Life Under the Sun by Peter Ensminger, Yale University Press,
拢19.95/$26.95, ISBN 0300088043
POND dipping doesn鈥檛 come close to describing the diversity and pleasure of
the essays embraced in this extraordinary little volume. How organisms sense and
respond to sunlight鈥攁nd the chemistry involved鈥攚ould seem to be too
limiting and specialised a field to make a good popular book. But the very
opposite is true.
Darwin, Monet and shrimps slip effortlessly into the sections dealing with
the many manifestations of vision, for example. However, these are but
appetisers for the stories about ozone, ultraviolet light, cancers, seasonal
affective disorder and George III鈥檚 variegate porphyria.
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Life Under the Sun held my attention right to the last page, with tales of
fooling weeds by ploughing in the dark鈥攐r rather in the glow of
infrared鈥攁nd advice on how to prevent sunlight from ruining your beer. I
enjoyed Peter Ensminger鈥檚 virtuoso review of fungi, amoebae, slugs, butterflies,
bacteria and a host of other organisms, and all their unlikely responses to
being bathed in light. He ends on the perils of overexposure to sunlight, and
the protective mechanisms used to ward off the consequences.
For those wishing to follow up any of the essays in this highly readable and
eye-opening work, Ensminger provides a 鈥渕enagerie of molecules鈥�, as well as
notes, references and a glossary.