Letters archive

Colin Barras describes the mysterious prevalence of "surfer's ear" in skeletons found at the Stone Age village at Körtik Tepe in Turkey ( 9 June, p 8 ). Some were as young as 6. I find it hard to accept the idea that many people in the village engaged in prolonged leisure activities in the …

Let us hope that the process to produce hydrocarbons by feeding carbon dioxide to artificial enzymes can be scaled up economically ( 2 June, p 17 ). Presumably it will be "powered" by low-grade heat. It would be perfect to site such a facility next to a brewery, winery, distillery or pharmaceutical plant. All these …

I was surprised to read you suggesting that plastic bags might do more environmental damage than cotton ones (Leader, 16 June ). For me, the primary and most urgent objection to plastic is not so much in its production but in the enormous and harmful effects of its waste, which (unlike cotton) survives and accumulates …

You quote musician Rick Beato saying that perfect pitch is "a tremendous advantage" ( 9 June, p 14 ). But what all musicians need is relative pitch – that is, accurate perception of the intervals between notes. If a musician's absolute pitch does not conform to the actual pitch of the instruments they are playing …

Michael Le Page reports that wild animals are turning nocturnal to keep away from humans ( 23 June, p 14 ). I have often pondered why modern Australian mammals are mostly nocturnal. Was there an ancient daytime predator that drove them into the night? Candidates could include thylacoleos (marsupial lions), dromornithids (demon ducks of doom) …

Colin Barras's interesting article on ancient sailors raised doubts about the suitability of bamboo for building rafts ( 2 June, p 36 ). He says freshly cut bamboo is not suitably light and buoyant, and dried bamboo too tough to work. When I was a surveyor in Papua in the 1950s, I noticed that people …

Douglas Vakoch asks what form of language we should use to send messages to aliens ( 9 June, p 22 ). I have no idea – but dolphins, whales or birds may have. Perhaps we should be sending recordings of their communications into space as well as human sounds. We could also put as much …

Someone needs to caution Douglas Vakoch that he does not hold a democratic mandate to broadcast humanity's existence to potential threats. Some may scoff about the vast distances, but I am sure the Incas and Aztecs would have felt that Madrid was a long way away. The editor writes: • All the same, the argument …

I read your Leader and other space news with sadness. In the 58 years since humanity first ventured into space, it is still mainly explored competitively. There is cooperation in the European Space Agency and International Space Station, but the narrative is, on the whole, nationalistic or militaristic. Donald Trump's proclamation of a US Space …

John Phillips suggests that war could be fought in the virtual world (Letters, 9 June ). In a 1967 episode of Star Trek titled " A Taste of Armageddon ", our heroes encounter civilisations engaged in virtual war. Having decided that this is meaningless if there are no real-world consequences, at regular intervals the parties …