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Wolf diet
To join the debate, visit newscientist.com/letters
Underground nukes From Bry Lynas Fred Pearce brings home the sheer complexity of decommissioning nuclear reactors (10 March, p 46). With 138 shut down and many more to come, it is quite a legacy. Yet there is a solution for future generations of nuclear plants: build all reactors and their primary cooling circuits underground. Decommissioning would then involve little more than sealing the entrance and walking away. The nonradioactive surface plant could be removed like any other obsolete building or industrial structure. If decommissioning costs were truly factored in to the lifetime cost of a plant, the higher initial outlay would be fully justified. Pearce talks of costs of half a billion dollars to decommission one reactor, and a decommissioning by-product of half a million tonnes of radioactive waste from a German plant. Llangybi, Gwynedd, UK
Seeds of doom From Rex Newsome You report that visitors to the Antarctic carry, on average, 10 plant seeds (10 March, p 5). Do all tourists do the same to wilderness areas around the world? Ultimately, what damage could such seeds do to, say, the Australian outback? Should all tourists’ luggage and clothes be fumigated before they are allowed into a country? Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
The beauty of books From Pete Sohi I make my living from the digital industry, but nothing angers me more than the berating of paper as an outmoded medium. David Weinberger lent voice to the fundamentally flawed arguments of digital evangelists
everywhere (11 February, p 30). Among the things he overlooks is the “serenity principle”: when one is immersed in a book it holds the attention. The sheer number of wanton links peppered through digital texts make a glittering trove of diversions. He says that printed books are disconnected from the discussions that appropriate them into the culture – and that correct them. But books do acknowledge other works and authors, use citations and have references. He regrets the “limits to what can be published”. Indeed, the
150 wolves and published the monograph The Wolves of Algonquin Park: A 12 year ecological study (University of Waterloo, Ontario, 2004). Analysis of wolf droppings showed that adult moose constituted 58 per cent of diet biomass in summer and 77 per cent in winter. Predation rather than scavenging was documented for 42 per cent of moose carcasses. Between 1958 and 1964, moose constituted only 9 per cent of wolf diets: white-tailed deer made up almost all the rest. Then the deer population fell to one-sixth of their former numbers and moose numbers increased threefold. The subsequent reversal in wolf diets simply tracked this change in prey. Wolves are adaptable. Nevertheless, we don’t deny Levy’s central premise that exploited populations can lose adaptive traits if wolf social units are repeatedly broken. Oliver, British Columbia, Canada
I, rapper robot current utopia of digital publishing means that practically anyone can publish. But many shouldn’t. A heaving microbial mass of mediocrity risks works of legitimate quality being lost. Oxford, UK
Wolf diet From John and Mary Theberge Sharon Levy wrote that before 2001, wolves in Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada, “would seldom take down a moose”, using this statement to support her central premise that before 2001, young wolves in exploited populations lacked learning opportunities for packs to be efficient predators (12 June 2010, p 40). The switch to moose actually occurred during years of heavy exploitation before 2001. From 1988 to 2000, we radio-collared
From Clarissa Daisy Huntsman I recently wrote to argue that a robot is capable of creativity (4 February, p 31). So it is possible that cognitive dissonance is deterring me from criticising the YossarianLives “metaphorical search engine” (25 February, p 24). But I want to get annoyed. I want to say that no search engine for metaphors could ever link ideas or concepts together like a creative human mind can; perhaps because my passion is writing and creating metaphors, and I feel I do it quite well. But can these unknown rules, which my mind may be adhering to, be programmed into software? I would have to say “yes”, but also to agree with Jacob Aron that the human is doing most of the work here through interpretation of the search engine’s results. Really, all the software needs to do is generate a random word for every one you type in:
then you make the metaphorical connection yourself. However, I think it is fair to say that when it comes to the creation of vivid metaphors, rappers reign supreme. Let’s see this software create an intricate and brilliant verse or two of rap lyrics. Then I will truly be impressed. Will MCs one day be having rap battles with computers? I sort of hope not, and I realise that, sadly, this makes me a bit of a hypocrite. Salt Lake City, Utah, US
Polar p-p-p-pick up From Carl Zetie Neil Padley suggests relocating polar bears to Antarctica, and wonders how many penguins a bear could eat (18 February, p 33). The answer, as any British child knows, is none. Their paws are too clumsy to get the wrappers off. Waterford, Virginia, US The editor writes: n For non-UK readers, a Penguin is a chocolate-coated biscuit bar.
For the record n We should have said there is no chance of electrocution by the “Splash Controller” because “just 5 volts drive current through the water” (10 March, p 26). Volts do not “pass through” a conductor, as we said. n Stefan Rahmstorf was aware that in Bermuda 400,000 years ago there was a high local sea level estimate, but he did not think it could be representative of global sea level at the time, as we incorrectly stated in our story (17 March, p 8).
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.
