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Michael Le Page reports on a possible genetic advantage for blue eyes: the ability to see better in low light. Meanwhile, your review of Liat Yakir's book, A Brief History of Love , notes her proposal that blue eyes are evidence for the relative success of sexual selection for this trait, people being "attracted to …

James Woodford reports on a new food product incorporating cultured beef cells into rice to get a higher protein version of the latter for a carbon dioxide cost of 6 kilograms per 100 grams of protein. This compares well with beef, but not with lentils, which have a lot more protein and a CO 2 …

Your article on cannibalism prompted an idea related to the consumption of human remains. Polar bears are starving due to a lack of sea ice. Burials use up land, cremations cause air pollution and cannibalism is frowned upon. Wouldn't it be better if people agreed to donate their bodies after death to the polar bears …

If we have been eating each other for "at least a million years", why are there no recipes?

The argument advanced in the book Filterworld , the subject of your review, is that the shift towards algorithmically curated feeds has homogenised culture. I would argue that it may also polarise culture. Take book recommendations of the type "Readers who bought Book X also bought Book Y". If one reader's first selection was The …

Using the word "botched" to describe the landing of Japan's SLIM lunar probe isn't appropriate. You say that one of its thrusters failed during the descent. In spite of that, the plucky craft landed in one piece, sent some pics, went to sleep and then reawakened. "Off-nominal" or a similar word would have been a …

Jenny Chapman perhaps chooses the wrong substance to highlight the safety of processed foods. The "mechanical mixture" made through "the ingenuity of depraved human genius" that she mentions wasn't margarine as we know it. It was an unhealthy mixture of beef fat and vegetable oil ( 24 February, p 21 ).

Pamela Manfield suggests that affordable car transport is essential in rural areas as public transport is limited or non-existent. The term "motonormativity" has been coined to describe the thought processes that overwhelmingly focus on the private car as the prime transport solution. It may not be current political orthodoxy, but greatly enhanced rural public transport …

Manfield couldn't have pointed out more clearly the big flaw in environmental policies: that city-centric thinking dominates.

I read your story on making jet fuel from carbon dioxide and it struck me that for this to succeed commercially, all it needs is a place that can generate lots of clean energy, has capital to invest in the infrastructure and has a need to replace an oil-dependent economy. I hope it really is …