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In her review, Susan Blackmore says she has learned much from my book, but complains there are already many similar accounts of ontological realms, and that I don't cite them. I do, in fact, cite the ones she mentions, as well as others, and explain why mine is different. My focus is less on cataloguing …

Blackmore describes three approaches to explaining the so-called "hard problem" of consciousness. There is a fourth: that there is no hard problem at all. Though many people still appear to believe that human brains are in some way qualitatively different from those of other animals, I don't. Isn't a dog or a crow conscious of …

The weight-loss injection Wegovy, if it lives up to expectations and is used widely, can set the imagination racing on possible consequences. Improved health will surely increase average longevity, with implications for pensions and care of the elderly. Lower average passenger weight will result in lower fuel consumption and lower emissions for aircraft. If progress …

You say the search for alien life needs strong guidelines to be sure of what is really out there. Among those guidelines, I would include a caveat: be careful what you wish for. Although my strongest claim to scientific erudition is a barely scraped O level qualification in biology many years ago, I have always …

Given the more than 70 per cent reduction in foraminifera shell thickness since 1872 due to ocean acidification, the idea that global temperatures will stop rising in the short term if we manage to get to net zero seems optimistic. These shells are an oceanic carbon sequestration engine that will need alkalinity levels to return …

In her review of Naomi Alderman's The Future , Sally Adee makes the surprising comment that "we are uniquely ill-equipped by evolution to handle uncertainty". Surely the opposite is true. Our success as a species thus far is based on our enormous flexibility and adaptability that have allowed us to spread everywhere. Time will tell …

The fly ash left after burning coal only contains a small proportion of lithium. If the ash is used for the extraction of this metal, what will happen to the other 99.8 per cent of this waste, which includes arsenic, lead, mercury, radioactive elements and added chemicals used in the extraction? Fly ash is a …

In our look at links between Huntington's disease and IQ ( 25 November, p 10 ), a study in August focused on young adults who were alive, while research supporting toxicity of the Huntington's protein involved animal models and lab-grown neurons.

When it comes to how to detect signs of life on other worlds, I think the assembly theory idea from Lee Cronin and Sara Walker needs expanding on. It relies, currently, on readings from mass spectroscopy, MRI and infrared interrogation of molecules to derive a complexity scale. In this system, molecules that score below 15 …

The idea that older people should be encouraged to fatten up a little is a pernicious one. Extra weight means extra effort in moving around and may discourage exercise; in addition, a poor diet is unhealthy in many ways, not just because it may cause weight gain ( 2 December, p 12 ).