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Newspaper headlines may stand in the way of rewarding people for acting in their own best interests (24 November 2007, p 46) . But a more basic obstacle is the common perception of "fairness". Given that Jim Giles dwells on how people value utility of things and concepts, neglect of this is a rather a …

Laura Spinney, in discussing swear words, seems to have overlooked the c-word entirely (22/29 December 2007, p 51) . I was under the impression that this was the biggest taboo. We went into detail about "fuck" and "shit" because they are the most commonly used swearwords. But, er, the c-word clearly is interesting if only …

Concluding her report on Bob Gagnon's investigation into collisions with icebergs (5 January, p 32) , Kate Ravilious summarises some of the means of mitigating the effects of a ship striking ice, including sacrificial ballast compartments, such as the proposed "Coulombi Egg" design for tankers. Using a ship's water ballast as protection against underwater impacts …

I was surprised to find no mention in Stephanie Pain's article on the Pharaoh's pharmacy (15 December 2007, p 40) of salicylic acid as a pain reliever. Diarmuid Jeffrey in his book Aspirin notes: "One species mentioned in the Ebers Papyrus that stands out, precisely because it has been systematically investigated. The ancient Egyptian name …

David Holzman says human evolution has accelerated over the past 40,000 years, evidently meaning an increase in the frequency of mutations (15 December 2007, p 8) . He claims that this "contradicts the widely held notion that our technological and medical advances have removed most of the selection pressures acting upon us". It does not. …

Researchers are pondering why dinosaur fossils appear in a characteristic posture (22/29 December 2007, p 62) . Scavengers scatter exposed bones, and a skeleton has a far better chance of being fossilised whole if its owner died by being buried alive. Imagine a long-necked dinosaur running across deep estuary mud, then floundering. While the animal …

The recent studies on men and women talking (22/29 December 2007, p 60) reminded me of a study I conducted at Hewlett-Packard labs some years ago. The perception in the IT industry at the time was that men were much more interested in digital technology than women were, and therefore would have much more to …

The nine-page advertisement feature in your 10 November 2007 issue admits that making lighter vehicles is key to reducing fuel consumption and emissions – but perversely claims that this would make them less safe. In any sane world, using a car weighing more than a tonne to transport four people or fewer would be considered …

The researchers who discovered the use of "yo" as a gender-neutral pronoun (5 January, p 7) could have saved themselves some time by turning on the TV. The critically acclaimed TV series The Wire , shot on the streets of Baltimore since 2002 and often using non-professional actors, has from the start had characters referring …

Feedback's note on the Geoclimatic Studies hoax mentions the use of Thai and Serbian characters in equations (8 December 2007) . This is, to meteorologists, a delightfully sly dig in the ribs. In his 1922 classic Weather Prediction by Numerical Process , Lewis Fry Richardson used so many symbols in its formidable mathematics that he …

• As several readers have pointed out, the correct answer to the puzzle "which box has been opened up?" on the cover of 12 January issue is "none of them": a symbol was rotated through 30 degrees. • The article "The D'oh! of tech" (22/29 December 2007, p 54) claimed that the BLAST telescope weighed …

Jennifer Swift assumes that the recent achievements by Shinya Yamanaka's and Jamie Thomson's teams in reprogramming adult skin cells into a state resembling embryonic stem cells represent a quick alternative to human embryos for regenerative medicine therapies (8 December 2007, p 22) . Yamanaka and Thomson are at pains to point out that their present …

Perhaps genetic engineering could help to increase the efficiency with which crops absorb nitrate from soil (5 January, p 28) . However, the claim by Arcadia Biosciences that this will substantially cut agricultural emissions of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide appears Utopian rather than Arcadian. Measurement of nitrate uptake by roots shows that this step …