Letters archive

Alan Page Fiske and Tage Shakti Rai argue that most violence arises from morality, not a lack of it (29 November, p 30) . But they omit to say anything about state violence, which is also often driven by ostensibly moral reasons. The moral justifications for state violence are usually concocted with great efforts expended …

Chris Baraniuk addresses the use of robots in armed conflict not only from a technical point of view, as he also considers the ethical, political and social consequences (15 November, p 38) . Unfortunately he doesn't give greater consideration to what happens when combatants ignore international conventions. Here issues of terrorism or genocide become central. …

I read with interest Josh Tetrick's plans for creating eco-friendly mayonnaise by substituting pea protein for eggs (22 November, p 31) . Whilst agreeing with his statement that "the vast majority of food we buy today is bad for our bodies and destructive for the planet", I feel that his product is rather missing the …

Bravo to the physicists at CERN for making their data freely available online (29 November, p 6) . Can we hope that climate scientists will be inspired to follow suit? One might think that helping solve the world's climate problems is a more pressing issue than finding new types of boson, but basic observational data …

Perry Bebbington makes a very important point in his letter when he says that oil used to make plastics should be referred to as "plastic ore" rather than fossil fuel (29 November, p 32) . But he doesn't take this line of thought far enough. Can you imagine modern civilisation without plastics or steel? Plastics …

Arguing against divestment from fossil fuels, Paul Younger suggests we should exploit the access that investing in fuel companies gives us to company leaders (15 November, p 26) . I would suggest rather that we remind ourselves of the story of the frog that agrees to ferry a scorpion across a river. Midway, the scorpion …

Owen Mooney makes good points about the need for fossil fuels as part of an effective energy portfolio (22 November, p 34) . I would add that we have the technologies to make dirty coal clean. Most energy plants are single-pass processes and at best 30 per cent efficient. Waste energy is discharged into the …

Owen Mooney writes that if the aviation industry had advanced as little as the nuclear industry, "we would still be flying propeller aircraft". We are. The ATR 42 and ATR 72 aircraft built in Toulouse have been experiencing a resurgence of interest in recent years. Over their operating range of about 1500 kilometres, the difference …

The screenshot illustrating your story on computers that can program themselves (1 November, p 21) shows PHP code in which the main method begins with an instruction to print the word "banana", followed immediately by an "exit" clause, which makes the rest of the code redundant. Have the programmers already been replaced by a roomful …

Andy Coghlan examines a number of geoengineering proposals that could be applied as panaceas for the global indecisiveness around climate change (29 November, p 8) . All of those included seem a long way from being realised as viable projects, and some could have serious side effects, notwithstanding the impact of failure and lost time. …

Your article by Aviva Rutkin highlighted the marked difference between the language of children from poor and more affluent backgrounds (29 November, p 14) . This difference was identified in landmark research by Basil Bernstein at the University of London's Institute of Education more than half a century ago. He characterised the language of working-class …

Regarding your special report on chemical additives, "pesticides" is not a chemically meaningful classification (29 November, p 34). Since the natural world is the battleground for chemical warfare fought constantly between species, it is filled with pesticides. Many of the pesticides we exploit are natural in origin, such as antibiotics, strychnine and nicotine. At this …

Paul Collins is correct in saying that tritium is an unstable isotope of hydrogen (6 December, p 33) . However to call it "very dangerous" is misleading. Externally, it presents no hazard, the radiation does not penetrate the dead layer of the skin. It can indeed be incorporated in body fluids, but the body turns …

Corrinne Burns's article on how altering the sound of your footfall can change how you feel reminds me that in Canada during the 1950s there was a fad for metal strips on the bottoms of shoes (22 November, p 40) . These made loud clicks as you walked. Their wearers affected conspicuous clothing and an …

In his letter defending the invasive plant Himalayan balsam, Granville Tunnicliffe Wilson mentions that bees return to his hive covered with its characteristic pollen, but he doesn't know where they have found it (20 September, p 31) . Perhaps he should observe the famed bee dance of returning workers. This will give him direction and …