Letters archive

In your article on biodefence in the US you highlight two crucial problems with Project BioShield (7 October, p 18). These are its "one bug, one drug" approach and its inadequate plans for a timely and effective delivery of countermeasures. I suggest the project also faces two additional shortcomings. First, the reward structure in defence …

The sidebar "Inside the mind of a cow" in the article on animal welfare states that "most species only seem capable of thinking in the present" (23 September, p 7). But what about memory, which is certainly a characteristic of many animals? For example, my dog once buried a bone and found it again when …

Clear thinking seems to be in danger of being overwhelmed by science's own version of political correctness: anti-anthropism. "Why is the universe the way it is? Most physicists would prefer a deep reason that has nothing to do with our existence," says your piece on multiple universes (7 October, p 38). Should scientific judgement really …

"Is it fair to expect 25-year-olds to pay very high taxes to support perfectly healthy 70-year-olds in retirement?" ask Paul and Anne Ehrlich in their article on population (30 September, p 46). This question deserves thought, given that the 70-year-olds may have already contributed to society by working for up to 55 years, while young …

Why do members of the public persist in continuing to live an unhealthy lifestyle, despite very public warnings and recommendations from various sources? Perhaps it is because they are highly confused about diet and lifestyle advice. Your article on diabetes being caused by eating fish (30 September, p 18) clearly contradicts UK government advice on …

Subharmonics are nothing new (30 September, p 60). George Crumb scored them in his 1970 string quartet Black Angels , and I described them (as "undertones") in my 1985 Handbook of Instrumentation . They can indeed be elicited from any bowed stringed instrument, as well as from certain woodwind and brass instruments, and even drums.

• In our story about North Korea's nuclear test (14 October, p 9) the size of the explosion, estimated at 0.5 kilotons, or the equivalent of 500 tons of TNT, is incorrectly compared to the Oklahoma City bomb of 1995. In fact, the Oklahoma City bomb was smaller by a factor of around 100. • …

I wonder whether seaweed had been considered as a fuel crop (25 September, p 36). It uses neither freshwater nor arable land and grows in relatively low light levels. From Dominic Wormell The article on biofuels implied that vast environmental destruction would be caused by their production. However, this assumes that biofuel production would have …

George Monbiot suggests that electricity generation from solar photovoltaic panels would be poorly matched to demand because demand peaks in the middle of the winter (30 September, p 24). This is not borne out by a long-term study of electricity consumption in our house. We have recorded our domestic electricity consumption daily since June 2005. …

Was it by divine coincidence that Mary Midgley's article (7 October, p 50) appeared in the same edition of New Scientist as the cover story on confabulation? Midgley is right to say it is not irrational to use imaginative structures as a necessary preparation for reasoning, but she is wrong when she asserts that, "with …

Lawyers have been pragmatically applying tests to defeat the "tendency to confabulate" for a few centuries (7 October, p 32). When questioning your own side's witness there is an absolute rule that you cannot employ leading questions. Every courtroom lawyer has experienced the sinking feeling that results when what previously seemed rock-solid testimony turns into …