Marvellous microbes, memory and the multiverse: Books in brief

"In 1674, microbiologist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek made "his most sensational discovery", writes historian Geertje Dekkers in her revealing, finely illustrated biography. Examining water from a lake under a microscope, van Leeuwenhoek observed single-celled life forms racing in all directions: bacteria and protozoa. He also described red blood cells, capillaries, striated muscle fibres, spermatozoa and the eye's crystalline lens accurately. On his death in 1723, the UK Royal Society wrote that it had lost its most valuable correspondent."

"Exploring the study of meaning in sign systems, known as semiotics, anthropologists Melissa Leach and James Fairhead ponder on people's encounters with chickens, horses, bees, bats and plants. In 'naturekind' - "the communities and cultures through which humans are inescapably interconnected with wider life" - the authors consider forests, seas, soils and cities, which contain both living and non-living entities. In doing so, they develop biosemiotics by linking biological findings to structural linguistics, social semiotics and anthropology."

"The morning after the 1986 Challenger space-shuttle disaster, a psychologist recorded how first-year undergraduate students learnt of the explosion. In 1989, replying to the same questionnaire, 11 out of 44 students totally misremembered. This is one of many observations on memory in philosopher Mark Rowlands' stimulating analysis. "Memory is the ability to read the book of you," Rowlands proposes. "You are, therefore, both the book and the one who reads the book. You are the reader and the read. You are the remembering and the remembered.""

Antoni van Leeuwenhoek's 1674 microscope observations revealed bacteria, protozoa and detailed cellular structures, including red blood cells, capillaries, striated muscle fibres, spermatozoa and the eye's crystalline lens. The UK Royal Society recorded his value as a correspondent upon his death in 1723. Melissa Leach and James Fairhead apply semiotics to encounters with animals and plants and propose 'naturekind' as interconnected communities spanning forests, seas, soils and cities, developing biosemiotics that links biological findings with structural linguistics, social semiotics and anthropology. Mark Rowlands examines memory through cases of misremembering and frames memory as both the book and the reader. A prompt invites users to log in for recent Nature journalism.

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