Letters to the Editor

19275

The reporting of the activity surrounding the tragic loss of Columbia continues to anger me. Columbia was lost because of program ignorance of a flight condition that should not have been permitted to exist or continue. It is a cruel and self-serving action to criticize a wonderful piece of engineering because its operators have been […]

19274

I suggest that we view the results described in this article as indicating that humans frequently act like monkeys, not vice versa. Further, what is being measured as fairness may better be seen as the basis for envy and greed. It is not surprising that monkeys have the ability to display these tendencies, but they […]

19343

What would sessile organisms do with information provided by the light from “their meals?” Just because spicules on a sea sponge transmit photons doesn’t mean that that’s their function. David ConteyBoulder, Colo. Each Euplectella sponge houses a pair of bioluminescent shrimp. The researchers speculate that the spicules transmit the shrimps’ light into the sponge’s surroundings. […]

19342

In your article on experimental hints of a new subatomic particle, three values are quoted for a particular charge-parity violation, all with error bar. Given the large uncertainties in two of these, the three are undistinguishable. Yet you claim that they “don’t agree.” Does no one look at error bars any more? R.A. WilliamsLos Alamos, […]

18897

It’s very appealing to think that a noninvasive test could pick up the earliest signs of cancers or cardiovascular disease. Despite passionate testimonials of how whole-body CT scanning “saved my life,” we don’t know what the tumors found really would have done. We don’t know that these patients’ lives were improved, much less saved. In […]

19349

The heading of this article should have been “The body generates a feeling of the brain.” The whole idea of Antonio R. Damasio’s theory is that bodily reactions precede brain awareness or a person’s awareness of a specific emotion. William Fudge Dania, Fla. Damasio’s theory is that the brain interprets bodily reactions linked to emotions […]

19348

Is it within the realm of feasibility that electrons possess an underlying quarklike structure in the manner of protons and neutrons? The hypothesis that electrons can be subdivided into smaller particles termed “electrinos” offers an ideal experimental opportunity to test this concept. Each contingent of such particles could be subjected to repeated expansions into ever […]

19347

I read and reread this article, hoping to find an explanation of where all those sediments have gone. From appearances, they surely all haven’t been deposited in the Gulf of California. Where else? Does anyone have any satisfying theories? Allen Glenn Abilene, Texas Sediments from the erosion of the Grand Canyon have ended up in […]

19346

Your article says elevated concentrations of glucose in the blood is “a problem that occurs downstream” of impaired response to insulin. Yet artery blockage is defined as a failure of cells to react to insulin. So, would not the problem be upstream of the impairment? Marry Morel Prescott, Ariz. Downstream of the impairment, here, means […]

19341

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is considered to be an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system that attacks the myelin sheath around neurons. If there were a relationship between myelin and psychiatric illnesses, as suggested in your article, then many people with MS would suffer from schizophrenia or bipolar illnesses. The study is much too small […]

19273

There is a striking similarity in the wave patterns of the ash plume on the cover of the Sept. 13 issue (above) and those in the gas of the Perseus Cluster pictured in this article. Could it be that volcanoes produce sound waves we can’t hear but can see in the plume? Paul HeinsGainesville, Fla. […]

19272

I read this article with interest. Can you tell me what contributes to these deposits in arteries? Julie WinslettDahlonega, Ga. It’s not ingestion of calcium, at least in people with normal kidney function, says Paolo Raggi of Tulane University in New Orleans. Rather, the condition stems from damage to vessel walls wrought by high blood […]