Every year we publish around 250 items of correspondence from readers, responding to Nature’s content and world events. Some letters upbraid us, some update and some amuse. Here’s a taste of this year’s dispatches.

Gene editing: Heed disability views

Voices of people living with impairment must be heard in CRISPR–Cas9 debate

Species naming: Taxonomic glory easier on eBay?

Credit: Mark Gurney

Months of academic toil weighed against shopping for a species name online

Plate tectonics: Continental-drift opus turns 100

Alfred Wegener’s once-heretical theory paved the way for plate tectonics

Land reclamation: Halt reef destruction in South China Sea

A call to protect the coral home of threatened turtles, birds and fish larvae

Unwanted mutations: Standards needed for gene-editing errors

Community must forge guidelines for defining off-target changes to DNA

Workforce: The joys of research in retirement

Take the literature to pieces, then put the puzzle together again: gratifying work awaits

Instrumentation: The mystery of the microscope in mud

Credit: Brian J. Ford

Was a rare brass instrument found in Delft made by Antony van Leeuwenhoek?

Denmark: Women's grants lost in inequality ocean

Scheme dubbed sexist disbursed same sum as annual extra awarded to men

Short-term contracts: Labs leak staff under French law

Research institutions need exemption as postdocs and support staff penalised

Natural history: first museologist's legacy

Ulisse Aldrovandi’s 1603 will was an inspiring manifesto for scientific collections