Letters to the Editor

18960

This concerns the story discussing the ability of flowers to protect their reproductive parts by closing up during a rain storm. I recently observed what may be other mechanisms to achieve the same end in flowers that can’t close up. As a storm approaches, Queen Anne’s lace dips its flat umbels to a vertical position […]

18959

It may help to understand where that “missing antimatter” is if we just look around us. A proton has a positive charge–the sum of the quark polarities. If the (negative) electrical charge resident on the proton is in a reverse-time continuum, we would see it as positive. The mass remains the same. Hence, we have […]

18958

The study in “Marijuana may boost heart attack risk” appears to be more about the effects of smoking and deep inhalation than a useful examination of the effects of tetrahydrocannabinol, which is what marijuana smokers seek. The report makes it sound as though this active ingredient is the cause of the marginal increase in heart […]

18957

The article says, “Logging and burning for agriculture currently claim about 1 percent of the Amazon rain forest per year.” This simply is not true. We have been hearing this and even more alarming “statistics” about Amazon deforestation for more than 20 years. Yet NASA Landsat images show that little more than 10 percent of […]

18956

Both smokers and nonsmokers should appreciate results of studies of the effect of organic selenium on angiogenesis. A report last year by Cheng Jiang et al. in Molecular Carcinogenesis (vol. 29, issue 4) reports sustained suppression of angiogenesis in breast and prostate cancer cells. However, inorganic selenium supplements induce less favorable effects. Millard M. Mershon […]

18955

I am writing to correct a significant inaccuracy in your recent article “Landfills make mercury more toxic.” As a member of the National Research Council’s committee that produced the report you cite, I feel obligated to correct your statement, attributed to that report: “Some 60,000 U.S. children are born with developmental impairments triggered by fetal […]

18935

The statements made concerning the effect of vitamin E on the immune system in cattle don’t concur with the bulk of the data available. Many studies have indicated either marginal or no response. Only when the animal has been held on a deficient ration is the response dramatic. The idea that vitamin E could be […]

18934

“Faces of perception” states, “Early visual input to the right brain, which arrives via the left eye, proves vital. . . .” Then, the story presents findings based on people born with left-eye cataracts that were later removed. Unfortunately, the signals from the eyes are mixed almost immediately behind the eyes in the optic chiasma. […]

18954

I was surprised that the article “Dances with robots,” while mentioning Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers (1959, Putnam), should speak of “master-slave telerobotic devices.” As any fan of the dean of science fiction knows, these devices are most properly called Waldos. Mark Sicking Spring Shadow, Conn. I am reading Science News on this anniversary of our […]

18953

“Physics bedrock cracks, sun shines in” says that solar neutrinos oscillate between different flavors on the trip to Earth and that those taking a longer path have more time to oscillate into kinds of neutrinos that the sun doesn’t produce. Do the scientists note a variation in neutrino types based on the eccentricity of Earth’s […]

18952

Your news piece was timely. But if we see that big quake, most likely Washington State will be in worse shape. Recent comments by seismologists, volcanologists, and oceanographers concerning a large quake on that major fault line and/or a big volcanic eruption would be something out of Biblical times. Take a look at the Washington […]

18951

That is a neat little recycle program described in “New test traces underground forest carbon.” As fast as the CO2 comes out of the ground, the tree grabs the carbon by photosynthesis and leaves two oxygen atoms in the atmosphere. A portion of the carbon is stored until the wood rots or burns. Some carbon […]