Letters archive

I agree that reducing the amount of meat served in schools and other institutions would be good for the planet and could lead to changes in eating habits. However, rather than just vegan burgers, sausages and fillets, wouldn't it be better to serve some of the many delicious vegan meals that can be made without …

It seems accepted that, if we cut our meat intake and eat more natural – rather than processed – food, we will be healthier and so will our planet. However, I don't understand the fetish for the likes of fake burgers and sausages. When I gave up eating dead flesh a long time ago, the …

Concerns that the ChatGPT language AI will be used by students to compose their coursework have been a topic of conversation in my college staff room for a few weeks. This is after a student showed a colleague of mine how easy it is to get this freely available AI to write good, well-commented computer …

I read your article on the power of huge marine avalanches to move massive amounts of material and reshape the ocean floor. I would like to draw your attention to the Pactolus bank off Cape Horn, which has long been a puzzle. Found in 1885, this seamount is thought to no longer exist( 28 January, …

The fear of ingesting pathogens via use of human-waste fertilisers parallels the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) problem. In that case, material from the brains of slaughtered cows was spread to other cattle via its use in processed feeds. It was impractical to ensure adequate heat-processing of the waste meat and the practice was later banned, …

Name and address withheld I enjoyed your article on sperm and egg donor anonymity, as did my son. Five or six of the 3691 people who will become eligible to contact their donor in the UK in 2035 are my biological offspring and his biological half siblings( 28 January, p 14 ). We await any …

Your article on depression was fascinating. It is great to know that so many advances are being made. Another approach is worth a mention: gardening. Several mental health charities are now using it to improve well-being( 21 January, p 38 ). Communal gardening seems to be especially valuable. Social mixing, the achievement of taking produce …

As suggested, there may never be a unified theory of depression. The clinical successes and failures of a variety of different treatments may mean that more than one hypothesis is true, and what we now call depression is in fact a collection of different conditions sharing a cluster of similar symptoms. Much like cancer has …

Your feature on the use of sonification to reveal the sounds of space was intriguing. A few years ago, my colleagues and I applied the same technique to listen to the cosmic microwave background. This was achieved by downshifting its radio spectrum into the audible range and using this to filter the wideband random noise …

Your article on the European eel is a fascinating description of one of the world's most unusual animals( 21 January, p 42 ). For most species, you can appreciate the Darwinian logic behind each of their features: the acute hearing and nimble legs of a deer enable it to escape predators, for example. But what …