Monday Science Links

This week's sciency goodness:

• Mo at Neurophilosophy looks at False memories: We believe that memory provides us with a faithful record of past events. But in fact, it is well established that memory is reconstructive, and not reproductive, in nature. In retrieval, a memory is pieced together from fragments, but during the reconstruction errors creep in due to our own biases and expectations. Generally, these errors are small, so despite not being completely accurate, our memories are usually reliable. Occasionally, there are too many errors, and the memory becomes unreliable. In extreme cases, memories can be completely false.Blogger: The Greenbelt - Edit Post "Monday Science Links"


• Jennifer at Mind the Gap celebrates an anniversary (or rather, misses it): It is a cool twilight in my garden, and my skin is still faintly tingling from the doses of solar radiation I took earlier. Blackbirds twitter, swifts cry overhead, a cloud-colored crescent moon hangs over the rooftops. I don’t know what will happen when my fellowship runs out in early 2012, but that doesn’t matter at the moment. For now, I am a scientist again, and I’m not ever going to take that for granted.


• Phil at Bad Astronomy looks at the question Are we aliens?: Are we aliens? This question has come up due to a new result from studying meteorites, and is getting a lot of web-chatter. I figure I’d better get on this sooner rather than later! First, the science. Then the chatter. Finally, the caution flag.


• Carl at The Loom is one of many blogging about observed evolution in the lab, but since it's Carl Zimmer it's absolutely readable: One of the most important experiments in evolution is going on right now in a laboratory in Michigan State University. A dozen flasks full of E. coli are sloshing around on a gently rocking table. The bacteria in those flasks has been evolving since 1988--for over 44,000 generations. And because they've been so carefully observed all that time, they've revealed some important lessons about how evolution works.


• Chris at Highly Allochthonous offers us a map that is a great work of art in more than one way: The power of great art often lies in the way that it can make us see the familiar or mundane in entirely new ways. Which is why when asked to consider works of geological art, one piece springs to my mind above all others: William Smith's original geological map of the British Isles, first unveiled in 1815 . On aesthetic grounds alone it might qualify as a great work of art, for it is a thing of true beauty. But its true greatness lies in what it represents: an entirely new way of thinking about the ground beneath our feet.

Enjoy!