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Penny Sarchet describes eight coping methods for climate stress ( 26 October, p 12 ). I'm surprised she omitted the one adopted by our political leaders, namely to insert your fingers firmly into your ears and loudly recite "la, la, la". The concept of icebergs hasn't escaped our leadership, but the main UK political parties …

It is definitely no bad thing that we are becoming stressed about climate change . Perhaps it is better for children to be terrified now, and active, than for them to live to experience a dystopia when it is too late to alter it. My generation faced a present in which 30,000 thermonuclear warheads awaited …

Amid all the discussion of planetary risks, such as the safety limits that Johan Rockström describes to Fred Pearce, I fear a major point is being missed: that we are committed to an increase in average global temperature of about 3°C( 14 September, p 39 ). If we ignore computer models and look at historical …

Alice Klein reported on domestic violence and some ways to tackle it ( 19 October, p 20 ). Another important approach to dealing with domestic and similar violence is empowerment self-defence training for women. In addition to giving women the skills to handle abusers, this has been shown to help people heal from trauma caused …

In her interesting piece on the definition of a moon, Leah Crane says that in 2006 the International Astronomical Union voted to "downgrade" Pluto ( 26 October, p 23 ). I was at that IAU meeting. Pluto was promoted from being the runt of the litter of planets. It turned out to have a mass …

Claire and Greg Sullivan recount finding bigger and juicier blueberries under power lines (Letters, 26 October ). I recall a report that cereals grown under electricity pylons were bigger and better than in the rest of the fields ( 23 August 1997, p 28 ). Several explanations were offered. I recall a suggestion that rain …

Whether or not electric fields directly influence plant growth isn't clear to me. But I am interested by a study that suggests that birds and mammals that are able to see ultraviolet light are scared off by it emanating from power lines ( Conservation Biology , doi.org/ddw7 ). Perhaps more berries were able to grow …

You say that we have been unable to explain how our brains create conscious experience (Leader, 21 September ). Do we know that our brains create conscious experience? What if the brain is merely the organ through which conscious experience manifests?

• Among heat pumps, only the air-source variety uses a fan in collecting energy ( 9 November, p 18 ). • Gluten may be present in many parts of wheat grains, as well as in some other grains (Feedback, 12 October ). • Alexei Poludnenko and his team ignited a mixture of hydrogen and air …

In the 16 December 2017 issue we ran a diagram accompanying a story on stereotyping that, without appropriate context about the research it was drawn from, actually perpetuated the harmful stereotypes it was meant to debunk. Unacceptably, it listed "Jews" among groups that could be considered "high status competitors". When this appeared in print, our …