Letters archive

How to cut food waste? Consider non-plastic storage options like airlock glass containers and reusable, beeswax-covered cloth as a plastic wrap alternative (25 September, p 42). Waste can also be reduced with a focus on properly stored, naturally long-lasting foods such as cold-stored cruciferous and root veggies, jar-stored nuts, dried fruit, grains and beans. Cooking …

Regarding growing governmental interest in quantum computing, the rise of this technology threatens two unstoppable shifts that may change everything ( 2 October, p 20 ). These computers will sooner or later make easy work of cracking our best encryption, laying bare decades of secrets and lies. Secondly, quantum-empowered AI will have the ability to …

The "pay-as-you-throw" concept of a bin tax has a flaw that would need to be addressed: it requires lockable bins ( 25 September, p 18 ). It is common for others to put rubbish in my bin, and this would get much worse if there were a bin tax. Lockable bins would be expensive, and …

Liz Bell worries that tapping electric vehicle batteries at night as a means to provide grid storage will mean they aren't fully charged in the morning ( Letters, 25 September ). The main problem a renewables grid has is with demand in the evening. For the UK, with plentiful wind, there will be time enough …

Even though I'm resigned to never understanding quantum shenanigans, my brain went into hyper-boggle on reading that "for the first time, a quantum computer has demonstrated an error-correction strategy that fixes more errors than it creates" ( 9 October, p 9 ). However, it does explain where all the errors come from in my work: …

Michael Le Page makes very good points on the promises of mRNA therapies ( 16 October, p 38 ). But as with so many new technologies, what is crucial at this point is public perception. Look how fearful so many people are of nuclear power despite its excellent safety record, simply due to other technologies …

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's conclusion that "we will reach 1.5°C of warming within the next 20 years" seems both optimistic and fanciful ( 9 October, p 34 ). The predictions of a climate model I was involved with, which successfully forecast the rise in warming in the 1990s and the hiatus since 2015, …

Surely the best indicator of any impacts of primordial black holes on the moon would be those resulting from grazing collisions ( 2 October, p 46 ). Grazing meteorites explode or bounce off, leaving teardrop or repeated impact craters. Small black holes impacting in this way could create continuous linear furrows, possibly leading to tunnels …

I suppose it is good that wheat has been engineered using CRISPR gene editing to contain less carcinogenic acrylamide, but there are far simpler, less exotic ways of making this foodstuff better for our health and, at the same time, more nutritious ( 2 October, p 9 ). We should stop treating wheat with pesticides …

Rachael Padman writes that the advantages of heat pumps over direct electrical heating will decrease as we decarbonise the electricity supply and green power becomes plentiful ( Letters, 9 October ). While renewables may produce no carbon dioxide, they have side effects. To heat a home with electric resistance heating when we could use half …