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5 October, p 40 In the interview with Sophie Koudmani, we read yet again of misgivings about the size of monstrous black holes in our early universe, and concern at the lack of time to reach such proportions. Would it be a silly or outrageous idea that such black holes may have existed before the …

Rowan Hooper's column about a future food revolution paints a seriously worrying dystopian picture. This vision would leave food production in the hands of corporations and subject to the vicissitudes of supply chains, political disruption and so on ( 14 September, p 24 ). The creation of megafarms already means farming is starting to come …

The man pictured near the Soyuz MS spacecraft is ground crew (5 October, p 26). US astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer and Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin are inside the vehicle.

"We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster," write William Ripple and colleagues at Oregon State University in their report on the state of the planet. As there are no indications of effective global cooperation, or political leadership, to tackle this emergency, we need parallel arrangements. I mean education and training to prepare …

I enjoyed Chanda Prescod-Weinstein's look at stepping outside her scientific comfort zone. It reminded me of a line in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Player Piano: "Show me a specialist, and I'll show you a man who's so scared he's dug a hole for himself to hide in." As a physicist who has spent my working life …

"Reimagining democracy" starts by noting that current "democracies" favour the rich. It ends by reporting that an attempt to roll out a more truly democratic model across the UK has been vetoed by government because "there is no money". Turkeys, of course, don't vote for Christmas ( 5 October, p 32 ).

It isn't only in the Antarctic that temperatures have gone crazy. At the end of August, my wife and I visited Svalbard, well inside the Arctic circle, where temperatures would normally be 4°C to 11°C (39°F to 52°F) in the summer, and were told that it had been up to 20°C (68°F). We travelled to …

I liked James McConnachie's review of England: A natural history by John Lewis-Stempel, and feel he gave the author a fair hearing, but would add more praise ( 5 October, p 28 ). I have read several of Lewis-Stempel's offerings. He may do his work alone, as you point out, but he has the power …

In her article on why we avoid effort, Amanda Ruggeri mentions the so-called IKEA effect: that we prefer a less well-made bookshelf that we have assembled ourselves over something ready-made and perfect. "Our effort," she says, "adds value." ( 5 October, p 36 ) I would say we underestimate the importance of our ability to …

Kristian Nielsen at Copenhagen Business School in Denmark was the researcher investigating perception of carbon footprints ( 28 September, p 19 ).