Letters archive

The oft-expressed idea that science is somehow morally and ethically neutral (10 January, p 29) shows that scientists are just as prone to woolly thinking as the critics of their activities. To hold such an idea necessarily implies that science is some kind of independent entity, separate from the human beings engaged in scientific activities. …

I agree with Simon Reynolds that it makes good sense to apply controls on fossil carbon as near as possible to the point where it is extracted from the ground (3 January, p 16) . In the proposals at www.kyoto2.org , funds raised from the auction of extraction permits would be invested to tackle both …

Aria Pearson highlights the importance of upwelling in bringing nutrients from deep ocean to the surface (3 January, p 32) . On the other hand you describe the Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) concept (22 November 2008, p 28) , in which water from the deep ocean is used as a cooling agent in electricity …

May I share a "magic moment"? A girl of about 10 was standing at a supermarket news-stand with a copy of New Scientist open at the lead story, "Resurrection Park" (10 January, p 24) . She was explaining to her younger brother, in some depth, how extinct beasts might be resurrected. I felt hope for …

Andy Coghlan correctly identified minimising the harms caused by cannabis use as the focus for the Beckley Foundation Cannabis Commission's report "Moving beyond stalemate" (3 January, p 6) . It is important to stress that the legalisation option mentioned in the article is only one of many alternatives to prohibition put forward in our report …

Like the subject of your article on postponing puberty in transsexual children, I recognised my gender as female very early ( 13 December 2008, p 5 and p 8 ). That was in the first half of the 1930s, at 4 years old, as soon as I knew there was a difference. My continual assertion …

I am surprised that anyone should be surprised to discover that "A good night out began at home in ancient Greece" (10 January, p 10) . The term "pub" derives from "public house" – a private house opened to the public to enjoy beer, originally brewed on site. The 1830 Beer Act re-established the tradition …

Ian Rubenstein comments on the proposal by Hans Meyer and Charles Overton – whose work on the subject was actually published in 1899 and 1901 – that the effectiveness of inhaled anaesthetics is proportional to their solubility in lipids (20/27 December 2008, p 18) . However, the reason he suggests for this is incorrect. General …

• We incorrectly placed Francesco Sylos Labini at La Sapienza University in Rome (24 January, p 50) . He is at the Enrico Fermi Center in Rome .

Is science morally and ethically neutral (10 January, p 29) ? I live in a country whose rivers are degraded and whose land is increasingly salinated because farmers in the past followed the advice of accredited scientists about how to increase yield. The arguments for genetically modified organisms are very similar, it seems to me, …

Helen Logan asks whether in a universe with different conditions another conscious being might appear and assume in turn that those conditions were finely tuned for its existence (10 January, p 16) and you reply that "most of the universes we can imagine would not support any sort of complex structures, which we assume are …

The "Three Degrees of Contagion" article (3 January, p 24) was timely and intriguing. Unfortunately, the suggestions put forward to help people "detox" their lives didn't seem to follow logically from the findings. Indeed, they could conceivably help reinforce an individualist spirit that makes the situation worse. While distancing oneself from unhappy people might sound …

Responding to your questioning why early and promising Greek technology was not further developed for so long (13 December 2008, p 5) , Nicholas Dore points out that Rome absorbed and continued much of Greek thought, rather than supplanted it (17 January, p 17) . It may be that the Greeks were distracted by internecine …

Niels Röling is the first commentator on the environment I have seen who seems anywhere near appreciating the root of the problem (17 January, p 40) . He refers to the prisoner's dilemma of game theory, avoidance of which involves adjusting pay-offs until they rank in a different order. But that requires an authority with …

Discussing which of Darwin or Galileo had more impact, Michael Brooks argues for Galileo because 80 per cent of Americans believe the Earth goes round the sun compared with only 50 per cent who believe in natural selection (20/27 December 2008, p 70) . Surely the scary thing here is the 20 per cent who …