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

Luna: Moon Rising (SF) - Ian McDonald ****

I'm not the natural audience for this book. Game of Thrones l eaves me cold - and it's hard not to feel the influence of GoT (and a whole lot of Dune ) underneath a veneer of science fiction and the trappings of a South American drug cartel in the cod-medieval family power battles and chivalric details. There are even dragons (of a sort). I'd be really sad if the future did involve this sort of throwback feudalism. However, remarkably, despite this I found Luna: Moon Rising kept me engaged. The fact is that Ian McDonald can put together a good plot with intricate machinations, which is enough to carry the reader through what can be a bewildering collection of characters. The two page scene-setter saying who did what to whom at the start was useful, but I could have done with family trees for the main family as I was constantly forgetting who was who - especially easy as McDonald endows many families with characters with the same first initial (e.g. Ariel and Al...

Adventures of a Computational Explorer - Stephen Wolfram ***

Stephen Wolfram, the man behind the scientist's mathematical tool of choice, Mathematica, plus a whole host of other software products, including the uncanny Wolfram Alpha knowledge engine, is undoubtedly a genius of the first order. In this book, we get an uncensored excursion into the mind of genius - which is, without doubt, a fascinating prospect. The book consists of a collection of essays and speeches that Wolfram has produced over the last ten to fifteen years, covering an eclectic range of topics. Like all such collections, the result is something that lacks the coherence of a book with a narrative that runs through it, inevitably introducing a degree of repetition and a mix of interesting and not-so-interesting topics - but there's likely to be something to catch the attention anyone who is into computing or mathematics. One of the most interesting pieces is the opening one, where Wolfram describes being a consultant on the SF movie Arrival. He seems to hav...

The AI Paradox - Virginia Dignum ****

This is a really important book in the way that Virginia Dignum highlights various ways we can misunderstand AI and its abilities using a series of paradoxes. However, I need to say up front that I'm giving it four stars for the ideas: unfortunately the writing is not great. It reads more like a government report than anything vaguely readable - it really should have co-authored with a professional writer to make it accessible. Even so, I'm recommending it: like some government reports it's significant enough to make it necessary to wade through the bureaucrat speak. Why paradoxes? Dignum identifies two ways we can think about paradoxes (oddly I wrote about paradoxes recently , but with three definitions): a logical paradox such as 'this statement is false', or a paradoxical truth such as 'less is more' - the second of which seems a better to fit to the use here. We are then presented with eight paradoxes, each of which gives some insights into aspects of t...

Search This Blog