Letters archive

Michael Brooks, in the first of your articles exploring the Deep Future, says it is unlikely that some catastrophe could kill all humans in the next 100,000 years (3 March, p 34) . This could be true, but the articles that follow assume we will have ever more sophisticated technology. There is evidence that in …

Seeing the 5th-century word "hrif" in David Robson's article on how language might change (3 March, p 39) reminded me that it endures in the form of "midriff". There must many other examples. The Deep Future special is what makes New Scientist great: mixing science with informed speculation. From Valerie Moyses Had two important cultural …

The "trolley experiment" seems flawed as a way of investigating choices (18 February, p 10) . Subjects are told to make a real-world-based moral choice – but one based on black-and-white rules and outcomes stated by the experimenter: so if they throw a switch to change the path of the trolley, one person will be …

In her contribution to the Deep Future special, Anne-Marie Corley explores potential space exploration, writing: "Our descendants may well have to come to terms with never having the means or lifespan to reach other stars" (3 March, p 45) . The means is one thing, but the lifespan is another. Accelerating (and decelerating) at just …

If statistically significant precognition existed, that would be stunning – even at the level of 2.27 per cent that Michael Franklin reports (14 January, p 38) . Presumably this figure is the mean for the test population. But what is the spread of individual performances? In other words, does everyone have this weak ability, or …

The article on rewriting the autism rule book by Fred Volkmar and Francesca Happe (10 March, p 30) kept referring to Asperger's as a disorder. We prefer to use Asperger's syndrome, since the term disorder implies that there is something wrong. It is not necessarily any more a disorder than being left-handed, which is mainly …

Bob Holmes explored what clues the archaeologists of AD 100,000 would unearth in the absence of a written record (3 March, p 48) . But that record will not be absent in 100,000 years, so long as technological civilisation endures. I am among those looking at the survival of today's written record, the vast majority …

Thomas Smith asks about jet lag and judgement (18 February, p 33) . Some years ago, while making a programme on time zones for BBC School Radio, I interviewed a senior medical officer at British Airways. She told me of a working rule that for every 1-hour shift of time zone during a flight, crew …

• Ötzi the iceman had trouble with lactose digestion (3 March, p 10) : lactose is milk sugar, not a protein. • In our story on treating late-stage Alzheimer's (10 March, p 5) , we should have said Clive Ballard is director of research at the Alzheimer's Society. • The Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre …