Survival of The Sickest - Dr. Sharon Moalem with Jonathan Prince

The first impression of “Survival of the Sickest” is that it’s a book that elucidates the positives of the diseases that ail the mankind. But the book really is about how our body works at a macro level of cells and enzymes (really, that is macro in the context of the book) and a micro level of the very basic genes that make us who we are.

The book traces the origins of certain diseases like diabetes, and why should such conditions be genetic in nature when evolution tells us that the genetic weaknesses of an organism should get eradicated over generations. Some of the theories are proven and accepted by the medical community. Some are not. Regardless, it still teaches a lay reader a lot about how the body works.

Subsequently, the book transcends to genetics with only a remote relevance to the premise proposed in the opening chapters. However this does not make the book a least bit boring, or uninformative. The language is lucid, and medical jargons are used as sparingly as possible. And when it is used, sufficient explanation is provided to ensure the reader does not feel lost.

In the end, the purpose of the book is to educate. It does not mean that having that knowledge will enable us to take steps to correct some flaws or avoid passing them on to our children. But it at least helps us be aware of how our body works, which is really the essence of the book, and helps us be prepared in the wake of a sickness. You still will have to go to a doctor if you fall ill. But if you are one of those people who are paranoid about the multitude of things that can go wrong with the body, reading this book will help you realize the incredible mechanism by which your body ensures that you are fighting fit as far as possible.

Had this been a larger volume, it would have been difficult to digest all the information. As it is, retention levels of details for such books are low. Therefore, the 200 odd pages of the book just about strike the balance between leaving the reader with a strong message by retaining his focus and concentration, and leaving the details which while would have been good to read, would not have added too much value for the casual readers.

As it is, this book ranks high in my list of recommendations.

Bad Science - Ben Goldacre

Who thought that a rebel scientist could write an entertaining book? But here it is, Bad Science, in all its paperback glory.

First up, let me be clear: Ben Goldacre is not a person against simple, logical things which promote good living. He fully advocates things like exercise and a balanced diet and abhors smoking and excessive alcohol consumption. What he has a problem with, to generalize, are people who claim outrageous things under the pretext of science. And that, as any common man would be vaguely aware, is so common place that it’s hard to discern the good science from the bad.

The writer starts with relatively harmless hoaxes like brain gym, a concept apparently prevalent in toddlers-schools in UK, and some strange, detoxifying foot massager. And then ups his ante to take on homeopathy. I could say he got personal. I have been on homeopathy medicine all my life. As of this moment, I have a bottle of a medicine called Cory-C, which is a clear liquid to be consumed orally, for curing common cold. I have been having it for 10 years now. It hasn’t helped my cold one bit. But I continue having it. But that’s because it tastes exactly like Vodka. I love this medicine!

Then we go on to crazy nutritionists, pill peddlers, and even modern medicine. The extent of domains he covers itself should convince you that he is not for or against anything as a concept in particular. The only thing Ben Goldacre relentlessly demands through the book is a systematic, honest search for cures for ailments of the human race. He constantly points out the role of the insensitive and ill-informed media, and at times ruling political leaders, for creating mass hysteria or hype about things that, at best, do not warrant any attention, and at worse, cause needless deaths in thousands. The AIDS fiasco in South Africa being the case in point; that one chapter, much more than the MMR episode that Ben Goldacre seems so passionate about, highlights the grimness and far reaching effect of “Bad Science”. Ben Goldacre writes that if he were not writing a light, humorous book, he would have been really, really angry. I couldn’t help feeling angry even though it was a light, humorous book that I was reading.

The best chapter of the book is definitely “Bad Stats” for me. The writer took me by surprise by his keen sense of understanding of statistics. Numbers can be misleading if you are determined to make them tell a story that they don’t really convey. And there are examples of how statistics are twisted to convey pre-determined inferences. Do that, and perfectly good science gets twisted to be bad.

This book will definitely open up your eyes to a lot of bull-shit, you wouldn’t believe how much, that goes on in this world. And while you probably will not go to the extent that Goldacre goes to validate, or repudiate, any of the gazillion claims of fat reduction, or hair growth, or memory enhancement that the latest new medicines make in newspapers you believe in, you will at least gain some intuition as to what is wrong with those claims. That perspective itself is the biggest take away from this book.

