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One aspect of the research of myself and Robert Forward on the quantum vacuum starship was omitted in your interesting article (24 May, p 20) . In principle it is possible to operate the starship using energy extracted from the quantum vacuum itself. Thus the operation of the entire spacecraft is based on properties of …

I was fascinated by Feedback's piece on drugs having side effects the same as the symptoms that they are supposed to fix (31 May) . My suspicious mind wonders whether the drug companies are surreptitiously trying to cash in on the placebo effect to make up for the uselessness of their pills. If the placebo …

Side effect lists are compiled from reports from patients taking the medicine for the particular condition. If the medicine is not fully effective, or if the disease state itself gets worse, then the vomiting, itch, diarrhoea or whatever will continue, or worsen, and this may well be reported as a side effect, even though it …

• Washington Diary (31 May, p 53) stated that "about 5 per cent" of Iraq's marshlands are "dried up", having been drained by Saddam Hussein. This was something of an understatement, as it should have read "all but 5 per cent". • Our special report on ancestral bones (31 May, p 12) repeatedly referred to …

Debora MacKenzie makes claims about US efforts to prevent bovine spongiform encephalopathy, despite the fact that no evidence of BSE has ever been found in the US (31 May, p 6) . Since 1989, the US Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has put in place numerous safeguards to prevent BSE from …

Since the early 1990s we have been assured that adequate safeguards and monitoring are in place to prevent a BSE outbreak in US cattle. In the 17 May, US edition of Â鶹´«Ã½, I noticed a US Department of Agriculture advertisement for "Prion Scientists", with a deadline for applications within 10 days. One cannot help …

On the matter of genetically modified foods, you report that US trade representative Robert Zoellick criticises the present European Union ban because the US believes "consumers have the right to make their own decisions about what to buy" (24 May, p 5) . Is this the same US that objects to the labelling of GM …

As interesting as your latest specials on free will have been, it's hard to shake off the feeling that the question itself is pretty irrelevant (17 May, p 33) . Either we have free will, in which case it's business as usual, or we don't. If we don't, we must have a mere illusion of …

A criminal's defence that "my brain made me do it" (24 May, p 38) could be a whole lot worse than admitting "I've been a naughty boy" because taking free will out of the equation doesn't take away the risk to society. Our law exists to punish, of course, but it's also there to keep …

Now that it is no longer possible to cite language as the defining difference between Homo sapiens and H. neanderthalensis, the enquiry becomes more esoteric, as exemplified in Steven Mithen's fascinating article (17 May, p 40) . It was, of course, natural for linguistic thinkers to assume that their particular mode of reasoning was crucial, …

With regard to the repatriation of Australian Aboriginal human remains in British institutions, there is one very important further consideration that is usually neglected. The return of most of the material will be beneficial to non-Aboriginal Australians as well. There is a process of reconciliation at work in Australia that needs this kind of action …

In your editorial on the value of skeletal collections in the UK you say that anthropology has not done enough to shake off its western elitist tradition (31 May, p 5) . It is hard to see the basis for this statement. As a whole, anthropology has probably done more than any other stream of …