Skip to main content

The Secret Lives of Molecules - Kathryn Harkup ****

A number of years ago, the Royal Society of Chemistry began a podcast series called Chemistry in its Element. After completing the 118 episodes for the elements, they branched out into the much richer field of compounds. Kathryn Harkup did not contribute to the series, but this book feels like the next step from those podcasts - bite-sized, enjoyable pieces, in this case looking into each of 52 key molecules. (Even if you've heard the podcasts, the content here is entirely different.) 

Harkup builds into each article a significant story that may be tangential, but makes the subject come alive. So, for example, when talking about sodium chloride - salt - she majors on the significance of salt to humans and Ghandi's protest against the restrictive salt laws in India in the 1930s. As you go through the book you will meet other familiar, big name compounds, such as water, carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid (oddly, this, and sulfur are written as sulphur, despite sulfur now being the standard spelling both according to international chemistry bodies and the RSC). But there are also molecules that are rather more obscure by name if not by function, from lithium iron phosphate to cyanidin and geosmin (evocatively described in the article's subtitle as the smell of rain).

This is a handsome book that would clearly work well as a gift - and it is ideal for dipping into on the commute, though probably not one to read end-to-end in a sitting. It is aimed at an adult audience, but I felt occasionally that Harkup's tone drifted towards writing for younger readers. Take, for example, the final paragraph of the sodium chloride article: 'His actions, and those of his followers, did not end the salt tax, but it was the start of change. The world was now watching what went on in India. And it was clear that the British could not rule there without the consent of the Indian people.' This wording feels pitched at the level of a GCSE textbook, rather than for a more sophisticated reader.

Secret Lives certainly isn't a textbook, though. Harkup does some excellent storytelling and this makes the book an excellent addition to the surprisingly short list of good chemistry popular science titles - for some reason chemistry is definitely the Cinderella science in this regard. Although I was familiar with most of the compounds we met, in every article I learned something new. Harkup has a gift for taking a story in an unexpected direction. So, for example, in the geosmin article, she gets in the Gods of Olympus, the smells of wet earth, bacterial action, the insects called springtails and the human sense of smell. It's a book that's entertaining and informative in equal measures.

Hardback:   
Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire - Henry Gee ****

In his last book, Henry Gee impressed with his A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth - this time he zooms in on one very specific aspect of life on Earth - humans - and gives us not just a history, but a prediction of the future - our extinction. The book starts with an entertaining prologue, to an extent bemoaning our obsession with dinosaurs, a story that leads, inexorably towards extinction. This is a fate, Gee points out, that will occur for every species, including our own. We then cover three potential stages of the rise and fall of humanity (the book's title is purposely modelled on Gibbon) - Rise, Fall and Escape. Gee's speciality is palaeontology and in the first section he takes us back to explore as much as we can know from the extremely patchy fossil record of the origins of the human family, the genus Homo and the eventual dominance of Homo sapiens , pushing out any remaining members of other closely related species. As we move onto the Fall section, Gee gives ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Autobiography – Charles Darwin ****

I have to confess to putting off reading this book until the last moment, as I expected it to be a typical piece of Victorian sentimental unreadable stodge. I was wrong. Darwin’s little book (only 150 small pages with appendices) was originally written for his own children, and displays a very personal style of writing – though, as son Francis comments, his style was always more populist than was common then: “In writing he sometimes showed the same strong tendency to strong expressions that he did in conversation. Thus in the Origin, p440, there is a description of a larvel [sic] cirripede ‘with six pairs of beautifully constructed natatory legs, a pair of magnificent compound eyes and extremely complex antennae’. We used to laugh at him for this sentence, which we compared to an advertisement.” The main book is delightful because it demonstrates Darwin’s self-depreciating modesty, and the fascinating path he took from enthusiastic shooter of game, to amateur geologist (still his...
Post a Comment
Read more

Zero Degrees of Empathy [The Science of Evil] – Simon Baron-Cohen ***

I’ve been a real fan of previous books by Simon Baron-Cohen like  The Essential Difference , so opening this was one was a pleasant prospect. What I found was a book that wasn’t  bad … but that could have been a lot better. I got the impression of a book that had been rushed out without a lot of work going into it. The thesis at the heart of the book – that one of the important ‘circuits’ of the brain is the one dealing with empathy, and that individuals sit on an empathy spectrum, with some residing at zero degrees of empathy – is an interesting one. Baron-Cohen introduces us to three key personality types he defines as ‘zero-negative’ including psychopaths, plus types that are ‘zero-positive’ like those with Asperger’s. In a way both of these definitions are odd, in that his zero-negatives can actually have a lot of the kind of empathy that involves being able to read another person’s emotional state, and his zero-negatives can have a lot of the kind of empathy i...
Post a Comment
Read more