June 21, 1997

Letters

What's in a game

Regarding your article about Deep Blue vs. Kasparov ("Computer triumphs over human champion," SN: 5/17/97, p. 300), the larger question, I think, is what we can learn about the game of chess by playing Deep Blue against itself.

Daniel Koenig
Santa Fe, N.M.

Menstruation and communion

It is quite possible that individual Roman Catholic clergy violated church law, or promulgated their own opinions as if those opinions were church law, by refusing the Eucharist to menstruating women ("Why Do Women Menstruate?" SN: 4/12/97, p. 230).

However, it has never been the teaching or practice of the Roman Catholic Church to permit or encourage such action.

Steven Kellmeyer
Champaign, Ill.

CORRECTION

In "Proliferation of Pills" (SN: 5/17/97, p. 310), F.L. van Buchem took X rays of patients' sinuses, not their lungs, to determine whether infection was present.

Oops is right!

In your article "Rough Times in Russia" (SN: 5/10/97, p. 294), you indicate that Los Alamos National Laboratory is located in Calif.

Oops! Although run by the University of California, Los Alamos National Laboratory is located on the beautiful Pajarito Plateau in sunny New Mexico.

Joyce A. Roberts
Los Alamos, N.M.

Eye development

It is not too far-fetched to conclude that photoreceptor cells evolved once ("Eye-Opening Gene," SN: 5/10/97, p. 288). Processes of natural selection allowed the evolution of an array of cells and tissues to come up with the many anatomically complex organs we call eyes.

After all, once upon a time, eggs evolved. They modify their developmental pathways to give rise to an array of wonderful larvae that ultimately develop into the same adult body plan.

W. Donald Newton
North Little Rock, Ark.

Some researchers have indeed suggested that the gene eyeless merely governs photoreceptor development, but the formation of almost normal eyes by the gene's activity suggests that this is too limited a view, contends Walter Gehring.
-- J. Travis

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