Letters archive

You wrote that "brain training may help people with ADHD to focus", reporting a meta-analysis by Megan Spencer-Smith and Torkel Klingberg which claims to show that a working memory training programme called Cogmed reduces inattentiveness in people with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and other problems related to attentiveness (28 March, p 18) . This claim cannot …

The use of the term "caveman", the unnecessarily gendered language and the clichéd portrayal of early prehistoric people in your article "Dawn of a continent?" (4 July, p 28) raised our ire. But it was the illustrations that accompanied the article and the corresponding app ("How much of a caveman are you?") that really made …

• We try hard to present a realistic gender balance in our articles, but this time we fell short of our own standards. We will try harder. Thanks to all who have raised this issue.

This is making me all weepy and awed. I'm 12 again Bébé Gottbach tweets about the images of Pluto and Charon (see page 25)

Michael Le Page reports moves to get courts to mandate action on climate change (4 July, p 10) . But how are the courts' decisions to be enforced? If a government does not reduce emissions, what will the penalty be, and what will be penalised: the government or the state which has received the order? …

After reading Dara Mohammadi's report on the immune system and depression (27 June, p 38) , I would like to raise awareness of a rare autoimmune disease I was struck with last year. For five months after developing symptoms, I was diagnosed with purely psychological problems. I suffered insomnia, depression, anxiety, paranoia and finally memory …

Isn't the statement that our brains are experiencing much greater stress than in the past just a rose-tinted view on halcyon bygone days? Surely the stresses of securing your place in the social structure etc existed in our ancient past too? Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, UK

Your article on the lizard that digs the deepest nest in the vertebrate world (4 July, p 16) reminded me of an episode of the BBC's Walking with Monsters . It showed a diictodon of the late Permian with a spiral nest about 1.5 metres deep. So the spiral is not a recent invention. It …

Yellow-spotted monitor lizards or, as we in Western Australia call them, racehorse goannas, may dig the deepest nests in the world – but they also confiscate deep nests. We have a farm south-east of Perth, and have had a couple of goannas lay claim to the rabbit burrows in our garden and under the house. …

I am puzzled by the query over why the entrance tunnel is spiral. I imagine it is because the offspring of those lizards that dug a straight shaft never managed to climb out to grow and reproduce. Watford, Hertfordshire, UK

There really is no need to worry about a cashless society (6 June, p 24 , and Letters, 27 June) . It will never last. As Neal Asher pointed out in his science fiction novel Gridlinked , someone, somewhere will, sooner or later, write an IOU. Binningen, Switzerland

An app to mute irritating sounds in real life (27 June, p 24) ? Bring it on! Over-loud background music in TV programmes and films. The parent with the screaming toddler who follows me around the supermarket. Those annoying sing-song announcements that are repeated continually in shops. Adverts. It can't come quick enough for me. …

Having read Sean O'Neill's interesting interview with Cinzia Fantinati (27 June, p 25) I wondered why no mention was made of the return of 67P in late 2021. Will Rosetta be irrevocably damaged as it lands on the comet at the end of its mission next year ? Will Philae go back into sleep mode? …

• Cinzia Fantinati tells us that, unlike Philae, Rosetta needs fuel to wake up from hibernation; and that it only has fuel to last until mission's end. Philae needs Rosetta to communicate with Earth: so, sadly, no.

Christopher De Leon-Horton's letter on failing to find the "Superman stance" in antiquity (4 July) may simply reflect the limitations of sculpture. The human body is large; human ankles are small; and they present a fundamental structural weakness in a sculpture. Hence the famous Apollo Belvedere , now in the Vatican, strikes a heroic pose …

The Superman stance was commonly observed in bars and at parties during the early days of Silicon Valley's giddy fame. Back then, it was almost de rigueur for superconfident young male executives to gather in a circle in this stance. Some observers used a much less complimentary phrase to describe it. St Peters, South Australia

• We're feeling a little crabby. The image with our story on decorator crabs actually showed a porter crab (20 June, p 18) . • We suffered a menu malfunction. Many of the super-filling foods being tested in the EU SATIN project contain resistant starch (20 June, p 14) . But the satiating ingredient in …