Intraterrestrials - Karen Lloyd ****

Apparently the biogeochemist (who even knew there was such a thing) Karsten Pedersen 'coined the term "intraterrestrials" to describe the abundant life within Earth's crust.' The idea of this book is boldly go and explore new life that is found below the surface and of which we have historically known very little.

I must admit I winced a bit when the introduction yet again featured a diary entry from an author about to set off an expedition of discovery, in this case about to start a deep sea dive. This has become a cliché, which I hope we'll move on from soon. But that doesn't stop the actual content being fascinating. Inevitably we get plenty on extremophiles (living in everything from water well over boiling point to strong acids and alkalis) and the origins of life, something anyone reading this kind of popular science is likely to have come across, but there is plenty more, particularly around life dependent on volcanoes, that was new to me.

Karen Lloyd gives us the basics of DNA that will be necessary to understand the findings, plus an introduction to the view of life from thermodynamics, as a system that is kept away from equilibrium. She finishes by asking 'What can intraterrestrials do for us?' This ranges from keeping oxygen free for use to detoxifying waste. We get a picture of the impact these bacteria may have on climate change and their potential relevance to both carbon capture and storage and deep sea mining.

I don't think I'm a natural audience for this book as for me it veers a little too much into the memoir side of popular science. I'm less interested in experiences and more in the science - but I know for many this kind of approach makes the science more engaging, and as such it's recommended.

Hardback:

Kindle:
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
These articles will always be free - but if you'd like to support my online work, consider buying a virtual coffee or taking out a membership:
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

Comments

The Antigravity Enigma - Andrew May ****

Antigravity - the ability to overcome the pull of gravity - has been a fantasy for thousands of years and subject to more scientific (if impractical) fictional representation since H. G. Wells came up with cavorite in The First Men in the Moon . But is it plausible scientifically? Andrew May does a good job of pulling together three ways of looking at our love affair with antigravity (and the related concept of cancelling inertia) - in science fiction, in physics and in pseudoscience and crankery. As May points out, science fiction is an important starting point as the concept was deployed there well before we had a good enough understanding of gravity to make any sensible scientific stabs at the idea (even though, for instance, Michael Faraday did unsuccessfully experiment with a possible interaction between gravity and electromagnetism). We then get onto the science itself, noting the potential impact on any ideas of antigravity that come from the move from a Newtonian view of a...

The World as We Know It - Peter Dear ***

History professor Peter Dear gives us a detailed and reasoned coverage of the development of science as a concept from its origins as natural philosophy, covering the years from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. inclusive If that sounds a little dry, frankly, it is. But if you don't mind a very academic approach, it is certainly interesting. Obviously a major theme running through is the move from largely gentleman natural philosophers (with both implications of that word 'gentleman') to professional academic scientists. What started with clubs for relatively well off men with an interest, when universities did not stray far beyond what was included in mathematics (astronomy, for instance), would become a very different beast. The main scientific subjects that Dear covers are physics and biology - we get, for instance, a lot on the gradual move away from a purely mechanical views of physics - the reason Newton's 'action at a distance' gravity caused such ...

It's On You - Nick Chater and George Loewenstein *****

Going on the cover you might think this was a political polemic - and admittedly there's an element of that - but the reason it's so good is quite different. It shows how behavioural economics and social psychology have led us astray by putting the focus way too much on individuals. A particular target is the concept of nudges which (as described in Brainjacking ) have been hugely over-rated. But overall the key problem ties to another psychological concept: framing. Huge kudos to both Nick Chater and George Loewenstein - a behavioural scientist and an economics and psychology professor - for having the guts to take on the flaws in their own earlier work and that of colleagues, because they make clear just how limited and potentially dangerous is the belief that individuals changing their behaviour can solve large-scale problems. The main thesis of the book is that there are two ways to approach the major problems we face - an 'i-frame' where we focus on the individual ...

Search This Blog