Letters archive

Conservationists will implant fertilised eggs of northern white rhinos into surrogates from the southern white rhino population ( 23 January, p 16 ).

The Food of Love: Your formula for successful breastfeeding), Street, Somerset, UK Nobody wants babies to go hungry, but Wilson's contribution to "unscientific debate" on the issue of whether formula milk should be made available at food banks shouldn't go unanswered. She massively oversimplifies a complex issue when she mentions the charity Feed's statement on …

You report on the possible use of AI to improve piano playing ( 30 January, p 15 ). It appears to focus on assessing a performer's skill in playing the correct notes with the correct rhythms. In doing so, there is a real danger that the essence of such music as a form of emotional …

Your leader and the associated feature "Spillover" ( p 41 ) appear to lay the blame for the pandemic primarily on our destruction of biodiversity and encroachment on fragile ecosystems Leader, 6 March . Yet for most of human evolutionary history, people have lived within such ecosystems in small groups as hunter-gathers and would surely …

We agree with your article on the problem of pathogens spilling over from animals to humans as we encroach on nature. There is another big factor influencing zoonotic disease emergence, though: the intensification of food animal production. Escalating demand for animal protein means the density of livestock systems is increasingly high. Consequences include pollution, monoculture …

Those of us who wear glasses can suffer badly from lenses steaming up while wearing a face mask 6 March, p 10 . It is a nuisance when doing something necessary like shopping. Given the talk of masks being required until 2022, I certainly wouldn't pay to go to a concert, the theatre or a …

You reported research that found 2.3-litre plastic bottles are the least harmful to the planet 6 March, p 23 . But why advocate an optimum size at all? We shouldn't create loopholes for the production of harmful plastic products. The best way to prevent harm is to reduce use of plastic bottles and switch to …

My own experience differs from some of the claims in Herman Pontzer's article on human metabolism, particularly the lack of weight loss caused by exercise 27 February, p 32 . In my teens, I took up running. When my children were of school age, I had less time to run and I really put on …

Here is a tip for Clare Wilson to keep the slugs at bay 27 February, p 49 . My wife grows crop after crop of pristine green beans. Her secret is to pack pieces of hand-spun fleece yarn around the bean stems. This has successfully deterred the gastropods from adding her Phaseolus vulgaris to their …

In our report on life found underground ( 27 February, p 14 ), we should have said the deepest previously known life was microscopic nematode worms. It is the sun's increasing energy that will warm Earth in the far future ( 6 March, p 12 ).