Letters archive

Michael Slezak's report on plans to turn tropical northern Australia into a giant food bowl (12 July, p 6) was well balanced as regards economic, environmental and social issues. But it omitted consideration of an important element – soil. Soil types in northern Australia are complex and varied, and soil management for intensive agriculture would …

I have just returned from the Kimberley region in the north of Western Australia. There are many problems preventing the development of this region. The high tidal ranges there make it difficult to load any large boat continuously in a port. The only way is to put cargo on a barge and take it out …

After walking from Alice Springs to the west coast of Australia, Robyn Davidson wrote in her autobiography Tracks that the desert is not empty, nor is it bleak. It is part of the soul of Indigenous Australians and they feel that the desert is alive. Developing northern Australia, while well meaning, will actually kill off …

My grandma could have given David Dunstan, who features in Stephanie Pain's article, good advice on getting rid of slugs and snails (12 July, p 36) . Get a torch and a salt shaker and go out just after dusk. That's when the creatures reveal themselves. All you have to do is sprinkle a little …

I was amused by Dunstan's solution for the snails that were eating his flowers. He threw them into his neighbour's garden. My brother and I have a different and very effective solution. We eat them. With a bit of butter and garlic salt, mixed and cooked with the vegetables, the snails provided us with a …

Economist Richard Layard points out that less than one-third of people with common mental disorders are being treated, compared with more than 90 per cent of people with illnesses such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease (12 July, p 24) . Surely the lack of validated biological indicators for most mental disorders is a key factor. …

Liam O'Keeffe's point about nimbyism and green energy (12 July, p 26) was rather diluted when you realise he was promoting tidal barrages from Surrey, a landlocked county! There are alternative ways to harvest tidal energy with lower environmental impact, such as tidal pools. Salcombe, Devon, UK

O'Keeffe has forgotten one of the UK's most important natural resources – micro-hydroelectric installations. There must be thousands, if not tens of thousands of small streams, many of them already with weirs and former or still-present mills. For a cost of £25,000 or so, these streams can supply a small village with electricity, and if …

Howard Koch of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), dismisses as a mere "notion" the overwhelming scientific evidence that human activity is changing the climate (12 July, p 27) . The evidence his party seeks to ignore is so overwhelming that it is accepted by all world governments and academies of science, health experts such as …

I read with interest Marc Bekoff and Daniel Ramp's article on the ethics of killing zoo animals (21 June, p 26) , as I am a conservation biologist working on human-carnivore conflict resolution. The authors state "there is often conflict between those interested in animal welfare and those interested in conservation". In fact, animal populations …

If bacteria can bypass the conventional sugar and oxygen lifestyle by living on electrons (19 July, p 8) , could other bacteria live on an even more abstract diet of pure information? According to physicist Rolf Landauer, each bit of Shannon's information entropy can be traded for a small amount of Boltzmann-Gibbs thermodynamic entropy. In …

Laura Spinney made a good case for the promotion of breadfruit as a food staple, but there is yet another advantage to the plant that was not discussed (28 June, p 40) . Much of agriculture involves the continuous tilling of the soil, with the attendant risk of erosion. A food-bearing tree, on the other …

On what basis does Colin Parrish claim (5 July, p 29) that organised terrorism is a far more serious threat than the US National Security Agency's sweeping surveillance? In trying to prevent terrorism, security services take totally disproportionate actions against individuals all over the world. Even if there is some point to what they are …

In his letter, Peter Jones refers to a brain surgeon who saw equal numbers of head injuries among cyclists who were wearing a helmet and those who weren't, but Jones notes that this could be because most helmeted riders were not seriously injured (19 July, p 33). If such riders were only 10 per cent …

• Jibo would never have let this happen: the crowdfunding campaign for the robotic family assistant is found on Indiegogo, not Kickstarter (19 July, p 21) . • Dial M for muddle: the fields referred to by the acronym STEM are science, technology, engineering and maths, not medicine (12 July, p 26) . • We …