Letters archive

Your leader on getting hitched to robots was quite right: "The love for a robot may become a love that dare not speak its name" (15 February, p 5) . But first we need a name to avoid mentioning. How about "automating"? The robot itself (herself? himself?) could then be an automate. And presumably give …

In your Cure for Love special, the juxtaposition of having a religion grappling with robot ethics (15 February, p 24) , drugs to help cope with break-ups (p 26) , and people marrying computers (p 29) poses a question. Will we need to develop an equivalent to the anti-love pill for android companions to take …

China has had considerable success in its crewed space programme. However, in your article on the rise of China as a space superpower you quote Richard Holdaway, the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Space division director, as saying that the country is "progressing a lot faster than the US did with theirs in the sixties" (15 February, …

The best way to save an endangered species – such as the black rhino, which was the subject of your story on permitted trophy hunting to raise conservation cash (18 January, p 4) – is to farm it. This also removes the dangers associated with the trade in rare animal parts, provides breeding stock to …

In his letter (1 February, p 32) about Michael Brooks's call to create agile minds rather than ever more science graduates in the UK (21/28 December 2013, p 38) , Derek Williams points to the teaching of "thinking" in schools in Venezuela and wonders what we can learn from this. Free-thinking Venezuela has led the …

Clare Wilson's article highlighted the usefulness of talking therapies in treating schizophrenia (8 February, p 32) . I fully support the UK's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidelines in offering psychological treatment to those with a psychotic illness such as schizophrenia. However, Wilson's article portrays psychiatrists as uncaring brutes forcing ineffective drugs on …

Wilson's article does point out some interesting initial evidence against the long-term use of antipsychotics in schizophrenia. However, I rather feel that it overstates the benefit of avatar-based therapy to reduce distressing voices. She says the "approach helped 15 out of 16 people in the study". It is important to note that 26 people were …

Instead of Australia dumping millions of tonnes of sludge onto their Great Barrier Reef so they can export more coal to be burned (8 February, p 7) , why don't they send it to an island country that needs it because of rising sea levels caused by climate change, such as Tuvalu in Polynesia? If …

Stephen Battersby attributes increased bogginess in Europe to the removal of forests thousands of years ago (11 January, p 46) . He argues that reduced evapotranspiration, whereby trees take water from the ground and return it to the air via their leaves, led to wetter soils and bogs. This is a well-recognised phenomenon, but may …

In her discussion of excrement-eating pitcher plants in Borneo (1 February, p 43) Stephanie Pain suspects the many species of Nepenthes may still have a few surprises in store. Here's one possibility: I wonder if the juices they produce have a laxative effect to promote output? Euless, Texas, US

Your leader highlighted that deaths caused by medical errors, adverse drug reactions or hospital-acquired infections are the third leading cause of mortality worldwide (25 January, p 5) . To these "iatrogenic" deaths we can add many people whose lives have been blighted by non-fatal iatrogenic impacts. For example, I have been profoundly affected by the …

As a former bat ecologist I thought your article on diseases carried by bats (8 February, p 44) unnecessarily demonised these animals, which already get a bad press. What next? "Humans: nasty carriers of millions of diseases, avoid", or "birds: flying bags of flu virus: don't touch"? All animals are disease vectors and many diseases …

With hindsight, it seems obvious that there might be Eurasian genes in populations in the south of Africa once thought to be genetically isolated (8 February, p 10) . The idea of these people being totally isolated before European contact was too parochial. Three thousand years ago, advanced civilisations had been flourishing in the Middle …

There is some historical evidence to support the theory that European DNA made its way into southern African tribes at the time of the Roman Empire. Around 450 BC, ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote in the Histories that King Necho of Egypt ordered a ship to sail around Africa, and that it returned two years …

Kate Douglas looks at how a bird that was bred for its plumage came to sing intricate melodies composed of many phrases (8 February, p 36) . For me, the most plausible explanation is that, intentionally or not, the Bengalese finch was bred for song as well. Breeders probably weren't selecting for plumage alone, but …

If you are struggling to find a non-alcoholic drink for adults to savour (1 February, p 32) , I highly recommend soda, lime and bitters. Tasty and not too sweet. Bronte, New South Wales, Australia

• Sugar-free. Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science used a labelled amino acid, not a sugar, to study the relationship between ants and the Humboldtia brunonis tree (15 February, p 18) . • In our look at robot romance, we wove in an inaccuracy. Dan O'Hara at Birmingham City University, UK, was a consultant …