Don’t dismiss Lamarck Your January 31 special birthday edition on Darwin (SN: 1/31/09, p. 17) was excellent, but I believe that science has allowed Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s contributions to be overshadowed by Darwin’s. The change that can occur to an organism’s genetic makeup during its own lifetime harks away from Darwin’s slow evolutionary process by chance mutations and argues toward Lamarck’s heritable changes within a lifetime. Robert Powell, Austin, Texas Take a vote of biologists today and Darwin will win hands down. But I predict that in 20 years that will change, and... (p. 30)

Why good looks look good The article “It’s written all over your face” (SN: 1/17/09, p. 24) made me recall another article (a couple of years ago, I think!) describing the work of researchers investigating an apparent human, obsessive need to identify patterns in our environment. The scientists studied stockbrokers with and without a specific type of brain injury. The results led the researchers to conjecture that this obsession is hardwired into our brains at a very basic, primitive level. Their thinking was that perhaps our pre-cognitive ancestors developed this obsession a... (p. 31)

Impossible view In “Milky Way puts on weight” (SN: 1/31/09, p. 8), you claim to show an image of the Milky Way. This image cannot be real. Worse, it creates misconceptions: As a college educator, I find that most students actually believe NASA has launched probes outside of the Milky Way to take pictures of our galaxy. I hope that printing a correction will help dispel that belief. Don McCarthy, Tucson, Ariz. McCarthy, of the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory, was one of a number of readers who pointed out the impossibility of taking a “real” image of the ... (p. 30)

Galaxy clusters slide Could the general motion of galaxy clusters (“Galaxy clusters slide to the south,” SN: 10/25/08, p. 12) be evidence of rotational motion of the matter components of the universe on a scale much larger than the observable universe? Would such motion not also result in accelerating expansion of the observable universe, as gravitational attraction opposing rotational expansion weakened as a result of expansion? Arden Slotter, Castle Pines North, Colo. “The question of an overall rotation for the universe is an interesting one,” says Glenn Starkma... (p. 30)

Goodbye structures Though it is extremely regrettable and unfortunate that plastic museum artifacts are degrading (“Long live plastics,” SN: 11/8/08, p. 34), the ultimate demise of these pop polymers will not have dire consequences. The same statement can’t be made for all of the plastics that have gained common usage in the construction industry since the 1970s. Plastics abound in modern construction. Many plastic items are sequestered in hidden places. PVC drain and vent pipes, Styrofoam and other types of plastic insulation, vinyl window frames, insulation on wiring, lightin...

Right-left preference In the article “Body in mind” (SN: 10/25/08, p. 24), Dr. Casasanto speaks of results with people who are left-handed or right-handed. But no mention is made of people who are innately ambidextrous, as in my family. Has he worked with any of these people? What about people who are almost ambidextrous but not totally? I notice the quality runs in families, but since it is stronger or weaker depending on the individual, I would conclude several genes play a role. Tana Hemingway, Mesquite, N.M. “Everyone falls somewhere along a continuum from right- to left-han...

Big black holes An alternative explanation of why ultramassive black holes reaching 10 billion solar masses seem to go dormant (“Ultramassive: As big as it gets,” SN: 10/25/08, p. 18) could be that in these black holes, the violent activity associated with smaller black holes is completely contained within the event horizon and thus removed from any observation. The tidal forces at the event horizon, which cause the observable effects, actually diminish as the mass and radius of the black hole increase. At a 30-billion-kilometer event horizon, the tidal force is so weak that the largest...

A better way The article “Thinning fuel before injection boosts efficiency” (SN: 10/25/08, p. 9) shows that there are many ways to find efficiency when we look. One place I see for improvement is moisture injection in the feed airstream to gasoline engines. Here in the Southwest, where humidity runs at 20 percent, rainy days are associated with an increase in gas mileage because the moisture turns to steam in the engine and improves efficiency. Moisture injection should be less complex to accomplish than adding a strong electric field. Michael Daly, Gallup, N.M. Good degradatio... (p. 31)

NASA’s source In “Cooling climate ‘consensus’ of 1970s never was” (SN: 10/25/08, p. 5), Science News includes a graph, attributed to NASA, that shows temperature deviations from the year 1880. The data clearly indicate a distinct warming trend throughout the period. Why is it that over the past two years I have very painstakingly researched the data from more than 200 weather stations from every continent, including more than 20 north of the Arctic Circle, and I haven’t found a single one that indicates a trend that even remotely resembles that represented by the graph in your ar...

Thanks for the support As a high school teacher, I have had many students who have heard about the global cooling scare of the 1970s, and these students hold on to those ideas even in the face of overwhelming evidence to suggest that the current warming trend is real. Until I read Sid Perkins’ article “Cooling climate ‘consensus’ of 1970s never was” (SN: 10/25/08, p. 5), I have never had a strong argument to address that concern. There may be only a few global warming critics among scientists, but policy is so often dictated by the court of popular opinion. I am quite glad that Thom...