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A few readers suggest that female autism should be given a different name. This is a misunderstanding of the problem. Autism isn't a different condition in women, and diagnostic criteria are the same. The issue is how a behavioural difference manifests given the difference in behavioural expectations of men/boys and women/girls. This is also a …

To describe individuals with conditions such as ADHD, James Brown and Alex Conner want us to use new terms – "neurodivergent" instead of "neurodiverse", for example. They think that "vague or inaccurate language reinforces stereotypes"( 7 June, p 21 ). I beg to differ. History shows it is naive to think changing the term for …

You report that an algorithm can allow a camera to see around corners by decoding information reflected in a surface such as a wall. I wonder if this could be used on existing photos or videos, as long as the wall in question is still available to be mapped. If so, the privacy issues are …

In your recent interview, Tracey Woodruff says that corporations are new disease vectors. What a wonderful analogy... companies acting like parasites spreading disease. Yes, they really do and they try to blame the customer. Hence the water companies, to provide another example, take huge bonuses and dividends while polluting waterways with sewage and failing to …

Woodruff talks about the danger of bias in supposedly scientific studies. Bias always exists, even in this interview. For instance, it implies chemical firms didn't care that perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) can harm people, rather than considering the possibility that executives didn't know some of these chemicals don't simply go to the ocean and get diluted …

Quantum laws may well be at odds with the idea of free will, but the behaviour of complex systems can't always be predicted by the actions of their parts. The capacity for free will arises from complex interactions of brain cells that can't be divined from quantum theory( 7 June, p 8 ).

Calls for higher fees for car parking to cut urban vehicle use raise a question: what is the total value of parking real estate provided free to drivers? Streets in many places are full of cars parked at taxpayer expense. It is seen as a right. If I wish to take over a park or …

Presenting a gene-editing project as the "de-extinction" of the dire wolf confuses the true status of such a creation. Sadly, the threat of extinctions may eventually be made more acceptable by the offer of technology to "regenerate lost species"... for a price. Marketing such projects could be interpreted as offering profitable tech fixes as an …

A book you review, Out of This World and Into the Next , suggests the sun's eventual wrathful death makes it wise to get our butts to Mars. We should be able to persist on Earth for the next billion years or so before solar changes get too bad. For perspective, a billion years ago, …

Here is an addition to Melinda Wenner Moyer's parenting advice that you highlight in your review of her book, Hello, Cruel World! I was at the bookshop of Otago University in New Zealand in the 60s when a small child accidentally demolished a stand of books( 24 May, p 26 ). As the distraught mother …

A diagram for BrainTwister #73 ( 17 May, p 45 ) got a little mangled. The correct version is online at bit.ly/43QiDMS. In Almost the Last Word ( 7 June, p 46 ), Miles Drake asked about hot air blowers and Adrian Moore about flowers.