Letters archive

With optimism over fusion power in the news again, I may be the only Cassandra who fears this won't lead to the low-carbon, cheap-energy utopia we hope for( 17/24 December 2022, p 28 ). If successors to massive intergovernmental collaborations like the ITER reactor are the future, rather than the small-scale projects being pursued in …

Amid talk of greater access to outer space, we must remember that space, like much of the sea, doesn't belong to any one country. As the number of launches soars, we need to firm up international agreements in relation to the use of space for both scientific and commercial purposes( Leader, 3 December 2022 ). …

In your report on the return of liquid mirror telescopes, you say that mercury would be too dense a material for building such an instrument on the moon( 10 December 2022, p 41 ). Why not use a sodium-potassium alloy, with a melting point of -4oC? These metals are cheap, very low density, won't tarnish …

You mentioned that building a liquid mercury telescope was first attempted in the late 19th century, but didn't give any more details. I remember reading some time ago about a liquid mercury mirror telescope built in the 19th century by William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, at Birr Castle in Parsonstown, Ireland. It was reported …

Chris Lee asks us to make fossil fuel companies responsible for paying reparations to lower-income countries over the damage that has been inflicted on them by climate change( Letters, 3 December 2022 ). Unless he grows all his own food, walks everywhere, doesn't use electricity and declines to buy anything from a shop that is …

Amid pessimism that self-driving cars you can buy will ever truly come to pass, recall that today's autonomous car development has been orientated towards making them adapt to our environment. This has hampered progress( 17/24 December 2022, p 13 ). How much simpler it would be to adapt the environment to self-driving transport. What we …

Daniel Cossins wants to find out his true nature. Any existentialist would tell you that this is a fruitless exercise, as there is no essential you. Instead, you are free to embrace self-determination through your actions. As for letting others define who you are, I leave the response to Jean-Paul Sartre: " L'enfer, c'est les …

Zhao Pan's splash-free urinal reminds me of a Victorian design. My parents-in-law had an old outside loo. On the back of the bowl, just above the water line, was an image of an insect. Men, being men, aimed for this and, lo and behold, no splashing( 3 December 2022, p 21 ).

A teenager called Alyssa was the first person to be treated with CRISPR base-editing for leukaemia ( 17/24 December 2022, p 8 ). Juicy Marbles, which produces plant-based "prime meat", is a Slovenian start-up ( 17/24 December 2022, p 55 ). Beth Pike is director of the Marine Protection Atlas at the Marine Conservation Institute …