2018-11-03 New Scientist Australian Edition

3 November 2018 | NewScientist | 53

“ These man-children shouldn’t be in charge

of a spitball, much less nuclear weapons”

technology with indigenous bows
and arrows. This produced a paper
in the African Journal of Ecology,
co-authored by three Ju/’Hoansi.
Stander believes this was the first
time the publishers permitted
illiterate co-authors to be named.

Ownership is not the
legal key to data rights

From Robbie Morrison,
Berlin, Germany
I cringe whenever I read the term
“data ownership” (29 September,
p 22). Raw data is not protected
by copyright or other forms of
intellectual property right.
Personal data is protected under
doctrines of human rights, not
property rights.
Instead of referring to some
kind of generic “ownership”,
it is better to treat the legal
issues raised by data collection
under the rubric of personal

privacy – and more specifically the

European Union’s recent General

Data Protection Regulation. This

is where legal and ethical debates

over medical information should

and must originate.

The mystery of post-

surgical pain is its rarity

From Andrew Vickers,

Quernmore, Lancashire, UK

Surgeon Sohier Elneil describes

worrying complications of mesh

implants (8 September, p 36).

Since 1998, when Bill Macrae and

his colleagues published their

review, the problems of persistent

pain, distress and disability after

surgical procedures, known as

chronic post-surgical pain (CPSP),

have become widely recognised.

There is a incidence of CPSP

after most, if not all, surgical

interventions. In some cases, such

as amputation, this may affect

(4 November 2017, p 5). We are

also overrun with pesky rabbits.

If we could spray something

that could help to reset the

balance at least a little towards a

natural state of affairs, then that

would be a great step forward.

Did I infect this Andean

culture with knots?

From Eleanor Sharman, Dorrigo,

New South Wales, Australia

I was fascinated and somewhat

relieved to read of the possibility

that the Incas’ knotted khipu

express a language (29 September,

p 33). In Bolivia in 1988, a fellow

backpacker taught me the craft of

making bracelets from colourful

knotted threads, called pulsera.

I had never seen them before,

and neither had the Quechua-

speaking women I travelled

alongside on buses and trains

along the Andes. I gave my bag

more than 50 per cent of patients

and can persist more than 10 years.

In my career as an anaesthetist

and pain specialist, I have been left

wondering not why CPSP develops

but why so many patients’ bodies

and nervous systems can be

subjected to surgery and not

develop long-term problems.

We want ferret scat

and we want it now

From Bryn Glover, Kirkby

Malzeard, North Yorkshire, UK

You report that rabbits flee when

they smell dead relatives in an

extract of ferrets’ droppings

(20 October, p 18). Please tell me

that such a scat extract will soon

be made commercially available.

Here in the Yorkshire Dales,

gamekeepers blast away at

anything in the least bit likely to

predate their precious game birds,

including protected birds of prey

Lucy Burton is quite annoyed at those who would renounce

nuclear disarmament treaties (27 October, p 3).

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