New Scientist 24 Nov_5

I was very skeptical at the start of the plant learning article. I feel there were experiments but there was capacity to really extend the results by doing a large series of varied test, and not double blind, but at least some controls where the experimenter did not know the history of the plant they were looking at.

The Victoria and Albert museum opening in east London seems it could have happened in Australia with developers trying to make sense of an old Olympics site. There is something special about an large museum storage collection that I feel gets lost having a see-though roof. I am sure the light will damage some items and the layer of dust and the smell is just part of the authentic gig.

The use of hallucinogenic drugs to treat mental disorders has me really troubled simply because we have not had them for so much of human history. Drugs have entered human society by really getting into the social rituals, and the societies have evolved in response to them. There is something like the guava root in Papua New Guinea and the leaf the Somalians chew that makes them very aggressive. From my perspective I see television and the internet as having elements of hallucinogenic drugs. Although I don't propose this as a theory or lens with which to dissect our world, I do think marketer, politicians and those who sense the power of a social mind or consciousness are thinking in these terms.

The lastword section which host a reader question and reader answer forum has a real eye opener on the chemistry of albumen in eggs. The gas transport and the response to carbon dioxide is amazing and reflects the role of acidity related to carbon dioxide that allows the blood to intelligently oxygenate cells that are releasing carbon dioxide as they function. On reflection the description of eggs going from too fresh to definitely stale by in degrees laying on their side in water, slowly standing on end then floating seems something to nail with time-lapse photography.

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