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While the gradual shift to a more sustainable, plant-based diet globally is a good thing, I feel some concern at the news that UK company Moolec has created soya beans with 25 per cent pig protein ( 8 July, p 17 ). I am one of the rare but growing number of people with mammalian …

From 15 July, p 8

In your article "A week of record-breaking heat", you present a graph showing the rise of global temperatures over the past few decades. But why is there such a seasonal effect if the temperatures really are global? To put it another way, why are temperatures during summer in the southern hemisphere so much lower than …

In her mathematics of life column, Katie Steckles says you can solve a two-dimensional labyrinth by always turning left or right, so long as the wall you follow is connected to the outside of the maze. This left me wondering if it would work for 3D mazes, like cave systems ( 15 July, p 44 …

You report that "Weird filaments of gas are hiding at our galaxy's centre". These might have a logical explanation that depends on an understanding of the accretion layers surrounding Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way's central black hole ( 10 June, p 15 ). Matter collapsing towards any black hole is slowed down by time dilation …

Eric Kvaalen says that if consciousness arises out of brains, we should stop experiments on lab-grown organoids. But several lines of research have suggested that consciousness isn't a property just of brains, but of whole organisms reacting with their environment. In this view, a sufficiently complex brain is necessary, but not sufficient, for consciousness to …

Obesity is worryingly omnipresent in some countries and is, in my opinion, unlikely to be significantly abated by the use of drugs. Education and changes in attitude are long, slow roads to correction in society, but are utterly necessary to crack this problem. As demonstrated by the spectacularly unsuccessful dieting route to long-term weight loss, …

I loved "Cheat your way to better health", but when it came to E. Fiona Bailey's experiments with the Powerbreathe device, I wondered if she had considered the breathing exercise provided by playing a wind instrument. Brass and reed instruments in particular demand not only great breath control, but high-intensity "resistance training" for the diaphragm …

You suggest that industrialisation and diet may influence the human gut microbiome. I suspect that a more important factor is our alienation from nature ( 1 July, p 17 ). Apparent similarities between the human gut microbiome and that of the soil suggest to me the two are part of the same system. For almost …

I have always believed that genetically engineering plants to produce analogues of animal-sourced protein is going to be far more viable than trying to grow actual animal tissue ( 8 July, p 17 ). Culturing tissue requires a huge variety of nutrients (many of them currently sourced from animals) and has to be carried out …