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If there are other potential long-term effects of covid-19, they may only come to light when much more time has elapsed ( 27 June, p 34 ). We should watch for any impact on fertility, the number of miscarriages and stillbirths and any health conditions in the next generation. We may therefore need to follow …

Among the many steps we could take to lower the risk of the next pandemic, perhaps the most effective would be to stop farming animals for meat ( 20 June, p 30 ). By removing that viral vector, we would make humanity's future much safer. This isn't another call for universal veganism. Rather, we need …

Laura Spinney's interesting article on the role of the wider body in consciousness is a reminder of the degree to which Cartesian ideas of the mind as separate from the body still haunt cognitive psychology ( 27 June, p 28 ). Seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, sensing and being conscious are all attributes of the whole …

You show that consciousness depends on feedback from the body's organs, and that this is an essential part of our sense of who we are. The article finishes by suggesting that a robot with no way of integrating signals from its body will never be truly conscious – but robots already have feedback from their …

You emphasise the connection between body and consciousness. But what about consciousness when the body is clinically dead, as in near-death events? This was discussed in an interview that Â鶹´«Ã½ ran a while ago ( 9 March 2013 ). For instance, there was a case in Spokane, Washington, in which a clinically dead man, …

Your article certainly explains why I have long conversations with my stomach about what to order from the menu.

Congratulations to the many readers who pointed out that the "Planning" puzzle reproduced in our extract from The Brain: A user's guide ( 20 June, p 47 ) can in fact be done in five moves.

You describe a Stone Age man buried in Ireland whose parents were either siblings or parent and child, and hypothesise that this might indicate the social sanctioning of incestuous marriages in this community ( 27 June, p 18 ). Isn't it far more likely, if somewhat sadder, that this man's mother experienced sexual abuse by …

Michael Assuras suggests that hurricanes could be stopped by injecting cool air from an aircraft ( Letters, 4 July ). When I was studying thunderstorm electrification, I was lucky enough to spend time at New Mexico Tech, where the institution's president – astrophysicist Stirling Colgate – talked to me about hurricane suppression. Hurricanes gain energy …

Congratulations on Â鶹´«Ã½ winning Consumer Magazine Brand of the Year at the Professional Publishers Association awards. I remember, while still at school, reading the issue in 1957 that had Sputnik on the cover printed on a blue ink background. Since then, I have read many issues, often for free after persuading physics students to …