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Readers Respond to the August 2019 Issue

Letters to the editor from the August 2019 issue of Scientific American

Scientific American, August 2019
Credit:

Scientific American, August 2019

CANCER CONTROL

As a community oncologist, I enjoyed James DeGregori and Robert Gatenby's article “Darwin's Cancer Fix.” Their approach to treating metastatic prostate cancer by managing its growth, rather than trying to kill all cancer cells, to avoid drug-resistant tumors is intriguing and deserves a large randomized phase III trial. But it is very important to remember that, biologically, cancers are extremely heterogeneous, and there are caveats to the principles the authors outline.

First, certain advanced cancers (especially testicular cancer, Hodgkin's disease and large-cell lymphoma) are curable with vigorous, optimum therapy. Substantial evidence demonstrates failure to maintain dose intensity and interruptions in the treatment schedule compromise chances for a cure. Second, long-term, typically uninterrupted hormonally based treatment for local breast cancer is crucial to preventing metastases. Studies show that for many, 10 years of treatment is superior to five. Third, one of medicine's greatest successes—pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which now has a cure rate of 80 to 90 percent—requires both optimum initial intensity and long-term, uninterrupted treatment, often for three years.


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For the majority of advanced, metastatic cancers not known to be curable, optimum scheduling of therapy certainly deserves careful study. When it comes to human cancers, however, many theories about how treatment should work have not panned out.

CARY PETERSON Lincoln, Neb.

AD ASTRA

“The Good Kind of Crazy,” by Sarah Scoles, describes research on exotic propulsion technologies for spacecraft being conducted by Heidi Fearn and James F. Woodward, both at California State University, Fullerton. I was a co-organizer of the 2016 conference in Estes Park, Colo., that is featured in the article, and I am a technical witness to much of what Scoles sets out. I have worked on exotic propulsion—in the area of gravitational physics—for more than 20 years and know this field is difficult to effectively report on as a journalist—or to collaborate on as a researcher. Many press reports are fawning and uncritical. Scoles does a very good job of presenting and balancing the differing perspectives in this field.

Woodward has been a great inspiration in the field, and Scoles is right to recognize him. But she distinguishes herself by also taking care to note results that contradict his claims. Such criticism is important, even necessary, to push the envelope. What Scoles may not have realized, however, is that such work in exotic propulsion is a search for one of the greatest discoveries in gravitational physics. A propulsion application is the goal, but its glamour makes us overlook the larger implications such a mechanism might portend for gravitational theory. And it makes us complacent.

Some of the results Scoles describes would constitute important discoveries in gravitational physics if they are confirmed. Yet it is rare for an exotic propulsion researcher to present such results to gravitational scientists at their meetings or in their journals. Integration with textbook gravitational physics is missing from some prominent areas of exotic propulsion research. There is, however, a new generation of exotic propulsion researchers who are committed to integrating these exciting propulsion possibilities within the framework of known gravitational physics, where they belong.

LANCE WILLIAMS Konfluence Research Institute, Manitou Springs, Colo.

POCKET TECHNOLOGY

In “The Big Slowdown” [Ventures], Wade Roush claims we live in a time when technological shifts are increasingly rare in comparison with the century prior to 1970. But as I see it, we are living in a time when technology has brought on remarkable, world-shifting change.

I am referring, of course, to the new era of electronic communication. Roush nods toward this “outlier” when he mentions the rise of smartphones, but he pauses only long enough to mention the dangers they bring, not their revolutionary impact.

When worlds change, change changes as well. We miss this process if we look for shifts in the wrong places. Roush mentions consumer robotics and space exploration as areas that have not seen dramatic successes recently. Yet that is because moving mass from one place to another is no longer the arena where the real shifts are happening. Instead it's all about our ability to communicate and gain access to information. Because we are walking around with computers in our pocket that make all this possible, we are living in a different world than three decades back.

JACK PETRANKER Center for Creative Inquiry, Berkeley, Calif.

STOPPING GUN VIOLENCE

In “Gun Research Needs More Firepower” [Science Agenda], the editors urge scientists to utilize funding for gun violence prevention research if an appropriations bill passes the Senate.

Some steps can be taken immediately that would have a significant impact on gun use: First, enact a very large excise tax on the manufacture and sale of all ammunition and on materials and equipment to make D.I.Y. ammunition. Second, prohibit the import of those objects. Third, eliminate all gun show events and mail-order purchase of weaponry and related materials. And fourth, eliminate shipment of weapons and related materials by common carrier across state lines.

All these steps are much cheaper than the proposed $50 million, which would just be used to study the matter ad infinitum.

JIM WRIGHT via e-mail

POETRY IN NUMBERS

Steve Mirsky concludes “Do the Math” [Anti Gravity], his piece about the relation between physics and mathematics, by quoting Robert Frost's poem asserting that “the Secret sits in the middle and knows.” When I get to the next world, I expect to see Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton sitting in the middle of a grove of apple trees, arguing about whether the mathematics of physics is primarily geometric or analytic. If anyone knows, they should. (My wife and I agree, for once: it is geometric.)

DAVID J. MILLER Emeritus professor of physics, University College London

The universe doesn't just speak “to us in numbers,” as Mirsky quotes from physics historian Graham Farmelo's similarly entitled book. It speaks to us in mathematics quite removed from numbers.

Further, the article cites a New York Times obituary describing British mathematician Michael Atiyah as having “united mathematics and physics ... in a way not seen since the days of Isaac Newton.” But he simply understood both. The obituary ignored such people as German mathematician David Hilbert and French mathematician Henri Poincaré, who were at home in both camps long after Newton.

SEYMOUR J. METZ via e-mail

CLARIFICATION

“Eye of the Flycatcher,” by Jim Daley [Advances], describes a novel retinal structure that researchers found in the eye of the Acadian flycatcher. The same study had found the structure in the eye of the least flycatcher as well.

ERRATUM

“Divide or Conquer,” by Mark Fischetti, should have defined a coastline's foot of slope as the maximum change in gradient rather than the maximum steepness.

Scientific American Magazine Vol 321 Issue 6This article was originally published with the title “Letters” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 321 No. 6 (), p. 6
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1219-6