Carbon Chemist

Tag: book review

  • Discover RNA’s irresistible ascent from humble molecule to CRISPR star

    Discover RNA’s irresistible ascent from humble molecule to CRISPR star

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    ARINGAY, PHILIPPINES - DECEMBER 01: Residents queue to receive a dose of Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at a rural village on December 01, 2021 in Aringay, La Union province, Philippines. The Philippines is rushing to vaccinate its population as it mulls making COVID-19 vaccination mandatory and amid the looming threat of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus. The country, which has just approved booster shots for its adult population, launched a three-day national vaccination holiday on November 29 to December 1 with the goal of vaccinating at least nine million additional people. (Photo by Ezra Acayan/Getty Images)

    The most effective covid‑19 vaccines had RNA at their heart

    Ezra Acayan/Getty Images

    The Catalyst
    Thomas R. Cech (W. W. Norton)

    For 50 years, RNA was DNA’s undervalued sibling, but now it has jumped into the spotlight. This multifaceted molecule – which resembles DNA but can morph into a variety of shapes other than a double helix – brought us the most effective covid-19 vaccines and is key to CRISPR gene editing, one of the most powerful technologies in experimental biology.

    Yet few of us have an in-depth understanding of the molecule and why it has suddenly become so important for…

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  • The inside story of heroic efforts to save three bird species

    The inside story of heroic efforts to save three bird species

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    ET6KG3 A Peregrine Falcon , Falco peregrinus, one of the worlds fastest birds

    The peregrine falcon, the world’s fastest bird, is thriving again in North America – for now

    MIKE WALKER/Alamy

    Feather Trails
    Sophie A. H. Osborn (Chelsea Green)

    Wildlife biologist Sophie Osborn has spent a career working with birds that have been a feather’s breadth from extinction in the US. Her new book, Feather Trails: A journey of discovery among endangered birds, focuses on the Hawaiian crow, the California condor and the peregrine falcon (also found globally). We have pushed them to the brink, and Osborn describes in painstaking detail the Herculean work to pull them back.

    Two conflicting feelings arise…

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  • Time travel sci-fi novel is a rip-roaringly good thought experiment

    Time travel sci-fi novel is a rip-roaringly good thought experiment

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    Mountains under mist in the morning Amazing nature scenery form Kerala God's own Country Tourism and travel concept image, Fresh and relax type nature image; Shutterstock ID 1725825019; purchase_order: -; job: -; client: -; other: -

    Shutterstock/Sarath maroli

    The Other Valley
    Scott Alexander Howard (Atlantic Books (UK); Atria Books (US))

    The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard is an unusual and deeply enjoyable time travel novel. It was published early this year, and sadly I didn’t review it then for the simple reason that I had no idea it existed. Fortunately, now that I have had it recommended to me and have actually read it, I have special permission from my editor at New Scientist to travel back in time and celebrate its publication.

    The premise of this superb debut is simple yet complex. We are in a…

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  • Coming of Age review: Why do teenagers take such risks? A new book has some answers

    Coming of Age review: Why do teenagers take such risks? A new book has some answers

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    New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

    Teenage cliques can offer protection – or enforce exclusion

    Virginia Woods-Jack/Millennium Images, UK

    Coming of Age
    Lucy Foulkes (Bodley Head (UK); Vintage Digital (US))

    In the teen movie Mean Girls, protagonist Cady Heron arrives at a US high school having grown up in Africa. Baffled by her peers and the social hierarchies of school, she approaches things as her zoologist parents would – documenting the people around her as if they were animals living on the savannah.

    In her new book, Coming of Age: How adolescence shapes us, psychologist Lucy Foulkes takes a similar approach to decoding the rulebook of adolescence,…

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  • The Long History of the Future review: Why many inventions, from flying cars to smart robots, fail to launch

    The Long History of the Future review: Why many inventions, from flying cars to smart robots, fail to launch

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    Futuristic sci-fi flying cars fly over the night wet highway, through the night city. The concept of the future. 3D Rendering; Shutterstock ID 1555294988; purchase_order: -; job: -; client: -; other: -

    Flying cars have long been part of our imagined future – but that is where they may remain

    Shutterstock/Design Projects

    The Long History of the Future
    Nicole Kobie (Bloomsbury Sigma (UK, on sale now; US, 24 September))

    A handful of technologies teeter on the cusp of release but never arrive. Take driverless (or even flying) cars, superintelligent machines and human-like robots that free us from the drudgery of everyday chores. What stops them leaving the minds of inventors and entering our homes?

