This procedure is imprecise and adds a time delay. It is very common for me to knit a sentence together several seconds after everyone else heard it. Everyone laughs, and seconds later I get to “hear” the punch line in my head. Having to do all this processing does have an upside. Sometimes the combination of words that my mind has rejected sounds like what was said and has a message that is related to the topic but creates an absurd vision in my head. Periodically the incorrect interpretation of the sounds is more entertaining than what was actually said.
Kee Nethery
Berkeley, Calif.
BIOTECH FOOD AND DRUGS
Both Brendan Borrell’s interview with agro-research czar Roger Beachy [“Food Fight”] and Mary McKenna’s “The Enemy Within” point to a serious disconnect between research, learning and hopes for applications of that research. Beachy says that crops with permanent resistance to pests are “almost unheard of,” and McKenna shows us how scary the future of infection may be with antibiotic-resistant bacteria winning over the development of new medicines. There is no difference between the loss of valuable antibiotics to ever more resistant bacteria and the fight with pests through genetic engineering. In only a few years, with the planet’s food-production capability more strained by population demands, major crop harvests may well follow the same hazardous, on-the-edge life we humans are walking ourselves into as a result of not learning our lessons from history nor from one another.
Scott C. Reuman
Nederland, Colo.
FAMILY ALBUMS OF THE FUTURE
David Pogue laments in “Seeing Forever” [TechnoFiles] that current digital media may not last long. And it is good that in 100 years 99.9 percent of all images, video and audio recordings will be gone. Who cares about Uncle Joe’s photos from his 2005 vacation in Florida or Italy? Future generations need their own memories plus the very best from past generations. Nobody in the year 2100 will have the time to look at pictures from their forebears of the past 100 years. They need to build their own memories.
Marc Tomaszewski
Friedrichshafen, Germany
LIVING DREAM
Eitan Haddok’s “Can the Dead Sea Live?” shows how pragmatism can give hope.
A project involving salvation of an extraordinary body of water brings together three politically disparate regions: Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. It is a rare example of cooperation in the midst of a bitter area of human conflict. An organization that has been monitoring the project, Friends of the Earth Middle East, consists of participants from each of those regions. The organization, and specifically its undertaking to save the Dead Sea, is a wonderful example of how the effort to save a precious resource can raise people above endless, vicious political squabbling.
Stanley P. Santire
Houston
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Add CommentI read your editorial with a bittersweet taste in my mouth, sweet because it is good to see education talked about in Scientific American, but bitter because it was a rehash of failed reforms. It is abundantly clear that we need a revolution in education. You rightly make the argument that we are not producing enough quality STEM graduates let alone coming close to fulfilling our need for good STEM teachers. And the results are even more dismal when we consider the preparation of our low income students and students of color for higher education or meaningful jobs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYet, it is not for want of trying. Over the past 40 years there have been numerous efforts to reform education, including a large number of DARPA-like projects sponsored by NSF and more recently by the Gates Foundation and others. And yet the profound truth is that the gold standard NAEP score in math for 12th graders remains flat lined; it has not changed in 40 years. It has not changed despite a nearly 300% increase in per student (constant dollar) expenditures over that same period.
We clearly need new thinking! And to begin the process I want to suggest that we focus not on instruction but on learning. While you barely mention technology and effectively dismiss it as the key to this revolution, technology can now enable this new focus. I am not speaking of technology that replaces teachers; teachers remain a critical part of the learning process. Rather technology can enable most students to learn many things without direct teacher instruction, and it can enhance the ability of good and great teachers to broaden their ability to instruct.
I believe that Scientific American and other STEM voices can play a critical role in solving this great problem by providing a forum for revolutionary educational ideas and discussions. I would like to see a monthly column on new educational ideas in your magazine as well as articles on revolutionary learning in your content. And is it not time for education to be a science like the other sciences you cover and warrant a role not only in your content but in your special issues? For if we treat education as a science perhaps we can ensure that every American will become a scientific American.
Art Bardige
CEO Sustainablearning
artbardige@sustainablearning.com
The US is no longer a vibrant young go-getter. It's now settling into crotchety late-middle age, called it good enough, and is spending what resources it has accumulated, trying to resist change, content to sit on the porch yelling at kids to get off its lawn. The new up & coming countries is where the exciting promise is. It'll be a bit til they get there, but it'll be neat to see them cruise past us... before they plateau out themselves and are surpassed by others still. Civilizations only advance til things are comfortable enough to stop.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI almost never agree with you but this time your post puts it perfectly. The USA has had it's day and is now digging in to prepare to be "retired" by more dynamic nations that want their turn to shine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is a really disappointing "letter to the editor" in your Aug 12, 2011 issue. Former astronaut Don Peterson describes how he wouldn’t have the “right stuff” to take part in colonizing Mars. His personal scruples aside, Peterson far overstates the technical, physiological and psychological difficulties of a one-way mission to the Red Planet. The challenges of such a program would be considerably less daunting than the problems faced 45 years ago by engineers who found a way to put men on the moon. Living conditions on Mars would be undeniably primitive, but not unprecedented or something that humans have not endured before. We accept that our military or police may sacrifice their lives for the greater good. There is no greater good than moving humanity onto another planet. A Mars outpost would provide a sanctuary for the seed of mankind so a remnant will remain should something terrible happen on earth. Establishing a sister planet arrangement with Mars will give us a true mastery of space travel and help cope with the inevitable extinction humanity must eventually suffer from a massive asteroid impact.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJames C. McLane III
Associate Fellow, The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Houston TX