Letters archive

Thierry Lodé (5 November, p 30) claims that the cost of having redundant males shows that sex is not a good solution for reproduction. However, division into males and females came well after the origin of sexual reproduction. Many invertebrates are hermaphrodites – where they have the advantages of sex and both parties can reproduce. …

We read your coverage on the speeding neutrinos (1 October, p 6) and the related letter from Alan Watson (29 October, p 35) . Even though the OPERA results are in need of confirmation, their claim that neutrinos are faster than light has sent the press into an "Einstein was wrong" frenzy. Caution is recommended, …

Robert Trivers is quite right to point out that, at one extreme, you could describe religion as an exercise in self-deception (8 October, p 32) . A good example is found in Peter Bonsey's letter in the same issue (p 34) , where he talks about the "fictitious" disconnect between science and religion. Darwin refused …

Chris Thomas's call to relocate some species threatened by climate change to the UK is a triumph of hope over experience (29 October, p 29) . He states that "no native species has gone extinct here as a result of the arrival of non-native species", but no mention is made of the diseases they bring. …

I appreciated your look at America's poor relationship with science but was dismayed by the disparaging reference to my 2005 book, The Republican War on Science , which you called "simplistic and unhelpful" (29 October, p 3) . On the contrary, the book looks prescient now, with anti-science behaviour on the US political right more …

I would like to pass on a personal observation related to the rubber hand illusion (15 October, p 34) . I am a below-the-knee amputee and periodically have twinges of phantom limb pain. Where I have the sensation depends on circumstances. If I'm wearing my prosthesis, the pain feels as if it is in my …

I read almost once a month in New Scientist how the universe is "fine-tuned" for the existence of life (22 October, p 14) . This assumes that someone had the intention of seeding life when "they" created the cosmos. It is also a very Earth-centric view, because the universe is not, on the whole, a …

What Phyllis Goldstein's letter on the end of evolution of brain size (22 October, p 35) overlooks is that the more knowledge you have in your memory, the faster you can work and the more you can do. At a mundane level, imagine trying to write a letter when you have to look up the …

George Legendre wishes there was a book which dealt with pasta seasonings as rigorously as his own mathematical study of pasta shapes (15 October, p 48) . He might be interested in the culinary book The Geometry of Pasta by Caz Hildebrand and Jacob Kenedy (Quirk Books, 2010). The jacket flap states: "There are over …

Here's my contribution to the alternatives to traditional burial and cremation (29 October, p 36) . The University of Tennessee at Knoxville's Forensic Anthropology Center is also known as the "Body Farm". People can donate their remains, which are then left to decompose so that trainee forensic scientists can learn their trade, for example, by …

• Pine beetles have swept through 130,000 square kilometres of forest in British Columbia, Canada. Our story was out by a factor of 10 (5 November, p 38) . • The feature "Don't tell it so straight" (29 October, p 42) mistakenly suggested that the Discovery Institute sought to get biblical creationism taught in science …