Letters archive

Once again, scientists working on ways to make it easier for people to lose weight are concentrating entirely on appetite (20 June, p 14) as though this and hormones are the only factors involved in weight gain. Entirely ignored are the other reasons for eating, which include habit (it's 11 am and therefore time for …

I don't eat because I am hungry, I eat because I like eating, but only if it is food I enjoy. Anti-obesity scientists seem to miss this point. For me, tasty food is the solution to all of life's problems (except, unfortunately, being fat). And eating something I like stops me worrying about that too. …

I am surprised that Michael Grubb's article on wind power subsidy and energy policy (4 July, p 24) didn't mention how subsidising wind power cuts electricity bills, as explained in New Scientist (24 July 2010, p 24) . When wind power is available, it drives down the electricity spot price. This gives lower bills than …

In an effort to feel human I have gone outside with a blanket and New Scientist Alison Atkin tweets her response to a beautiful summer afternoon

Mike Moore's work on the benefits of plants for humans will be welcomed by tree-huggers everywhere (27 June, p 26) . A recent study involving 2623 children in Barcelona, Spain, showed that those in schools with lots of greenery had improved cognitive function – specifically improved working memory and attention ( PNAS , vol 112, …

Given a 13:1 male:female ratio, no wonder it took 40,000 years for our forebears to lay the foundations of modern Europe. That is the ratio I count in the illustration to your article on the three tribes that founded Western civilisation (4 July, p 28) . Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, UK

Is she "mitochondrial Eve"? Seaford, East Sussex, UK

Alongside your article on how females can be just as competitive and aggressive as males about reproduction, you highlight a claim that the average number of sexual partners in a lifetime is 12 for men but only 8 for women (27 June, p 34) . If the average is the arithmetic mean then, if we …

What I find so surprising about these statistics isn't their absurd impossibility: it is that they are so wholeheartedly believed, defended and repeated. I put this statistic to a number of men and women, who invariably said "Obviously. Everyone knows men are more immoral than women." Men concur with a certain amount of pride, whereas …

In your leader you ask "How long can we keep looking for dark matter?" (20 June, p 5) . The search for dark matter reminds me of the obsolete phlogiston theory, in which anomalies of weight led to the positing of phlogiston as a substance released whenever anything burned. Then Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen, and …

Perhaps the question "how long can we keep looking for dark matter?" was answered in one of your articles last year (28 June 2014, p 32) . We typically make an assumption that the universe is homogeneous and isotropic – that is, that it looks roughly the same in all locations and roughly the same …

Liz Bestic reports on dogs sniffing out cancer (4 July, p 34) . They aren't alone. I had half a lung excised due to lung cancer in 2004. It was diagnosed by a young Polish doctor, a locum, who visited me at home and smelled something wrong on my breath. I had no specific symptoms …

In seeking to answer "how can we best protect nature in an increasingly crowded world?" Fred Pearce proposes a limited dichotomy (20 June, p 26) . He offers the choice between living sustainably within nature or embracing a range of new technologies. In my view, humans are faced with different choices: we can live within …

The virtual disappearance of the autopsy indeed poses a significant threat to the quality of medical care (20 Jun, p 6) . Many studies show that clinical diagnoses are wrong in up to half of cases; and in between a tenth and a quarter of these cases the patient received the wrong treatment. Surely this …

At first sight the "health hacking" apps that you report seem perfect for hypochondriacs (4 July, p 18) . But it has been demonstrated that those who have a greater sense of control in their lives have better health. So the sense of personal control offered by such an app could itself achieve better health. …

Colin Brown asks your Last Word column whether he can get the full benefit of vitamin D from sunshine through glass (13 June) . When I was a small boy in Edinburgh in the early 1920s my mother had Vitaglass fitted to our huge west-facing nursery windows – she understood this was the only way …

• Comet again? Cinzia Fantinati is the German Aerospace Centre's operations manager for the comet lander, Philae (27 June, p 25) . The European Space Agency controls the Rosetta mothership. • Our focus may have slipped in our illustration of the orbits of Pluto and other planets (13 June, p 30) . The sun should …