Letters archive

Ruby Prosser Scully continues a story that has rumbled through the pages of New Scientist for the past couple of years, lending hope that ageing could be delayed by transfusions of young blood ( 8 June, p 7 ). Having been a regular blood donor for 45 years, I observe that the majority of donors …

I just read your feature about Earth's rubber supply ( 18 May, p 44 ). As someone with allergies to latex and the accelerators used in rubber production (carba mix and thiuram mix), the prospect of a world without rubber seems fantastic. I think this should serve as a wake-up call that we have, yet …

So Deepmind's artificial intelligence can't add up ( 13 April, p 12 ). That reminds me of the late, great Stanislaw Lem, who foresaw this more than 50 years ago in his short story Trurl's Machine . The eponymous inventor creates an eight-storey thinking machine that, when asked to calculate two plus two, thinks for …

I was interested to read Clare Wilson's report on the number of twins in Kodinhi in India ( 4 May, p 15 ). She quotes Tim Spector at King's College London, who suggests that a possible explanation could be better medical care increasing the chances of twins surviving. But what is causing the increase in …

Responding to Yvaine Ye's report on the use of 5G mobile technology in remote surgery, Sam Edge raises an important point about transmission delays in the land-based part of the network (Letters, 8 June ). This is of wider significance than for remote surgery alone. Any communications using the Internet Protocol (IP) to govern the …

Robert Plomin tells Clare Wilson that there are good intervention programmes for improving children's language, but they are intensive and expensive, while the cheap, easy ones don't work ( 25 May, p 39 ). It isn't always true that successful schemes are expensive. I am involved with effective, research-based programmes for parents in New Zealand …

You report that 64.9 per cent of drugs tested were broken down by at least one strain of gut bacteria ( 8 June, p 12 ). To minimise this, drugs shouldn't enter the gut directly. Some can be absorbed from the mouth, either under the tongue or through the buccal (cheek) mucosa. Many of these …

You have to admire NASA's confidence in running a competition to figure out how to settle the galaxy ( 8 June, p 15 ). This presumes we will create a spaceship that can keep humans alive for millions of years in interstellar space. We have yet to master living sustainably off the resources of an …

In reference to your feature on space exploration, the cover of your 18 May issue asks "Are you ready for lift-off?" ( 18 May, p 36 ). I first read science fiction in 1945, and I was hooked. At the ripe old age of 7, I wasn't just ready for lift-off, I believed in it. …

• David Marsh at the University of Göttingen, Germany, and his collaborator Dave Ronan at AI Music produced the dark matter simulations used in Aura Satz's sound installation ( 15 June, p 31 ). • Rick Ostfeld works at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York ( 1 June, p 13 ). …