Letters archive

If Japan is indeed going to get real over whale research (5 April, p 5) , it needs to consider the implications on its activities in the North Pacific of the landmark ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against its "scientific whaling" in the Antarctic. Paragraph 246 of the ICJ judgment states: "It …

In your leader, you correctly decry the lack of recognition afforded to female scientists, and you mention Rosalind Franklin, Lise Meitner, Emmy Noether and Gerty Cori (5 April, p 5) . It is perhaps worth pointing out that your examples had two hurdles to overcome. Not only were they women, but all four were Jewish. …

The downplaying of women's part in scientific discoveries is real and needs to be rectified. But gender bias isn't the only one operating. The 2003 Nobel prize in chemistry was awarded for the discovery of "porins" – protein channels that transport molecules through cell membranes. It went to the Americans Peter Agre for aquaporins, or …

I enjoyed Alex Pentland's article on the death of individuality (5 April, p 30) , but his grasp of the history of ideas is faulty. He asserts that before the 1700s, Westerners saw truth as coming from God and king, and that only after then did "the idea that humans were individuals with the freedom …

Fred Pearce's review of Windfall by McKenzie Funk presents us with selfish businesses looking forward to climate change so long as they can make a profit out of it (29 March, p 52) . These companies must be thinking of the story of the two explorers on the veldt being charged by a lion. One …

Clive Semmens's fear that a deuterium-tritium fusion reactor can't produce enough tritium for its own needs is unjustified (15 March, p 32) . Lithium comprises two isotopes. Lithium-6 has an enormous cross-section to capture slow neutrons, fissioning to tritium with a large energy yield. Even better, lithium-7 absorbs fast neutrons, fissioning to tritium plus an …

In his assessment of the impact of the Exxon Valdez oil spill 25 years on, John Wiens remarks that "fisheries closed, people's lives were disrupted, and so lawyers went to work" (29 March, p 26) . Of this, only the part about lawyers is accurate. For Exxon fought endless costly legal battles to deny every …

Your leader on scientific fraud (29 March, p 5) , particularly the perception that scientists "adjust their findings to get the answers they want", reminded me of science practicals at school. The results were rarely as expected and would frequently be edited in the hope of getting a higher mark – teaching scientists from childhood …

What a fascinating article on reconstructing mugshots from DNA (22 March, p 14) . If we are only a decade away from mastering this, how long will it be before we can predict someone's DNA from a photo? People's privacy would be severely at risk. Insurers could look at someone's photo on a social network …

I think the Swiss buses to which Peter Murray refers (22 March, p 31) are using the flywheel in a slightly different way from how he described it. With any urban transport system that has frequent stops, it is important to decelerate and then accelerate as smoothly and efficiently as possible. My understanding is that …

I have followed with interest Fred Pearce's article on recovering coal energy in situ (15 February, p 36) and the subsequent letters on coal gasification. I think some confusion still exists. My memory is that coal was "destructively distilled" by heating it in the absence of air. This yielded five products: coal gas, coal tar, …

Your interview with Christiana Figueres revealed that she has "the unenviable task of getting 194 governments to sign a deal that will stop global warming" (15 March, p 30) . This will be equivalent to all 12 of the labours of Hercules plus those of Sisyphus to boot. I wish her well. Buderim, Queensland, Australia

In the whole of your article about the fading brainpower that comes with age (22 March, p 28) , it is apparent that one cardinal word is never mentioned: wisdom. It isn't very popular in our materialistic society. Maybe some people grow wiser as they grow older. And maybe they replace, in their limited head …

I was with reader Steve Pickering 100 per cent until he proposed a crewed space programme as an alternative project to maintaining the UK's arsenal of nuclear weapons (5 April, p 33) . Perhaps reading your excellent analyses of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in the same issue (p 8) …

• Thanks to those who poked holes in our story on the space-faring surgery robot (5 April, p 10) : we should have said the machine would repair perforated ulcers, not perforate them. • We made an accidental precedent claim in our leader on gravitational waves (12 April, p 5). As the accompanying feature noted …