WHAT do theoretical physicist Janna Levin and psychiatrist-broadcaster Raj Persaud have in common? A passionate interest in getting complicated ideas across to an interested public, for one thing. So they鈥檙e worthy judges for this year鈥檚 Science Book Prize, sponsored by Aventis.
Now in its 13th year, this 拢10,000 award goes to the best populariser of science. Winners include a clutch of professors鈥擲tevens Pinker and Rose and the late Stephen Jay Gould, Roger Penrose, and Jared Diamond (the only person to win twice), plus science writers such as Pat Shipman and Roger Lewin. It鈥檚 a distinguished crowd.
This year鈥檚 shortlist is evenly split between the profs and the writers, and their subjects range from the overwhelming to the often overlooked. Stephen Hawking takes on The Universe in a Nutshell, while Hannah Holmes tackles The Secret Life of Dust. In Rivals, Writer Michael White makes a case for fierce rivalry as the fuel that drives science ever onwards. Writer-broadcaster Martin Gorst considers the origins of time in Aeons. Biologist Robert Sapolsky鈥檚 A Primate鈥檚 Memoirs gets down to the nitty-gritty of life with baboons鈥攁nd David Horrobin goes for the origins of our kind of humans in The Madness of Adam and Eve. Something for everyone.
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Hawking鈥檚 name on the list must give pause to the other authors after his A Brief History of Time. This is far more readable. The diagrams and a non-linear structure will, he writes, help those readers who got bogged down in early chapters of his previous books and didn鈥檛 reach the exciting stuff at the end. But it鈥檚 a serious, solid book all the same. Far more fun is Gorst鈥檚 romp through time and its keepers. There are plenty of anecdotes and asides, said our reviewer Edwin Colyer. And Holmes on dust is riveting. She goes far beyond the household stuff to the cosmic dust that鈥檚 the raw material of planets and the dusts of the Sahara that replenish rainforests. Meanwhile, White鈥檚 take on scientific rivalries has, said reviewer Jane Gregory, been done before and better.
So to the best: Horrobin鈥檚 fascinating sideways look at the origins of the modern human mind and Sapolsky鈥檚 stunning account of what it鈥檚 like to do science in the field. Horrobin鈥檚 answer to what makes us modern is deceptively simple. It鈥檚 fat, or rather a dance of lipids, that allows all those rich clusters of connections in the brain. Curiously, he discovered that families of the brightest鈥攊ncluding past geniuses and present Nobel winners鈥攁lso included people diagnosed as schizophrenic. He links the biochemical changes that produce schizophrenia to those that made us human. Horrobin鈥檚 hypothesis is gripping and produces more questions than answers, as all good science should.
And then there鈥檚 Sapolsky: one of the great storytellers, who makes even the grinding work of field observation extraordinarily interesting. He gives 鈥渉is鈥� baboons biblical names, and watches them suffer terrible deaths. But beyond the bizarre detail, he makes you understand why this work is done, and why it inspired him. A winner, I hope.
The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking, 拢20, ISBN 0593048156 6/4
The Secret Life of Dust by Hannah Holmes, Wiley, $22.95, ISBN 0471377430 9/2
A Primate鈥檚 Memoirs by Robert Sapolsky, Vintage, 拢7.99, ISBN 0099285770 5/1
Aeons by Martin Gorst, Fourth Estate, 拢7.99, ISBN 1841151181 4/1
Rivals by Michael White, Vintage, 拢7.99, ISBN 0099273241 5/1
The Madness of Adam and Eve by David Horrobin, Bantam, 拢18.99, ISBN 0593046498 3/1