The introductory chapter of this book, called 'there is something about chips' encourages a response of 'especially with salt and vinegar', but the reality we are presented with in this analysis of the importance of computer chips to technology and the world economy is more reminiscent of another edible delight: the banana. Bananas are hugely popular, but the world supply is fragile because it is largely dependent on a monoculture. A single cultivar, the Cavendish, makes up over 99 per cent of exports to developed countries. These bananas have very little genetic diversity as they are propogated by cloning. This leaves them open to devastating attack, most likely by a fungal disease, which could wipe out the worldwide supply. Similarly, when it comes to IT, more than 90 per cent of advanced chips are made by a single company, TMSC, based in Taiwan. Not only does this concentration put supply at risk, Taiwan's difficult political position, with the danger of being su...

Trisha Muro is a lifelong space nerd, former high school physics teacher, and perpetual science communicator who loves helping people see - and appreciate - physics in their lives. She has written for readers of all levels in Science News Explores, OpenMind magazine and NSF NOIRLab. Her new book is It's (Just) Rocket Science : she is donating all proceeds from her book to funding scholarships for kids to attend Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. Why science? When I go for a run outside by the lake, I feel the warmth of the sunshine on my skin even while I protect my skin with sunscreen. I try to use good form with my legs, my arm swing, and my feet, in order to maximize the forces propelling me forward while minimizing the impact on my joints. My hips and shoulders shift with each stride as I attempt to keep my balance over uneven ground. I lean forward slightly at the waist to bring my center of gravity further forward, literally leading me onward. Once I’m home, my latte cools ac...

As a particle that has been around the lifetime of the universe and is central to electricity, chemistry and the existence of matter we owe a lot to the electron - but most of us know little about it. Brian Clegg’s biography skims over the first 13.7 or so billion years of its existence to concentrate on the period when humans have been aware of what it does and have gradually come to realise how it acts and what it is. After some mind boggling facts about electrons, the biography starts with lightning - the most noticeable example of electrons at work before we realised they existed. Clegg takes us through fascinating historical steps in our interactions with electricity, from Franklin’s kite and The Electrical Boy to Aldini electrifying a criminal’s corpse in 1803 causing Mr Pass the Beadle to ‘die of fright soon after he returned home’.  In the mid-nineteenth century we see how the electric telegraph enabled The Times newspaper o be on the street in London 40 minutes after the ...

Reading Victorian fiction can be difficult without context - in some cases, an annotated version can work wonders. The best remains Martin Gardner's wonderful annotation of the Alice books and The Hunting of the Snark , but while the annotation of Jules Verne's moonshot tale lacks Gardner's light touch it still delivers plenty of useful background. I started devouring science fiction when I was around 11 and worked my way through both Verne and H. G. Wells alongside more contemporary books. I found Verne stodgy and slow compared with the dramatic power of War of the Worlds or the humour of The First Men in the Moon , but it was still interesting, and Walter James Miller's 1995 translation works better than the version I came across way back then. What I doubt pre-teen me picked up was the way Verne pokes fun at America where the book is set, though even then I was doubtful about the concept of sending men to the Moon in a projectile from a huge cannon. Surely, I though...

Geoffrey Cain is an award-winning author and correspondent who sits  down with world leaders, tech founders, and dissidents. His book  Samsung Rising was longlisted for the Financial Times and McKinsey  Business Book of the Year, and The Perfect Police State was named  NPR's Book of the Day. His work has appeared in The Wall Street  Journal, Time, The Economist, and Wired and has been featured on CNN  and Bloomberg TV. He also advises executives and government officials  on innovation. His latest book is Steve Jobs in Exile . Why this book? For years I covered Apple, Samsung, Sony, and the rest, and the people who knew Steve kept telling me the same story. They said his middle chapter at NeXT was missing -- few people were really looking into it. Everyone knows the young founder and everyone knows about his triumphant return, when he saved Apple from bankruptcy. But during the part in between, he wasn't wandering aimlessly - he was in his crucible, t...