It has been a pleasant surprise, then, to see a quirky novel about a chemist, with the word ‘chemistry’ in the title, would you believe, cause quite a stir and become a publishing success. Our chemist, Elizabeth Zott, embarks on research into the origins of life around 1950, when Marie Curie was the only female scientist anybody had ever heard of.
In spite of some vociferous opposition, this new paradigm has been embraced by virtually all evolutionary biologists, and Ågren’s book presents an overview of the current state of the gene’s-eye view theory.
This book is about two alcoholic drinks from China that will be unfamiliar to many of us in Europe: baijiu and huangjiu. Baijiu has been around for over two millennia; it is a clear spirit, most usually made by fermenting sorghum – a few varieties may use rice or grains like wheat or barley – with distillation yielding a product with a high alcohol content, between around 35 to 60% ethanol.
The United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (better known as COP26) held in Glasgow in November 2021, and attended by nearly 200 countries, resolved to keep global warming to 1.5°C by 2050. Gates’ action plan to enable all countries to reach zero greenhouse emissions in a timely fashion asserts that the achievement of this goal is not practicable before 2050 and moving the target date forward to 2030 is unrealistic for several reasons.
The book presents a variety of perspectives not normally represented in Western media. There are the Pacific Islanders who want to reframe their perceived image and count as a large ocean state rather than a splatter of small island states.
This rather provocative book takes scientist authors to task for a practice that is commonplace in the sciences and regarded by the great majority of scientists as unexceptionable. The book’s author, physicist and historian of science José Perillán claims that problems arise as soon as scientists decide to include even the briefest mention of history in a scientific work.
Author Ruth DeFries, Columbia University Professor of sustainable development, suggests that the time has come for us to develop a new approach to the natural world. In particular, we are admonished to adopt a much more empathetic relationship toward nature.
In his book, asteroid researcher Simone Marchi puts these collisions in the foreground, emphasising the chaotic nature of the seemingly steady Solar System as well as the productive benefits of apparently catastrophic impacts.
With his book, Morgan Phillips aims to open our eyes to the adaptations that are already happening all around us, including those that dare not mention climate change, the bad and selfish adaptation moves that may protect the mover at the expense of everybody else, and finally the great adaptations that are fixing a problem in a sustainable and socially just manner.
The theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss explains the underlying physics involved in terms that can be readily understood by a lay audience. This book is greatly facilitated by the numerous diagrams, photographs and charts deployed throughout the text.