Book Review - The Diet Myth : The real science behind what we eat By Tim Spector

Drawing on the latest science discoveries and his own research teams work, Professor Tim Spector explores the common misconceptions about, fat, calories, vitamins and nutrients. The Diet Myth focuses on gut microbes to create the correct balance to aid weight loss and management.

 From chapters on artificial sweeteners to best-before date and the glossary I found the book to be an informative and interesting read with plenty of references to the journal articles and studies which the information is based from. Anne

TV Review—Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey

Inspired by and updating the Carl Sagan landmark, Cosmos is hosted by Sagan protégé and everyone’s favourite and sexiest (there was a vote) astrophysicist Neill Degrasse Tyson.
The subject of this Seth MacFarlane produced documentary is nothing less than the multiverse. As such, you may find your head spinning from the mass and seeming randomness of the content. After all, trying to cram 13.8 billion years of the universe into 13 hours of screen time is surely breaking some kind of scientific law, regardless of how relative time and space is.

Explaining large concepts in striking visual language, it features digital imagery to show the universe in all its infinite splendour, and this contrasts with the animation used to present human history. It is through this human exploration of the cosmos, through the lives of Issac Newton, Edmond Haley, Giordano Bruno, and Albert Einstein that the grandeur is reigned in. But the universe is not simplified, but exemplified through this approach, with the visual majesty of the night sky becoming the grandeur of the cosmos.
Enthused by Tyson’s passion and knowledge and MacFarlane’s production, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is as brilliant and awe-inspiring as the multiverse it presents.
Andreas

Book Review - Seven Elements that have Changed the World by John Browne

The author joined BP in 1966 and ended up as Group Chief Executive from 1995 to 2007. Here he provides a potted history of the seven elements that he has selected as world changers: iron, carbon, gold, silver, uranium, titanium and silicon. This is a very interesting book but one to be read in small stages rather than all in one gulp. His views as an industry insider on coal seam gas are fascinating and it is certainly interesting to hear how the major energy players get to sit down with political leaders to discuss business. It's that important! His exploration of these elements is more than that, however, and full of interesting facts. For example, titanium was first isolated by an English clergyman chemist in 1791 but not put to real use until 1910. Later, when its lightness and strength were used for an aircraft that could fly high and evade radar in the late 50s, they made a frame that had to withstand such high temperatures and consequent large expansion at altitude, that on the ground there were such large gaps that it's fuel tank leaked. Before Silicon Valley, the glass blowers of Murano Island in Venice were so important to the Venetian economy, that any glass blower who left and took their trade secrets would have remaining family members executed in an attempt to frighten them into staying. The Hall of Mirrors at Versailles (1682) was not only a demonstration of vast wealth, it was cutting edge technology in the latest mirror manufacture. And many more stories are of good general interest. Not the most readable book, but it does reward you. Wendy