Letters archive

Donna Lu is right to raise concerns about privacy in the security industry ( 29 June, p 14 ). She went to the IFSEC security conference in London: such exhibitions are where the new and shiny reign. A colleague of mine also attended IFSEC and carried out a straw poll of vendors on the internal …

James Mitchell Crow suggests that Australia can stay competitive only if the country becomes a hydrogen producer and exporter ( 8 June, p 20 ). But production of hydrogen by electrolysis requires large quantities of electricity and fresh water. Australia's sunshine and wide open spaces do have the potential to produce electricity from solar and …

Chelsea Whyte mentions that many people resented the disruption that the Extinction Rebellion protests created because they "felt the inconvenience didn't justify the cause" ( 22 June, p 20 ). I think this sums up the global attitude to action on climate change. Maybe people need to be reminded of the inconveniences that global warming …

Bryn Glover says that because humanity has only a couple of decades to get its act in order, we need to pay much more attention to the short-term effects of methane emissions (Letters, 15 June ). We do have around 20 years to avoid reaching a tipping point that is followed by runaway climate change. …

Glover says tackling methane emissions should be a priority . Can a reader tell me if there is any possibility that methane released from melting permafrost could be harvested and used as an energy source? This would also unburden the atmosphere of a potent greenhouse gas.

So people are more likely to return a wallet with about £70 in it than about £10 ( 29 June, p 17 ). I fear this is more easily explained by considerations other than altruism and moral probity. When my brother returned a wallet he found containing £100, which was a fabulous sum to a …

Herman Pontzer writes that "even Socrates, not remembered as an athlete, bemoaned the lack of fitness among his students" ( 15 June, p 34 ). But Plato recorded in the Symposium that it was at the gymnasium that Alcibiades tried to seduce Socrates , saying: "he trained and wrestled with me". Being athletic, even if …

I agree with Caroline Criado-Perez that women are often not included in clinical trials and obviously have different reactions from men ( 15 June, p 23 ). Furthermore, most drugs are tested only on those under 70 who have just one medical condition. Many drugs for diabetes and heart conditions, for example, are taken together, …

Hannah Critchlow's book The Science of Fate argues for the absence of free will ( 15 June, p 30 ). I presume that her genes, environment and circumstances made it inevitable that she would write a book. It would also be inevitable that such a book would deny the existence of free will, that I …

• The striatum is a collection of brain structures, including the basal ganglia, and the primary motor cortex is nearer the front than we showed it ( 29 June, p 38 ).