New Scientist 27 Oct_4

This is a marathon read.

There is a collective look at memory with various authors contributing articlettes finishing with false memories. The key point I took from this is that the idea of human memory looks at the social currency of what happens in the past. Thus we have accounts that act as a record. We also place key significance on authorship and judge hearsay evidence as so low we discount it.

The story on Quantum Computing by using Atomic Force Microscopes is a little sad actually. I have questions about distinguishing signal from noise. I do feel this might be the way do things in the future, but the field has so many ways to get their , my personal favorite, and it is truly personal as would have to be the only person ever to think so is that FeMoCo structures in nitrogen fixing bacteria are just so beautifully structured it just smells as if it should be part of the solution.

Finally, something that makes reading pages and pages of not really good enough to be science paid off: Charles Darwin thought the sons of Blacksmiths would develop heavier arms. I have to check it out. Lamark being mystic is an insight, but really everyone was. This was the key move in making Michael Faraday the first 'scientist'. However if you dig deep enough he was a damaged then rebuilt man of humble origins, and at the heart of his understanding also mystic.

The discussion of why aren't land animals ever in 6 and 8 legged varieties really was rather facile science.

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