Mirror Mirror - Mark Pendergast

This book took a long time for me to read. Somehow, work, inter-city travel and some more work kept digging potholes and constructing road blocks to stop me from getting through the book. But I fought it all and kept going. And it was worth every bit of it.
Non-fiction books will always be a tricky affair. I don’t think someone who doesn’t read books could have got through a book like this, or for that matter any science history book. But for any bibliophile, this book would be immensely pleasurable. If you are an astronomer then too, this book will serve up a history of your subject in an entirely different perspective.
The book is essentially a history of mirrors. And what a fascinating history it is! The author explores the topic beautifully, right from the BC era to the 21st century, the journey of the mirror from being an extremely rare, expensive and a prized possession when mirror makers were imprisoned to keep their talents within Vienna, to something extremely commonplace; from being a simple reflector of Roman orgies to a devastating weapon. And along the journey, the evolution of human interaction with mirrors in various stages is equally fascinating. The impact of mirrors in painting, literature, astronomy, optical sciences, communications, psychology is astounding. Legend has it that Archimedes burnt enemy ships using a concave reflecting mirror by focusing sun rays to an enemy. It’s not exactly proven whether mirror was used as a weapon then, but now, lasers are quite a popular in weapon sciences. Telescopes have got bigger, better, and are equipped to capture more than just visible light from million of light years away, or light emitted as early as the big bang. And lastly people have changed the way they look at mirrors. From being a simple polished metal, to a scrying for psychic knowledge, to an inseparable fashion accessory, and finally to a ‘true mirror’ which reflects us as we are seen by others is a long journey indeed.
The book charts all these territories and more. The heroes and villains of the story are enumerated exceptionally well. And there are too many of them to mention here. But various people have contributed to the development of mirror, be it in terms of manufacturing them with various materials, or giving them a particular shape, to their applications in earth and space, in various wavelengths of emissions.
Last word is that it is a truly fascinating book about something so commonplace that you hardly think about it. Imagine, there are ‘true mirrors’ which are available which actually do not show a reversed image when you stand in front of it. So that, it shows you how you would appear to other people. That is so extremely against the intuition as far as gazing into a mirror is concerned, and at the same time so novel an experience! I wish I could see myself in a true mirror! The book is an excellent product of some tremendous research and great writing style. Without adequate research the book would have ended up being a hodge-podge mixture of arbitrary information about mirrors. And without great writing style, it could have been reduced to a boring, soporific history text-book. It has all the necessary elements to make a fun read for anyone with a curious mind.

Phantoms In The Brain - V.S. Ramachandran

This book was a recommendation by a friend. And boy was it a great reco.
It’s very easy to fall into the trap of assuming that like all medical books, this one, being on neurology, is as boring, dull, with unnecessary medical jargons and details. You couldn’t be more wrong. The author candidly confesses about how medical authors could get into that mould and steers clear of it. And while some details of the brain structure are required, no where does it get too lengthy for you to lose interest.
The book is not really an expedition to teach the laymen the working of the brains. But what it serves to do is elucidate us with the fact that a lot of strange behavior that we ignore, or worse, viciously hate, are no more than physical shortcomings of the brain. That, therefore, would merit some sympathy from the normal section of the society who can differentiate a vertical mail slot from a horizontal one and who do not see cartoons and animals out there in the world.
It is indeed very moving to read about some of the problems people have when some interconnections of the brain go awry. Imagine the fear of the lady whose left hand (or was it right?) kept trying to strangle her. Or like Memento or Ghajini, this guy could not form any new memories. There are a lot of cases described in the book. And the least we could do is be sensitive to their problems.
The book starts off with the discussion on phantom limbs, something that I wasn’t aware of before I read this book! What a strange concept, isn’t it, for the brain to think that an amputated leg or a hand, or even removed breasts, still exist! And to register physical signals to those phantom body parts! The entire genesis, problems, potential cure for the phantom limbs is beautifully explained. And did you know that when a body part gets amputated, physical stimulation on other parts will make you feel that something is touching that missing body part. For example, if someone gets a hand amputated, and if you run a feather on a section of his face, he will feel that your brushing his palm. What a strange thing the human brain is, isn’t it?
The book tackles phantom limbs, and other strange aspects of brain functioning, like visual responses, neglect and denial symptoms, the part of brain that gives you a religious experience (it’s grossly under-developed in me) and concludes with the question of how to define the “Self” in context of the brain. The last chapter is the only one where it gets really heavy and the discussion is a mixture of philosophy as much as it is about neurology. But then, that’s the nature of brain and how we live and think isn’t it?
Think Matrix. There a whole pseudo world was created was created for people by feeding electrical signals to the brain. Does then, consciousness have any meaning? No one is doing anything really, but they are living a complete life lying in a tube.
This book will make you look at life a lot more humbly. We are all a function of our brain. But how it reacts is a function of us. It’s a relationship hard to comprehend. And I really believe that the whole exercise, however intellectually stimulating, is completely futile. But then neurology can not be completely objective with it’s only aim being curing brain ailments. Philosophy is bound to get mixed up. And in this book, V.S. Ramachandran coexists peacefully with Freud.

