2 March, p 28). Grabbing is not new, so calculations should look beyond the recent rush by investors for land and water in river basins, and should include historical data. For example, the recent killing of more than 150 people in clashes over resources in Kenya’s Tana Delta are linked to dam construction and failed large-scale irrigation schemes in the 1980s and 1990s. This reduced the flooded area in the delta. Instead of 100,000 users fishing, cultivating and grazing 200,000 hectares, there are now 200,000 users trying to do the same on 100,000 hectares. Water grabs are even more difficult to quantify because some investors hold off cultivating their land while they watch global markets to determine where the biggest profits can be made. So yes, we need to do the
calculations Pearce suggests, but include the past and the worstcase scenario, in which dormant plans are implemented. And we need to be aware of the suffering it has caused, still causes and will cause vulnerable people who are not to blame for climate change. Nairobi, Kenya
From Ben Haller, McGill University Sam Parnia talks about bringing people back after cardiac arrest – which he calls back from “death”, although he notes this is not the “social perception of death” as an irreversible state (9 March, p 32). That work is interesting and sounds medically valuable. Then Parnia turns his attention to near-death experiences. There is much evidence that conscious experience is based on physical processes in the brain, that out-of-body experiences are hallucinations that can be induced with simple tricks or electrical probes, that people having such experiences cannot see anything that is not observable from the vantage point of their body, and that near-death experiences are
Order, order! in alphabetical order. If I tripled the numbers, then the answers would be in reverse alphabetical order when written in words. If I then doubled those answers, the resulting numbers, when written in words, would be in alphabetical order once again. What is my list of numbers?
WIN £15 will be awarded to the sender of the first correct answer opened on Wednesday 1 May. The Editor’s decision is final. Please send entries to Enigma 1743, New Scientist, Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS, or to [email protected] (please include your postal address). Answer to 1737 Base jumping: The number on Basil’s new house is 647 The winner Peter Steinberg of Madison, Wisconsin, US
32 | NewScientist | 6 April 2013
Misery restored
Dead or alive?
Enigma Number 1743 SUSAN DENHAM I have written down a list of four positive whole numbers in increasing order. They are all less than 100, and no two of them have a common factor greater than 1. If I write the numbers in words, then each begins with a different letter of the alphabet and my list is also
the same effect. So any anti-cancer benefits of these are probably happening in this way, rather than by a direct antioxidant effect. Plymouth, Devon, UK
simply hallucinations and after-the-fact confabulations. Parnia says that such experiences cannot be hallucinations because “the brain doesn’t function after death”. Nobody claims it does. The brain functions immediately before and immediately after what he refers to as “death”, and during those periods it can and does hallucinate and confabulate. Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Antioxidant angst From Michael Moore, Plymouth Marine Laboratory James Watson argues that antioxidant supplements might promote rather than deter cancer. He points to the suspected role of the body’s own antioxidants in allowing drug-resistant cancers to thrive via their ability to suppress oxidants unleashed by chemoor radiotherapy. These oxidants usually trigger apoptosis – programmed cell death – in the cancer (16 March, p 28). However, there is another possible mechanism to consider. He mentions the use of the diabetes drug Metformin for drug-resistant cancers. This is a known inhibitor of a cellular process called the mTOR signalling system. Inhibition of this can cause resistant cancer cells to die by unleashing another form of cell death. Some of the antioxidants in fruits and vegetables are also inhibitors of mTOR and may have
From William Hughes-Games In your Instant Expert guide to photosynthesis (2 February) you discuss tweaking photosynthesis to improve crop yields. I have no doubt that with enough research we will succeed. However, to quote from Richard Dawkins’s book River Out Of Eden: “If there is ever a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored.” Waipara, New Zealand
Twister logic From Martin Greenwood Mark Simpson and Ari Glezer’s proposal to extract energy using turbines powered by natural vortexes created by warm surfaces (9 March, p 23) begs a question: could enough vortex turbines extract enough energy from the rising air in Tornado Alley in the US to tame or at least lessen the annual destruction? I can see one potential barrier. It would be impossible to build all the turbines needed (millions) in a single season. An inadequate number of turbines might risk attracting a natural tornado to a turbine, possibly wrecking it. Could the turbines even spawn tornadoes? If so, there would be accompanying lawsuits. This is America, after all. Stirling, Western Australia
