Comments for The Editor's Blog

Comment on The A(H5N1) Conundrum by double glazing manchester

double glazing manchester — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 00:08:08 +0000

I have to agree with Robert regarding his view on the matter.

The thought of a terrorist getting their hands on such a potentially deadly weapon is a scary one indeed.

This information should be very closely guarded.

Comment on The A(H5N1) Conundrum by Robert H. Woodman

Robert H. Woodman — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 23:16:01 +0000

I disagree that a naturally emerging air-transmissible A(H5N1) virus is more scary than a knowledgeable terrorist getting his or her hands on the virus. The terrorist is the larger concern, because once the terrorist obtains the virus, he (or she, but I’ll stick with the masculine for simplicity’s sake) can enhance the virus as a weapon, can inflict the virus in areas of the world that have maximum vulnerability to such attacks, can use the element of surprise more effectively than “nature” can (thereby enhancing the terror aspect of the virus), and can use the threat of future viral attacks as a means to extort changes in national policies.

The data should be treated like “top secret” National Security information. That includes vetting the people to whom the data is released and attaching criminal penalties to those who release the data recklessly or deliberately to unauthorized persons. If the data is handled rigorously according to procedures for “top secret” national security information, your question “…if 100 or 1000 researchers are given access to the information, will it really be any more secure than if it were simply published?” becomes significantly less important, perhaps even moot.

Rapid publication of the data is NOT warranted. Careful handling and very limited dissemination of the critical parts (i.e., those with national security implications) of the data ARE warranted.

Comment on Another Kind Of Landscape by Landscape ideas

Landscape ideas — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 18:52:39 +0000

This is so sad to see. Recently I’ve been doing research on environmentally safe garden products. I bought a tumbling composter and some organic weed killer which I have yet to try. Im all for saving our planet. It just sad to see what greed can do for us. One day we’ll realize when the last tree falls that we cannot eat money.

Comment on Nuclear Power R.I.P.? by sieve cleaner

sieve cleaner — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 02:02:34 +0000

You do not have the right to declare that some arbitrary level of radioactive contamination is `acceptable’ for other millions of people who may rely on plant or animal foods from areas tainted by radiation releases.

Comment on Transcendent Life? by Rudy Baum

Rudy Baum — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:34:23 +0000

@Curious Wavefunction: Polanyi wrote exactly what I quoted him as writing: “This principle precludes the possibility of biology ever becoming a molecular science.” He did not assert it could not be “a wholly molecular science”; he asserted that it could never be a molecular science.

I think Polanyi’s analogy between a book and a DNA is also fundamentally flawed. A book’s information content is encoded in a symbolic logic of language. There is nothing symbolic about the information content of DNA–it’s entirely embedded in DNA’s structure. As to transcription and translation, are you suggesting that something other than chemical reactions are involved in turning on or off gene expression?

I did not suggest that Polayni rejected a physicochemical basis of life in the essay published in C&EN. He said that biology could never be a molecular science, and in that, he was wrong. I don’t know where you draw the line between higher-order functions of life that fall into the “how” category of things and those that fall into the “why” category.

Comment on The Cost of Prevention by qvxb

qvxb — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 17:51:10 +0000

Radio talk show hosts characterize employees of Federal regulatory agencies as “unelected bureaucrats” who are answerable to no one and get huge pensions, “statists”, “Marxists”, and “environmental extermists”. Apparently the ideal would be to have each state enact the environmental regulations it desires. It’s not clear how pollution that crosses state lines would be dealt with.

Comment on Influential Chemical Engineers by John Spevacek

John Spevacek — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:15:00 +0000

Robert Byron Bird. He wrote several books that have become part of the canon for chemical engineers: Transport Phenomena, Dynamics of Polymeric Liquids, and Molecular Theory of Liquid and Gases. For anyone to have written one of these would be quite the accomplishment. To have written three is beyond imagination.

Comment on Influential Chemical Engineers by lukas

lukas — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 23:44:41 +0000

No Carl Bosch?

Comment on Transcendent Life? by Curious Wavefunction

Curious Wavefunction — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 15:48:45 +0000

I haven’t read the article, but are you sure Polanyi wasn’t simply criticizing reductionism in biology? Polanyi was well-known for arguing (in other articles from the 60s for instance) that the structure and function of DNA are as much constrained by higher-order processes as they are by the basic chemistry of phosphates and nucleotides. If that’s what he is saying then I completely agree with his assertion that biology is not a wholly molecular science. There are several emergent properties of biological systems that cannot be uniquely reduced to their molecular foundation. For instance, the chemical reactions involved in transcription and translation can tell us nothing about when and why certain genes are expressed.

I find it hard to believe that Polanyi, writing in 1967, was unaware of the spectacular advances in biology that molecular approaches had made possible until then. So I am not sure whether he is completely rejecting a physiochemical basis for life or whether is just saying that the underlying laws of physics and chemistry don’t uniquely code for the higher-order functions of life (in which case he is simply saying that the “how” does not tell us much about the “why”). If it’s the latter than I agree with him.

Comment on Nuclear Power R.I.P.? by Sherry Molina

Sherry Molina — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:54:34 +0000

The hazards brought by nuclear power plants are just too high, instead of nuclear plants why don’t we turn to Alternative energy power resources,(e.g. Wind turbines, solar panels etc. ) which are cost-effective and environment-friendly.