Letters archive

I read James Wong's analysis of recent claims that we could become self-sufficient by growing our own fruit and veg amid the pandemic (18 April, p22 ) with great enthusiasm. I completely agree that achieving this is tough, bordering on impossible, given the very limited space in most gardens. However, maybe a gardener can be …

I have heard that some people compensate for lack of garden space by growing and making produce of higher value that is then bartered. For example, a smaller volume of eggs or wine could be traded for a larger volume of potatoes.

In your story about the origins of the Mulan legend (18 April, p15 ), you mentioned archaeological evidence that it may have been inspired by ancient Xianbei women who were warriors. What you didn't mention is that, according to the standard accounts of Hua Mulan in ancient China, it was generally believed that she lived …

The question of what caused many molecules fundamental to life to be chiral (18 April, p44 ) – akin to being either right or left-handed – is easily solved. Michelangelo's Creation of Adam clearly shows God using his right hand to give life to Adam.

You looked at various claims that breathing exercises may protect people from covid-19, including the view that getting air into the depths of the lungs may be a strategy to minimise respiratory infection more generally ( 25 April, p 10 ). That brings to mind aerobic exercise. There may be places where breathing deeply in …

Here's hoping that when we work out how to end the coronavirus restrictions, we will all be wiser: more cooperative, less selfish and aware of the balance between rights and responsibilities ( 11 April, p 10 ).

After the lockdown ends, it will be interesting to see what impact it has had on the health-promoting behaviours of the population. Perhaps we should create more opportunities for exercise to help combat obesity, heart disease and other conditions that remain a challenge for the UK's National Health Service, and that seem to be risk …

Linda Geddes's article on fever expresses surprise at some of its benefits ( 11 April, p 39 ). What is surprising to me is that medical schools teach doctors to kill the messenger rather than focus on the message. Fever is a symptom of a disease, not a disease itself. In the clinic, the presumption …

Ed Subitzky says that if we live in a simulated cosmos, then major anomalies in physics could actually be bugs in the programming ( Letters, 28 March ). In the same issue, your columnist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein ( p 24 ) explains how different measurement methods return differing values for the Hubble constant, which describes the …

In his 1964 science fiction novel Counterfeit World (which was also published as Simulacron-3 ), Daniel Galouye, who probably originated the concept that we may be living in a simulation, was clear about the purpose of the simulated world: it was for market research and to investigate the likely public response to political policies in …