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9 May 2018
From Peter Seligman, Melbourne, Australia
Like Mark Sheskin, I do not maintain that current extreme levels of inequality are reasonable ( 31 March, p 28 ). But I observe that beyond a certain level of wealth, assets become barely recognisable as personal wealth ( 28 July 2012, p 40 ). People can have lavish lifestyles and extend these to their …
9 May 2018
From John Rowlands, Rhosybol, Anglesey, UK
You mention a man being "let off with a caution " (Feedback, 14 April ). A police caution requires an admission of guilt, and becomes part of a person's criminal record. Cautions must be disclosed and can be taken into account in sentencing for other offences. Granted, the let-off misconception is widespread. I have seen …
16 May 2018
From Alan Watterson, Koala Beach, New South Wales, Australia
As an environmental educator and scuba diver, I have sadly watched the gradual demise of the once-Great Barrier Reef. It seems to me that the notes of optimism in your Leader on the state of the reef are unfortunately misplaced ( 21 April, p 5 ). Warming seas will knock off most of the reef, …
16 May 2018
From Rod Munday, Cardiff, UK
Michael Brooks seeks a new angle on time ( 21 April, p 28 ). Is it not possible that the way our consciousness perceives and experiences time gives rise to the illusion of time as a continuous flow? The past consists of events, memories of which exist in the brain, and our consciousness has access …
16 May 2018
From David Cooke, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK
Classical Greek had three words for time : aeon for time as a concept, including eternity; chronos for clock time; and kairos , the opportune moment. Chronos was a measure of change, marked by rhythmical beats: the lunar phases, the sun's cycling around Earth, the seasons, the swinging of a pendulum and, now, atomic transitions. …
16 May 2018
From Brian Reffin Smith, Berlin, Germany
Brooks states that we can move as we please in space. Is this true? I think we can move only forwards, which is whatever way we are facing, unless we walk backwards, which would be going forwards but facing the wrong way. We can't move into negative space any more than we can go backwards …
16 May 2018
From Steve Alker, Rudgwick, West Sussex, UK
It cannot be often that New Scientist states a problem in one report and offers a solution a few pages later. You published a lovely article on physicist Marin Alexe finding that tiny dents improve the efficiency of photovoltaic cells ( 28 April, p 9 ). It quotes another physicist, P. Craig Taylor, as saying …
16 May 2018
From William Hughes-Games, Waipara, New Zealand
You report that cave bears "dominated Europe during the last ice age" ( 31 March, p 10 ). Does this refer to the glacial period between the Eemian and the Holocene, about 120,000 to 11,500 years ago ? If so, you have to find a new term for the period of roughly 3 million years …
16 May 2018
From Kate MacDonald, South Uist, Western Isles, UK
I was horrified by the image that you used to illustrate your piece on the workings of a dog's mind ( 7 April, p 12 ). The dog pictured is brachycephalic : it has been bred for an exaggeratedly broad, short skull with bulging eyes. Such dogs may suffer all their lives from serious respiratory …
16 May 2018
From William Molesworth, Carlton, Bedfordshire, UK
Recently I have come across many assertions about "military-grade" novichok nerve agents (though not in New Scientist ). These leave me wondering what other grades there are – domestic grade? The editor writes: • We suspect that, beyond adding spice to copy, the term is meant to distinguish "military" from "paramilitary" grade, the presumably inferior …
