"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is Man.

Most physicists, fascinated as they are by the workings of the physical Universe (or universes), wouldn't buy this line from the eighteenth-century poet Alexander Pope. But the study of man or, rather, of the human mind is proper indeed — how it works, what makes it conscious and how that consciousness evolved. ..."

The computational capability of the brain remains a mystery. Some insight might come from a series of experiments in which cultures of living neurons are patterned in such a way as to form functional logic devices.

"... This groundwork should enable future studies to probe the transition from unreliable microscopic to reliable mesoscopic behaviour in neuronal systems in more depth than has previously been possible. ..."

From the last in our series of science-fiction essays:

"Ring-a-ring-a-roses, a pocket full of posies ...

Not a plague song then. A prophecy.

A-tishoo, a-tishoo, We all ...

From Antic Base, Last Hope City (Antarctica) ... they are here ... we see them — like red veins in the face of the white ice ... Not long now ... God help us all ... Signing off ...

... fall down."