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In her review, Susan Blackmore says she has learned much from my book, but complains there are already many similar accounts of ontological realms, and that I don't cite them. I do, in fact, cite the ones she mentions, as well as others, and explain why mine is different. My focus is less on cataloguing …

The weight-loss injection Wegovy, if it lives up to expectations and is used widely, can set the imagination racing on possible consequences. Improved health will surely increase average longevity, with implications for pensions and care of the elderly. Lower average passenger weight will result in lower fuel consumption and lower emissions for aircraft. If progress …

You say the search for alien life needs strong guidelines to be sure of what is really out there. Among those guidelines, I would include a caveat: be careful what you wish for. Although my strongest claim to scientific erudition is a barely scraped O level qualification in biology many years ago, I have always …

In her review of Naomi Alderman's The Future , Sally Adee makes the surprising comment that "we are uniquely ill-equipped by evolution to handle uncertainty". Surely the opposite is true. Our success as a species thus far is based on our enormous flexibility and adaptability that have allowed us to spread everywhere. Time will tell …

In our look at links between Huntington's disease and IQ ( 25 November, p 10 ), a study in August focused on young adults who were alive, while research supporting toxicity of the Huntington's protein involved animal models and lab-grown neurons.

Reader Ian Elliott pessimistically suggests naming the first age of the Anthropocene Epoch "The End". Whatever happens to our species, the planet will still be here. It has been through worse climate fluctuations in the past ( Letters, 25 November ). In any event, human minds are generating ideas to ameliorate climate change if given …

As a long-time subscriber and reader, I continue to disagree with the cliche that the human brain is "the most complicated structure in the known universe". What actually is the evidence for this? Some 50,000 years ago, when early modern humans were cowering in caves with the same essential anatomical brain and genome we have …

In a recent article on Huntington's disease, expectations for a successful disease-modifying therapy were set low. However, the presence of mutated huntingtin protein is clearly associated with the development of symptoms. It is therefore reasonable to think that lowering huntingtin can change the disease course ( 25 November, p 10 ). Three unsuccessful huntingtin-lowering trials …

When it comes to how to detect signs of life on other worlds, I think the assembly theory idea from Lee Cronin and Sara Walker needs expanding on. It relies, currently, on readings from mass spectroscopy, MRI and infrared interrogation of molecules to derive a complexity scale. In this system, molecules that score below 15 …

The idea that older people should be encouraged to fatten up a little is a pernicious one. Extra weight means extra effort in moving around and may discourage exercise; in addition, a poor diet is unhealthy in many ways, not just because it may cause weight gain ( 2 December, p 12 ).