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Don't tell my students, but I am often tempted to beg them to stop coding. I lament lines of code that spew features that may not vary discernibly from those of another program ( 13 June, p 8 ). The result is burned-out developers, as you describe in your article, dumping fragile software more likely …

I have been an "epic dreamer" all my life. As an engineer, designer and artist, I put this down to having an active and creative mind. I often wake up exhausted after a technicolour, real-time, physical dream, and I have trained myself to remember the details, much to my partner's interest. She has one occasional …

I had some questions after reading your piece on the Chicxulub asteroid ( 20 June, p 17 ). It crashed into Earth with enough force to melt 10,000 cubic kilometres of rock, but was this on raised, dry ground or in the sea? If below sea level, wouldn't sea water pour into the crater and …

Trials of pumping cold seawater onto Arctic ice to slow its melt are a valiant attempt to counter global warming. But they are yet another example where people with knowledge and understanding of climate change are left to deal with the consequences of actions by those with far more power and money, whose short-term personal …

The United Nations has urged users of AI chatbots to avoid niceties to save water and energy. To me, this advice is futile on two levels ( 13 June, p 11 ). Firstly, asking users to act against the very impulses that this technology is designed to evoke seems somewhat akin to the "carbon footprint" …

Regarding your leader on why controversial ideas in science shouldn't always be dismissed, the use of beta blockers in some cases of cardiac decompensation was once viewed as an anomalous or suspect practice. Things have radically changed since I was a medical student in the 1980s ( Leader, 13 June ).

Regarding the threat of Q-Day, when quantum computers will be able to crack encryption, I am struck by a familiar pattern: our collective inability to pause a self-destructive trajectory. We act as if this code-breaking is as inevitable and unavoidable as Y2K, rather than an active engineering choice ( 6 June, p 18 ). If …

Reading Thomas Lewton's excellent review of Jennie Durant's book on bees and big agriculture, Bitter Honey , I wasn't optimistic that anyone will act to change things (we just want cheap honey and almonds). But the last two columns lifted my mood a bit and reminded me to rewatch the film My Garden of a …

During so-called neutral conditions, trade winds blow westwards along the equator (13 June, p 12). Emily Rogalski is a neuroscientist who studies superagers (20 June, p 38).