On a long motorway journey while driving behind a horsebox, I wondered, do horses get travel sick? In fact, do we know whether any animals besides humans suffer from motion sickness?Neil Bowley, Newthorpe, Nottinghamshire, UK

A truck driver approaches a bridge that has a weight limit of 5000 kilograms. He and his truck weigh 4950 kilograms so he would be able to cross it were it not for his 100-kilogram cargo – a flock of pigeons loose in the back of the truck. He has the bright idea of banging on the side of the truck to scare all the birds into taking flight and then he quickly drives across the bridge. Does it work?David Thomas, Pointe-Claire, Quebec, Canada

Last month, on a flight from London to Washington DC, the Boeing 747 I was flying on had to wait a little while for take-off on the runway at Heathrow. It was a very wet day and I noticed that the engines appeared to be sucking up water from the tarmac in front of them. Strangely, the water rose vertically in a very narrow stream less than 10 centimetres wide from a point on the tarmac directly in front of each engine. Then, when the vertical columns of water reached a point about a metre in front of the centre of each engine, they changed direction to head horizontally into the middle of each turbine. They looked, in effect, like large walking sticks made of water pouring upwards into each engine. I can accept that jet engines suck in huge amounts of water on wet days but presumed they did it more generally from the air around them rather than somehow sucking it up vertically from the tarmac in such a specific way. What is going on?Jennifer Gold, Madrid, Spain

On the south coast of New Zealand, the steelwork of our cars is constantly being eroded. Why can't cars be protected by connecting a sacrificial anode made of zinc to the body and chassis in the same way as steel ships?Pete Fowler, Tuatapere, New Zealand