Politics aside...

LETTER TO SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, FEB 3/21 Hi. Just a thought from someone who has long been a steady subscriber of Scientific American. After reading four key articles in the February issue, all dealing with things related to the failings of the last administration and the sweet expectation of the next (=current) administration, and all also soggy with political biases, I hesitantly approached Kenneth Catania's “Attack on the Zombie Maker,” feeling certain that here too I would end up by reading something coloured (or worse, discoloured) by politics. I read it through once, then I read it once more, enthralled by Mr. Catania's brilliant telling of the relationship between the jewel wasp and the cockroach, but at the same time thoroughly dismayed by my inability to find in the article any evidence of politically induced distortions or biases. Surely, I kept saying to myself, either the jewel wasp or the cockroach must be Trumpian its deviousness and machinations or Bidenian in its defenses; but no, not ever a further reading revealed any hint of ideological biases. I was astonished. After a depressing start in my reading of this issue of the magazine, Mr. Catania forced me into a reevaluation of Scientific American: it is, after all, capable of doing science, real science. I will stick with it yet. Ermes Culos Box 524 Ashcroft BC 2504539519