Letters archive

I was interested to read about a new class of drugs to promote weight loss in "Obesity blockers" ( 7 May, p 46 ). Although BMI and categories such as overweight and obese are widely used as a medical standard these days, it is worth considering that they are based on statistically grouping the population …

You report how a billion dogs, including our pets, are laying waste to wildlife ( 30 April, p 42 ). The article, and the issue's cover, asks whether pet dogs are an invasive species, and then proceeds to answer with "such is their impact that some ecologists call them an invasive alien species". Let me …

We aren't "at risk of repeating the mistakes" of our exploitation of land when it comes to the oceans, we have already done so on a grand scale ( Leader, 23 April ). The near obliteration of marine megafauna has had a terrible effect on the fecundity of the ocean environment and its natural long-term …

One aspect of longer lifespans that I haven't seen mentioned is the psychological state of the elderly ( 30 April, p 38 ). Many years ago, I observed that older people worried excessively. Now, in my late 70s, I find myself doing the same. The other thing is that as most of us go through …

Everyone seems to think I am younger than I am. People are surprised when I say I will be 86 in July. This might be due to being a club cyclist since I was 14. But I suspect genetics may be at work. My mother lived to 101 and a half. My mother's eldest brother …

I agree that nuclear power has waste problems and these should definitely give us pause for thought about building new reactors ( Letters, 30 April ). It is, however, safer than most technologies, given that the small number of accidents have killed relatively few people, with nothing like the mortality rate resulting from burning fossil …

Jake Buehler describes growing evidence for horizontal transfer of genes between some species via common parasites ( 30 April, p 10 ). Could this also explain genetic transfers between hominins inhabiting the same environment, like Neanderthals and modern humans?

Helen Senior is right to say we need a new name for "lab-grown meat", but I disagree that existing terms are "unscientific" or that "synthetic foodstuffs" would be a better term ( Letters, 14 May ). These foods are grown from animal cells cultured in a facility (currently a laboratory, but in future, probably a …

Ingrid Newkirk writes regarding the "Emotional touch" part of your look at chemical haptics ( 19 March, p 46 ), and suggests that in a study of stroking, rather than using rats, it would have been better to find students to test the ideas on ( Letters, 23 April ). However, they may not be …

Nodule mining on the seabed may be possible with negligible damage and some surprising upsides. The devil is in the detail. Organic "snow" raised by mining crawlers must all be sucked to the surface and not allowed to smother the seabed. Large areas must also be left unmined to reseed the mined areas. Among possible …