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I was surprised to find Graham Lawton relishing the thought of a trip to an Ecological Society of America conference in California ( 22 August, p 24 ). If ecological groups, of all organisations, can't abandon their fixation with physical international conferences, then we really are in a pickle. Does the chance to exchange ideas …

Amid the pandemic, you posit reasons why remote working didn't take off sooner, despite the urgings of experts like Peter Drucker ( 15 August, p 32 ). In all the discussions, you missed the most obvious and – based on my studies – probably the most influential reason: loss of power by supervising management. There …

Your feature on unconscious bias mentions MRI experiments in which participants shown a face they saw as part of an out-group displayed increased activity in the amygdala, "the part of the brain that governs our threat response" ( 29 August, p 38 ). Are we sure this always means they are seeing that person as …

Michael Marshall notes that Russia's "Sputnik V" coronavirus vaccine hasn't started phase III clinical trials, but has already been approved there ( 22 August, p 11 ). Phase III assesses the efficacy of a medical treatment, and some 50 per cent of all medicines tested initially fail at this stage, so it is no small …

You say that the lower age of those getting infected with covid-19 doesn't, on its own, explain the apparent decline in its deadliness ( 29 August, p 7 ). This is amid speculation of the rise of a less lethal strain. I favour a broader explanation for what we observe: we have effectively self-selected into …

Mark Harris asks: "Should billionaires be able to start tinkering with the climate without asking the rest of us?" Surely removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is pretty benign ( 5 September, p 18 ). Shouldn't we worry a whole lot more about the billionaires (and the rest of us) who are geoengineering the climate …

The "Star Tugs" envisioned by Yale University's Alexander Svoronos as a form of engineering by aliens have generated quite the reaction among readers such as Chris Eve ( Letters, 15 August ). Yet imagining that an advanced civilisation would devise a means of moving a star system out of the way of trouble falls into …

All strength to Stuart Richie in his crusade against the perverse motivations that lead to the publication of junk science, but an article or a book won't rid us of this problem ( 22 August, p 36 ). It will take money. What might work would be for some considerably rich business leader to set …

As a long-time yachtsman, I found your article on motion sickness very interesting ( 22 August, p 47 ). It reminded me of an age-old question among sailors: if you think you might become seasick, what is the best thing to eat? The answer is peaches and cream, because they taste just as good on …

When contemplating a rough boat ride or some aerobatics, many people will instinctively opt to eat nothing beforehand, fearing motion sickness. Instead, they could try a remedy adopted by me and a number of friends decades ago: scoff a couple of large, sugary doughnuts about an hour before the activity. It works wonders.