Letters archive

I really must take issue with your editorial on the identification of the probable remains of Richard III (9 February, p 5) . Yes, peer review has its place in science. But I fear you o'er leap yourself, as Shakespeare might have put it, in appearing to claim this historical discovery must be peer reviewed …

The decision by Cumbria County Council to withdraw its candidacy to house a deep geological repository for UK nuclear waste is disappointing (9 February, p 7) . But it is only a blip, and the search will go on for a community willing to host such a facility. We can't just leave the waste in …

What puzzles me about the ongoing interest in time travel is the elephant in the room: free will (2 February, p 8) . I have no problem with relativistic time travel in which people in speeding spaceships age more slowly. However, travelling to the past or future via wormholes implies a 4th dimension of time …

As other creatures shrink to cope in a hotter world humans may face an additional squeeze on food resources, as you suggested (9 February, p 40) . Perhaps those of us with a metabolism suited to eating and drinking less may have the advantage in a crowded, hungry, hotter world.

Instead of attacking progressives for views that most do not espouse (2 February, p 24) , Alex Berezow and Hank Campbell should be calling for the kind of political discourse that they and most true conservatives favour: one in which policymaking is based on respect for science and scientific evidence. Both progressive and conservative approaches …

If your feature on US drone pilots is meant to invite us to sympathise with the stresses they experience, you have failed with this reader (26 January, p 46) . Unlike the pilots, the victims of asymmetric warfare by the rich on the poor will not be around to help with their children's schoolwork.

The letters from Ian Stewart and Malcolm Shute reinforce the idea that the "dual theory of light" says as much about the observer as it does about light (2 February, p 28) . An electron is an electron and light is light; the problems begin when we try to construct an analogy which can be …

In his letter, Alan Hayward suggested that promoting video game tournaments as a spectator sport amounts to attracting people to "couch-potato land", describing those watching as "mindless" (2 February, p 29) . Professional video game players are as skilled as professional athletes. Why shouldn't people enjoy watching them show off their skills?

I am assuming that most readers will appreciate Reg Platt's arguments against the untruths perpetrated by campaigners against wind power (19 January, p 26) , but I don't think he will change the mind of a single doubter. People don't like wind farms because they don't like the look of them and they are noisy. …

Amidst drought conditions in parts of the US (19 January, p 10) I worry that intransigent rules are not helping conserve water supplies. In Florida where I live, community rules state that 60 per cent of our garden visible from the public road has to be grassed. We have to use a certain type of …

Letter writer Richard Taylor should not be so pessimistic about the effectiveness of gun control (9 February, p 32) . Contrary to what he implies about a relentless increase in gun crime in the UK, Home Office statistics show it has fallen steadily in recent years, and recorded firearms offences in England and Wales halved …

You report a study which showed that young men who watched more than 20 hours of television a week had a lower sperm count (9 February, p 7) . We already knew that testicular heating through sedentary jobs or tight underwear can decrease sperm counts, and so the same effect might be seen in men …

In your sleep special you posed the question: why do we sleep? One theory is that it is simply to conserve energy and avoid danger at night, by snoozing in a place of relative safety (2 February, p 38) . Fossil records of hominids show that a common cause of death was predation by big …

Noreen Weighell thinks of numbers in colour thanks to kindergarten teaching methods (9 February, p 33) . I experience a similar crossing of the senses derived from an early enthusiasm for electronics. I see numbers, particularly road numbers, in their resistance colour code values. So the A272, for example, appears to me as "red, purple, …

It's a shame that the article with the picture of the red squirrel in a snowy forest ( 9 February, p 26 ) didn't mention the continuing success of the conservation effort for these animals in Wales, especially in Anglesey .

• Our report on time-travel visualisation said cosmonaut Sergei Avdeyev holds the record for space travel (2 February, p 8) . In fact, fellow Russian Sergei Krikalyov is the record holder, with 803 days off-planet – compared to Avdeyev's 747 days.