Letters archive

While the gradual shift to a more sustainable, plant-based diet globally is a good thing, I feel some concern at the news that UK company Moolec has created soya beans with 25 per cent pig protein ( 8 July, p 17 ). I am one of the rare but growing number of people with mammalian …

Using mass spectrometers in space missions to seek molecules with a high "assembly index" – an idea that springs from the new Assembly Theory of life that you reported on – is an interesting development in the search for extraterrestrial life ( 24 June, p 32 ). Threshold values derived from life on Earth should …

From 15 July, p 8

In your article "A week of record-breaking heat", you present a graph showing the rise of global temperatures over the past few decades. But why is there such a seasonal effect if the temperatures really are global? To put it another way, why are temperatures during summer in the southern hemisphere so much lower than …

In her mathematics of life column, Katie Steckles says you can solve a two-dimensional labyrinth by always turning left or right, so long as the wall you follow is connected to the outside of the maze. This left me wondering if it would work for 3D mazes, like cave systems ( 15 July, p 44 …

From Rick McRae , Canberra, Australia You reported on research showing that "North American wildfires may be creating clouds over Europe". It is said that this could constitute a new climate feedback loop. But there is more to it ( 24 June, p 15 ). For decades, a wide-ranging group of researchers in a global …

Irrespective of the ethics, Henry Cort's patent for a new steel production process would have been legally valid, despite the idea being taken from Black metallurgists in Jamaica ( 15 July, p 14 ). Britain's Statute of Monopolies 1623 is generally treated as the foundation of the modern patent system. It was well established that …

You report that "Weird filaments of gas are hiding at our galaxy's centre". These might have a logical explanation that depends on an understanding of the accretion layers surrounding Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way's central black hole ( 10 June, p 15 ). Matter collapsing towards any black hole is slowed down by time dilation …

Eric Kvaalen says that if consciousness arises out of brains, we should stop experiments on lab-grown organoids. But several lines of research have suggested that consciousness isn't a property just of brains, but of whole organisms reacting with their environment. In this view, a sufficiently complex brain is necessary, but not sufficient, for consciousness to …