Book review: Women in their element - a book in which all those women who contributed to the periodic system of the elements are acknowledged.
In this book, Ben-Naim explains entropy with probabilities and information theory. The latter is an abstract and mathematical subject that is closely connected to probability.
Curiosity-driven, fundamental science and the applied sciences have often had a slightly tense relationship because they are competing for funds and attention, and the applied sciences have the advantage of being able to promise prompt payback.
A study of the origins of life on Earth is at best a challenging enterprise. Since life first emerged on our planet some 4bn years ago, it is now impossible to establish precisely where, when and how this occurred.
In 1910, the French magazine Les Hommes du Jour, literally Men of the Day, published a cover article about Marie Curie, entitled Madame Pierre Curie.
In the second half of the last century, the chemical industries were under attack and blamed for causing adverse effects to humans and the environment.
In surprisingly relaxed tones, 11 contemporary scientists, all of them leading lights in their fields, provide a lay readership with insight into their research. They not only summarise progress to date but also identify problems yet to be solved and suggest possible ways to tackle them. Although several different areas of science are covered most of the discussion is centred on the biological sciences. All the contributing scientists have had their work recognised by a variety of awards – four are Nobel prize-winners.
When reviewing this book by Geoff Dixon, it struck me that SCI has the strapline: ‘Where science meets business’, and this book could very well be titled, ‘Where science meets the business of gardening’.
Just as our everyday lives rely on seeing things, so they also depend upon radiation outside the confines of the visible region, the ‘light we cannot see’, as the author Bob Berman calls it. This book represents a fascinating journey across the spectrum of invisible light, from the discoveries of the past to the applications of the present.
Acrylamide is a water-soluble substance with the simple chemical formula C3H5NO. It is regarded as a hazardous chemical because it adversely affects the central nervous system, male reproduction and development, as well as being carcinogenic in mice and rats. An evaluation by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) finds that acrylamide is ‘probably’ carcinogenic for humans. However, while there is evidence from epidemiological and toxicity studies to show that acrylamide is carcinogenic in rodents, such evidence is lacking with respect to the health risk in humans resulting from food exposure.