Letters archive

Sam Edge, while taking aim at the adoption of cryptocurrencies by some countries, writes: "Yes, there is a need to maintain the ability to perform anonymous transactions in a free society ( Letters, 16 October )." I disagree wholeheartedly. Privacy maybe, but anonymity, never. The fight against financial crime is relentless and weak. Aid money …

Sonia Novo writes that the results of the Tokyo Olympics demonstrate a "stark representation of the inequalities of the world" ( Letters, 2 October ). Looked at a different way, however, the real champions are the Bahamas, Jamaica and New Zealand, which each gained one medal per 300,000 people or less. On those terms, this …

The article regarding the likely consequences of UK government benefit cuts to poorer families could equally well have been written about Australia, where the imminent termination of government top-up payments is expected to drive significantly more children into poverty ( 16 October, p 17 ). Governments should understand that there are many bright children who …

You tell us how many more children will suffer from a list of ill effects when the UK government stops giving out £20 a week in top-up payments. The UK should start giving £40 a week, and you'll have exactly the opposite result.

The idea that robotic weapons must be subject to human control presupposes we have that luxury ( 2 October, p 14 ). The reality is that having a human in the loop will be too slow if up against a fully automated foe. The latter will perform according to its preloaded algorithms in a similar …

As the reporter who broke the story of the discovery of feathered dinosaurs, I enjoyed Michael Benton's feature ( 16 October, p 43 ). It was in fact New Scientist that carried my story , just before the work was unveiled at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting at the American Museum of Natural History …

Regarding the debate over a bin tax to encourage recycling, we need systems that can deal with many kinds of waste ( 25 September, p 18 ). There is already one for anaerobic digestion of all organic matter: the sewage treatment system. In principle, the methane it produces could be fed into the grid and …

Eric Kvaalen, Les Essarts-le-Roi, France Robert Checchio writes that "the GPT-3 AI discussed in your article is reported to have 175 billion artificial neurons (twice that of a human brain)" and so some might expect human-like behaviour to appear soon ( Letters, 23 October ). But in your feature ( 9 October ), you said …

A reliably safe and effective treatment for Lyme disease in humans would be a prize indeed ( 16 October, p 24 ). If hygromycin A were to live up to its early promise and become a medicine for acute Lyme disease, it would not only be a welcome development for new patients, but it might …

I am grateful to Jessica Hamzelou for her insightful article on repressed memory, or dissociative amnesia as it is now termed ( 9 October, p 44 ). Whatever it is called, it has led to many vulnerable people being let down by those they sought help from, causing great damage. After qualifying as a psychologist …