Science Recent Picks

June 2003

The title-underlined links will take you directly to our catalogue.
Some featured items are linked via a book cover to enable you to read more reviews.

	Krakatoa : the day the world exploded, 27 August 1883, by Simon Winchester. (2003) "It may seem a stretch to connect a volcanic eruption with civil and religious unrest in Indonesia today, but Simon Winchester makes a compelling case. 'Krakatoa' tells the frightening tale of the biggest volcanic eruption in history using a blend of gentle geology and narrative history. [A] bustling colonial backdrop provides an effective canvas for the suspense leading up to August 27th, 1883, when the nearby island of Krakatoa would violently vaporize. Winchester describes the eruption through the eyes of its survivors, and readers will be as horrified and mesmerized as eyewitnesses were as the death toll reached nearly 40,000 (almost all of whom died from tsunamis generated by the unimaginably strong shock waves of the eruption). Ships were thrown miles inshore, endless rains of hot ash engulfed those towns not drowned by 100 foot waves, and vast rafts of pumice clogged the hot sea. The explosion was heard thousands of miles away, and the eruption's shock wave traveled around the world seven times." (Amazon)
	A devil's chaplain : selected essays, by Richard Dawkins ; edited by Latha Menon. (2003) "A reviewer wrote of 'The Selfish Gene' that it was 'rich with metaphor, passionate arguments, wry humour, colourful examples and unexpected connections'. This selection of Richard Dawkins large output of articles, lectures, individual chapters and reviews demonstrates the breadth of his interests, the sheer quality of his writing and the challenging nature of his trenchantly held views. Whether writing on the many aspects of evolution or on science in general, the importance of science, the poetry of science, the fact that science is inspiring (or ought to be), he is often provocative, sometimes outrageous, never less than highly influential." (Amazon UK)
	The life and death of planet Earth : how the new science of astrobiology charts the ultimate fate of our world, by Peter D. Ward, Donald Brownlee. (2002) "The strange attraction we have to apocalyptic stories, whether told by seers or scientists, stokes this compellingly grim scenario of terra firma's fate. After a new ice age destroys human civilization in the geological near term, a reassembly of the continents, combined with a brightening sun, inexorably extinguishes plant and animal life in about 250 million years. A few billion years on, the sterilized planet vaporizes as it spirals into a red giant. How science can confidently prophesy doomsday emerges in the authors' explanation of what makes Earth a habitable cosmic oasis in the first place. Brownlee, a geologist, and Ward, an astronomer, zero in on the processes, biological and geological, that cycle the elements carbon and oxygen through the atmosphere... Creative but scientifically grounded, the authors' prognostication of the ultimate environmental disaster is morbidly enthralling" (Booklist on Amazon)
	The eye of the Lynx : Galileo, his friends, and the beginnings of modern natural history, by David Freedberg. (2002) "Some years ago, David Freedberg opened a dusty cupboard at Windsor Castle and discovered hundreds of vividly coloured, masterfully precise drawings of all sorts of plants and animals from the Old and New Worlds. Coming upon thousands more drawings like them across Europe, Freedberg finally traced them all back to a little-known scientific organization from 17th-century Italy called the Academy of Linceans (or Lynxes). Founded by Prince Federico Cesi in 1603, the Linceans took as their task nothing less than the documentation and classification of all of nature in pictorial form. In this first book-length study of the Linceans to appear in English, Freedberg focuses especially on their unprecedented use of drawings based on microscopic observation and other new techniques of visualization... Profusely illustrated and engagingly written, 'The Eye of the Lynx' uncovers a crucial episode in the development of visual representation and natural history. And perhaps as important, it offers readers a dazzling array of early modern drawings, from magnificently depicted birds and flowers to frogs in amber, monstrously misshapen citrus fruits and more." (Amazon)

Children of the stars : our origin, evolution, and destiny, by Daniel R. Altschuler. (2002)

Life evolving : molecules, mind, and meaning, by Christian de Duve. (2002)

Nature via nurture : genes, experience and what makes us human, by Matt Ridley. (2003)

Life counts : cataloguing life on earth, by Michael Gleich et al. (2002)

New Zealand jade = Mana pounamu, by Russell J. Beck with Maika Mason. (2002)

Mapping Mars : science, imagination and the birth of a world, by Oliver Morton. (2002)

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