22 February 2020 | New Scientist | 27Thoughts on highways
being byways safe for kids
Letters, 25 January
From David Mason,
Swindon, Wiltshire, UK
Readers discuss making towns
more pedestrian-friendly. One
thing that my 40 years of highway
engineering work has taught
me is that some drivers believe
themselves to be expert highway
design engineers.
I agree with Rob Wheway
that play space should be part of
development, including on-street
play space that allows shared use
between vehicles and players. But
my colleagues in local authorities
tend to be conservative and prefer
wider carriageways. Robert Hale
notes that this means all drivers
tend to travel too fast.
Unfortunately, the narrow
footpaths that Graham Jones
mentions aren’t attractive to
pedestrians, who want to see
ahead and around to be confident
that they will not be accosted.
From Ian Wall, Edinburgh, UK
Wheway rightly points out the
importance of children being able
to play safely in our streets. But
cul-de-sacs are socially isolating
and make direct pedestrian
movement difficult, encouraging
higher vehicle use.
The solution is to build and
rebuild roads on the shared space
principle, with constant priority
given to pedestrians and vehicles
able to move only slowly. There is
something seriously wrong with
a society if the only place children
can play safely is a park to which
they need to be escorted.
Attainment is the best
predictor of attainment
18 January, p 9
From Peter Tymms, Durham, UK
Geneticist Robert Plomin believes
genetic testing can help to identify
pupils who would benefit from
educational interventions,
and says a study that found
a correlation of 0.4 between
polygenic scores and GCSE results
supports his stance. Others claim
that socio-economic status is a
better predictor, though such
a strong link isn’t often found.
Both measures are trumped
by good educational assessments
of children. The Performance
Indicators in Primary Schools
baseline assessment is carried out
at the age of 4, at the start of school
in the UK. I am an author of a
study that found a correlation of
0.5 between these and results in
maths and English exams taken
at ages 14 to 16 (doi.org/gftrzg).
Including other factors, such as
socio-economic status, improves
the prediction a little.A gaping lacuna in your
coverage of fear of holes
18 January, p 38
From Hugh Kolb,
Logie Coldstone, Aberdeenshire, UK
You report on trypophobia, a fear
of holes. I am puzzled that you
didn’t link this to the image a few
pages earlier of rather unpleasant
spotty bacterial patterns on agar
gels (p 28). Isn’t it likely that some
people’s disgust at spots is related
to a reaction to decomposing
food with bacterial and fungal
colonies on it?In praise of the bravery
of Neanderthal scientists
1 February, p 14
From Paul Wood,
Hamilton, New Zealand
You report that Neanderthals may
have climbed an active volcano
soon after it erupted. I suspect
that there were Neanderthals who
were protoscientists. They would,
by observation, experiment
and deduction, make startling
discoveries. One might have been
that a person who walked up a live
volcano with a dry piece of wood
could walk back with fire.
You have previously reportedWant to get in touch?
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newscientist.com/lettersthat kites in Australia have been
observed transporting fire with
burning sticks to set fires to
expose prey (13 January 2018, p 4).
I wonder whether Neanderthals
observed this behaviour by birds.Face recognition may
already be regulated
1 February, p 23
From Tim Stevenson,
Prestwood, Buckinghamshire, UK
Donna Lu says face recognition
needs to be regulated. It may
already be. The EU General Data
Protection Regulation, which
wears a Union Jack hat as the UK
Data Protection Act 2018, covers
cases in which it is possible to
identify an individual directly
from processed data.Why does recycling always
lag behind innovation?
16 November 2019, p 12
From Tom Eddy, Esher, Surrey, UK
Your article about recycling
electric car batteries was necessary
but depressing. I remember the
car industry being very keen
10 years ago to tell us that it was
designing cars for the whole life
cycle, including recycling. It is
ironic that the greenest cars now
seem to have drifted from this.
This is always a problem with
new technology. Recycling
develops only to treat current
technology. Aluminium planes,
for example, were eminently
recyclable – but what happens
with composite planes? Has
anyone thought it through?The frog is cold, but it
definitely isn’t dead
Letters, 11 January
From Simon Goodman,
Griesheim, Germany
Michael Vandeman, asking
whether we can draw a linebetween life and death, questions
whether frozen Canadian frogs
are dead or alive. They are very
definitely alive, as they aren’t
entirely frozen. For example, Rana
sylvatica, the North American
wood frog, has biochemical
adaptations that prevent more
than about 75 per cent of its
water from freezing, including
antifreeze proteins and sugars like
sorbitol and betaine. Yes, they are
very cold. Yes, their metabolism is
extremely slow. One could even
view them as crunchy frogs, but,
no, they have yet to croak.You think you’re so clever
with your eight legs
21/28 December 2019, p 52
From Geoff Patton,
Silver Spring, Maryland, US
Rowan Hooper’s report on the
discovery of social species of
octopus reminds me of stories
about their supposed intelligence.
My marine biology
baccalaureate professor was Sneed
Collard. He told us of a research
project in which the investigator
would regularly head to the lab
fridge for a fresh crab to feed his
prized octopus. The octopus
gradually approached closer and
closer to the edge of the aquarium.
On entering the lab one day, the
scientist found his animal friend
dried out on the lab floor, halfway
to the fridge, as if it had sought a
midnight snack. ❚For the record
❚ Research into adding human
genes to pigs to try to prevent donor
organs being rejected could solve
the problem of the shortage of
human donor organs, as organs
from normal pigs trigger a very
strong attack from the immune
system (1 February, p 10).
❚ It was December 2019 that was
the warmest month on record in
Europe, not the whole year
(8 February, p 15).
❚ When something has a heritability
of 55 per cent, genetic differences
explain about 30 per cent of the
variation in it (25 January, p 34).