Letters.

Bush whack

I just read "Biomedicine, defense to sidestep budget ax" (SN: 4/14/01, p. 231). Now, I know that George Bush owes his rich cronies a ton of money and favors, but a 10-year program to develop clean energy from coal? Why spend 20 years developing energy from coal, which will run out just like oil will and the mining of which pollutes and destroys the environment worse than oil? We need research into a renewable energy source, but Bush cuts that research.

Dawn Rouse Plainwell, Mich.

Not so dear

According to "Vitaminlike compound eases rare disorder" (SN: 4/21/01, p. 247), coenzyme Q10 is an "expensive, unregulated supplement." Unregulated, yes, but expensive? That will come as a surprise to the tens of thousands of consumers who buy it regularly in nutrition stores, discount drug stores, and over the Internet. It may not be as cheap as a vitamin, but it is actually very reasonable. A month's supply is around $30.

Victor Cabot Best Body Products San Diego, Calif.

When powers collided

"Oceans of electricity" (SN: 4/14/01, p. 234) was a fine article, but one line should have been added about the engineers of the '30s who had plans to build wave-power electricity for the eastern United States. World War II interrupted the plans for cheap power without oil, however.

Douglas O. Deshazer Omaha, Neb.

The article mentions the lack of funding for wave power in the United States. Do any of the wave-power devices currently being tested reduce wave action when in use? If so, perhaps some of the money that goes toward coastal erosion projects might be redirected.

Dave Patton Arlington, Va.

Wisdom of age

Your article on the importance to an elephant family of having as its leader a matriarch of considerable age ("Friend or foe? Old elephants know," SN: 4/21/01, p. 244) reminded me of the postulation that one of the reasons menopause evolved in humans was to allow some women to survive to old age. In preliterate societies, old people were the libraries. Some of the knowledge they accumulated might even have been needed for the tribe to survive in the kind of total disaster that occurs only once or twice in a lifetime.

Nancy Axford Sacramento, Calif.