Letters archive

You often have cause to bewail the absence of reasoned thinking by governments (as in your Leader of 9 June, p 3 ). Traditionally, people have accepted this absence with amused tolerance. But there are many reasons why unreason is a bad thing, not the least the intolerance and viciousness arising from bigotry and superstition. …

You give an account of the life of artificial intelligence pioneer Walter Pitts, who died in 1969 ( 2 June, p 40 ). Several things suggest to me that he may have been someone with undiagnosed Asperger's syndrome. The condition was first named in 1944 , so that is not surprising. But can we be …

Douglas Heaven says EDVAC was the first stored-program computer. It was the first to be ordered, in April 1946, but was not delivered to the University of Pennsylvania until 1949 and only began operating in 1951. The Small-Scale Experimental Machine or "Baby" ran its first program at the University of Manchester, UK, on 21 June …

As a strict non-participant in social media, I can observe objectively the effect it has on those who are addicted to it (I use those words advisedly). I read Jonathan Sullivan's review of Margaret Roberts's book on China's system of "porous censorship" ( 2 June, p 42 ) from that outsider point of view. It …

Sam Wong's article "Female bonobos have midwife skills" was heart-warming ( 26 May, p 12 ). But I was surprised by the statement that "there is evidence that for most of the history of our species, death in childbirth was less common than it is now", which contradicts everything else I've read on the subject …

David Holdsworth questions the use of statins on the grounds that it may amount to choosing a probable death from cancer over a heart attack (Letters, 12 May ). But taking statins may be more like choosing cancer at 80 over a heart attack at 60. I had a serious temporarily fatal heart attack at …

• Several drugs have passed trials and been approved for use in treating dementia by the US Food and Drug Administration, though none are cures ( 9 June, p 13 ). • We meant to say that we are now seeing some very old stars as they were at about 300 million years old, in …

Clare Wilson discusses risks arising from screening for cervical cancer, and says it is caused by human papillomaviruses ( 2 June, p 20 ). Not all cervical cancer is caused by HPV. Vaccinations, as amazing as they are, will not eliminate it. Without those facts, women can't evaluate the risks of testing. Procedures done after …

Your leader article states that "it's time we stopped dismissing women's health problems", with the cervical cancer screening programme as example ( 2 June, p 3 ). Under the UK National Health Service women receive HPV immunisation, contraception, antenatal and postnatal care and cervical screening. They are also screened for breast cancer, osteoporosis and, in …

Your excellent article on water starts off by saying that if it behaved like a normal liquid and became denser as it cooled, lakes would freeze from the bottom up, killing all the fish ( 2 June, p 26 ). But freezing kills living things because water expands when it turns to ice and hence …