Simon Conway Morris

SCHULZE-MAKUCH D. & IRWIN L. N. 2006. Life in the Universe: Expectations and Constraints. xiv + 172 pp. Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer-Verlag. Price £27.00, €34.95 (+ VAT at local rate), US

‘In searching for life beyond Earth, we would be well advised to expect the unusual’. Here in a nutshell (p. 119) is the central theme of this timely and interesting book. If the cynical definition of astrobiology is ‘The study of things that do not exist’, so the counter-point is if they do, they represent one of the most important of scientific questions, not least because if it transpires that on a distant planet there is not only a geology, but geologists. So how different will things really be? Schulze-Makuch & Irwin are broadly …

44.95 (paperback). ISBN 3 540 30708 7

Like any subject biology has its worn-out metaphors. Scarcely less of a cliche than Dobzhansky’s dictum that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution, so Haldane’s quip that the Creator’s fructifying genius might seem odd given his inordinate fondness for beetles is long past its sell-by date (to compound the cliches). But if there was ever a case to be made that even within the beetles, let alone the insects, the variety of forms verges on the marvellous then this book will provide the gold-standard for years to come. Its most obvious advantage is the superb range of illustrations, from the golden tombs of amber to vivid …

Grimaldi, D. & Engel, M. S. 2005. Evolution of the Insects.

The arrival of the Cassini–Huygens mission to remote Titan was another eye-opener. What would the lander see? Ethane oceans, and maybe, just maybe, an analogue of a whale disporting itself and bellowing into the methane rain? The reality was, in the end, more familiar, a very cold world but active and not entirely unlike the Earth. It was a useful reminder that we know far too little about our Solar System and while there is the wonderful, there is also the prosaic. And what could be more straightforward than ice, which forms the connecting theme of this useful volume where seven leading authorities take us from Mercury to Pluto and beyond, beyond including the trillions of comets that roam at least half way to the nearest star. It is a grand theme, and while the continuity does not …

D ASCH , P. (ed.) 2004. Icy Worlds of the Solar System . xiv + 202 pp. Cambridge, New York, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Price £30.00, US

‘Insects are not dinosaurs’ is the slightly self-deprecating comment which opens this massive volume. Small for the most part insects may be, but this wonderful volume goes a substantial way to answering the rest of this opening quotation ‘ . . . and they probably pose us more strange puzzles and unexpected questions’. How very true, and in this epochal book the reviewer is hard-pushed to give even a summary, such is the diversity and range of the material presented. It is also, one must mention, a monument to one of the principal strengths of Soviet, now Russian, palaeontology in that the editors have ably brought together the contributions of no less than 22 palaeo-entomologists based in Moscow. The heart of the book is a detailed exposition of all the principal insect groups …

45.00 (hard covers). ISBN 0 521 64048 2

The arena of science and religion shows no signs of emptying, rather the crowds continue to pour onto the terraces to admire and cheer on their particular heroes. Far from running out of steam, if anything discussion and debate are continuing to intensify. And it is not difficult to see why. Be it the spectacular images from deep space or the mounting alarm about global warming, it is clear that science can not only inspire but also terrify. Add to this such questions as the ‘wisdom’ of genetic engineering and nano-technology, and it is easy to see why discussion, debate and some level-headed thinking are of increasing importance. By no means everyone will accept that a religious dimension is a necessary ingredient to this broad area of scientific meaning and responsibility, but at the very least we should think carefully on how to find and keep the good …

Rasnitsyn, A. P. & Quicke, D. L. J. (eds) 2002. History of Insects.: xii + 517 pp. Dordrecht, Boston, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Price Euros 240.00, US

In principle evolution ought to be a runaway process. The constant scrutiny of selection and the pressure of adaptational advantage, be it ever so slight, should in principle lead to the emergence of a complex biosphere during a geological period far less than it actually took. One famous example that drives this point home is an estimate of the time needed for a complex camera-eye to evolve from a simple eye-spot (see Nilsson & Pelger, 1994). On the basis of rather modest assumptions these workers show that the process should take less than half-a-million years. What applies to complex eyes should apply to anything similar, so in the wider context why weren’t humans present by the end of the Archaean, two and a half billion …

224.00, £149.00 (hard covers). ISBN 0 4020 0026 X.

From adept swimmers with bulging camera-eyes to tube-dwellers equipped with compound eyes, from worms so small they easily slip through a sieve to others that exceed five metres in length, the polychaete worms exemplify the richness, and to some the wonder, of biological diversity. In this magnificent, but alas rather expensive, volume Greg Rouse and Fredrik Pleijel present a masterly, fascinating and encyclopaedic summary on this important group of animals that, together with the more familiar earthworms (oligochaetes) and leeches, comprise the phylum Annelida. Whilst the core of the book is systematic, the overview at the beginning of the book is concise and invaluable. This review neatly delimits the key anatomical characteristics that in some of the active polychaetes include a surprisingly advanced nervous system with the brain showing a tripartite structure. This presumably evolved independently of the insect brain, and is a reminder that at least these polychaetes are probably far more sophisticated than generally realized. This introductory section is succeeded by the detailed comparisons, which are not only excellently illustrated but complemented by …

ALEXANDER, D. & WHITE, R. S. 2004. Beyond Belief: Science, Faith and Ethical Challenges. 220 pp. Oxford: Lion Publishing. Price £8.99 (paperback). ISBN 0 7459 5141 4

The limpidity and beauty of fossil inclusions in amber speaks as much to the heart as the mind: apparently frozen and bathed in a golden light the exquisitely preserved insects seem paradoxically both immediate and terribly remote. If somehow, difficult to believe, this magic has passed you by, then this magnificent atlas is the perfect remedy. As indicated it is primarily a review, in colour, of the many taxonomic treasures that the Baltic amber has yielded. As is well known, the bulk of the fauna is insect, and here we see anew the wonders of preservation in such groups as …

S CHWARTZMAN , D. 2002. Life, Temperature and the Earth. The Self-Organizing Biosphere . First paperback edition; first published in 1999. xxi + 241 pp. New York: Columbia University Press. Price US

The extraordinary contributions of palaeontology to the science of evolution are familiar enough to the specialist, but often the details, if not the names, are arcane matters that ensure that the increasingly silent companion on the train to Paddington is reduced first to repeated glances out of the window, then glazed boredom, and finally catatonic stupor as the enthusiast drones on. But if there is an exception to this rule it has to be the bird, or dinosaur, or bird-dinosaur, or bird-something, Archaeopteryx . Known only from a handful of specimens, of which the famous London and Berlin specimens stand out, these extraordinary fossils have an iconic, if not totemic significance. Here evolution is frozen in lithographic stone, but strangely also very much alive. Exquisite feathers fan across the …

27.50, £19.50 (paperback). ISBN 0 231 10213 5

The extraordinary contributions of palaeontology to the science of evolution are familiar enough to the specialist, but often the details, if not the names, are arcane matters that ensure that the increasingly silent companion on the train to Paddington is reduced first to repeated glances out of the window, then glazed boredom, and finally catatonic stupor as the enthusiast drones on. But if there is an exception to this rule it has to be the bird, or dinosaur, or bird-dinosaur, or bird-something, Archaeopteryx . Known only from a handful of specimens, of which the famous London and Berlin specimens stand out, these extraordinary fossils have an iconic, if not totemic significance. Here evolution is frozen in lithographic stone, but strangely also very much alive. Exquisite feathers fan across the …