Letters to the Editor

Letters

Underground particle hunts The dark matter experiments described in “Mining for missing matter” (SN: 8/28/10, p. 22) sound almost identical to those looking for neutrinos. Both are placed deep underground to help screen out background radiation, especially neutrons. How do particle hunters differentiate between neutrino hits and those by the putative dark matter particles? Also, […]

Letters

Music on the mind Common experience confirms that music serves language (“A mind for music,” SN: 8/14/10, p. 17). A person unfamiliar with, say, the musical South Pacific has only to listen to its songs a few times to sing the lyrics from memory. Another who tries to memorize the lyrics by just hearing them […]

Letters

Musical bonding In the article “Birth of the beat” (SN: 8/14/10, p. 18), Sandra Trehub says that music’s evolutionary origins remain unknown. Evolution is the sum of many acts of natural selection, so the question is, what survival advantage did music provide? The mother teaching her infant musical skills wouldn’t be so prevalent if survival […]

Letters

New views of enzymes “Enzymes exposed” (SN: 7/17/10, p. 22) was an interesting read, but is there more to the story? When biologists consider the lock-and-key model for enzymes, I wonder if they are stuck in the static stick-and-ball mentality of traditional chemistry. Is biochemistry really static or is it dictated by the vibrational mode […]

Letters

Designing for chance The science in “Life from scratch” (SN: 7/3/10, p. 22) is extremely interesting, and I look forward to hearing further results. However, a few comments in the article play into a common Intelligent Design error. The stated aim is “to show how unguided natural events might have led to life…”; the reference […]

Letters

Misunderstood males? I grew up on a farm, and it was not uncommon for male horses, male goats and even male deer to let out a snort whenever anxiety surfaced in them — whether it be from a predator in the area, the removal of food from their eating area or the wandering off of […]

Letters

Time’s arrow I’ve enjoyed reading Science News since I was a kid; thanks very much for producing such a fine periodical! This is the first time I’ve felt compelled to write to you about an article you’ve published: “Law and disorder” (SN: 6/19/10, p. 26). I can’t help but feel that the time theory that […]

Letters

A placebo’s true nature There is a serious misconception put forth in the letter from William Davis (Feedback, SN: 5/22/10, p. 31). The placebos used for placebo-controlled, double-blind studies of pharmaceuticals are not “sugar pills.” These placebos are made from the same inactive ingredients in the same proportions used to make the dosage form containing […]

Letters

Engineering irritation The article “Engineering a cooler Earth” (SN: 6/5/10, p. 16) was incredibly irritating. The solution to global warming is not technology of the type presented, but population and pollution control. You need to start talking about that. The longer we see the problem in technical terms, the less likely we are to even […]

Letters

SN on the newsstand I’m blind so I’ve been reading your magazine in braille for quite a while. But most of my sighted friends have never heard of you guys. This is a great publication, and I’m glad that more readers will now become familiar with it (“Science News goes public: available on newsstands,” SN: […]

Letters

Call for caution “Bar codes may check out next” (SN: 4/24/10, p. 14) describes a new ink that would enable a full grocery cart to be quickly checked out electronically. Hurrah? Undoubtedly the amount of radio frequency per package would be minimal. However, if much of our food were handled that way, and people used […]

Letters

ET, stay home Your excellent editorial in the April 24 issue of Science News (“An intelligent ET would probably just stay home”) explained the most obvious reasons for the unlikelihood of an extraterrestrial message, let alone visitors. Additional obstacles worth mention are 1) the gigantic retro-rockets, parachutes and heat shields required for braking a super-speeding […]