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You review a new book on weight loss drugs that are taking off. Could these hold more promise than just reducing waistlines, one related to the link between food production and its impact on our planet? While many hope the drugs will make them slim, one side-effect could be that sales of fast food, highly …

In coverage of the direct air capture industry, you mention a plant being built to remove half a million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year from the atmosphere. This apparently impressive figure needs context ( 25 May, p 12 ). In my youth, the colliery in my village was producing a million tonnes of coal …

It isn't surprising that there has been criticism of the idea that humans evolved to chase down prey over large distances. The need to do this regularly would suggest an inability to hunt strategically or co-operate with others, which is somewhat insulting to the developing human intelligence ( 18 May, p 11 ). Sensible strategies …

In my attempts to reduce my use of single-use plastics (refilling washing-up liquid bottles, using shampoo bars, toothpaste tablets and so on), I bought paper bags and greaseproof paper bags for packed lunches instead ( 11 May, p 36 ). Having just read your article on "forever chemicals", I am now wondering if I have …

Your reader Lawrence Ryan is worried that the concept that our reality is a simulation is lacking in parsimony and asks: "How much information would be required to simulate the lives, and inner lives, of more than 8 billion people?" But the simulation doesn't need to do any such thing. It only needs to simulate …

Thank you for your look at the ageing mindset. Although, at least according to this, I am already at the age when people start to acknowledge that they are old, I certainly don't feel that way ( 18 May, p 32 ). Maybe that is due in part to having a wide circle of friends, …

Your article reminds us not to stereotype all older people as frail, lonely or incapable. Ageism is one of many forms of labelling. Any group is in danger of that. It can serve a purpose by making us alert to specific needs, like offering an older person a seat on public transport. But when meeting …

Your report that farmed pigs appear to find life less of a struggle when they can smell a pleasant odour is frankly sickening to read ( 18 May, p 14 ). This farming is undoubtedly for pork production, where young pigs are castrated, overcrowded and have no access to exercise in the natural world. These …

I applaud Lawton for outing flight offsetting programmes as greenwashing. As many of these projects are fairly obscure and the market for carbon credits is equally murky, consumers are put off any form of offsetting, which is also a problem. Similarly, many people are stuck with an oil or gas boiler and a petrol or …

So cosmology may now need "dark radiation" as well as dark matter and dark energy. But the only reason these three imaginary fiddle factors are required to make observational data fit the standard cosmological model is because gravity is assumed to be constant everywhere ( 18 May, p 8 ). When you have to imagine …