Letters archive

Sofia Quaglia's article on the oriental hornet's liking for alcohol could explain why the commonest trap in Portugal for the Asian hornet works so well. It may also enable an immediate and easy measure to protect bees if these predators become established elsewhere ( 2 November, p 18 ). This trap uses an empty plastic …

The havoc wrought by feeding farmed fish with wild-caught fish could be eliminated if industrial-scale insect farming were used to provide the feed instead ( 26 October, p 16 ). While convincing people to eat insects is an uphill struggle, it is relatively straightforward to get them to do so indirectly if they are "transformed" …

Roger Morgan worries that citizens' assemblies can become self-selecting due to large-scale refusal to participate, and hence polarised. The simple solution to this, hinted at in the original article, is to make participation compulsory in the same way that jury duty and, in some countries, voting are, allowing for rare exceptions due to personal circumstances. …

In your look at ways to create direct democracy by the people, for the people ( 5 October, p 32 ), Laura Spinney ascribes scientific and philosophical achievements of ancient Greece to such a system. However, science has also flourished under caliphs, tsars, queens, popes and emperors. In addition, a problem with direct democracy is …

What an amazing image of Shackleton's ill-fated ship Endurance. The preservation is astonishing compared with that of Titanic. Endurance sits on the seabed at a depth of 3008 metres compared with Titanic at 3800, so both very deep and cold, but the former appears to be in much better order with few signs of steel …

When it comes to fermented food, Isabelle Savary-Auzeloux recommends finding a trusted source and cautions against the do-it-yourself route. That will seem strange to people in South Korea and other countries where traditional fermented food is routinely made at home ( 2 November, p 39 ). Like most home-cooking techniques, fermenting requires some care to …

I see inherent self-contradiction in Daniele Oriti's statement that "we make reality". This is to claim to know reality. It is akin to saying that "there is no truth in words" ( 12 October, p 40 ). Science advances roughly in step with our ability to make measurement. We have had only a few centuries …

Regarding cannibalism on the Franklin expedition to find the North-West Passage, 19th-century Scottish explorer John Rae reported signs of this, but was ostracised as a result, and never got proper recognition for his findings ( 5 October, p 15 ).

When it comes to trying to tap into sleep's twilight zone – those moments between being fully asleep and awake – I have been using a simple variation of the Thomas Edison metal ball system in the form of a book, which wakes me suddenly when it falls out of my hands while reading in …

Epstein-Barr virus was the first human cancer-causing virus to be identified ( 5 October, p 45 ) Gravitational time dilation means that time flows more slowly when gravity is stronger, for example near a black hole ( 19 October, p 22 )