Letters archive

It was vaguely annoying to find once again the invocation of religion to explain Göbekli Tepe (17 August, p 14) . One could similarly imagine humans in 10,000 years' time musing on which deity was worshipped, and whether human sacrifice was involved, when examining the ruins of observatories atop Mauna Loa or at Cerro Paranal …

Your report that the Göbekli Tepe temple predates agriculture raises an intriguing question: could such religious sites have given rise to arable farming, via gatherings of Mesolithic litter-louts? Imagine pilgrims congregating at the temple on festival days, bringing provisions, including grain, foraged en route. There would be spillage during exuberant feasts – including seeds. Come …

The editorial prefacing your article on thought suggests that our ability to think in many ways – "from idle reverie to determined problem-solving" – may be what defines us as human (21 September, p 5) . But other animals are known to solve multi-stage problems, such as ravens . Doubting purposeful thought in all non-human …

In Tim Bayne's essay on thought he suggests that "we can think about nothing at all" (p 32) . He later writes that "to think of something is to bring it to mind in some way". Although I think that I am not thinking when doing something that has become automatic through repeated practice, I …

I read with interest the views of the Apollo 8 astronauts on the International Astronomical Union disregarding their suggested names for lunar features (14 September, p 30 and 21 September, p 30) . No one has more right than they do to name the features they were the first to see. This has always been …

Historical linguists have been borrowing techniques from biological taxonomy, including models based on genetics, for years (7 September, p 32) . The results are interesting, but biological organisms differ from languages in at least one important way: complex organisms diverge genetically over time and reach a point where exchange of genetic material is all but …

Your look at the healthcare potential of Google Glass suggests many potential applications (28 September, p 22) . As an 80-year-old my hearing is weakening and in a crowded situation I can miss bits of conversation. If a sufficiently sophisticated speech recognition program could be developed, the glasses could relay subtitles to the wearer. Newbury, …

I enjoyed reading Lambros Malafouris's article "Mind into matter" (7 September, p 28) on the idea that the human mind isn't contained within the walls of the skull or even the skin but can encompass the entire body and beyond – what is widely known among cognitive scientists as "embodied cognition". It is probably worth …

Malafouris states that "using a stick, the blind man turns touch into sight". As a carer to a blind child, I am made aware that the "stick" not only serves to give tactile feedback on the environment, but also auditory feedback, thus turning touch into hearing too. In some cases, however, it offers no tactile …

Given the potentially smaller size of the hypothetical particles known as weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) (31 August, p 36) and in view of their elusive nature, should they now be know as WISPs? London, UK

I can relate to the inscrutability of domestic cats as spelled out by John Bradshaw (14 September, p 44) . My cat, Her Supreme Highness Sophie, leader of the World Cat Domination League, has twice within the last 12 months given me a dose of Bartonella (cat scratch disease); the first by a playful bite, …

Cats are often infected with Toxoplasma gondii , a protozoan that is passed on to other animals, including humans , via their faeces. Most people don't have any obvious symptoms, but it is known to affect the brains of small rodents, making them behave recklessly and so be more likely to become cat food. This …

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's latest assessment offers little room for those who doubt the human role in global warming and its consequences (28 September, p 6) . To me, it is like going into a hospital ward and seeing a patient twiddling with the controls of their life-support machine. You wouldn't know the …

Further to George Ellis's idea that macroscopic effects can have an effect on the microscopic world, reversing the classical bottom-up idea of cause and effect (17 August, p 28) . If the superposition of quantum states is only determined by observation, surely this is the ultimate example of top-down causation? Hereford, UK

It is interesting that Valerie Curtis says manners evolved at least partly to stave off disease (21 September, p 28) . One of the most common ways of spreading influenza is by the well-known gesture of politeness known as "shaking hands". Hamilton, New Zealand

Your interview with anthropologist David Howes on the use of multiple senses to sell products was interesting (14 September, p 28) . It brought to mind a related example. Poet Allen Ginsberg once told how he earned money in the 1940s working for a market research company, and how a plan to market toothpaste as …

There was an interesting correlation between two articles in your 7 September issue. Biologist Russell Gray wants to use his tools for analysing the spread and evolution of languages to uncover what gods our ancestors believed in (p 32) . One theory mentioned says complex social structures couldn't have developed without a belief in a …

I see we have another unusual unit of measurement to add to Feedback's ongoing collection, in this case of carbon storage. The unit is a Humvee-year, as in "the amount of carbon stored by 1 hectare of bog is equivalent to that emitted by 325 Humvees over a year" (21 September, p 40) . I'm …