Product Description

THE SINGLE HELIX brings to life a vast diversity of subjects, united under the banner of scientific truth - the universal solvent that brings clarity to almost all the mysteries of the world we live in. Scientists are trained to know ever more about even less but here Steve Jones sets out deliberately to explore subjects in which he is emphatically not an expert (although his favourite snail, the single Helix of his title, does poke in a tentacle here and there). His insatiable curiosity and enthusiasm as he sheds light on unexpected corners of knowledge combine to produce science writing at its very best. From chaos in the heavens to the fight against creationism, from optical illusions in tartan to the mathematics of elections and what rules the sex lives of cats THE SINGLE HELIX is a scientist's look at sciences other than his own -and as a result its author has been forced to make the complicated simple enough for even a biologist to understand.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #131912 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

Review
'Delightful compilation of 100 easy pieces . . . one of the world's best writer-scientists . . . Jones is the Alan Bennett of science' - Financial Times 'Jones once again shows that, for all its difficulties, science can still be fun' - Independent 'One of the most engaging and revealing portraits of science and its practitioners you'll ever read' - Daily Express 'Wonderful examples of scientific storytelling . . . Simply fascinating' - Simon Singh, Sunday Telegraph 'Short essays ranging from astrophysics to anthropology . . . Perfect for anyone after occasional food for thought' - New Scientist

INDEPENDENT
'Jones once again shows that, for all its difficulties, science can still be fun'

DAILY EXPRESS
'One of the most engaging and revealing portraits of science and its practitioners you'll ever read'

Customer Reviews

The bad news and the good news
The bad news is that this book deals with such a wide and varied set of topics, that it's impossible to categorise it. The good news is that Jones presents each subject so well and with such enthusiasm that it's a delightful read. You may read it front to back, the reverse, or purely at random. Such is the nature of a book of selected essays on the wonders of nature and the methods of studying them. Sifting through his columns in Britain's "Daily Telegraph" to select merely a hundred must have been a daunting task, but Jones managed it admirably. As the publisher's blurb declaims, it's "a hundred easy pieces about science". They fail to mention each one is a treat to encounter.

Jones has a string of excellent books to his credit: "Almost Like A Whale" ["Darwin's Ghost" in the US] and "Y-The Descent of Men" being among the better known. He knows how to write to an informed and interested audience. He's so good at it that he's won a medal for "increasing public knowledge of science". The title derives from his work on snails and the notoriety gained by James Watson's account of the revelation of DNA's structure. Although Jones' own field is biology, he's able to venture into other disciplines in this collection. Even history is probed for unusual information - the "Telemobiloskop" is certain to gain your attention at the next cocktail party. For a biologist - and a malacologist at that, it might seem out of place for Jones to dabble in astrophysics or physics itself, yet he manages it with panache. In today's world, however, genetics plays too significant a role to be passed over lightly, and Jones provides several excellent items on the topic.

Applying a sense of irony and humour throughout these pages, Jones easily dispels the image of the dour scientist. He's not above examining his own mistakes, even while depicting critics as "vultures drawn to carrion". Nobody "peer reviews" books on science aimed at the general public, and things slip by. His discussion of errors he made in "Almost Like a Whale" is accompanied by his views on evolutionary psychology. In the process, he reminds us that we're a social species, and must tread lightly in making generalisations about how that situation is manifested in science writing. It would have been nice if Jones had avoided the lure one scientist-essayist fell prey to. Instead of baseball, however, at one point Jones deals with the national sport of his own. The axes he has to grind are kept strictly associated with science. A highly readable, entertaining and useful book.

brilliant
The single helix is hard to put down and often very funny. Each chapter is a brief article of only 3 pages. The book’s theme is to have no fixed subject. It dips into a wide range of subjects shining a brief, but very illuminating, light on each.

Single helix
This is a strangely dissatisfying read, which is a real shame as Jones is an excellent author and i've enjoyed many of his other books. The problem with this book is that each essay is adapted from his newspaper column and therefore the topics are varied, but are not explored in any real depth. You find yourself just getting interested and the essay has finished. Also, each essay is very aimless, the facts that make it up are fascinating and leave you marveling at nature and the wonder of science, but they don't lead anywhere and very few essays seems to make a worthy/satisfactory point. All of this is a real shame, as this book is written in Jones usual clear and entertaining style, but I'd say this is a book for popular science beginners and not one for those who have read and enjoyed past Jones books, or other popular science books. A great premise, but it could've delivered so much more.