Letters–

When looks can kill

From Abbey Strauss

Your article on the connection

between cosmetic surgery and

suicide captures a seriously

under-reported reality

(21 October, p 18). In my clinical

work I come across many men

and women who have had elective

cosmetic surgery, having had

little or no mental health

screening beforehand.

Often the dash to surgery

speaks to people’s misguided

belief that changing their physical

appearance in the short run will

improve their psychological

selves in the long run. I always ask

patients what their lives would be

like if cosmetic surgery were not

possible for them, and how things

might improve without surgery.

Cosmetic surgery ought to be

limited to the injured, the

deformed or those who have

basically good psychological

health. Many years ago a patient

told me how surprised he was that

after surgery he still had to deal

with his phobias and shyness, to

go to work and wash his clothes. It

is shameful that we are retreating

from the more difficult work of

developing stronger and well-

balanced egos.

I often tell young ladies that

the size of their bosom will not

guarantee a solid relationship

with a man. Even anabolic steroid

use is a psychological variant of

cosmetic surgery. So many people

try to artificially maintain the

rush of sexual stimulation or of

feeling unique. How sad that they

can’t find uniqueness, peace and

joy in simpler relationships

founded on interaction of

substance. That so many people

immediately look to cosmetic

surgery to become what they are

not means our society is slipping

into a very dangerous mindset.

Boca Raton, Florida, US

From Diana Zuckerman,

National Research Center for

Women & Families

In my work on cosmetic surgery I

spoke with a physician involved

with the Danish study you report,

which “discovered that 8 per cent

of women who had breast

implants had earlier been

admitted to a psychiatric

hospital”. He told me that the

women had an incentive for

hospitalisation: to get free breast

augmentation through the

Danish healthcare system. In

other words, some of these

women may have exaggerated

symptoms in order to qualify for

free implants to improve their

self-esteem or mental health.

Washington DC, US

The burden of choice

From Jamie Albon

IVF and the prospect of designer

babies raises a question (21

October, p 41): is there something

in human nature that, although it

wants the power to take decisions,

hates actually making them?

For an example, consider what

has happened to recorded music.

Not so long ago portable players

took only cassette tapes or CDs,

and unless you were prepared to

carry around a whole music

collection you listened to the

same album over and over. People

complained that they couldn’t

choose their music.

These days, you can carry

hundreds or thousands of songs

on a single player and listen to

whatever suits your mood,

whenever you feel like it. Now that

we have this huge choice at our

disposal, however, we put our

players on “shuffle” mode, letting

the machine choose songs for us.

When we can have complete

control over what our children

can look like and what they can

do, will we actually want to make

these decisions? Perhaps it is

easier to leave it up to nature.

Aboyne, Aberdeenshire, UK

Altered half-life

From Rudi van Nieuwenhove

Though the experiments by Claus

Rolfs and colleagues on changing

the half-lives of radioisotopes are

most impressive (21 October, p

36), this is not the first such result.

In 1994 Otto Reifenschweiler

showed that the radioactivity of

tritium absorbed in titanium

particles could be reduced by 40

per cent at temperatures between

115 °C and 275 °C (Physics Letters A,

vol 184, p 149).

To explain these results,

Reifenschweiler put forward the

unorthodox hypothesis that

tritium nuclei, when absorbed in

the extremely small single

titanium crystals, combined in

pairs – and that the decay

constant of such a pair is much

smaller than that of free tritium.

It seems that it is indeed time to

explore this fascinating field.

Halden, Norway

From John Davies

Rolfs says that before his

experiments “no one thought a

nuclear property like the fusion

rate could be enhanced by the

environment”. Not so. Muon-

catalysed deuterium-deuterium

fusion was predicted in 1947 and

there is superb accord between

experiment and theory: a small

temperature change considerably

changes the fusion rate.

Hungerford, Berkshire, UK

Endangered islands

From Ben Dod

As the partner and manager of a

company dedicated to responsible

tourism in the Galapagos Islands,

I was disappointed to see the

article on “Darwin’s paradise”

quoting the figure of 126,000 as

the number of visitors to the

islands (14 October, p 8). Anyone

arriving on the islands who is not

registered as a local resident is

counted as a tourist, whether or

not they visit the National Park. If

I go to the islands 10 times a year

working as manager of a cruise

company in the Galapagos, I am

registered as a tourist each time.

Quito, Ecuador

From Geoff Saunders

Like many commentators, your

correspondent identifies

“visitors” as the major threat to

the Galapagos Islands. I disagree.

It is an unpalatable fact that the

main threat now, as in Darwin’s

time, is from settlers.

As recently as the 1930s the

islands were virtually

uninhabited. Settler numbers

have rocketed in the past few

decades, to about 25,000 today.

At any one time there are only

around 2500 tourists on the

islands, mostly on locally

operated tour boats, while the

settlers are there all year and have

few of the scruples of tourists

when it comes to rubbish disposal

and not harming exotic species.

Perhaps it’s as well that more

tourist money does not reach the

settlers – or more would arrive, to

escape poverty in Ecuador. No one

can blame them, but if you want a

sustainable Galapagos, you must

tackle this poverty in Ecuador.

Settler activity is constrained

by the presence of tourists. For

instance, they have not laid siege

to the Charles Darwin Research

Station demanding relaxation of

conservation rules for quite a

while now.

Dorking, Surrey, UK

Dogma and Dawkins

From Karl Johanson

Mary Midgely, reviewing Richard

Dawkins’s book The God Delusion,

says that anti-religious

movements gave birth to Nazi

Germany (7 October, p 50). But the

leader of Nazi Germany professed

to be a Christian – a Catholic, in

fact – as did many of his followers.

That the erroneous “Hitler was an

atheist” meme is repeated in

26 | NewScientist | 11 November 2006 www.newscientist.com

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