University of Chicago Press

Book review – How Animals Grieve

8-minute read
keywords: ethology

Death, and its attendant grief, is on that infamous shortlist of two things that are sure in life. But are humans alone in understanding death? To prepare for reviewing Susana Monsó’s new book Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death, I reach back in time to 2013 to a highly relevant book that has been sitting on my shelf unread for too long. In How Animals Grieve, anthropologist Barbara J. King mines a compelling vein of anecdotes that strongly suggest this emotion is not uniquely human. This, then, is the first of a two-part review exploring how our evolutionary next of kin experience and understand death.

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Book review – The Evolutionary Origins of Life and Death

9-minute read
keywords: abiogenesis, cell biology, evolutionary biology

In this second foray into the biology of death, I will examine programmed cell death or PCD. You might have heard of the process of apoptosis, but, as the previously reviewed The Biology of Death mentioned, this is just one of many ways in which cells can actively kill themselves. It is a vital part of life in multicellular organisms, for instance sculpting our hands so that we are not born with webs of skin between our fingers, or allowing leaves to fall from the trees in autumn by triggering cell death in so-called abscission zones. These are small sacrifices to serve the larger organism. Surprisingly, single-celled (unicellular) organisms also show PCD. But wait, is that not tantamount to suicide? How did that evolve?

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Book review – Life Sculpted: Tales of the Animals, Plants, and Fungi That Drill, Break, and Scrape to Shape the Earth

8-minute read
keywords: paleontology

Though we marvel at the creative side of evolution, the destructive flip side of that coin often gets less attention. Since its first stirrings, life has been involved in a war of attrition with its environment, “breaking, scraping, drilling, or otherwise changing the solid to the not-so-solid” (p. x). Leave it to palaeontologist Anthony J. Martin to write a witty book that boils over with fascinating studies about one of the more obscure corners of biology: bioerosion.

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Book review – The Gaia Hypothesis: Science on a Pagan Planet

10-minute read
keywords: earth sciences, history of science, philosophy

This is the final part of my four-part review series on the Gaia hypothesis (see also part 1, part 2, and part 3), James Lovelock’s notion that the Earth is a giant self-regulating system that maintains conditions suitable for life on the planet. I selected this book as a counterpart to the hard-science analysis of Tyrrell’s On Gaia (also published in 2013) to take a step back and read about the wider reception of Lovelock’s ideas. As it turns out, professor of philosophy Michael Ruse additionally delves into the historical and philosophical precursors to the notion of Earth as a living planet. An intellectually rigorous if sometimes challenging book, The Gaia Hypothesis gives a very satisfying overview of why Lovelock got the reception he did and, for me, marks Ruse as a notable writer to keep an eye on.

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Book review – We Are All Whalers: The Plight of Whales and Our Responsibility

8-minute read
keywords: marine biology, wildlife conservation

We Are All Whalers is veterinary scientist Michael J. Moore’s account of a life spent studying different whale species and what is killing them. He argues that anyone participating in our global economy has blood on their hands, often without realising it. Readers are warned that this book does not avoid graphic details. His research has ultimately drawn him to the problems of whales getting entangled in fishing gear and being struck by ships. However, it is the path that took him there, through both industrial and subsistence whaling, that might leave some readers more upset.

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Book review – Tropical Arctic: Lost Plants, Future Climates, and the Discovery of Ancient Greenland

7-minute read
keywords: paleobotany, paleontology

Greenland’s name might be considered one of history’s great ironies, apparently part of a cunning plan to attract Viking settlers. The locals simply called it Kalaallit Nunaat or “land of the Kalaallit”, after their people. However, once upon a time, Greenland was green. Tropical Arctic is the fruit of an 18-year collaboration between two palaeobotanists and an artist to bring to life the plant fossils found in East Greenland. In three paintings, it provides a glimpse of Greenland during a 10-million-year window at the Triassic–Jurassic boundary, some 200 million years ago. Much more than a coffee table book, it details the research that goes into producing scientifically accurate artwork, making it a rare treat for readers interested in botany and palaeontology.

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Book review – The Genesis Quest: The Geniuses and Eccentrics on a Journey to Uncover the Origin of Life on Earth

8-minute read

The Genesis Quest is one of those books that quickly makes a good case for its own existence. It takes the reader through the century-long research endeavour on the origin of life, providing a big-picture overview of who’s who and how their ideas have waxed and waned. Such an overview requires an outsider’s perspective on the whole show, which is exactly what science writer Michael Marshall achieves in my opinion. A superb starting point if you want to read more on this subject, this is the book I wish I had read earlier.

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Book review – Spider Webs: Behavior, Function, and Evolution

8-minute read

You would think that after centuries of studying spider webs we have a pretty good grasp of them. Yet a thorough, book-length review of their construction, function, and evolution has been missing. Emeritus Professor William Eberhard has taken on that colossal task, based on his nearly 50 years of observing spiders and their webs. Some works go on to define their discipline. Spider Webs has all the trappings of becoming the arachnological benchmark for many years to come.

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Book review – Yellowstone Wolves: Science and Discovery in the World’s First National Park

7-minute read

The reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park is one of the best-known examples of wildlife conservation. To celebrate its 25th anniversary and summarise the many lessons learned, Yellowstone Wolf Project leaders Douglas W. Smith and Daniel R. Stahler, together with wildlife ecologist Daniel R. MacNulty, bring together research from over 70 colleagues in this large, edited collection. The combination of academic content, excellent photography, guest essays, and an online bonus documentary with interviews make this the go-to reference work for anyone wanting to go beyond the headlines on this reintroduction project.

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Book review – How to Make a Vaccine: An Essential Guide for COVID-19 & Beyond

7-minute read

A pandemic is probably a good moment to understand how vaccines are developed and how they work. This short and educational primer offers relevant background information on viruses and the immune system, and goes into much more detail on vaccines than other recent introductory books. How to Make a Vaccine is written by immunologist John Rhodes who brings to the table both his background in academic research on vaccines and his experience working for GlaxoSmithKline from 2001 to 2007. His narrative approach of choice is to tell the story of viruses, immunology, and vaccines through the history of scientific discovery.

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