Why are rabbits rabbit-shaped? Once blue tits began pecking the tops off milk bottles, why did the habit spread magically across Europe? After Roger Bannister ran the four-minute mile, why did it begin to be broken everywhere? In 'The Presence of the Past' Rupert Sheldrake's explosive scientific theory provides a new and radical solution to the conundrums of life. Dr Sheldrake's hypothesis is that memory is inherent in nature – all natural systems from crystals to man inherit a collective memory of their kind. Thus, rabbits are rabbit-shaped not only because their DNA encodes their proteins, but also because nature has a 'morphic field', in their case, a rabbit-habit, that informs their growth and instinctive behavior. According to Dr Sheldrake's theory of 'formative causation', this inherent memory depends on 'morphic resonance', a process that involves action at a distance in both space and time. Far from being stored as material traces within our brains, our own memories result from our tuning in to ourselves in the past.