The Physics of Superheroes – James Kakalios

Have you ever been so fascinated by a superhero that you try to get yourself bitten by a spider so as to be able to swing from one high rise building to another, regardless of the fact that those spiders were neither genetically mutated through exposure to radiation nor are there that many high rise buildings in the city that you live in?

Well I have been. That probably explains why I liked this particular book so much. This book will be enjoyed by the following grades of people, in the descending order:

1. People who love superhero comic books and love physics

2. Superhero Comic Book Lovers

3. Physics lovers

I belong to the first kind. And so does James Kakalios. The difference being that he is actually a physicist.

The author goes about exploring one physics aspect after another, in more or less increasing amount of complexity of the concept and uses superheroes as and when required to show how comic books got their physics surprisingly right or ridiculously wrong. So there are lessons on mechanics, thermodynamics, electricity, magnetism and lastly quantum physics with the superheroes that use the fundamentals respectively thrown in. If I am making it sound as if the book focuses more on physics than on superheroes, I wouldn’t be entirely wrong. Because the book does explain some concepts quite at length. That said it is not in a boring, class notes kind of a way and loaded with mathematical equations. The sense of humour is retained through the book. Even while explaining Schrodinger's equation. (A picture of a smiling scientist, coupled with the fact that he was somewhat of a Casanova will cheer you up even in your grumpiest mood)

Another very pleasing aspect of the book is that it dwells into quite a bit of history of comic books as it explores the physics side of things. That gives a lot of interesting trivia which any comic book lover would love to be abreast with. Did you know the earlier Superman could not fly and was only able to jump great heights and his source of powers was not the Sun but because he hailed from Krypton which had a supposedly stronger gravitational field. (After calculations, Kakalios determines the gravitational force of Krypton to be 15 times stronger than that of Earth’s) That and many more interesting tit-bits from the Comic Books hall of history are showcased in the book.

Overall, Kakalios keeps a nice balance between science, history and most importantly superheroes. Even Quantum Physics is explained in an absolutely layman’s language and how superheroes like Flash and Kitty Pryde use such complex principles. The book keeps getting better and better as you turn the pages over and ends with a brilliant closing chapter on Superhero bloopers.

So read it for superheroes, or read it for physics, you should have fun. You probably wouldn’t enjoy it if you are not into either of them. But then, if you are neither of them, this book is not meant for you. And as far as I am concerned, I am the target market for who the book was written.

The Theory of Everything - Stephen Hawking

The theory of everything is an interesting concept in itself. I always was intrigued by the idea of origin of universe and its growth. Apparently a lot of people have been interested in it other than me. And their interest has been a lot more active than mine. As it turns out everything that happens can be expressed as mathematical equations. Or at least people have been trying to. I knew “A brief history of time by Stephen Hawking” dwells on the subject too. I just chose to read this book because it had lesser number of pages. And I wanted a summary of the history of time and could do without the technicalities.

But then, even this smaller book is quite dense. You need to have a healthy amount of curiosity to be able to get through this book. In the end, it doesn’t answer any specific question you might have on the universe. In fact, Stephen Hawking is blissfully diplomatic about most things. And there are just so many things in the book that are confusing… obfuscating even. (I forget that character who talked like that)

The topics discussed in this book cover origin of universe and several arguments and theories about it, its growth till the present state, black holes, time and its direction and the concluding chapter on the quest for theory of everything. The good thing is that the book is in English. And even though a lot of concepts are brought in which I didn’t fully understand, the partial understanding of the theme was good enough for me to read this book.

Stephen Hawking mixes philosophy with science very well. And surprisingly, exhibits quite a sense of subtle humor in this science laden book. He puts forth a point that science was once a branch under philosophy. It was when science just got too complicated for the philosophers that it needed specialized studies. The idea is to read this book like a philosopher, and if you have some amount of interest in astronomy. If you don’t, don’t bother going through this one. You will probably get a headache in the first 2 pages.

To end it, the book does not actually give the theory which encompasses everything. It ends with a note that a grand unifying theory will probably emerge from a chain of theories which will sprout over time. And once the “how” of the world is answered… we can go about asking “why”. As I said, deeply philosophical