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Michael Bond's article on fandom really struck a chord with me. A decade ago, as a reasonably intelligent man drawing his state pension, I became a fan of a television singing contestant (James Arthur). For the first time in my life, I joined a fan club ( 13 May, p 25 ). Since then, I …

Few fandoms can be more inclusive than devotion to a sports team. A commentator once said that few other interests allow, for example, a professor and a cleaner to talk with the same level of expertise.

Author Jonathan B. Losos's idea to breed domestic cats to be less interested in hunting would indeed reduce the carnage on wildlife ( 6 May, p 34 ). However, it is suggested that one of the reasons we first encouraged cats to cohabit with us was as pest controllers around granaries and the like. Those …

France, which is more resistant to the influence of pharmaceutical companies, tells a different story on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Perhaps because French psychiatrists don't use the DSM – a US psychiatric diagnostic manual – and adopt a more holistic approach to ADHD, including, for example diet, drug treatments are much less used. As of …

Atorvastatin is used for high blood cholesterol ( 6 May, p 10 ).

I was very excited to see the interview with Chris van Tulleken about ultra-processed foods. It is a topic that I spend a lot of time thinking about and is very important if we want to take charge in the obesity crisis ( 29 April, p 46 ). I welcome his clear words about what …

I don't understand why people are worried about artificial intelligences taking over. The dinosaurs lasted 165 million years. The first "upright apes" evolved only 5 million years ago and Homo sapiens didn't arrive on the scene until about 300,000 years ago ( Letters, 20 May ). We have only a few thousand years of recorded …

The number of pieces on AI seems to be on the increase, especially those that warn of possible dangers. But all these appear to treat AI as though it were a sentient entity already, busy plotting and planning the downfall of humanity. The truth is that AI, even in its most advanced form, is merely …

My hypothesis is that ChatGPT's output is a form of statistical plagiarism, using the words most probably occurring in its training texts. The only reasonable conclusion is that commercial exploitation of such technologies could be akin to theft of intellectual property, and that such systems should only be made available via not-for-profit firms ( 13 …

Colin Barras believes that the reason why some children in England fail to learn to read adequately is too much phonics. My article "Current Debates over the teaching of phonics" , published in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education in 2022, provides copious evidence for two main conclusions: systematic phonics teaching is effective for teaching …