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Does free will exist? A simple thought experiment confirms it, surely. If every action we make is predetermined by the laws of physics, then it is possible to imagine constructing a computer that could predict what I will do at a particular moment. When I hear that prediction, I am then able to do something …

Some believe religion promises immortality. Others trust their descendants to provide it, and a few hope their works of art will earn it. However, the existence of a non-physical "soul" is fraught with problems, while physical descendants and creations can take you only so far( 21 June, p 32 ). However, according to Florian Neukart's …

Neukart writes about his idea, quantum memory matrix (QMM), and his "suspicion that the whole of cosmic history is, in some sense, baked into space" as "we know information cannot be destroyed". Could this idea perhaps ultimately lead to a "scientific" explanation of phenomena that, up to now, have been considered supernatural? We should recall …

Whether Neukart's wider idea has any validity or not, just because some mathematical framework works for qubits in a computer, it doesn't go any way to proving that space-time itself consists of a completely different type of qubit.

I couldn't help but notice the similarities between the QMM idea and the concept of the Akashic record: a compendium of all things, present and future, held on a non-physical plane, proposed in connection with the religious movement of theosophy in the late 19th century. I wonder if the proponents of QMM have already realised …

Surely the reason Why Nobody Understands Quantum Physics , the title of a book you reviewed, is that attempts to describe and understand this part of physics in terms that make sense at the level of everyday experience are fraught. This shouldn't be a surprise – there is clearly a deep and mysterious substructure that …

If Gou Young Koh and his colleagues want to find out if massaging the faces of people helps flush waste from their brains, as they found it does in mice, they could look for differences between the brains of deceased men who shaved every day and those who had well-grown beards. While the results would …

In light of the findings of the study you mention that found 15 per cent of the global population have Lyme antibodies, it is perhaps no surprise to read that Lyme disease bacteria can persist in the body. The high seroprevalence indicates that asymptomatic people also have these antibodies. An unknown number of them won't …

In your look at the importance of the microbiome of the small intestine, you quote Gray Frost as saying that "most of these microorganisms are derived from the oral microbiome". In which case, maybe we should question the use of things like mouthwash( 21 June, p 40 ).

One of the most pleasant smells in my life is your magazine! I look forward to its scent immensely and get to sniffing it as soon as the freshly printed pages arrive. I hope this counts as the smell therapy you wrote about, and that I am staving off dementia by doing so( 24 May, …

During the years that I was wearing hard, gas-permeable contact lenses, I had no problem cutting onions without crying( 24 May, p 12 ). It must be the iris and the pupil, in particular, that are affected by onion particles, right?

Keep onions in the fridge and chop them while they are cold. It seems to do the trick to avoid tears.