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About a tenth of the human genome "remains impossible to sequence with existing methods", Anna Gosline writes (5 July, p 36) . I thought the whole thing had been sequenced; this is the first I've heard of this. Surely DNA is DNA, so if some can be done all can be done. What's the problem? …

I was surprised to read Mason Inman's article reporting that "bad is good as a mating strategy" (21 June, p 12) . The study seemed to be entirely based on self reports. Those who displayed narcissistic characteristics reported more sexual exploits. So? The conjunction between personality and reported exploits may be part of the personality …

You report a research finding that giving cows a genetically engineered hormone called recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST) "cuts their emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane by 7 per cent per litre of milk" (5 July, p 6) . I understand that the average Holstein cow produces 21 litres of milk and 280 litres of …

Your article about vat-grown meat (5 July, p 18) prompted a thought: "How about a milk machine?" Put grass and water in at one end and get milk – guaranteed free of tuberculosis – out of the other. The problems of making an acceptable product would appear, to an ignoramus like me, to be far …

The Grimbledon Down cartoon by Bill Tidy that used to appear in Â鶹´«Ã½ answered Rudolf Pfeiffer's question over whether anyone has previously tried making diamonds out of drinks (21 June, p 29) . In 1986 it was found that ethanol vapour would form a thin layer of diamond under certain conditions. Shortly thereafter Treem, …

• Feedback said that Darren Wright, of the project to beam biscuit adverts to aliens, is an astronomer (5 July) . He is a lecturer in radio and space plasma physics who lists his research interests as "Things" . • We said that Australian companies "forecast spending $800 between 2002 and 2013 on geothermal exploration" …

The demise of the pine forests of British Columbia may not be the unmitigated disaster that many people predict (5 July, p 32) and conservationists do not need to reconstruct the ecosystem. It is happening already without their help. In among the red-brown swathes of dead and dying pines, the light green of deciduous trees …

Tom Radford describes the prudence required in reporting of oil reserves (12 July, p 22) . His view reflects almost exactly the introduction to my paper published in Petroleum Review in 2006 . The main thrust of that paper, however, was that the very conservatism of regulatory reporting was leading to a misunderstanding over the …

Emma Young's summary of Lamarckism missed a component that helps elucidate the historical reluctance of many scientists to seriously consider it (12 July, p 28) . Trofim Lysenko, whose view on the inheritance of acquired characteristics was enforced in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin from the 1920s until its abandonment in 1964, took what …

Anna Olsson says in-vitro meat is at "an early stage" of development (5 July, p 18) , but barely mentions a product that has been available commercially for years. Mycoprotein, made by fermentation of hydrolysed vegetable starch with a Fusarium mould, was developed by Rank Hovis McDougall in the UK (3 November 1990, p 24) …

I have worked for the past 20 years in the "professional audio and lighting" industry, designing moving, flashing, sequencing, colour-changing and stroboscopic lighting for use in discotheques and night clubs. In that time, neither my colleagues nor I have discovered any lighting effect which has anywhere near as much ability to incapacitate as has the …

I think A. C. Grayling is confusing two different issues when he discusses whether a scientific magazine should accept various kinds of advertisement (12 July, p 48) . He is surely correct in suggesting that a scientific magazine should not advertise things such as creationism and astrology, which put forward claims that we know from …

Maxim Pospelov of the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario, invokes negatively charged supersymmetric particles – "staus" – to explain anomalies in the abundances of primordial lithium isotopes (5 July, p 28) . You also say that staus had their main effects 3 hours after the big bang, so the half-life of the stau must be …

Merle Arrowsmith is appalled at Lawrence Krauss's assertion that faith prevents religious people from tackling climate change and states: "The proof of human-induced climate change is so very obvious that no Christian would dare deny it" (5 July, p 21) . While I am sure this is a common position for Christians it is by …

Emma Young reports mild food restriction affecting the health of offspring (12 July, p 28) . Research carried out by colleagues at La Trobe University shows that it also dramatically improves maternal behaviour in rats and that the young show a number of behavioural differences, including greater sexual activity – see, for example , DOI: …