On the subject of Theory of Mind, a BioMedNet commentary just came out on a recent research paper that looked at contagious yawning - you know, yawning just because someone else is. The researchers suggest that contagious yawning is a by-product of theory of mind, and in support of this they found that the incidence of contagious yawning was related to a person's ability to detect faux pas in several theory of mind stories, and also to a person's speed in recognizing their own face among a set of faces. So, those who are easily set off by another's yawning, you can congratulate yourself on your empathy and your highly developed theory of mind!

Also, check out the article in the New York Times about the evolution of our responsiveness to music. Music is interesting for a number of (memory-related) reasons. One of the aspects that interests me at the moment is the connection between music and language. I think Robin Dunbar (his book on Grooming, gossip and the evolution of language is one of my favorites) has a good point with his suggestion that both music and language helped humans knit together in social groups, and maybe music was first.