Carbon Chemist

Tag: book review

  • Unlocked review: Why we don’t need to panic about our phones

    Unlocked review: Why we don’t need to panic about our phones

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    Mandatory Credit: Photo by Hollandse Hoogte/Shutterstock (14291785a) GELDERMALSEN - A student puts his cell phone in a phone pocket at ORS Lek and Linge secondary school. Since January 1, 2024, there has been a national ban on the use of mobile phones in the classroom. High School Phone Ban, Geldermalsen, Netherlands - 09 Jan 2024

    In the Netherlands, schoolchildren must leave their smartphones outside the classroom

    Hollandse Hoogte/Shutterstock

    Unlocked
    Pete Etchells (Piatkus)

    DURING the course of writing this review, I looked at four separate screens. There was my laptop, onto which I typed this text; there was my phone, pinging and buzzing with messages from friends and colleagues; my iPad, for hunting additional details; and, in the background, a TV passively showing programmes.

    So far, so normal in 2024. But what do all those screens and the time spent with them do to us? Plenty of books and…

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  • Why We Remember review: A surprising and expert guide to memory

    Why We Remember review: A surprising and expert guide to memory

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    EYY5BE Caucasian artist painting in studio

    Is novelty in creativity actually a myth?

    Inti St Clair/Tetra Images, LLC/Alamy

    Why We Remember
    Charan Ranganath (Faber)

    THERE are a lot of books about memory, so do we really need another? Why do we remember – surely we already know? Well, perhaps not as much as we thought. Whether you are into biology or not, if you only read one (more) book about memory, this is a smart choice.

    Why We Remember: The science of memory and how it shapes us will leave you better informed and less distressed about forgetting why you wandered into…

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  • Annie Bot review: A sharp take on a sex robot that becomes human

    Annie Bot review: A sharp take on a sex robot that becomes human

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    'Play With Me' series

    Annie Bot is hard-coded to please her owner/partner

    Niaz Maleknia

    Annie Bot
    Sierra Greer (The Borough Press (UK), available now; Mariner Books (US), on sale 19 March)

    ANNIE BOT is the story of a robot who lives with her human owner, Doug, in a New York apartment. I opened the novel with low hopes, because the idea of a robot learning to be human, then chafing at its bonds, seemed a bit old hat. How wrong I was. Right from the first page, the book is coruscating, unexpected and subtle. I picked…

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  • The Story of Earth’s Climate review: 25 discoveries tell tangled tale

    The Story of Earth’s Climate review: 25 discoveries tell tangled tale

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    An animation of the primitive Earth in the process of formation, more than four billion years ago. We view the newborn world from its troubled surface a sea of lava dotted with volcanoes spewing more lava, ash and smoke into the atmosphere. Meteorites fall frequently, illuminating the black, lifeless, surface rocks. And in the sky, the Moon -- much closer to us then than it is now -- endures a similar bombardment.

    Once the first life took hold on Earth, it started influencing the climate

    Shutterstock/Silvae

    The Story of Earth’s Climate in 25 Discoveries
    Donald R. Prothero (Columbia University Press, out 12 March)

    IT IS is a truism to say that life and climate are intertwined. Living organisms can change Earth’s climate by, say, pumping out or absorbing the greenhouse gases that warm the planet. Equally, climate affects life by making conditions too hot, too cold or too dry for some organisms to survive.

    This means that the story of life is also the…

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  • Crypt review: Alice Roberts on murder and mayhem in the Middle Ages

    Crypt review: Alice Roberts on murder and mayhem in the Middle Ages

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    A close-up view of a burial trench between rows of individual graves, excavated between the concrete foundations of the Royal Mint, from the excavation of the Black Death cemetery, East Smithfield, London, view looking west. (Photo by MOLA/Getty Images)

    Above and below: London’s Crossrail excavations unearthed victims of the Black Death

    MOLA/Getty Images

    Crypt
    Alice Roberts (Simon & Schuster)

    ANOTHER year, another really good book from archaeologist Alice Roberts. Part of me almost wants to find that the quality has slipped, just for the sheer surprise – but no, her standards are as high as ever.

    Roberts may be the UK’s best-known archaeologist, in part due to her many TV appearances. She has also written a string of books, including Wolf Road, her first children’s novel. Her specialism is osteoarchaeology, the…

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  • Bad therapy review: Is mental health industry fuelling youth crisis?

