• An article highlighted the sports industry’s use of sodium bicarbonate, also known as baking soda, to boost performance, but incorrectly referred to it as “baking powder”. While the latter contains sodium bicarbonate, it is blended with other components (“The science behind sport’s most popular supplements”, 29 September, New Review, p24).
• A feature (“Magic bullet – 60 years of the train that helped rebuild the idea of Japan”, 29 September, p32) said the shinkansen high-speed rail network covered all four of the country’s main islands; it does not in fact reach Shikoku, the smallest of the four. Also, the article said there had been no fatalities resulting from an accident anywhere on the network. This should have said none that were caused by a rail crash; there was an accidental death at a station in 1995.
• Last week’s article selected from the Observer archive was titled “Roald Dahl on chocolate” and dated 20 April 1997. To clarify: Dahl died in 1990 and this was an extract we featured from Roald Dahl’s Cookbook, which had been posthumously published in late 1996 (“In the Observer”, 29 September, p51). The article was in our print edition only.
• Other recently amended articles include:
‘It deserves to be called iconic’: London tube map creator’s archive goes up for sale
• Write to the Readers’ Editor, the Observer, York Way, London N1 9GU, email observer.readers@observer.co.uk, tel 020 3353 4736
