Letters archive

Many people discount the idea that cats can have emotional bonds with humans. Thus, in "The truth about cats", Michael Marshall suggests his cat may "just be looking for warmth", rather than cuddles( 11 March, p 46 ). Why are feline behaviours emotionally downplayed in this way? People don't do this with dogs (or other …

Liquid sponges are counter-intuitive in the extreme, yet Katharine Sanderson manages to describe what is going on at the molecular level in these new materials in a completely comprehensible way. She achieves this by using analogies with everyday objects that we all understand – doughnuts, pasta, dinner plates. As a one-time secondary school chemistry teacher, …

Jamie Woodward is quite correct. Better data on the state of rivers would forcefully multiply the sound and fury over pollution( 11 March, p 8 ). Data collection and analysis should be independent. Sampling can begin where each river rises, continuing at 1-kilometre intervals downstream. Sample collection could be done by drones that return to …

James Fradgley thinks that the Judaeo-Christian idea of having dominion over nature is the biggest problem in how we regard nature as mere property( Letters, 25 February ). Dominion in itself isn't the problem, rather the greed and indifference that makes people "use" nature for their own ends. There is such a thing as good …

The story on the possible link between emotions and gastric pH was interesting and thought-provoking. Could this be an evolutionary protective mechanism for early humans, who, being predominantly hunter-gatherers, may have been compelled to eat things that might not have been fresh in times of scarcity? Fear, disgust or even caution may have led to …

The science-religion debate is akin to some post-human era where intelligent rats ponder the fossil ruins of our civilisation. They attribute such objects to unknown natural processes and develop elaborate theories as to their origin. Then they discover we once existed and created such marvels as skyscrapers, cathedrals and the Hoover dam. Would the discovery …

God would surely be clever enough to create a universe in which they can't be observed. We are well accustomed to authors of sci-fi and fantasy fiction creating worlds out of their imagination. If you asked Albus Dumbledore who J. K. Rowling was, or Gandalf who J. R. R. Tolkien was, they would not only …

Your review of the Frozen Head podcast describes a rabbit brain thawed in an "almost-perfect state", but there are caveats to that( 4 March, p 35 ). The brain in question was "fixed", or preserved before freezing in glutaraldehyde. This is similar to, but more potent than, the formaldehyde used in embalming fluid. Fixing means …

For argument's sake, let's accept that the long covid case numbers suggested by researcher Hannah Davis and her team are reasonably correct. Their work, we are told, implies 75 million cases worldwide. If it were feasible to do so, breaking this figure down to a local level might show us a different side to long …

Alan Walker criticises the assumptions used to estimate the additional very-long-term emissions produced by having an extra child that imply a rather large carbon footprint. That is fair enough, but we do need to drive home the necessity of urgent cuts( Letters, 18 March ). The new synthesis report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate …