Letters archive

Dan Jones's article (16 April, p 32) explores whether a mechanistic, and therefore deterministic, view of what we are degrades our view of ourselves by undermining the concept of free will. If I believe, as I do, that we are animals, and no more than animals, this does not belittle my view of humanity. What …

The special report on happiness (16 April, p 46) did not mention the Easterlin paradox, that the average happiness of developed nations has not generally increased with growth of GDP per capita over the past few decades, and has even declined in China despite its spectacular economic growth . One reason is the strong dependence …

The misleadingly easy quiz questions that John Chen came across (Feedback, 9 Apri l) have been around for years. I recently used them as an icebreaker before a fund-raising quiz. There are other possible questions. How much does a 10-gallon hat hold? (Answer: a headful, about 0.75 gallons.) In which month does the Munich Oktoberfest …

I found Jessica Hamzelou's article on psychopaths very interesting (9 April, p 8) . She stated that the study showed "brain areas involved in reward processing... were larger than normal" in adolescents with conduct disorder who also showed callous unemotional traits, considered symptoms of psychopathy in children. What, I wondered, about bankers' brains? Do they …

The advantages of thorium nuclear power (26 March, p 8) seem mostly unproven in practice, and the technology will probably take more than a decade to develop if a decision is taken to extract power from this element. Meanwhile, our demand for energy means the demise of uranium and plutonium reactors is unlikely any time …

Achim Steiner's article (16 April, p 28) about the conflict between agricultural expansion and conservation appears to assume a growing world population is inevitable. It mentions population rising from the present 6.9 billion to between 8 and 9.7 billion by 2050, and discusses ways to increase land use for food without wrecking the planet. If …

• A conversion error made as our feature about cockroaches (16 April, p 40) was being prepared for publication led to the radiation doses we quoted being out by four orders of magnitude. The correct figures are 64 grays for cockroaches, 640 grays for fruit flies and 1800 grays for Habrobracon wasps. • The story …