Fluid situation From Richard Laming, British Soft Drinks Association The claim that 184,000 deaths a year can be associated with sugary
calculations Pearce suggests, but include the past and the worstcase scenario, in which dormant plans are implemented. And we need to be aware of the suffering it has caused, still causes and will cause vulnerable people who are not to blame for climate change. Nairobi, Kenya
From Ben Haller, McGill University Sam Parnia talks about bringing people back after cardiac arrest – which he calls back from “death”, although he notes this is not the “social perception of death” as an irreversible state (9 March, p 32). That work is interesting and sounds medically valuable. Then Parnia turns his attention to near-death experiences. There is much evidence that conscious experience is based on physical processes in the brain, that out-of-body experiences are hallucinations that can be induced with simple tricks or electrical probes, that people having such experiences cannot see anything that is not observable from the vantage point of their body, and that near-death experiences are
Order, order! in alphabetical order. If I tripled the numbers, then the answers would be in reverse alphabetical order when written in words. If I then doubled those answers, the resulting numbers, when written in words, would be in alphabetical order once again. What is my list of numbers?
WIN £15 will be awarded to the sender of the first correct answer opened on Wednesday 1 May. The Editor’s decision is final. Please send entries to Enigma 1743, New Scientist, Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS, or to [email protected] (please include your postal address). Answer to 1737 Base jumping: The number on Basil’s new house is 647 The winner Peter Steinberg of Madison, Wisconsin, US
32 | NewScientist | 6 April 2013
Misery restored
Dead or alive?
Enigma Number 1743 SUSAN DENHAM I have written down a list of four positive whole numbers in increasing order. They are all less than 100, and no two of them have a common factor greater than 1. If I write the numbers in words, then each begins with a different letter of the alphabet and my list is also
the same effect. So any anti-cancer benefits of these are probably happening in this way, rather than by a direct antioxidant effect. Plymouth, Devon, UK
simply hallucinations and after-the-fact confabulations. Parnia says that such experiences cannot be hallucinations because “the brain doesn’t function after death”. Nobody claims it does. The brain functions immediately before and immediately after what he refers to as “death”, and during those periods it can and does hallucinate and confabulate. Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Antioxidant angst From Michael Moore, Plymouth Marine Laboratory James Watson argues that antioxidant supplements might promote rather than deter cancer. He points to the suspected role of the body’s own antioxidants in allowing drug-resistant cancers to thrive via their ability to suppress oxidants unleashed by chemoor radiotherapy. These oxidants usually trigger apoptosis – programmed cell death – in the cancer (16 March, p 28). However, there is another possible mechanism to consider. He mentions the use of the diabetes drug Metformin for drug-resistant cancers. This is a known inhibitor of a cellular process called the mTOR signalling system. Inhibition of this can cause resistant cancer cells to die by unleashing another form of cell death. Some of the antioxidants in fruits and vegetables are also inhibitors of mTOR and may have
From William Hughes-Games In your Instant Expert guide to photosynthesis (2 February) you discuss tweaking photosynthesis to improve crop yields. I have no doubt that with enough research we will succeed. However, to quote from Richard Dawkins’s book River Out Of Eden: “If there is ever a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored.” Waipara, New Zealand
Twister logic From Martin Greenwood Mark Simpson and Ari Glezer’s proposal to extract energy using turbines powered by natural vortexes created by warm surfaces (9 March, p 23) begs a question: could enough vortex turbines extract enough energy from the rising air in Tornado Alley in the US to tame or at least lessen the annual destruction? I can see one potential barrier. It would be impossible to build all the turbines needed (millions) in a single season. An inadequate number of turbines might risk attracting a natural tornado to a turbine, possibly wrecking it. Could the turbines even spawn tornadoes? If so, there would be accompanying lawsuits. This is America, after all. Stirling, Western Australia
Fluid situation From Richard Laming, British Soft Drinks Association The claim that 184,000 deaths a year can be associated with sugary