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6 June 2012
From Brian Josephson, 1973 Nobel prizewinner in physics
Your article on human rationality (26 May, p 32) asks: "Have you ever, against your better judgement, nurtured a belief in the paranormal?" It continues: "If you buy into any of these beliefs, you are probably suffering from confirmation bias – the mind's tendency to pick and choose information to support our preconceptions, while ignoring...evidence …
6 June 2012
From Alessandro De Angelis, Physics coordinator of the MAGIC telescope
Astronomer Geoff Marcy assumes that extraterrestrials might try to communicate with us by pointing lasers at Earth (31 March, p 28) . This possibility has been studied. If they know about our civilisation, such beings would point at the telescope dish with the largest reflecting surface. If our mutual position in the Milky Way allows …
6 June 2012
From Abigail Newis
Ron O'Dor's conundrum of how to stop captive squid flying into tank walls at night is a concern (19 May, p 39) . Has he considered lining the tanks with bubble wrap? Not only is it widely available, cheap, waterproof and malleable, it could even be an effective way of recording the animals' night-time activity, …
6 June 2012
From Timothy Johnson, Heriot-Watt University
In your story "Roulette beater spills his secrets" you wrote that in the 1970s, Doyne Farmer, then a graduate student, used the world's first wearable computer to beat roulette tables in Nevada's casinos (12 May, p 12) . I believe the first wearable computer was conceived in 1955 and deployed in 1961 by Edward Thorp …
6 June 2012
From Marc Abrahams, Founder of the Ig Nobel prize ceremony
Your review of Philip Ball's book Curiosity (19 May, p 50) ends: "Yet for all its erudition, his book does not quite succeed in capturing the difference between Nobel and Ig Nobel prizewinning curiosity." Nobel prizes recognise (in theory and usually in fact) curiosity that led to extremely good things. Ig Nobel prizes recognise curiosity …
6 June 2012
From Roy Harrison
In your look at alternatives to oil (19 May, p 34) , the statement that "as electricity generation becomes cleaner, the emissions of electric vehicles will fall further still" is open to challenge. It is normal policy to allow all non-fossil fuel power stations to produce all the power they can all the time. Fossil …
6 June 2012
From Merlin Reader
Your article, "Engineering love" (12 May, p 28) , is predicated on the basis that the family – presumably two adults in a long-term monogamous relationship – is the best place to bring up children. It is ironic that the researchers used prairie voles to research increasing relationship length. Perhaps this is partly because none …
6 June 2012
From Claudio Gino
My daughters were raised as multilingual and had no speaking problems as a result, contrary to the fears of some educators that you touched on in your look at bilingualism (5 May, p 30) . But I have known of at least three cases of children exposed to two languages in early childhood who had …
6 June 2012
From Dr Richard Symonds, Consultant psychiatrist
The article by James Davies, "Label jars, not people" (19 May, p 7) about protesters lobbying the American Psychiatric Association's meeting is relevant, but there are a few points to make. Psychiatrists do not label people. They label disorders of mental health. And the protesters highlight that the Diagsnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders …
6 June 2012
From Neil Craig
The first true commercial spaceship has successfully resupplied the International Space Station after its launch from Cape Canaveral (26 May, p 4) . With the shuttle programme over, it was embarrassing that NASA, with its $18 billion-a-year budget, was expecting to have to rely on the Russians to get Americans there for many years. But …
6 June 2012
From Julie Ellender
Here's my take on your exploration of excessive self-esteem among young people (28 April, p 44) . Fake self-esteem is narcissistic, lacks empathy, relies on extrinsic rewards and lacks self-insight. It is based on fantasy. It is easy to see. Real self-esteem is empathic, provides insight into our strengths and weaknesses – allowing us to …
6 June 2012
From Jamie White
The idea of using artificial intelligence to help invent brand names is an interesting concept but, as the unfortunate results of combining "sweet" and "eat" to produce "sweat" shows, we are a long way from giving AI any kind of autonomy in this regard (5 May, p 19) . It seems the system described is, …
6 June 2012
• In our look at science art in Russia (19 May, p 51) , we should have said Sergey Kasich was the sound artist for Julia Borovaya's Liquid~Do artwork. • Brian Cox will be co-presenting a special edition of the UK's Radio 4 show The Infinite Monkey Cage at Latitude on 14 July, not MC-ing …
Issue no. 2868 published 9 June 2012
