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Matthew Sparkes writes about the tension between adults' privacy and children's safety online created by digital ID or age verification. There is a simple solution: require physical devices to be age-rated. Any smartphone or computer sold would have to incorporate a tamper-proof digital age identifier. It is the device that is age-identified, not the owner. …

I agree with Matthew Sparkes, but he is, like many, viewing this as solvable using a "blacklisting" approach. What do we want to ban or restrict access to online? This is like trying to make London safe for a toddler to walk across on their own late at night. It is never going to work; …

As a retired paint chemist, I enjoyed the article "A study in scarlet". However, I cannot understand why the review of blue pigments excluded phthalocyanine blue, which was first marketed as Monastral Blue in 1935. Phthalocyanine blue became a major source for blue colourations in the house paint, automotive ink and plastic industries. I personally …

Regarding Chris Simms's article "The secret to living a meaningful life", there is a meaning to life, and that is: to enjoy every moment to the best of our ability. Animals, in my experience, are happiest when their basic needs are met. For a cow, this may mean a full belly and a shady tree …

The widely reported news of a method of storing large amounts of data in glass is welcome when ever-larger quantities of data are being generated every day. And a medium that will remain intact after many thousands of years is a vast improvement on the ephemeral magnetic media we still use. But it is naive …

Your article on paternal postpartum depression highlights an important but often overlooked issue: men's well-being is frequently under-recognised despite legal frameworks promoting equality ( 21 February, p 38 ). Cultural expectations still tend to frame men as emotionally resilient and self-reliant, which can discourage open discussion of vulnerability or distress. Recognising paternal postpartum depression is …

I found the article concerning the evolution of human chins very interesting. The suggestion that sexual selection could be partially or wholly responsible implies that this evolutionary trend could take place quite rapidly. I would be interested to know whether the researchers, or anybody else, have noticed another human oddity: increasing neck length ( 21 …

I have often wondered whether the shape of the human jaw is influenced by speech as well as diet. For example, people who use the precise consonants required by certain languages seem to have distinct lips. The use of the jaw to pronounce the "r" of American speech seems to give the jaw more projection. …

The more we learn about the universe, the more we realise how much more there is to discover. This seemed to me to be amply demonstrated by your item "A cosmos made of string". All we need is for the string theorists to come up with a new force they can dub "sealing wax" and …

The term "moral Machiavellis" is used by some to describe people who use "dark tetrad" traits for good (7 March, p 24)