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Susannah Fisher's take on the COP30 negotiations in Brazil is hopeful, but I can't share her faith in relying on government or corporations to do anything meaningful. The common feature of most administrations is the setting of short-term goals, because democratic governments don't want to plan for a future for which they won't get credit, …

Cory Doctorow is correct about how algorithms end up ruining good services. However, I experience little to no enshittification, probably because I don't do so-called social media, and I pay to use encrypted services, enjoy a vast selection of open-source applications, use a phone with a replaceable battery and avoid the Google search engine. Just …

Robert Kuhn deserves praise for compiling a comprehensive catalogue of theories of consciousness. There is a problem, however. Science progresses by proposals of hypotheses that generate testable predictions. If the predictions generated by a hypothesis are disconfirmed, then that hypothesis is discarded and we can move on to better ones( 25 October, p 36 ). …

It seems to me that consciousness isn't a state or quality, but something the brain does. Two observations that I think support this conclusion: one, we manipulate conscious experience by ingesting certain substances. Two, anaesthetics reduce conscious experience to about as close to zero as is likely possible. The above implies that the proper question …

An excellent article, though it seems possible there may be difficulty providing detached judgement when it comes to asking ourselves about our own consciousness and what that means. To avoid bias, maybe a solution is to ask AI. Then there's the question of whether AI can attain consciousness and, by implication, think like a human. …

Graham Lawton's excellent article on fermented foods shows how human evolution has built a strong symbiotic relationship with Earth's vast biome. Thank you for reminding us how utterly scrumptious our microbial friends can be, and how to find them for our daily intake. Even that lightly rinsed tomato fresh from the garden offers much more …

In a letter responding to the article about how our brains "swivel" towards certain sounds, Bryn Glover mentions the problem of using hearing aids in the dining area of a pub. Although I don't use hearing aids, I have this problem of my brain focusing on the louder sounds behind me, or to one side, …

I am glad to have Eric Kvaalen's support for carbon capture, but his desire to rely on biomass for this is misplaced. The main, though not the only, problem is the vast area of land that would be needed for a capture programme that would significantly reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide. Research at Imperial College has …

When I did A-level biology, a species was a group of individuals whose members could interbreed to form fertile offspring. Since then it seems there has been meaning creep, especially in the hominins ( 8 November, p 40 ). There is good evidence for hybridisation between all the "species" derived from Homo erectus . We …