Letters archive

All my cats know how to analyse breath to detect illness (17 March, p 12) . They don't have to learn it: they were born with the knowledge. I trust my cats' diagnoses over my doctor's any time. Treatment for flu involves staying with the patient for longer than usual periods, preferably keeping the human …

I was interested in your item about which way people turn when they go into a theatre (17 February, p 25) . So I made careful observations at a town meeting to discuss a proposed open-air stage on our waterfront. Almost everyone who spoke had chosen to sit on the left side of the room, …

When I was about 8 years old, I correctly diagnosed my mum's friend as having an ear infection. She asked me how I knew. I said I could smell it. What took the scientists so long to catch up?

I noticed with some grim amusement that great pains were taken to disinfect the feet of the Queen Mother when she attended a recent race meeting. Yet no notice whatever is taken of the claws of birds that fly from farm to farm, possibly spreading foot and mouth disease with impunity. The very name of …

One of the most distressing aspects of the epidemic of foot and mouth disease now ravaging Britain's farms is pictures of stacks of animals being burnt, with thick clouds of dark smoke blowing in the wind. As a surgeon I routinely use electrocautery in my work. It has been known for some time that live …

Ken Aitken (10 March, p 56) refers to research on autism in northern Finland and its apparent finding that autism has increased fourfold among Finnish children. What Aitken didn't say is that the study's authors conclude that the most likely reason for any increase in the figures is that doctors and parents have got better …

I recently received a leaflet on the new rates of vehicle tax in Britain, which are now based on carbon dioxide emissions. This to me is a pollution tax. So other polluters/emitters ought to pay too. Take the fizzy drinks industry. How much CO 2 does the fizzy drinks industry put into the atmosphere each …

Sarah Ransdell's research into essay writing while under the influence of background music (17 March, p 17) throws up a very unimpressive statistic: people produce one fewer word a minute if they are listening to music. Is music the important factor here? I suspect they may produce one fewer word a minute if the Sun …

Apparently big babies are smarter than smaller ones (17 February, p 49) . I feel there must be other factors involved. After all, Isaac Newton is said to have been born prematurely, and I presume, underweight. I weighed in at a tender 1 pound and 14 ounces (0.85 kilograms), so I feel particularly encouraged by …

Syd Curtis proposes that a piece of paper, when considered as a cuboid, has eight sides (3 March, p 56) . Surely it actually has 12: inside left, inside right, inside top, inside bottom, inside front, inside back, outside left, outside right, outside top, outside bottom, outside front and outside back?

The current promotion of "renewable" energy causes me some concern. Energy cannot be renewed, only converted from one form to another. Is this not the first law of thermodynamics? Wind power takes energy from the wind and converts it to energy in the form of electricity. Will this affect the weather in some way?

The ancient city of Machu Picchu was neither a "stronghold" nor was it the "last refuge of the Inca empire after it was overrun by Spanish conquistadores in the 16th century" (10 March, p 20) . The inclusion of these long-discredited notions in your article may distract from the credibility of your more immediate message …

I hesitate to spoil a good discussion about the cause of Samson's behaviour (17 February, p 19) . But the reason Samson was told not to drink—or cut his hair—was because he was a Nazirite: one specially dedicated to God. Nazirites never drank wine. This reflected the old nomadic, desert-dwelling days of some of the …

It seems to me that a computer program with effective basic language skills could lead to an attractive commercial opportunity (3 March, p 21) . Here's what I suggest. Two dozen copies of the program could be made available via a dedicated Internet chat site. Initially access would be free, but restricted to credit card …

I have to take the editors of New Scientist to task over a glaring error that slipped through recently (10 March, p 4). Jeff Hecht writes that "academic groups pressurised NASA". I am sure the academics only pressured NASA.

So we might soon have a breath sensor that can predict if you're about to suffer a bout of flu (17 March, p 24) . I have long thought that there is a large psychological component to becoming ill from minor afflictions such as colds. When people think that they are about to become ill, …