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Alison George makes some good points about the long-term effects of poor posture on the body ( 19 February, p 42 ). As she says, one problem is our increasingly sedentary lifestyle, slouched on settees or hunched over our computers. But many of the problems are caused by poor furniture design. Sitting on a conventional …

I firmly believe that anxiety and stress lead to the inability to relax that can result in muscle and joint pain, not so-called bad posture. I have been an archer for 50 years, and the only shoulder and neck pain I experienced usually came from lack of practice, over-practice or bad technique and faulty shooting …

I was interested to see mining waste included in the "lost" category in your chart of total resources entering the global economy ( 12 February, p 38 ). The 7.4 gigatonne figure presumably consists mostly of waste rock, or "overburden", excavated to allow access to the target ore. This isn't really lost in the sense …

Regarding Hannah Cloke's look at the problems of communicating some vital science, I would say "failure of imagination" remains an issue more generally in Western science ( 26 February, p 25 ). Philosopher Henri Bergson and psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist recognised two profoundly different ways of knowing: the method of analysis and the way of intuition. …

Claims by climate scientists that a 5-metre rise in sea level by 2150 would be "an unimaginable disaster" seem an exaggeration ( 26 February, p 44 ). The Day After Tomorrow managed to imagine something far worse. And I don't see why sea level rise should cause a "massive refugee crisis" either. We are talking …

You report research that concludes baby boomers are the "unhappiest generation" because of "greater competition" in a large cohort ( 5 March, p 21 ). This raises the question: can cohort size really be the only cause? What about the intergenerational and epigenetic changes from two world wars? These would relate to the effects of …

In reference to the circular economy, Geoff Russell paraphrases that "for every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong" ( Letters, 5 March ). He says this applies to mass solar power, in part due to its land requirements. This ignores a clear and simple application of solar panels – …

In your article "Dogs trump cats in helping people stay fit as they age", the conclusion appears to be that walking a dog regularly has benefits in reducing future ill health, but that having cats has no ongoing health benefits ( 5 March, p 23 ). I suggest the researchers are defining health and disability …

It may turn out to be premature to think that many treatments will become available for long covid a year after the immunological toolkit has been applied to studying the condition ( 26 February, p 38 ). If current research doesn't yield the hoped-for answers, then paths forward become elusive. People with similar conditions, such …

The idea that adults can't grow new brain cells clashes with some empirical evidence ( 26 February, p 16 ). In particular, reports of trainee London taxi drivers developing enlarged geographical capability with a corresponding rise in brain size when learning "the knowledge", a taxing test of navigating the city.