The authors of science books are always trying to find new ways to get the message across to their audiences. In Dialogues , Clifford Johnson combines a very modern technique - the graphic novel or comic strip - with an approach that goes back to Ancient Greece - using a dialogue to add life to what might seem a dry message. We have seen the comic strip approach trying to put across quite detailed science before in Mysteries of the Quantum Universe . As with that book, Dialogues manages to cover a fair amount of actual physics, but I still feel that the medium just wastes vast acres of page to say very little at all. This is brought home here because quite a lot of the sections of Dialogues start with several pages with no text on at all, just setting up the scenario. As for using a discussion between two people to put a message across, Johnson makes the point that, for instance, Galileo's very readable masterpiece  T wo New Sciences  is i...

Liam Drew is a writer and former neurobiologist. he has a PhD in sensory biology from University College, London and spent 12 years researching  schizophrenia, pain and the birth of new neurons in the adult mammalian brain. His writing has  appeared  in Nature, New Scientist, Slate and the Guardian. He lives in Kent with his wife and two daughters.  His new book is I, Mammal . Why science? As hackneyed as it is to say, I think I owe my fascination with science to a great teacher – in my case, Ian West, my A-level biology teacher.  Before sixth form, I had a real passion for the elegance and logic of maths, from which a basic competence at science at school arose.  But I feel like I mainly enjoyed school science in the way a schoolkid enjoys being good at stuff, rather than it being a passion. Ian was a revelation to me.  He was a stern and divisive character, but I loved the way he taught.  He began every lesson by providing us with a serie...

This book conjures up distinctly mixed feelings. The title feels rather misleading, as it is primarily a book about musical polyphony. The 'minds' part comes in during the final 10% of the book, where we do have some consideration of the relationship between polyphony and the way the brain works - but it's certainly not the main focus here. As it happens, in covering the development of polyphony in the West through the ages, with particular reference to church music, it covers something I am very interested in - so I found it highly engaging (if rather stodgy in writing style). However, without that interest it doesn't have enough on the mind and brain to interest a purely popular science reader (it is classified as music/science). What we get is a thorough exploration of the way musical structures have changed in time, from what we can deduce about Ancient Greek music, through the earliest recorded church music as it moved from primarily being monophonic chant to...

This is an interesting book, even if it probably tries to be too many things to too many people. I wondered from the cover design whether it was a children's book, but the publisher's website (and the back of the book) resolutely refuse to categorise it as such. The back copy doesn't help by saying that it will 'inspire trailblazers and pioneers of all ages.' As I belong to the set 'all ages' I thought I'd give it a go. Inside are featured the 'stories of fifty inspirational women who have been fundamental to the story of humans in space.' So, in some ways, A Galaxy of Her Own presents the other side of the coin to Angela Saini's excellent Inferior . But, inevitably, given the format, it can hardly provide the same level of discourse. Despite that 'all ages' comment and the lack of children's book labelling we get a bit of a hint when we get to a bookplate page in the form of a Galaxy Pioneers security pass (with the rather...