Letters to the Editor

19354

It is quite sad that your otherwise-excellent publication systematically fails to report error bars in your reports. Time and again I read articles and am left wondering whether the effect reported is even statistically significant. As just one example, this article said that the rate of subsequent infection from breast milk dropped from 12 percent […]

19353

The decline in delinquency, violence, disobedience, and truancy seen in the Cherokee children is quite predictable, and I doubt it has much to do with increased parental supervision. The lack of money is a powerful factor in the lives of many parents, increasing spousal and child abuse. It is this variable (frequently getting hit) that […]

19352

This article makes no mention of the type of magnetic insoles used–multipolar phased array or bipolar–nor the strength. I suffer from peripheral neuropathy, and a set of multipolar-phased-array-type magnetic insoles has been the only effective treatment. James WhiteHillsboro, Ore. The researchers used insoles containing a magnet with a bipolar multiple circular array, with a surface […]

19351

Your article discusses the disease in Inuit men in arctic Alaska, Greenland, and Canada. Given the way temperature affects sperm production in the testicles, have the investigators considered any differences in hormone production between these men and populations in warmer climates? Not to say that diet isn’t the key factor, but the geography gave me […]

19350

The proposed Policy Market Analysis (PAM) project might be useful if it sparks interest in market limitations. The stock market may have quickly determined who was to blame for the Challenger disaster, but it didn’t predict the disaster. An unexamined problem with the PAM plan is the presence of a superpower that can game the […]

19280

I feel that there is a major factor that nobody takes into account when modern people set out to replicate possible ancient voyages. It is that they’re attempting to get from point A to point B, which they know exists, but ancient seafarers weren’t. Setting off from Timor on a 600-mile voyage without knowing whether […]

19279

Your article didn’t include even a hint about the controversy about the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Many people believe that Raymond Damadian should have gotten at least a share in the prize. Damadian saw and demonstrated the potential for using MRI as a medical-scanning technique when others found the idea laughable. David L. […]

19278

The article states that “trichromacy originally evolved for picking out the most nutritious leaves.” I teach high school students to avoid this kind of statement in regard to evolution. The trait arose by accident (nicely explained in the article) and then became more abundant in the population because it conferred an advantage on the organisms […]

19277

In the era before global positioning system (GPS) instruments, determining longitude was difficult since it required a fairly accurate clock, in addition to a sextant. I was under the impression that one of the clocks Lewis and Clark used was Jupiter’s moon Io, which would have made them pretty sophisticated navigators. Michael D. DelanoBrooklyn, N.Y. […]

19345

The article states that a loss of 100,000 cubic kilometers of ice would result in a half-meter rise in sea level. That means that if the 32 million km3 polar ice pack melts, sea levels will rise 160 meters. But I have always heard a figure of around 50 feet. Being on a small island […]

19276

Your article makes a common error. Whereas chicken pox is caused by one virus, a “cold” is a set of symptoms that can be caused by more than 200 distinct viruses. A better example for short-term immunity might have been pertussis or tetanus. Jennifer L. Bankers-FulbrightMayo ClinicRochester, Minn.

19344

My attention was immediately drawn to this article. You see, in the late 1970s, as a graduate student at the University of California, Davis, I developed a snake-tethering technique with the assistance of one of the campus veterinarians, Scott E. McDonald. The article falsely attributes rattlesnake leashing to others. David F. HennessySacramento, Calif. Yes, David […]