    Bad therapy review: Is mental health industry fuelling youth crisis?

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    Father and daughter sitting at kitchen table near window in discussion

    “Gentle parenting” may be creating the very problems it is aiming to prevent

    Thomas Barwick/Getty Images

    Bad Therapy
    Abigail Shrier (Swift Press)

    MUCH has been written about rising rates of mental health problems in children and teenagers, particularly in the US, with many possible explanations proposed. In Bad Therapy: Why the kids aren’t growing up, US journalist Abigail Shrier offers a bold hypothesis: this crisis is being perpetuated by the very measures supposed to counter it – used by families, schools and, especially, professionals.

    For Shrier, the problems start with the many ways modern child-rearing…

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  • Wise Animals review: Exploring the entwined worlds of humans and tech

    Wise Animals review: Exploring the entwined worlds of humans and tech

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    SHIBUYA, TOKYO, JAPAN-April 15, 2018: Crowds crossing Shibuya scramble crossing, the famous intersection in Tokyo out side Shibuya station, at night.; Shutterstock ID 1088019044; purchase_order: -; job: -; client: -; other: -

    Every part of our lives is a result of humans co-evolving with tech

    Shutterstock/interstid

    Wise Animals
    Tom Chatfield (Pan Macmillan)

    IN 1770, inventor Wolfgang von Kempelen claimed to have created a machine that could skilfully play chess against human opponents. Known as the Mechanical Turk, his contraption defeated many challengers, including Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin, and caused much amazement and debate about how it worked. It was eventually exposed as a hoax, however, with a human chess master hiding inside.

    The Mechanical Turk raises intriguing questions about how humans perceive technology,…

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  • Supercommunicators review: Learning how to change deeply held beliefs

    Supercommunicators review: Learning how to change deeply held beliefs

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    In Charles Duhigg’s new book, we discover why some people are great at getting others to alter entrenched views, where conversation fits in and how neuroscience underpins it all

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  • What is love? A new book finds we still don’t really know

    What is love? A new book finds we still don’t really know

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    Conceptual shot of a young adult couple kissing via mobile phone

    Technology has transformed dating – for better or worse

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    A Brief History of Love
    Liat Yakir (Watkins Publishing)

    IT IS just over 30 years since the Eurodance singer Haddaway posed the question “What is love?” and we still aren’t much closer to consensus. Despite the enduring, bottomless interest in love, our knowledge about what it actually is that brings and keeps people together is limited.

    What’s more, the parameters are changing all the time. In many so-called WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic) societies, marriage and birth rates are in decline, with women in particular opting to…

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  • Amid (more) Hugo awards controversy, let’s remember some past greats

    Amid (more) Hugo awards controversy, let’s remember some past greats

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    Mandatory Credit: Photo by Xinhua/Shutterstock (14160416a) This photo taken on Oct. 21, 2023 shows the award ceremony for the 2023 Hugo Awards during the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province. The winners of the 2023 Hugo Awards, the world's top prizes for science fiction literature, were announced on Saturday night, with Chinese author Hai Ya taking home the Best Novelette award for "The Space-Time Painter." T. Kingfisher, from the United States, won the Best Novel award for "Nettle & Bone." Samantha Mills won Best Short Story for "Rabbit Test," while Seanan McGuire was named the Best Novella winner for "Where the Drowned Girls Go." The Hugo Awards, first presented in 1953 and presented annually since 1955, are science fiction's most prestigious awards. The Hugo Awards are voted on by members of the World Science Fiction Convention, which is also responsible for administering them. China Sichuan Chengdu Worldcon 2023 Hugo Awards Ceremony - 21 Oct 2023

    The 2023 Hugo awards in Chengdu, China, are caught up in controversy

    Xinhua/Shutterstock

    IT IS a truth universally acknowledged that all awards are total bunk except for the ones you personally have lifted into the air in triumph. That rule doesn’t hold, however, if your prize is in some way sullied later on. This, sadly, is the situation for the winners of the 2023 Hugo awards.

    The Hugos are the world’s most prestigious science fiction and fantasy (SFF) prizes, launched in 1953 and awarded every year since 1955. Writers have long dreamed of winning one, and readers trust…

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