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A person's freedom to be unvaccinated doesn't outweigh my freedom not to be infected by the coronavirus ( Leader, 15 August ). Even if it isn't made compulsory for everyone, international travellers should be obliged to be vaccinated. Some of your readers may recall that in the 1950s and 60s there were many countries, including …

The World Health Organization has overlooked the most important group in need of vaccination: mothers. I won't dwell on the tragic consequences for a dead mother's children, but ask the mainly male policy-makers to calculate the cost to the economy of the death of a primary carer. As someone over the age of 65, I …

Your story on a device that stimulates the vagus nerve to aid language learning prompted a memory of the so-called Alderman's nerve, the auricular branch of the vagus ( 15 August, p 21 ). This seems to be the same part that is the focus of that device. It is said that vagal stimulation of …

Despite the cardiovascular benefits of avoiding excessive use of chairs and sofas, we shouldn't assume that the benefits of squatting felt by the Hadza people will apply to people of European descent in the same way ( 18 July, p 28 ). The higher prevalence among European-descended people of gene variants that lead to hypercoagulability …

In your interview with Stuart Ritchie on problems in science, you quote him as saying: "People who finish their PhDs now are expected to have some astonishingly high number of peer-reviewed publications, something like 19 ( 22 August, p 36 ). A few years ago, you'd be expected to have five or six." That isn't …

The latest ideas to explain the origin of cellular life may overlook the effects of turbulence and shear in liquids ( 8 August, p 34 ). These are what make dispersions, akin to mayonnaise, that can encapsulate chemicals in a film of oily substance without the need for self-assembly. Instead of cells arising from individual …

A useful piece of advice that I have imparted to friends and relatives is that if you want to stop a piece of string or a cord from randomly tangling itself into a knot, then fasten the two loose ends together ( 8 August, p 46 ). I have also joked that there is a …

Our description of punched cards in early digital computers was the wrong way round. A hole was a 1 and solid card represented a 0 ( 25 July, p 36 ).

You say that "using blind or anonymised hiring practices" may weaken unconscious bias. This reminds me of a tale, probably apocryphal, of the hiring methods of the chief pilot of an airline. The story goes that he would take the pile of application forms and throw them down the stairs. The applicant whose form went …

The Vulcan character pictured in our look at the Star Trek franchise was Sarek, played by James Frain (5 September, p 34).