Letters archive

E.O. Wilson picks up on our urge to group (21 April, p 34) , which is leaving us with innumerable paradoxical, overlapping loyalties. Kinships and religions, the ones that he recognises, are only two: think local, think country, think race, think culture, think football team, think enemies and rivals. But Wilson is surely engaging in …

Further to Geoffrey Shephard's letter suggesting stem-cell research could enable lifespans of centuries through the manufacture of replacement body parts (21 April, p 37) . I cannot think of a better recipe for the intellectual and cultural stagnation of our species. Death, as Steve Jobs observed, "is very likely the single best invention of life. …

In CultureLab's look at Immortality (7 April, p 47) , both reviewer S. Jay Olshansky and author Stephen Cave appear to consider that the unit of survival is the individual. The battle against death is then the fight for individual survival, whether through health measures, life after death, immortality of the soul, or legacy. What …

As a physicist, I'm intrigued by Christof Koch's article on consciousness (14 April, p 24) . His description of an approach to a generic theory of consciousness that involves linking physical neuronal firing patterns in the brain to an abstract, multidimensional space is strongly reminiscent of the phase space model of statistical physics. Physicists have …

I couldn't help feeling that mining minerals on Earth's mini-moons would not be viable (21 April , p 48). If a 2-kilometre-wide asteroid is worth $25 trillion ($25×1012), surely a mini-moon one-thousandth of the diameter of such an asteroid (and therefore one-billionth of the volume) would only be worth $25,000 ($25×1012×10-9). There does not appear …

Michael Bond's article on wealth and the research of Dacher Keltner and Michael Kraus throw up some interesting hypotheses regarding the impact of class, status and money on the way we interact with each other (21 April, p 52) . Teasing apart those three concepts is often hard and there are a host of assumptions …

The real danger from fracking is not the small earthquakes it can cause or even the disposal of the chemicals used in the process (28 January, p 8) . It is that we may discover a glut of gas that will drive down the price of all fossil fuels. Natural gas will not replace coal, …

The article on immunity correctly states that "breastfeeding reduces infection rates, particularly in the developing world" (7 April, p 34) . Absence of breastfeeding is especially disastrous in developing countries and anywhere in the world where there is a war, crisis or other disaster. But, contrary to popular opinion that breastfeeding is a mere bonus …

Helen Knight claims that our smartphones are subtly removing our ability to choose, or even to make a decision (14 April, p 36) . I'm not sure that the notion of free will has been settled, but the idea that clever marketing algorithms can deprive us of our ability to choose seems specious. No doubt …

I would not wish to contradict the conclusions of John Hibbing and Chris Mooney on the biological basis for differences in political belief (7 April, p 28) . Yet when Mooney speaks of US liberals and conservatives as personality types, his terminology confuses. He goes on to talk about political left versus political right – …

Feedback talked about devices consuming power when supposedly turned off and suggested a requirement that "off really means off" (31 March) . But this is already the case. There are two international standard symbols for a power switch. The one for a true on/off switch has an unbroken circle with a vertical stroke within it. …

In Feedback, Terry Devlin is puzzled that an Irish lottery "compiles a STATS section to improve your chances of winning" (21 April) . It's obvious! Fools who study such a section in the hope of winning are likely to spend more. This will indeed increase their chance of winning.