Letters archive

Robert J. Sternberg proposes ways for rethinking intelligence, but mixes individual intelligence with collective social intelligence ( 16 January, p 36 ). This matters because it is surely collective social intelligence that will be needed to address problems such as climate change. There is an unstated assumption that by maximising individual intelligence we will maximise …

The discussion of the narrow understanding of what constitutes intelligence might benefit from study of Indigenous cultures. Indigenous Australians have the world's longest continuous culture and they have a radically different understanding of cosmology, land management, fish and animal husbandry and many other areas to that of Western cultures. To have lived sustainably and apparently …

The article "Breaking with bread" discussed medical applications of low-carb diets ( 9 January, p 32 ). It covered type 2 diabetes extensively, but not type 1 diabetes. However, whether to use a lower-carb or extremely low-carb diet in management of type 1 is currently a very hot topic . There is some evidence that …

The search for alien intelligence by looking for Dyson spheres – vast theorised power plants built to encase and draw energy from a star – is inevitably doomed to fail ( 30 January, p 44 ). Any civilisation with such a high demand for resources and low respect for the environment is bound to collapse …

It seems to me that any civilisation needing to build – and capable of building – a Dyson sphere is unlikely to stop at one. The same drive to ever-greater exploitation of energy and other resources that a Dyson sphere assumes (rightly or wrongly), would also drive such a civilisation to colonise neighbouring star systems …

Richard Webb's comment article made the case for free public transport in cities, but this isn't "free" because it needs to be paid for somehow and by someone ( 9 January, p 19 ). While the environmental considerations may well be fairly clear, apart from the Vienna experiment, Webb doesn't really address how such provision …

You report that the gains for the climate from greater use of electric cars are being cancelled out by the increase in SUVs ( 30 January, p 17 ). Maybe the reasons why more of the latter are being bought could be explored, especially given the ageing of the population. As an 80-year-old, what I …

Your article on the Denisovans ends by saying that they and the Neanderthals were cognitively not very different from us ( 30 January, p 34 ). But Neanderthal technology seems to have got no further than string and bone flutes. As far as we know, they never made paintings like those we made in the …

It was interesting to learn that houseflies have specialised wings known as halteres that make them harder to swat ( 23 January, p 20 ). I find that a very successful way to catch flies in the house is by lowering a cup over them extremely slowly. The flies don't seem to be able to …

Halteres or not on your least favourite fly, swatting them leaves a mess and frustration at the misses. I vacuum them up using the basic hose or narrow nozzle. The flies just don't see it coming and you can also easily catch them flying – highly recommended. Success rate 100 per cent.