Ageing. The secrets to a long and healthy life. New Scientist Essential Guide No 18.

🙄🙄🙄 I would like to live a long, healthy life, and free, please. I wouldn't want to reach old age, incapacitated and dependent on pharmaceutical drugs. This is the New Scientist, obviously, and its thing is medical studies with very narrow focus, DNA, molecules, chemicals. There is very little on the big picture, I guess, how we can live better, healthy lives, apart from the obvious exercise and eat your veggies? There were a couple of things I couldn't digest very well, like the not recommending a high fat ketogenic diet to people with risk of weight gain. And I thought insulin was the problem (fats 0 IG?) 🤔. Anyways, I don't know what else to say.

Human Society. How Evolution and Psychology shaped our world. New Scientist. Essential Guide No 14.

Includes a variety of articles looking at civilisation and our societies from different perspectives. My favourites were the ones about evolution, social hierarchies, and religion. I'd like to read more about religion. I want to understand why humans tend to and need to belief. Was religion the catalyst for the formation of big societies and our current civilisation? As Steven Pinker says, "belief in God is a kind of belief you hold for its moral benefits, not for its factual accuracy." Three theories explain why we believe: Cognitive by-product theory: "religious belief is a side effect of cognitive skills that evolved for other reasons." Someone who believes that (all) events are caused by agents have more chances of survival than someone who doesn't. Theory of Mind: a mechanism which "evolved so that we could infer the mental states and intentions of others, even if they aren't physically present." This is extended to assign mental states and intentions to inanimate objects or invisible entities. Existential Insecurity - fear of death, randomness, and loss of control can be soothed if we belief there is someone looking after us and that death isn't the end.

The Human Brain. Inside the most complex object in the known universe. New Scientist Essential Guide N7 Edited by Caroline Williams

A super interesting read. My favourite chapters where the one about female and male brains concluding first that there aren't female or male brains but brains with a mixture of female and male characteristics and second that (adult) brains are a product of the lives we live, education, etc. I also liked the chapter about How to treat a sick brain discussing Music, Psychedelics, Ketamine and Brain electrical stimulation. Apart from the hallucinations they produce I had heard about the powers of DMT and Ayahuasca to treat illnesses and to help overcome fears (like fear of death). I think I'd like to read more about the topic.

Quantum Physics. The Inside track on our greatest and weirdest Theory of Reality. New Scientist. Essential Guide N°5.

I found this issue harder to read than the previous four guides. Topics I enjoyed where Retrocausality (the future can influence the present...), Quantum Computers, the link between Evolution and Quantum physics, and theory about quantum particles creating time rather than being ruled by it... 😯

New Scientist. Essential Guide N °4. Our Human Story. How one species walked upright and conquered the world.

Super Interesting Read. I loved it. My favourite chapter is Chapter 4: What makes us human. And my favourite article in that chapter has to be The Cave Art Code. Which discusses early signs of writing left with paintings. It looks into Gnevieve von Petzinger's (a canadian paleoanthropologist) study of cave art around the world. She identified a series of symbols repeated across several sites around the world. The similarities so evident she thinks they might be more than scratches. See photo 10. By the way von Petzinger published a book titled The first signs: Unlocking the mysteries of the world's oldest symbols. I'm tempted to get it now.

New Scientist. Essential Guide N°3. Human Health. The Science of Living Better and Longer.

Not my favourite issue but it's good. Topics that I found interesting: Coronavirus, stress and anxiety, cancer, stem cells and cryogenics.

New Scientist. Essential Guide N°2. Artificial Intelligence. The Past, Present and Future of Machines that think. Edited by Richard Webb.

Concepts such as machine learning, deep learning, neural networks, statistical analysis and pattern recognition. Advances in science, medicine, transport and others. My favourite chapter, AI and society, ethical, moral, social, legal, etc, impact on society, now and in the future. Excellent read.

New Scientist. Essential Guide N°1. (4🌟)

New Scientist. Essential Guide N°1. The Nature of Reality. How Mathematics, Physics and Consciousness combine to define our world.

Articles by Brian Green, Stephen Hawkin, Roger Penrose, Jan Westerhoff, Donald Hoffman and Nick Bostrom.

Einstein's general theory of relativity explains the reality we perceive, (stars, light etc) and some we cannot perceive but know are there (black holes, black energy etc). Quantum physics deals with sub atomic particles and describes a different reality than the one we know. Quantum fields, particles, waves behave in ways which are not explained by Einstein's theory. How can this be? How can the quantum reality be different from "ours"? Also, does reality really exist, or is it manufactured by our brains? What is consciousness and free will? And how could they exist if we are all made of atoms and quantum particles?

Enlightening read. I wish I had a wider background in sciences to understand more, but I think I got the main ideas. Not sure I could explain them to anyone though but they are there, in my brain.