Letters to the Editor

18982

I enjoy Science News very much but not the occasional article singing the praises of alcoholic beverages, particularly red wine, as a benefit to the cardiovascular system (“A glass of red may keep the arteries loose,” SN: 1/5/02, p. 8). When the articles become specific concerning the substances that bring the benefit, they refer to […]

18981

Awareness of the geographical distribution of multiple sclerosis makes the Epstein-Barr virus an unlikely agent. Multiple sclerosis is most common in the white population of northern Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand. The risk of developing the disease in white populations increases with latitude. In Uganda, multiple sclerosis is rarely seen, while the Epstein-Barr […]

19047

Reading this article was to me like déj vu. In the late 1950s, my late colleague Raoul Naroll concluded that more than 90 percent of the world’s cultures preferred the upright position for giving birth. In my own work with Martha Austin Garrison on Navajo birthing practices, we elicited many comments by older Navajos. Without […]

19046

This article illustrates the importance of astronomical instruments by suggesting that Copernicus was not “proved right” until the development by Tycho Brahe of sophisticated observational tools late in the 16th century. I think this is a misleading example. Tycho’s records did allow his one-time assistant Johannes Kepler to move closer to “proving” Copernicus right, early […]

19045

The methane and carbon monoxide released during charcoal production have short atmospheric lifetimes compared with that of fossil fuel carbon dioxide. In the long run, the net effect of charcoal on the climate is nil because the wood used to produce charcoal was formed from carbon dioxide by photosynthesis. Recommending that nations convert from charcoal […]

18980

Everyone seems to agree that the Tyrannosaurus rex Sue was seriously debilitated with perhaps a lifelong lameness. Peter L. Larson attributes her survival to care and feeding by group members. Is there evidence of group care for the injured among reptiles of any era? Might Sue’s survival be due not to group care but simply […]

18979

The work in this article does show nonlinearity of cell damage from alpha radiation in the dose range studied, but the lowest dose studied (5 percent of all cell nuclei hit) is probably several orders of magnitude above the mean lethal dose for any organism. The researchers need to look at linearity through the dose […]

19044

The discussion of photon entanglement in this article invokes the debatable premise that physical facts are not real unless they are observed. The article’s own glove metaphor provides a perfect counterexample. Suppose I receive a package of gloves (entangled particles) from a glove factory (particle generator), each glove wrapped individually. I keep one and send […]

19043

The article was disappointing on two grounds. First, it was poorly researched, quoting numerous lawyers for farming interests opposed to the Endangered Species Act. Second, it failed to note that most of the growing need for water (as well as virtually all other resources) is closely linked to human population growth that is out of […]

19042

The brief article on the discovery of sheets of melted sand in Australia mentioned several possible sources of the heat that produced this material, but it failed to mention the most probable source–the impact of a comet on the upper atmosphere. The nature of comets is that when they encounter an atmosphere of significant density […]

18978

The article notes that Joo Zilho has hypothesized that the rapid spread of agriculture in Europe occurred as a result of peoples need to escape conflicts in heavily populated communities marked by class and social division. I believe a more likely cause is the catastrophic flooding of the Black Sea, which occurred 7,500 years ago. […]

19041

I think this article ignored the major reason that large particles rise to the surface. The laws of inertia and momentum indicate that larger particles don’t react as quickly as smaller particles do at the end of each back-and-forth shake of the container. This means there is a force for relative motion between different-sized particles. […]