31 March 2012 | NewScientist | 31
Underground nukes From Bry Lynas Fred Pearce brings home the sheer complexity of decommissioning nuclear reactors (10 March, p 46). With 138 shut down and many more to come, it is quite a legacy. Yet there is a solution for future generations of nuclear plants: build all reactors and their primary cooling circuits underground. Decommissioning would then involve little more than sealing the entrance and walking away. The nonradioactive surface plant could be removed like any other obsolete building or industrial structure. If decommissioning costs were truly factored in to the lifetime cost of a plant, the higher initial outlay would be fully justified. Pearce talks of costs of half a billion dollars to decommission one reactor, and a decommissioning by-product of half a million tonnes of radioactive waste from a German plant. Llangybi, Gwynedd, UK
Seeds of doom From Rex Newsome You report that visitors to the Antarctic carry, on average, 10 plant seeds (10 March, p 5). Do all tourists do the same to wilderness areas around the world? Ultimately, what damage could such seeds do to, say, the Australian outback? Should all tourists’ luggage and clothes be fumigated before they are allowed into a country? Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
The beauty of books From Pete Sohi I make my living from the digital industry, but nothing angers me more than the berating of paper as an outmoded medium. David Weinberger lent voice to the fundamentally flawed arguments of digital evangelists
everywhere (11 February, p 30). Among the things he overlooks is the “serenity principle”: when one is immersed in a book it holds the attention. The sheer number of wanton links peppered through digital texts make a glittering trove of diversions. He says that printed books are disconnected from the discussions that appropriate them into the culture – and that correct them. But books do acknowledge other works and authors, use citations and have references. He regrets the “limits to what can be published”. Indeed, the
150 wolves and published the monograph The Wolves of Algonquin Park: A 12 year ecological study (University of Waterloo, Ontario, 2004). Analysis of wolf droppings showed that adult moose constituted 58 per cent of diet biomass in summer and 77 per cent in winter. Predation rather than scavenging was documented for 42 per cent of moose carcasses. Between 1958 and 1964, moose constituted only 9 per cent of wolf diets: white-tailed deer made up almost all the rest. Then the deer population fell to one-sixth of their former numbers and moose numbers increased threefold. The subsequent reversal in wolf diets simply tracked this change in prey. Wolves are adaptable. Nevertheless, we don’t deny Levy’s central premise that exploited populations can lose adaptive traits if wolf social units are repeatedly broken. Oliver, British Columbia, Canada
I, rapper robot current utopia of digital publishing means that practically anyone can publish. But many shouldn’t. A heaving microbial mass of mediocrity risks works of legitimate quality being lost. Oxford, UK
Wolf diet From John and Mary Theberge Sharon Levy wrote that before 2001, wolves in Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada, “would seldom take down a moose”, using this statement to support her central premise that before 2001, young wolves in exploited populations lacked learning opportunities for packs to be efficient predators (12 June 2010, p 40). The switch to moose actually occurred during years of heavy exploitation before 2001. From 1988 to 2000, we radio-collared
From Clarissa Daisy Huntsman I recently wrote to argue that a robot is capable of creativity (4 February, p 31). So it is possible that cognitive dissonance is deterring me from criticising the YossarianLives “metaphorical search engine” (25 February, p 24). But I want to get annoyed. I want to say that no search engine for metaphors could ever link ideas or concepts together like a creative human mind can; perhaps because my passion is writing and creating metaphors, and I feel I do it quite well. But can these unknown rules, which my mind may be adhering to, be programmed into software? I would have to say “yes”, but also to agree with Jacob Aron that the human is doing most of the work here through interpretation of the search engine’s results. Really, all the software needs to do is generate a random word for every one you type in:
then you make the metaphorical connection yourself. However, I think it is fair to say that when it comes to the creation of vivid metaphors, rappers reign supreme. Let’s see this software create an intricate and brilliant verse or two of rap lyrics. Then I will truly be impressed. Will MCs one day be having rap battles with computers? I sort of hope not, and I realise that, sadly, this makes me a bit of a hypocrite. Salt Lake City, Utah, US
Polar p-p-p-pick up From Carl Zetie Neil Padley suggests relocating polar bears to Antarctica, and wonders how many penguins a bear could eat (18 February, p 33). The answer, as any British child knows, is none. Their paws are too clumsy to get the wrappers off. Waterford, Virginia, US The editor writes: n For non-UK readers, a Penguin is a chocolate-coated biscuit bar.
For the record n We should have said there is no chance of electrocution by the “Splash Controller” because “just 5 volts drive current through the water” (10 March, p 26). Volts do not “pass through” a conductor, as we said. n Stefan Rahmstorf was aware that in Bermuda 400,000 years ago there was a high local sea level estimate, but he did not think it could be representative of global sea level at the time, as we incorrectly stated in our story (17 March, p 8).
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.
31 March 2012 | NewScientist | 31