New research has found that mistakes made when we lose concentration — such as putting coffee on your cornflakes, or more seriously, the sort of mistake that led to the Chernobyl disaster — are heralded by changes in a brainwave called P300.

A new book on the self has come out - the result of a 2002 conference involving a distinguished array of academics from philosopy to neuroscience. An impressive set of names (including Joseph LeDoux, Daniel Dennett, Daniel Schacter, Eric Kandel, Patricia Churchland, Terrence Sejnowski and Antonio Damasio).

There's also an interesting article in the Boston Review on the long-debated question "What do our minds owe to our nature, and what to our nurture?", from Gary Marcus, author of the just-released "The Birth of the Mind: How a Tiny Number of Genes Creates the Complexity of Human Thought".