    That is what Nicole Kobie asks in The Long History of the Future: Why tomorrow’s technology still isn’t here…

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  • The best science fiction books of 2024 so far, from Adrian Tchaikovsky to Peng Shepherd

    The best science fiction books of 2024 so far, from Adrian Tchaikovsky to Peng Shepherd

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    Woman walking in fantasy forest. 3D generated image.

    Explore books dealing with multiverses and alternate worlds

    Gremlin/Getty Images

    Since I became science fiction columnist for New Scientist, I have had to think a lot about what qualifies as sci-fi. Very often, a book could actually be classified as fantasy, which is outside my remit. More and more, I find myself agreeing with the writer Damon Knight when he said: “Science fiction is what I point to [when I say] ‘That’s science fiction’.”

    Anyway, for this holiday reading special, I present my list of some of the year’s best sci-fi so far. All that binds these incredibly diverse books…

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  • Playing With Reality: Book explores how games shape the world – for better or worse

    Playing With Reality: Book explores how games shape the world – for better or worse

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    FEE8WC Seoul, South Korea-November 15, 2015; Men playing in the outside ?Baduk? that is the Korean name for Go. November 15, 2015 Seoul

    Scientists’ obsession with games like Go have inspired AI breakthroughs

    Robert Paul van Beets/Alamy

    Playing With Reality
    Kelly Clancy (Allen Lane (UK); Riverhead (US))

    Gaming is a prehistoric innovation that first came into vogue when domesticated animals and agriculture were still considered emerging technologies. Many of the most compelling and enduring games invite people to engage with simplified models of reality where they can practise reasoning and decision-making skills. Games have even inspired military strategists and economists to harness games-style thinking and simulations when trying to understand how the world works or predict the future.

    Kelly Clancy’s book Playing with…

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  • We Will Not Be Saved review: Amazonian activist Nemonte Nenquimo tells her story

    We Will Not Be Saved review: Amazonian activist Nemonte Nenquimo tells her story

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    Nemonte Nenquimo, Waorani leader from the Ecuadorian Amazon alongside other members of the Indigenous-led Ceibo Alliance.

    Nemonte Nenquimo (centre) alongside other members of the Indigenous-led Ceibo Alliance

    Jerónimo Zúñiga/Amazon Frontlines

    We Will Not Be Saved
    Nemonte Nenquimo with Mitch Anderson
    Wildfire (UK, on sale) Abrams Books (US, 17 September, as We Will Be Jaguars)

    AUTOBIOGRAPHIES rarely appear in New Scientist‘s culture pages. This one, however, isn’t just unusual, it is ground-breaking: the first book of its kind to be written by a member of the Waorani people, an Indigenous Amazonian group. Humans have been recording their life stories for over four millennia, so it is about time we heard from people like Nemonte Nenquimo. What she has experienced, while still only…

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  • Eruption review: Michael Crichton and James Patterson’s collaboration fails to thrill

    Eruption review: Michael Crichton and James Patterson’s collaboration fails to thrill

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    W0XR8N hawaii volcano kilauea

    Lava flowing from Kīlauea, a shield volcano in Hawaii

    Tomas Micek/Alamy

    Eruption
    Michael Crichton and James Patterson (Century (UK) Little, Brown (US))

    If you were the person behind the long-running TV show ER, and also had the idea for Jurassic Park, you would be pretty proud of yourself, right? Now imagine you came up with those, plus Westworld, Twister and a host of other blockbusters.

    That would make you Michael Crichton, of course. And what a spectacularly creative person he was. In 1995, he could lay claim to the US’s top-selling book…

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  • Ray Kurzweil, Nick Bostrom and other experts clash over the future of AI in new books

    Ray Kurzweil, Nick Bostrom and other experts clash over the future of AI in new books

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    Humanoid robots facing each other, illustration

    Friend or foe? The jury is out on exactly how AI will develop

    LEONELLO CALVETTI/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images

    The success of large language models like ChatGPT as part of the development of artificial intelligence has left the future looking even more uncertain than cliché normally paints it, adding fresh urgency to old questions. Are we set for a utopian future of abundance, or might we be facing a world in which we eventually fuse with machines? Could there be dark times ahead, where we worship false gods that reflect our worst biases back to us,…

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