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I was interested to read your report on the recent UNECE research on industrial and domestic robots (1 November, p 23) , and gratified to see the Electrolux Trilobite included. However, your article suggests that Trilobite has not been a successful product for us. This is far from being the case: we consider the Trilobite …

A wearable mobile phone that turns your finger into an earpiece? Picture this: you are in a restaurant, when your partner's wristband rings. Imagine your surprise when your companion suddenly thrusts an index finger into your ear with the announcement: "It's for you."

I was interested and encouraged to read about the innovative scheme in the UK to routinely screen nutritional supplements for substances that might cause athletes taking them in good faith to fail dope tests (1 November, p 8) . Your readers might be interested to know that a similar scheme began operating earlier this year …

How many Disneylands equal one Wales, Feedback wonders (8 November) . You might well ask. The standard unit of measurement in Europe is the Belgium – 30,510 square kilometres – typically used to describe areas of deforestation. It is "about the same as Maryland". Disneyland, however, is an entirely different problem, since it is mostly …

The proper units for large areas, such as those of giant icebergs and hurricanes, are the Wales (metric) and the Delaware (imperial). The conversion rate is approximately 3.215 Delawares to the Wales. The Disneyland is strictly a regional unit, and is not recognised by any international standards organisation. Measurement of height is, of course, in …

The apparent link between long-lived animals and high levels of saturated fat in membranes reminded me of an article in Science 10 to 15 years ago subtitled "The older you grow, the more you glow". When fluorescent lipid peroxidation products in membranes were assessed in rats as they aged, more damage was seen in rats …

Your article about the adoption of drive-by-wire technology in cars (8 November, p 28) covered an important range of issues, but missed one vital point: aircraft are maintained to the highest of standards according to strictly enforced rules; cars are not. What will happen to second or third-hand drive-by-wire cars that are not properly maintained …

I am pleased to hear that the Smart Laser Dazzler will not cause permanent damage (15 November, p 24) . But if, as the article suggests, it is an automatic system, then anyone nearby should be wary of being stampeded, bitten and pecked to death by startled and enraged wildlife as the system blithely picks …

Douglas Fox reported on the impact of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) on metabolic rates (1 November, p 42) . After concluding that "membranes crammed full of PUFA set us free to hot-rod down the metabolic highway of life", he warned that "PUFA also exact a horrible price: the more of them our membranes contain, the …

The report by the Working Group on Human Remains is not simply giving a nod to non-western concepts of ancestry when it advocates broader consultation with indigenous groups over the return of human remains (15 November, p 9) . By 2018, hundreds of thousands of graves from the killing fields of the Great War will …

I couldn't help feeling, as I read this article, that the US must be laying itself open for a visit from Iraq's weapons inspectors if it is producing substances like this.

As if the universe wasn't mind-numbingly huge enough, Leonard Susskind suggests there might be 10 500 further universes (1 November, p 35) . This interpretation of string theory is supposed to get us off the hook of the strong anthropic principle. Yet isn't this deeply ironic, not to mention inelegant? The extraordinary hypothesis seems to …

Eric Kvaalen might have scared a few more people than he needed to (Letters, 8 November, p 32) . Saying that condoms only work "85 per cent of the time" isn't very informative without saying what is meant by "time". If they failed to prevent pregnancy on 15 per cent of the occasions on which …

George W. Bush doesn't like fetal stem cell research, which many people believe will alleviate suffering and save lives although it upsets those "conservative" voters who salivate and bark at the word "fetus". Yet the US government is busily developing lethal varieties of mousepox and other pathogens (1 November, p 6) . One is forced …

Your "Insider"report on neuroscience, and in particular the column entitled "In demand", suggests that excellence in neuroscience research is based almost entirely on animal research (1 November, p 53) . This is not the case, and if Nancy Rothwell of the British Neuroscience Association finds herself with a lack of young researchers with experience of …