Letters to the Editor

19179

I’m curious. What’s the significance of the planets sharing the same plane? Isn’t that a coincidence? Robert T. DruryLos Angeles, Calif. It could be coincidence, but the plane that roughly defines the planets’ orbits may indicate the orientation of the protoplanetary disk of gas, dust, and ice that originally surrounded the young sun .–R. Cowen

19134

Are we breaking the laws of thermodynamics? I often wonder, in discussions of hydrogen as fuel, how one can provide energy to split water to get hydrogen and oxygen, then react them together as fuel, and expect ever to get a net gain in energy. Tom OstwaldUniversity of CaliforniaSanta Barbara, Calif. The media have lately […]

19096

The Japanese have developed an “artificial shark-fin machine” that produces a product quite similar in texture to the real thing. It’s being used in restaurants in Hong Kong. Let’s hope people’s tastes change before it is too late for the sharks. P.W.L. KwanBoston, Mass.

19095

In doing your usual excellent job of presenting information in interesting and lighthearted ways, you implied that bug zappers control mosquitoes. In fact, bug zappers don’t attract mosquitoes and therefore kill very few of them. They do kill large numbers of harmless and even beneficial insects, including pollinators and insects such as the crane fly, […]

19119

Regarding the discovery of the dinosaur heart with the single aorta, your readers should note that this morphology is more likely to be related to high blood pressure than metabolic rate per se. The typical reptilian heart, with its incompletely divided ventricle and double aorta, is quite functional at separating oxygenated and deoxygenated blood. The […]

19094

The scientists in this article may want to adapt their solar concentrator for a more prosaic use: cooking. In the early 1970s, I was involved in a project to build a self-sufficient dwelling that drew solely on the wind and sun for its power. We looked into using fiber optics to transmit solar energy to […]

19093

Cornell University entomologist Jeffrey G. Scott sees a cockroach contraceptive as still being a long way off. He may wish to investigate such a product that has been very effective and on the market for years. I can personally attest to its effectiveness. The common “flea bomb” that one gets from a veterinarian–the kind that […]

19118

As a former director of engineering of a defense-products company, I’m very aware of the explosive nature of sodium azide. I know that there have been serious explosions in industries (including the airbag industry) that use metal azides. A few reasons sodium azide may have been selected for use in airbags are it releases gas […]

19092

This article may be confusing to readers who don’t know the quantitative difference between an ice age and a little ice age, as referred to in the story. During the last ice age, the average cooling in the Northern Hemisphere was about 5C, but the cooling during the last little ice age was only about […]

19144

Why am I not surprised that the pH of lung moisture decreases during an asthma attack? Poor ventilation of the alveoli would retain carbon dioxide, which is carbonic acid in solution. Does the change in pH correspond to a buildup of carbonate or bicarbonate in the blood? Would it be a better measure of an […]

19143

Your article, regarding the glycemic index in relation to obesity and diabetes, is incomplete and misleading. Although potatoes do have a high glycemic index, systematic research on satiety shows that potatoes are one of the most satiating foods known to science. The effect persists until the next meal and beyond. This counterexample suggests that concern […]

19142

Sanity and dementia aren’t so much discrete states as poles of a continuum. It seems to me that slightly irrational (perhaps inappropriate is a better word) behavior would tend to make other people avoid you. And as you tend to do less well in social interactions, you would tend to avoid them. Perhaps dementia causes […]