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Linda Geddes reports on the health perils of shunning the sun 16 March, p 28 . This was interesting, but I have a question. How much skin should I expose when I go out to get my daily dose of sunshine? Hands and face are easy, lower arms and legs possible – but is that …

Three systems misclassified medical images after the pictures were slightly altered 30 March, p 17 . This is symptomatic of a deep misunderstanding: algorithms like these are not "artificial intelligence". No intelligence is involved. They are merely statistical machine-learning algorithms that happen to be based on neural networks. These algorithms don't understand that they are …

Colin Barras discusses the fascinating genetic and archaeological evidence for the spread of the Yamnaya people from the Steppes through Europe, the Near East and India 30 March, p 29 . He curiously omits the linguistic evidence from the reconstruction of proto-Indo-European from modern languages. This suggests the same spread of people over the same …

Although the Yamnaya left no written records, circumstantial evidence overwhelmingly points to them being the speakers of the ancestral Indo-European language, which diversified into a language family that includes the overwhelming majority of European languages, as well as the Iranian family , Urdu and Hindi. The vocabulary of proto-Indo-European can be reconstructed by comparing words …

Your article in association with SRG reports a shortage of science and engineering skills 13 April, p 46 . As the parent of a daughter who graduated with an upper second honours degree in medical engineering last year, I lament the shortage of employers willing to consider recruiting new graduates. Virtually all firms in the …

Petros Sekeris writes that a majority of MPs prefer some deal between the UK and the EU to no deal, and are thus likely to opt for one of the new options, rather than May's proposal – implying that they each had to choose one preferred option from the eight that were on offer 6 …

Colin Barras reminds us that our 30 trillion human cells are outnumbered by 39 trillion microbes – a more accurate representation than Thomas Luckey's 1970 estimate that microbes outnumber human cells 10 to one ( 13 April, p 28 ). But over 80 per cent of the human cells that make up our bodies are …

While discussing the effects of cutting work hours, Michael Le Page quotes a study by Huong Dinh at the Australian National University showing that men with unpaid care commitments could manage about 30 per cent more working hours than women with such duties, without experiencing a decline in their mental health ( 13 April, p …

Taxing meat to cut consumption is curious: many of us are already taxed in order to make it cheaper. The only step needed is for governments to stop subsidising meat and dairy. Doing so absorbs the majority of the EU agricultural budget , which itself comprises 40 per cent of the EU budget. Subsidies are …

I am not at all surprised that Amélie Catala and her colleagues find that dogs can smell when someone has had an epileptic seizure. The reason for this is that I can smell when my dog has had one ( 6 April, p 19 ). My dog's seizures are generally well controlled by medication, but …